My Great Grandad

Seeing the leaves change colour on the trees always makes me think of my Great Grandad. He loved Autumn, it was his favourite season. He served in the 1st world war and as kids he told us about being stung by a scorpion and how he survived being shot. We were fascinated by his stories but as an adult having learned what a brutal war it was, I know he was lucky to survive both physically and mentally. Despite his experiences, he was always a cheerful man, so full of life, determined to live life to the full. So, when I see leaves dancing in the wind and pavements scattered with beautiful colours I think of Arthur, my wonderful Great Grandad.

National Poetry Day - John Cooper Clarke

It was hard to choose my favourite poem by JCC but "I wanna be yours" is defo in my top ten. John Cooper Clarke's poem for the UK coast released for National Poetry Day can be heard here. Have poetic day : )

















I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
Breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
Let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
For those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
When you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
Take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
You’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
Hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
That’s how deep is my devotion
 

My new favourite band - The Foals

Artwork by Tinhead

I love the energy of the Oxford band The Foals. Yannis Philippakis vocals are haunting yet melodic and a little bit shouty. Their tunes are catchy but the best bit for me is how their songs build to a crescendo. They always have fab artwork for their promo. too : ) Stick this on loud and dance round the room.

It all started with a trip to the zoo...

When on our holibobs in Devon we visited Paington Zoo. We spent ages in the gorilla and orang utang enclosures watching the wonderful primates go about their day. We were all fascinated and attended a zoo keepers talk about their resident orang utang Chinta and her gorgeous baby. We learnt about all the stuff you'd expect but we also found out about how the orang uang, amongst many other animals, are endangered because of destruction of the rainforest in favour of palms being planted for palm oil. My son immediately said "right mum we aren't going to have anything in our shopping that has palm oil in". I agreed and so far we are doing pretty well in the campaign to boycott non sustainable palm oil. It can be quite difficult though because so many of our household goods contain it plus it's in load of my sons favourite chocolate bars and cakes. He remains firm - SAY NO TO PALM OIL! To find out more take a look here

Congratulations and celebrations...

Copyright Jodds

Copyright Jodds

I forgot to blog about these - you can buy them here

Showing off!

Inspired by the Great British Bake off (my favourite TV show at the mo), we made a rainbow cake. It aint perfect (Mary Berry would probably notice the layers are all different sizes) but here is a slice of it - cool hey and it was V. tasty.

Back to school

copyright Stephanie Thannhauser

Our kids are back to school this week so it's back to the daily panic: homework nagging, lost uniform and pencil case envy...

Nautical...

Right... better get on and embrace Autumn

Our summer holidays are nearly over

My kids go back to school on Monday but I'm still in holiday mode and have made a pebble print inspired by our trips to the Devon beaches (sometimes in the rain : ( )

Back from our holibobs!

We went to lovely Devon for our holidays. It rained loads but our kids LOVED fishing for crabs. They called them Ninja crabs because of the way they put their pincers in the air to defend themselves like Ninjas.