Sunny Days

What a difference the sun makes! This week we have had the hottest day of the year so far at 28 degrees.  We've been up to so much now that the weather has opened up so many activities to us. I've had a list in my head of the things I want to do in the summer so at the first hint of a warm week I put my plans into action. Who knows how long it will last so I am going to do as much as I can in as little time as possible to make the most of it.

I started by mowing the lawn, which I have not done since I was a child! I used to cut the grass in my parent's back garden during secondary school. The grass in my garden was almost up to my knees. I had a gardener, but he hasn't been turning up and I have lost his number so I thought why wait for him when I can do this myself! So I had to go through a lot of junk in my shed to find the lawnmower right at the back in the remotest, hardest to reach corner. Off I went about mowing and found myself really enjoying it! I have lost the skill of mowing in straight lines as I seemed to be manoeuvering it like a vacuum cleaner and ended up with a patch in the middle of the garden looking much like a crop triangle! I had stop in the middle of mowing to give K his lunch as he had just woken from his nap and then rush off to school to pick up R and rush her and her 2 friends to their swimming lesson. Rush over, I completed my mowing and felt quite satisfied at making my gardener redundant.

A lot of garden toys and games were next to come out of the shed after a winter hibernation.
Next, I looked for all my gardening tools. Shovels, spades, fork, gloves, plants pots and watering cans.
I have always wanted to grow my own vegetables and this is the time to do it. I went to buy compost and some seeds to plant. R's choice was beans and sunflowers. So we started with these and planted them first. We also have some window pots growing parsley and cress. The next thing to do is set up a raised bed and plant some root veg and herbs. I couldn't go to the Chelsea Flower show this year, and I would have really loved to go as the weather is perfect for it, so I will have to wait till next year.
At least I can admire my own garden....here it is




Another thing I love doing which really makes me sound like a 50's housewife is hang the washing to dry outside. I love drying the laundry outside, and when I don't have laundry to wash, I will go and find something to wash! As it happens, I do have a lot of washing at the moment, including bedsheets and linen so I ended up hanging so much washing out that by the time I had finished putting them on, some were already dry, that's how warn it is! I also swept the driveway as it was looking very untidy.

R and K decided to play camping in a sleeping bag. The pair of them wanted to be zipped up into a thick, heavily insulated and hooded sleeping bag in the middle of the garden! Then they wanted to bring pillows and blankets too in the middle of the afternoon sun and they looked like they were supposed to be in Iceland. After this game, they played a teddy bear picnic game which is one of their favourite games...using a sledge! I gave the children their dinner outside as well. They played with their ride on toys, the slide, trampoline and bubble blowing. They watered the plants and dug pebbles up with their spades.

I got the fan out as well and then decided to move my dining table around to make it easier to come in and out from the house to the garden.
The next job was to clean the barbeque so we can use it again. Found the charcoal and tongs. Now I need food to grill so a trip to the butcher is required.




Finally, I found a very old plant pot which looked very ugly. I decided to transform it by painting it and voila, it looks amazing now. I want to do more of this!

Furniture painting

I went on a furniture painting workshop with a friend of mine and it was to find out what I could do with some of my old furniture that is too good to get rid of but old and worn enough to hide away.
I was thrilled to learn that the type of paint being demonstrated is known as 'girl's paint' meaning that the furniture to be painted requires no preparation, no priming and no stripping! All you do is open the can of paint, dip in your brush and start painting! The paint is thick and quick drying and you can paint anything with it, wooden furniture, plastic, metal, walls, floors, even the outside of your house!
The next stage is waxing, then sanding to create a distressed look. At the workshop we painted, sanded and distressed a small 3-legged stool to bring home.

I could not wait to get started on my own furniture and took home a pot of paint and a pot of wax. I have a nest of three side tables and started on the smaller two the next day. In my excitement to get started I forgot to take a picture of the 'before' but here is the 'after'. This colour is called French Linen.

To give you an idea, this is the colour it was before....

I've started to look at furniture differently, and think about painting everything in my sight! This is a great thing because before I would have found something to be redundant because it no longer looks good or doesn't match other things, but now I can change how something looks by painting it in the colour I want.
I've painted a small bedside cabinet with two drawers which was falling apart and I was considering throwing away until I restored it and transformed it.

Before....

And here's a plant pot

Before.....

And after....

Now I want to get some other colours to try!

Here's the link

http://www.anniesloan.com/acatalog/copy_of_How_to_use_the_paint.html

Cool Runnings

I've recently started running, now that the days are warmer, longer and doesn't get dark till nearly 9pm. After I've kissed and cuddled and put the children into bed at 7, I change into my running gear and off I go around the block.
My ''running gear'' currently consists of a pair of old leggings and a big baggy Nike jumper that is so old I don't know if it's actually mine or A's. I need to get myself one of those fitness trackers so it can tell me how well I'm doing - well no one else is going to give me a pat on the back so I figured I should invest in some praise giving instrument - even if it is only a digital gadget.
The first few times I only lasted 15 minutes which really shocked me about how unfit I have become. This has only made me more determined to keep this up so along with my Zumba classes, I am on my way back to fitness. I would love to go back to the fitness levels of my swimming, sports and hardcore gym days during school and university but I'll have to wait and see.
I also kept stopping to look at houses being advertised for sale
I also kept forgetting my iPod the first few times and today I remembered it - only to realised that the only music I have on it is Michael Buble and Adele! Hardly the kind of music to work up a 4 minute mile to! I managed to find one track which was more upbeat - Beyonce's Single Ladies and found that I was trying hard to stop myself from dancing rather than running! So I'm going to upload some of my ''better tracks to run to'' before my next run.

Project Warehouse

I was asked by my dad to help him sort through the warehouse store room. I love a spring clean, in fact I like a 'any time of year' clean
I regularly have a clear out of my desk, the children's toys, their clothes, my wardrobe, the shed, and the kitchen and take the unwanted clutter and grown out of toys and clothes to the local charity shop. 
So when I was asked to go and clear out the store room I felt up for the challenge
Dad has a huge warehouse which holds his stock. He also has a dedicated room where he stores our old furniture, toys, books and other things. He is a hoarder and cannot bear to throw anything away. He has only managed to admit to this recently and will openly say that he finds it very difficult to let go of things that he no longer has any use for. 
I got up early to go before it got too hot as the warehouse is not air conditioned and dad came with me. I was excited about the opportunity to have a good old rummage and see what I would find
when I saw the room it was filled from floor to ceiling of boxes and boxes, I rolled up my sleeves and got started
Here's what I found:
Old curtains, televisions, computer monitors, towers and keyboards, photocopiers, telephones and fax machines, towels, linens, cooking pots and pans, kitchen utensils, decorative ornaments, old computer desks, wardrobes, office chairs, coffee tables, wall art, portraits, books, albums, catalogs, cleaning equipment, baby equipment, 3 bird cages and lots of empty biscuit tins, jars and bottles. 
I didn't take pictures because my hands were so dusty
Almost all of it went to the scrap heap. I kept a box of Lego, a doll with its own changing bag and a few children's story books to read to my children. 
I then found 2 trunks full of old school books belonging to me, my sister and my brother from the mid 90's. It was an amazing feeling to be able to look through the exercise books, the reading books, the text books and our doodling all over them! 
I had to get rid of those and they went to the scrap heap too. 
After the clear out the room looked much bigger and tidier. There's enough room to hoard for the next 2 decades!