Lovely things through the post and other goodies

During the last couple of weeks, when I was failing miserably to blog, several lovely presents arrived through the post.


First of all I won part of the giveaway on Rachel's blog and she sent me this gorgeous fabric basket which just makes me smile


along with chocolate chicks - yummy! And some fab Paperchase owl buttons - which have flown away (with the help of Daisy and Fred I think) and so couldn't be photographed!

greasy finger marks are courtesy of the little Lockets again I think!

Then Emma sent this gorgeous handpainted box (with handmade chocolates inside!!) in the parcel containing my Bossy BIG Sister's birthday present - you'll have to wait to see what that was when she blogs it (it was really fab and she was very lucky that I posted it on to her because I would have liked it for myself!)

When I went to my local "Stitch and Bitch" Group a couple of weeks ago one of the girls was having a de-stash and I couldn't resist two skeins of Yarn Yard 4 ply. Especially as Patti had kindly offered to wind them for me - this was an adventure in itself:


How beautiful are these two cakes of yarn? Almost too nice to knit!

But I'll leave you today with an even more beautiful thing.....................


a very, very muddy and wet Dorothy Locket after two hours of Scouts outside in the pouring rain last Tuesday evening. I think she looks gorgeous!!!

30th April 2009

Happy 70th Birthday Aunty Ann

You may not be my "real" aunt but you are the best kind of friend!

Lots of love Lucy xxxx



(The words are from Leanne Beasley's block for the "Breast of Friends" Quilt in Homespun Magazine. I saw it yesterday on Maree's blog and decided to adapt it into something for Aunty Ann. I used the alphabet in the back of Leanne's book "Living the Dream" as I love how she writes and I wanted to keep the full "Leanne flavour"!)

Hello...............

Hello.

I am still here.

Just seem to have lost my blogging "mojo".

I will be back soon - but not yet as I have a yucky lurgy :o(

Locket xxx

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Just before we went away on holiday we had a sort of "party" at our house where my friends Jane and Helen set up shop in our living/dining room! I could get used to having a shop in my house when it is full of such gorgeous things - Phoenix cards and goodies from Jane and Helen's Busy Bee Studios Easter decorations and treats.


The evening seemed to go really well - I'd invited about 35+ friends and about 23 came which is really good for one of these kinds of events and it was really good fun - I'd definitely like to do it again!

On Easter Sunday we had a lovely time with my mum and dad including the annual Easter Egg hunt for the children. The weather was beautiful and the company was just perfect!


But just in case you think it is all sunshine and holidays in Locketland I'll tell you about the other fun we have been having...................................

A happy visit from the Carpet Beetle Family!

Or as they have now been rechristened "Those B@$#*&D BEETLES"

Our bedroom has been invaded so we have been blitzing them as fast as they appear and thoroughly spring cleaning. My lovely next-door neighbour is coming on Thursday to lay laminate flooring as we've just had some ropey old bare boards for the last 5 years because the carpet we'd inherited when we moved here was just too horrible. And we have bought a brand new bed - because ours broke ages ago and we have been sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

But do you want to know the real irony of the situation?

WE DON'T HAVE ANY CARPETS!!!!!! (except for on the stairs)

So WHY do we have carpet beetles?

'snot fair!

But hopefully by the end of the week we will have a lovely new bedroom with the beetle problem under control (lots of insecticide in between the floorboards before the new flooring goes down should do the trick - I may garden organically but when it comes to my house it's a different matter!) - and I've even treated myself to some of the lovely new bedding that Lesley got the other week - it's gorgeous!

I'll leave you with a happy picture to lighten the mood..........


Easter Sunday with the Lockets about 5 years ago (and my one and only scrapbook page!)

Next time I'll show you the lovely present I received in the post today.

Our Mini Holiday

So that we could go to the Bloggy Picnic we had a mini holiday last week which ended up being a trip down memory lane!

I originally come from Hampshire and moved up to Durham with my parents when I was 17. I think it has been nearly 10 years since I went "back home" and so we decided it was time the children saw where I grew up.

We stayed in a Travelodge near Newbury for 3 nights at an incredibly reasonable price as all 5 of us were allowed to stay in one family room (some Travelodges let you have 5 in, some don't - I've learnt to always check first!).

On the first evening, although we were meant to be meeting BIG sister Ally and her lovely family for supper at 7, I took the children to see the school I went to from 11-16, and where I amazingly ended up being Head Girl! (It was a very small school, so there weren't many to choose from!) I absolutely LOVED school and cried bucketloads of tears when we all left after our O'levels (unfortunately it didn't have a 6th form) so it was lovely to go back and see it looking as gorgeous as ever.


I then took decided we needed to go on a "little drive" which ended up with us going back to the village I grew up in which very nearly made us late for BIG Sis - scary!

It hasn't changed at all - there are so many gorgeous houses, and I was delighted to see that the bourne - the stream that runs through the valley - was up. It's a curious stream that only comes up when the water table rises to sufficient level and it always used to be one of the highlights of the year when you heard "The bourne is up".

What was even more amazing is that the "Rec" - the park next to the little village school I went to - still had the same roundabout, see-saw and slide (all refurbished) as when I was a child. It had lots of new things too, but the bits I remembered were all still there 20 years later!

The children loved it and we had to drag them away to go and meet Ally and co. in Newbury for supper. This meant that I had no difficulty getting them back there the next day and so I was able to show them all my old paths and secret places in the village.

We also called to see an old family friend and she insisted that we should let her contact the people living in our old house so that we could go and see it again. This wasn't my plan at all as I have missed that house terribly ever since we left and even the thought of it used to make me cry so actually going back in was potentially too upsetting. But our friend insisted that the owners would love us to see it so it was arranged.

Amazingly, going back didn't upset me at all and I think I finally feel happy about the house rather than bereft! The owners were absolutely lovely and we stayed for an hour looking round the house and garden and telling the children about all the things we used to get up to - along the lines of "that's the chimney we used to climb".........."this is the airing cupboard I used to hide in to read"............... "we used to climb out of this window and along that roof.........." and so on.

So many things had stayed the same and the things that had changed didn't matter. It was brilliant! And now I feel I can let go of my gorgeous childhood home.

Sorry - bit of a long ramble there!

More importantly, Tuesday was also the day that Missus Moogsmum and I had arranged to meet up. After trying various other locations which all turned out to be closed - although we did find the perfect storage option for Fred and the Sausage Monster


we eventually took the Moogs Family back to "my village" to play in the Rec - I think my children must have planned that all along!


It was freezing but the children played happily for ages while Lesley showed me how to make some crochet flowers - so I told her what colours I wanted and sent her home to make me a brooch ready for the next day - and she did!


She also gave me some eggs from her lovely hens!


After Lesley and the Moogschildren went home we lent Dot to BIG sis for the night and went back to the Travelodge.

The next day was the Bloggy Picnic so you know all about that.

And then on Thursday we came home - but before we left we went to visit my lovely friend from school who I haven't seen for about 11 years (not since Dot was a tiny baby). It was brilliant to see her and to meet her children for the first time and I really don't want it to be another 11 years before we see them again!

We then had the perfect ending to a lovely holiday............................ a 7 and a half hour journey home in Bank Holiday traffic with 3 children who didn't go to sleep at all! Great!

Lucy x

So you want to see pictures do you?

Well I've got plenty of them for you!

The Bloggy Picnic was great fun and even more relaxed and enjoyable than I could have hoped.

Sadly some of our lovely friends couldn't make it on the day and they were definitely missed - but it just means we need to do it again very soon!

The assembled bloggers were:

Kitty, Moogsmum, Trashy, Julia B, Julie, Domesticali, Penny, Jane , my BOSSY BIG SISTER, Eve, Kate and ME!

We were really lucky with the weather because although it was a bit breezy and chilly it was warm enough for us all to sit on our picnic rugs for the afternoon and I actually got really sunburnt!

The children (16 of them I think!) quickly made friends and entertained themselves (some of them randomly appearing out of the tops of trees!) while we sat and chatted, knit, crocheted, laughed, and generally had a lovely time.


Once we'd eaten lunch we made a huge pile of Easter Eggs and gave them out to the children in age order which worked fine until a crowd of children we'd never seen before scurried over keen to join in the "giveaway" (apparently urged on by their parents!!!)

We then put the adults' names in a pot and took turns picking who we would be giving our present to. I was very lucky to receive this gorgeous gift from Eve


a fabulous knitted chicken and a little cotton rabbit egg cosy with a chocolate egg and eggcup all wrapped up in a beautiful vintage napkin.

But I was curious because the egg rattled..............


and look at what I found inside! So cute!

Eve had also given me another present - just because I had organised the meet up! A beautiful crocheted flower, again wrapped in a gorgeous vintage handpainted napkin.


Thank you so much Eve - you were incredibly generous! I would show pictures of the little bundles of mini eggs you also gave all the children but I'm afraid they have disappeared!!!

My gift of a goldfish wallet, mini eggs, notepad and card went to my lovely niece Emma! While her gift of a stunning mola inspired fish reverse applique mini quilt went to Penny. I'm so impressed with how good at textiles Emma is as she is only 13. (I'll see if she has a photo of it to show you sometime)


Meanwhile my BOSSY Big Sister Ally received a gorgeous sock monkey from Kitty who was quickly christened "Billy Millet" (after Millets farm) and then Ally picked out Kitty's name for her gorgeous gift of homemade jam and marmalade (having just had some of the jam about an hour earlier for breakfast at Ally's house, I knew how scrummy it was!)

I also had a present from Kate for organising the meet up - this gorgeous Japanese paper that she found in the craft shop on the farm.


I love it! Sadly the shop was shut by the time we were leaving :o(

And Trashy brought my raffle prize as we agreed it would be MUCH easier than posting it!


I love this tray, but to Trashy's great indignation I have absolutely no intention of putting cups of tea on it as it is far too beautiful! Instead I want to hang it on the wall so I can see it all the time.

Trash also brought me back this badge


from the Trash and Treasure picnic in Ballarat which I attended "Flat Stanley" style.

Trash did her usual trick of hiding behind something to have her photo taken, so here she is modelling her brilliant present from Ali - Laundry Haiku! What a fab idea!


But I got a nice pic of Mrs Moogs*


Oh! Sorry! I meant THIS one!




Thanks to everyone for coming - it was a wonderful day!


Lucy xxxx

(*p.s. I'm not really being mean to Moogsmum - we were joking at the time about which pig was me and which was her!)

This is me apparently................


Hmmm, not too far from the truth unfortunately!!!!

It's nearly time for the.................

Are you getting excited?

Because I am!

So here are the fine-tune details for The Bloggery Picnic Party:

We plan to meet by the swings

at Millet's Farm near Abingdon

at 11am

on Wednesday 8th April

It would be great if everyone could bring:

their own picnic

a small-ish, wrapped, handmade present to go in the lucky dip

and as many boxed Easter Eggs as the number of children you bring - again to go in a lucky dip (unless anyone has nut allergies etc)

IMPORTANT:
Trashy has made the very good point that we need to have some sort of agreement about whether we can take/post photos of each other/our children on our blogs.

So could you please leave a comment on this post stating how you feel about this

- then there will be a central point where people can check before they write a post.

So please make sure you check the comments on this post BEFORE you publish any photos on your blog

And I think that's about it really.

My only concern is that the weather may not be on our side but I'm afraid I can't do anything about that - we may just have to come up with a cunning plan to evacuate the coffee shop so we can all get a seat!


So far these are the friends that are hopefully coming along:

Kitty
Moogsmum
Dottycookie
Gina
Emma Pebble
Trashy
Maria
Julia B
Tillyboo
Julie
Domesticali
Penny
Jane from Sew Create it
my BOSSY BIG SISTER
Suburbia
Eve
Kate

if I have missed anyone off or if any new people can come please let me know - hopefully it will be a really fun day!