Christmas Shopping!

I’m so looking forward to Christmas! Ben and I went Christmas shopping in Preston yesterday and it really put me in a festive mood. Preston is a great place to shop this time of year. There are lots of great shops, with lots of great pre-Christmas bargains and wonderful Christmassy window displays to enhance your shopping experience. And the council always does a great job of decorating the town centre with a fabulous array of lights and other Christmas paraphernalia; they’ve even gone so far as to transform The Flag Market into a winter wonderland, comprising an outdoor ice skating rink surrounded by log cabins serving food and drink. Nice!

Although we’d already bought most of our Christmas presents, there were still a few things left to get. For example, we’d already bought Crissy a couple of Mayoral girl’s skirt and ivory T-shirt outfits (one brown skirt and one purple skirt)  in the Cachet Kids sale and we were looking for some rabbit themed accessories to go with them. After lots of searching we managed to get hold of a cute white fluffy hat with rabbit ears and a few different kinds of socks with rabbit designs on them that I’m sure Crissy will love.

We’d already bought Simon a boy’s purple wizard outfit with hat and we were looking for some wizard themed accessories to go with it. Fortunately, we were able to find a grey false beard, a toy magic wand and a toy black cat that went perfectly with the outfit. I can’t wait to see him all dressed up as a wizard on Christmas day!

And we’d already bought my nephew Ashley a boy’s solider outfit with red beret hat and we were looking for some toy weapons to go with the outfit. In the end we bought him a toy machine gun and some plastic hand grenades, which I'm sure he'll love.

Anyway, I had a great time shopping and will no doubt return to Preston with the whole family before Christmas. We might even give the ice rink a go, who knows!

Halloween Fun!

I absolutely love Halloween! It’s a great excuse for a party! Last year my sister Judy threw a children's fancy dress party, which was a lot of fun and I decided to do this same this year.

Ben and I decorated the house with lots of spooky stuff, like fake cobwebs, creepy crawlies, resin skulls and pumpkin lanterns and the kids all dressed up in cool costumes.

Keith was dressed in some of his father’s clothes (which were much too big for him) and said that he had come dressed as his ‘mini me’!

Crissy was dressed in a witch’s outfit which she and I had made together, which comprised: a long black dress with a jagged hemline, a large black pointed hat, a black haired wig made of wool and a crooked paper mache nose held in place with a piece of elastic. (Actually, it was only held in place for a few minutes before drooping and being discarded.)

Simon was dressed in a wonderful Brave Heart knight’s outfit, which consisted of: black tunic style top with a red plume emblem and gold net chain-mail effect finish, black trousers with gold net chain-mail knee pads, a gold gauntlet and short sword. 

 Sarah was dressed as a fairy-tale princess, wearing a special occasions ivory dress with flowers and sequins, special occasions girl’s white party shoes and a gorgeous faith communion tiara.

Many friends and family turned up to the party and there were lots of great costumes, but my favourite was a cute little dragon costume worn by my nephew Ashley. He looked so adorable running around as a tiny dragon, playing with Simon at dragon / knight slaying!

We played lots of games, like bobbing for apples, pass the parcel and musical chairs, but my favourite was a fun quiz in which we took turns at answering questions and every time you answered a question right you got a treat and every time you answered the question wrong you got a forfeit (like a shaving foam pie in the face or a bucket of ice water over the head). I was the quiz mistress and to make things ‘fair’ (and entertaining) I made sure that the kids all had very easy questions and the adults all had impossibly hard questions. The kids absolutely loved it! And I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in my life! 

Welcome Guests!

Just had a great weekend! As promised, my old school friend Sally brought her gorgeous daughter Jessica over for a visit and I persuaded them to stay for a few days.

I showed them around the town and we went to Morecambe for a day trip, which was fun. The weather wasn’t great but it was still fun walking on the beach collecting shells and having lunch on the seafront. I don’t know about you, but I think fish and chips from the seaside taste much better than ordinary fish and chips, particularly when you eat them on the seafront looking out over the sea.

By the way, if you’re ever in Morecambe don’t forget to check out the wonderful bronze statue of Eric Morecambe on the promenade. I was there when it was unveiled by the Queen in 1999 and I always pay it a visit when I visit the town.

The kids absolutely adore Jessica – she’s so cute and funny. In fact, she and Sarah got along so well that the two were virtually inseparable for the whole visit. They’re about the same age, they have a similar sense of humour and like the same things (clothes and Peppa Pig, mainly) so it’s not so surprising that they should enjoy each other’s company.  

Sarah even let Jessica try on some of her best clothes. Jessica said that her favourites were:  a red polka dots girl’s summer dress with blue bows, a Sarah Louise white and navy summer dress and a Sarah Louise Ivory dress with lilac frills and flowers. I thought that Jessica looked adorable in these, but my personal favourite was an ivory dress with cerise bow that I bought Sarah recently.

Alas, the visit came to an end last night when my lovely house guests had to return home. I was sad to see them leave, but hopefully it won’t be too long before I get to see them again.

Visiting An Old Friend

Well, I’ve just had a great day visiting Sally, an old school friend in Skipton. If you’ve never been to Skipton I strongly recommend a visit. It’s an attractive market town nestled in some fantastic countryside close to the Yorkshire Dales. It has a lovely shopping centre with some great shops, a picturesque castle, an attractive canal that runs through the town and some of the nicest people you’re ever likely to meet.   

Sally and I go way back to infant school. In fact, I’ll never forget the first time we met - on the first day she came up to me and said: ‘You can’t hit me, my dad’s a policeman!’, so I hit her … and the friendship (somehow) developed from there. Those were the days!

Anyway, Sally’s daughter, Jessica was having her First Holy Communion and I just had to be there. Unfortunately, Ben had some work to do, so he stayed at home looking after the kids. (Fortunately everything was still in one piece when I got home!)

I arrived early in the morning to help Sally with the preparations and to catch up on some gossip and the ceremony was held in the afternoon. The ceremony was beautiful and Jessica looked adorable in her Communion outfit, which I helped pick out. She wore a Molly Communion dress with satin and organza lace trimmed skirt, some white Communion gloves with three pearls and three flowers, some Communion shoes with ray of diamante decoration and a narrow diamante Communion headband. She's such a lovely girl and the spitting image of her mother at the same age. 

After the ceremony most of the guests headed back to Sally’s house for a reception and it was amazing how many of our old school friends turned up. Sally was very popular at school and she’s always been great at keeping in touch with her friends.

I had a great time and Sally's promised to bring Jessica over to Garstang for a visit in a few weeks, so hopefully I’ll get to see them again soon. 

Clitheroe Food Festival

We had a great day out yesterday – we went for a drive in the hills and ended up in the beautiful market town of Clitheroe, which was having a food festival. I was told by some locals that it’s the biggest food festival in Lancashire and I can well believe it – I’ve never seen so many food stalls in one place before, showcasing so much wonderful food! 

Keith had the great idea of buying one of everything that took our fancy and having a little each so that we could sample a broad range of things. And I have to say that everything we tried was lovely! Ben’s favourite was some delicious creamy, crumbly Lancashire cheese produced by Leagrams Organic Cheeses – a small dairy located in Chipping, a picturesque village nestled in the hills between Garstang and Clitheroe. Keith’s favourite was a scrumptiously irresistible chocolate tart from Posh Tarts, based in Lytham. Crissy’s favourite was a mouth-watering chocolate cake from Apricot Meringue - a wonderful little coffee shop in Clitheroe that we like to visit when we're in town. Simon and Sarah’s favourite was some absolutely gorgeous Mrs Dowson’s Ice Cream produced locally in the Ribble Valley. And my favourite was some scrummy chocolate from Choc Amor located in Botany Bay, Lancashire. After stocking up on our favourites we had a walk around the beautiful castle at the top of the town and then we went down to the river for a picnic. 

On the way home we stopped by my friend Nikki’s house and dropped off a birthday present for her youngest, Jessica. Ben and I bought her a lovely hand smocked blue stripes summer dress from Cachet Kids (my favourite online children’s clothes retailer). I know that Jessica loves the colour blue and I thought that it would go well with the blue T-bar shoes in matt leather and knee high pom pom socksin baby blue that her mother bought her recently.

The Summer is Here!

The summer is here, the sun is shining and the garden is in full bloom. Ben loves gardening and the garden always looks great in the summer, but this year he’s really surpassed himself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it looking so lovely. It’s such a pleasure sitting out on warm evenings with Ben and the kids enjoying the fruits of his labour. Ben attributes the flourishing of the plants to the liberal use of manure, but I think that that’s a load of … rubbish! Only joking! Actually, the whole town seems to be in full bloom at the moment. Even the high street is adorned with beautiful floral displays. The council and local businesses have really done the town proud this year (as always).

I’m lucky enough to live in Garstang – a lovely little market town in Lancashire, quite close to Preston and Lancaster. Not only is the town very pretty, but it’s also an easy drive to the coast and to some incredibly beautiful countryside. This time of year we always take advantage of our location and go for long drives up and down the coast and into the nearby hills. It’s also quite close to the Lake District, which is simply stunning in beauty. And we always attend more than our fair share of garden parties, which is great! I love to meet up with family and friends at informal gatherings, enjoying good food and good company.

Actually, the last garden party we attended was more of a formal occasion – my friend Nikki’s engagement party. Nikki and Jack have been together for about ten years and they have a lovely little daughter called Julie. I thought that they would never get married as they always said that they didn’t need a piece of paper to make them happy. But then one day Jack proposed out of the blue and suddenly we had an engagement to celebrate. I think he only did it as an excuse for a party! And what a party it was!

Nikki and Jack looked fabulous – nicely tanned from their recent holiday in France, Jack wore a lovely rich blue suit and matching tie with a smart white shirt (I don’t know where they were from) and Nikki wore an amazing Emilio Pucci ruched printed dress from Selfridges. (I’m so envious!) And Julie looked so cute in her Victoria red and white flowers navy smockeddress, with navy knee high pom pom socks and Mary Jane style girl’s white patent shoes from Cachet Kids.

There was a barbecue (dutifully manned by Ben), a kids’ disco (which the adults seemed to enjoy more than the kids) and lots of party games – my particular favourite was a treasure hunt for Cadbury’s Cream Eggs, which I was particularly good at! (When it comes to locating chocolate there's nobody better!) I’m glad that Nikki and Jack are finally getting married, somehow it just seems right.

May Day Celebrations!

Quite of few of the towns and villages around here have May Day celebrations and every year we attend a village fete or two – the kids love the singing, dancing and especially the cake eating! (Actually, that’s my favourite part too!) However, this year we took things one step further and organised our own May Day celebration! I’m not sure who first had the idea, but my sister Judy liked the idea so much that she volunteered to organise it and hold it in her garden. The weather wasn’t great, but that didn’t matter as my brother Ed provided a large marquee for the day (acquired for his wedding some years ago) and festivities were held under cover.

Dozens of friends and family turned up, contributing lots of lovely food and drink. And Judy had the great idea of having a knights and princesses theme for the kids, who mostly turned up in appropriately themed fancy dress.

Simon (who loves fancy dress) wore his boy’s medieval crusader knight costume from Cachet Kids which comprised: a top with padded shoulders and a blue lion design on the front (not red, like the picture below), trousers, arm covers, chainmail look helmet, boot covers and a sword. He looked so cute!

Keith (who loves to play the rebel) came dressed in a smart boy’s five piece black striped suit set from Cachet Kids and wore a cardboard Alan Sugar mask from Play.com. When people asked why he’d come as Alan Sugar he replied that he’d come as Sir Alan Sugar, the knight! But when his friend Michael pointed out that Alan Sugar had been made a lord and wasn’t known as ‘Sir Alan’ any more, he went home to check on his computer whether a lord was still a knight!

Sarah and Crissy came dressed as princesses with fabulous costumes from Cachet Kids. Sarah wore a pink princess Frilly Milly dressing up costume with several layers of soft wavy net, a velveteen bodice and a fluffypink marabou feather boa. She also wore gorgeous princess glitter girl’s pink party shoes and a faith communion tiara.

Sarah wore a first Holy Communion princess dress with net bolero and handbag. And to complete the look she wore girls white party shoes and a diamante glitter Communion Alice band. They both looked absolutely beautiful.

The celebration itself was a lot of fun. As well as all the great food and drink, there was improvised Morris Dancing (led by my brother Dave), a Maypole dance that descended into tangled chaos and the crowning of a May Queen. We had a vote and Dave was elected May Queen in recognition of his outstanding hanky waving abilities! In addition, Judy bought some space hoppers, plastic buckets and inflatable swords and we had a bouncing jousting competition, which Ben won! The object was to bounce around knocking the plastic buckets off the other competitors’ heads with your inflatable sword and the last competitor with a bucket on his/her head was the winner! I knew that having a large head that was just the right size and shape to jam into a bucket would one day pay off! (Only joking Ben, if you’re reading this!) Judy also hired a bouncy castle which was a lot of fun for the kids (the adults were too big and heavy to use it) and she bought some dragon piñatas which were great fun for children and adults alike. You never really grow out of enjoying bashing things with sticks and eating sweets; and the idea of combining the two into one activity was pure genius! However, I had the most fun watching Uncle Jim repeatedly missing his dangling dragon after six pints of lager, getting more and more frustrated with every unsuccessful swipe. In the end he grabbed the piñata and pulled it down, nearly bringing the whole marquee down with it! 

Happy Easter!

I hope you had a great Easter, I certainly did. We spent quite a bit of the Easter weekend enjoying the Lake District, which is pretty easy to get to from here. It was so lovely walking around Kendal, having lunch on the banks of Windermere and exploring the Grasmere area. The weather was pretty good on the whole and the views were magnificent. If you’ve never been to the Lake District you really should visit.

Although we spent much of the weekend out and about there was still time for my favourite pastime – eating chocolate! (There’s always time for eating chocolate!) The kids bought Ben and I a huge Easter egg to share and the kids received lots of eggs from the family, as usual. They spent most of the weekend scoffing chocolate and feeling sick … oh to be young again! We also had the customary giving of clothes – a tradition that has been in our family for as long as anyone can remember.

My grandmother once told me that when she was young it was very common for families to give presents of clothes at Easter. Back in her day buying new clothes was a special occurrence for most families and it often coincided with special occasions like Christmas, birthdays and Easter. These days buying new clothes is much more commonplace, but in my view buying new clothes for special occasions (like Easter) is still important – it makes those occasions even more special.

This year Ben bought me a beautiful new Armani Collezion double-breasted trench coat from Selfridges online. It is so comfortable and stylish; you can really feel the quality. And it goes perfectly with the Armani stretch-cotton pencil skirt that Ben bought me last year. I can’t wait to show Judy, she’ll be so envious!

I bought Ben a collection of high quality ties from M&S online. He already has dozens of ties but they’re getting a bit old and shabby so I decided he needed some new ones. They have so many great ties at M&S that I was spoiled for choice, but in the end I went for two from the M&S Collection and two from the Collezione collection. They’re all great quality, but the Collezione ties are especially good – they’re made in Italy from pure silk and they feel so soft and smooth.

We bought Keith a pair of top quality pretty originals boys white patent shoes in leather from Cachet Kids. They have 100% white patent leather upper and leather lined interior. He was so pleased with them and they looked great when he tried them on.

Crissy really loves fancy socks and so we bought her lots of pom pom socks and satin bow socks from Cachet Kids. They had many different colours and we ended up buying a few of each. I think that my favourite ones were the girls knee high fuchsia socks with satin bows; they looked really striking.

Simon is a bundle of fun and he loves to dress up so we bought him a boys pirate outfit in blue and white with hat and sword from Cachet kids. It was such good value (as you’d expect from Cachet Kids) and Simon really loved it. In fact, it was hard work getting him to wear anything else for the rest of the weekend!

Last but not least, Sarah is going to a friend’s birthday party in a few weeks and so we bought her a very pretty special occasion dress from Cachet Kids. I just love the intricate decorations and subtle use of colour on the dress. She’s going to look absolutely gorgeous!

 

A Happy Birthday

In our house this time of year is known as ‘birthday season’ because so many of us have our birthdays in March and April – Ben and I have ours in March and Jenny and Stuart have theirs in April. We always have a party to celebrate the kids’ birthdays and normally Ben and I have a special dinner to celebrate our birthdays, but this year Ben did something extra special – he arranged a wonderful surprise party for me!

In the morning I was awakened at the crack of dawn by the kids jumping on the bed, eager to present me with my birthday presents and breakfast in bed, which was really lovely. The kids bought me two pairs of slippers, some perfume and a new hairbrush and Ben bought me a beautiful new coat which I’d had my eye on for a while. (He obviously picked up on the subtle hints that I kept dropping, such as, ‘I want THAT coat for my birthday!’) 

I spent much of the morning watching DVDs with the kids while Ben prepared lunch and then after lunch we all went out for a drive in the hills and along the coast. It was a beautiful clear, sunny day and the view across Morecambe bay from the hills was stunning. 

We were out for a couple of hours and then when we returned the surprise party was set up and waiting for me. (My sister Judy had collaborated with Ben to set the party up in my absence.) Ben and the kids held back and then as I walked into the living room dozens of friends and family leapt towards me shouting ‘Surprise!’ I nearly jumped out of my skin! But after the initial shock had subsided I had a good laugh with everyone else. 

I should have expected something like this from Ben - he’s so thoughtful and it was big birthday. I won’t tell you how old I am as I’d have to shoot you afterwards, but let’s just say the number is divisible by ten without remainder. (I knew those maths lessons that I was forced to endure as a child would come in handy one day.)

Anyway, I chatted with the guests and enjoyed the buffet for a while then my kids appeared dressed in some of their best party gear. I was so proud of them.

Keith wore a premium quality boys white 3 piece suit with a boys white cufflinks shirt with double cuff and cufflinks, a boys white tie in shiny satin fabric and handmade leather junior boys white shoes.

Crissy and Sarah wore beautiful matching special occasion girls dresses in ivory and black and girls white party shoes with flower diamantes. And Simon wore a stylish 5 piece boys grey suit set and handmade junior boys black leather shoes.

They all looked so lovely. I’m so grateful to Ben for arranging such a wonderful birthday for me. I’ll have to think of something extra special to do for his next birthday.