Self Indulgent Blog Post

Nina Hamnett by Roger Fry

today
breakfast in bed
handmade cards
wrapped gifts with oodles of sticky tape
warm blueberry muffins
lunch out with my man
dinner with my family
a curry and a wine
and a candle or two
bliss

A Lovely Surprise

This working business is wearying.  I'm needing to do things differently, to fit everything in.  There is organising and planning to be done before I start each day.  More time driving in the car, so we all have to be on time in the mornings.  Girl 1 is making all the lunches.  Girl 2 is sacrificing a little bit of her much-loved sleep to be ready for school 15 minutes earlier.  And we're getting into a new routine.  Working on Sundays is hard, hubby is doing the very early shift, then I'm taking over the morning to mid-afternoon one.

It will all become easier I know.  Our busy timetable will soon be etched into our minds and not just scrawled onto a big piece of butcher's paper hanging on the kitchen wall.  Today I got such a lovely surprise when I arrived home from work.  I walked into our house to find our two gorgeous girls all dressed up, and I was led to the dining room table.  They had prepared a banquet for afternoon tea!!

The table had been set so beautifully.  There were candles glowing, pretty plates and favourite glasses and lots and lots of roses from the garden.  Bowls of fruit and bowls of chocolates.  It was very decadent indeed, for a Sunday afternoon in summer, but oh so welcome.  We toasted everything we could think of until it got silly.

A scrumptious Orange Ring Cake had been made by my girls, my Mum's recipe, and a favourite of ours  It had lashings of chocolate icing, cherries and tiny Easter eggs on top!  There is always a surprise element to cake decorating practices in this house.

It was such a perfect welcome home from work, which lead to a lazy, fully content afternoon of magazine reading and cups of tea, with just a few *domestic goddess* duties thrown in and not much thought of the week ahead.

Feeling twice and thrice times blessed, and then some.
Wishing you all a lovely week.
Trudy

A Party in the Orchard

You are invited to a party, it's a celebration.  I would love it if you could come!  There will be tea and cake, and other scrumptiously tempting things.  And of course the tea will be served in lovely vintage teacups;  the cake will be light and delicious with lashings of freshly whipped cream, enough for everyone;  the day will linger.

 

 

It will take place in a lovely setting, the sun will be shining, the bees will be buzzing through the orchard, and I will string out the vintage handkerchief bunting.  There will be lots of chatting about homespun loveliness, vintage goodness, our hopes, our dreams.

 

 

This party celebration will require a bit of frocking up on your part.  Nothing too fancy, but you might take some inspiration from the photo below.

 

 

Please say you can come as I'm celebrating my first year of blogging.  And I must say it's been a fabulous year indeedy.  Thank you for popping into my blog and playing in the attic.

 

Trudy

 

Photo credits, all via Pinterest :  www.dessertsforbreakfast.com, Christine Brandt at pinterest.com/lavishtantrums, www.style-files.com/ and www.emilycooperphotography.ca

D-D E D G F, D-D E D G F

Hello!  What a grand day to be having a birthday!!  The sky is the most wonderful shade of blue, the sun is belting out some heat, the little Spring birdies are busily chirping and I'm being treated like a Princess.  You gotta love birthdays!!

It started when I heard the tinkling on the piano this morning, D-D E D G F, D-D E D G F and was woken from a deep sleep.  Then a sensational breakfast tray festooned (what a great word!) with an entire branch of our flowering apple blossom, and roses and little cocktail umbrellas stuck into pretty bowls of strawberries and fresh pineapple.

Some beautifully hand chosen pressies from my girls, were opened.  Gorgeous, they know me so well.

 

 

And from my husband a beautiful red teacup, which I've already had a lovely cup of Chai tea in, some chocolates, a fabulous book (more on that later) and a day's photography class in Canberra set for early in the new year!

 

 

A very special lunch at home with all the men in my life!  Husband, father and two brothers, who sang a beautifully deep version of Happy Birthday.

 

 

 

And then an afternoon with Jane Austen, watching "Persuasion", with a bowl of chocolates by my side.  Ah, bliss.

 

 

And of course a birthday cake, with a nod to Halloween tomorrow, orange icing and ... are they bats on the cake?  With a ballerina twirling in the middle and the cocktail umbrellas from the morning making a repeat performance ... brilliant!!  Love birthdays.  And not even thinking about the number.

 

Seeya tomorrow for the last day of Blogtoberfest!!!

Trudy





5 Things

Five things that have been a thief to my time these past few days.  Five things that have kept me focussed on the tasks at hand.

There has been a lot of organising happening in our house for a birthday party for a girl who is now 12.  There has been games to plan, billy cans to fill with take-home treasures (yes, it was a camping party in Winter!) and a menu to think about.

There has been a book which has captivated me.  You know the type that you simply can't put down?  I attempted to cook and read at the same time but cooking really takes all my concentration skills!!  I love a good book when it takes you along for the ride, the characters become real to you, and in places you're holding your breath wondering what is about to happen next.  That's exactly what happened with Sarah Water's book "Fingersmith".

There has been a new crochet square to nut-out.  One I've never done before, but one that I have recently seen in a baby-sized blanket and one I knew I had to tackle.  New blue and white twine-looking 4 ply wool, (which practically had me swooning in the shop!) and a smaller crochet hook than I'm used to, a size 3mm.  And then I saw Pixie's of the same pattern made into a wrap.  Stunning.

There has been the waiting and waiting of a certificate to arrive from England to help me piece together a tricky bit of family history.  When it finally did arrive this week all I could do was mull over the new information and try to fit it with the stories we thought we knew.

And of course there was the actually day and night and morning of the party.  The crossing of fingers that it would be fine and we could toast marshmallows outside, and the girls could snuggle up in the 6 person tent and tell ghost stories and share secrets.  It was all completely wonderful and there was a lovely group of girls in our home.

Five fun things, that I'm happy to have taken time from me for.
What fun things have you been up to?

Trudy

Bunny Decorating

It's that time of year when the shiny, orange box comes down from the high cupboard and the bunnies get woken from their slumber and hop out to help decorate the house.

A particular favourite of mine is the little miss knitting herself a scarf.  Isn't she adorable?  Of course all she wants to do is to knit and knit and knit, and I know how she feels because sometimes I'm exactly the same.  I think I have that same look of concentration on my face too!  No dropped stitches allowed.

This cheeky mister has 'mischevious' written all over him, but thinks he'll get away with anything because he's sporting such a jaunty, divine hat, but I'm not fooled and if anything at all untoward happens in this house over the next couple of weeks I'll be looking his way to see how he charms his way out of it.

The girls and I went for a walk into the bush to find a branch that we could decorate.  This has become an annual Easter tradition.  We scour the bush for the perfect branch, which can see us with some pretty silly suggestions, home to paint it (this involves painting the branch, our hands, face, clothes, yes hair sometimes too ... getting the idea?) then we put all the decorations on the "tree".  This year Girl 1 wanted her own, separate tree and has come up with quite an individual idea using chickens practising their acrobatic skills and chocolate eggs tied on with rubber bands!!

The other tree, the main tree, the grown-up equivalent of the chicken tree is looking far more refined, but maybe a little less playful in another room.

Another wonderful Easter tradition in our house is the annual gifting of a beautiful hand-painted, wooden Easter egg from my hubby to me.  Lucky me!!  Each one is quite different, in size and pattern and colour.  This will be our fifteenth Easter together.  And I know there is a new egg waiting for me because hubby isn't very good at keeping secrets (and the bag with the egg in it is on his desk, but I haven't peeked, honest, I've been very good!!)

Wishing you all a wonderful tradition-filled Easter, complete with guilt-free chocolate.
Trudy