Please don't be silent..

A few hours ago I found out that someone I knew-not a good friend or family member has died. It was a terrible shock, she was a mum of young children, she herself was young and as far as I knew she had not shown signs of being unwell. The thing is she wasnt unwell it seems she became a victim of domestic abuse. I will not go into details-they do not count. What does count is the number of (mainly-but not solely) women who are assaulted-or worse by the person who professes to love them.  Yet again, I am breaking the promise to myself to keep this blog 'light & positive'. I am going to admit hear that I have been a victim of domestic abuse-not D, never D. In the years before D, the father of my children told me he loved me, he would cuddle me in bed, kiss me goodnight. He would also tell me how I should 'get rid of' our 6 day old son because I was feeling weepy & down. He would tell me how I wasn't 'quite right in the head' because I saw a counsellor for a while. He would call me fat & tell me how sexy other women were. All things that are probably quite minor. He also made me have sex with him in return for money or for clothes. If I refused he would be angry and have terrible moods. One day, he took it further and told me that night he was going to assault me or 'batter me up & down the house'. And all this time I did nothing. He didnt do anything that night but about a year or so later he did and still I didn't leave. It took years for me to leave. It isn't easy and if you haven't been through it I don't think you can fully understand it.
Eventually I left, it's years now and there have been many flashbacks and scary times. I upset D because he knows that after all this time deep down I still think that one day he will show his true self, I love him more that I could have ever imagined and trust him as much as I could trust anyone.
If you are suffering, please get help, start here:
www.womensaid.org.uk/

can you tell what it is?

This is a kind of halfway house of a post. I am partway through making something and although the crochet part is finished there is still another day (hopefully thats all) to be done on it.

I have been through my stash and decided I have quite a large one (oo-eer) and that really I cant justify buying anymore until I use up at least some.
I very rarely use aran wool but I bought quite a bit-6 balls for a throw-that I have never completed and that I'm not overly enamoured with. So I decided maybe it would be good to use all that up and then I know I have only two (more special) balls of aran in all of my stash. 
I decided to give a ripple a go-I have done it before-twice-once with a cowl/scarf which again, is ok, but not something I cant live without-I know I'm abit flighty with my makes. The only time I tried it I made a baby blanket- a rainbow one and I loved it, the end product...making it was a nightmare. However, after making this itam I cant see why, this was a drem and as I was using aran yarn I was able to use a 5mm so it grew at a reasonable rate.
So here we have it...on my knee as I hook away. 

And here it is laid out on the table...it runs almost exactly from one end to the other conveniently, any guesses? thats it pretty much in its entirity-Since the photos I have added a thin border-of doubles down each side and there is some slip stitches needed...any ideas?

I'm hoping to finish it tonight or tomorrow morning and I will post a picture of the finished item-unless Ive made a pigs ear or it, then I'll deny this ever happened!
Juliet x

In my handbag

ok...so I did cheat here just a little. There were some bits of paper, receipts and bus tickets that I didn't include, but to be fair they weren't exactly exciting-not that the other stuff is!

The picture is a little bit dark, unusually this is not because my camera on my phone is rubbish, it's simply because I was in a dark place-literally. I was in a pub-having breakfast with my daughter. She lives in a town that doesn't really have much in the way of nice coffee shops-the nearest they had was a McDonalds, but then that was closed down through a lack of business (!!) so we cant even go there for a chat and a coffee.

So, we went to a Weatherspoons for breakfast, which although fine, is not as good as a nice coffee and cake emporium!

While she was busy, filling in a job application, I decided to follow others and show you what I lug around with me on a daily basis. Now I'm not sure if it gives a picture of the 'true' me but here goes:

Ok, from left to right:
-Black sunglasses 'bag' no sunglasses-not sure where they are, bag worked well!
-Keys including Disney Magic Kingdom keyring (from visit to Disney Paris when kids were 3 and 6)
-Tags on keyring-Tescos clubcard, Pets at Home and a Mexican I cant remember the name of.
-Green tree perfume spray, present from daughters holiday in spain last year. Love this fragrance and have a few different products with this fragrance, so fresh and summery.
-Soap and Glory lipgloss, claims to plump up your lips...hmm. I like the sensation though!
-Number 7 Mascara, I keep this in my bag so I know where it is-I use make up very irregularly it's a handy way of knowing where it is, otherwise it would be gathering dust elsewhere, somewhere 'safe'.
-Really comfy pen, I find I write such a little now that having a comfy pen helps!
-Bright red lipstick- an experiment, an experiment best not mentioned again.
-Purses, two. Purple one underneath is my everyday purse, it's quite large and has places for cards etc and two sides for coins. Sadly the fabric side of the coin part is coming away. Hopefully it will last until Christmas-January sales are my usual purse hunting ground. Second, spotty purse. Cath Kidson treat. I use this for vouchers and similar stuff relationg to shopping but that are not used every time I shop.
-Cold and flu tablets, just a handy addition I find, not so much not that I am not working with children though!
-Packet of tissues, the ones with the extra soft addition for delicate noses-ha!
-Some tomato ketchup, just because you never know when you will need it!

Whats in yours?

Recently read

As a child I had always read lots, it wasnt at all unusual for me to spend all day reading and I would love to get transported to the wonderful places in these books, where the sun always shined and where there was (usually) a large loving family. I am in reality an only child of only children who werent particularly family orientated. I loved Secret Seven and The Famous Five. Another huge favourite of mine was Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield (hope I got that right!).

As I grew older and the time came where I shared a bedroom with my (ex) husband he would hate me to have a light on in bed so reading into the night because something I used to do and not something I 'did'. With D, who is a heavy reader-for work and for pleasure it is not a problem but it is only in the last few weeks that my mind has felt settled enough to properly concentrate and I am now reading every night before I go to sleep and I am loving it again!
I am though limited to either charity shop finds or free books on my kindle as I am under a tight budget-and its always good to have money put to one side for wool :0)

Recent reads I have enjoyed have been:
Room byEmma Donoghue.
 
This took me a little while to get into but it was well worth sticking with. I dont want to give too much away but it's the story of a young boy and his mum and for the majority of the book they are the only characters. The book was funny in places but also so very sad. The ending didnt seem entirely satisfying to me somehow but I dont know how I would have changed it. Really good read.

A perfect home by Kate Granville.
 

I loved this, I enjoyed going to bed at night to be able to get my little fix. I have already downloaded another of her books and am looking forward to getting going on it soon. The characters were very believable and so well drawn. In what could have been an unsympathetic storyline I felt the characters held out well. Nice beach read



Itsy Bitsy Spider by Willow Rose.
 
Sometimes I like books that are abit scary-I really like Karin Slaughter type thrillers and I thought thats what I was getting here. It kind of was but more supernatural in places. If you are scared of spiders dont even go there!

Tickled Pink by Christina Jones.
 
This is another one from my 'chick lit' folder. It was ok, but it didnt pull me in. Having said that I did 'have' to read it to the end to see what happened. I got it as a free read and as such have no complaints.

Darling Girls by Emma Burstall.
 
I read this about 18 months ago and loved it. The only one I have read in years that I HAD to get out at breakfast time and read before work. Cant recommend enough and I keep my eyes out for any other freebies by the same author!

Our summer

I've just read a post on another blog about how the seasons are starting to change and thought it would be a good idea to document some of our summer. This will be a picture heavy posting-I have made the pictures as small as I can but if you click on them they will enlarge. It's mainly garden stuff so if thats not what you like to see and read about then step away now and I wont be at all insulted x.

I may have mentioned before (!!) that we moved in May. Before this it had been years since I had been responsible for a garden (and to be honest even then I hadnt taken much interest). D has never really had a garden so the pair of us are novices. We  moved to a house that probably had quite a bit of money and care lavished on it several years ago, and then for the last few none at all and the garden is pretty much the same. We have ideas of what we want but we are realistic and also think that this first year we just need to see what we actually have!

So, when we moved in, there was huge holly trees overhanging the lawn. This meant that the lawn was dying because it was so dark, no pictures of this but you get the idea. So we chopped and chopped, D got some big hedge loppers and then an even bigger set and we have been saving the thicker branches for kindling (probably for next year). 

As summer went on, things started to burst into flower. We have lots of roses but these are the only pictures I seem to be able to find

 We were both really surprised by this (showing our lack of knowledge) but there are actually two different coloured-and sized- blooms on this plant. After speaking to people in the know we find that this is actually common..aaah well.

Then, our next development was a plant that I was convinced at first was a gladioli, wandering round my garden doing Dame Edna impersinatins during this time, I'm hoping you can see why this poor confused novice gardener would get it so wrong yet again..

They do kind of look like gladis don't they?

The days went on and things started happening to them-did I mention these things were huge-almost to my shoulder!

 

 Before finally, they flowered! Aren't they pretty?

A much more knowledgeable friend was able to name the floer and its a Campanula...who'd have known-not us obviously!

Lastly, when we moved in there was a large bush at the end of the garden and it had some tight round buds on it, then, one day they burst open into something I have never seen (not saying much)

 

   Again, we were reliably informed that these are a type of Buddliea (a globe Buddliea). We have a couple of the more usual sort of buddlieas in the garden- I also know them as 'butterfly bushes' as they are particularly attractive to them and we have also noticed that they are popular with bees and during the really warm weather they were absolutely full of buzzing flapping beauties.

Amazingly we have had some success with our vegetables-I planted lots of seeds anticipating an earlier move than we actually had and many were lost in the move and the days and weeks afterwards where I was simply overwhelmed by the house and unpacking that came with it. However, we have now started to harvest courgettes-an old favourite that even I can grow! Even more excitingly, I noticed yesterday that we have some tiny tomatoes just appearing on our bushes. It wont be a glut but they will be tomatoes we have grown and from seed. I had done this years ago but everything feels new and more importantly is very appreciated by D rather than someone who couldnt see the point when there are shops..hmm. I have other vegetables on the go but caterpillars seem to be taking hold so I'm not sure what will happen but as I had manly bought them as seedlings to grow for the chickens it wont be any great loss if the wildlife that gets them is slightly smaller winged creatures. 

Finally, as I said earlier, the seasons definitely seem to be changing and a couple of days ago everything felt very cold and miserable and my proclaimation that we wouldnt light a fire until September went right out of the window! 

And here I sat rocking, and dreaming..

and a little bit of crochet.

Infront of this..

not a great picture I know, but here it is before the blaze was even dreamt of, 

I feel so lucky to be living in this house, that seems just right for me and D. I know we will be happy but that does not mean I am living in some sort of Pollyanna world. There are horrible things going on, people we love are deeply hurting at the moment, both physically and emotionally. Some of them will get better and one day will not hurt. Some of them will never get better but also one day will not hurt anymore, that hurt is for us. We have moved to a different area from one that we knew, we have moved further from some family and closer to others. We have taken a financial 'hit' in that I had to give up work before it broke me, but this enabled us to move areas and I am lucky that D never blames or hints at how the reason we are financially worse off is my 'fault'. Hopefully, I will get some work soon, or one of the irons we have in the fire will start to come to fruition and help us. We are healthy and happy and I hope you and yours are too x

Here we go

well, what a performance!

The PC at home is under construction. It had a problem, D decided to fix the problem and now we need to fix the fixing..hmm. Anyway, not a problem you would think as we both have smart phones, I also have a tablet, D has an Ipad and a Macbook (both work items so not always available and also Im always wary of what I put on them! ) Anyway, Ive been desperate to get posting so yesterday I decided to get a grip and use Ds Macbook, how hard could it be I thought, HA! Anyway, I even tried getting a child to help me but no luck-we are a family of non Apple users...however luckily we have a nephew who is a total Apple addict and he has just given me remote assistance on how to get pictures onto my mem card from Facebook so I can post on here. The only way I can work out to get pictures into any sort of documentation on here is via FB at the minute so I'm probably making it difficult for myself but I really cant stress myself out anymore by working out an easier Apple friendly way!

Rant over! 

Well, we have been quite productive this last couple of weeks getting some decorating done.

When we were in the process of moving we decided we weren't going to rush into decorating, that we wanted to be patient and do it 'right' and not on a really tight-just moved budget... That was until 2 weeks ago when D said "I can't stand that bloody pink any longer!" So, the plan changed. We pulled out our big pot of cream emulsion and got cracking. First we did the tiny bedroom-both 'spare' rooms were the same colour and neither of them are our bedroom but apparently it was just too much for D as he walked past them on the landing...and I will show you why:

The two bedrooms-one is a guest room and one is now my craft room were both painted in the same colour and painted very badly. The following photos are from the guest room which is a decent sized double unfortunately we didnt take any pictures of the tiny-now craft room but the decorating was of the same amazing standard and horrific colour! are you ready..here goes:

 That is the skirting board, yep you can see just how much care they took to get those edges nice and sharp! followed by the fireplace:

Again you can see the care and attention gone into the application of the beautiful pink paint..are you getting the idea of how awful this was? The thing was, when we were cleaning before we started painting, the pink paint all came off the mantlepiece with a damp cloth so why on earth was it still there?

The final glory, the window frame...no words can really explain can they?

Anyway, we got the little bedroom done first and it's amazing, I have never had a room just for me before-apart from when I was a child and had my own bedroom, this is different. It's the equivilent of D having his office and studio up in the attic and it feels so good.

Do you want to see how it looks? 

Its really the tiniest of tiny rooms but I think its going to be very useful. This is the storage area, there's two units and both are pretty full but i think theres still room for more wool-there's always more room for wool surely?

 

The white Ikea unit has boxes in, each is filled with a different type of yarn, one is just Stylecraft Special DK! another has chunky, another cotton DK, depending on what I have the most of. There are also pattern books and magazines stored here. The silver shelves have more 'boring' stuff in underbed boxes (for that I mean not wool!). There is a wicker basket I have had since I was a teenager-its amazing its still going-its got bear making bits and pieces in it. the stacking multi coloured round boxes have bits and pieces in them, ribbons, tiny christmas baubles etc. I'm sure these will change as I use them and find the best way for me. 

Now, the curtains were abit of an experiment-or the tie backs were. It was just after K had her miscarriage and I so wanted to be making something but I had just put away the blanket I was making for her baby and couldn't face anything big. I decided I wanted a tie back for the curtains-I knew the curtains wont really be closing and that I just wanted something pretty. I was also fairly sure this was a practice so I just used an acrylic DK-I want to get something more substantial-and maybe that will be what I bring back from our (soon) holiday. Anyway, I decided to make these tie backs in a variety of colours-you cant see the back but they go into pinks and purples. 

 Again, as it was a rushed job I simply hung them onto the hooks which is why they dont hang quite 'right'. But i really like them and the colour that they bring to the room. 

Lastly, I wanted somewhere to sit but sadly I'm not in a position to go and buy a new chair simply for me to use on the odd occasion, however, we have some garden furniture so I decided to dig one out of the cupboard-the most comfortable one ofcourse!

I added my large hexagon blanket to add abit of extra colour to the corner and I'm ready to sit for all my worth!

 

 Well, thats what we've been up to, the other bedroom (guest bedroom) is nearly finished so I may share that in a few days-if you'd be interested..if I can still get this machine to work!

Be well..x