A Visit From the despair Squid

I suppose nobody remembers the despair squid ? An episode from Red dwarf many moons ago . But hes been at my door for a couple of weeks , its the not having a single positive thought syndrome . Not depression , been there done that , took the drugs, lost the plot, moons ago
This time of year tends to hit me like this , its been rain everyday , work everyday nothing to look forward to on the horizon . Positively not feeling positive ..lol
The season of mists and mellow hopelessness , looming on the horizon xmas happy families , so glad we dont do it in a big way ..lol
I seem to spend my days working , doing the laundry , munchkin duties and not much else . I cant craft under artificial light , cant read for long etc etc , so winter looming does this to me , im getting the urge to hibernate . Bed at 9pm every night , put the TV on and im asleep in 5 minutes , but the day starts at 5.30am so thats not a bad thing . By the way i did try the whole SAd light treatment thing a few years ago , had no effect whatsoever ...story of my life
Lack of thrift scores , havent found a single item on my thrift list , no winter boots or veg steamer , not a single pillowcase for weeks , not even any vintage xmas , just an infestation of vile gift sets and Poundshop items for £3 , I must have been in Age UK or British Heart Foundation for that
And just to annoy me even more the capital d on the keyboard has died ...AAAAARRRGGGGHHHH

Jumble Sales and Thrift shops

Another hectic work week , so very little time for anything . we have now reached the time of the year where we get thick fog and chainsaws, thats all ive heard today , we would kill for a woodburner but they cant go into these houses , were stuck with oil heating and due to cost it will be another month regardless of the temperature before we get the hour a day of heat in the evening. were in a 50s prefab so insulation and warmth are a minimum . Plus its the season of mould, ive had an hour of my favourite winter chore de moulding the windows  , plus the bathroom needs another coat of mould paint as the walls are once again going black . So much for the expensive anti mould paint , its flaking off ..lol
Plus theres the getting washin dry chore , you have to wait for the sun to break through to hang it out let the sun dry it on one side then turn it all round then take the outer layers off the whirly dryer and move them to the airing cupboard and just continue till you reach the end ..lol
Mr Bah Humbug has a huge cauldron of bolognaise bubbling away , so at least ive been cooking exempt today
I think ive visited maybe 20 charity shops in the lunch hour this week and i  couldnt resist these heavy plaster cottage bookends , plus ive found a 50s ladies head hat pin holder , ive seen larger ones of these on quite a few American blogs but never found one here before

I managed 2 jumble sales yesterday and spent a whole £1.45 , a broken brooch , some rainbow framed sunglasses that i figure nobody will pinch out of my car , a pikachu keyring and some really heavy 1930s seashell uplighter lamp shades , ebay for them if they get through the cleaning challenge , theyre very rusty and grubby at the moment .

Newark Auto Jumble

Mr Bah Humbug got stood up by his date to trundle off to a scooter parts fair somewhere in the wilderness , so i just dropped in to the conversation that it was the Newark Autojumble  and yeah he took me .
Still my favourite day out with him , he looks for lumps of rusty crap and i errrrr look for lumps of rusty crap . Theres just so much of a non auto theme among the heaps of stalls that there really is something for everyone . We both fell  in love with the vintage Coca Cola cool boxes but they were way out of our price range .

Then i just spotted the blue industrial storage bins , the conversation went like this.
I like those
What the hell would you do with them
Theyd look good in the kitchen
Theyre bleedin huge
mmmmmmm
Think of the prep work
No id just want the interiors blasting the outsides would look good as is
They just wont fit
Think of the storage , veg in one bucket , all the bits of scooter that should go to the shed , you get a full 4st potato sack in the bottom
Theres no room
I could get rid of the freezer
we need the freezer
mmmmmm
Needless to say i couldnt have them

rusty blue lust objects 

sharing at   www.wecallitjunkin.com

Small Boys

Once youve had sons you realise that yes men really cant help it , theyre just born that way . You know that gung ho crazy , lets see what happens attitude that any rational human would know was a bad idea .
It doesnt get better once you have a grandson , especially when they live with you , but at least if youve done one generation you get kind of blase . My poor daughters still at the total despair level...lol
So heres a couple of munchkin tales , that will follow him for the rest of his life . Munchkin and his regular henchmen , two other 5 year olds are playing on their bikes in the little close where we live . all of a sudden theres loads of high pitched squealing that isnt getting nearer to the house so must be something serious . on going outside i find they've collided with each other and his friend has squashed his naughty bits . theyre busy unravelling him and picking him up, one under each arm and theyre carrying him back to his granny next door but one , as he sobs and grabs the offending bits . As theyre staggering away ,munchkin chimes up " I told you that you'd hurt yourself if you didnt wear your cycle helmet"  Ive since questioned him and found out that he believes cycle helmets are magic and prevent any injury ?

It gets worse , much worse.
A couple of days ago the munchkin started shouting for me to come and wipe his bottom after a poo, hes being doing this by himself for ages , plus he'd started spending hours up there .My daughter was thinking about taking him to the doctor .
Anyway , when she wasnt around I decided to investigate , on close inspection his bottom was bleeding a little , on even closer inspection his poo had something silver in it . Later that day i heard him say to his friend " Its true if you swallow it , it does come out of your bottom " On interrogation it seems they had been eating Meccano nuts , just to see if they came out the other end . I told my daughter and hes never going to hear the end of it . It was made even worse by her 20 year old brother chiming up with " Meccano nuts are nothing you should try a 4 block Lego brick"
MEN!!!!

Why?

So I popped into the Bridge , wonderful cafe and charity shop on Newark Road . Sat having a natter and discussing stigmata, as you do, and someone walks in with a load of donations of toys . They never say no to anything and you get a free cuppa if you donate , plus you can park outside to drop stuff of and  theyre open monday to Friday . See I even give them a bit of promotion, even if its a long way for most of you to travel for a cuppa .
Anyway they were all looking in horror at this particular item , which i thought was lovely . Then i realised that i'd said out loud that I liked it . I was then informed they were putting it in my boot !!!
So im now the puzzled owner of a dilapadated home made 50s little dollshouse . I had an uncle who used to churn these and forts and farmhouses out for years , in fact i often see his efforts in local salerooms its not one of his but somebody probably used the same Hobbies magazine pattern that he did .

When i got home Mr Bah Humbug was in the garden pottering with his scooters so I thought I would get the, what the hell have you brought home now lecture , instead he sort of liked it . Mainly because yesterday i realised hed hid yet another scooter in the back of his van ..lol
We really are a bonny pair of pack rats and made for each other in so many ways , but even im struggling to figure out what im going to do with it or where to put it , theres a project list as long as my arm already on the go , maybe over xmas?

Statistically chuffed

Pageviews by Countries Entry Pageviews United Kingdom 407 United States 273 China 66 Canada 23 Australia 15 Ireland 15 France 8 New Zealand 5 Germany 4 Spain 2

do you ever read the google statistics for you blog , the one i find fascinating is this, i love the little map that changes colour from time to time , somehow out of all the data they provide this one seems to make an impression on me . Its great when a really obscure country produces viewers , you know , the ones you learned in geography 40 years ago and have only seen on a wildlife programme since .
Why am i gaining followers in China , do they have an interest in the Lincolnshire Fens? or are they secretly monitoring my consumption of takeaways . Come on China talk to me , please do tell .
Last month i had tons of Eastern European visitors , that i can understand as most of their relatives live locally and they could have typed in Boston in the search menu .
Have I secretly started the league for women of a certain age? bored grannys of the world united ?Or is this  becoming a meeting place for those of us who just muddle along . Whos tablescape will always have a cat sat in it , who always starts crafty projects then get distracted for 5 months or those of us who view the world and our family as a bunch of aliens from another planet 

The Missionary Position

It had to be done just to see how many page views it generates !!!
Tedious day off would be the truthful title , I managed to get a day off today by turning off my phone and ignoring the world
6am im outside hanging washing out in the dark , I love the feel of grass on my bare feet even when it gets frosty , at least i dont startle passing dog walkers with my un sexy nighties and pj's in the darkness .
make  Mr Bah Humbugs pack up , stick in more washing wave him goodbye
7am daughter trots through on her way out of the door , mumbling the days orders , then the munchkin arises for homework breakfast and a good chunter, he really isnt a morning person even at nearly 6 .
8am hang out more washing , sort out the washing yurt thats amassed this week , give up in disgust get dressed and then its the school run  9.50 hurl still muttering munchkin through school gates .
9am get home , notice youve 6 missed calls and umpteen voice mails all work related , turn off phone sod them all!!!
9.30 settle down with Outlander and a huge pile of month end paperwork , finish paperwork at 2pm having lost the will to live !!! and eaten vast amounts of Galaxy chocolate .
3pm fetch more washing in hang more washing out , look at the sock pile and debate just hurling them all in the bin to see if theres any reaction when then say "ive got no socks" and i inform them i chucked them all .
3.30 sit down to blog , and assume the Missionary Position an excellent little book rescue that cost all of 50p  Women in the Mission Field , love it, it's so middle class saving the poor heathen , you have visions of these ladies if they existed in this day and age going across to Calais and preaching the word to the heathen hoard , then coming home on the ferry with half a dozen strange foreign blokes stuffed in their eco car. sadly missing a page so it will have to rest in the home for redundant volumes

What will the rest of my day off contain , pick up munchkin, take for a wander to the
park for homework , he needs leaves to make something. plus yet more conkers to trip everyone up . Cook tea , listen to them all moaning about there hard day , sort yet more washing , notice that despite all the washing being at the washer this morning and being able to see the floor around the washer for the first time in weeks by 7pm there will be another pile AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH
lifes so exciting when your a working granny

Sunday Car Boot + Jumble Sale

My escape from reality started yesterday, I packed up work at lunch time and did a crafty trip to the Washingborough  Bowls Club Jumble Sale , I love these , they practically give stuff away . so what did I buy ..... Pink Pyrex divided dish,couple of small scratches so i may force myself to keep it ...lol ..i never seem to find the lids for these, somewhere there must be a thrift shop full of them, but do i really need the lids?  i was thinking more of twin pies one heavy on the meat for Mr Bah Humbug one heavy on the veg for me , for the rare occasions when its just the two of us. It was a whole 30p

Stack of 10p tatty ladybird fairytales good enough for the munchkin to illtreat till he tires of them then i can cut them up...lol


And from last Sundays carboot i finally got around to unpacking these great 60s wooden kids jigsaws , not big on value but the graphics are gorgeous .Plus another bestway dolly knitting pattern to build a new stack for ebay

More Mugs , always a good xmas seller , Brownie Guide and a great Pyrex coronation mug plus a 70s pot that i have a use for .
What have i managed not to buy , well the Salvation Army did have a huge box of 70s maps of the US and Switzerland for a whole £3 . popular for crafting but i know i would never get round to it .
The jumble sale was infested with Pyrex and Corning so I did really well buying just one bit ..lol Plus this morning i spent a whole 70p at Metheringham car boot on a really exciting box of wooden floor underlay bits and yet another Edwardian ribbon plate looking lonely

Not sure how but the camera has decided to get stuck on macro , i will have to ask the technologically advanced household members for advice when they get home , usually you cant get it to do macro for love or money , so today we have bad photos even by my standards

Asda Wins the Vile Foodstuff Award !

Having worked a ridiculous amount of hours this week , been hounded and persecuted to the point where i just turn off  my phone between uses and also having lost the will to live .
The final straw was the lunch i managed to grab as i took a toilet break in the otherwise none stop day , my excuse was that it was cheap  and theres bog all for packup left in the fridge .
So i purchased a Chicken Sweetcorn & Pasta Salad tub from Asda , i thought half today finish it tomorrow , how wrong could I be , this was a tub of stunning vileness , apparently it had a tasty herby mayonaise dressing . not sure if id describe it like that more like the foulest cheap salt and vinegar crisp flavoured sticky gloop , so sour your mouth puckered.  You struggled to get this unappetizing lump apart , there was some sweetcorn in there but the chicken had no taste at all, came in tiny cubes and it took some finding, i dont think there was even a spoonful in it . this must be the first time ive had to chuck a food item in the bin because it was far to disgusting to eat . Come on Asda you can do a whole lot better .
I would have took the damned thing back but its not worth a 30 mile round trip .

Its the Scarecrow festival at dunston Saturday sunday and they dont tell you , but last year there were loads of yard sales as well 

Running for the hills

No I've not run away from the Blogiverse, I'm still here sort of.  My real world colleague decided to run for the hills , so I'm lumbered working my usual three days plus covering his five days as those who are good at maths may have realised that adds up to working eight days a week.  That's supposed to be 8 till 8. As well!
Now I have school runs daily to fit in among this. A bunch of useless tossers at home moaning there sock draw is empty and there tea isn't cooked.  So patience isn't my strong point at the moment.
Having spat my dummy yesterday somewhat spectacularly with work and threatening to throw the towel in , they've managed to throw me a pay rise and they're honestly going to advertise my colleagues job this week...mmmmm
They just do not grasp that I prefer quality of life to quantity of money.
It's been so bad that I haven't even unpacked my bag from the car boot on Sunday and even my knicker drawer is empty.
I suppose if I can hack this for a whole month it will fill the oil tank for the winter but if I don't survive just chuck me on the compost heap when I run out of knickers

Scotland & Independence

Well the Scots decided to stay , very surprised . But then maybe there just wasnt enough trueborn Scots up there to swing the vote .  How david Cameron managed to keep a straight face is beyond me , hes really gutted because the Labour party hasnt died yet . Im just gutted because my ex husband isnt going to be walled in up there .
 Scotland I would have missed you , the crazy experience that is all night Asda aka Walmart in Edinburgh  , where they just pop the drunks into shopping trolley and stick them by the tills .  Stirling services with its bouncers on the door .  Playing dodge the deer belting up the A9 in the middle of the night . Edinburgh Castle best concert venue in the world . The highlands where nothing can repel the midges in a summer . Wild Camping without irate farmers . Glenmorangie , Runrig and haggis .

Then theres the other side of the story what would i have done with all the tartan fabric ive being amassing for a yet to be decided project . would Robbie Burns have been banned in the UK. Would we have to drink all the Buckfast fortified wine ourselves . Would i never have seen a fit bloke in a kilt again .

bit of dougal porn for us older ladies 

Scotland for once you made a decision with you heads not with your hearts , now lets concentrate on declaring our independence from self serving , conniving career politicians .

Bithday Giveaway

Birthday Giveaway winner no 2 is Bryony Cater i need an address please

Birthday giveaway results

Marta chan.....is the winner.....24 hrs for an address please

In the meantime I've got a truly fascinating work course tomorrow, vulnerability and the energy industry........let's hope there's some decent charity shops in Thetford to kill my lunch hour  , my work colleagues are a pretty riveting bunch , if you chat football and have a hairy chest!!!

Gathering Nuts in September

Im really a bit of a sad case sometimes, i got all excited yesterday because i gathered my first cob nut  crop aka hazel nuts. My  scrawny little 3 year old bushes that i planted in my bid to grow a native fence have given me a litre or so of nuts . I suppose once they get bigger and the squirrels spot them i will never see a nut , although the cat has tried squirrel wrestling before he really didnt win that one . We did crack a couple open and tried them , very tasty , so theyre now drying in the sunshine on a window ledge till xmas or until i need some for baking .
These have been a great idea, nice bushes lots of weird caterpillers for the munchkin to study , really low maintenance , you can take a crop of branches for garden use , you get catkins in February just when everything else is sad and dead and if the squirrels dont spot them 3 years later you have a crop of nuts , i cant understand why more people dont use them as hedging

Best of all were the weird bugs I had to look up on the internet , shield bugs great little things about the size of an adult fingernail ,harmless sap suckers , that are eaten in some countries as a canape . the look of horror all round when i said they were edible was worth it ..lol

image stolen from somewhere 

Thrift Shops and Poverty

Budget crisis at the house of nettle knickers this month we have squandered every penny on weekends away ,trips to London and graduation . In fact weve done 6 weeks of wreckless squandering , sod the budget...lol
Back to reality time as the first of the threatening letters arrived today . Ive not loaded ebay for a month and work is the usual sporadic pleasure , so tomorrow if the weather is remotely like, i need to do a car boot just for fuel money for the week . Mr Bah Humbug chimes up helpfully with do you fancy going to Whitby for goth weekend ..bless him ., i think this is to make up for not doing the Steampunk event at Lincoln Castle this weekend due to household endemic poverty .
Ive had my first trips to the seaside thrift shops this week and ive hardly broke the bank , just a few bits for pennies , nice cross stitch linen tablecloth with a tea stain im sure a bit of bleach will cure, groovy 70s Family Circle craft book , a single vintage pillowcase and a couple of strange egyptian pattern napkins . I left behind loads of yellow rose phoenix pyrex mixing bowls and serving platters , Saint Andrews Hospice at Sutton on Sea is currently infested with 50s Fire King , JAJ Pyrex and
more. Great if you do the vintage fairs .

A Little pile of reading material , a toilet reading book for the boys , Mees very tatty Lincolnshire a read and cut up i think and of course a really good edition of Farmhouse Fare , best vintage cookbook of the lot, i have a wartime edition and this is a 70s reprint full of handwritten little notes and receipts.

Finally just because they needed a good home theres a Fireking Mug , i always buy them then list them when  get to six , plus theres this gorgeous 1907 Edwardian beauty ribbon plate by Phillip Boileau , designer of images for postcards that i havent a clue what i will do with, nobody seems to like the turn of the century anymore and i keep picking up bits for pennies

Graduation day

Im a very proud mummy today , it was graduation day at Lincoln Cathedral , quite a venue complete with big screens because the inconsiderate medieval builders put all these pillars in the way .

Glorious sunny day , all her hard work and effort has finally paid off and i hope both her and her little man go on to great things

A Belated Birthday Giveaway

Ive just realised ive been blogging for a year , somehow ive maintained my motivation so despite a busy graduation week , plus the creative marrow challenge , i will make the effort to fill a box and give it away to the universe , it will be a crafty fabric sort of  box, plus whatever else ive pack ratted of a crafty nature giveaway even
Xmas items .....why when i dont do xmas?
 This will be an anywhere in the world giveaway but to keep costs down it will be sent by the dreaded surface mail , we're still good for xmas posting dates , just ! winner will be picked via munchkin and pillowcase at 6pm on the 16th barring major disaster .

Now heres the really hard bit . to enter you have to speak to me , go on you can do it . all you need is to speak up in the comments to get an entry , I know some of you are shy and i seem to get readers from the farthest flung corners of the world , plus my usual gang of vocal locals, anyone can enter , you get 24hrs to send your address once picked, if not we pick again . ive had neary 20000 viewers so some of you may still be there . Heres a bad photo off some of the stuff ive found in the last half an hour. Big bit of red holly leaf fabric , sheet of fabric xmas tags, 2 fabric kitty cushion fronts , vintage bag handels, xmas ribbon, aida  , dimensions chart and charms , sparkly silver floss, vintage needle keeper , knitted beanie book , pile of vivid red triangle lace inserts that i never got round into making into bunting , I will keep adding to the little lucky dip box as I find more strange items after all i would need to live into my hundreds to ever use the stash i have amassed

Outlander

so what do you do when most of your technology is dead? You sit down and trawl the pirate tv sites of course .
Twenty odd years ago, when I was vastly pregnant and stuck on bed rest with my eldest , I requested reading material and my other half came back with the first book through the door of the bookshop . somehow it was something good , very good..It was Cross Stitch by Diane Gabaldon . A time travel Jacobite romance, it stayed on my shelf for years until I sold what turned out to be a  first edition,  for a huge amount of money. I never realised it had been issued in the states as Outlander and had a huge cult following plus there was lots more volumes in the series.
But now they have made an excellent TV version and I'm hooked, only available on pirate tv in the UK.  The costumes and  the man flesh  are outstanding , lots of big hairy blokes in kilts , what more could a girl ask for , there's something about a highland accent. I'd show you the pictures but I'm still stuck on this wretched I pad

Grumpy Bird and Technology

Sometimes I wish I was as good with technology as my kids but I'm not , plus I'm mean as well. so on Saturday my monitor developed a fizz , even I know this is a leaky capacitor and a sign of imminent death.
Conversation went like this
Son 1....theres a cheap one in Argos £79
Me....I don't have £79
Son  2 ...we get our Jobseekers Friday we could donate
Me ..you have to order and collect so that will be another week, I will have a look on eBay
find cheap Buyer collect monitor on eBay go and collect
Me ... Can you set this up
SOn1....of course we can , errrrr the leads don't fit
Me ....you said this would fit
Son1....mmmmmmmm

I  plan to stuff there heads in the slow cooker later just for fun, I've ordered the correct leads the moral is never listen to your sons , they may be the technological generation but a simple thing like a power lead is beyond them.
so I'm picture less due to having to use this wretched iPad thingy of Mr Bah Humbugs , and putterless due to the sad demise of my monitor
but the one thing that is driving me mad is the simple fact you can't just pop to a shop when you need something anymore , nobody carries any stock everything has to be ordered online...ggggggrrrrr

Custom cars and Vintage

Mr Bah Humbug twisted my arm and dragged me off to Spalding Yesterday's for my Sunday vintage fix. Custom Culture 2014 Brilliant sunshine and a brilliant event. I was drowned in a sea of Rock n Roll and 50s Americana.

The music was great , the stalls were amazing so much vintage clothing and accessories, tattooists working away , I am so sad sometimes that my lousy skin won't allow tattoos.  Jive displays , air brush displays, wood carving , burlesque dancers and a body art section .

 Mr Bah humbug was moaning that his sunroof is now so big he can't have a flat top anymore and getting all drooly over the vehicles. It was well worth the trip , I just wish I had a bottomless pit for a purse