I thought you might all like to see a family portrait. Babyman wasn't allowed to join in - he wasn't smiling like the rest of us!

Not really. I had a parcel in the post yesterday.



This was the card.

I quite agree with the philosophy, no point waiting all day for your smile.


This was the beautiful, quite large, very heavy parcel.



I don't know why people are always saying mine isn't a real name because I tell you - it is!?!?!?!?

Having rescued Smiley Carol, our post lady, from the slavering jaws of my blackdog (he really doesn't like Smiley Carol) I brought this BIG parcel back inside wherein the 2y.o.terence present and I ripped into it .

We did try to be delicate but when a surprise parcel arrives from a mysterious real imaginary friend a girl can't be expected to exercise any great restraint.


When we finally got through the beautiful turquoise paper there was a box.


Taking off the lid of the box we discovered this -

Somebody somewhere has seriously depleted Britain's bubblewrap reserves!!! We unwrapped the bubblewrap and found some more. So we unwrapped the bubbles and found still more. But after four hours of unwinding and popping bubbles we found a rather fabulous pot of homemade strawberry jam from the very generous and kind Michaela over at the Stash Basket.





It is particularly yummy just raw without any of the trappings she had at her house -scones, cream, etc... I know this because once excavated from the bubblewrap monster which was trying to digest it, the 2yo and myself popped the lid and dipped our fingers in!!!!! There is something wrong with that kid, it took me several many minutes to convince her we should do that. Weirdo!





You may wonder what would possess someone to post jam however delicious ... sit down comfortably and I'll begin .......



Having written such a gorgeous post about the easiness of jam-making Michaela was obviously expecting comments and far be it from me to disappoint so putting fingers to keyboard I wrote -


Please make sure you wrap the jars really carefully before posting them. I don;t want to have lick such yummy jam off the shatds of glass ;-) (ibid)


Naturally having seen just what the fruits of my labor (pun fully intended) can return I was off to leave comments on the blogs of 'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street', 'The Royal Mint' and 'The Jewel House @The Tower of London'.

I wait by the postbox in anticipation!