Ridgeway Cottage anyhow

Life can sometimes be so overly complicated, rushed and expensive. Demands from all directions, the pressure to conform to the materialistic world and be the best in every sense of the word. And then there are wonderful days like today, where just as children have done for generations, my children played with my friend's children in the garden. There wasn't a giant trampoline, a hugely expensive wooden adventure playground, the iPads were left indoors and imagination, dirt, mud and rubble ruled the day. There was two 5 years, their elasticated belts filled with the rumbustification of pirate life / royal swords of the great knights of old and two eight year old spies / secret agents and one Theo who had the possibility of a number of well loved role models. I did try to capture the essence of the day in a sketch but despite having several models on the pile of rubble, none of them stayed long enough to enable to draw a decent figure and the background rather took over, swampi...

There are positives and negatives to having intelligent, inquisitive, confident children. I could go on forever listing how having these attributes can help in life and happiness. I am naturally a proud parent. What parent doesn't recognise and celebrate their own children's achievements? Yesterday I heard talk of the 'Josie show' from Josie's school teacher and could only picture what she meant about her ability to organise the whole of her class in drama session. Josie was indeed born into the role of Drama Queen and has successfully chosen a best friend to share / compete from the crown. For those who know Josie, the best adjective to describe her would have to in fact be 'Josie.' With such a lively, charismatic and incredibly loud first child, I foolishly thought the second would be more quiet and reserved, surely none could be as noisy as Josie. And then I had Charlie who in his own right is just as creative and confident as his sister. I love to hear C...

I am going to have to admit to being the type of girl who does not always finish what I have started. Well, not straight away. I believe I do finish each project eventually or at least I hope I do. I definitely do finish things if they have been promised to people, so Theo I will certainly knit your second bootie before I start making Joe's bag, although I already have so many great ideas for it.... One of the best things about crafting and being able to make stuff yourself is that you can make it exactly how you want it, in exactly the colours you like. How else would I be able to find a quilt to go with the new room that Charlie would like with farm animals on one wall, dinosaurs on the second, zoo animals on the third and pirates on the fourth? My new project is a quilt for Charlie's birthday; a dinosaur, pirate, zoo animals quilt in 'boy' colours with stripes. I have already cut out all the pieces, sewn more than half together and plan to use an old sl...