grizzly

 I bloody love Autumn when it's all blue sky and sunshine and crispness and lovely.

When it's grey and drizzly: not so much.

Grizzly.

It's mostly grizzly in Yorkshire.

But today was blue sky and sunshine and crispness. And it was lovely.

birthday dino

 It was the eldest's birthday yesterday. 

She was 20.

Unbelievable.

cheer up

 The weather is shit and the news is depressing.

Put the fire on. Turn off the telly. Delete Facebook. And open a beer.

It's the weekend.

weekend report

Back to Autumn. Back to being super busy. 

But I had the weekend off. And on Sunday the OtherHalf and I went off grid. By accident. We went for a long walk at Hardcastle Crags and discovered there is zero bifta there. We knew we were back in the land of the living when our phones went mental with eleventy billion messages and missed calls. The kids (who don't get out of bed till 3pm without some hardcore nagging from us) had missed our departure and thought we were dead. My sister was giving it till 6pm before phoning the police.

Imagine the widespread joy when we were found safe and well!

I'm back

 I'm back from my double vacation and staycation. Had an ace time on both. We managed to avoid Portuguese quarantine by a week. And there's no quarantine for Nottingham as yet. So *winning*

Back to reality now. The youngest starts college tomorrow. He will have to get out of bed at 7am in order to catch his bus. That's roughly 7 hours earlier than he's used to so it's gonna be a right bloody laugh for me in the morning 😬

holiday news

 So we're not going to Ibiza next week. They cancelled all holidays there till next year.

We're going to Portugal instead! Woohoo!

Can't. Bloody. Wait.

And I booked Centerparcs the week after with the OtherHalf and the kids.

Happy days.

i preferred the old normal

 Comment of the week goes to the lovely Steph.

She said "The new normal can fuck off". 

It's my new favourite sentence. I used it particularly lots on Sunday at my once favourite place, Salt's Mill. 

You had to queue in the rain to get in, then queue to give your details to someone with an ipad. It was a very strict one way policy. No sitting down. No dawdling. None of the usual lovely lillies. Areas cordonned off. And I foolishly wore my glasses, which completely steamed up with my mask and I couldn't see a bloody thing. 

I left empty handed and grumpy. I won't be going back in a hurry.

chuffing freezing

 Is it August. Or Autumn? Cos it feels like Autumn.

And if we don't get to go to Ibiza in 9 days time I am gonna be very bloody grumpy.  

Well, very bloody grumpIER.

get me out of here

 I just want to go on holiday. Somewhere foreign. And warm. Alright? 🤷🏼‍♀️

catchup

 I've posted on insta. I forgot the blog.

But basically....Kirklees, where I live, went into a mini local lockdown. So now we can't have people in the house or in our garden again. But we CAN meet them in a field or, even better, in a pub beer garden. So I went to the pub with my mates and we dined al fresco.

We finished painting the new shed. The Eldest got stung by a bee. The neighbours thought someone was trying to murder her.

The gym reopened. I have to set my alarm for 7.30 am to book classes when they are released cos there aren't many of them and there's a massive waitlist by 7.35am.

Boris introduced "Eat out to help out" where for the whole of August eating out is half price Mon - Wed. We did our bit for the economy last week but the OtherHalf was a bit grumpy and moaned about his meal choice. So I'm going out with the girls instead this week. We have to eat outside though, being from different households, so it better not chuck it down.

I added personalisation to some of the prints in my Etsy shop. TBH I keep forgetting I actually have a shop. I think that to be successful you have to keep harping on about it. And bang out the promo day after day. But I can't be arsed really. And it irritates me when other people do it so it's probably not the way I'm gonna make my fortune. Anyway. You can add personalisation to any of the prints if you really want to. So please go buy one now so that I don't look like a total failure. HERE.

We had a mini heat wave last week. It was even 30 degrees in Yorkshire!

It's cold again now though, and due to rain all week.

We still have no idea whether we'll be able to go on our rearranged trip to Ibiza on 1st September. At the mo travel to Spain is banned. I'm desperate to get out of the country for a bit though so keeping everything crossed.

The eldest got her keys for her new student house on Friday so we drove her and some of her stuff up to Newcastle. When we arrived the house was full of workmen. There was a bloke installing the kitchen, another painting the walls, furniture piled up in the middle of the rooms and shit everywhere. There was no way that anyone could possibly stay there. We walked into Newcastle, had some lunch and came back to find a 1997 'Changing Rooms' style transformation. It was like a different house. She stayed after all. She's back home again now. For the food obvs.

Other stuff probably happened too. But I can't remember.

Here are the pics I put on insta...

monday morning

Sunday evening doodles.

On a Monday morning. 

Sunday evening beats Monday morning.

Always.

july 2020

Hello August.

This was July...

hot hot hot

It was hot today. Like the sort of hot you only get when you step off a plane in a hot country. Not the sort of hot you EVER get in Yorkshire. 
So that was a bonus because it's highly likely that we won't be stepping off a plane in a hot country any bloody time soon. (I'm expecting Ibiza to be cancelled any day now.)
So I spent the afternoon in the garden. On my own. Because as of last night Kirklees, our local council, kind of went back into lockdown. No-one is allowed in my garden. Apart from the OtherHalf and the kids and the dog. Cos it's their garden too. Obvs.
Anyway. Then it thundered and lightened and hammered it down and now it's cold again. 
So that was summer.

the new normal

On Thursday the Eldest and I went to Ikea.
We spent 1.5 hours putting all kinds of essential items, that we have only been able to dream about for months, into our trolley.
We were beyond excited.
Jodes was planning a total revamp of her bedroom at home. Followed by a total revamp of her room in Studentville from September.
Then we saw the queue to pay.
It went from the tills, through the entire length of the Self Service Warehouse, round the extra warehouse corner bit and into Plants where it did a Disney style zig zag before winding it's way through Candles and Miscellaneous Kitchen Equipment then through Picture Frames and Wall Art and all the way to the end of Lighting...as far as the eye could see.
At that point we estimated it would take around 2 hours to get to the front so we had a strop, dumped the trolley of prized possessions and ceremoniously left.
Empty handed.
And very sad.

On Friday we went to the pub for the Niece's birthday.
We'd booked a table in the outdoor dining area and were told we could stay there till closing time.
We had a lovely time.
But we only had 3 drinks due to it being table service only. SLOW table service.
We weren't allowed to move about. And there was a toilet monitor making sure only one person at a time went into the loos.
When it started raining we were ok cos we were under the shelter bit. But the people in the outdoor outdoor area either got wet or went home.
Then last orders turned out to be 10pm.
WTF 🤷🏼‍♀️
So we just went home too.

Today the Eldest and I painted our new shed. 
We didn't paint it these colours.
We painted it grey.
But I have ordered some neon yellow paint for the window frames to jazz it up a bit.
I could've gone to an actual shop for it but honestly I don't have the energy to queue for ages and walk round in a bloody mask for one tin of paint. So I'll just wait a week for it to turn up.

It's the new normal.
And it's slightly lacking in joy.

behind the mask...

Who knows what's going on behind all those face coverings ...