Little Robin Friend...

Mum's made friends with a Robin in the garden.  He is starting to be friends with me too.

He is very sweet and sits in the branches of the plum tree, singing very, very quietly, as if he is singing to himself.

Do you have friendly birds in your garden?

Summer (ish) Garden Update...

Our garden seems to finally be making us some veg...just in time for it to go cold and frosty and the season to be over! Oh well!  It feels properly autumnal now...brr!

Here's our pumpkin, starting to turn orange!

I finally have a courgette and woe betide any small sluglike creature who dares to take a bite out of it!

My mini sweetcorn has grown pink hair!  I couldn't be prouder of it!  Last years sweetcorn hairs were white...don't know what's going on because I used the same packet of seeds, but I much prefer this cheerful pink version!

I thought this was a bell pepper, but it seems to want to be a chilli instead, think I got the seeds mixed up!

My first broad bean harvest, they're from my biggest healthiest plant, so I'm keeping the bigger beans to dry for planting next year.  The small ones will go in the freezer until I have a few more, then I'll make burgers or falafel from them (I'm not too keen on the beans on their own).

We've still got lots of butterflies fluttering about too!

How are your gardens doing?

Craft-y Fair-y....

I spent Saturday and Sunday doing a craft fair at a National Trust property...it was lovely a sunny on Saturday, but Sunday was a bit of a wash out...

This is my stall...

And some of my things...I sold a LOT of brooches this time!

I took some of my vintage sheet fat quarters with me this time (and nearly got into a fight with a lady about how long half a yard was....she insisted it was 9 inches!), but didn't sell very many, which is funny, because at the craft fair I usually go to I am always asked if I sell my fabric and I know it would have gone like shot!

That's my last craft fair for a while.  I'm going to take some time to settle into my new flat (not that I'm in it yet or anything!) and make some lovely things for it (I have a rag rug and a blanket that need finishing, not to mention curtains, bunting, a crochet gingerbread house I bought a pattern for last xmas and never got round to doing...not to mention mums crochet cushion cover, her xmas present last year too!).  Have you any crafty plans at the moment?

Linking up with Lakota's Ta-Dah Tuesday!

from here

National Zero Waste Week 2012...What I did....

What I did for this years Zero Waste Week was, actually, not very much.  The theme this year was 'one more thing' and I was going to find out where to recycle tetra packs and about the recycling in my new flat.  

 Of course, I haven't moved into my flat yet, but I have done a little bit of detective work (by detective work I mean looking outside my flat and finding this huge wall of recycling bins!)  Yey!  They're for cardboard, plastic  paper and glass.  And they're literally 2 minutes away from my door.  That's that one solved then.

As for tetra packs, I'm still to investigate where to recycle them in my area in person, but I have used this great tetra-pack-recycling-place-finder, recommended by Mrs Green herself, and found 5 recycling banks in my borough and 1 within walking distance of where I live.  To be investigated further when I move and am responsible for my own shopping and recycling!

Did you do 'one more thing' for Zero Waste Week?  How did it go?

Flat Update...

Thought I'd show you what's been happening in my flat...I'm not in it yet!  

Mum's worked really hard and painted pretty much everything white (I have asthma that gets pretty severe if I'm around paint-y smells so I can't do any of that bit) and I have done cleaning and paying for things.  

This is my living room....

Bed room...

The bathroom has had the biggest change...a whole new suite...I wanted to keep the sink and bath and just get a new loo, but in between me viewing the flat and putting an offer in the person who used to own it poured paint down the plugs of both, then tried to scrape it off with a metal scraper and took all the enamel off...so I gave in and bought everything new.  I also had a shower fitted...yey!

Although it looks quite nice in the photos, the man I had to do the bathroom did a shocking job with the tiling (wonky, tiles cut with a saw and all ragged, gaps in the grouting, finished with the wrong size beading and finished the corners off with plastic tape), so it needs ripping off and doing again...I've also had to have all the plumbing re-done because he'd made an arse of that as well...it will take several pay-days to save up for that one I think!  Not best pleased.

I have a shiny new boiler...I was hoping the old one would last, but it was kaput, this one is very nice and makes hot water very quickly (we seem to wait an age for the water to get hot here at home!)...It also free's up a huge space where the old copper tank was (the old central heating system was put in in 1984, so it was as old as me!) so I get some extra storage!

Kitchen...I've begun stripping the wood-chip off the walls and me and mum carried all 10 of my new kitchen units up the stairs, just waiting for my kitchen man to come and put it together for me now and then mum can paint it pink!

While doing the stripping I discovered several layers of old wallpaper...looks like it had also been painted green and bright orange at some point too...I love the two vintage blue floral wallpapers I uncovered, I wish the kitchen still had either of them up.

After getting a locksmith to undo my balcony door, I discovered I have views!  To one side I can see the Wrekin (a big hill we have here!) and the other is a church and a big tree...pretty lucky huh?

So now it's just kitchen, carpets, sofa, cleaning, getting that bathroom sorted and packing then I can move! Yipeeee!

Amazing August...

This month I've loved...

* vegan yorkshire pudding (sort of, it's an experimental recipe still in the development stages!) * selling a bag online * pretty pink roses * owl jug * reading books all day * sitting in the sunshine * booking tickets to see Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat * blue skies * my friend at work giving me 2 courgettes - I still haven't managed to grow any * buying a snail plant pot - 50p from the charity shop * meeting new people * lovely emails * green toenails (it's only nail varnish, not an infection or anything!) * playing my ukulele * the Olympics, they were pretty cool!  I especially liked the paralympic opening ceremony * Dr Who - new series! VERY EXCITING! *

This weekend me and mum went to Aberystwyth for the day, we ate chips on the sea front, fed seagulls, bought some shiny stuff in the shops, and had a walk down the river, spotted some red kites and walked back up the beach...here are some of our photos...

The river...

The beach...

Me going to dip my toe in the water...

We had taken our beach chairs and books, but as you can see, it was a bit too windy for that!

What have you loved this month?