A transformation in the garden.

In one of the breaks in the rain today I managed to get outside and take a few quick snaps of the work that we did in the garden over the Easter weekend. My parents were visiting and with Torin's help, transformed the end of my garden!

This is what it looked like for ages:

And this is what they managed to do! I'm so grateful for all their hard work and I'm sure you'll agree, it looks really lovely now.

We had done some work in the interim - like smashing up that concrete slab and planting the apple trees to the left of the picture, but the work that my parents did this weekend has made such a difference! 

That stack of bricks to the right of the shed all came out of the earth underneath the concrete slab. I kept trying to push the spade into the earth and each time hit something solid - I must have pulled about thirty original Victorian bricks out of the ground - the ones with loads of holes in them - think I'll put them on Freecycle in case anyone wants them. I'm going keep a couple back though to turn into outdoor candle holders - can't find a picture of this anywhere, but you basically just put think candles in the holes and it looks really effective - I'll post a picture when I've tried it.

New lighting in the living room?

I've had a poorly boy here with me today - Torin's a bit under the weather and spent a large amount of the day lying down on our sofa in the space next to where I usually feed Astrid. Sitting there today I was gazing around my living room and dining room with my usual frustration of not having the time to be able to blitz the place as much as I want to and my eyes settled (as they often do) on the ceiling lights. 

Wasn't it nice of the previous owners to remove the strip lighting that was obviously in this room before he replaced it with this fixture! Not so nice of him however to not bother to fix the mess in the wallpaper that the removal of the strip lighting clearly made!

We have the same lights in the living room and the dining room, and whereas I don't mind it really, I don't think it really goes with the room very well and I don't think I would have chosen something like it myself. Like a lot of things in this house though (like the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom suite), they're too inoffensive to replace; although I think they sit too near to the ceiling - our rooms could take something lower as the ceilings are high. Also, I thought it would be a real hassle to remove them as I thought there would be a maze of wires in that thing. I have it good authority however, that the lights would be quite easy to replace. That got me thinking . . .

I think something like the KNAPPA from IKEA would do the trick nicely - what do you think?

Image from here.

Six green glasses sitting in my sink . . .

. . . and if one green glass, should accidentally fall . . .

I don't know how we manage it, but we always seem to be breaking glasses in our house. I have to admit, a large proportion are probably broken by me - I can be a little (!) clumsy at times, but it really doesn't seem like very long ago that I was at IKEA buying a set of six tumblers, of which we only have one left. So, the other day I went looking for some replacements. I decided to go to IKEA again because they are so reasonable there, and as any glasses I bought were in danger of having a very short life in our house, I thought it better that I didn't spend a lot of money.

When buying glasses, I normally go for the conventional clear kind, but these SKOJA glasses caught my eye:

I don't know if it's because Spring has definitely arrived here, but I really like the fresh green colour of the glass and at 49p each they were quite a bargain.

As I said, I would normally go for clear glass, but I do really like these coloured glasses and I also thought that even if I got bored of the colour, they'd probably end up broken quite soon anyway so I'm sure I'd have a chance to change them soon enough!

Garden rooms with a Tolkien twist.

In anticipation of the new film of "The Hobbit" coming out later this year, I wanted to draw your attention to these Tolkienesque outdoor buildings from Wooden Wonders.

Images from here.

Cool aren't they! As you can see, there's a door in the circular shape on the front which opens up into this cute little space:

Image from here.

It would be so cool to have one of those at the end of our garden - certainly more fun than your average garden shed. Though at $3k, they're definitely not cheap!

A lovely Mothers' Day.

This year we celebrated Mothers' Day over two days. David took the children and me out for lunch on Friday, which was lovely as it is a real treat that we don't get to do much these days. Looking at Torin, sitting in the seat eating his pizza and drinking his apple juice through a straw I couldn't believe how grown up he'd got. Astrid needed feeding just after we ordered our food so I decided to feed her at the table - you know, nice and discreetly. Of course she was having none of it and began screaming, so I took her into the toilets (Zizzi have really big individual toilets) to try again there, but to no avail as she continued screaming and wouldn't stop. She was teething really badly and I knew that I'd left her teething gel at home. Luckily we were in the centre of town and there was a supermarket a few doors down - so I went back to the table, took a longing look at my lovely pizza that had arrived while I was in the bathroom, put my coat on and left the restaurant with Astrid in the buggy. I clearly looked like a woman possessed, as I seemed to get a few strange looks as I pounded down the street! 

I made it back to the table not long after and Astrid, pacified by her now numb gums, fell asleep for the duration of the meal. By this time, Torin had exhausted the shelf life of the free colouring pencils he got with his meal and was getting bored - David whipped out his iPhone and we were soon on our way to enjoying our lovely meal once again (with the faint sound of Peppa Pig in the background). They say that once you've had children, nothing is ever the same again and it's true, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

On Sunday, Torin came into the living room where I was sitting after finishing feeding Astrid and said, "Mummy's flowers and massive card!" David laughed and said, "Ssh! It's a secret!" Torin then started laughing and beamed, "Quick! Hide it!" I think he was just a bit too excited to give me these lovely daffodils from our garden, and the lovely picture of our family that he'd made (with a little help from his daddy):

The different heights of the daffodils represent the four of us - sweet aren't they!

What did you get up to this weekend?