Ridgeway Cottage anyhow

This pumpkin was inspired by Heart Handmade UK . Claire has been posting the most beautifully decorated pumpkins all week and barely a scary face in sight. Poison ivy, homegrown Jack be Little Pumpkins and corn on the cob, pumpkin soup recipe, conker characters, crochet pumpkin and miniature book of spells - our Halloween center piece. This was one of my first attempts crochet toys three years ago. Happy Halloween I would love it if you could leave a comment. Please give it a go, I'm working on making it easier

Discovering Shopping Lives , a blog which simply concerns itself with found shopping lists, has had quite a profound effect on me. It was possibly intensified by a chat with my sprightly neighbour (age 76) and her quaintly old fashioned view of life. She talked of going into town to get out of the house and how meeting or visiting friends takes up a good part of  the day. She lives alone in the house she was brought up in which was bought as a new build by her father in the 1930s. Just like the author of Shopping Lives I wonder about the lives of the writers of shopping lists and can't help but think that many must belong to ladies who were raised in a different era. My Grandmother would not dream of going shopping without a list and one of her collection of shopping bags. Then today in a charity shop I discovered a little thing that I felt was so poignant and representative of these ladies of the past that I had to buy it for the princely sum of 1p. It's no secret that I ha...

For some reason (possibly my love of pumpkins and autumn delights), my children love Halloween and every year, our house is transformed into Halloween Land. All things spooky take over for about a week, which is usually around the half term holidays and a great deal of Halloween themed crafting, making and doing occurs. I like it, it's a lot of fun so here's what we've been up to today. Lime jelly pumpkin with edible red glitter Conker characters Mod Podge sequin pumpkins Pumpkin soup with spooky swirled cream ghosts  Call back again this week for more scary shenanigans. Thank you for dropping by and it has been very lovely to have your here :)

It would not be autumn without the colour rust. At the end of the garden, shaded by an over hanging tree and camouflaged by ivy is our old corrugated iron garage. I walk past it every day and barely notice it's spectrum of peeling rust coloured paint. It is ancient, slightly decrepit and most definitely unique. But I do love it in all its flakey, distressed rust coloured glory. Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

It's been a day of firsts. I have been feeling a little bit under the weather and after being sick this morning I did not want to sit in the car for hours. So my husband and children have gone to visit my family without me. This did make me so sad but as there was nothing I could do about it, I thought I would just do my best to enjoy having time completely to myself. I have never been alone in the house over night. People have been away and I've been away but I have never had the whole place to myself for the whole night. I've finally got to grips with instagram and how the liking and the following and the whole thing works. I even got my first ever like which was so exciting. I'm guessing it's pretty addictive. Who should I follow? Where do I find people who love the same things as me? I think I still need a bit of help. And for the first time ever, an ironing board has been the object of my desire. I don't think that it even crossed my mind that ironing...

This morning I have had a cooking disaster. I was thinking about my blog school homework and how wonderful it would be to blog about a delicious recipe each week so I tried to make a healthy Halloween style recipe. I do already know that replacing baking powder with bicarbonate of soda in a recipe will only end in tears but that did not put me off giving it another go. It was my husband after all who when making my birthday cake a couple of years ago, discovered just how revolting the finished product tastes. I was so excited and had my new skull and pumpkin silicon muffin mold but I did not have any self raising flour or baking powder. Please let this be a lesson to myself .... Do not ever, never ever use b icarbon ate of soda in stead of baking po wder ev er , ever, ever ag ain. I even made some little mini ones with olives as eyes and extra cheese. They look delicious but sadly they are completely disgusting. I have wasted my time, ingredients and morning and now have no...

Amongst the chaos and the roller coaster ride of every day life, there are simple things that make me smile. My head always seems to be such a whirl of information, spilling out in all directions like a tangled web of confusion. The simple things in life give me to time to focus and clear my head of complications, contradictions and complexities. It allows me a moment to just stop and appreciate how amazing simplicity can be. I did get a copy of a vintage  Penguin publication of Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh and the classic design is perfection. It arrived wrapped in brown paper and everything about this book makes me happy. There's the imprint of someone's hand written notes on the cover and I love that I can't really read what it says or will never know who wrote them or when. This book has a secret history, that will remain forever hidden and I may even add to that mystery, if in the future this book is passed on to someone else. This reprint is from 1953 and...