Angel Jem's City Cottage

Whatever else you do today (hello! I'm writing this a day late on Thursday: better late than never) go and vote. I don't care who you vote for, just vote. And if there's nobody you want to vote for, go and spoil your ballot. Spoilt ballots get counted as well, and can be a form of protest. On to Wednesday Wind Up. I've had a bit of a slow wake up this week, I think I either have a water infection or a cold, I find it so hard to get out of bed and into work. Or perhaps the sunny mornings just make me wish occasionally I was still a SAHM. Oh, the things I could do with a few days at home now! Never mind, that's not my season. I work 9 to 4 most days, so that's what I do. What am I reading this week? I finished reading Gone Viking by Helen Russell. It was funny, and touching, and all the things I wanted it to be. A good happy read, so that was fun. I also finished Happy by Fearne Cotton. It was interesting: while I was reading it, I could hear Fearne...

Wednesday is usually a good day in the office. I get in early, after dropping David off at the station at 8 for University at 9.30. I can clean, run backup, get the first cup of tea in and be writing at my desk, all before 9am. I leave by 4, to tutor a child, so the day is even a shorter day than usual. I think my early morning quiet session will be a good time to do my weekly round up. So here I am, only a week later than I thought! What am I reading this week? I had to mostly read Reservoir 13 for bookclub on Monday. It did not go well. I know it's won all sorts of awards and been raved about by people,had prequels on Radio 4 and all the things that meant I should have liked it.... but I just didn't. I don't know whether part of that was I was reading in very short bursts and often late at night in an incredibly busy few weeks, or because the style is deliberately disjointed, with no identifiable main character. I didn'y have sympathy for any of teh character...

Wednesday Wind Up :  How glad am I that I started these posts, a couple of years ago? I have been rereading some old ones and it's such an easy way to keep tabs on life. I'd forgotten buying a watch for playground duty (that watch, like the rest, didn't last). Or how many books I used to read. Any how, I'm back, and this time it's personal. As in, this is my personal blog, my online diary. I'm still hyggering away with How To Hygge The British Way, but that's not a family blog. I can't share things at a whim, I find it more of a thinking space than a chatting place. I need both. I have missed you all, and after I posted on Monday I had two beautiful replies saying welcome back. Thank you. I have been to the Emerald City, and it was all very well, but there's no place like Home. So my plan is, even if only on a Wednesday or Thursday for the Wind Up, to post regularly over here. Just for me. I don't expect people to follow or comment, a...

I've been busy the past few months again, writing a book on happiness. And when I've not been writing, I've been crocheting, decorating, cooking, cleaning (a lot of cleaning) and all the other detritus of a woman's life that takes up the time and makes one tired. I'm fully expecting nobody to be reading this blog by now. Taking almost 6 months off does rather lose one readers, doesn't it? I can understand. I find I rarely read blogs now, being seduced by the quick posts on Twitter, the picture heavy Instagram or the cosy companionship of Facebook groups full of hygge-loving people, or readers, crafters, makers. I think I have ignored myself in the form of Angel Jem. This was never about relating to people, but a diary for me. A diary of my life, and the issues in it. So, here's an update: 1. Christmas came and went. It was lovely, and we had a quiet family Christmas before leaving the day after Boxing Day to visit Salisbury. I will never go away over Ch...

So I sewed up a pair of slippers instead. As displacement activities go, it is one of my best. A couple of hours stitching, a couple of hours watching 15 to 1 (my quiz show of obsession at the moment) and a good rest. It would, after all, be what the Doctor ordered, if I ever got to see a Doctor. Unfortunately, and I guess I'm not alone in this, my surgery has a new system of appointments so that you can no longer book ahead an appointment unless you stand on one leg in a thunder storm for an obscure hour between gleaming and gloaming on a night that may or may not be a day as well. Or you have a telephone consultation with a doctor who may or may not want to see you that day. But if you do that, you must ring at 8am promptly to join the queue and talk to the rottweiler who may or may not pass your number on to the medic. I am not cross. I am not at all cross. I just hope that I actually never need to use the service until it has collapsed and recovered again. Back to...

I have been busy over the past couple of weeks. I think life (for me) seems to get faster the older I get. Certainly, I look back at the days of at-home motherhood with a yearning I didn't expect to feel. When the most I got done in a week was 2 or 3 days supply, and they weren't guaranteed. Work is pretty full time, of course, so I find myself trying to fit a life into 2 days of the weekend. And since I love me a good bit of downtime and solitude, I find I'm fighting the urges to rest and relax or to get up and do. So I feel very Jekyll and Hyde. I'm either calm efficiency and getting the house cleared well, or collapsed on the sofa, remote control in hand, guinea pig on stomach and bewailing the days when I was able to watch daytime TV alone. I have no idea how full time workers fit in housework. I know that possibly before I began full time work I should have cleared the house, so that I could now consider getting a cleaner in to do a bit for me. As it is, I ...

This is my desktop at work.... no, not the one on the computer, although it could quite well have been, but my real desktop at work. The teapot and cup are from the charity shop, and are marked Royal Spencers, so I don't know where you'd get one. The tea is Spiced Orange from Hoogly Tea and is gorgeous, beautiful light and delicately spiced orange flavoured herbal infusion. I'll link to it, I promise I will. I want you to look beyond, to look behind. Can you see the golden box flickering in the sunlight? See the delicate wisps of tissue sticking out? How I wish we had smelly vision. I would offer it to you to rest your delicate nasal passages along and hear to say, " Mulled wine scented tissues ? Who on Earth thought up those? And who would buy them?" That second question is, alas, redundant. I would. And they do mulled wine scented toilet paper with pretty gold Christmas pattern on as well. I'm going back after payday. Indeed. My payday treat th...

Truthfully, I can watch this movie all year round. I know it's supposed to be a Christmas movie and I know I've probably written about it before on the blog, but I've never done it for Film on Friday and I needed a soft, cosy, warm, cuddling movie this week... yes, you guessed it, I was searching for movie hygge. I can't believe that The Holiday was released in 2006! That makes it 10 years old, crazy! I do watch it every year at least once, probably more often, but it wasn't until recently that I introduced my daughter to it. She had managed to always be at school somehow when I watched it before... back in the days when I could stick a film on in the middle of the day, do my housework while watching it and be finished in time for the happy ending and cookie making before the kids rolled up. Happy days, eh? The Holiday was written and directed by Nancy Meyers , who also directed The Intern, Something's Gotta Give and The Parent Trap.  It's a li...

There are films that you can just watch and watch and watch. This is one of those, as is Guardians of the Galaxy. If my comic book heroes are right, then there should be a cross over Infinity Wars movie around 2018. Looking forward to it. My comic book heroes have both been in the wars recently. Between A levels and GCSEs we have had a tense few months. Made tenser by a couple of good results being tempered by a couple of rogue results. It's all worked out in the end, though. This hero  scored an A in his English A level, while managing to get a U for Religious Studies. Seriously, DP? It's not like we didn't take you to church every weeks for most of your formative years.... We asked for a re-mark and it was still a U. Either he will end up as the Pope, or more likely he'll start a cult and make a shed load of money. The results weren't important except to decide which University he went to. ABB and he was off to Liverpool, anything else and i...

I hope you are all having a lovely day today? Somehow when the sun shines everything feels a little bit better. The warmth of the sun isn't the hot, burning heat of June or July. I swear I can feel a breath of Autumn coming on, even though today is supposed to be the hottest day this week. At the very least, I got my copy of September's Country Homes and Interiors last week and I've been luxuriating in the colours and patterns of the season. I'm looking forward to apple pies, a proper stew when the weather grows colder and the smell of decaying leaves when they start to fall. Last year at around this time I was busy making my Autumn Ripple blanket, as you can read if you click on its name. I still love all the colours I used, and how they worked together. It sits with my pile of blankets in the corner at home and when the nip in the air moves in and before we turn on the heating it will be my knee warmer of choice. And I made a cushion to match as I told you i...

I love Christmas, a lot, and I promise to post my #christmasisntchristmaswithout posts even if I have to post them throughout the new year and back date them! But today will not be the day that I do that; today I am prepping for Christmas At Home. We spent Christmas Day at my brothers house (27 for dinner) and, although I loved it, I get over-faced by that many, and I ate my dinner sitting back from the table due to NO arm space at all, so my Christmas Dinner was not at all restful (or even really enjoyable; turkey is not made to eat off one's knees) but the craic was really lovely, and the time spent with everybody was worth the pain. Today my Mum and Dad are coming. We were going to have a turkey cooked by me.... but it smelled off. I mean really bleachy and not fresh, even though I only bought it on Christmas Eve and it was good until the 26th, so I won't risk anyone's health. Life is too short to eat bad turkey. That bird is binned and two small chickens bask in t...

This weekend has been a chance to take a breather out from work and rampaging and doing so much to do a lot of little things that needed doing. A little crafting, a little reading, some planning for Christmas and some housework. Next week will be a week from hell, with parents evenings (both doing and attending) evening events that I need to go to, and a list of things to do ready for half term next Friday. And breathe....... Ninjabread men cookies. Sarah made them, and they were delicious! Can you tell they're all doing different kung fu moves? Such a simple idea! I bought the kit from Dobbies and brought them home, worrying that they were too childish for my sophisticated teenagers. Not a bit of it; James (15) has claimed the patterns as his own. Apparently I must have bought the kit for him, because he is my Ninjaboy! The Cherry Heart CAL; this week I have gone slowly. I have until next Tuesday (the 25th?) to complete these parts. I'm hoping to sit and do s...