Are you ready for the long Diamond Jubilee weekend? I think we could all do with a few days off.
I love seeing all the flags and bunting appearing in the shops. And the fact that councils and others are busy tidying the whole country, ready for the Jubilee. And I particularly love this free printable Rob Ryan bunting, which I found on the Stylist website. I’ve already got more bunting than I know what to do with, but perhaps I can print some of this to brighten up my office…
On Sunday afternoon we were very civilised: we had afternoon tea with my parents and some friends.
It had been a dark and foggy day, but the sun was just starting to make its presence known when we arrived at my parents’ house just after 2pm. Mum had lit lots of candles, and the house looked very pretty, with just a few hints of Christmassy decorations starting to appear.
I made the lemon fairy cakes you can see in this picture, finishing them just before we set off. That meant I didn’t have time to test them, but I needn’t have worried as they were very good. (This more than makes up for the poor cooking I did last weekend!). They are from a recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, a book I’ve been really pleased with so far.
Anyway, speaking of Christmas… how are your preparations going? I had planned to get all of my Christmas shopping done in November as I struggle to enjoy being in shops in December – I find it all a bit overwhelming. But I had failed to notice that December starts NEXT WEEK. So I might not quite manage to have finished by then. We’ll see.
And I think I am going to leap into Christmas rather early this year – I usually am rather slow to put the decorations up, but this time I think I will put them up early and enjoy them for longer. Anna at Twelve 22 put her tree up on the 9th of November! I think I might do my decorations in the first few days of December, which is early by my standards.
In my first proper job, I worked for one of those pesky dot-com businesses: publishing press releases on a website long before I had a computer or internet access of my own. One of my managers at the time liked to have a ‘Friday Tidy’ – a quick tidy up around the office last thing on a Friday. These days it’s a digital Friday Tidy that I need: all week long I read articles that capture my imagination, see photos of things that inspire me, and so on. I squirrel them away all over the place, and then weeks later you’ll hear me saying that I read about something or other on so-and-so’s website, and that I wish I could remember the details. So here goes: a virtual Friday Tidy. I’ll try to round up all those links each week and publish them here in case they appeal to you too.
Listen to the Go! Team’s new album before it goes on sale, on The Guardian website – this is an album I’m really looking forward to, and I’ve already pre-ordered a copy.
Nutella Day is imminent! And there are plenty of recipes for you to try. A couple of days a week I make myself porridge with a spoonful of Nutella stuck right in the middle of it.
This weekend is the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch -we take part in this every year, and I look forward to it so much. I have plenty of extra bird food to put out, to see if I can tempt a few extra birds into our garden.
Make yourself a 3D paper owl – a free and very colourful printable template.
Mrs C’s copy of a 1930s handbook for housewives – I have a small collection of similar books, but hadn’t seen this one before.
Will you be staying up late on Thursday to see the election results come in? I’m planning to – assuming I can stay awake. I think I’ll watch Channel 4′s coverage of things, with a few checks to see what’s happening on the BBC.
I’m usually a bit more closely involved when there is an election on: I work in local government and in the past have often been one of the people sitting counting up the votes, late into the night. It’s a stressful, tiring, repetitive,and yet interesting job to do. Election counts often take place in local sports halls, and there are a lot of people involved. The election candidates and their associates are allowed to walk around and watch you as you work, which can be unnerving – they are looking to see if you’ve missed a vote, or mis-counted. On top of that, the local and national press may well be filming the event and broadcasting live from the site.
In the UK, we’re allowed to vote up until 10pm – at that point, the staff from each of the polling stations shut up shop, and drive the votes that have been cast during the day to a central venue for the area, where they are all counted together. It makes for a very long day – polling stations open at 7am, and so when counting finally gets started at around 10.30pm, people have been up and working for a long time. If the result is close, there could even be a recount – this means all the votes get counted again, and of course by this time it’s even later at night and people are really flagging. Where I live, it’s a safe seat – so there’s unlikely to be a call for a recount. But you never know – it seems like there is change in the air this year.
Let’s hope it’s a good one. I don’t think I’m making any resolutions as such, but I’m planning to take more care – both of myself and of others. I’m hoping 2010 will be a healthier year for me, and so I’m going to make sure I relax as much as possible.
I have quite a few sewing projects in the works (not that sewing always counts as a relaxing activity – there may have been the odd occasion where I’ve wanted to throw a sewing project out of the window…), so I want to take time to work on those. I also have big travel plans for later in the year, so there’s work to be done making plans and booking things – we’re planning to fly into San Francisco and out of Seattle, with a road trip in between the two cities. And I plan to make sure I spend time with family and friends – we’ve already got a few things on the calendar for the start of the year, including a trip to see the Nutcracker at the end of January.
I hope that 2010 brings good things your way.
I mentioned during the summer that my mother had bought a wall sticker (by Ferm Living) at a shop in York called Snowhome, but it was only last weekend that I was able to go and stay with her to install it. I was a little nervous about the process – I was worried we’d make a mess of it and then be disappointed – but it really is very easy to put these stickers up.
Firstly we did the little test sticker included in the pack – so there is now a little bird perched above the doorway to the kitchen.
Then we chose a spot to put the main sticker in – originally it was destined for a bedroom wall, but that spot was no longer available, and so the hallway seemed like an ideal place. We held the sticker up to the wall in a few places and at a few heights to get an idea of what would work best – and then we set to work. You use a little (supplied) tool to flatten the transfer, which makes sure the sticker part is primed and ready to come off once you get to your wall – it also gets rid of any bubbles. Then you hold the whole thing in place on your wall, and go over it again with the little tool (just like using transfers on a piece of paper). Last of all, you peel back the layer of plastic to reveal your design.
I was really impressed with the result – the transfer we used has a smooth, matte finish – and looks like we painted it on. There’s a close-up picture of it here.
I was so sad to hear that John Hughes has died, and now that I’ve been reading more about him, I know he was involved in far more of the films I like than I realised. I knew about Ferris Bueller and the Breakfast Club, but there are many more 80s films I’ve enjoyed that he either wrote or worked on: Uncle Buck, The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon’s European Vacation (look kids, Big Ben!). He will be missed. There are still a couple of his films that I’ve not seen, so next time they show Sixteen Candles on TV, I’ll be watching. Rest in peace.
I should mention I’m now Twittering – I’ve added a thingy in the sidebar with the latest tweet in it. It was suggested to me that this means I’m a twit – a little unkind but probably based in fact.
Over the past week I’ve seen perhaps half a dozen big posters up around here encouraging you talk to your local police about what matters to you crime prevention-wise.
There are plenty of government-run ad campaigns doing the rounds at any one time, but this one caught my eye because they are using the artwork of the ‘keep calm and carry on’ posters – together with a certain tone of voice that sounds like it comes from times past.
You can see an animated version that scrolls through some of the variations on this page.
Yay – Google’s Street View has been launched for the UK (at long last). I found my house on it (I am amazed that one of the Google cameras came down our sleepy little road!), and am now busy looking for places I’ve lived in or visited.
