Goodbye England…………

Today’s the day. Our belongings are currently on a  ship about to sail to Australia and this evening we board our flight to Singapore for a little break away and to break up the long journey before starting our new lives in Australia.

Still in shock that this is actually happening and just going to keep this short (for various reasons)

I will be back in this space soon, to let you know how we’re getting on in the sunshine, but I’ve scheduled in a few posts that I’ve written in advance to give you something to read in the meantime……….

But for now, farwelll, I’ll be back here soon xx

New love for a dolly’s highchair

I stumbled accross this vintage Triang highchair on ebay and couldn’t pass it by without putting a bid on it – I won it for just £5 (despite it being an hours’ round trip to collect it!). I really like the colour it was but it was looking a bit dull and tired, plus there was a fair amount of rust on it and our move to Australia requires all rust to be cleaned/covered so I thought it best to try and restore it.

I can’t say it’s been an easy task – I tried some Nitro Mors. Yucky, horrid, and awful to the environment, it didn’t seem to do much apart from leave cloggy mucky lumps behind. Luckily, my very dear friend managed to provide me with a Black & Decker Mouse. Oh it was fab, that and a small amount of elbow grease was all it took to get it in a state ready for spraying. I decided to spray it as there are so many small spindles and areas I just didn’t think that my painting skills would leave a very good outcome.

Anyway, here it is after it’s first coat of pink spray paint:

I’m pleased with the final result, it’s not perfect but it will do for now until it is shipped accross to Australia (we needed to sort out the rust on it before the shippers pack everything up  hence the need for doing it up now) I like the shade of pink that it is so I may keep it that colour for good.

A cardigan for dolly…

Here’s the start of what may hopefully turn into something that will resemble a cardigan for the Dolly fot T’s Birthday, I have a stash of small amounts of wool and thought a dolly pattern would be good practice for something a bit more taxing than hat. So far so good, though there is PLENTY of time for mistakes yet!

I have started reading Anita Shreve’s ‘Rescue’ this week, I’m finding it less easy to absorb than her last book (‘Let It Snow’) though I think that may have something to do with the amount of concentration I am left with when I get around to picking up my book.

Joining in with this weeks ‘Yarn Along’ from Small Things and ‘Crafting On’ from Frontier Dreams x

Today

Today I have:

• Had a lovely lie-in until 9.00am as my dear husband got up with little ‘T’
• Drank coffee and toast whilst removing shelves from the kitchen  and living room.
• Popped in to see grandma with ‘T’ (she is kindly doing all of our washing since Christmas as our washing machine broke down and it isn’t worth us buying one just weeks before we leave!), popped in again, to collect washing , and back twice more with another load. Oh how I miss my washing machine.
• Typed up my husband’s CV in preparation for our new lives ‘down under’.
• Finished off the sanding of the little vintage highchair I am restoring for ‘T’, it’s had it’s first coat of spray paint too. Finally:) I’ll let you know more about it when it’s complete, not long now.
• Waxed the Victorian toy chest I found on freecycle, it still has a LOT of work to go on it but whilst ‘T’ sleeps at lunchtimes I seem to be outside almost daily trying to get it done at the moment.
• Eaten too much rhubarb crumble with ice cream that ‘T’ and I made together yesterday, I’m also wondering if I’ll be able to grow rhubarb in Australia??
• Finished off the knitted bow, it’s a bit larger than I had hoped for but never mind. No dropped stitches and no holes so can’t complain! – taking part in ‘Handmade Monday’

Hope you’ve all had a lovely Sunday. My evening will consist of doing very little, perhaps some knitting, perhaps a glass of red wine, sat on the sofa.

(Pssssst. I’m hosting a fab giveaway at the moment for some gorgeous wool head over here to take part! xx)

snow

We had some snow! A tiny, peppering, nothing much but enough for ‘T’ to look out of the window, clench her fists in excitement and chant ‘snow!!, snow!!’ over and over! I loved how excited she was. Whilst still in our pyjamas we added wooly hats, coats and wellies and went out in the garden to see it – she was excited to touch it and there were tears when we had to come back in (I think the neighbours think i;m crazy sometimes!)

Later on in the morning I popped to my good friends house in a neighbouring village and there was more snow there, so here are some snowy pictures. I’m really hoping for some deep, thick, fluffy snow – something that ‘T’ can actually play with and touch and experience before we leave for sunnier places.

 

PS. It’s Sunday again, so that means it’s Handmade Monday again over at 1st Unique Gifts – head over there for a nosey at some creative blogs, plus it’s been going for a whole year!! yippee!!

Dolly walks

A recent favourite activity for little ‘T’ is simply taking Dolly for a walk in her pushchair. I picked the dolly up at a charity store and the pushchair was from freecycle so they are perfect for taking out and about without worrying too much about them getting grubby.

We walk to a park nearby us sometimes, it only takes about 5 minutes if you walk at an average pace but it’s an hour round trip with Dolly in the pushchair.

T loves to show the ducks to the Dolly and last week she saw a snail, stopped and got Dolly out of the pram and said ‘oook Dolly…..nail!’. Oh that melted my heart!!

Sometimes it’s just the simple things that are the most interesting for these little ones and just stopping to look at asnail and go for a walk is so enjoyable for ‘T’, which makes it enjoyable for me too

Along the process

We had to go for our medical checks this week for our Australian Visa application. Thethe four of us (my step-son included) had to do a 4 hour round trip and each have numerous tests including x-rays and blood tests plus lots of measuring, weighing, checking, sounding, questioning, and just abaout everything else! It was a long morning as T has still been awake every night ( I lost count after 13 times of going in to ‘re-settle’ her last night – I’m more than tired these days!

Once home and after T had caught up on some sleep we decided that some fresh air and a walk would do us all good.

And it did!!

The process is coming along, just a few more checks and paperwork things to do and we are so close to this visa arriving. EEEEEKK!!

 

Fun at the fairground

It’s that time of year again when the fairground comes to visit our town. I love going to the fair and seeing all the lights, soaking up the atmosphere, it’s even more fun this year now that ‘T’ can come along. I went every year when I was little, I remember having to dress up really warm and getting nervous and excited at the same time about going on some for the rides. I used to take my nieces every year when they were younger and lived nearby, and we used to take my step-son too but he’s too grown-up to be taken to the fair by us now!

One of the most sepctacular fairgrounds I have ever been to has to be at Luna Park – right beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia :

Here’s another fairground photograph I took when my husband and I went to London one Christmas to visit family, I remember it being absolutely freezing that day!:

And here are some photos of the fairground taken yesterday, I’ll treasure the moments and memories from this visit, little T’s face melted my heart when I saw how excited she got about looking at all the lights, stopping every now and then to stare and have a little dance.

We took on her one ride which was a merry-go-round and she sat on the boat and got excited every time we saw Daddy. I’ll savour this lovely evening.

Wooden play clips and making an indoor tent

I have been looking for some wooden play clips for a while and my friend suggested I look on Etsy for some (why oh why didn;t I think of that myself?!) Anyway – I found some from ‘Birch Leaf Designs’ and they are fantastic! The service was great and they arrived in no time at all.

Here are some photos of our first indoor tent made with the clips:

I also purchased another little something from the same store but that’s hidden away for Christmas!

Missing Molly…….

It’s over a year since we said goodbye to our gorgeous, funny-looking, unique, adorable, cheeky, lively dog Molly. I have LOVED bulldogs for ages though know their health problems with breathing and limbs and hate how unfair this is on them, so I did loads of research over a few years and finally we found the right dog for us – an American bulldog x English bulldog. Lovely tempermant, great with children, caring, affectionate, no health problems and a great companion. Perfect.

We decided to get a puppy before having a baby so that we would have a dog for our baby to grow up with, once we had got through the puppy training classes, schooling, adolescent years and all the hard work, little ‘T’ came along and all was good, we started the process of the visa for Australia and then it came down to gettting quotes for getting Molly transported to Australia.

When quote after quote came back with ‘unable to accept any type of bulldog’ came back I was heartbroken. At this stage we were unable to even tell everyone our reasons why we started looking for a new home for our goegeous girl as we didn’t want to tell everyone our Australia plans until we were really sure – I’m sure that everyone thought we couldn’t cope with a newborn baby and a dog which just made it all feel even worse. Anyway, we found a lovely home for her in the end, I couldn’t believe we were saying goodbye to her so soon and I was SO devastated to say goodbye to her but I know she is well cared for now.

Anyway, it felt wrong that all this time she has had no place in this blog space since she meant so much to me!

Bye Molly, so sorry for giving you a confusing start to your life, miss you so loads xx