CELEBRATION!

Hurrah summer holidays have started.

Ok so Lily and Flynn finished school on Friday but poor Tallon still had two days of sports day to go.

As soon as he got home on Tuesday (and out of the shower) we headed down to Weymouth to celebrate the official start to the summer holidays with their dad.

KFC was enjoyed as our main course

then we headed down to the sea front to see if we could grab ourselves an ice-cream somewhere.

How lucky were we when we found this lovely place open.

Oh boy the best ice cream EVER yes EVER

One scoop of Coffee and one scoop of Rum and Raisin for Mike.

One scoop of Mango Sorbet and One scoop of Kiwi Sorbet for me.

The boys had Vanilla and Lily had Vanilla and Chocolate.

Although I didn't get chance to take close ups of theirs as it went pretty quick.

After a walk along the front and a little run about

it was time to feed the ducks.

Then a quick cuppa at Mike's and home in time to watch

Love Your Garden on itv plus 1.

Thanks for popping by hope you enjoy the rest of the week and have a great weekend.

Joanne x

Why do I find it so hard to stick at stuff. 

Take blogging and knitting just to mention a couple of things.

I love to write, take photo's, bake, love to talk about my children.  

I do all of the above on a daily basis but what I write hardly ever ends up in a journal

or on my blog as you can see by the lack of post

and more often or not I just end up ripping it up and putting it in the bin.

This doesn't matter so much I guess as after all the only person I'm letting down is myself.

However the knitting is a different matter it's not quite that simple.

I don't go out to work because as a single parent i choose to be at home to look after my children,

 I don't have family or close friends to help out during holidays.

However being a single parent I didn't want to become a government statistic so I took it upon myself to register as self employed it seemed like a good idea at the time.

That's what i do when I'm in hyper mode I believe I can do anything, I'm superwomen..

The only problem is that it doesn't last and I don't stick at it, like I said this doesn't matter when it comes to writing a journal or blogging but when it's time for me to do a tax return or renew my tax credit I then realise that I haven't really got it in me to run a business no matter how small.

It's not that the toys I knit don't sell, it's I don't make enough I seem to knit in fits and starts and if anything else needs doing like the housework I do that instead. 

Now when it's just housework or shopping that's not so bad because I still get the odd bit of knitting done however recently I decided that I needed to start decorating the house.

 We'd been here two years and although it's a new build it was looking a little tired.

I started with the kitchen, then I did the bathroom and downstairs toilet. I worked day and night so everything else got put on the back burner.

 I just become all consumed on projects that's why I registered self employed because at the time I was knitting day and night.

My Pooh Corner Kitchen

My restful bedroom

Living Room

New Sofa and Snuggle Chair.

My Craft Cupboard.

I spent the whole of May decorating, and buying all new stuff for each room, I even bought a new sofa and cuddle chair for the living room, lucky enough I had been saving my pennies for this exact reason.

So now I only have the children's rooms to do

Then the weather started warming up and I wanted to be outside more.

That's when I decided to start the garden, which was the last time I blogged.

 Since then I have finished the whole of the garden, a patio area, decking and flower beds,

again working day and night so once again no knitting has got done.

Work has began.

Top of garden finished

Work in progress

Just need a few flowers,

How the garden looks today.

However today is the start of the children's summer holidays.

HURRAH ! 

(I love having them home)

Well I'm not sure that I will ever have a successful blog or a successful business but one thing I know is I'm not going to give up just yet. 

Hope you have a lovely week

Joanne x

A new love

I am no gardener (yet) but I am a lover of gardens and birds whether it be my mum and dad's small back yard or the gardens at Tintinhull gardens and yes every year the sun comes out I dream of having a beautiful garden.
I moved two years ago to a small somerset town and live in a new build with a small back garden or is it a yard what's the difference? anyway since moving here I have kept the grass cut and painted my shed but other than this I have done nothing. I think mainly because I haven't had a clue on what to do as the garden slopes away from the house. However after the winter we've had my little garden seems to of taking a bit of a beating and I no longer have a lush green lawn.

So this was my garden this time last year, nice green lawn, a tree, a few bedding plants along the side and a few empty pots

and this is my garden this year certainly not looking as good. A dead lawn and those empty pots again.

 To say it needs cheering up is a bit of an under statement, so being the bull in a china shop sort of gal off I went to the local garden centre and picked up some bedding plants to go in pots and a container of flower magic as what I know about gardening you could write on a stamp ok may be a postcard and thought surely I can't go wrong with that you just have to shake the contains out on to the patch were you would like the flowers to grow, water them and hey presto you have a garden full of colourful beautiful flowers.

But then I found myself getting up in the morning and going out to see what the flowers in the pots were doing, trying to keep the slugs off, then I picked up a Clematis in our local supermarket and planted it down by the shed.

 Next trip to the supermarket I picked up an Autumn Raspberry a Beesianum Jasmin and a Pyracantha Red now I had no idea where these should go or what soil they need I was just going to put them down by the shed with the Clematis and hope for the best. What I had in mind was if they do grow the birds would probably like them and if I can encourage some birds into the garden I would be one happy lady. I got a bird table last year without much success, however now the tree has grown a little more and I've placed a bird feeder on one of its branches I do have the odd visit from a bird or two.

 Seeing the flowers in the pots bloom more and more each day makes my heart sing and I'm really enjoying doing a bit of pottering. Ok I haven't planned the garden very well but as the days go by my interest in gardening ripens and I have now started to do a little more.

 I've dug another little patch where I have planted a Lavender and yes a little shake of flower magic and bedding plants and I've started to landscape what was the lawn.
Again as normal I've ploughed on in with out much planning, well any actually but I do have a picture in my head of what I want the garden to look like when finished. I no one things for sure I'm going to need more room for planting.

So this is what the top of the garden looked like at the beginning of the week.

A couple of days later

and this is how it looks today. 

I'm going to crack on with it this weekend.

 I know I've probably, well there's no probably about it I have gone about this in a back to front rushed manor but how was I to know that I was really going to enjoy gardening this much.
Since starting all this I have done a little research and it is a proven fact that gardening is good for your mental health and its sure good for the soul.

I know I have a lot to learn and I will many more mistakes but this time next year all the landscaping will be done and I will be more organised and hopefully I will be a little bit more knowledgeable about which flowers I want and where I want them.

Thank you for popping by

Joanne x