75/365 Four sons

When I was a little girl, back in the 1950s, all I ever wanted to do was to get married, have children and live happily ever after (cant you tell I was raised on fairy tales?). Well, I got married, had two boys, struggled for a while, got divorced, got married again and had two more boys, and now that all my boys are grown up I have just about reached that elusive "happily ever after" phase.
Here are my four grown-up sons.



Tom, far left, is 35. He and Catherine live in Surrey, at the foot of Box Hill. He worked for many years in the financial sector, and after the economic difficulties of 2008, was offered a redundancy package, which he took. He enjoyed a career break of a few months and has recently restarted work, still in the financial sector.
Oliver, second left, is, at almost 20, the youngest. He is a student at Bournemouth University, having just completed the first year of a degree course in music technology, and spending the summer based with us in Devizes - well his possessions are in Devizes, he is out and about all over the place.
Alex, third left, is 21, and living in Bristol. Earlier this year he left university as he decided the academic life wasn't for him, he is currently job hunting, and hoping to start next year on a Deck Officer course to enable him to join the Merchant Navy.
On the right is Eddie, the oldest at nearly 40, who lives with his wife Junko in Surrey. This photo was taken last year at their wedding. He is a tree surgeon, father of my grandson Reese and father-to-be of my expected granddaughter.
I'm immensely proud of all four of them, and love them to bits.

74/365 Another parcel

This time from Phoenix Trading, an order I placed on Monday to fulfill some orders, one for a neighbour, one for a friend, and one from a lady who found one of my brochures at Coral Cove




I still really love the Phoenix range, all the cards and other bits and pieces are so lovely and such fabulous value for money, where else can you get such beautiful cards for only £1.20 each.
I consider myself very lucky to have such an enjoyable "job" - well, it hardly seems like work.

73/365 Dots and Spots

This parcel came for me this morning



and when I unpacked it, these were inside.



I am so excited, because now I am officially a stockist for Dots and Spots, a fantastic, unique, contemporary range of greetings cards, Christmas cards, postcards, decorative tape, note books, gift tags, place setting cards and other stationery items, designed and printed in Somerset.
I have brochures which illustrate the entire range, please PM me your address if you would like a copy.

72/365 Building update and other stuff in the garden

I really love crocosmia, they are my favourite flower. I couldn't grow them in Surrey, I dont know why, but I bought loads and they flowered the first year and then just threw up lots of green leaves and no flowers in subsequent years. They must really like the soil conditions down here because they are growing like weeds. This is the first one out this season, I have plenty at the front about to burst into riotous colour but this little one is in a pot at the back just to add a bit of brightness to the rather sparse area which will eventually be the back garden



The runner bean plants are doing well, and really look a great deal more comfortable today after some welcome overnight rain.




And. . . ta dah . . . here it is, the inside of my studio, just waiting now for finish decoration (sometime next week) and then the electrician to finalize the lighting and power points.



The carpet man came this afternoon to measure up and give us a quote. We are having heavy duty carpet tiles all through, the colour we have chosen is called "amber".



This delightful little thing is a jasmine, it smells delicious. It's in a pot and I'm going to put it outside the trapezium so it can grow up and be attached to a trellis between my larger window and the entrance door (when all the builders and their bits and pieces have gone away)



And here it is as viewed from the outside. We are thrilled to bits to be so nearly there.

71/365 Jewels of Isis

This morning I popped down to see my friend Marianne, who is a jewellery maker, in The Shambles Market in Devizes, where there was a craft market. This craft market is a fairly new venture and not, as yet, very well publicised, I only found out about it because Marianne posted it on Facebook! Hopefully it will catch on, and with a bit more in the way of publicity the good people of Devizes will flock there in their dozens.
I had my camera with me, but I'm afraid I had to leave rather hurriedly as I suddenly remembered I had left some fresh meat in the car, so I forgot to take any photos. Her stand looked lovely, she had three separate tables, on one was some reasonably priced fun jewellery, on another were some of her "antiquities" some really nice pieces made with very old stones, some of which, she told me, were of roman origin, and on the third table were some really lovely relatively high priced pieces made from precious and semi precious stones.

Below are some pictures that she sent me illustrating some of her work. To see her range please visit her website by clicking Jewels of Isis

70/365 Entering the lock

Our usual Sunday lunchtime outing to the Artichoke took us past the Brewery lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal

69/365 Eating from the garden

I've been blogging separately about my veg on spudelicious, but as I dont have so many followers on that blog as on this one, you might not all know about the wonderful homegrown stuff we've been eating. We only have a small temporary veg plot for this year, as with so much going on building-wise it just simply wasn't feasible to have a larger area to grow in and keep safe from builders boots, piles of bricks and other paraphanalia.
Here's what I've dug up today, a few more beetroot to go in the pickling jar, the last of the new potatoes (main crop next time) and a few smallish but very sweet-tasting carrots. Since I sprayed the runner bean plants with a soapy mixture, the blackfly seem to have gone AWOL, so I may be picking runner beans very soon now, oooh I cant wait! Love 'em.