WE WILL TAKE HALF A DOZEN PLEASE. CALLOOH CALLAY !

Oh you are all very kind indeed - you have kept me going!  Thank you, thank you and thrice thank you.- apologies again for lack of replies...I am busy typing elsewhere and my fingers hurt with all that writing BUT I will reply eventually.  I think  also that the weather and gloom contrives against me.  However, when all said and done it is only a blog - I do keep that in perspective at all times....reduced to tears listening to reports from a certain country yesterday.....

 Spring is just around that corner - peeping round...can you see it?

 Perhaps a little premature....but here is something trying to be a bit cheery in nature (literally!)

We are so pleased with our new clutch.........

Our merry little brood....how clever we are to produce such wonderments (what enormous eggs for such little birds...)

Callooh callay....our best eggs today

So we took lots of photographs of them....

....and some other nice bits

More bulbs from Wilkinsons last November - end of range, cheapo,  but no one told the bulbs... so they  flower just like the full price ones !

These polys were a £1 the lot from Homebase - just needed deadheading and WATER (they were also selling wonderful pots of hyacinths for a pound - I reckon that if they have buds  then they are a good purchase)

The old vase below was given to me by my mum was I was about 15/16....I have had it a while.  Most birthday and Christmas presents that I remember were either of the homemade or secondhand variety.  As those presents are still around and used today they have proved to be very good value indeed don't you think. Though I confess to hankering for a Tressy doll I think that my childhood served me well in terms of fiscal management.

I was chuffed with the eggs which I made using the delightfully simple pattern from 'What Lola Wants' here

I rummaged through the basket used for : 'Very small bits of cloth that might come in handy one day if I hang on to them for long enough' basket.  Sure enough I was spoiled for choice in the fabric department so made lots and lots of them.

I particularly like the one centre front - made with some of my favourite 50s fabric. After the 'photo shoot'  I then made some Lucienne Day fabric eggs  : I was pleased that the tiny scraps could be made into something 'useful' (?).  An egg only takes five minutes at the most to make so you too can have a clutch in no time.

 The one below is a lucky egg.....a double yolker

Behind the scenes documentary.......

'Arthur, ARTHUR!  Look at this..she uses pegs to hold things up...I always thought that she had staff to do that sort of thing'.

'Very interesting Martha - I have always wanted to watch pegs holding up fabric..... '

O frabjous day indeed!

Today La Cootard is mainly:

Eating: Leftovers
Watching: Repeats AND GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE OF COURSE
Doing: Nothing

Sowing seeds, portable plants, moveable meadow, creating crocus!

Hello again 

Thank you so much for your kind comments - I do not know how anyone finds the time to visit I really, really don't.  I  finish work  late and then I am too tired to keep my eyes open yet I still only manage 5-6 hours of sleep (what the heck am I doing with all that time!): I am in a constant whir of things that need to be done for work and finding it very tricky to keep everything else going (those who I have met up with recently will know that only too well.....).   I also thought that children needed less support as they grew older but in fact they need us more.....tricky times those teenage years. 

I am grabbing moments of time when and where I can and find it increasingly difficult.  I take my hats off to you making, baking, blogging, working, working, working, making, baking.....I always thought that I worked quite hard and used time well but at the moment there is just not enough of it.

I realise that this blog is on its last legs and in a state of neglect so the fact that anyone visits at all is ruddy marvellous and I thank you very much for keeping it and myself buoyed up!.  This blog has always been a bit of escapement - a refuge from real life and real problems and real worries (I have plenty of those but tend not to burden this blog with them just because here I like to keep it 'worry free' and more of a tra la la)  and I will be sorry  to give it up altogether to be honest.  

Anway for a moment let us forget the weather, world politics, social difficulties and who might win The Voice (I have no idea....)

Instead let us make something that it is cheery and cheerful.

Step One: Plan ahead....this was started in November (in retrospect it would have been easier to dig out a piece of the lawn...)

Step Two: Source your tin (30p last summer's car boot - very rusty which of course  is fine)

Step Three: Fill base with gravel (gathered from the beach if need be) - no holes needed in base of tin (so can be used afterwards for something else)

Step Four: Go to Wilkinson and buy the 'end of season' sale bulbs (I bought LOADS of them in November - still not too late to be planted AND very cheap)

 Step Five: Hope that you didn't get rid of those last few grass seeds hidden in the back of the shed.....

 Step Six: Sow accordingly - TRY and spread evenly..........

 Step Seven: Use lolly sticks to prop up lid

Step Eight: Sprinkle a bit of water and add TIME

 Step Nine: As time elapses the grass begins to grow

Step Ten: After a while you may need to snip grass with scissors....it is worth it .......and you get to smell freshly cut grass in the depths of winter!

I had to snip the grass many times over the past few months.

 Step Eleven: Eventually weeds bulbs begin to peep through  and that makes you very happy because you know that Spring and light is on its way

 Step Twelve: Eventually bulbs flower and you get so excited you take photographs before they have all come out......

 

Step Thirteen - move moveable meadow around to different rooms BECAUSE YOU CAN

Step Fourteen - put your feet up and flick through the latest gardening magazines - moveable meadow to hand.

PS: Painted inside lid black so that I could emulate an auricula theatre - those Victorians knew what they were doing - it makes a difference to the 'showing off'ness'

Take good care and thank you again