Flash back to Easter

I love this picture. Everything about it makes my heart feel happy. I love the colours. I adore the flowers. Ranunculus are gorgeous, each bulb springs forth about ten flowers. They just keep coming.

The knitting, a scarf called Princess Margaret was a true joy to knit. It's a very simple pattern but so effective.

It is not a quick item to make, it takes about nine fifty gram balls, but boy oh boy it is tremendous. I'm looking foward to making another in cream his Autumn. I have all the yarn ready and waiting. I intend to do a Ta Dah blog post for it soon, but er, you know how long stuff takes me these days, so don't hold yer breath

I started knitting my scarf on the way down to Salcombe at Easter this year. I was looking forward to our holiday there so very much because we had Mr C's family coming to visit and also 

THE MATES!!!

Hard core crafting, man! In Dick and Wills after lunch

For me, although I have been to Salcombe so many times over the last five years, it now feels strange to me if The Mates aren't there with us. The Mates are Fee, of Chipper Nelly fame and her husbando, Cleggy and their three boys. We all enjoy ourselves so much that we have decided to make a jaunt to Salcombe an Easter tradition and we are slowly weaving in other traditions like breakfast at the diner and chip supper followed by crepes and The Winking Prawn restaurant the night before we leave for home. I think I blogged about Easter 2012 but I'm not sure if I just got a draft post together, or just thought about blogging about it.....

Laughing her head off, pimms in hand, crochet hook between her legs. Too Funny

We had bank August bank holiday together too last year and again this year. Another tradition it seems.

They brought with them a giant Easter egg. It was well heavy.

Geordie Boy reminds me of Monica in Friends when she wore the thanks giving turkey on her head and did a wiggly dance.

Cousin Weese was taking the pic. L to R - Poppa, Big, Uncle Dorv, Granny, Little, Mr C, Great Aunt Laura, me, Alfie, Geordie Boy, Boo. In the front Mini and Kenzie

Here's the rabble. I don't know where Fee and Cleggy were. I think we had stolen their boys for the afternoon. Is it bonkers that I can't remember? I honestly cannot recall. To be truthful these gaps in my recall worry me. They happen all too often.

Love the graffitti ceiling in the
Island Street Diner

Delish posh fish and chips to
be had here

The Island Street Diner is quite eclectic and cool.
I like it there. I like the waffles.

Fee and I sneaked off together for coffee, chatter and cake. I'm dribbling at this photograph. We have just returned from a week in Salcombe and I had half an hour on my own in this lovely cafe, Bibi and Mac. I sat at the same table and ate bakewell tart and waited for the ringing in my ears to stop. Nine weeks holiday my boys have had and my oh my the boys are so LOUD! Loud and very, very energetic. Luckily there is plenty do do at the seaside to allow them to let off steam.

The boat yard is boy paradise

Just down the road is the fire station.
These are our holiday home neighbours boys.

The South Sands tractor ferry is always a ride eagerly anticipated

Our pad is very close to the church. I enjoy hearing the bells from my bed. I adore church bells. I particularly love wedding bells. One thing I feel a bit sad about is that I never had wedding bells because we didn't get married in a church. I wanted my Dad to walk me down the aisle and I knew he wouldn't set foot in a church (atheist) so I never even considered a church wedding. Mr C wasn't bothered either way and I couldn't face the conversation about it with my Dad. I knew he would do it if I made him but I'd have had to persuade him and I knew I'd feel like he didn't want to walk me down the aisle, which of course wasn't have been the case, but getting married is an emotional thing and I only wanted happy memories attatched to the planning and the day itself.

I do love our little Seaside House. It has a wonderful feeling about it. The atmosphere is as though the walls have seen much happiness

I made a bit of bunting....

...quite a bit

I've finished this Springtime Throw now. Ever so happy with it. That's another post for another day. It was 18 months in the making and I loved having it waiting in the wings to dip in and out of whilst I made other things. I did quite a few squares whilst in Salcombe that Easter. I stayed up after everyone had gone to bed. I like quiet time to myself. It's the only child in me.

I enjoy end weaving, it's all thereaputic hand stitching to me.

xxx

*Please don't think badly of my Dad. He had not long had brain surgery and that, coupled with his medication, altered his character. It seemed to amplify the more difficult elements of his nature. He was always a stubborn man but at that time he was unmovable. Ten years down the line and he is finding his way back to his old self. It's great to see. It's really lovely to see the man of my childhood return. No one could have asked for a better Dad throughout my teens in particular. He was ace. (Don't worry Mum, you've always been ace!)

It was like a fairy tale

I'm talking about our 7th wedding anniversary celebration. It was, it was....it was bloody AMAZING! Yes yes, I know, I just swore on my blog but honestly I cannot get over how wonderful it was. A 24 hour window of grown up time amongst two weeks of full on festivities that involved possibly the two most excited little boys on the planet.

Christmas was wonderful this year. It will be remembered as the year Uncle Dorv turned fire breather* and my two boys were hilarious in church on Christmas day**. I could bore you with all the minutiae, in fact I've deleted a couple of paragraphs as I was going ON and ON and ON when I really want to blog about our anniversary this very moment.

So back to The Savoy. Yes Ladies and Gentlemen. WE STAYED AT THE SAVOY!!!!!!!! Oh My gosh it was divine. I made a total disgrace of myself and ran about the place taking loads of photographs and looking totally uncool. None of this "I stay here all the time" demeanour. It was perfectly obvious that I was a country oik who had been plucked from her real domestic life for a spell in the world of glitter and glamour.

This post is going to be very photo heavy, to the tune of around 80 photo's and it's a loooooong one. I will not apologise for this as I think some of you will love seeing the delights of The Savoy. Also uploading all these photo's to picnik to make collages is simply too time consuming and faffy. I want to get this post going so I can relive such a super time. I adore my blog for allowing me literally relive a moment and then have it stored here to share with my friends, family and in time, my children.

Ready for the tour? Good, here we go.

So glad we stayed over Christmas time, those trees make my heart sing

We arrived and the door man asked our names and took our cases, he then handed us over to a chap with a discreet clip board and introduced us. That chap took us over to a lady who on hearing our names said "Welcome to The Savoy, you're in room 332, please follow me and I'll take you up now if you like?" 

Wow. What service! Such a slick operation. I felt like hopping on the spot and clapping. 

The red lift was the first elevator in London. It is beautiful

That was our room on the left

Even the fire extinguishers were elegant

I LOVE how each room has a doorbell, it had a gentle
 chime so it wouldn't make a person leap out
of their skin

Mr C was so cool about it all, he went and sat down and connected to the wifi and flicked through the magazines....

.....I, on the other hand, dumped my bags and flitted about taking photo's and exclaiming "It even smells NICE! It smells of linen water"

He just looked at me fondly, he is rather more used to this sort of thing than me.
His mother went to The Savoy for afternoon tea when she turned 21,
I went to a garden centre in Taunton when I turned 21! 

So uncool. Don't care a bit.

I swear to you, this shower head was the size of a tea tray.
HUGE

The spare loo roll was wrapped up in tissue paper.

Have to say, this TV being off centre bothered me a bit

We then dragged ourselves from our room and met up with Little Cuckoo's Godfather and his wife Clarabelle and had a spot of lunch in a little place off Piccadilly, I think, (I had Thai coconut and crab soup which was divine) and then we had a mooch down New Bond Street. I was just itching to get to Liberty's though. I'm much more of a haberdashery/charity shop/auction room shopper. The glitzy places don't appeal much now.

I was rather restrained in Liberty as I have made a pledge to not buy any more stuff for future projects until I get a heap completed (famous last words). I only bought yarn as it was our 7th wedding anniversary which is copper or wool. I had thought I'd knit socks with it but Mr C said he'd really like some fingerless gloves to match the scarf I made him for Christmas which I'll show and tell another day, if I forget then remind me, though it is a very manly brown scarf, not particularly inspiring but Mr C looks lovely in it.

I love Liberty's usually but it was a bit crazy as the sale had started. I'm a bad sale shopper. I get the heebie jeebies amongst the crowds. I didn't stay long. I left the others to carry on mooching and I headed back to the hotel to have a long bath with some fudge I had spied in the mini bar. Afterwards I took my time to paint my nails and read a magazine with Antiques Road Show playing on an obscure channel in the background. It was heaven. I do enjoy Antiques Road Show.

It was a pleasure to get ready to go out, to do my hair properly and take time over my make up. I usually have to do everything at break neck speed after I've got the little uns to bed.

A lavender pillow hanging from the hanger,
oh the tiny details were special.

Mr C has fancy wooden inner thingies that came with his shoes.
What a dapper chap.

That's the cocktail menu, there was one called Grounds For Divorce
that we thought about ordering.

I can't be sensible. Ever. I can't help but pull faces. It's like a compulsion.
Doesn't Mr C look odd with that reflection around his chin!

Our partners in crime. They lead us a stray in the shops

After a few cocktails for me and pink champagne for them we went through to the restaurant to eat. The food was amazing. Every single mouthful was perfect and happily the portions weren't too small.

After supper before returning to the bar I popped to the bathroom and was gone ages......

.......I was snapping away at all the paintings. I had some very funny looks as I was weaving about snapping away and everything. Mr C would have been mortified if he was with me

Clarabelle

Once back at the bar, I had an amaretto on the rocks and I had my legs stroked by the cabaret singer who had taken a shine to my tights. She was utterly barking mad and very entertaining. It was just her and the pianist and she held every ones attention for hours. I can imagine her touchy feelyness might have put some people off but I loved her. I thought she was a hoot and I was dying to get up on a chair and sing Big Spender with her. Mr C had growled "Don't even think about it!" so I behaved myself. Just as well as I'd probably have fallen off the chair as I was pretty wibbly by then.

Bit blurry

Me in her hat that had a shoe on it. A Shoe!!!

My tights. What a weird angle.

Back at the room Mr C and I kicked off our shoes and put on the slippers and had a little dissection of the evening before turning in for the night. I slept so well. Although the bed wasn't as comfortable as ours because it had a feather mattress topper that had got compacted so it was a little harder than the cloud I sleep on usually.

I was woken just after nine so I could get a robe on before breakfast arrived. It had been delivered by the time I came into the room and I was again left grinning from ear to ear. Proper linen table clothes. Stunning china, yummy food, pretty flowers. It was gorgeous.

There I am again!

Gosh I wish I was back there again now.

There's a small museum near one of the bars which was very interesting, I took a few pics of the things that appealed to me to share with you:

It didn't say if the postman had guessed right...must have.

I would love to time travel to see life back in this era

I would turn into a burglar to get my hands on this china... 

...I'd pinch this dressing table set while I was at it too.

I could have stayed in the shop all day, tasting everything they had on offer. I had to settle for taking photographs rather than mouthfuls though.

I love LOVE love how they have collections of paintings all of different sizes in different frames of different genres and yet it all works. I reckon I could pull this off in our hallway at home. Our hallway needs a bit of attention this year. It could be fabulous as it's pretty big but it is lacking in style.

Can you see me there with my bright spotty knitting bag?

I turned and snapped away at this chap and he said, I'll take one of you and your husband if you like, afterwards he asked if I'd like him to take the camera and get me some pictures of the kitchens. He was gone ages. Absolutely ages. To the point that we wondered if he didn't really work there and was a camera robber.

But he did indeed come back and he'd taken a fab load of shots! I really need to write in and thank him. He was a suuuuuuuper star.

This was going up to Gordon Ramsey the celebrity chef

"Whatcha doin'?"

They do all look really happy in their work.

Thank you Michael Stenekes for taking the time to make our stay even more memorable.

I'm going to copy this silver votive flower thing.
Anyone know where I can find a similar  looking vase?

Spot my knitting!

The lady in the background was perplexed by my wanton photographing,
I wonder what she thought when I started knitting.

Look how chuffed I am!

Now it's all over. A week has already passed and the decorations are coming down, the tree is wilted and I feel a bit deflated. The boys are back at school and I need to sort through their toys and find homes for the new ones. The unbroken new ones that is. Quite a bit of what they were given is now broken irreparably. Either it was too grown up for them or very inexpensive or more ornamental than a functional toy. Big Cuckoo struggles to play in the way most children do. He is quite destructive and throws things a lot. It's one of the things he finds difficult. It's just hard when something gets broken and the tears flow. I get saddened that people spend a tenner on something that looks like a 'big' gift but it gets trashed as it can't stand up to the task. I'd much rather they spent a fiver on a small robust toy to save my children's tears and their pocket.

Anyway enough of that, I'm looking forward to this evening so I can sit down in the cosy drawing room with the fire lit and the lamps on. I'll light a few candles and get on with some knitting or maybe some crochet. I do love this time of year when it gets dark early and I can cook stews and snuggle in.

I rejoined weight watchers last night and so have just eaten 4 mini mince pies to get rid of them. I'm thinking about eating the other two and just be done with it.

Does anyone out there have any experience with heap lumps? In the Summer I noticed a bump on my forehead on the right hand side near my hair line. I thought it was a zit or that I'd bumped it except it didn't hurt. This past month I have noticed that it has grown so I went to the Docs yesterday and he said it was likely to be a bone tumour, probably benign and not to worry about it. He's referring me for tests/x-ray/MRI whatever they decide after a discussion at the practice breakfast meeting. The question I'm asking is do these things grow really big? Will I look like a unicorn? I don't mind looking like a unicorn as long as I get the special power of flight as well. No seriously, anyone know anything about lumpy heads?

xxx

*Uncle Dorv is a bit posh. He speaks very nicely, he knows the 'right' people, he went to one of the top schools in England, he is very gentlemanly (and lovely). So when he turned fire breather it was flipping hilarious. 

See the sweet little house tealight holder in the photo below? Well the tealight flame suddenly went wild. It grew to about 3 inches and the flame was licking at the gold frame of the picture above.  

"Quick!" Granny shouted, "The candle! My painting!" 

"Goodness me!" cried Uncle Dorv and as he was nearest he jumped to it and blew on the flame. But he had been eating icecream with home made rum topf.

Rum topf is rum that has had fresh fruit and sugar added to it
and allowed to steep for months. It's potent.

The flame grew and licked around Uncle Dorv's nose. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed and took in another big breath and blew harder. The look on his face when again the flame grew to mammoth proportions will stay with me forever. The surprised expression was priceless. Then Poppa grabbed the whole tea light house and blew harder than the big bad wolf and the tealight flew through the air and hit my Belle Soeur square on the left boob. It might have landed on her arm but I've remembered it as her boob as that's funnier.....I guess you had to be there. I'll leave this story in though as this is my diary of sorts and I don't want to forget that moment

**The boys were so funny in Church on Christmas day. I wasn't there as I'd stayed home to have a tidy for Granny and so that Mini could have his nap. The vicar had asked all the Children to go up to the front and be given an illuminated whizzy windmill and a sweet. The vicar asked each child to speak into the microwave (I meant microphone, but that has made me hoot so it stays) and tell everyone what they got for Christmas. Along the line the children had received iPods, Scalextrics, bikes, x boxes... he got to my boys and Little said "I got a bunch of dirty keys" Big said "I got a wiggly wig". Then someone spilt the rest of the sweets and the vicar told the kids to all walk around the church with their lit windmills lighting up Christmas lest we forget that it is about the birth of Christ. But my two were nowhere to be seen. Eventually they joined the procession with their arms full of the dropped sweets. "We tidied up!"