Holidayz! Woop woop!

Finally, finally made it to the end of term and let me tell you Chinas, I didn't think it was ever going to come. Now, people don't realise but Hairy Librar-ys don't get the same hollybags as teachers, so I have to work next week and a week in August but apart from that I'm offffffffffffff for a lovely FUNF weeks! Yaas!

Husband is working a lot of this weekend so I've grasped the opperchancity to visit the 'rents. And it is MAGNIFISAUR, let me tell you! Len and Roy live in the middle of nowhere, so it's all trees and air and squirrels and SILENCE. I actually grew up here but I've forgotten what it's like so every so often I go 'LOOK! There's a SQUIRREL! I LOVE IT!' and everyone sighs and looks at me pityingly.

Their nearest town is Helensburgh, which is on the West Coast of Scotvegas. Helensburgh is a proper seaside town, you should totally come for a visit. Only in Helensburger can you try the best ice cream in the entire universe (and I make it my business to know) courtesy of Dinos. They make it with condensed milk (I think?) and it is so good that me and Husband once fell out because he took a lick of mine when I wasn't looking AND HE'D ALREADY FINISHED HIS. I'm still furious thinking about it, actually. Also in Helensburgh is the recently opened Wee Kelpie, selling gourmet fish 'n chips. Today I had monkfish with homemade tarter sauce, here's a picture to make your pipes water:

So good, soooo good. And after we'd eaten it, me and Sister went to the wool shop and I got a new project:

...which I will be continuing with later, accompanied by my good friend MISTER RIOJA:

Oh yes! Good times! There's a new fabric shop opened in Helensburgh, and I so wish I'd been able to get a picture of it but I didn't want the owner to think I was a weirdo. But it's lovely, it's teeny tiny and crammed FULL OF STUFF, so obviously I felt right at home. And I got new fabric and binding but I've not taken a picture of it yet so you'll have to wait until next time. Oh, I do like to build the tension on the ol' blog!

Right so I've talked a lot on here about Len and how good at making she is. Len is also an exceptionally modest person and does not like to go on and on about what she's been uptae. We're very similar, in that respect (false). Anyhoo, she's agreed to let me showcase her most recent project. BEHOLD!

It's made from Michael Miller fabric and I WANT it. I WANT IT! I want it so much, I'm genuinely considering getting married again so I can use it. It's so, so lovely and perfect for Weddinging Around, which you do a lot of when you're getting married. I've been telling her for ages, she needs to get them up on Etsy because I'm certain people would buy them but she won't have it. She's just handed me a glass of the hooch, what a nice lady she is! Good old Len Goodman. But isn't the bag just MAGNIFICENT?

So chaps, I'm off to enjoy the sound of the rain bouncing off the ground, get stuck into my knitting and have a good old hearty slurp of the vino. I hope you have a lovely evening too!

A Giant Bumbleerie Bee

As I said in my last post, Husband and I have been decorating up a storm. Decorating the house the way we want it is lovely, but decorating itself suh-hucks because there's stuff everywhere and we keep losing things. Like, for instance, my favourite tweezers. Now! I have regular fights with my eyebrows, if left untreated they  meet in the middle then migrate towards my mustache. It's a constant battle of wills which I can only fight if I have the correct tools. And now the only thing stopping me looking like a giant eyebrow on legs has been lost in the swirling vortex of decorating black hole-ness. Total nightmare.

Also, there's a funny feeling of, well the house is total chaos so we may as well stop exercising and eating nice things, and instead just sit around playing 'How Many Chips is Too Many Chips?'

(Here are the rules to HMCITMC: Buy chips. Eat as many as you can without stopping. Stop when you have to say 'Ugh, I've eaten too many chips...' The winner is the person who has eaten the most chips. Good luck!)

But we're getting there. Today I got all the stuff back into the kitchen and made a lovely dinner:

Anyway, when I was making this FEAST a monser-sized bumblebee flew in the window. I say flew but actually it was so big, I think it might have driven into the kitchen in some kind of car. It was at least twice as big as the stupid cat, it had tattoos and was lifting weights as I went over to it (false).

So, since I had been ABANDONED by Husband, and because I don't want to be scared of flying things with minging legs that can sting, I got a glass and a sheet of paper and did that thing that people do. And it worked but the buzz was so powerful it vibrated up my arm and totally freaked me out. This whole story is a bit pointless because I didn't get a picture of the bee, so you'll just have to take my word for it. When you have to defend your house from gigantic insects, you don't tend to stop and think 'Ooooh, a Kodak moment!' No, you ride with the beast.

But since I picked it up I keep thinking that I can hear it, and I keep going 'Husband! Is that bee in my hair?' and Husband wearily looks and says 'No.' 

Sigh.

I'm aware that this is a spectacularly boring blog post, but in all honesty, this is the most exciting thing that has happened this week. The decorating has stopped the making, the working has stopped the decorating, the working is rolling very VERY slowly to the end of term where hopefully things should pick up again.

Oh no, I've just remembered ! I did make something! Here y'go:

I finished my apron! Again, it's a bit dodge BUT it's finished. Although it makes me talk funny - every time I think about it I think 'Ooh, I maka da apran' - why would that be? I don't even think people anywhere speak like that. I think I might have slipped into some kind of dimension of mentalness. Maybe it's the paint fumes.

Right chaps, I'm off to paint my nails for work the morra (old Scottish phrase meaning : tomorrow. Add it to you collection, if you like!). Only four days left until summer holidays, Kah-CHING!

S'laters!

Decorating Bumbaleerie Mansions

Hello all!

Once again Chaps, absolutely NONE of the making has been done due to extreme work-related busyness and the fact that Bumbaleerie Mansions is under siege.

Yes. That's a fact*.

Husband has been decorating all the things! Here's a taste of what he's been uptae (UPTAE: an old Scottish word meaning 'up to' or 'doing'. You're welcome.)

Flamingos!! Eh? In a hallway? That's probably in the top ten coolest things you've ever seen, so brace yourselves for THIS:

So we still have to do the floor (which is going to be Walnut wood, regardless of how much Husband complains) and gloss the skirting boards but I am over the moon with it. It's my favourite room in the house, which is annoying because there's no TV so you can only sit in it for so long.

Anyway, I hate decorating. It's totally rubbish, Bumbaleerie Mansions is a wreck, there's stuff everywhere and you have to be really careful when you sit down in case you smear paint on the couch. Plus, the stupid cat can't handle it at all, he just slinks around looking really worried and whines to be let outside, where he whines to get back in again. Very stupid and annoying.

The other rubbish thing about decorating is that the chat between Husband and I is not even worth listening to. He's all 'oh, we have to go back to B&Q for some DIY SOS megatron 3,000 paint blasting undersplash' and I'm all 'I HATE THIS B&Q, IT IS THE LAND OF THE UNDEAD' - B&Q is full of couples arguing and people storming around going 'well, if YOU like the sodding GREY MIST then GET the SODDING GREY MIST. But don't complain to ME when YOUR MOTHER comes round and says we should have got GREY FOG'. The hilarious thing about B&Q though is that the paint has really gentle names, and when people are shouting at each other it's totally surreal: 'I DIDN'T say that the Pink Kiss was hideous, I SAID that I didn't like Soft Lavender because it's too similar to the Cuddling Cyan that YOU wanted for the Kitchen, EVEN THOUGH I TOLD YOU that SNUGGLING SILVER would match the worktops better!'

No, wait, the worst ones are the new couples who skip around hand-in-hand going 'I think that the Smoochy Sun-Kissed Sand is the best colour for our love-nest, don't you think?' 'Oh yes! When I saw that colour, I immediately thought of that time I kissed you under the dew of the morning mist on that day in...' *girlfriend interrupts and they both say at the same time* '...PARIS!!!' and gaze at each other in rapturous delight. And Husband goes 'Aaw, they're so in love just like us!' and I go 'CAN I GET THIS COOL THING?!' and hold up a blow torch or ... I dunno....a spade with a nice handle.

No, NO, WAIT! The VERY worst thing is buying everything, taking it home and leaving it in the shed for two months then having to do everything really quickly to get it over with. And it always causes arguments between me and Husband, from the trivial:

HUSBAND: Don't put Abba on, I hate Abba.
ME: WRONG! Everyone in the world likes Abba...*Dancing Queen, blah blah blah la la tambourine OH YEAH!*
HUSBAND: SWITCH OFF ABBA!
ME: *wounded*

to the pointless:

ME: Flamingos are lovely.
HUSBAND: No, they're not.
ME: Yes they are!
HUSBAND: No.
ME: YES!
HUSBAND: I hate Flamingos.
ME: NO!
etc

to the pleasingly banal:

ME: ...so then I said 'well why not try it with gruyere and she was all 'good idea' but then she tried it and THEN was all 'Oh, I tried the gruyere but it didn't work...'
HUSBAND: Please stop telling me this story.
ME: *shocked into furious silence* WHY are you ALWAYS so RUDE?!


But in the end, once it's all finished, Husband gives me a quick cuddle in the kitchen and says 'our house is nice.' And I agree with him, and we're friends.



*facts may not be true, or in any way accurate.