Smoke in my ears....

Does our irritability fuse become shorter as we get older?  
Do little niggles become big problems?
Am I being unreasonable to think two unwelcome water features through my ceiling in a week is two accidents too many???

Well, on a scale of one to ten with my hapless neighbour I was a good eight on the fury monitor!
First, there was the soaking of belongings in a converted coalshed as water cascaded through the stairs above.  This was caused by buckets of water being repeatedly thrown over the stairs during a spring clean, only to take a diversion through my coalshed roof, through the sooty cobwebs and onto my belongings.
Okay, accidents happen. I waved my arms about, got cross and forgave.

Until last night.  
One minute I'm watching Eastenders, the next I'm disturbed by a sizzling sound from the kitchen.  A pan boiling dry?  Oh, no - this time it's a water feature - a water feature consisting of an ever expanding damp patch and a neat line of  big, fat water drops tip tapping onto the floor, just a foot from my fuse box.
And a neighbour who's out.

With smoke coming out of my ears, I shoved a note through his door - luminous yellow, so it can't be missed - and waited for him to get back.  Which he does, around midnight, and both him and friend both managed to miss the cross, luminous note.  I know this because the housing officer who insisted he let him in this morning did spot it.

The offending water feature was caused by a faulty washing machine.  My hapless neighbour has told me not to worry, he'll watch it when it's full of water!!! Watch it???  Bin it!!!  More smoke from my ears.

So now I'm on water watch, and hoping watergate doesn't come in threes.

Cross.
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A bee's eye view.

What a difference the sun makes!
Nearly two weeks of wall-to-wall sunshine before nature's sprinklers arrived.
Birdsong at dawn, sunshine at 5.30am - I love summer.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/153462603/field-of-dreams-a-195cm-x-195cm-65-x-65?ref=shop_home_active

The nostalgic beauty of proper stamps.

I just have to share this envelope that popped through my letterbox this week.
It's an envelope of fabric from Japan, a very small envelope with rather alot of stamps - with even more on the front!
How beautiful to see proper stamps instead of the impersonal package labels we now have in the UK. 
It immediately sent me on a nostalgic trip down memory lane, to my 70's childhood and stamp albums, full of colourful stamps from those magical, faraway lands.  
Whatever happened to stamp albums?  I wish I still had mine.

From Disney with love...

Ooohhh, my goodness...I fell in love with this fabric the moment I saw it in a local charity shop, nestling unloved and unappreciated amongst the nylon duvets.

It is a gorgeous,early 1960's Walt Disney Productions fabric,  a soft cotton which was, in a previous life, a curtain.  Obviously well loved and well cared for, the colours nearly as bright today as they were fifty years ago.  
Beautiful, and very nostalgic.

Today I have used a portion of this fabric to make a cushion.  The back is a stripy navy and white polycotton.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/130308667/vintage-cushion-vintage-pillow-made?ref=shop_home_active
http://folksy.com/items/4359962-Vintage-cushion-using-an-early-1960-s-Walt-Disney-Productions-fabric-

Liberating Liberty Lawn.

A trip to London is never complete without a visit to Liberty.  Accompanied by an impulse buy.  Or three.

One of which just has to be a gorgeous, Liberty Lawn print.  

However, I then fall in love with these fabrics and they sit, unused, on shelves as I can't bare to cut them.

But yesterday I broke the habit of a lifetime and liberated my very favourite print, a flamboyant, floral riot of colour, and made Hibiscus, a snoozy owl doorstop.

I love these colours together!  

http://folksy.com/items/4357914-Snoozy-owl-doorstop-Hibiscus-

The curse of the family bunions.

My grandma is 91. 
Sifting through old photos, and my childhood memories, she was beautiful.  Still is beautiful.
She has many, many qualities that I admire,  but the part which I have inherited?
Bunions!  Great big, fat bunions. 
I glare at these lumps on the side of my feet and instantly remember the times when we'd visit my grandma, only to find she'd taken a scissors to a brand new pair of slippers to accommodate the bunions.  I don't own slippers and my shoes are intact, but these bunions are just like my grandma's, and I have visions of Josh tut tutting, as I mangle a pair of shoes with a stanley knife.

Desperately seeking Spring.

Where oh where is Spring?
Saturday morning, I awoke to birdsong and bright sunshine.
 By 7.45 I was crouched outside, in mismatched pyjamas and ski socks, taking photos of primroses. 
 By lunchtime I had ripped my arms to shreds in a battle with the brambles. I had planted the seeds that had been languishing in a cupboard waiting for sun and weeded the strawberry patch.
The afternoon was gorgeous, and, feeling the sun on my face, I was lulled into believing that Spring had finally arrived - it lasted just one day.
So now, two days later, the heating is on, I'm huddled under a blanket and the garden is shrouded in a curtain of grey mist and drizzle.  Oh my, oh my!




















The delicate beauty of the primrose.