This weekends (Christmas!) finds.

It has become our Saturday morning routine and somehow LV gets just as excited as I do about hitting the thrift shops. It might be the promise of a visit to Cafe Nero at the end of the run of shops or it might be that she simply enjoys spending quality time with her thrift obsessed mother (unlikely), who knows, but it works.

Here's what we picked up:

Delightfully decorative bows for the tree.

Pink baubles.

A fab vase.

We also managed to find some coloured tree lights for £3, a hanging glass Christmas picture and a vtec laptop for LV....success.

I think this will be our last session before Christmas, the next few weekends are booked up with birthday and Christmas parties (horay!), but this assumes I can stay away.

xo.

Train etiquette part deux.

Following on from my post on train etiquette here I genuinely thought that I'd covered almost every eventuality and addressed the best approach to selecting the most appropriate carriage/seat etc. You might even think that I'd mastered the art of sensible seat selection? well, if this afternoon's journey was anything to go by it's essential that you do not follow my lead.

As I trudged past the carriages closet to the station, with a smirk on my face armed with the assumption that most people are lazy and board the train at the nearest carriage, imagine my shock as I stepped on to the last carriage to discover it was nearly full! Very nearly, but not quite, so I positioned myself in one of the two vacant spaces, the smugness rising again as I celebrated the fact that I had two spaces to myself. My joy was short-lived as a massive man with both a noisy newspaper and an imaginary friend (he was chatting away to himself) clunked down next to me. Great, not only was he massive (code for arm rest stealer) he was deranged and I was about to spend the next 2 hours fearing for my life. Thankfully it turned out he wasn't deranged and instead had one of those ear piece things in so I revelled in the fact I was not about to be killed.

My delight did not last long, he continued to chatter away to what must have been his wife/mistress (he wore a ring but you can never be too sure) in what I can only assume he thought was a whisper. A whisper it was not and when the conversation took a turn I can only describe as pornographic I had to implement my best skills of distraction, I was already trying to compose a power point presentation but I had to start singing in my head as I tried to  block out his attempted hushed chat which seemed to be focused around the topic of spanking! Yup. Freaked out I continued to type away as he continued to hit patch of no reception, call back, lose connection, call back, lose reception...for 2 hours!

The moral of this story is if you see me on a train, do not sit near me, I attract a peculiar sort. I didn't move because there was nowhere else to sit, otherwise I would have definitely employed that tactic....I cannot promise that this is the end of my train tales as for the next two weeks I'm up and down the country like a yo yo so watch this space.

In summary:
When the person sat next to you starts talking filth, to you or even on the phone...move...unless you need to work and there's nowhere else to sit in which case you could politely ask that they stop talking filth but be prepared that they might try and kill you. Hopefully not, but there's always a risk.

xo.

Christmas Day outfits?

We have always made a big deal about dressing up all jazzy for Christmas day, when I was little it would be a 'flippy' dress (I wonder where LV's obsession comes from?!)' but now I get to find swish outfits for the both of us..horay!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

1. Warehouse Top £45.

2. Warehouse Dress £45

3. Reiss Blouse £110

4. Monsoon  Top £38

5. Monsoon Dress £65

My faves are 1 (for Christmas day), 4 (for Christmas eve) and 5, (I'll find a reason).

LV's top 5 coming soon.

xo.

.

Say what LV?

On the phone to my mum:

LV: Nanny, why has tinkerbell got meatballs on her feet?

Queue hysterical laughter from me, my mum rolled with it and focused on meatballs as a topic for further conversation.

xo.

We came, we baked, we conquered.

Mixed spice biscuits were on today's agenda and we had a real hoot making these bad boys. They tasted great, but when we do them again we'll bake them for 15-20 mins rather than 30mins...there's potential for tooth cracking with these puppies.

We used:

350g plain flour

100g unsalted butter

150g soft brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

2. Add the egg and syrup, combine.

3 Sift the flour, cinnamon and mixed spice into the wet ingredients slowly and fold.

4. Roll out on a floured board and have a little helper use their cute cutters to make fab biscuits.

5. Bake at 140 degrees on a tray lined with greaseproof paper for 30mins.

6. Eat when warm to avoid a trip to the dentist....or dip in tea,.....or cook for less time.

xo.

Christmas thrifting.

LV slept in this morning, I didn't hear the sweet, delicate sound of her calling 'MUMMMMM...MUMMMM...MUMMY, MUMMY, MUMMMMMMYYYYYYY' until 7am. Every morning I get that sick feeling that I used to get when my mum and dad used to wake us in the night to get us in the car to go on holiday, then it was a bit queasy and lots of excitement, now it's just a lot queasy. Anyway, we got up and prepped for a morning of our (my) most favourite hobby...thrifting, yay. Today I found what might just be my most favourite find of all time (apart from the working typewriter), 5 beautiful Vintage Christmas Baubles! Horay.

We just need a festive white tree to hang them on...(I'm still working on this with Rob...he has suggested we spray paint the tree we have white instead of buying one...err no thanks!)

A wise old owl for LV's collection.

A lovely wicker magazine rack.

And a fairy costume.

I'm pleased, in fact I'm ecstatic about the baubles. So much so that I'm wondering whether we should decorate for Christmas next weekend.....may the campaign (to convince Rob that it's not too soon) commence, I might pop Elf on, soften him up.

xo.

Empty threats part 2: The Meltdown.

Following a decision to start following through on our threats/topics for negotiation in order to try and raise a well disciplined, polite, friendly child this week has been a struggle...in fact, it's been a total nightmare. I've arrived at nursery to collect LV every evening this week with high hopes that magically her tantrums and lack of listening would have improved, but unforuntately this was not the case and on Wednesday night we experienced what can only be described as a meltdown. On Wednesday night I arrived to collect LV, as I reached the top of the stairs leading to her class, she was there to greet me with words no tired mother wants to hear:
LV 'I'm in trouble, I've been told off, I've not been very kind'
Me 'Oh dear, what's happened?'
LV 'scissors, Charlotte'
Naturally my first thought is 'Oh my Christ she's stabbed Charlotte'...thankfully I was wrong.
LV 'I chopped her hair'
Me 'Oh my goodness LV you should never chop peoples hair!'
LV 'Even at hairdressers mummy'
Me 'ummmm well, hairdressers can, but not children, I'm really sad about this LV'
LV 'ok'
Me 'Well, I think we'll have to get home and talk to daddy about this'
LV 'yep'
It transpired that LV and her friend Charlotte had attempted to cut each others hair, luckily the scissors were too blunt to cut their hair. phew. So we arrive home.
LV 'I'll have some beans and toast please'
Me 'you can have a piece of toast but no beans tonight LV, I need to see some nice behaviour from you before you get to enjoy nice food' (Like beans are a major treat! LV has a snack after nursery, she has her dinner there, I'm not withholding food when she's genuinely hungry...I'm not evil)
LV 'I want beans'
Me 'I said no'
Queue the most dramatic meltown we've ever seen...kicking, screaming, flailing, wailing, shouting, crying, hitting....we were stunned into silence. This was a new experience. She threw her piece of toast across the room...I collected it up and put it into the bin (cringing in anticipation of her reaction)..she didn't disappoint. More flailing, wailing and writhing around on the floor. This lasted half an hour and then she gave up, she apologised and asked to go to bed. We followed shortly after exhausted by the meltdown, but I think we made some progress. She has behaved a lot better the last few days and has been on her best behaviour...hmmmm surely one meltdown can't be it?! I'll keep you posted.

Queen of the meltdown : Master of disguise.

xo.