Didn't we have a lovely time

the day we went to Dundee. Ok I know that's not the proper words but it's a bit far for me to get to Bangor LOL

Sorry for being a misery the other night but thank you for the support... all much appreciated. I guess eventually I will get used to them being there.

Anyway big one is in the middle of her exams so it's been books, exams, books, exams and I've been tied to the house for the last couple of weeks on a project that I will share with you if it ever gets finished.
So yesterday we decided we needed a treat and took ourselves off shopping to Dundee .

And what a day it turned out to be! The sun very kindly was beaming down on us and rather than pay silly prices for a lunch somewhere indoors we took ourselves off to M+S where I used my gift card to buy us a free picnic lunch. The ex would get £50 of vouchers every Xmas from his work and we would use it for treats or things for the smalls but one year we spent the lot on him so the following year he said I could get all the vouchers. To be honest it sat in my purse for quite some time (about 2 years) and I forgot about it but it has since proved priceless. When we have a day out now and it's a dry day we treat ourselves to some lovely picky things and have a bench picnic. Today was so lovely as we sat in the square that big one remarked we could be abroad.
We were obviously have far too good a time as we were soon joined by a wee visitor.




Once we opened the fruit selection he was joined by another wee friend.

I wonder what all the office workers out on their lunch breaks made of us, sat there eating our butties and taking photos of posing Gnomes! :)

Now I'm not a big shopper, our shopping trips usually entails the smalls returning with several bags and I'm the one with an empty purse but a big smile on my face. To be honest we're not big on shopping as a family and trips to the big shops only happens every few months or so.
So when I spotted this bag in Accessorize and was obviously displaying outward signs of pleasure. That is stroking it and sighing big one decided it was high time I treated myself.

I did remark that I could make one myself but the picture really doesn't do the bag justice, the gold owls sparkle!

So I thought that was me, my big treat done now it just a quick trip to Boots for big one to get something exchanged and then it was Primani and home. But no it seems today I was going to get all that birthday money I still had loitering about well and truly spent.

I have to admit the packaging did catch my eye but as it was a perfume I'd not smelt before I thought I'd just have a wee sniff. No harm is there, it's not like I was going to be buying any?



Wow! Now that smells good. The lady behind the counter, bless her must have sprayed nearly half the bottle in the air for me to walk through, so you can get a good sense of the smell she said.
Big one agreed with me that it was lovely. For those of you with fellas the male version is absolutely divine. Big one and I did debate finding ourselves someone who would be willing to be sprayed with it regularly just so we could snuggle up to them and just smell them. Obviously Johnny Depp would be the ideal choice. LOL
Anyway the final decision was helped when the nice lady said, oh you get this bag free with it.





Sold to the lady with the skull habit!

Snow, Fireplaces and Tags

Doesn't it look pretty?


Confusing enough title? Yeah thought so but am I really the only one who struggles on how to title a post? Probably. :)

It snowed here again last night, seems we're having all the snow early this year. I awoke to my radio (which for some reason was on the wrong channel) informing me that some of the schools in this part of the world were shut. So I looked out the window saw the white stuff and then rang the two school numbers that inform us as to whether the schools are open or not. Big one's school was not opening until 10am and pupils who came to school via bus were not expected in today. Wee one's school was open as normal but again no pupils on the school bus would be in. We live in a very rural part of Scotland so a high proportion of the kids travel in on the school bus everyday. Big one informed me that today was filled with watching films, playing darts and generally not doing much schoolwork. As so many kids were off they would only have to repeat the lesson again once everyone was back! :/ Wee one was not impressed that her big sister got to go into school a whole hour later than her and she had lessons as usual. Tough life eh? Hopefully it will be school as normal tomorrow but as it's freezing out there and has snowed on and off this evening who knows. Big one is most concerned as it's her school show this week and they had to cancel tonights performance and if they have to keep doing that when will the show happen? Wee one and I have tickets for the Thursday night show so fingers crossed the roads will be clear by then.

Ok fireplaces. We have spent ages trying to get our living room into a condition that makes it a nice place to be and not the souless room it was when we bought the house. Carpets have been ripped up ugly carpets , wallpaper has been stripped, panelling has been torn down trust me it was not nice panelling, it was cracked and uneven and had strange wee cubby holes in it that were neither use nor ornament, the useless gas fire was removed, the old boiler removed and a nice efficent one that gives us hot water all the time installed in the back of the house, the walls and ceiling were replastered, the gorgeous old (original) stonework of the house hid behind the panelling has been repointed, coving has been installed, walls have been painted, doors, skirting and wood flooring ordered and the piece de resistance was delivered today. Our lovely new open fireplace with oak mantlepiece. The manny from the shop phoned me yesterday to say it would be arriving today but when I saw the snow I seriously doubted it would make it. But make it they did (and I didn;t growl at them when they walked half a tonne of snow into my house) AND my fireplace installer manny came round at lunchtime as promised to check out the fireplace and fittings and he will be back on Thursday to start the job. Weeeeheeee! I may just have a fire burning on Xmas day as I recline on our new sofa (which is arrving in 2 weeks) I now want to rifle through all my fabrics and find something scrumptious to make some stockings. I guess I'll have to add that to my list of things to do when I can stop sleeping.

And finally Tags. The lovely Samsara has tagged me. I get a great big smile on my mush when I get a comment or a tag. I know I'm writing this blog for me but it's always nice to know that someone sees me too. Anyway here we go.

The Rules:

1) Link to your tagger and list all these rules in your blog.

2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs

4) Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

The Facts:

1. I am 6ft tall and take a size 9(uk) shoe so feeling dainty and protected is not something I'm used to.

2. I haven't had a haircut for at least 6-8 months possible longer.

3. I love music and have it on as much as is possible. I can however be a bit of a teenager if I love one particular song or album as I play it over and over again. It has been known for the smalls to plead with me to change the music and/or turn it down.

4. I have 11 piercings and 6 tattoos and plan to have at least another 2 tattoos in the near future. Apart from my nose ring all the other piercings are in my ears although I did at one time have my eyebrow pierced.

5. My brother and I used to catch whitebait in a plastic carrier bag on our local beach when we were kids so we now laugh ourselves silly when we see it being sold for ridiculous amounts of money on posh restaurant menus.




6. I love history although I hated it at school. (Thanks to Mrs Thatcher and her war years) I would love to be able to go study Social History at Uni full time...maybe in my next life.

7. I have difficulty getting hats to fit. I tell the smalls it's because my brain is so big that my head has to be bigger, unfortunately big one is too old to believe that anymore.

Right now the difficult bit tagging 7 other bloggers who Samsara hasn't already tagged. Ok here goes.
pinkfeatherparadise
attic24
jbjb
mollycupcakes
justfee
cooplet
thriftygoodness

I'll have to let them all know tomorrow though as it's now 2.45am and I have to be up in 4 hours oops

The French are coming.

Tomorrow big one's French Exchange student arrives so I've been busy busy trying to make the house look like I do actually try to keep it tidy. Needless to say I've not had much success trying to make my craft pile look smaller. :)
I have however now got 3 completed items for my Craftster Owl Swap and have another two planned. I'd post pics but you never know who's watching ;)
I have some pics of some of the things I've picked up from our charity shops but the battery on my camera decided that it was a good day to run out of juice so it's now sat on charge.
As is the case of a woman's work never being done, wee one announced this evening that she'd like to move her room around. So guess I'll be lugging beds and piles of toys around tomorrow then. I painted these girls on her wall a while back.





This is the one I was least happy with but wee one liked her enough to stop me whiting her out. LOL

Tomorrow I'm getting my next ink done and I'm too excited to be nervous just now. Hopefully I'll have a shot of it to update with this time tomorrow.