Hopelessly Wrong, But...

....Indeed, aren't people meant to hibernate through the winter? My blog had other ideas and seems to have been in a comfy, straw-lined shoebox for the last 5 months, completely missing the rest of the summer and autumn. Maybe its got antipodean dna and thought it would align itself with the southern hemisphere seasons???


A massively belated happy christmas all round - and cranking up the slightly rusty blog engine once more, we have a *new feature*.........

Words In Another Language That I Find Childishly Amusing Utterly Enchanting!

This week we have the very splendid "beslutningen". What a divine word that is.... but being sensible, I will now tell you that its Norwegian and you can find its translation here, in designhund's gorgeous blog.

Oh dear, the sight of that beautiful sofa is making the blog want to hibernate again....

A Grand Day Out - Scarborough

Week 2 of the summer holidays - skint, so we're tapping into that "staycation" trend..... but determined to get to the seaside at least twice we caught a train (ok, 3 trains) to Scarborough for the day on a blazing hot gorgeous blue sky day, armed with sun-block, a tiny beach towel for the paddling, memories of a lovely week spent there 4 years ago, and 2 pairs of very hard-working feet!

(Now, reading that sentence back, who would ever guess I get paid to make teenagers use full-stops???)

If Barbara Cartland Had Been Reincarnated...

...wouldn't it have been as one of these?

oh alright then, here's one where her make-up

doesn't look quite so ridiculous

girls, shop that wardrobe!

just one of her many, many millions of titles.

I think this one was written between breakfast and elevenses...

Another Fine Use Of Vintage...

....too quick for me to grab the camera, Wilbur had just been sitting on these old imperial scales. I popped him back on, out of curiosity: he weighs 2 pounds. Don't ask me what that is in funny kg language... I can't/won't do metric, but its the same as a large bag of sugar;)

The gerbera plant next to the scales is Being Very Good and has 2 bee-yoo-ti-ful candy pink flahs now. Strange that, as when I bought it 6 or so weeks ago the flowers were cream'n'purple, the way passion fruit flowers are.  When I get my act together I'll put it in a bigger pot... who knows how big it could get or how many flahs we might get...?

In the Rest Of My Life, chaos reigns; the 14 year old has sort-of dropped out again, after 3 clashes with authority at school, each one sensationally mismanaged.... With that, and the long days off I have now that I'm not at the World of Work til after the summer holidays, I'm regularly dipping into The Bad Place that is inertia far too frequently. I've acquired more hauls of vintage frockery, which remain in bags until I can be arsed to to take photos.... I think I need a Plan Of Action...

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And now for the bit where I'm Not A Film Blogger But.... some lovely films I've seen recently:

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) - when Liz Taylor died I realised to my shame I'd never seen any of her films, like Butterfield 8, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Giant... This is the one with the iconic still of Liz wearing that white slip, great portrayal of family dynamics, especially if you're a daughter-in law...

A Very Long Engagement (2004, Audrey Tautou) - caught this accidentally late the other night and stayed up til stupid o'clock watching it as it was so lovely...

The Graduate (1967) - one I'd somehow never seen, more screamingly funny than I'd expected, and the frocks! The excellent hair! The chairs! The cigarettes! See it if you haven't... And obviously it has a dark undertow of tight morals, jealousies, and why getting married just because you're pregnant, like they had to do back In Them Times was So Wrong...

Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Wes Anderson) - lurved this, very very sweet and beautifully shot. Reminded me of Tim Burton's Big Fish...

Cosmopolis (2012) - I'll say nothing as this is new so don't want to risk a spoiler..... go see it and make your own minds up about this. Will it become seminal? Who can tell...

Not Going To See The Queen

On last night's local news they said the Queen would be visiting Nottingham this morning.... I asked the 13 year-old if he wanted me to spring him out of school for the day so we could go and watch her *doing some waving* on the town hall balcony, and, like, see her in the flesh. He didn't. It felt odd to imagine myself going, sans children, so I didn't either.

And, on the subject of the recent Jubilee, ignoring the Gary Barlow-Paul McCartney fiasco, this is what we did. Yes, we had some cakes! And I *might have watched the odd bit of tv coverage too*.....

Note, they are NOT cup-cakes!

And I am going to frame this fabulous retro, jubilee-edition cereal packaging.

Because I LOVES  the typography and colours.

And the boys both think it's an excellent idea too.... win-win :)