Attic24

Reasons to be Cheerful # 16 :: Mummy Sweets

I love sweets. I mean, I really, really love them. I love pretty much all sweets with the exception of liquorice which is the devils work.
I love the colours, the flavours, the ritual of choosing and buying, and the pleasure of owning a bag all-to-myself :: such acute reminders of childhood.

Yesterday I was in Marks and Spencers buying a jar of pickle (about all I can afford in M&S) and when queuing at the checkout I was suddenly overcome with a huge, undeniable need for some of these sweets. There were others that might have tempted me, but these Fruit Sherbets looked so summery and pretty and fruity that before I could ponder the why's and wherefore's, they had jumped off the hook and into my hand.

And oh! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!! They are delicious! SO fruity! And so fizzy too! I tried all five flavours and have to tell you that the blackcurrant comes out tops.

I have to confess that buying these sweets did make me feel a weeny bit guilty. It's a bit of an indulgence buying a whole packet of sweets without the intention of sharing a single one with anyone. They are mine all mine.
The Little People gazed longingly at this bowl and asked in polite, hopeful voices if they might try one.
No, I'm very sorry but you may not.
They are far too big for Little Mouths, you may choke.
And besides, they are mine-all-mine.
They are Mummy Sweets.

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Reasons to be Cheerful # 15 :: Amaryllis

I am loving the whole indoor bulb growing thing right now. The hyacinths I had growing indoors before Christmas were such little pleasure-providers, so cheery and undemanding and giving. Day after day they grew and grew until the flowers opened and they bloomed their little bulby socks off. I started out with a bowl of white ones and when they were finished I replaced them with some blue ones, and both were truly wonderful to have in the house.

Last week, during that lull of time between Christmas and New Year, when I was in the grips of feeling like pants, I suddenly really felt the need to re-connect with normal life. So after being pyjamaed and sofa ridden for quite a few days I suddenly decided I had to get dressed and make a rather slow and wobbly walk down along the canal to the shops. I was on my own, and it was madness really, because the whole trip (which lasted less than an hour) left me feeling like I'd been run over by a bus.

But anyhow, the best thing about that trip was that I came home with three bulbs. Yes, it has to be said, I do know how to really let rip when I go to the shops. I had gone in to my local co-op to buy myself some lemons and I nearly tripped over this big stack of bulbs-in-boxes displayed near the door. They were obviously left over from the pre Christmas gift buying frenzy and each box contained a bulb (obviously), a suitably sized pot and a bag of compost. For the meager sum of £1.96. Yes! I know! Less than two pounds for a box of potential living gorgeousness!! So into my shopping basket went four lemons and three varieties of Amaryllis bulbs.

There is something so remarkable about planting these dry, brown, wizened things into a pot of dry, brown earth and knowing that with the right care and attention (basically warmth, light  and a little tepid water) the miracle of growth will happen. Most years I grow these beautiful flowers and they never fail to amaze me. I almost feel myself willing them to grow, I become so desperate for that first sighting of a green shoot poking out of the dry brown.

Bulbs represent such Hope and Promise don't you think? I'm really looking forward to sharing these with you as they grow and bloom, it seems such a Good Thing to look forward to during these rather cold dreary winter months.

Reasons to be Cheerful #14 :: Hyacinths

I bought these hyacinths six days ago when I spotted them in the supermarket for two pounds.
Three bulbs, nestling in cosy green moss and potted up in an unattractive brown plastic pot.
In my mind, I could immediately picture them hoiked out of the unattractive brown plastic pot and popped into an old Cornishware bowl that I bought last month, also for a couple of pounds. Could see the potential for a Bowl of Cheerfulness.

I deliberated for an unspeakable amount of time over which colour bulbs to go for. Should I choose pink, blue or white? Blue, pink or white? Pink? Hmm no, maybe too old-ladyish. Blue? Hmm no, not blue enough, too inspid. White? Hmm, yes, I think I will do something very unusual for me and go for a non-colour. So white it shall be.

I love the speed at which indoor bulbs grow. Feel that if I sit and stare at them intently enough I will actually be able to observe growth.
See today, after six days indoors how they are already opening up, spreading their glossy green leaves?

I love the anticipation here, the watching, the waiting, the promise of the flowers to come.
That scent which I know will fill the room.

It has to be said, J hates hyacinths. In fact he pretty much hates all scented flowers with perhaps the exception of old fashioned roses. He said some very unsavoury things about my beloved sweet peas in the summer, with reference to old ladies underwear.

He will not be looking forward to these flowers opening.
He will curse them every time he walks into the room.
But truthfully, as much as I love and adore my husband, I care not that his nose will be offended.
I am looking forward to them. Very much.

This morning I have been sitting in my armchair in the light of the bay window, making and photographing crochet flowers. The pattern will come tomorrow.
I have to say I was/am so thrilled with the response to my shared crochet patterns last week. Was thrilled to bits to find myself on the Craftzine blog (many thanks to Rachel of One Pretty Thing also for featuring the hexagons), and to find this today over at Flickr.

Wonderful. You are all wonderful.
Thankyou, thankyou, I am going to go and eat lunch now, see you tomorrow

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Reasons to be Cheerful #13 :: Beaded Jewels

I absolutely adore beady jewellery, and guess what I do have quite a few beady necklaces. If you look back through my reasons-to-be-cheerful posts, then you will see that #7 was also a beady necklace.
For me, coloured beads and cheerfulness go hand in hand.

I've been doing the rounds of the town's charity shops this week, and spotted this fabulous necklace in the British Heart Foundation. Its not thrifted :: the BHF does sell various new items, including a small range of interesting jewellery.

I love the fact that the beads look so much like sweets, and even though they're made of plastic I just couldn't resist it's charms. True, I much prefer glass beads, like prefering wool/cotton yarn to acrylic,  but hey-ho, I made an exception for this beauty.

Yes, I think I can bring myself to wear plastic beads if they look like this, and for the charming price of £4.99, well, I am quite smitten.

At the same time as buying the necklace, I also spotted this beaded ring.
Its a fantastic construction of elastic thread and tiny beads, topped with an array of semi-precious stones.

I absolutely love it to bits.
Was it Costly?
Nah, less than two pounds.

I had to show you this lovely ring  as it looks on my finger, but my goodness, when I took the photograph and saw the macro close-up of my own hand, I was totally horrified.
The beautiful ring looked like it was on the finger of your great-great-granny.
Honestly, my hands look ancient :: lined and dry and wrinkly.
My God, I have wrinkly hands, it's quite a shock.

I quickly had to go search out my emergency Winter-months Hand Rescue Treatment.
Had to lather my hands up before I could take a half-way decent picture.
Still, cheerfulness and all that, not letting the state of my hands drag me down.

Reasons to be Cheerful #12 :: Salad days

I adore salad and we eat it with most meals during the Spring and Summer months. Through persistence and over-exposure we have successfully managed to get the Little People to love this kind of salad, which pleases me greatly.
Our greens of choice are lambs lettuce or baby spinach :: the Little People happily eat these leaves, but still spit out lettuce/watercress/rocket (we need to keep at them with these). Add to the leaves some sweet cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, red onion and cubes of feta cheese and mix. Sometimes on very lazy Salady days I'll add in baby new potatoes and some shredded cooked chicken or smoked mackerel, a simple honey/mustard vinaigrette and it becomes a complete meal in a bowl.

I love the ease of it, a bit of chopping and tossing of ingredients with a homemade dressing and plenty of seasoning and voila! The best fast food. 

Reasons to be Cheerful #11 :: Dishwasher

Ahh look, I have found a use for my lovely Greengate tin. I'm using it in the kitchen to keep my dishwasher tablets in. Yes, you heard right, DISHWASHER tablets. Oh yes, joy of joys and one whoppingly huge reason to be exceptionally cheerful around here :: I am now the proud owner of a Bosch Exccel Express SGS56E12GB. And its MAAARvelous I tell you!! Yes according to the blurb on the website, its designed to give me "Maxx Freedom Performance". And furthermore (and I quote)...

"...Bosch dishwashers  programmes and features are specifically designed to make your day easier, to free up your precious time while taking complete care of your most delicate items such as glass and china. We deliver outstanding performance time after time so you can rest easy in the knowledge that facing a pile of dirty dishes is one chore you no longer have to concern yourself with."

Bravo!!

I had been moaning for quite some time about a) the state of my poor hands (I hate using washing up gloves) and b) the amount of time I seemed to be spending at the kitchen sink these days. Our kitchen is very small and the actual available worktop space is miniscule. Therefore it did peeve me greatly to have a large part of miniscule worktop taken up by accumulating piles of dirty dishes throughout the day.
I can't tell you how lovely it is now to be able to put dirty stuff out of sight, and not to have to wash up thirty two times a day. I mean, I do still have to wash some things as our current saucepans don't like dishwahsers, but it's a quick five minute job now instead of a continuous chore.

But I think the best thing about all this is the way in which my new White Appliance actually materialised. It was bought for me as a complete surprise by my wondrous husband and installed by my lovely father-in-law (he is as good at plumbing as he is with wood and scary tools) whilst I was out for the day. I had no idea it was coming. When I walked into our (miniscule) kitchen that evening and saw it, I was overwhelmed with gratitude not only for the machine itself but for J who had gone all out to do this for me as a surprise. Yes OK I admit I often yelled and growled at the dirty dishes and was quite vocal about the fact that I was feeling peeved with the whole small-kitchen-dirty-stuff thing. But I kind of thought that maybe a dishwasher was asking a bit too much (cor, they're not cheap are they?). So I was really genuinely surprised that my moans had been heard, and I remain Thankful each day for such marvelous machinery and Maxx Freedom Performance.
It has transformed my daily life, honestly, I am almost as much in love with this hunk of white machinery as I am with Asparagus. Almost.

Reasons to be Cheerful #9+10

Ahhhhhhhhh I have loved doing these Cheerful posts, loved thinking about it and collecting the photographs together. Really I could go on and on with it, could run away with the whole idea of every day being a reason to celebrate something cheerful. I could rename my blog Cheerfulness24...

So many things each day catch my attention and make me glad and grateful and thankful for this happy life of mine. Seeing, feeling, living, loving it all (well mostly loving it all :: Little Lady has not been well this week and I can't say I've been very cheerful about diarrhoea and pooy pants).
Hmmm well moving swiftly onwards, here are the last couple of photos from the Cheerful stash :: dolly mixtures and sea glass. It'll be Mugs tomorrow, in case you had looked in here expecting Muggy pictures.

Dolly Mixtures :: I had these sweets in the house a few weeks ago when I was decorating buns for Little Lady's birthday, and I just love the look of them. According to this brilliant website, dolly mixtures have been around since the 1920's, that's quite hard to get my head round actually, that they are so old! They're very pretty and sweet-looking aren't they, and so lovingly, nostalgically remembered from my own childhood when you still bought sweets by the quarter-pound in a paper bag.

 

And on the subject of nostalgic childhood, isn't sea glass just the stuff of perfect childhood holidays? Hmm yes, and adult ones too come to think about it, I am addicted to searching for these jewels, I cannot help myself. I have been collecting sea-washed glass for as long as I can remember. I have this big glass jar full of it (and see a few prized, sea-washed marbles too) and I never come back from a visit to the coast without a few pieces in my pocket. To me it captures the essence of happy seaside holidays :: it's a jar of sea-coloured memories and it never, ever fails to please me.

 So imagine my absolute joy when I discovered these braclets a few years ago...they are not technically speaking made of sea glass but they look very much like it don't they? They are in fact ingeniously made from recycled glass bottles by a small company down in Cornwall called Greenglass. I just love this jewellery (I have a necklace too) and it attracts a lot of attention, especially from the Little People. And not just my Little People either, several of my friends' children love these bracelets when I wear them and beg to try them on, I think they are fascinated by the fact that the beads are made of glass which is usually a material out of bounds for children.

Ahhh roll on August, we have a holiday cottage booked here and the teeny-tiny beach down at the harbour is a great hunting ground for sea glass jewels. Bring it on.

Reasons to be Cheerful #8 :: tea towels

I adore household textiles. I love tea towels and table cloths, runners and napkins. I love the texture and weight of this particular type of cotton and the fact that they get better the more you use and wash them. They bring colour and pattern into my kitchen every single day and make me feel cheery.

Very occasionally at weekends I am given special permission to abandon my duties as wife and mother and skip off to partake in some retail therapy. This usually involves a train or car journey to a city, any place with department stores or Large Shops big enough to contain kitchen departments. You see, when I go shopping I don't go for clothes. Or shoes. Or makeup. I go for household things. Tea towels/tablecloths are my favourites, closely followed by mugs. I have lots of both, I might show you my mugs tomorrow (ooo-er, bet the anticipation is killing you?!)

Incidentally, my above tea towel stash is stacked on a wobbly, sloping, broken kitchen shelf which is a source of much annoyance :: the tea towels frequently slide off onto the floor, along with my red spotty cake tin. The sound of a cake tin landing on the floor is actually quite loud and startling. It makes one jump in ones skin. The tea towels land quietly but are ten times more irritating as re-folding and re-stacking is required. There is lots of cursing when this happens, most especially when it happens to J. But alas it's not quite irtitating enough to get him to tackle the fixing of the shelf. He's allergic to DIY, he would rather fold tea towels and curse.

 

Reasons to be Cheerful #7 :: beady necklace

I bought myself this little necklace when I visited the Country Living fair in March. The beads are handmade Venetian glass and as soon as I clapped eyes on it I loved it very much. No two necklaces were the same as as all the beads are handmade and randomly strung, which pleases me no end. And yes don't you all  just know how much I love these jewel-bright colours, don't you think it's so very me?! It makes me really happy to wear this necklace (I'm wearing it now in fact) and I often get complimented on it. 

I would so love to give credit to the person/company I bought it from but it was one of those times when I saw/handled and purchased in ooooh about 47 seconds flat, paying no attention whatsoever to any names, only my desire to own this little beady treasure.

Reasons to be Cheerful #6 :: eggs

Sunday morning breakfast made for me by J is nearly always an egg. Just the one, usually beautifully poached to perfection with the yolk oooooooozing out across the toast, just the way I like it.
J stops at a farm on his way home from work and puts £1 in the honesty box in exchange for a box of six eggy beauties. They are truly free range (the chooks have free run of the farm) and also organic. I tell you, I nearly hyperventilated with excitement when he opened this weeks box, they are so beautiful, don't you agree?! The deliciously coloured pale blue one, the dinky little dark brown speckled one.

And oh my :: the taste of them is divine. I dearly wanted to photograph my breakfast just to show you the rich yellowy/orange colour of the yolks, but alas I could not wait to eat. But believe me when I say these little beauties are the yummiest-scrummiest!