a happy surprise

Quite by accident, I have discovered Sarah Waters has a new book coming out in August.  Yippee!  I feel like I've been waiting for ever for this.  Now I can't decide whether to jump in and pre-order the hardback or wait impatiently for the paperback.  I treated myself to a brand-new hardback copy of The Little Stranger when it first came out and it really did feel like a treat (most of my books are dog-eared copies from the charity shop, so to smell the ink and hear the little crack of a hardback spine... oh!) but then a paperback is so much lighter and more transportable...  Then again, it's almost 600 pages long, which makes it neither light nor transportable in any printed format.  Hardback it is!  I repeat, yippee!

 

If you've never read any Sarah Waters, I'd recommend Fingersmith (read it! read it! read it!) and The Night Watch.  Those two and The Little Stranger I thought were pretty amazing, but the others are enjoyable too, so you can't really go too far wrong with her.  I hope this new one lives up to my ridiculously high expectations.

painting the postboxes red

A few weeks ago (approximately one day before banners began to be hung from every other lamp post in town) I remarked to Graham that there were surprisingly few signs that Glasgow was about to host the Commonwealth Games.  He replied that we'd know it was happening when they started repainting the postboxes.  Sure enough, a couple of weeks on, the postboxes are being smartened up left, right and centre.  It hasn't just been a wee lick of paint either.  All the old layers of paint have been removed first, so the letterboxes are really looking very smart indeed.

I'd never realised before how old this box, local to our flat, was and probably wouldn't have noticed had it not been for the repainting and my dad's eagle eyes/historical know-how.  This box is not from the reign of Elizabeth II, as I had presumed, but is actually from the time of Edward VIII.  A little piece of history that I pop my letters in now and again, for the first time in a long time, looking as smart as it deserves.  I wonder what sort of items have been posted in here over the years...?

time-travelling tuesday (part 9) - V.G.

This lasso thrower is available here.

14th March 1988 Kerry is a baby Ga Ga

[There's a picture of a hand throwing a lasso round the word March]

Today I went to swimming.  I went into the deep end again.  I went on the chute.  The second time I went on she held me untill until I got started then she let go.

15th March 1988

[lots of subtraction sums here with tens and units clearly marked!]

I am the cook in the Drummer and the cook.  We made pigion holes.  We wrote letters to people.  I wrote one to Toby.  One for Julia and one for Mrs Smith.

16th o Mach March 1988

[some cats and faces drawn here]

Today I wrote a letter to Mark, Lyndsey, Martha, Diana and William.  All different letters of course.  I wrote them at home.  Martha McPhee did a pea and never flushed the lavee.

17th 17th March March

17th 17th March March

17th 17th March March

Tonight I went to brownies. At brow brownies I went for a walk.  It was good fun.  I went up to the warmer moriel [war memorial!] and back on my bike.  I wrote a letter to Emma.  Garry N came to play.

It is the 18th of March today

Today I drew a picture of twichy [my hamster] for a competition.  At school we opened the postbox.  I got 4 letters.

V.G. [looks like I was marking my own diary entries!]

19th March 1988

I wrote two letters to Lynn and Garry N.  Diana and Toby phoned to ask if the letter was true.  It wasn't.

V.G.  V.G.  V.G.  V.G.  V.G.  V.G.  V.G.  V.G. VVVG

20th March 1988

Dear Donna I went to the beach.  At the beach I fell down and hurt myself.  I got five bruises on my knee.  I went for two walks.  I played rounders with Ruth and Jan. V.G.

foxigami

One of my colleagues left some origami paper and a book of instructions in the kitchen at work last week.  I made this sweet little fox on a quick screen break and was rather pleased with him.  It looks like other subtitlers have been trying their hand at some paper folding too.  The kitchen windowsill is becoming a regular paper menagerie :)

if you went down to the woods last Saturday...

 Last weekend, Dulcie donned her fairy wings and accompanied my mum and I to a fairy festival at the Children's Wood.  It was a really fun couple of hours.  This lady here was telling a story about a fairy while leading a promenade around the meadow.

 Dulcie met quite a few friends from nursery and actually had two pals fighting over who would get to hold her hand at one point - most amusing to me, having never been involved in such a social melee, myself!  Here she is holding hands with the victor, her long-term friend, Vaila.  They are so funny together, playing really nicely for a while before their equally strong stubborn streaks bubble up to the surface and cause a flash fight.  They hang out outside of nursery most weeks, so we are pretty familiar with their double act by now.

 Of course, it wasn't long before there was a fight over a wand.  "No, Vaila!  That's my wand!"  Shortly after this photo was taken, the two of them were stealing the storyteller's limelight by having a full-on wrestle in the long grass, an incident that cheered them both up and had them laughing and cuddling again.

 As well as the storyteller, there were lots of other fun activities, the mini petting zoo being a definite highlight.  Dulcie was the first one in with the rabbits and guinea pigs.  She's so brave these days :)

 The absolute highlight of the whole shebang, however, was stroking this African pygmy hedgehog.  Dulcie was beyond delighted and followed the hedgehog handler around for ages.  I was pretty pleased by the encounter too.  I love hedgehogs and all their spiky weird creepiness.

 We skipped the willow-wand making in favour of a general tour of the woodland.  There were lots of fairy doors and glitter trails to spot, but Dulcie was more interested in jumping across the logs...

...and playing with the recycled bunting.

The Children's Wood is such a great place - a rambling natural oasis amid the streets and buildings of the west end - and always has loads of events on.  If you're Glasgow based or bound, you should check it out.  The council wants to build flats in this space (naturally) but there's a very well organised opposition to this and joining in with all the fun events they put on helps their cause no end.  Win-win, huh?  You can find out what's on as well as more ways to help save the woods and meadow by visiting their website here.

P.S. Perhaps you've noticed that Dulcie is never out of these grey knee-high socks these days.  They're from BHS's schoolwear range, so came in a cheapish five pack, and I thought they'd be great for our unpredictable climate and for potty training - quick access in case of emergencies and less layers to change in case of accidents.  I was right on both these counts, but I wasn't expecting them to look quite so bleedin' stylish with it, gov!  I love them!

les bicyclettes!

Tour de France, baby, yeah!  (Tour de France, bebe, oui!)

Dulcie and I made this collaborative piece recently to get us all in the mood.  I drew the road and the trees and left Dulcie to do the rest. She did have assistance with her signature, I'll admit!

 These super-sweet bike stickers were only 50p a pack in the Paperchase sale.

I bought a few packs so I could afford to let Dulcie go mad with these, sticking the whole lot on various projects/places in one fell swoop.

I hope she lets Graham and I watch enough cycling to really get into the race this year.  If she does, I'll let you know who I'm supporting (in my own whimmish I-don't-really-understand-cycling sort of way) in due course.  

Vive la France!  Vive la Yorkshire too!

chalk it up

One of Dulcie's favourite back-garden activities is drawing on the path with chalk.  She likes to lie down and have me draw round her, then she adds details.  You can see from this picture that pants are high priority at the moment (she's only been out of nappies a couple of weeks and is doing so well) so they get a giant scribble.  The sore bit on her ankle (added after this photo was taken) was also heavily exaggerated, bless her.

Fortunately, our neighbours don't seem to mind the shared back garden looking like a colourful crime scene and we're in Glasgow so it's never long before a shower of rain arrives to wash it off.

Dulcie's granny (my mum) was the chalky assistant on this occasion and I was very pleased to get a half-decent photo of them together at long last.  Until now, my mum has been represented on the kitchen fridge photos by a picture of Sally Magnusson (cut out of the Aye Write catalogue) because Sally Magnusson was deemed to look more like my mum than my mum did, oddly.  Now we'll be able to replace Sally's mugshot with this picture.  Dulcie really believes that Sally Magnusson is my mum, I think.  She always used to shout, "There's Granny!" when she saw her face on posters round and about.

I've got these pavement chalks on my wishlist on Amazon.  The colours look amazing.  I may have to invest before summer is out, but perhaps not the giant 48-pack, which seems rather extravagant.  I'm sure 16 shades of chalk are enough for anybody and still a great improvement on the five similar pastel shades we currently have in our repertoire.  Our neighbours won't know what's hit them!