The one with all the shopping...

Morning, campers! Get me with over 50 followers! One of them doesn't count because it was me sodding about yesterday trying to work something out and I accidentally joined my own blog. Anyway, hello to new ones and I will apologise in advance for the quality of the photography. It really is pants. But, Little Miss EF has chosen photography as one of her options next term so if she gets it I will be after her for some tips. I might even employ her as my photographer. Nice to have you aboard anyway ladies!

Doesn't time go fast? I can't believe it's a week since my last post. All this sitting about doing nothing makes the days whizz by I can tell you. Hopefully this will soon be rectified and I can get back to work. (Just in time for the six weeks holidays...) Next Monday I am having something called a Nerve Root Sheath Infiltration. In my neck. A needle. Probably a long one. (Or not, I just made that bit up to make it sound scarier.)  I hope the name of it is more dramatic than the reality. I am trying to take the good out of it. I have to go to St. John's Wood, a part of London that is most pleasant indeed and where I will almost certainly be residing when I win the Lottery. My intention is to get a step on in the morning (ha ha) and get myself up there pronto so I can walk along the High Street and pretend I am rich and posh for an hour. There are charity shops that I shall most certainly be frequenting. Obv any purchases will be set out for perusal on here at a later date. And this time I am meeting Mr EF at the hospital so I won't have him sighing and looking all forlorn and making me feel guilty so I will have more time to have a proper root round.

So, this week. Bought a few things, natch. Finished a thing. Threatened to start a few things but didn't.
Let's have a photo, there's been a lot of talking so far and it will get boring.

A random picture of my dog, Manny. Just because he looks so gorgeous. Don't you think his eyes look human?
Right on to the real stuff.
Last Sunday I got Miss EF The Elder to drive me to the shops because I was having withdrawal symptoms and internet shopping, however fun, wasn't quite cutting the mustard. It also means I'm scared to get in the shower every day in case I miss a parcel. So, off we trot to Southend, our local proper shops. She, who works in a lovely big law firm in London and earns her own money, (more than me) was skint and I knew that she would only stand so much of me waving my card about before she got the hump. This actually happened in the first shop. TK Maxx. Ok, we were in there for an hour, who wouldn't be? Ok, I bought a load of stuff I don't actually need but wanted very badly but she didn't have to threaten to take me home as soon as we'd paid. I think it was because I left her holding armloads in the queue while I ran off to see if there was anything I'd missed. We managed to patch it up when I bought her a full English in Debenhams and treated her to her sun tan lotion for her holiday.
In TK Maxx I bought a couple of Le Parfait jars. Still languishing, empty on the side in the kitchen because I don't really 'do' jars, apart from keep buying the things. It was the French writing, I'm very easily pleased. I also bought this.

There were others but I resisted. Our phone chargers live in this now. Much nicer than having them all plugged in and trailing bits of black wire all over the shop.
A side view. (How can one get so excited about a tin?)

I even know what that means! Please excuse the flash. It was like night time in my kitchen this morning.

A couple of other tins. I saw the blue one on Chipper Nelly and loved it and dashed to Marks to get it. I didn't buy the Queen tin but I had to go back and get it a couple of weeks later. The biscuits were flipping gorgeous and I will definitely be getting the Christmas shortbread from there this year.

I'm a sucker for anything with a taxi or a bus on it, my dad used to drive both.

And Her Maj. I love the colours on this and it's been promoted to being our new biscuit tin.
I've had a thing about tins lately. I hope it stops soon.

Right, the cupboard. Last weekend Mr EF went on a racing jolly to Newmarket for the weekend. I waved him off and as soon as he got to the top of the road I shouted out to Miss EF The Younger to help me climb up on a chair and get the door off the cupboard. We had a bit of a job but after we'd charged up his electric screwdriver, (I think he's used it once,) we were away. Once the door was off I spent a good deal of time fart arsing about with bits of Pyrex and what have you deciding what was going to be in there. In the end I'm afraid most of the Pyrex lost out. I think, on reflection, Pyrex was a passing fad for me, most of it anyway, and it ended up back in a cupboard. I'm not getting rid of it yet, you never know when you might need to cook casseroles for 158 people do you? The prettier bits made the cut but I decided that the thing that I like seeing the most is my mugs. So instead of hiding them away they are out on the pretend open shelves.

With Pyrex. Excuse the washing in the dining room but what can you do when you live in England and it rains every day?

With mugs and not so much Pyrex just the nicer bits. Please notice the number of empty jars. Thank you.
For most of the weekend and occasionally even  now I was and still am trying to close the cupboard door. (You can see it in the background leaning against the dresser near the washing. It's still there.And probably will be for the forseeable future.) I am used to it now and like it. When Mr EF got home he asked if I wanted his honest opinion. I didn't, but felt it would be rude not to say yes. His opinion is that it looks like a cupboard with the door off. But what does he know? He likes brown. Nuff said. I will leave it like this now but I won't throw the door away in case I change my mind and do the fabric thing.

Yesterday I had a little trot to my village and had a look in the charity shops. I have decided that I like them because sometimes they get it spectacularly wrong, and all to my benefit. In one I found this.

Those of you who have been knocking about on here for a bit may remember a set of cups and saucers I bought a few weeks ago, the Gaylord plastic stuff. This is the matching jug. Standing there on its own for fifty of our new pence. I trembled slightly, looked left and right and grabbed it quick. Thinking about it, I wondered if they had more of it out the back and asked the lady, but alas she said this had come in on its own. I'm not sure I believe her so I will have to keep going back and checking.
Further up the road in another chazza, I found this.

Meakin Glamour Celesete. 75p. Yes really. And this.

Royal Vale, I don't know if that's good but I don't care because I liked it anyway, for 50p. The thing is I find these little treasures for no money at all and then further up the shelf  I see bits of old rubbish, like the jar you buy Stilton in from Tesco at Christmas for three and four quids. Mentalness. I like it though and I don't feel guilty because the other day I realised that by accident I had sent a bag of my clothes up there a few weeks previously when I was tidying the loft. When I realised I actually cried. I had to mourn the loss of some of these things. DKNY top, Karen Millen dress, a few Ralph Lauren bits, stuff I would have worn this summer, chinos and linen trousers, all gone. I actually saw a dress of mine that I wore once to Royal Ascot hanging in there for £7.50 and had to walk out because I got all emotional. I felt like a nutter getting upset about a few clothes but it really bothered me. I feel a bit teary now. So to get my own back a little bit I bought a Boden top in there for £4.50 and then sold it on Ebay for about £16. It helped a little bit! It has made me think though about how attached I get to things and find it hard to part with stuff.

Moving on, the latest blanket and the horrible edging. I changed it to this.

I'm happier with it now although I sort of wish I'd ripped that bright pink row out too. So another blanket to live in blanket town. The shelf on the table where all the other blankets live.

Now the thing I haven't finished. Or even really started properly.

Remember these? I bought them to try patchwork. Oh yes, I was going to make a quilt... I played with them, laid them all out on the dining room table and juggled them around for about half hour till I got them exactly how I wanted them, then walked away and left them. Then I cleared them off and realised that it wasn't a good idea to leave them there until I sewed them together because I couldn't expect my family to eat off their laps for five years. I actually pinned them and started tacking them together. And when I looked at them this morning it made me feel a bit sad that I hadn't even mustered up the enthusiasm to get to the end of this bit of tacking.

What a quitter. They are so pretty and I think my fear is that I will bugger it up. I almost certainly will so I don't even try, which is stupid because I could always try again. Also this week I have been threatening to make Manny a new bandana in an effort to make him look less gay, and so that people don't think he is a girl when we take him out, but I haven't done that either. I have the fabric all ready, red with white spots, and I know it will be easy but sewing scares the flipping life out of me apart from putting a button on something. Daft cow.

Oooh, oooh another tin. I forgot this one.

Debenhams, 70% off and down to three nicker. I wondered why they even had any left at all being as it's so gorge but then I realised that No2 also means poo and it might have put people off. Not me though! Oh no!  My crochet hooks and scissors have a new home and are within easy reach of my little nest now and I don't even think of poo when I look at it. Much.
 I also bought (and I think this may actually be bargain purchase of the week although it was the most expensive) a Betty Jackson red short sleeve shirt- waister dress (that I will wear open with linen trousers because I don't really do dresses) for £18 down from £60. Bargaintastic or what!
So that's me this week, plenty of retail therapy. Hurrah for shopping!
Happy weekend, girlies! And also thanks so much for all your comments, I really like reading them and they do make me laugh and make it worth wrestling with Blogger for an hour to get the photos in the right places.
Laters!
xx