Driving lessons, days out and antiques in the park

Finally I've got round to updating my blog. It's been on my mind- must do a post but time's been passing me by. Lots of things have been happening here since I last posted, amongst them the most positive thing that's happened is I'm now officially a learner driver and I've had 3 driving lessons to date! I've been putting it off for ages and it feels really good to have started and get over that initial fear. I'm determined to see this through to the end now. I did have a few lessons when I was 18 but that was 16 years ago so it's like starting from scratch. It really will change my life for the better being able to take the kids out wherever whenever instead of being stuck at home. I'll be able to go somewhere different instead of our usual walk to the village round the same old shops and back and this is a BIG incentive. I'll be able to zoom off to those car boots at the crack of dawn without feeling guilty for dragging Steven out of bed on his only proper day off!!

Other things that have happened are playgroup outings as we approach the summer hols, the playgroups all have a little outing before they break up for 6 weeks. Oh no what are we going to do with ourselves for six weeks? I like the usual routine of our get togethers I like to keep busy I'm going to have to find some other activities for us. We've just started swimming with them so that's a start. So far we've had a trip to the Monkey Forest this is the only place in Britain where you can walk amongst 140 barbary macaques roaming free in 70 acres of beautiful forest.

It was quite worrying at first to have a bunch of overly excited 3 yr olds to have monkeys come right up to them but luckily the monkeys were very laid back and not at all bothered by our presence and the whole place is overlooked by keepers to make sure there's no monkey business going on!

The second trip was to Happy Hens. We've been there a few times and Emily and Elliott love it there. It's a child friendly farm- they had a tractor trailer ride and fed the animals. This week I'm meeting with another group for a picnic in the park weather permitting!

On the thrifting front I spent a lovely morning at Kedleston Hall Antiques in the park this is a large antiques fair held in the grounds of the hall. I could have filled a car full with all the things I wanted but lots of things were quite expensive. I just got a few things including a wooden trug for the garden, some vintage wooden cotton reels with pretty labels. This £3 tray, I really like the decorative handles.

It's now been painted in Farrow and Ball Parma Grey. The tea towel was £3.50 in the Cath Kidston sale.

Some blue and white china, I love it's almost faded pattern the dish was £4 and the little jug a pricey £8 but I thought it was worth it as it's so pretty.

Two deckchairs one £5 from the fair and one £2 off ebay the following week, modelled by Emily and Elliott! I ordered some lovely deckchair canvas from Ian Mankin and set to work on painting them.

Mmm notice a bit of a blue theme going on with my purchases can you tell it's my fav colour! I've not quite got used to the deckchairs yet I keep gingerly sitting down thinking they're going to collapse on me, but they seem to be very sturdy I'm sure I'll get used to them if I ever get the chance to sit outside for more than five minutes without it raining!!

I've also been busy painting shelves for my kitchen but they're not quite finished yet. Not a lot of sewing going on in fact zero but I have lots of plans of things I want to make for an etsy shop so hopefully I'll be making a start on them soon when I put down my paintbrush! Bye for now,

Sarahx

Can you spot whats missing from my Roberts radio?

I'm very lucky that my mum and dad have Emily and Elliott for the day on a Saturday, unfortunately poor Steven has to work so we don't get much of a family weekend and try to pack everything into Sunday! On a Saturday the house turns into an oasis of calm and I stick on my Roberts radio and busy myself cleaning the house. Then hopefully I get a little me time, check my computer, read some blogs, take a long bath, read a magazine utter bliss! However to my horror this week I went to switch it on and found that a knob was missing arrrh!! and nowhere to be found. I was not a happy bunny!
I think Mr Elliott is the guilty one he's taken to climbing in a big way recently and I've caught him afew times climbing over the sofa onto the side table where it sits and pressing the buttons goodness knows where he's put it. It's not in any of the obvious places, it's not unusual to find things in the fridge, posted inside his toy garage or down the loo! Arrrh it's driving me nuts I'm sure it will turn up in the most ridiculous of places he's also managed to take the batteries out of the remote and hide them too! Cheeky monkey!


Sunday morning we was up bright and early to find lovely clear blue skies so we decided to go to the car boot we had a quick breakfast and took the half hour drive there. I was all eager in the anticipation of what goodies might be there only to find it was not on I was so disappointed. I did however find this vintage canteen set of cutlery in my local charity shop earlier in the week so I suppose this makes up for it. I've been after some cutlery for a while I just love the cream handles on the knives.

On the way back from the car boot we decided to stop off at Calke Abbey. We put Elliott in the new backpack and had a lovely walk by the river. It was so nice to walk somewhere where we couldn't normally get to. Your so restricted to where you can go with pushchairs. Emily really enjoyed it climbing over the stiles by herself and she managed to walk quite along way. We saw canada geese and deer which were fenced off, we were really surprised when one deer came right up to the edge of the fence to say hello. It's so beautiful there and I could of kicked myself for not having my camera with me. The sun shone all day and it really did feel like the first day of spring. I think it's probably my favourite season I just love to see all the trees come into blossom and flowers and plants awakening in such abundance. Heres the magnolia tree in our garden just coming into flower.

Thought I'd better show you some sewing now seen as this blogs called Miss Sew n Sew and not a stitch in sight yet! Here's an applique and embroidered castle I made for Miss Emily sorry about the rubbish photo. It's either going to end up framed or on a cushion not made my mind up yet. I'm starting to get very frustrated on the creativity front. Lately I seem to have very little time to get going on things and spend alot of time thinking about ideas and very little time doing. So sorry if my projects on here are few and far between. I've decided I'm going to try and manage the little time I do have more effectively and spend at least one evening a week being creative!

Here's Miss Emily in the garden looking all cute in the tutu I managed to snap up in The White Company sale. I am so looking forward to more sunny spring days and being able to get out in the garden with the little ones instead of being couped up in the house.
Roll on spring! Hope you all had a lovely weekend whatever you did!

Sarah x




Seem to have a huge gap here and don't know how to get rid of it whoops!