Happy Halloween

Tonight being a "school night", I did my Halloween partying on Saturday night at Sunderland district Motorcycle Clubs Halloween Bash.

 

Recipe for black widow outfit:

• 1 long black skirt
• Black lace trimmed top
• 1 pack of poundland tarantulas
• 1 75p Wilkinsons witches hat
• 1 poundland halloween lace tablecloth!!!

 What a great time we had ...

Dave got a bit goggly eyed...

...a condition which seemed to be catching. (Youngest daughter)

Though she did  later recover.

Happy Halloween!!

xxx

A sloe harvest & birthday thanks.

Today we went a sloe picking. What a great year for sloes this has turned out to be!

Just need to buy lots of bottles of gin and vodka on my way home from work tomorrow to make lashings of Sloe Gin & Sloe Vodka!

Just as well as we are down to the final dregs of our last bottle from last year.

I was a very lucky girl on my birthday, not only did I get spoiled by my family, but I also received the lovely gifts below from ladies who have taken part in the Birthday Swap.

Many thanks to Lemonade Kitty, Nana GoGo, Little Crafting Bird, Funky Fairy,  Sew Special Bears Kandipandi & Woodbank Crafts .

Still have intentions to declutter but well ...

...swanning off for a relaxing weekend away takes precedence.

Before I tell you where I've been though I must thank the lovely Vix for sending me a brilliant 1984 book by Don Aslett - "The Secret of How to Win Freedom From Clutter"

Brilliant cover illustration.

Back in my younger days I bought Don's book about how to do housework - read it from cover to cover and felt so inspired and virtuous that I reformed my slatternly ways forever ok reverted immediately to my normal housework hating self!

I have great hopes though that inspiration will be forthcoming and with the help of Don I will win my freedom from clutter. Well at least I will take heed of some of his wisdom and weed out the clutter I want to keep from that which truly is just useless "stuff".

Back to the weekend jaunt - we went to the village of Kirkholm near Stranraer and stayed here...

Obviously NOT taken this weekend in the howling gales and driving rain!

The weather was frightful - howling gales accompanied by bouncing rain, but we were all warm and cosy in this little cottage.

A real fire and original wood shutters made everything oh so cosy.

Friends from Dunoon travelled down to join us. They arrived much earlier than we did, so on our arrival we were greeted with a lovely log fire roaring merrily away in the hearth, with those lovely original wood shutters battened down against the night and a supper of steak  and wedges accompanied by copious amounts of wine.

The reading room!

Just how brilliant is this bathroom? Not only a bookcase opposite the throne no less, but a quirky little fireplace too!

We visited a stormy ...

...but nevertheless pretty Portpatrick.

http://www.loganfishpond.org.uk/find-us

The amazing Logan Fishpond. The pond was created in 1788 from a blow hole to be used as a fish larder for Logan House. The present day aim is to showcase native species of fish and to educate the public in how to protect them. The fish are returned to the sea every two years to enable them to mature and breed. Our guide was very knowledgeable and informative and we all thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

On Sunday we visited the Mull of Galloway Lighthouse.

Again very stormy, but oh so dramatic.

Now back home all safe and sound, but with lovely memories to keep me going through the continuing clutter declutter.

Linda xxx

Progress is slow, but...

Well following a week of Flylady - all be it at the most basic level, I've decluttered the hall and have actually carried upstairs AND put away the small mountain of "stuff" that was sat on the bottom (six - yep it had risen to the sixth step!) of the stairs to await repatriation.

The top of the box to the left of my PC has been cleared and has remained so, and I am keeping on top of the one bench that I decluttered in the kitchen.

Google Images

Baby steps indeed - but at least I'm heading in the right direction, it's getting better, not worse.

Of course one or two things are much more interesting and important do make progress slow.

I still try to find some time in each day to catch up on all your lovely blogs, even if I don't have time to comment or blog myself.

And then there's Pinterest.

I'm not spending hours on Pinterest as some have been tempted to, but I'd be telling fibs if I said it hasn't accounted for a fair bit   some of my time. 

I must say though that I am finding it great for keeping tabs on those little snippets that you come across on t'interweb and want to remember and so it does save me the time I used to spend trawling through my history to find for example that recipe that I wanted to make.

Linda

xxx

Time to get organised.

I have reached one of those times in life when I have come to think that enough is enough!

I keep muddling through with no sense of organisation and direction.

I've never been much good at housework, but things are out of hand even by my lax standards.

Junk mail has piled up, not just in one place either but wherever it happened to be put down when I opened it.

My wardrobe is full to bursting with clothes that are either too big or too small, and there is nowhere to put the things that do fit me.

Everywhere I look there is clutter, clutter and more clutter...

Google Images

and I am fed up with it!

So time to make a stand.

Time to have a plan.

Stop saying "I'll do it my October break" - Let's get real it's just too big a problem to be tackled in just one or two days, it's growing worse by the day and needs to be tackled NOW!

There's only one thing for it...

Flylady.

I'm joining the Weekly Flylady Thread over at Moneysaving Expert.

I'm aiming to start low so that I do it and don't become disheartened too quickly, so for this week I'm aiming for Level 1 only.

I'll let you know how I get on - wish me luck!