The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

I'm saving the cost of petrol by walking to the supermarket with my trusty trolley, giving myself plenty of fresh air and exercise. (The full trolley plus full bag = weight training!)

The Bad

No lovely pics of countryside, flowers or gorgeous views today. Why throw your litter on the pavement? Why not take it home? It's litter galore along the roads around here.

Another sight that is plentiful is featured below. I could have taken a score or more pics of this bad behaviour. (Not the dog, of course, but the owner.)

The Ugly

Empty shops are a sign of the times but they don't enhance the surroundings.

Neither does grafitti.

The pavements are a disgrace with pot-holes, cracked slabs and botched repairs.

This was a necessary walk but not a particularly pleasant one. I thought I'd take the grotty shots on the way to the shop and then take some pretty shots on the way back. Sorry, but even I could not find any today. I've neglected to mention the tramp who was staggering slightly and the dreadful state of some people's gardens. 

After packing away the shopping, I filled a carrier bag full of litter which I picked up in our front garden. It blows in from off the street - cigarette wrappers, chocolate, crisp and toffee wrappers, polystyrene (!), plastic bags and plastic bottles. (This one was half full of cider!)

Never mind, my garden is tidy now, the brass is polished on the front door and the step and windowsills washed, a pot roast is slow cooking in the oven and we have food for the week.

A warm welcome to my new followers. I'm not negative for too long!

xx

Go away!

I seem to be getting an awful lot of this at the moment.

I wish this 'Anonymous' person would go away!

A very warm welcome to Joy. What a beautiful name.

You can have your cake and eat it!

1. Bake your cake.

This one was from my old Bero recipe book and is basically

8oz SR flour

4oz butter

4oz sugar - I used brown

2 eggs and some milk

6oz mixed dried fruit and a teaspoon of mixed spice

Cream butter and sugar and add in the rest.

2. Bake as a tray bake.

3. Cut into a million 16 pieces.

This way you needn't feel guilty about - 

1. Wasting energy. (The cake takes less time to bake.)

2. Eating cake when you are trying to lose weight. (Each piece is a small piece as it's pre-cut.)

Win, win all round!

xx

Welcome to my new follower Pam. Start looking forward to your retirement. You're in for a treat!

Showtime, folks!

It's Showzam - Blackpool's Annual Festival of Circus, Magic and New Variety.

These Grannies (Granny Turismo) hurtle thought the streets on their shopping trolleys entertaining the shoppers with songs, jokes and dancing.

In the Winter Gardens are small side shows and this gentleman who cycles round and round playing his piano. We couldn't quite work out how he turned corners. He even had his own teapot for light refreshment!

The Wookey Hole Youth Circus were great free entertainment amazing and astonishing us with 'their juggling, magic, riding unicycles, roller skating and acrobatics.'

These young ladies were performing high above us on material ribbons with no safety wires.

They were indeed a highly talented group of young people,

swinging and throwing each other around.

We took the Wonder Tour and were treated to a comedy walking tour around the streets. 

Street theatre which had us giggling and cheering at the ludicrous antics of the cast.

Click on the link above to see some videos of the shows. The ones we visited were free but there were also other shows, workshops and balls. There was plenty to do and see this week.

I also said hello to the sea and fed the seagulls with one of my 'failure' loaves. The gulls seemed to enjoy it and waited patiently for their dinner.

Our famous tower now has a new set of LED lights. 

This is taken from the loft window - not a very good
picture though.

Here's a better picture from the Blackpool Tower Facebook page.

xx

PS Welcome to my new followers and commenters. Enjoy your visits. 

PPS I'm having trouble leaving a comment on the Wordpress and Typepad blogs. They keep asking me for a password which I don't have so sorry if you are one of those blogs on my Bloglist. I have been visiting you.

xx

One thing leads to another

Previously on Mum's Simply Living Blog ...

As well as finding the feather I also spotted, waiting patiently for a new owner, 

these pretty Grannies.

Grannies need looking after, don't they?

xx

One thing leads to another

Previously on Mum's Simply Living Blog (note the sentence about the junk shop) ...

DD has been invited to a 20s Ball and is looking for a suitable costume to wear. This dress immediately came to mind - beaded, sparkly and flapper-ish.

Hundreds of sequins and very small beads are attached to a very flimsy see through material base. There is no label in the dress and I'm not sure how old it is.

If you clicked back on the link you may have guessed that this was purchased from the JS but it wasn't a JS price - hence my avoidance of said shop for a few weeks!

Back to the Ball. I just happened to be passing the shop again this week and having decided that my curfew had ended, went for a rummage, and came out with this dressing up hat for 50p. (That's more
like it!)

Attached to the hat was this feather!!! A-ha!

One feather plus one sequinny belt, found in my ribbon box, plus one piece of wide elastic plus one handmade corsage = one feathery head-dress for a 1920's lady.

Some more items also slipped out of the shop with me. I'll tell you about those another time!

xx

Straight Granny

Stash busting time (and New Year Resolution busting time) so I started a new blanket to use up some 'bobbly' yarn. It's a cotton mix and was in my donated pile. I thought I'd make a Granny straight blanket. Not sure if this is the correct term but it's not a Granny ripple as the lines of trebles are straight.

My dilemma was  - how do I start the new row without adding trebles on to the original number of trebles. Surfing the net was not giving me any clues as I didn't know what kind of Granny I was doing. I read tutorials with treble clusters and tutorials which changed colour each row but I was non the wiser. I started this blanket a few times as it began to expand the more rows I put on. Even with a mathematical brain I just couldn't work it out so ... 

I decided to try with a smaller sample. Here's my tutorial for a Straight Granny.

Work a LOOSE foundation chain for as long as you want your blanket plus 3 extra chains. (My first chain was too tight so the blanket started curving round.)

Start trebling in the 4th chain from the end and treble in each 'bobbly bit' (behind the V) for the first row.

There are now effectively 8 trebles on this first row. (The chain 3 counts as the first treble.)

At the end of the row chain 3 and turn.

Now treble in each space.

This is where I thought I was putting in an extra treble. Wrong!

As you can see I have 8 trebles on the second row. (The chain 3 counts as the first treble.)

Do exactly the same for the other rows and you can see that the number of trebles remains the same.

So simple.  I think I must have had brain fade because I just couldn't work it out when I first dived in to make this blanket. 

Now I hope I've got enough wool to complete it!

xx