My 30 Day Challenge

Day one of my 30 day challenge. To post every day of November.

Here goes.........

Today I had to clear the ironing pile in K's room as she is coming home tomorrow for a week. I use her room for the ironing and whilst in there I found where Jake has been sleeping recently!



He had made a cosy bed on her pillow and as you can see I've popped some coat hangers on there!



He also likes to get under things, like the Zebra cover, as you can see that is all rucked up and then during my ironing marathon he decided to get under the pillow!! Definately not your usual cat!

Happy Halloween

Did you know that Halloween begins at sunset on the 31st October and ends at sunset on the 1st November!

Lucky Me!

I received a lovely parcel in the post, it contained lots of lovely goodies!



A packet of Breakfast Tea, a beautiful new tea cosy and a beautiful china teacup and saucer.

Why would I receive such a goody pack, because I read other peoples blogs and one I like in particular belongs to 21st Century Housewife who was having a giveaway and I won!!!! I admire this lady immensely as she tries to become greener in her everyday living and I often leave her blog with ideas to try my self! So pop across and take a look.

The tea cosy is really welcome especially when you look at my old one



disgusting isn't it! I can tell you the practically the day I bought this, there had been a display in the window of the Oxfam shop (now closed) in our local town of knitted items, when I asked if I could buy one they said 'yes dear at the end of the week' so 9am on the last day of the week I went in and bought it and that was 20 years ago this December! Cost me £2.50, but I thought it was well worth it, and as you can see its tatty but still does a good job, infact it out lasted the old teapot!!!



The beautiful china cup and saucer is so pretty and delicate but to be honest far too small for a cuppa, one sip and it would be gone, so I have put it on the dresser with all my other lovely little nick naks!

Thank you so much Mrs L your gift is really appreciated!

I though I might have a giveaway, so I am off to have a route round to see what I can find, so watch this space.

Then I thought for a bit of fun I might set myself the challenge of posting everyday of November???? I won't promise that the posts will be long and meaningful, but there will be posts!!!lol!!!

First Frost

I was caught out abit today, by the weather!! I know, the weather forecast has been predicting this cold snap for awhile, but who believes a weather forecaster nowadays anyway??

At 0800 when I went out armed with camera to check if the greenhouse was alright it was pretty chilly -3.7C I think. I love these mornings especially now my Rayburn is lit and we are all cosy inside!

I must apologise for the pics, not the best I've taken, but you can see how badly the frost has hit some of my plants





The Tree Fern doesn't look affected by the frost



but it has some scorched leaves.

then the beautiful colour of the leaves of my Rocket Tree



further down the garden by the pond the Gunnera and banana, all floppy now..



The little greenhouse still to be bubble wrapped



Whilst the big greenhouse all wrapped up and with 2 Frost Stat heaters in



the plants look good, No wonder when you see how warm it is in there!!!



Even after the hectic weekend and the drive back, plus it always seems to take longer to recover from the hour change nowadays, I decided the Brugs had to be saved, they can usually take one bad frost, but I'd hate to lose them because I could not be bothered to bubblewrap the small greenhouse.

So I chopped back bananas, gunneras, chopped back the Brugs, bubblewrapped the small greenhouse and moved all my small brugs into it.

Now my patio looks like this



Down by the pond looks like this



Inside the little greenhouse looks like this.....



Off for a cuppa now!!

Weekend Away!

Arrived back after my long weekend away at Mum's. Had an exciting journey back driving through, sleet, hail and rain. The temp has definately dropped. It is that time of year again...



Rayburn lighting!!

Last year we lit on the 19th October, so we have done well lasting so long. But to be honest it hasn't been too bad as we have had the front fire lit!



whilst we have been away hubby survived with just the front fire, he was at work most days so it wasn't too bad but look at the mess he left



can you see all the dust? This is the problem with coal fires and there is an art to cleaning, riddling and stoking and I don't think he has it! Yuk!!!

Let me re-introduce you to my Great Neice Madison,



she will be 2 in December



yep she is going to be a big girl, well her mum is 6ft 2ins!!!

Here she is in K's boots!!!




it was great spending time with Mum, Zoe and Madison, the next time we go up will be Christmas!!!