I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay

That's 'I'm okay', muttered in a tone of considerable relief, with an edge of quiver to it.

Today (and a little bit of yesterday, if we're honest) was mostly taken up with a job that has been awaiting our attention for well over a year.

If you were around when we created a new shed for ourselves in the garden (well, where else?) you will have seen photos in which a certain tree appeared.  It looked quite pretty, but it was a self-seeded sycamore tree, in the narrow alleyway behind our neighbour's garden.  Here it is looking quite attractive to the left of our new shed, when we put the garden to bed last autumn.

The problem with this tree was its leaves choked everyone's garden each autumn, and more importantly it was devilishly close to the house behind our garden and its roots were likely to cause damage. It needed to be removed before it got even bigger and was a complete nightmare to fell.  Mr U-t-B had suggested to the neighbours that he would cut it down a few years back, but at that point, with small children who often played in the garden, they liked the shade that it afforded.  But then the leaves choked their pond and their fish died, so they verbally signed its execution warrant.

Yesterday Mr U-t-B decided that the tree was for the chop, filled as he was with new vigour after recovering from a) bronchitis or b) flu or c) a bad allergic reaction (we're not sure which - the doctor thought it was c) but given the fact that Miss U-t-B and I both succumbed (though not so badly, as we're made of sterner stuff!) we think it was b)!  This was not a decision that best pleased me at the time, as ! was still feeling the effects of whatever lurgy we have been battling, and even mildly strenous effort was not on my 'To Do' list...

However, the decision had been made, the lopers, pruning saw and chainsaw were at the ready and Mr U-t-B was ready for the off!  With no-one else around, it was down to me to assist, and so my adventure in lumberjacking began!

Cue the song I have been quietly humming all day long...

In spite of having previously demonstrated to my husband my prowess with all manner of beefy tools

 (see this post, in which I built myself a workroom whilst Mr U-t-B lay in bed with a slipped disc)

{Oh, and by the way, you get to see David Essex in his prime if you click on that link too!}

I was relegated to the job of hanging on to the strap to guide all the lopped off bits into our garden or the alleyway.  It was my responsibility to ensure no cars, garden fences, sheds, play equipment, small children or pets were squashed during the felling of the tree, and believe me when I say that this was a responsibility that hung heavily on me!  All that nervous energy, coupled perhaps with the fresh air and sunshine, does seem to have chased the lurgy away, so at least that was a benefit...

Just picture me standing bravely in the alleyway pulling a great orange strap lashed onto those top branches to make sure it fell in exactly the spot 

Mr U-t-B had decided upon...

I have to say, I turned out to be quite a pro! (Actually it may have been Mr U-t-B's skill in the cutting department...)  By 4 o'clock, the tree was no more...

It was an ex tree...

Cue another bit of Monty Python, for your entertainment...

So the tree is gone, and we both have shiny red cheeks from all the unexpected sun and a newly topped up log pile to boot!

Folksy Friday

In an attempt to organise myself into regularly updating my Folksy shop, I thought I'd nominate Fridays as 'Folksy Friday', a day when I share a few lovely finds from there as well as something new I've put in my shop.  But today, I'm failing on the listing front, for one reason AND another, but I'm still going to share some lovelies!

Firstly this...

From Of Life and Lemons

...who also produce this...

Of Life and Lemons

...and many another cool print.

Then I am rather in love with this bunting...

From Peony and Thistle

...who also make this bunting...

From Peony and Thistle

...and many other cute things from rescued books and paper items.

Then, because I just got a new phone (a Blackberry, in an attempt by my family to make me carry and use such a thing...) I was looking for a case for it, but instead stumbled upon this...

From Antelope Designs

...who also make this...

From Antelope Designs

...if you're more of a strawberry kinda gal!

Meanwhile, my shop still has  one 'Beach Huts and Bunting' Needlecase, in case the promise of two weeks of sunshine and warmer weather are making you dream of the seaside...

Used-to-Bees

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging and helpful comments on my seasons of cross-stitch!  I am working my way through autumn now, and then I will carefully be choosing some different colours for the lettering.

Spring - of a sort - is here!

Well, it might be blowing a hoolie out there, with intermittent lashing rain and a chill that may be the weather, or may be my cold, but inside, at least, Spring has arrived.

In the way of many of my makes, most of it was finished some days back, but I noticed an error and dithered for days about whether to correct it or not.  In the end I did correct it, as the mistake was that I'd made poor 
wife-y shrink by two stitches!  She may have had a baby, but that normally makes one grow outwards, not shrink downwards!  

So Spring has the requisite sheep baaing away beneath a blossomy tree...

A bluebird atop the birdhouse and a bunny flashing his tail...

The happy family, with junior in the crib, and wife-y now restored to full height.  Before it looked more like a battle-axe mother-in-law had come to stay!

Sorry for the fuzzy photos, I'm a wee bit wobbly at the moment!

So Winter is complete...

Summer and Spring are finished on the picture front and Autumn is now under way...

I remembered to finish the basket with the bird on top, and the birds wheeling in the sky overhead

Am thinking a few Spring flowers might be a pleasant addition.
Funny how it's easier to notice omissions 
once the photo is on screen than on the real thing. 

That's better!

This will be Autumn

But what I can't decide is whether to do the lettering and the dashed border-bit in the same colours as Winter, or slightly different for each one.  Any ideas?

A little bit of heaven...

Simply take a nice slice from a bread-maker loaf ...

Had to crop this photo as there in the reflection on the toaster were me and Mr U-t-B looking like a pair of ne'er-do-well trolls!

Toast to perfection...

...and allow to go completely cold, before spreading with a little bit of cheaty butter and a  hint of marmalade...

Heaven on a plate!

Miss U-t-B told me the other day that she used to be so thrilled when I cut her bread in triangles when she was small!  I remember that feeling too! 

How do you like your toast?

Tagged!

Thanks to Melanie of The Folly Bird blog for tagging me in this enormous bloggy game!  


Somehow I missed reading this when I should have done, so I feel like I'm still playing whilst everyone else got called in for their dinner.  So, as I'm the naughty girl who's stayed out when she should have gone home, I'm going to be naughtier still and break the rules.  


I'm not posting the tag rules, and won't be tagging anyone else (because they're all inside eating their beans on toast and such like), but I will answer the questions Melanie asked and I will give some random facts.  I'm meant to do eleven but that seems quite impossible at the moment.  I've got a bit of a cold, so what with the sneezing and snuffling, I can barely think straight!

It's a bit of a cheat, but I'm at a loss to come up with many new ones.  So hop over here for seven that I've shared before, but AGES ago.

And I'll top up with four more:


8.  When I was eighteen I lived in Paris for a year. Working for mainly American and Brits though, my French barely improved at all - in fact it probably got worse!  I would happily live there again, for another year or so, and I'd try so much harder with the language next time!
  

9. I'm a bit of a hoarder, not in the rubbishy way they like to show on TV, but of anything with a special memory attached.  

10. Although I haven't done any for ages, I am really keen on doing family history.  So far I have managed to put a name to a mysterious skeleton in the family cupboard; found an unusual name which seems to link some of my forebears to an 18th century MP who shot himself after he lost his fortune speculating in the West Indies; and learnt the tragedy of a wedding day suicide...

11. When I was a small child, my 'party' trick was to roll my tummy, like a belly dancer. 
Bet you're trying it out now, just like I did when I remembered it for a final random fact!  




Next, here are the answers to the questions Melanie asked.

1. If you could go shopping in any era, which would it be?

Probably the 1920s or 1930s.  Not for what I could buy in the shops, but more for the style in which I might do it.

2. Official other half aside, who would your dream date be?

If I had to endure going on a date, it'd have to be made worthwhile with humour, so I'd probably go for a someone quick-witted like Dara O'Briain...  

or maybe Lee Mack...

3. Who were/was the last band/artiste you saw live?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.  

I haven't seen any band or artiste 'live' since the 1980s and some of the ones I did see back then look pretty embarrassing now.  I did once go to see Geno Washington at The Half Moon in Putney though.

4. Do you have any phobias?

None that I have discovered so far.  I'm not very keen on slugs though. Oh, or clowns.

5. What is your favourite film?

It's a Wonderful Life. Cheese-fest it may be, but I do so love it.

Clarence discovers that neither Flaming Rum Punch, nor Mulled wine, heavy on the cinnamon, light on the cloves, is  order of the day at Martinis

6. What is your favourite song?

Teenage Kicks by The Undertones.
No contest - it just makes me feel like I'm fourteen again.

7. How tall are you (I have a near obsessive need to know how tall people are)?

5 foot 3 inches, so not very!

8. What is your earliest memory?

My sister having a nightmare and insisting there was a frog in her bed!  I think I must have been about two and I was imprisoned in my cot (after two, my brother must have been in the cot), watching all the fuss.  As our house backed onto a canal, it was vaguely feasible for a frog to have wandered in, but I think it would have struggled to get up the stairs.

My sister's idea of hell on earth...

9. Tea, or coffee?

Depends what time of day.  Tea, tea, coffee, coffee, tea, tea - stop before 5 to make sure I can sleep!

10. Favourite literary character?

Mr Darcy, but probably only due to the BBC version from the 90s!  Otherwise, it's a toss-up between Milly-Molly-Mandy and  Mrs Tiggywinkle.  I'm high-brow, me.

11.  Favourite actor/actress?

For the above reason, I am rather fond of Colin Firth, but I think he's just edged out by Liam Neeson.  Oooh, and I like David Tennant  too. 




So there we have it!  
Time for me to go in too... 

Confusion

There seems to be an air of confusion and befuddlement round here just now.

One day it is Spring and you can go for a walk with just a cardi on (well - AND other clothes, you understand, but no coat needed); the next it is snowing hard and it's only down to the fact that it had previously been lashing down with rain that it hasn't settled and put us into one of the usual 'snow south of the Midlands equals chaos' situations.

One day, you previously flu-ridden husband is bouncing back nicely along the road to health; the next he is pole-axed again, lying in bed, asleep most of the day in between violent coughing fits.

Even the 'makes' are having an identity crisis.  Take a Mollie Makes mouse pattern...

...and decide to make it a tad more seasonal.  Rabbit, I'm thinking.

Beaver away for far too long (it says you can make a whole family in an afternoon - only if you're Ms SuperSewist I say) and you end up with...

...a rabbit called Piglet, who has a little bit of giraffe flowing through her veins...

Oh dear - will she ever forgive me for making her turn out like that?

Ah well, she's quite cute anyway, but I doubt she'll ever have brothers or sisters...

I'm just wondering what the chicken currently a-roasting in the oven is going to taste like...

I'm not normally one for mentioning the deaths of well-known people here on my blog, but I hope that today you will allow me the indulgence of a post about Davy Jones.

It all began with a record player a bit like this...

(In truth, all  I can really remember about it is the colour red, its portability, the little circle for putting in the middle of records that didn't have one and the fact that it was the one us children could use.  Actually, now I think about it, it may have been blue!  But in my dreams it was red, my favourite colour.)

The first record we had to play on it was this...

'I'm a Believer' by The Monkees,

with 'I'm not your Steppin' Stone' on the B-side.

I think it must have been given to us by Joan or Linda, the teenagers who lived down the road and used to come and babysit.

This was taken at my sister's birthday party in 1967.  Linda is there on the left (with my brother peeping out from behind her, in his high-chair), with me in the dress just nearby.  My Mum looks to be cutting the cake or attending to other hospitality type matters (nothing changes!)  and Joan is to the right of her with the stylish hair.   My sister is rubbing her eyes and has the other teenager that we adored, Christine,  next to her.  I think my dad must have been standing on the swing to get this shot!

I don't think we watched 'The Monkees' at this point in our lives (I was only three going on four), but once we did, it was a certain Mancunian of diminutive proportions, with a great smile and lovely eyes that caught my eye...

I think Davy Jones was my first 'crush',  though the blond-haired Douglas in my first class at Infant school might have just preceded him! I remember 'The Monkees' being on on Saturday evenings, and therefore normally watched after a tea of  boiled eggs, soldiers and yogurt (a Saturday treat!)  I'm not sure that I really followed the stories, but I did like the songs, and, of course, Davy Jones and his shaky-shaky tambourine-playing style.

The Monkees and Davy Jones may have slipped off my radar (even if for some time he lived in a village not far from my parents and we used to drive past a particular house and tell people 'That's where Davy Jones lives'), but certain things from those days remained with me.  

Namely, a strange liking for:

* the most diminutive member of boy bands...

(Well, in the days when I was young enough for it not to seem embarrassing!)

*The Manchester accent

*Nice smiles and eyes

No surprise then that I married a Mancunian who is not overwhelmingly tall, with lovely  eyes and a happy disposition!

It goes without saying that I was sad to hear the news of Davy Jones's sudden death.  Thanks for some great memories, and for helping me choose the right man!

PS. I think Davy Jones and Mr U-t-B went to the same school of dancing...