vintage albums and zombie girl !

Today i  got my craft stuff out

But i just  couldn't  feel inspired to do anything!

 In stead i pulled out one of my old albums.This one i bought in the  eighties from a junk shop in Wallsend.I was and still am a sucker for  old photographs though in the eighties i bought stuff for Penny's. Now they cost a fortune! This  cost about  fifty pence!

 I love this picture of Tynemouth open air pool circa 1900. I  remember  spending long hot summer days splashing about in here  with the family and its still going strong. though it houses a open air rock pool for the children to go  down with nets and to search for crabs!  I so wish they would turn it back to a pool  the fun we had  even  when  i was an adult and took my sisters there in the summer! happy memories!

Tynemouth beach........

I love this picture...its one of the girls of the family  at the lake district

and playing tennis......Its  full of a  tyneside family at the turn of the century having fun...on holiday, painting the yard  trips to the beach playing tennis baby's and children . I ofton wonder how it ended up in a junk shop...something so beautiful. Someones memory's, put together so carefully and with love...

My albums are  so precious to me along with  my vintage cameras!

 Rosa made a lovely tea yesterday......plus the huge salt tub!!!must get my lovely salt and pepper set out!

 THANK YOU HUN IT WAS  GORGEOUS!!

Talking of Rosa  her friend turned her into a zombie...what a pretty zombie she is!!

cooking and a proud mama !

 I made a lovely salad today for tea , must  start to think about losing some weight  with all these weddings  around the corner , my lovely neighbours next door got engaged this week also...must be catching! Congratulations to Julie and Andrew I'm so pleased for you both,

 I hate waste, and especially  when money is scarce so today i made a pasta salad with  the left overs from  bolognaise yesterday! Rosa especially likes pasta salad ,half an onion  from the sauce yesterday waste not want not as my lovely grandma used to say!and some mushrooms i bought on my nostalgic shopping trip! I love ASDA but have found that the shops such as ALDI and LIDIL are so much  more economic for things like  fruit and veg. Three peppers were  one pound  twenty  in ASDA ,the same ones sixty nine pence in ALDI that's such a bargain!! Add some garlic and peas .I use lazy garlic because I'm just that lazy! How i long for a huge garden like my sisters! Shes decided to plant a veg garden next year and get chickens! My dream is to own chickens!!

Gently fried in a tiny bit of veg oil...

 Then added to  the spaghetti  which was made last night i always make way too much spaghetti!!

 Add that to home made pie which looks a bit too rustic I'm always in a rush and theres my bargain tea...of course  Patrick ans Sean will not touch the salad and pasta so ill have to make them potatoes!! I remember my mum  making wonderful family meals that we all ate at the table in the kitchen! Her cooking is to die for!!

 We never had the choice not to eat what was put in front of us !

Look what i collected!These will be cleaned and frozen and brought out  over Xmas i wont be making my usual jam this year but never mind! After my post about the lack of wayside plums and blackberry's Ive had quite a few people  mail me to say its the heavy rains that have killed a lot of our bee population ! Scary stuff makes me realise how important our pollinators  are...Ive been watching over the last few years the trouble that bee keepers here and abroad  have had with whole colony's of bees just dying,,,,very sad isn't it.

Today i watched my lovely son on tv with Dawn Bibby , demonstrating his amazing SPLOGEAWAY products.

Well done Tom  What a proud mother i am  x

breakfast, baby and GOOD NEWS!!!XXX

 Woke up really early and didn't know what sort of day it would be??I took this out of the dining room window i love how the clouds look !





By ten o clock the weather was lovely and i made our Sunday treat of breakfast outside 

look at that face! he thinks its funny that  i bought bread buns for 2p!i love a bargin!!

Made cornbread muffins with bacon and onion and herbs much healthier than fried bread!! and so yummy!HOW POSH ARE WE!!  I have some beautiful salt cellars and  look what i put on the table aren't i common!!!

We visited  our lovely friends jenny lee and Nick who have our beautiful god daughter Abbie.Fantastic news  they got engaged last night I'm so happy for them...there a fantastic couple and fantastic parents....

A blurry picture of my  god daughter i love her so much shes perfect!!I know its the top of a bald head but mum doesn't want her on the world wide web so  a bald head it is...but what a lovely bald head

and congratulations to my gorgeous niece and her wonderful boyfriend   Jamie who got engaged on Saturday and  a huge thank you loz for phoning me straight after you broke the news to your mum and dad....made me feel special!! it meant a lot .........Shes a very special girl who i hold close to my heart  ...Lauren was born four month after Sean  and  they were both very close growing up i love her so much  what an amazing few days   ...I'm going to have to go on a diet now girls!!! i wonder who's next mmmmmmmm

Day dreaming!

It was so dull yesterday i saw everything in black and white..off i trot to the supermarket down the road with my trusty trolley!I'm much too old now to think about what i look like.I ofton think about  what this little area would have looked like a hundred year ago. It was obviously an affluent area  in the past ,you just have  to look at the magnificent houses that line the main  street into town.

We have so many lovely churches crammed into such a small space too.

There all commercial property's now.But  i cant help wondering  what it would have been like in  Victorian or Edwardian times. I'm a hopeless romantic! an ardent watcher of upstairs ,downstairs!anything  period i love, the poets of old, Keats ,Tennyson,Dunne the list is endless! The artists of yesteryear  !! Everyday things that my great grandparents would have used!

How many people lived , loved cried ,the class divide  fascinates me !History fascinates me!! when i home schooled Rosa that was one of the delights, each week delving into the past my love rubbed off as she too loves history, I have  quite a collection of vintage cameras  and photos and albums which i have trollied through life, from house to house clinging on to for dear life,I'm  well known in my family  as a collector of rubbish!!! the cheek of it!! Ive so many vintage photos its unreal!

I ofton take out these albums of anonymous  faces that to me look like old friends! An album from 1910 of a family holiday  in tyne side, a thick heavy album of photographs of someones life at Cambridge university, a Victorian  album of a family full of stunning cabinet prints!Rubbish i  think not!!!

I love this house with its steps leading up to the door Who lived and died there? What tragedy's  were lived out between the wars!!

 I  do get carried away ,as i wander off to the supermarket....click back to colour!!!!

What better  than a good old British postbox!!!

This brought me  well and truly back to reality!!!Parked in the supermarket car park ,i had to titter!!Isn't it brilliant!!My kids are massive fans of the Simpson's and this person  must be too!!!

Back to reality!!!

My shopping paid for!

Off i trolley back!!

Down the road......

 Passed the railings that survived the  war effort to turn them in to Spitfires!

 Passed the ugly buildings ,between the nestling pieces of living history , the once  middle class family homes with their life ,their servants  their laughter and tragetys!

With little bits of yesteryear still left over! Back to my 100 year old tiny working class terrace house that holds everthing that is  dear to me...the only things in life i truly need.........with its leaking pipes and broken lights real shabby chic because we cant afford to fix it up ...but the place i love and call home...............

Our beautiful earth

thank you to earth porn from which i down loaded these amazing images........