First Day

He's been waiting (impatiently I have to say) for months now for today - and here it finally is... can we say EXCITED?!
He went in without a backward glance, so I was a very brave mummy too :-0 I'm going to miss his cheeky face this morning though.

Random Musings on flooring...

It's Sunday , its late, the ironing's done, I'm doing this as displacement cos my baby starts school tomorrow ( yes, not *the* baby Obviously... ( durr...as the girls would say) but he's still my baby..) anyway I thought I'd treat you to the random thoughts I had this week about floors.
You know how people say that hard floors are " less work" than carpets? well I think that's rubbish personally ( and I speak as a hard floor keeper) With carpets you hoover and you're done, unless someone spills something especially nasty on it.. ugh, then every what? 6 mths? a year? 4 mths? I have NO idea... you get the carpet cleaners in and they get rid of the build up.
Now if you have a hard floor you hoover, or you brush, and then you wash it, if you don't do the washing part, that build up of muck ( the stuff the carpet cleaners deal with) well it builds up, and hard floors don't hang onto it like carpet does, so *you* have to do the work.. often....
ask me how I know, I have a crawling baby ( yes *the* baby) the other week I was busy, the floor didn't get mopped for 2 days, - just hoovered, the floors looked ok, but he crawled round and he was filthy, yuckity yuck...
Just think though -if I had carpet, all that dirt ( & more ) would still be there, just unseen...bleurgh... I mean it's not as if you suddenly have less dirt just cos you have carpets is it? so it has to be there ...somewhere...lurking...think I'd rather have the mopping to do :-) so, inconclusion, ( if you're still awake..) hard floors - unforgiving but So much nicer... don't you think?!

Normal service will now be resumed.

Serendipitous shopping

Planning ahead slightly (only about 2 weeks ahead actually but it's better than nothing )
I bought these trousers for the boys in H&M , partly cos they need something to wear for a Christening we're off to, and partly cos look what I had in my stash waiting to be something!
Serendipity or what? stripey T shirts are the order of the day I think, and what would you know - I had unbleached ribbing hiding here too:-)

Pirates Ahoy

We went to a party last weekend, all of us, Kate's Godmother's husband's 40th ... you following this? pay attention or I'll make you walk the plank...
Anyway, it was Pirates & Princesses. Mr Fibre-Fairy was going to go as a Princess, but our little Princesses vetoed that as "too embarrassing daddy" so we went with Pirates. in actual fact Kate went as Elizabeth Swann.. she had her eye on a costume in Woolies so we went shopping. My sewing pride was hurt, but honestly.. it was £15, came with a fan & a hat, was not at all badly made and most importantly looked good - I did go & roughly cost up gold satiny stuff in what has to be the cheapest fabric shop south of Birmingham, and it would have cost me probably £20 just for the stuff... and time was short! Then I discovered a £5 woolies card thingy and the deal was sealed! I have to say though that the Jack Sparrow costume was pants.
Back at the sewing machines I made not one, but 4 Darcy-esque piratey shirts, for Ruthy, Charlie and Ben and one for me... oh the flash back caused by wearing a voluminous white cotton 18C style shirt -Where are you now Adam Ant?! For these shirts I drew on my 1980s sewing experince of making such shirts to original 18C instructions thanks to a friend who worked at the V&A... these were a bit simplified (no underarm or collar gussets for speed,)
A few piratical accessories and we were done - ( MrFF slightly bottled out at this point and wore a striped T shirt - but someone had to go into the offy on the way there looking vaguely normal I suppose.
Here are the boys ( no pictures exist of the rest of us... odd that..)

I love this extract... I love the autumn :-) - well except the Back To Skool thing... ( that was today as it happens :-(

September has come, it is hers
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.
So I give her this month and the next
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed
But so many more so happy.
Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls
Dancing over and over with her shadow
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls
And all of London littered with remembered kisses.

--Louis MacNeice - Autumn Journal -1939