from the garden

There is a beautiful climbing rose covering the arch in our garden. It is a white mass at the moment. I cut a branch off and added greenery and herbs. Lovely.

I remember a time when I would place ornaments carefully on bookshelves, make mini arrangements in tea cups, plump the cushions numerous times a day. Now I am lucky to discard dead flowers or tidy away the lego that seems to constantly make its way to the mantle piece. That would be family life, then.

white rabbit sweets

These are far too good. I am not sure that the boys will get any more... find them at Jimmy's Chinese Supermarket opposite ASDA in Dunstable. They are creamy and vanilla flavoured chewy lollies - sort of like   milko chews... but better. I remember using the 30 cents or so we had to spend at the Yanchep National Park swimming pool to buy milkos. And we would make 30 cents last the WHOLE day.

Also feeling nostalgic for other treats from my childhood like: freezas, cherry ripes, minties, mint patties, Billabong icecreams...

dad's day

A super-easy and effective bit of card making can be found here. The three of us sat down to make cards for Father's Day tomorrow. You just need a permanent maker for the written word and a box of oil pastels. I think Fred's choice of colours is the most effective (top right). As simple colouring and then messy scratching was involved - very popular.

Making

 I have a bit of a battle sometimes to get the boys 'crafty'. In my view, there is nothing nicer than to spend some time making... sewing.. baking... And here are their recent efforts. Outstanding! They loved it and became so involved.

 Freddie chose a large square box that would slot in nicely to the Expedit IKEA unit in their room. And made a room. Sisal carpet on the floor, stripy wallpaper. Hanging pictures from old photos and the window cut-outs. Some electrical tape came in handy to 'finish off' the edges and frame the pictures.

Harry was always definite about doing a castle. (There is a body there on the right hand side - fallen from the turret during a bloody battle.) Harry also painstakingly made gunpowder barrels from stacked bottle tops, again wrapped in the electrical tape. All his own ideas.

I put the success of this down to the boys being able to envisage a final product - and the idea from this book. DIY Kids. The projects here are done by children, and this helped the boys have a real vision of what they could achieve - one that wasn't 'adult'.

a jubilee handknit

 We have had the most wonderful jubilee weekend - which has stretched into a week, really. There has been street parties, village parties, parades and even a flotilla (the latter watched from the dry sofa, thank you).

And this lovely cardigan came from a stall on Sunday - at the National Trust event at Dunstable Downs. mary has a range of beautiful handknits. This was £18 which I think was very reasonable for the quality and the work that has gone in. There is also an ebay shop.