Lifestyle - My Week on Instagram #2

This weeks Instagram round-up looks a bit like this...

1. Went to the garden centre, looked at yarn.

2. Mother's Day is tiring.

3. Presentable Pearl reporting for duty.

4. My pretty flowers (with franken-flower in the middle)

5. New dress for madam.

6. Easter present all ready for madam!

7. Breaking out my lovely new notebook and pen.

I haven't photographed any food this week (unless you count the sweeties), must be some sort of record for me. Though I did make the peanut butter and salted caramel treats again on Wednesday... The caramel even set properly this time! So good, so, so good...

That's been my week, what have you been up to?

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - A Garden Makeover

When I did my post about the Liebster Award I had to think up some questions to ask my nominees and it seemed unfair to not answer them myself, too. So here goes:

1. What's your motivation for blogging?

I started blogging because I was depressed and it was to help me organise my thoughts, now I just really enjoy being able to share the things I love with anyone who might be reading! I find it a fun thing to do and it still helps me to focus and clear up space in my head.

2. Is there anything you would change about yourself and why?

I'm not a big believer in regrets, I don't think they serve much purpose and I'm pretty much the same about who I am too. I would like to lose some weight as it's not healthy to be as big as I am, but I do go to the gym regularly and I walk everywhere so I don't count myself as unfit... 

3. What's your favourite book?

Why did I ask this?! I cannot pick just one. But I suppose if I was going to be trapped on a desert island the book I would most like to have with me (other than a book on survival skills) would be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I've read it over and over...

4. Do you have any pets?

Um, no, but I would love a cat. 

5. Do you have a pet hate?

I hate people cracking their knuckles!

6. Who inspires you?

My biggest inspiration is probably my mum. Yeah, I know. But I always take her advice and respect her opinion. She shows me the way when I can't see it and she somehow manages to always give off a calm, yet determined, vibe.

Oh, and she smells like coffee :)

7. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

You'll never know if you don't try.

8. What would you do if you won the lottery?

Buy the house I'm currently renting and do it up properly. Put in a nice arbour for my new garden. Then I would make sure all my friends had something they needed and lastly, go on a big holiday somewhere warm and sunny. Oh, and I'd give some to a couple of charities that I care deeply about... (MS Society, Cancer Research UK, RSPB, Scope, Hull Animal Welfare Trust and Dove House (and probably a couple of others as well.)) 

9. What's your next ambition?

To have a paid job!

10. What's your favourite flavour of ice cream?

As long as it's got chocolate in I'm usually good! Probably Ben and Jerry's Phish Food...

11. Are you happy right now? 

Yes. And it's been a very long time since I have been able to say that!

So, that is my contribution. I shall now leave the Liebster Award alone and you can all heave a sigh of relief! 

I mentioned in those answers that I have a new garden. What I meant by that is that I have done up my garden to such an extent it looks like a new one! My neighbour and I pruned back all the privet hedging down both sides of the garden. We also got rid of all the random debris that was at the bottom of the garden and had been left by the previous tenant. 

The right hand side, after pruning (basically this was what we did in the morning)

I have no idea why this one is so blurry, and I didn't even notice until after we'd cut all of this hedge back too! (you can see the weird structure that was left by the old tenants too...)

The agency had been meant to tidy that up, but never did.

We trimmed back the hedge at the bottom of the garden and found that there was a patch of actual earth in there. The word garden is probably an overstatement. It's a concrete yard, but much bigger then I had realised! We also sorted the gate so it actually worked as such. It took us a whole day and I spent the two subsequent days with arms that were incredibly sore...

et voila! This is before we sorted the gate, but the garden is unrecognisable from earlier...

I went out on Saturday and got some flowers to put in my new flowerbed and planted them up on Sunday. I have put 2 lupins, a verbena, 2 lavenders and some pansies in :) 

Not the neatest, but it's all mine :)

Now, I just sit back and wait for them to grow... 

Love, Pearl.

fun and flowers at Burnby Hall

Yesterday was lovely. It was madam's Fairy competition at Burnby Hall Gardens in Pocklington and we had a great day. The weather held out and we got a chance to look around the rather stunning gardens.

The gardens also hold the national waterlily collection (who knew the nation even had one?) and they were pretty much all in bloom. They were all different colours and looked just beautiful.

There were a few fairy activities for madam to take part in and we started by being given a little collection bag so that we could gather up any leaves, twigs, feathers, etc. that we might find so we could use them to make a name plaque. 

All around the gardens were signs telling us about the various types of flower fairies and when we might be able to see them. Our favourite part though was hunting for the fairies up in the Stumpery (which is in the woodland area). And it was so sweet. There were lots of little doors dotted around on the trees and all around the glade were things for us to spot, like a washing line, a swing and a fishing rod.

a tiny door!

And madam was convinced that if she knocked on all the doors eventually a fairy would answer her ;) 

We found a picnic table (of which there were many) and settled down for a picnic before heading back with our finds to do some crafting. There were pictures to colour and fairy houses to make. We just stuck to making madam a name plate. But, sadly, the glue wasn't really sticky enough to cope with madam's twigs so we agreed to take it all home and let her use the PVA glue to finish it off with. 

And then it was time for the fairy and pixie parade. The fairies outnumbered the pixies by quite a large amount, so fairies went first. There was only one other little girl in a homemade outfit. And she was much littler than madam with the most enormous frothy tutu confection on. So, so cute. She won the competition, which wasn't that much of a surprise. But I was really glad they recognised the effort someone had put into making it. Madam got a few comments on her costume too, and many were amazed it was homemade.

We had to leave after the parade as my mum and dad had to go round to my younger brother's place and help him with something. But I really want to visit again. It was just such a lovely place to while away a few hours. I'm hoping we'll go back for the pumpkin festival in October.

And mum saw an "Elf Training Camp" day in December too...

So yeah, if you're in the area ever and want a nice afternoon wander (the cafe looked rather good, too) it's worth checking out. Oh, and the Stewart Museum holds some things brought back from the round-the-world trips the owners made in the early 20th Century. Might be worth a look too...     

in which madam does making

I am so tired today! I have now dropped off about five times whilst sitting here trying to write. I could really do with a proper nap, but having madam bouncing about is not conducive to that... Currently she is sticking a whole load of glow-in-the-dark stars on to a piece of dark paper.

 

Its something she's been wanting to do for ages and yet somehow we never have got round to doing it. So now she's finally getting to do it. But apparently it involves an awful lot more supervision than I had thought. I mean, it's just putting stickers on to a big bit of paper, but you'd think it was much more complex than that...

 

Oh, and I'm not allowed to help. I am supervising whilst typing. Except I'm mainly shouting at her in frustration. She keeps jumping from one side of the paper to the other. She's already slipped and hurt herself so next she's going to rip the paper and ruin the whole thing.

 

She also keeps wandering off and then complaining when I threaten to put all the stuff away! I am slightly liking the new technique though. She's peeling off the stickers and then dropping them onto the paper to make a more random pattern.

 

I'm not appreciating the rain today. We went out earlier and opened the door to a torrential downpour. Had to get madams pack-a-mac out of my bag and put her in it. It has rained on and off ever since. She still wanted to sit outside and eat her lunch though! I refused and made us come up to my parents so that we could avoid being soaked and utilise their tv/internet facilities.

 

I had half thought about going for a walk later but, as the rain is currently flying sideways past the window, I'm going to wimp out. We have at least been into town and had a bit of fresh air.

 

We  also went to try and sort the meter out after the slight fail I had on Monday. And the key still wouldn't work, but I had taken the new one and that worked with no problems whatsoever. Bit of a relief given that the emergency credit has nearly run out.

 

 

 

Yesterday on our way home to put madam to bed we passed the most beautiful pink hawthorn tree and it struck me how late some of the blossom is this year. We'd noticed the pink horse chestnut was out on the walk to nursery the other day. I am sure they've usually all finished before now.

 

But we did have a late spring, I guess. It'll be interesting to see whether autumn is late getting going as well. There are some beautiful flowers coming out in the gardens locally now, my dad has some rather lovely roses beginning to bloom.

 

Madam has finished her picture off, and it's looking really cool. She is refusing to do smiling in photos again at the moment! So don't think she's not been having fun. She has now moved on to throwing a paper aeroplane around the room.

 

 

 

I guess I could make one of my own and join in... :)  

weird days and photos

Weirdly slow day today. Seemed to take me forever to get started and now I'm all fired up with nowhere to go! I have bought a new book to help with my college work (really clever as I only have about 2 weeks left!). But it's really interesting and I hope that if I get the chance to continue my studies then I'll be able to use it again for that.

Dead dudes tend not to change their theories very often after all! Much better than the management books I still had from Uni that I only got rid of when we moved to this house. That's right, up-to-date management theory circa 1996!

Given that there were newer prints of the books before I'd even finished the course, I doubt anyone would have found them very helpful. I took them to the charity shop anyway...

So, I have spent this afternoon reading up on various psychological theories. Some of which I'm actually studying at the moment (like Freud and Rogers) and some that just lead on from them. Fascinating. Its a shame you can't get a qualification just from reading the books!

Madam and I had a nice chilled out day yesterday and made the most of having the sun. We went for a bike ride in the afternoon and I took some nice photos of madam outside the library in their gardens.

There was a carpet of daisies and dandelions so madam was quite enjoying looking at the flowers and posing like a trooper. She was wearing her new vest top that we'd got when we'd exchanged the dress V had brought.

Such a shame. The dress was a great length, lovely colour. Really sweet, but it was just too tight across the back. Madam is quite broad in the back and the dress buttoned up in just the wrong place. So we swapped it for a more rather cute jersey number and the vest top.

Madam was disappointed not to have the original dress, but she cheered up when she saw she'd got two things in exchange! Easily pleased...

I've downloaded a new app to my phone which is basically a simplified version of photoshop. I've been having a good time playing with the photos I took yesterday and thought I'd share a couple with you.

 

oh.

 

Slight technical hitch. Apparently I can't upload them on to the blog for some reason...

 

Ok, have this link to the collage I made instead!

 

Right, laptop has almost no battery left. Best shut up!

 

sunshine just makes everything better

I've been really struggling to sleep for the last week. Partly this is to do with my cold and the annoying need I have to cough up my lungs when I lie down. Partly it's to do with the depression. I can't get to sleep until much later than I want to, then I can't get myself out of bed either.

 

It's a vicious circle. But I'm hoping being back into the swing of taking madam to nursery will help. Things always get worse in the holidays as we lose our routines.

 

I have been trying to get madam into some of Fly Lady's habits too. She's been making her bed in the mornings and I've been rewarding her with a marble for her jar. We've also been trying to make sure we use a calendar to help us with our scheduling. I've divided it into columns (it was a cheapo family planner kind of thing I got in the sales) and she has hers and I have mine. We then both have our own sets of stickers that we've put on the days where we're doing things.

 

So madam has a sticker for every Thursday when she's at gymnastics and I have them from for college days and Guides days. I've also marked the weekly shop on for each week and any other appointments that we might have (counsellor, hairdresser, doctors, dentist etc.)

 

It makes it look like I might be a bit organised, even when I don't feel I am.

 

Yesterday I mentioned that we were going to go for a walk and look at the snowdrops. We had such a lovely time and the sun shining on us seemed to make it even more magical. The weather has been horrid both the years we've been before.

 

It always amazes me what a difference a bit of sunshine makes to everyone's mood. A little bit of warmth creeps back in to everyone's hearts after the long, cold, dark winter.  Snowdrops have always been one of my favourite flowers. I love seeing them appear as they signal the end of winter being in sight. 

 

Next up will be the daffodils sunny yellow trumpets adding that dash of colour that's been so lacking in the shorter days of the year. When I see them begin to bloom, and the sides of the roads locally seem to be lined with them, I always think of friend V. I don't know why, but funnily enough she said the same thing about me!

 

Now, I need to leave you in the company of these guys. They look to me as if they're auditioning for Saturday Night Fever or something! I think they're great and they really make me smile... Enjoy :)