How to keep a house tidy...

It seems the best way to enjoy cleaning is to catch the horrible cold/cough that is doing the rounds, lasts for 3 weeks and has no redeeming features other than inducing the urge to clean.  And I mean really clean, I have scrubbed every inch of woodwork in the cottage, wiped down all of the walls and paintwork in London, even our life-sized baby hippo had a spa day....

I've been meaning to move all of the nick-knacks and put this pair of cabinets to better use for years. Finally all the glasses are in one place and I have deliciously empty kitchen cabinets to put to good use.  Every glass was washed and polished until it shone...

Even the Victorian fruit dishes have found a home which will mean that they will be used rather than just gathering dust...

Here are the nick-knacks, which have been carefully wrapped, boxed and put away...

The dining room now 'works'.  All the glassware and more unusual china is stowed where it can be seen (and therefore used!).

I have a friend coming for lunch on Wednesday and can't wait to try out all my 'new' finds...

As usual there are pink roses in place, hosting at home isn't the same without a sprinkling of roses, this lot were only £5 from M and S.....

 My lunch date is a detail person, she notices everything, so it will be worth going to the extra effort with the table and food...

I started at 8am and at 4.30 stopped for a cup of tea...

 It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, I'm not keen on presents and so on, but the husband knows me too well, he just gave me a selection of international magazines that I am too mean to buy myself, exactly what I wanted...

I am thinking about some brightly coloured Ikat cushions for the Summer, my pillows need an update, but I am not sure which way to go.  Any suggestions as to what you would do? Naomi can you make me some??

Unfortunately 'tidying up' is like Sudoku in my house, tomorrow I shall start on the bedroom...

The 'uniform' skinny jeans, Vince shirt, Ash Jalouse boots and 'Hermes' bag, no point in fighting it, officially dressed like everyone else in West London..

Making Spring garlands....

The cottage looks a little bare now that all the Christmas decorations have gone, today the sun came out and Spring didn't seem so far away.  This is one of my favourite Pinterest pictures and I wondered if I could make something similar from a coat-hanger.  The wire ones get caught inside all of the others in the wardrobe so I always throw them away, which feels a bit wasteful.

All the bits and pieces....

 One bent coathanger....

 covered in ivy, ordinarily I would have just stopped here, but Spring was the theme of the day...

 I added some old silk roses, which will be replaced with real ones when I get out of the village 

(it's been a while)

To go with the long sprigs of rosemary, I harvested another variety

still going strong in the depths of winter...

The scent of rosemary and thyme is quite powerful...

 It's passable for a first attempt.  I need a ton of roses to make it really work, but since all it cost to make is a coathanger

And Spring suddenly doesn't seem to far away.

Nowadays is it OK to covet?

Life has been busy and my eldest has been very ill so blogging has been off the agenda. I still peruse of my favourites and read an interesting post from Stina Auer.  The post and comments were quite thought provoking.

I regularly wonder why I bother keeping this blog 'public' since it there is an innate vanity in doing so (as one of Stina's commentators rightly points out).  And yet when I do a post, in my mind there are only 3 people reading it (and that includes my husband and my own revision of it).  I keep it public because it keeps it all lighter and happier. Less likely to go to those places of despair that we might visit in a private diary and with luck don't last long and are not really a reflection of our overall state of mind.

My blog is just marking the passing of time, and all of the small memories that might get lost if I don't have a little place to store them.

The bigger questions that Stina raises about the next generation and the pointlessness of most of our blog/instagram/twitter offerings struck a chord.  But the sun is out, my presentation is finished, life is looking good, so in this moment, I am optimistic, that the next generation will evolve and adapt.

 They will value their privacy above all else and will be astounded at the ridiculous amount of information that we were all stupid enough to give away without question.  And all those thousands of images of 'expensive selfies' showing off designer clothes and handbags, what will we make of those in a few years?  I like to look at pretty things and a nice pic of an Hermes bag is quite pleasing on the eye, but is it dangerous to 'normalise' this stuff, so that somehow we feel short-changed if we don't have it?  And yet when I was going back and forward to the hospital, I didn't want anything heavy- weight and thought-provoking.  I was thrilled that the waiting room had Grazia and Elle, I needed to mindlessly flick through something to take even the smallest part of my mind off of the bigger concerns.

But are we creating a generation who will value their relationship with others based on the number of designer bags that they buy them?

The ten commandments, are pretty sensible advice both for making society work and for leading a happy life.   'Not coveting' would seem like a good idea and yet social media (and I'm singling out Instagram as the worst offender) seems to be used to actively encouraging envy of the lives of others. In 'real life',  I've always been suspicious of people who go to great lengths to tell others how rich/happy/ successful they are. Believing the more they shout, the less it is true. But even with 'disbelief' as my basic mindset, Instagram, makes me uncomfortable.  It makes me question 'do we travel enough'? 'Should I cook/look better?' etc It is something about the power of images, that bypass reason and take you straight to an emotional 'want'?

During the last few weeks, life has been very small.  The invalid couldn't really go out for more than five or ten minutes at a time, so highlights of our day revolved around watching the dogs chase the pigeons in the garden.  The pigeons literally come and tap on the bottom of the door to drive them into a frenzy and wait in the bush for the chase to start, a real life 'Tom and Jerry'.

Lighting the fire is another highlight, we usually wait until lunchtime so that by twilight it is burning nicely. A 'trip out' is the 1 minute walk to the village shop for daily supplies, Thursdays being particularly exciting since this is the day that the weekly local paper is printed.  Life is small, minuscule and not remotely Instagrammable and yet aside from knowing he is on the mend, it is the happiest I have ever been.  He is now back at school and I am slightly dreading having to re-engage with normal life.

Farewell to Guests and Yuletide parties

 This Christmas has been a memorable one, usually we are quite low key and the only day that we celebrate is Christmas Eve.  It has been lovely celebrating with a huge number of old and new friends over a number of days and reading this post at Badinage, made me realise it is hasn't been the glitz and the glamour that is the best bit, it's just being with people that we care about that matters.

There weren't too many photos of Cliveden, I am sure that Cynthiawill do Alice far more justice than I have in this.  She was the belle of the ball, quite breath-takingly beautiful in her Cinderella dress. The consensus was Grace Kelly at her best, the young man to her right thought so too....

 The little guy also concurred, although he is less steadfast, he spent the later part of the evening dancing with two ladies in their 30s...

Dinner was tasty and we got our very own close quarter magician, his balancing acts were more successful than the card tricks...

 Cynthia and I relaxed after dinner and watched the young on the dance floor...

 I was tired after three days of partying, our poor guests also had jet lag, I am not sure they ever really knew what time of day or night it was.

We picked them up at 6am to return to the airport.  It was a beautiful time to be in London....
This was our first sighting of the Christmas lights this year, and they were spectacular...

And Claridges isn't bad either...

The trip to Heathrow was an easy run and we only wished that they could have stayed longer.

Now we are back at the cottage, with oodles of cakes and mince-pies, settled in front of the fire, waiting for the snow to come...(Miss B engrossed in Country Life) 

But she will always look up for a photo....

 I hope that you are warm, cosy and relaxed as Christmas draws to an end.

Boxing day ball

Christmas eve drinks went in a bit of a blur, I managed the whole night in Michael Kors caged heels, lower than the Sergio Rossi Mermaid ones, but just as sparkly....

 My favourite photo bomber...

...was less keen to be photographed...

Got this last pic before the madness started...

At midnight Miss B retired to bed, it's so exhausting being the Belle of the ball...

Tonight we are all going to a Boxing Day Ball at Cliveden.
In less than an hour I shall be collecting my two Cinderellas from Claridges and we will head out to the country....

This is a Valentino number from TK Maxx, I think it was from their bridal range, but at 50 quid I am not too worried, it is pure silk and beautiful chantilly lace....

I am fully blinged up, just don't look too closely at the diamonds, muggers would be disappointed...

And shod in Rene Caovilla with an Anya clutch.  Plus the beautiful flowers from Cynthia and the lovely Alice.

I have to run so that we are not late, tonight I'll try and be better with the pictures.

 I hope that everyone else is having a magical Christmas time.