How to buy a present for a Virgo

It was my birthday yesterday and I feel fortunate that I have lovely and generous family and friends who bought me such lovely presents.

I reckon that I'm easy to buy for because I love books and I can't afford to buy them for myself. I really look forward to getting one for my birthday and these ones about sum me up perfectly.

Gardening at Longmeadow by Monty Don. Gardener's World is an addiction for me. Woe betide anyone who tries to speak while it's on! Monty is now using his lovely garden at Longmeadow on the programme and this book charts the history and the making of it.

The Intolerant Gourmet by Pippa Kendrick. Not a book I'd heard of before but this is a perfect cookery book for Virgos. It combines the love of cooking with the likelihood of food intolerance (we're a sensitive sign). Authored by the friend of the mother of a friend of my sister's. Some delicious looking recipes lurk within.

Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection by Aimee Ray. Over 400 easy embroidery designs. I've recently rediscovered hand embroidery (and R8 is discovering it along with me). Full of useful techniques and inspirational designs.

Edible Seashore (River Cottage Handbook No. 5) by John Wright. I've hoped to have this book for AGES (thank you Lins!!) and it's every bit as lovely as I'd hoped. I spent much of my childhood rootling around the shores of Pembrokeshire in amongst the seaweed and shellfish without really knowing what much of it was. (I have happy memories of hours spent popping bladderwrack, a bit like the pleasure of popping bubble wrap.) I love hunting out crabs and anemones in rock pools. This book is what to find to cook and eat along with plans for lobster pots and shrimping nets. I'm reading this one first!

Thorntons chocolates. Two boxes. I love chocolate and there's something special about a layer of individual chocolates in a box. It says BIRTHDAY to me. Yum.

Google Nexus 7. Thank you to everyone who contributed so generously to the buying of this. Virgos love gadgets (think fellow Virgo Stephen Fry). This is a seven inch tablet - Kindle-sized but like an iPad. Clever, clever, clever. I switched it on, it politely asked for the wifi password and then it introduced itself to the PC and my android smartphone. It's got a Kindle app on it (the first thing I added!) so I've got my happy snout sniffling about in the Kindle store like a truffle pig.

Montezuma's dark chocolate with orange and geranium. Smooth, dark and delicious. The best chocolate.

Not pictured (because I was wearing it and I forgot). Diaphanous web-like scarf in gorgeous jewel-coloured yarn which can only have been crocheted  by an especially talented spider.

Thank you to everyone for all of my lovely presents!

Yesterday we went to see the film Brave, a brilliant animated Disney film set in Scotland and featuring the lovely Angus, my new screen crush.

*SIGH* Isn't he gorgeous?! I think I might have to save up for an Angus!

The butterfly summer

One of our butterflies.

If this summer was a novel I'd call it The Butterfly Summer. This is the year we raised butterflies, ten Painted Ladies, which arrived in a pot as teeny tiny caterpillars, sat on the coffee table on their sugar substrate getting bigger, turned into chrysalids and then hatched into pretty fluttery butterflies.

We kept them in for three days, waiting for a gap in the rain, and then released them a week ago, watching delighted as, one by one, they flew out of the pop-up butterfly house and into the garden. Mostly they alighted on the buddleia, some flew around in a big circle and landed on one of us, others flew straight upwards into the topmost branches of one of our trees.

I've been spotting them for the past week, mostly refuelling on the buddliea. I'm very proud of our butterfly 'babies' but missed having them to care for so immediately another batch of baby butterflies was ordered. This time we have little tortoiseshell caterpillars, almost too tiny to see and they're getting bigger on a diet of fresh nettles.

In between rearing butterflies we've had an austere time as we're saving to go to Mull in October. There have been sleepovers, hot tub days for H10 and R8, riding Itsy, a trip to the County Show (we got soaked), body boarding at the beach and lovely giggly friends over.

The Millennium Stadium, Cardiff.

In the midst of all this the Olympics happened in London and were wonderful. Brian and I got tickets for the football quarter finals at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, which happened to be GB v Korea. GB did what British teams usually do at that stage and lost after a penalty shoot out but it was all very exciting and I really 'got' football having seen it live. The atmosphere in the stadium was like a rock concert - the roof was closed to keep the rain out which made it even more concert-like. We Mexican waved, we batted around big Olympic themed beach balls and we moved a huge flag. Crowds are funny, organic things and it was good fun to be part of such a big one, until it was time to queue for the park and ride buses of course! Ah well, it was an experience!

Wow Mummy, who painted that!?

I mentioned in a bog a few weeks ago (Lovely things) that I'd been offered the chance to try out something from Snapfish and then review it on my blog.

Snapfish kindly gave me £35 of account credit and there then followed a period of delicious agony while I sorted through my photographs to find a suitable image. I decided to go for a canvas print as it's one of the things I have yet to try . In the past I've bought a mug; a big posh photobook; a smaller photobook and a calendar - and I've always been very impressed with the quality of the items and the service I've received.

In fact one of the photobooks, a present for my mother-in-law, got lost in the post and Snapfish replaced it immediately and with a huge apology. They also rescued me last year when I accidentally deleted my July 2011 pictures from my computer. I'd used Snapfish to make a calender at Christmas and all of my prints were safely stored on the site. (I was so relieved, if it was possible to hug a website, I'd have hugged it.)

Here's one I made earlier.

Anyway I finally settled on an picture of H10 and R8 that I took of them paddling at Newquay. I'd previously manipulated it (using a free trial of Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 that I decided not to buy because it was too good and I was too obsessed with it!). It looked (on my computer screen) like a painting rather than a photograph and I was quite pleased with it.

Then we all rushed off on holiday to Devon and I rather forgot about my Snapfish order. When we arrived home there was a big parcel waiting. Inside was the 16"x12" photo canvas.

"Wow Mummy," said H10, awed, "who painted that!?"

It looks and feels like a painting, like proper art. We were all gobsmacked and delighted. It remains to be hung on the wall, once we have redecorated.

It's worth registering with Snapfish - they offer free prints for every newly registered customer - it's also a useful back-up store for all your most precious photos (as I found out!). You can connect to your pictures on Facebook as well as uploading from your computer. There are usually offers at Christmas too which I find useful for presents. Oh and I can recommend the canvas prints!

Disclosure: Thank you to Kristina of Snapfish for giving me £35 account credit and free postage in return for this blog post.

Sun! Sun! Sun!

Less manic today - Brian's on holiday and sharing the load. I could list, but - *yawn* - enough. The sun shone, the Pimms was poured. It's summer and life is great.

Garlic - cleaned and in the polytunnel to finish drying.

Cucumbers - easy, reliable, I adore.

Chamomile - my favourite flower, seeds freely, divine.

The first day of the summer holidays...

The first day of the summer holidays went something like this:

Make coffee; feed dogs; eat breakfast; load dishwasher; administer ointment to Brian's horsefly bite; hang out washing; recapture escaped schnauzer; apply sympathy and throat lozenges to H10 who has stinking grumpy cold; reload washing machine; water polytunnel; plant out bedding plants into pots; water pots; hang out hanging basket while the weather is actually good enough for it to go out; consider family trip out; examine finances, change mind;

drink coffee;

assist with H10 riding Itsy; apply bridle to Bullseye who has never worn one before; apply reassuring pats to scaredy Bullseye; apply roller and saddle pad to same pony; apply cuddles to ditto for being a brave boy; wave at friendly postman; open post which includes two cartons each containing five live painted lady butterfly caterpillars for summer holiday butterfly hatching project (inspired by Zoe Lynch whose caterpillars are a bit posher than ours - click link to see);

eat lunch; listen to German Grand Prix qualifying on the radio (as will not pay evil Sky for live TV coverage); cuddle schnauzer;

wave Brian off to work with fond kick kiss; find photography challenge for H10 and R8 (via my 'for my daughters' board on Pinterest); send them off on nature scavenger hunt; hang out second load of washing; recapture escaped schnauzer; bring dry towels in; reload washing machine; water third and final batch of bean seeds (two previous lots failed to germinate); take cuttings of broad-leaved thyme for Lins and Alex; admire results of scavenger hunt; take silly photographs of both scavenger hunters;

pause to contemplate next sewing project while eating Tunnock's teacake; take haynet to dieting fat ponies; take supplementary food to elderly skinny pony; jump up and down like a loony to attract pony's attention (she's deaf); supervise H10 applying green oils to pony's horse fly bite while dodging flying mouthfuls of horse food; feed the rest of the Tunnock's teacakes to grateful offspring; recapture escaped schnauzer;

drink coffee;

read Telegraph online; hand out pens, paper, card, pencils and scissors to craft-mad offspring; take paracetamol for thumping headache; hand out glue and coloured paper to crafting offspring; consider taking headache off to bed for sneaky nap; foiled by crafting offspring needing help to find scissors (that they already had);

put kettle on for another coffee while ignoring pleading looks from schnauzer; gaze at Pinterest while cute annoying schnauzer tugs at sleeve of t-shirt; forget coffee but hurriedly marinate chicken in paprika and lime for fajitas; give in to canine pleas and take for walk; retrieve dried washing and hang out final load accompanied by the music of caged and furious schnauzer;

wander aimlessly round garden enjoying unusual sunshine; water dry bits of polytunnel; scoff raspberries straight off the canes; harvest salad to go in fajitas; return to house, release and feed hungry schnauzer and his labrador side-kick; cook and eat fajitas with offspring; switch on Indiana Jones film; fall gratefully into glass of Sauvignon Blanc;


remember ponies need putting back out to the field, put down wine and do so; feed guinea pigs and shut them up for the night; close polytunnel; clear up kitchen and load dishwasher; nag children to go to bed, many times; succeed; wait while they phone Daddy at work to say goodnight; eventually escape back downstairs; trip over pupsidedown schnauzer; head back outside in the twilight to shut up roosted hens; remember there's a glass of wine somewhere; locate it on coffee table; switch on telly; sink into sofa clutching wine; think how I've wasted another day not getting much done; wish I had someone to talk to; drown sorrows in wine; fall inelegantly asleep on sofa clutching TV remote.

Even the garlic has gone rusty...

I'm dashing about (well 'dashing' might be an exaggeration!) from task to task depending on whether the wet stuff is falling from the sky or not.

Think of one of those weather things - was there one in Chigley or was it Trumpton? - where the little people trundle out according to the weather conditions. Rain will see me indoors with the sewing machine or "cleaning" (on Facebook?!); the slightest hint of fine weather and I'm out in the garden raging at the waist height couch grass. Is it just here or is the couch really tall this year? My garden is obliterated. I'm considering violence.

Still more black currants yet to ripen.

In the meantime, while thinking murderous thoughts towards aforementioned invasive grass, I have harvested all the garlic (which had rust - of course it would in this weather), and picked the first two cucumbers (so reliable) and the raspberries, red currants, pink gooseberries and black currants. There isn't quite enough for individual varieties of jam, so I think a mixed berry conserve beckons this year.

Rose 'Grace'

School is almost out - R8 says she has been on a marathon DVD-watching exercise for what seems like the past three weeks, while H10 claims to have been doing nothing but school work. A little of both is probably nearest the truth. They both had excellent reports and all - teachers too - deserve a bit of fun in the final few days of the school year.

Rusty garlic drying on the empty runner bean bed.

They've both got end-of-term-itis now though. The long summer holidays are nearly upon us and we have Big Plans. Lists have been made and requests have been requested.

We have a trip to Devon - first and foremost and most importantly -  to see lovely friends. Then we have free swimming to take advantage of and Tesco Days Out tokens carefully squirrelled away for Folly Farm trips. There are rock pools to be examined, walks to walk and hills to climb. There's the small matter of the Olympics too, with footie tickets for us grown-ups and the excitement of the horse events on TV for the pony-mad offspring.

I'm on a running hiatus at the moment, with three months to go to the the Big Day (Cardiff Half Marathon). Fatigue had set in along with torpor and lack of energy. Online wisdom suggested a rest so I've prescribed myself two weeks off before the final push to the start line. My long Sunday run is already up to 10+ miles so it's only another 3.1 on top of that to do. The rest of the training now is for speed and vanity but in the long run it's the taking part that counts. Unlike the Olympians all I have to do to get a nice shiny medal is to take part in my event!

Lovely things

Sometimes amid the general hurly burly of day to day life nice things happen. A couple of lovely things have happened in this past week, so I thought I'd share them with you.

Firstly I had an email from Lizzie at Dorset Cereals telling me that my picture of Bullseye, which had been featured in their simple pleasures gallery, was one of the ten chosen for June to receive a prize of their new breakfast pots.

My prize arrived this morning when we were in the midst of yet another heavy downpour.

They look yummy and very useful portable breakfasts. We all adore Dorset cereals in this household so their arrival was greeted with much excitement.

And this is the picture, that I called 'spring sunshiny whiskers', which also serves to remind me that it doesn't always rain here, even if it seems like it. I took rather a lot of pictures in this session - I adore Bullseye's cute little nose and he's a patient subject!

The next lovely thing to happen arrived also in email form in the shape of an offer, by Katrina of Snapfish, to test out some of the Snapfish products using my photographs and then blog about them here. Of course I was delighted to accept and the image of Bullseye immediately jumped into my mind as a likely project. Perhaps I can have him printed on canvas, made into an acrylic block or printed on to a mug or two?

I need to upload my images to the site and have a really good play with the various options. It's something I will love doing and it will give us a lasting bit of art to hang on the wall. I plan on saving the project for a rainy day, which will more than likely be tomorrow!