Precious Moments and Seasons of Joy Combined

Gary’s at home. That’s probably all you need to know. I am never very productive when my husband is around the house! That said, we are finishing up work in time for half term (not this week coming, but next), and Gary has got some bits and bobs done around the house. So it’s all good, even though I took practically no photos last week…

At the beginning of the week, I asked Gary to create an extra plug in the kitchen for my wheat and oat grinder, an extra shelf in our very limited kitchen storage to put the bread and butter and (and this was important) please, please could he put up some curtains in the bathroom. Since we have had the shed converted to a teen hang out, we have a steady stream of teens in and out of our garden. Some are mine, some not so much. The bathroom window is viewable from most areas between the hang out and the walk to the kitchen. And the bath is just in front of that window. And I bath at around nine each night. Light in, dark out. No clothes…you get the picture…hence the importance of the curtains 😁

Now the curtains were twenty three years old, and hand made by yours truly right at the start of our marriage, for bathroom windows in our flat. The curtains were made for longer, thinner windows and didn’t quite fit our bathroom windows. No matter. I unpicked the curtain heading and re-positioned it on the longer side of the curtains (ie down the vertical edge of the original curtains). This meant that they became wider and shorter – just what I wanted!

They are an old Laura Ashley cream muslin with tiny green leaves scattered all over them – perfect for our cream and green bathroom:

This is our total storage for food actually in our kitchen:

It may look quaint but it is of very little practical value. The larder, such as it is, is a set of shelves built into our hallway by my very clever husband. There are only two shelves in the spice cabinet and so I felt there was some wasted space which could be utilised if we had an extra shelf. I use the cabinet for drinks mainly- tea, coffee, chocolate, squash. I really needed a place to store bread, butter and jams etc:

This was perfect! Now I just need to get some bread, butter and jams etc to put in there!

Last but not least, Gary added an extra plug to the left of the window sill for my grinder. I love how this area is looking at the moment. The window sill has always been our catch all for clutter, until a couple of weeks ago when I brought in out radio/cd player from the bedroom, as well as a lovely photo of Gary, Thomas and myself and a jug that my lovely friend Nik made and decorated for my fortieth birthday. Oh, and the wooden bowl for the all new fashion accessory everyone must now own – the face mask.

On Wednesday we took delivery of our Able and Cole boxes. This is an organic fruit and veg company who delivery once a week. I order a large veg box, a large fruit box and a large fruit and veg box. You can see all the fruit I received in the bowl, all organic and healthy:

And on the other side of the kitchen, you can see all the root vegetables getting chopped up for a veggie stew:

We’ve got some weird stuff like curly kale (I’m not sure there exists a person who likes or even knows what to do with curly kale!) and (what I am now sure was a decorative) squash – it tasted revolting so I am not entirely certain it was actually edible. Am still alive so obviously not poisonous!

School wise, we finished Mary Poppins, which I can not believe was published let alone being made into a film (twice!). We really (really) did not like reading this. It felt fragmented, as if it should have been a book of short stories, rather then one whole novel. We won’t be reading any more in the series. One is more than enough. It did give us a whole new appreciation of the film though, which we all watched as a family Thursday night, with goodies:

And singing along to the songs:

As well as lots of giggling. Yes, the film was about a bazillion times better than the book, with a Mary Poppins who was likable, unlike the one in the book. It was a good night, and made particularly special by the fact that Thomas chose to stay in with his sisters rather than go out with friends; the twins throwing themselves into everything and who are just as excited about making their little sisters’ childhoods ‘just as special as their own’ and a husband who, no matter how many times he has seen any given film, will always sit through just one more showing for his family. We now have a sofa which seats us all and is situated in front of a warm, happily lit stove. Ahhh, life does not get much better than this ❤

On the school front, we also learnt more about the suffragettes, as well as the antis – the people who did not want women to get the vote (made up, believe it or not, from mostly women!); continued with our study into comics and did an experiment with food dye and a carrot (‘Mother – why do we have a blue carrot in our fridge?!’ a bemused Charlotte)

The girls also worked at their workbooks; Becca began Life of Fred Fish on her own, whilst Abigail completed a chapter of Apologia’s Zoology 3. All in all a nice easy week, with lots of snuggling with husband. This may be why not a lot happens whenever he is off…😍

And because, let’s face it, pictures of beloved animals always improves a post, Rufus, who is looking less like the kitten he was and more like the fat cat across the road who eats all our cats’ food. Maybe Rufus is eating the fat cat’s food in return. Either way, they are both fat. But very, very gorgeous:

Hmmm, butter wouldn’t melt 😇

Have a lovely weekend everyone!