those darn storms

on tuesday when we had mega storms that lasted all afternoon, our pets were pooping their pants...so they all got a dose of rescue remedy and for the rest of the day were so out of it that it was like they had smoked a funny cigarette

cute but stoned

wickle...go there!

we have never noticed this place in lewes high street before

but inside the shop of kitsch and cute and fabulousness is a teeny tea room

a tea room for wickle people

home-made cakes and biccies, giant choccy buttons and marshmallows, ice-cream and jars of sweeties

with proper cups and saucers and table tops covered in chalkboard so your divine children can doodle away with the supplied chalks

soooo worth a visit and really cheap too...huge pot of tea for 2 and an apple juice only 2 pounds and 75 pennies...and it was great tea

search for an ancestor

grandma met us for a picnic lunch which we had at the duck pond by the pells...we fed the ducks and spoke to all passing dogs and then checked out the pool which is a definite future trip!

as this church was only round the corner, i decided to try and locate a missing relative

st john sub castro was the local church for my grandparents and my dad was a choirboy there in the 50's

my dad's grandfather george lived with them and when george died in 1961, it is assumed he would have been buried locally (my dad does not remember a service for him and this has always been a mystery which got me started on the ancestry lark). so a trek through the graveyard we did, but as has been confirmed by lewes records office, he does not seem to be buried anywhere in lewes

still the church is very pretty and it was a lovely sunny day and even if i never find george, it's lovely to know that 60 years ago, my dad's voice was ringing through the rafters (before his balls dropped)

palace pier

1650 ft long, costing nearly 140 thousand pounds, the pier was designed by R. St.George Moore, using oriental features to echo the Royal Pavilion. After a cash crisis soon after building commenced in 1891, the pier was finally completed by Sir John Howard in 1899. The ironwork on this pier is original, and many of the kiosks bear the initials BMMP, standing for Brighton Marine Palace and Pier

i love the paintwork...i think it's like victorian graffitti!

lottie and i shared a bag of donuts

under the pier, shaded from the sun but seeing a new aspect of the pier

we found glass pieces tumbled by the sea which we shall make into pendants

the ironwork reminds me of iced lacework on wedding cakes

gothic and wonderful

we also saw a by-plane do loop the loop over the pier!



mmmmmmmmm

lottie got this book from the library and we have been trying some of the recipies

today lottie made 'apple pie ice-cream' and sure enough it really does taste of apple pie!

amazing what can be invented with cream/egg/sugar/white chocolate/apple sauce/cinnamon/vanilla and some crushed digestive biscuits

another big literary recommendation

read this book!

i woke up today with a right cob on...didn't want to do anything but didn't want to do nothing and moped round the house until i HAD to get dressed to take lottie swimming and return library dvd before got charged for another week...needed new reading material as am not sleeping at the mo because i seem to be having a bit of a mania moment and found this...i am now in a fabulous mood and all chirpy chipper...it is simply hilarious and brilliant (and clearly good treatment for cyclothymia) 

slop

grandad gave lottie some pocket money

lottie bought this stuff

you add step 1 powder to warm water and get what looks like halloween wallpaper paste

you then sprinkle step 2 powder onto it for it to turn back into water

not quite

(more like witches diarrhoea)

a celebration

lottie made her sister a cake after dinner to surprise her (ahhhh)

and the exciting bit is, it's rainbow inside!!!!!!

clever teenager

ellie's interview outfit

offer from college!

her celebratory lunch

lottie's lunch (courtesy of grandad)

my clever firstborn had her interview for college today and got offered a place there and then

we are all very proud of her

famous at last

grandad has a fudge named after him!

a cheery sight

tiny old boat, a couple of old friends, poodling up the river

made lottie and me smile

trip down memory lane

we were in lewes a couple of weeks back and ellie spotted mark williams

who she only knows as arthur weasley from the harry potter films...ellie being the lovely polite and far too shy child she is, wouldn't approach him for a chat/photo/autograph as he was eating a sandwich and she might frankly have peed herself with excitement

anyway, lead to me telling her that when she was little we used to go to a pottery cafe in brighton called paint pots run by this fabulous woman called vicky who was friends with mark because he drank at the same pub as her and he lived nearby and once popped into the cafe when were there

so as we were in brighton today, i thought we'd go see if paint pots is still there and also if vicky still runs it...well blow me down, it is and she is!

so being the nosey cow i am, i popped in just to show her what my 3 year old had grown into and she remembered me and was sooo lovely and still an amazing strong/no shit woman with a wicked sense of humour and she just made my day...but ellie is now thinking i know amazingly cool-like people because vicky told her that she is still great friends with mark and he took her to the premiere of the latest film and all the luvvies she got to meet and that she also had warwick davis' autograph! 

ellie and lottie now both want to go paint pottery at vicky's as she listened to them and genuinely wanted to hear what they had to say (not an attribute i see in many adults these days) and i am, once again, a big fan of that smashing lass

brighton railway station

took the train to brighton today as it was cheaper than the bus...i've always loved brighton station but today it impressed me even more so did a bit of research and can tell you: The station was built by the London & Brighton Railway in 1840. The passenger station was a three storey building in an Italianate style, designed by David Mocatta in 1839–40 which incorporated the head office of the railway company. The platform accommodation was built by John Urpeth Rastrick.

i spotted on these old clocks the initials LBSCR which i now know stands for...

In 1846 the railway became the London Brighton and South Coast Railway following merger with other railways with lines between Portsmouth and Hastings

we also crossed the london road viaduct which always fascinates me and now i also know: Built in the 1840s for the Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway by John Urpeth Rastrick,  the sharply curving structure has 27 arches and about 10 million bricks. In the 1840s, the land northeast of Brighton station was undeveloped, consisting of fields. It lay in a steep-sided valley running from north to south, created by the River Wellesbourne. Rastrick had to decide whether to cross this with an embankment or a viaduct. He laid the foundation stone on 29 May 1845. Construction took 10 months: the structure was ready on 28 March 1846, more than two months before the line to Lewes opened.  In WWII bombing severely damaged London Road Viaduct. At 12.30pm on 25 May 1943, Focke-Wulf fighter-bomber aircraft dropped several bombs on Brighton, five of which landed on the railway. One demolished two arches and one pier at the west end of the viaduct, two arches west of the Preston Road span, leaving the tracks spanning the gap in mid-air. Despite this, a temporary repair allowed trains to start using the viaduct again within 24 hours; in less than a month, the service was back to normal. Until the arches were fully repaired in September 1943, a 15 mph speed restriction was enforced and Preston Road could be seen through the gaps between the sleepers where the brickwork had been blasted away. The replacement brickwork, darker than that of the main structure, can be seen from the road below.

a couple of old dears havin a cuppa before their train ome

a freebie!

sky have given us a load of free movies channels for 5 weeks including disney

so guess what my herberts day has entailed? aside from swimming and exams, they are stuck in front of the tv, watching and taping as much as they can...and i am very proud as (like a free lunch) they are living by my motto "make the most of it and cram as much in as you can"

water baby

lottie is sooooo like me...loves nothing more than jumping in and getting out, jumping in and getting out, jumping in bla bla bla then occasionally proving she can swim

and obviously spends the rest of the day waiting for the water to drain out of her ears

delusion

boo clearly thinks he is so slim he can pass as a netbook

frugal and fun

one of my lovely customers sent me some old age 5-6 years pj's of her daughter's to make into pads ready for when she starts teenagedom...i managed to make 39 out them!

 amazed myself frankly

happy fathers day!

to all dads everywhere...hope you had a great day