Happily still being green!

Afternoon

Funny how so much from my old life has seamlessly joined with my new life. I've always been a bit of a green/hippy/eco-friendly sort of a girl.

If you follow some of the labels in my sidebar you can see mention of recycling etc going back to the beginning of this blog - and before that to be honest. 

As a teenager I spent many a happy afternoon at a jumble sale with my friends - buying clothes which we'd alter to suit our tastes - making jeans skinny before the invention of lycra and turning old mans shirts into trendy collarless ones.

My first home certainly contained many old and upcycled things - a book case made from wine boxes - a Christmas gift in 1969 for my ex-husband. I delivered it back to him the other week when furniture came out of storage - whilst I loved it there is no room for it here so it needed to be back with its original owner.

This house is certainly full of recycle and upcycled things - along with those collected from charity shops, car boot sales and junk shops. Both S & I can't resist a good rummage through others peoples old junk - our little town contains 11 charity shops and we often do a full tour when we have the time.

The latest upcycling project - our old wooden bed into a garden bench!!

Made from about 95% recycled wood - the old bed and some pallets - only the front posts are from new wood!

It's almost built now - and partially painted - just need summer to return so we can get it finished!

Another project this week has been getting my bike roadworthy again. It spent 18 months in an outbuilding as we had no space at the flat. S has repaired the brakes and checked it all over. I have tidied the basket up - the wicker has got caught on stuff on many occasions and it was looking a bit sorry for itself - I decided to repair rather than replace;

I need to use my bike tomorrow - most days I can get to where I want on foot but I need to drop something off a couple of miles away. Am a bit apprehensive as the roads are busy here and my cycling skills a bit rusty!!

With the house we inherited two greenhouses (one full of tomatoes) and 3 raised veg beds - 2 of which were planted!! We have ended up with a glut of tomatoes and courgettes - time for inventive cooking!!

A rummage in the freezer for some mince and hey presto - the base for a lasagne!

We also inherited some squash plants - these were really quite tiny and seemed to struggle at first - however a bit of rain and some attentive watering and boom they grew like crazy. It was only after a veg gardening book was acquired on a recent charity shop trawl we discovered they like to climb!! Fortunately when the large bamboo plant was removed our friend saved the canes - more upcycling!! These now are supporting the ever growing squashes - come the autumn I will need some new recipes I think!!

Another step to becoming a proper blogger again is taking place as I type - my little camera is being charged!! Going to try to use this as well as my phone to get photos as it does take rather lovely pics.

Right I had best go and hunt down our camping gear - we are off to FolkEast later this week - to celebrate one year of being married!!!

See you soon with plenty of festival photos!

xxx Vicki xxx

A Grand Day Out

Evening

When I first met S we created a mental list of places we'd like to visit and things we'd like to do - we have ticked a fair few off but one place we had never managed to visit together is Cambridge. Work or life had got in the way as well as numerous festivals, a wedding and lots of family stuff too.

Finally at the beginning of the week we went - its only an hours drive from where we live and the park & ride goes straight into the city centre and costs only £3 each - much easier and cheaper than city centre parking.

Kings College - it wasn't too busy when we walked past first thing - easy to take photos without 100's of tourists getting in the way.

The Corpus Clock is a very popular attraction - getting a photo without anyone walking past or getting run over by a bicycle is tricky - I survived!!

No trip to Cambridge would be complete without watching the punts on the Cam. We didn't go on this time - August is a month with several trips away and we were watching the pennies.

Now long term readers of this blog will know I have a thing for vintage style bicycles - my own one finally left its barn storage this week and will hopefully be road worthy again soon once we've had time to give it a thorough service and a few essentials like brakes are replaced!!

Cambridge of course is full of such bicycles - ridden by undergraduates and very clever looking people - all in a rush to get from A to B.

This purple one I would happily own myself - one of my favourite colours. Perhaps my own bike might get a respray!

As well as gorgeous bicycles there are of course 100's of lovely houses. 

and the ultimate picture for me - gorgeous house with a bicycle outside!!

After all of our walking - in total we walked 10 miles that day - it was time for a pit stop - drinks and a snack in Bills before making our way home.

Time for one last photo - me & him outside Kings College;

We are both lucky - we work in the same school as support staff so we have time off over the summer. I get the full 6 weeks whilst S uses a mixture of holiday and owed hours, meaning this year he is off all summer apart from 4 days!

We have plenty of other adventures planned - off to Dorset to stay in a shepherds hut near Corfe Castle, our first wedding anniversary back at Folkeast and a trip to Norfolk in our bell tent. There's lots we'd like to do to our cottage as well - walls to paint, pictures to hang and a garden to spend time in!!

Time now to say goodbye till the next time - there's a garden to water and gin that needs drinking!!

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

52 weeks of Vicki - weeks 7 & 8 - oops

Morning

Whoops - forgot completely to blog last week and even worse I'm a week behind on my reading! It's been half term here and whilst the boys no longer need entertaining what little routine we have to our lives goes completely out of the window! Late nights, lie-ins, meals all over the place and we're never quite sure who is here for dinner/lunch etc.

So pics from the last 2 weeks - all snapped on something made by Apple - just so easy to snap away on my phone these days;

 Flowers for me - sent to cheer me up when I was having a particularly rough time the other weekend. Still typing up loose ends from my old life - almost there - just one big one to sort.

 Lovely sunny days mean I've dragged my bike out a few times - once on a much needed trip to the bottle bank!! Not all the empties are mine - those boys of mine love their cider and ginger beer too.

 A walk along the prom at Aldeburgh the other day - the sun was shining and reflecting off the sea - reminding me that spring is just round the corner.

 Crochet and rugby watching - a pretty good way to spend a Saturday afternoon - especially as England won :)

 Beer and catching up with the Folk Show on Iplayer - very happy Vicki

 A sunrise - always beautiful to see.

And lastly something that cheers me no end - washing drying outside in the sunshine - meaning for a few hours my house no longer resembles a laundry!!

Right that's all for this week - mostly quite simple things but all make me happy/smile for there own reasons. 

Back to school for the boys tomorrow - a last minute homework panic is happening as I type.

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

Chasing my own tail!

Good afternoon

Blimey ok so a week of a new month has gone past and it seems ages since I've sat down to blog and have a good blog reading session. Simply life has been just too hectic - so hectic that back to school has happened for one boy but the back to school shop doesn't happen till tomorrow!

Time has been spent getting more of the house sorted, planning what happens next, spending lots of time with friends and family and making the most of the last of the summer days.

Summer appeared to end at about 4.30am this morning - I was woken by the rain - I could hear it over the sound of the fan I'd got going in the bedroom - very tropical. Things perked up this morning and washing was hung out and got dry. Its now raining again - must be nearly school ending time then!

Here's a few pics of some things that have caught my eye in the past couple of weeks;

 We've a huge old apple tree in the garden and its appears a bumper crop. Not sure of apple variety but I think I'll try stewing some this weekend to see if a winter of crumbles lays ahead!!

We have finished all the unpacking and everything that needs to be fixed to the walls is up (well apart from a pile of family photos which may get done this Sunday). I spent a lovely afternoon filling my dresser and a new lovely dresser top I bought from a junk shop;

 A scaled back china collection but all my favourite pieces are here still.

I also filled up the little printers tray I painted earlier in the year;

 Finding new homes for much loved and long owned things has been a challenge. Polly the Parrot has been with me for many years and lived in many of my houses. She's getting rather tatty know so I didn't think she'd mind too much if she spent her time outside in the garden - might have a rethink when the weather turns really bad;

 I am loving the outside space here - the garden and yard are very practical and for once very tidy! The last load of junk was collected by the scrap people at the beginning of the week. Meaning at last there is space for my bike to lurk near the house for the quick dashes into town which seem to happen rather a lot - supplies got so run down before we moved that nearly every day when I go to cook I realise that an essential item is missing!!

Of course this week saw Back to School time for many. Little Son has entered his last year of school uniform wearing - reluctantly he posed for a photo - same shelves as almost every year of his school life but this time in a new space;

At 8 o'clock on a sunny, Thursday morning this is the closest to actually not snarling that I could get!!

I will try very hard to have a blog visiting session this weekend - I am very much missing reading what everyone is up too. I must also remember to take more photos - I am planning on rejoining the Photo Scavenger Hunt this month as its something I've always enjoyed doing. Trouble is I've got loads of extra work hours and a growing social life which both keep me away from the computer!!

Have a good weekend all and I'll see you soon.

xxx Vicki xxx

A little blast of wintery stuff

Good evening

Absolutely no doubt this morning that winter had arrived - when I peaked through the curtains it looked like someone had sprinkled the garden with icing sugar - all glittery & white. A sprinkling of snow and a layer of ice - very pretty.

I had to stop on the way to work this morning to post some letters - I thought this view was rather pretty;

I much prefer the cold weather to the wet - much easier to wrap up against the cold - I counted 15 separate items of clothing this morning! I felt rather like the main character in this book the boys used to love;

I took a few photos before I left the house - just a few seconds outside in my pj's was enough!

 Frozen leaves - we've given up in the battle with them.

 A neglected for the winter summerhouse - the spiders are welcome to live there for a while, its too cold to sit out there at the moment.

 An early morning departure - I wondered if they were off somewhere warm?

The sun starting to rise - love the silhouette of the bare branches against the sky.

I wonder what it will be like here tomorrow - the boys would love a snow day but I think that's a bit hopeful.

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

Almost bursting!!

Good afternoon

There are so many other things I should be doing but sometimes you have something to tell and you just can't keep it to yourself and need to share it!!

Fingers crossed - if all goes smoothly at the weekend then this model & book will become a reality for the VV household. Yep MrVV is off on a very long drive almost out of the country to (hopefully) collect a home on wheels for us. We've been looking for a little while and had created a wish list and one has been found that is perfect - it just involves a long drive which MrVV is more than happy to do. My role? Over excitement and planning all the pretty things it will need to turn it into our own home on wheels :)

Its been quite a good week here - we've seen the sun a few times and there have been plenty of opportunities for photo taking;

The 1st birthday Molliemakes sitting on new frock fabric - I hope to be able to make this on Saturday. Am loving the new mag - I know some find it twee but I am still a happy subscriber :)

As you can see Instagram is still my current love (sorry to those Instagram friends seeing these pics yet again!!). The other morning I was glad I had my phone with me - I spotted a chance to recreate the current Ideal Home magazine calendar picture;

The original.

My version.

Right lastly - I don't think I ever cleared up a mystery - the record from this post. 

Many of you will never have heard of Blue Mercedes but the chap on the left is a 'boy' from our town with his 5 minutes of pop fame. A very 80's synth pop group who had a few hits and even appeared on Top of the Pops & Blue Peter. I know his Dad & Uncle really well so when I spotted this record in one of the charity shops for 50p I had to buy it for my vinyl collecting sister - she's done some more research and has even managed to find a YouTube video of these two strutting their stuff - here - have a look you never know you might even like it!!

Right - I'd best go and do some domestic stuff and trying not to get overexcited & burst!!

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

A birthday weekend away

Good evening

You know that bout of Bloggers Block I was suffering with the other week? Well good news - its cleared - its been replaced by a dose of more posts than there are days of the week syndrome!! Here's day one of my week of blogging (well thats the plan anyhow!!).

We headed off to Cambridge almost as soon as the boys left for school on Friday - no point wasting any of this precious time away. 

Friday was spent shopping - mainly for me - birthday pressies :) A new frock and pretty new Birkenstocks (pics next time) from MrVV and some funky new Converse bought with birthday money. 

The weather was gorgeous - as well as shopping we walked through various parks and sat watching the world go by.

Saturday was tourist day :) Firstly we met up with my baby brother for a coffee and catch up. We then went our seperate ways - tourist time - photo opportunites aplenty - even managed to get loads towards the Photo Scavenger Hunt this month :)

 Cambridge - the city of bicycles

 Graduation ceremonies were taking place.

 Watching punting - we still never got round to having a go.

 The usual chaos - almost a collision.

 So sunny, a shadow picture had to be taken.

 Spring flowers blooming everywhere.

 The Mathematical Bridge at the back of Queens College.

 Reflections of the blue skies in the Cam.

Another bicycle - a very Vicki pink one.

We did more walking on Sunday - really happy to say my ankle held up really well.

We were so lucky with the weather - nothing I like more than wandering around in the warm spring sunshine.

See you soon - I might share some of pressies with you ;)

xxx Vicki xxx