TARRAGON & THYME

At the charity shop today honest me lord! For 20 pence I came away with: A long chest/table runner preprinted with a flower pattern part worked that will go with a tray cloth in the same pattern I bought and worked some time ago. The threads were missing but I think I will be able to match them up. A metre of pink bias binding. Some trimmings in gold and cream the sort of braids to trim cushions light shades there is about a metre of the gold and about 4 metres of the cream. 1 yard curved skirt petersham with skirt fasteners. And a sealed brand new never been used brother buttonhole cutter. And last but not least - a thimble. Not bad some little extras for the sewing box. On the sewing front I have spotted a very lovely Dresden plate quilt.  See here http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2014/01/dresdens.html   Another one for the ideas  list to have a go at projects. I am thinking that this would be a good pick up put down project for when I only have a few m...

Christmas is all paid for done and dusted  for this year - gone are the days where it all got popped on the credit cards and then we had to pay it off.  Ever since OH was out of work we have got into better habits and are more sensible all round and we pay by cash and are not storing up any lurking problems for ourselves.  I did a big shop in the run up to Christmas on quite a lot of basic ingredients that you need to cook from scratch whether that be a starter main meal or pudding or even cake, cookies and bread.  The areas that are not stocked to optimum level are the freezer  - I need a new one my large chest freezer failed over a year ago and the upright is on its way out so I do not prepare too much at the moment to pop in the freezer.  Hopefully in the weeks to come that will get remedied as I rely heavily on my freezer and am missing the flexibility and just being able to get something out of there the day before (we call it shopping in the free...

On a regular basis have very good offers on books and over Christmas and I had some Christmas present money to use up and I ordered a couple of collections of books plus some extra books. I have sent for the River Cottage collection for £17.00.  Here is the link http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=306679&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&searchTerm=river+cottage The package consists of the following titles Mushrooms Preserves Bread Veg Patch Edible Seashore Sea Fishing Hedgerow Cakes Fruit Herbs  I am still awaiting delivery of this collection of ten books which works out at £1.70 per book. I also ordered a self sufficiency collection of books for £7 the set of 12 books an even greater saving. That collection consists of the following titles:  Grow Your Own Preserving Spinning, Dyeing and Weaving Household Cleaning Foraging Hen Keeping Beekeeping Soap Maki...

In view of the kerfuffle when my phone fried and me not having contact numbers I sourced a couple of cheap diaries (a page a day) one for OH and one for myself and I have added contact numbers and appointments so far this year in an effort to get myself sorted so that I know where I am at and so that I can plan to do things and/or make arrangements.  There are a couple of things that I want to achieve this year concerning nearest and dearest relatives including some visits to extended family.  I also want to get into the habit of having birthday cards in house at least a month before the event whether they be bought or home made. I am trying to eradicate last minute panics or incidents where I have actually forgotten someone's birthday.  I am aiming to be sorted in plenty of time so that I can eradicate unnecessary stress and hassle in the process.  Well that's the plan. Birthday dates have also been registered. I am so glad that I put a few things up in the Chr...

Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today. I think this is an apt phrase in my case.  Truth is I prevaricate too much  (especially around things I am not ready to deal with or do not know quite how to handle and to add to that I sometimes get distracted as well which frequently compounds matters. So I am going into the New Year with this phrase firmly lodged in my mind I only hope I manage to keep to the sentiment. Well here it goes!

Hello everyone I hope you all had a good Christmas and  a Happy New Year. I am in the land of the living and thank you for your emails enquiring if I was okay.  I am,  although in the run up to Christmas things were a bit fraught around here for several reasons. My partner suffers from Bipolar (more commonly known as manic depression).  He was dreadful and extremely difficult in the run up to Christmas and Bah Humbug was the phrase most associated with him at this point in time.  Wouldn't do anything didn't want to celebrate was not interested in anything (not helped by the fact that at that point he thought he had taken his medication and it turned out he hadn't. When he has these spells he is very difficult to live with and it is not much fun.  I had manged to get him in a better frame of mind by Christmas Eve and then matters went downhill a bit slightly after that.  Please see below for further details. The downward slide all started where...