Rainy Sunday

  Been trying to blog since Tuesday, but time gets away from me. Truth is I've had a great week pottering about the house, getting fairy lights in place in the garden, and sorting out Christmas related bits and pieces. I've got my freedom back to do whatever I want around the house and it has been fantastic. I've loved it.
All the fairy lights that are going up are in place and working. That's crossed off the list now. The house feels fresh and clean, I've done a lot of cleaning this week.
As I've bought two cookbooks recently, I threw out two older books that I don't look at and was happy to wave goodbye to. It means I can justify the new purchases as they don't take up any more room, and I'm going to be making dauphinoise potato from the James Martin cookbook today. As long as I make at least one thing from a cookbook I consider it money well spent. We're having steak, green beans and gravy to go with it. Yum.

Yesterday we went into town. I had the hankering for Winter Essentials, which for me means jim jams and perfume. I had a tiny dither between Tresor de Lancome and Coco Chanel, but clearly Coco won. I consider both to be my favoured winter/festive fragrances, but I felt that Coco was the right one this time. The jim jams are just cheap ones from Primark, who seem to have lost the plot with jim jams lately. Not everyone wants to walk around in a fleecy hoodie blanket thing, or drape themselves head to toe in Disney merch, so finding these tartan ones was something of a miracle. That said I have recently bought Violet a set of fleecy jarms with tartan trews, so they're not impossible to find but at the same time it's down to luck with the timing. The ones I got for Violet had gone, or I would have bought another set as she loves them.
While I was there I grabbed a pair of jeans too, I am a big fan of their jeans. Once you know your size in Primark language you are good to go, they wash up well and last just as long as more expensive jeans.
And gloves. I bought gloves. My pink gloves have literally fallen to pieces, it was time to replace them. I found these leather gloves in M&S at a pretty decent price, they will do me nicely.
While I scooted around getting these things, Bill and Violet found their way to Starbucks for a snack and a drink. I joined them there and had to get a gingerbread latte to go. A lovely treat.

The lights in town went on on Thursday, the tree really does look very pretty.
We made our way home via The Range and Burger King. One for lunch (obviously!), and the other to get more paint stripper. I've been working on a little project in the front garden.
When we installed the garden gate we painted it grey. Not sure why we did that rather than leaving it natural, but we had our reasons at the time. Just can't tell you what they were.
Now we've gone berserk with our fondness for all things wood it was decided that the paint needed to go. I started it on Friday and got quite far, as you can see. Not bad considering I was using the dribs and drabs of two tins of stripper left over from working on the tables.
We've got a clear stain/varnish thing to put on once all the paint has gone, but I've still got more to do. It's raining today, but I am going to set up some sort of tent situation and get on regardless. A bit of rain will not stop me, I'm on a mission to get this project completed soon.

Making myself laugh with setting up some sort of tent because I know where my inspiration has come from. I've been watching people stealth camp on roundabouts, which is both stupid and hilarious. I've no intention of ever camping myself, but I'm happy to watch people sneak onto roundabout and other ridiculous locations to set up camp.
Violet finds it so funny that I'm forever watching these things, she thinks I'm obsessed. But what can I say? It makes me laugh and it's all good fun. I'll stop watching them as suddenly as I've started, but for now it's my favourite thing to watch on You Tube.