Time to diet?!

Got back from work yesterday and rummaged through my fleeces to get some comfy clothes on.

Ok the tracksuit bottoms were perfectly alright, but OMG how much weight had I put on when I put on the top!!! Bit of a struggle but managed to zip it up past my boobs (no small feat) and ok it was a bit clingy but on.

Looked at the sleeve though and I have a bit cut half way round the sleeve.
I was only wearing it in the house so it was fine really. (Although the cream cakes and curry's might need to take a back seat)

It wasn't until I saw this picture I realised why the top was so small.....

I had managed to squeeze myself into an age 13/14 fleece zipper...which I had in fact bought for New Year camping, for Homer to keep him warm round the fire. The cut was where i was going to trim the sleeve down cos he kept tripping over it.

When I got back after the New Year I had washed, folded and put it in the wardrobe....

Homer's not talking to me, he doesn't like his clothes being robbed

And finally (well ok a week later, but I'm not very patient) the Mr Men quilt is finished

I didn't wad/pad the pillowshams as thought they would get washed more often

Week 3 ...Not looking much different

So it has come on in leaps and bounds in the kitchen...

Well no it hasn't really. Still looks the same. A piled up mess

Todays task was to get the rest of the old tiles, grout, paper stripped (woodchip....arghhhhhh....worst stuff ever)

Very impressed with wallpaper stripper though, and managed to use it to scrape the grout off the walls as well (as well as half the plaster but that is a small problem)

As it's been so long since I decided to decorate the kitchen, I have changed my mind a few times (I am a bit prone to this) Over the last 2 years I have had various shelves etc on the 'main wall'. The consequence of this is it now looks like a firing range....

So 300 rawlplugs later it was ready to strip (and I missed another 9 that were further down!)

All stripped and yayyyy there is a surprise- I have found a nice donkeys head in the middle of the wall (you might have to look carefully and have a stupid imagination like me to see him)

So anyway, all walls are now stripped (got a bit fed at one stage scrabbling behind a cupboard. Who is ever going to look behind the bloody cupboard to see if i stripped the paper anyway)

I have also wasted my entire paint fund on matchpots, I am now on the 8th one.

No I don't like any of them either, but I AM NOT HAVING BLOODY MAGNOLIA. I even got the bloke at B & Q to mix me up a dulux one today. It's the worst of the lot, was supposed to be raspberry and looks more fuschia pink (you have been spared that one)

So here we are now...

Ok, so it's not exactly 24 hour makeover but at least I'm ready for the nex t stage. Well I will be if I can work out if a random socket sitting in the middle is actually live, as I need to move it. I might ask Steve the OH, to plug the kettle in and see if anything happens to him

Rest of this week time was wasted making some new curtains (well it didnt have any at all) for the Cabanon Latitude. Easy job you just sew the plastic clips on. Then unpick the plastic clips. Then sew them on again the right way round.

Made another Lucy Goosey (i don't know why either)

and a carrier bag holder in case kitchen gets finished some time this century

Also started the Mr Men Quilt (for Mr Men Tent which I'm not allowed to start painting until I have finished plastering/filling the kitchen)

Couple of squares Friday....

And 30 completed squares later the front is finished (this may have something to do with the slow kitchen makeover - My priorities get a bit jumbled sometimes). Just need to do the wadding, get something to back it with and bind it (actually I don't know how to do any of this but there's bound to be something on You Tube)

Talking of Mr Men, I got trigger happy in the week on ebay and bid on a 36 inch Mr Strong. (as you do)

So after working in Watford Thursday I had a trip to Romford in Essex to pick him up. Sat Nav had never heard of the place I had to go but threw me in the general direction. Drove past some pretty swanky houses and thought 'ooh is going to be quality stuff'....then i found it. Was a perfect match with Nelson Mandela House (only fools and horses). Hid the satnav, laptop, dog chews, old tissues and sweet papers (nothing looked safe in the area) and buzzed the intercom

A little bloke came down with Mr Strong. It was hard to work out which was the cushion and which was the seller. He then said 'It's me this is, my mates call me Mr Strong'...righhhtttt.....

He asked me what my intentions were for him (it was a bit like signing adoption papers) but I assured him he was going to a good home to live in a nice tent (actually i did say about the Mr Men tent, so I'm hoping he doesn't manage to google his way here) and the handover was complete....

Drove home with Mr Strong in my passenger seat (not a great conversationalist to be honest), but he is very nice and will be good as a floor cushion

So plans this week...roll back up the Latitude sprawled all over the bed, hopefully finish the quilt off, then next weekend is kitchen duty again

Next camping trip is to Banbury on the 9th Feb. Weather is pretty mild at the moment, so I can probably guarantee 6 inch of snow by then

Week 2 - Kitchen plans...?

OK to kick my arse into action this weekend I will post on here that I PLAN to scrape all the vile tile grout off the walls and get them ready for filling with plaster/polyfilla (depends what mess they are in)

Haven't done anything all week in the kitchen, think I must have SADS as is depressing enough when the nights are dark, without facing DIY jobs

Also as the daughter got a sewing machine for Christmas it has sort of made me mess around on mine quite a lot as well (have no excuse as she is in Plymouth and I am about 200 mile North from her)

So nightly projects this week have had naff all to do with tiles and grout. Have been very arty farty and made the following...

Started off with a padded cover for the kindle (finally got round to using this and downloading some books). Bought a single quilt cover as I plan to make some sort of Mr Men padded quilt, but seem to have hundreds of the little fellas..so

Next was a book cover which I made for some sewing book. Actually the book isn't that good so will never get used really. But it looks nice. Did debate putting the cover on one of my cookery books, but the only one it fits is the 'rock cake' book. The book contains enought crumbs to actually rebuild a ten year old rock cake. It is a right mess on page 45 and the pages are sticking together. Not sure I want all this gunge all over my nice cover

And a mini version which is a needle case. Took a while to get the needles in though as most of them were rusty in the bottom of the 'sewing box' (actually its a tupperware)

And another cover (anything is better than working on the kitchen)...just has an empty jotter in it. Shall add flashes of inspirational recipes to this one

I did originally do one of the o's in a white pattern but it looked like it said 'cock', so I had to redo it

Moving on next it was time to play at quilting. Googled a 'wonky log cabin quilt' (evidently that's what this is). Found one of the many American tutorials (UK people don't do crafty work. They just buy stuff in Next). So used another Mr Man up (3,607 to go) and made a cushion cover (obviously I am running low on cushions having not bought one for over 48 hours)

And a motif on the back, just because i had one and didnt know what to do with it. There is also a funny little green mark in the shadow which i didnt notice till i finished the cushion. I will pretend Mr Happy had a cold

And lastly tonights offerings were Lucy Goosey. I challenged the daughter to make one of these, so jumped in quick and made one....

Enjoyed doing it and it was easy, so I made another...although he reminds me of Batman

Can't help thinking mine look more like Fraggle Rock characters than the goose in the tutorial...

So a very productive week on the kitchen decorating......

OK, OK I'll start tomorrow :(

New Years Resolutions.....a Mr Men tent for me...and an overdue kitchen makeover

The exciting resolution is I get to paint my 5m tent with lovely little Mr Men, as my daughter doesn't look as tho she will relinquish hers at any time in the near future.

So project Mr Men is to keep me busy for the next few weeks. I have already started accumulating (ok, obsessively collecting every Mr Men artifact available) ready to kit out my pre-school decorated palace

Laying it out on the bed, I'm thinking that this is probably enough. Although a Mr Men quilt would be nice if I get my crafty head on

BUT there will be a delay....

The main project I have to do is the kitchen decorating.

For those that think I am this perfect homeproud housewife....I have lived with this crap hole for 2 years now rather than get off my arse and actually decorate (the tiles are stacked under the cupboard somewhere....)

Not being able to afford a new fitted proper kitchen, it will be more of a bell tent makeover than ideal home, but nothing can be worse than it is at the moment.

To kick my arse into action I have taken some pics while it is a total hole. Enjoy!

Hopefully by March it will all be done, as camping will start in earnest, and I won't give a stuff about the house again!

I'll update if it ever looks any better!

Week 1

Looks no better than when I started. Saturday I ripped out the 2 cupboards on the right hand side. I now have the contents of these all over the floor. Cut the worktop and temporarily wedged it on top of the smaller cupboard using a few household bills and a tupperware lid. Trip to rubbish tip and dumped 20 year old plates, tupperware with no lids (they are obviously in use wedging various things around the house), 10 ice cube trays, 2 cheeseboards and other garbage I have hoarded

Sunday I moved the cooker socket (it was hopeless with a diagonal wire running along the side wall). Cooker hood fell off screws (not my fault I didn't put the bloody thing up) Secured this, now have working fan and lights on oven after 2 years.
Then I changed the 2 pendant lights to a flourescent tube fitting. Not as easy as it sounds...

Hour 1 - Try and work out why a pendant light has different wiring from a tube one
Hour 2 - Wire light
Hour 3 - re-wire light
Hour 4 - re-wire light again
Hour 5 - Adopt foetal position and suck thumb for 10 mins
Hour 6 - Finally works
Hour 7 - Clean cooker as can now see every grease mark and stain on it (should have kept it in the dark)

Didn't bother with pictures looks worse if anything.

New Year Camping - escape from the brick house

So after a manic Christmas day and 8 again for curry and games on boxing day I am ready to escape. Spent Tuesday getting the camping stuff sorted, more to do this time as the daughter and OH were joining us in their new Mr Men Tent.

Wednesday we drive off to Hayles Fruit Farm for 6 nights under canvas, in whatever the weather wants to throw at us. We set off early (11am is early to us) as we knew we would have to face the Hayles booking system, this would kill at least an hour.

Sun was out and unusually mild weather and we started pitching on the fresh green grass (which by end of day 2 was a quagmire). So both bell tents were pitched (I was in the 5m bell) and up went the large quechua pop up to provide a kitchen area for all of us.

Pop up all kitted out ready.

And as it was christmas, of course the bell got a christmas makeover....

Bert was also forced to embrace the christmas spirit

First 2 days were spent relatively calm, a dvd in the afternoon (Social Network), coffee and cakes, and a trip to Attwools for some tent porn.

My daughter and her OH snuggled round fire wondering what they were in for...

Intents arrived Thursday, so I was allowed to play with the lego for a few hours. Joel had started a pub, which I took over as he played happily on the DS instead

I could quite happily have played with the pub for the rest of the night...complete with killer cat

Note to Intents: Bring more windows and doors next time, we had hardly any

The next day was a trip to Broadway. A lovely posh village full of little gift shops. Perfect. Well not quite. Joel wanted chips form the fish and chip shop. Broadway doesn't have food shops, never mind a chippy. He had more chance of caviar, fois gras and oysters than a sausage in batter

Best sweet shop ever

Only food for miles

A posh tea room with an old bike

A big posh house

more posh places

Back to the site and it has started to fill up, with arrivals from gilly, nutgone, marshy, jayne, Tim, gumball (Smoky arrived Saturday)

You would think it would be a fight for the one loo and shower in the portacabin, but luckily we are a grimey lot so there was never any queue

Shelters up for NY eve. Firepits ready

Would like to say thanks to Tim for letting us put the firepits under his nice canopy. The only problem was we couldn't pile them up like flamethrowers till after 9pm when Tim went to bed

The joint of pork is bubbling away

Others cooked Gammon, Beef, Chicken, we had hot cider and Mrs Marshy deserves special credit for the best chocolate cake ever!

Mrs Marshy hopelessy in love with Mr Marshy. Give them time they only got married last year. They will soon be ripping each others heads off when they put the guy ropes on wrong

MURDER MYSTERY TIME

New Years Eve started off with a game of Murder Mystery - 8 of us took the cast parts and the rest sat and got pissed. The game was themed around a plastic surgeons death, and we were each allocated a booklet with our role in.

Cast was:-


BEAU TOX - Plastic Surgeon

Smoky. Be seriously worried if smoky does decide to take this vocation in life.

Having problems reading the booklet, never mind chopping up bits

FAY SLIFT - Plastic Surgeon

Marshy. V amusing playing the part of the female plastic surgeon. Took it v well when we all shouted at him for reading the wrong bits

RICH ZUCKER - Patient

Gumball. Priceless, as the story advanced it was revealed that Gumball had serious penis enhancement problems

Gumball reading his characters 'flaws', with sympathy from the onlookers

MAY KITBETTER - Nurse (her soothing hands work on both sexes!)

Me. Swayed anyway, but basically I played a tart

PHIL SLEEPY - Anaesthetist

Jayne. Perfect casting!! Her character was as laid back as Jayne

ANNA LISZT - Psychiatric Consultant

Gilly. The most animated character, especially as the vodka went down. Got her come uppance though, when it was revealed she was actually packing a meat and 2 veg in her pants

Gilly having one of her 'Ahhh Haaaa!' moments..

DEN CHURES - Orthodontist

Intents. Crooked from the start and revealed to be the killer

KIM PLANT - Fashion Model

Christie. At first it seemed the most glamorous of all of us. Until we found out she was packing cocaine in them humungous boobs

Once we had got through the first round we sort of knew what we were doing, and as more alcohol was downed the more dramatic it got (well it did for Gilly anyway) The summary was done and the murderer named (bit of an anticlimax really as was all based on a stupid lie in the summary)

Having played this for about 2 hours, we thought we were well on our way to the New Year. I think it was 8:30pm when we checked

Next was secret santa, the crap present bin and then the Karoake. Me, Intents and Gilly destroyed a few songs, and no one else stepped forward after that...

3 twats in hats as we were affectionately known

Very very short clips. Be thankful

A very low Gilly




So we scoffed, played and sang. Then at 12am we turned on the radio for a traditional Auld Lang Syne and a hug for the campers we had met and bonded with over the last 12 months (seems like bloody years)

Amazing how you can keep yourself amused with 2 pom poms and a barrel of vodka

Next morning Jayne and Gilly went home, leaving a smaller group. Undeterred we gathered round the firepit again, and tonight's entertainment....

QUIZ NIGHT

Annie (who never actually made it to the meet) set us up a quiz. We pulled kindle sticks to determine who was in which team and ther battle commenced. The points system was a bit strange so we made it up.

Gumball was elected Quiz master

First round was famous faces and a guess the beer logo. Not surprisingly we romped the alcohol logos.

In my team was Intents, Scep and Marshy. We liked to think of Marshy as the joker. But he came into his own on a couple of the beer logos (obviously a total lush) and the following question:-

What country is due south of Detroit?

So we threw a few guesses around and he came straight out with the answer. We didn't believe him obviously as it was the only question he had attempted. (Yes we wrote it down though and he was right...so not only gets discount at the camping shop, has a Mrs who makes the best chocolate cake ever, he also knows one random trivia question)

Anyway, we won....yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Gumball managed to scrat around and find some prizes (keyrings for everyone and a fight over who got the tin)

Homer found the whole evening absolutely rivetting. And dragged off to bed at the end with his lovely little muddy paws all over my tent

Day of packing up, I heard a horrified fellow camper (Intents again) shout 'Barley has just eaten 5 of a 6 pack of my pork pies!!!!'. My thieving hound had robbed them out of her kitchen...

Homer did the maths and went for a sneaky look to try and find the 6th pork pie....

(I am in debt, one packet of pork pies)

Next morning the sun was out all day for packing up, couldn't have asked for better weather

What I should have asked for though was somewhere safe to put my keys....Having packed up, spent 2 hours looking for them. Gave up and phoned the AA. 5 mins later found them in my dressing gown pocket.

Now if mum had got me a nice monogrammed keyring I'm sure they wouldn't have gone missing...

PS: Answer was Canada