Ever wondered what living in a cloud is like?

It is damp

and grey

with limited visibility.

Dear Sunshine, two days wasn't enough. Please come back soon. Love, trash

Roads are open - Hurrah!

Sadly this means that a rotten bastard 'nasty cold' has been able to ascend the heady heights to Trash Towers.

d/Boy and I have spent the past two days with mahoosive fevers (I say mahoosive but haven't used a thermometer since I was a concientious new mother), achey joints, snotty noses and sore heads. CK and Pr C-W have been extremely fabulous slavies and fed us regularly with medicines, liquids and restorative hot broth. This of course means that both of them will go down with it just in time for Christmas Day.

And what use is that may I ask? Who will cook the Christmas meal then?

Having made the trek over here for the holidays Giovanna & Paolo have been marooned down the hill in a lil' village before making a mercy dash to rescue niece stranded at Heathrow by snow, ice and (ahem) managerial incompetence. This turns out to have been a false alarm as she got a standby flight last night and to the best of my knowledge is now 1/3 of her way back to being on the right continent if not in the correct place.

I am guessing between that and the plague brewing at Trash Towers they are beginning to wish they had stayed at home to enjoy the rain and wind there!

Oh roll on 'The Perfect Christmas'!

Officially Marooned at Trash Towers!

Have just had word that all of the roads leading to the Outside World from up here on The Hill have been closed.

I feel a bit like Captain Oates.

We may be gone sometime.

What is THAT thing?

Up there! In the sky.

It is becoming shinier and shinier!

Huh!

Turns out the world ISN'T monochromatic!





(We had a not-quite-as-heavy frost this morning when we got up which is good. Unfortunately it is sitting on top of yesterday's extremely heavy hoar frost so everything is still extremely icy.)

So ...

... nine year old boy and dumbells. Not a good mix, right?

I'm beginning to wish I had put the heating on sooner.

Recent portrait of Princess C-W and destructoBoy.

We're feeling hot, hot, hot!

Things are heating up here at Trash Towers.

After much swearing and silent shouting this afternoon CK finally placed the guts inside Princess C-W's new heater and then he and d/Boy plumbed it into the electrickery that lives in the wall.

And before that the two of them fitted the new heater into d/Boy's room.

Guess who had to hoover up all the brick dust and swarf afterwards?

I had no idea Dinglebury was bounded by flight paths.

8:45 this morning.

South West

South

North

NorthEast

Trash Towers Christmas letter 2009 EDITED

**EDIT**

This letter was written after reading a round robin letter from a friend overseas. What follows is my reaction to the apparent whirlwind excitement of their lives. This post has been edited with this scene setting because a trusted reader/intermittent commenter informed that it reads in a happy perky kind of way when in reality I was a light shade of puce while typing. It would seem that 2009 saw the writers of this page live lives that were fulfilling socially, emotionally, financially, sexually, educationally, metaphysically and photographically. My response was to outline just how 'normal' life here is on the Hill and to that end I have included (with the exception of the first picture) images that are snaps anyone might have taken rather than posed images of loveliness.

I felt so much better at the end of writing this that by the time I got to the fourth and third last sentences I was in earnest again. People of the blog world you guys ROCK!

dear blog friends,

Ho, ho, ho - Santa is coming! Welcome to a round-up of 2009 at Trash Towers. We have had such a busy year doing so many things it is almost tricksy to know where to begin.

Let me start with birthdays - December 28 sees my assistant turning one and what an interesting first year it has been. We faced Spring with several many half-eaten shoes dotted around the house, this has been superseded by a passion for plastic and so now we tread carefully as shredded drink bottles are sharp on barefeet.

As for the rest of us, we have also had birthdays in 2009, each one finding us a year older.

CK has had a daily workload involving meetings and typing short and sharp responses to the apparent idiocy of others. On the up side he had his first solo blog date and refuses to go on any more stating 'Having started at the top it could only go down from here.'

His daily commute continues to involve the car and a bendy road. Traffic sometimes even consists of tractors chugging along causing up to 15 cars to snake along behind.

2009 has seen both children attend school nearly every
day except for holidays and weekends.

Princess Curly-Wurly's hair is even longer now than it was in January whereas (strangely) destructoBoy's is shorter!

I have continued my daily work at Trash Towers on a somewhat hit and miss basis, however I have been highly successful at avoiding cleaning and dusting although the ironing pile is actually threatening to take over downstairs.

Both children have forsworn regular bathing instead choosing the puppywash on irregular occasions. This has resulted in much giggling and also several pounds of potatoes behind the ears of each child.

What with the crappy weather and decaying old dog and all we did not actually manage to get away this year
so the Summer was spent hiding from the rain clouds and mahoosive amounts of precipitation. Eventually the weather cleared enough that we were able to walk the dogs sans wellies, brollies and raincoats and what a memorable afternoon that was.

2009 was the year Maria Juanita Conchita Gonzalez came into my life. I do love her. A lot. Even when there was an incident with late night train journeys, no mobile access and a flat battery I still LOVED her. So I guess this year has had some sunshine in it.

My overwhelming 'sunshiney, happy-heart spot' in 2009 (obviously after the crackers mob I call family, including hounds) has been this little blog space. Rather than blog-averse (seriously, not much is better than a good pun) I have had many an hour wandering through the blogosphere, reading, commenting, being both awed and inspired. Y'all work magic with words and pictures. Perhaps 2010 will see me attain these skills.

Wishing all y'all a Merry Christmas. May it be merry and bright.

My word! What a week!

Bit of a rollercoaster ride at Trash Towers this week.

Birthday parties, single-parenting, CK on a date with an international glamour queen, even had to put out a few fires!

d/Boy and Pr.C-W both had their ballet exams last night. Both were thrilled to take their trophy and medal respectively in to school this morning. Each also received a certificate outlining good points of their dancing and areas that may be improved. My boy and my girl came home with Distinctions. :-) So after a scrappy dinner (fish&chips followed by scrambled eggs and toast three hours later) and late bed yesterday they were both a little edgy by bedtime tonight.

Having washed ceilings and cleared and sorted the plastics cupboard (believe me a HUGE job!) this week I treated myself to a little crafting time.

Getting changed after school Pr. C-W asked if we could finally applique her t-shirt. Guess what she wanted? Yep, my assistant! I had some denim shapes excess from the back of the picnic blanket sitting there so she drew a pattern and when it was done she stitched on the eye herself.

I like it :-) and the edges will just get shaggier with washing and wearing.

It has been an amazing week mailwise this week. I was the winner of Paper&String's monthly giveaway. How gorgeous are these?

My kids are beside themselves that Oucho has released a range of accessories ;-)

The doorstop is in situ with a heavy thing inside to stop it becoming 'the worst ever doorstop' and the bucket has discovered its purpose - it is now the home of my mobile phone. Oh hooray! I shall never misplace it again. (Apparently I am remiss in not letting the world know my mobile (cellphone) is sparkly and purple - now you can all see ;-)

I was the very lucky recipient of a gorgeous P.I.F.gift from Jo in Tas this week. Gorgeous silver tissue and ricrac. that would have been enough to put a smile on my face but then ....

... I opened it!

This is such a clever bag. Loads of room on the inside PLUS four (well really eight because they are all divided) external pockets. I used it today on a day out with WonderWoman.

Jo this is such a cute bag and I love it. Thank you so much.

As mentioned above CK had a hot date this week. The glamourous and rather lovely WMK took pity on my husband and after a whirlwind tour of all the hotspots in Washington (ie flicking through a guide book at Borders ;-) they went out to dinner. Unsurprisingly he was flashing his English accent at every woman crossing his path, he seems to think that impresses foreign girlies.

Given that he was flying across theAtlantic for a blogmeet I thought the least he could do was take over some goodies for me. I made this bag to put them in. I thought it was quite nice but CK insisted upon putting it in his case rather than carrying it - Woos!


I was quite chuffed with this as there was no pattern, I made it all up as I went along! Am hoping WMK liked it to. Thanks for looking after my boy.

As it is STILL Donkey's birthday week there have been giveaways with every post and Julie at LCR won the birthday cake and (honestly - d/Boy watched me do Random Integer Generator thingy) WMK won the surprise prize tonight!

Finally I got an amazing package in the post today but there will be more about that later in the month. Trust me - it is worth coming back for.

If I am very careful one day I may be allowed to touch!

Yay for comprehensive home insurance.

Having survived the debacles of CK trying to iron the living room carpet, the mega-overflowing kitchen sink (three inches of warm water to wade through) and 'someone' (whistles tunelessly while looking at the sky) burning the back of an armchair with the iron (don't ask) I gave into the demands of the gods and set our home insurance to full cover.

Having paid out those premiums for the last five years it was with joy that I phoned the insurance company to claim for the sad demise of CK's laptop. For yes it was actually HIS that we use generally in the house. Despite MY protestations that 'we didn't need a new laptop mine was FINE', it has actually sat upstairs in its lovely, padded backpack untouched since this lovely Dell Inspiron 1501 first arrived about 18m months ago.

Do you have a greater appreciation of the horror I experienced when I spotted the water pooling over the keyboard?


However, after several telecons back and forth it was all sorted out and we could expect a voucher from the insurers to buy us a new laptop in just a matter of days. So Friday afternoon, post swimming and football and with their sweetie day sweets clutched tightly in their hands, we bundled the kids into the car and headed the 20+ miles to our nearest P.C. world. En route the terences were placated with suggestions of takeaway food and after nearly 3/4 of an hour mooching around said computer place were starting to get a little bit restless.

It was fortunate for us all that CK had made up his mind by this point and purchased himself a shiny, new, whizzy computer that apparently does lots of clever things.

I say 'apparently' because I am only allowed to look at it from a distance. But it seems nice enough.

freak weather conditions...

... on Dorset hilltop lead to extremely stressed hausfrau.


We had some rain here today, it reminded me of Summer;-)


We also had some gusty winds.


I was good hausfrau on Sunday afternoon and began the sort out on my green house (house which is green not glass-paned structure filled with delicious homegrown vegetables) in the garden. It was very exciting. I found lots of fabulous things that I had actually painted! Not finished you understand but painted.


Except this one.






This was finished and ready to hang. And I even hung it, drilling holes in the wall and everything! This fella is in the Peter Ompir style.


I also found this





This is a little pegboard. The lighting is a bit crubbish so the picture of the whole thing was rubbish but the colours are really good in it. The whole thing is approx. three peg sections long. I love this lil bird. This one is finished too.


There were also some Christmas things. This perky wee fella and lid are half finished, just a few more strokes on his beard and a thick coating of varnish will make it 100% done. Sadly as he has been languishing for some years 'oot ther' he has become a little rusty on the edges but I shall call it shabby chic ;-)





This is a Jamie Mills-Price pattern. (note rust spots)





This morning I put out several boxes of crubbish - old paper, new paper that got damp, boxes of skanky china dolphins someone gave me years ago (why??). It was a good feeling.


This is the other Christmassy thing I freed from my indolence. Now I have (finally) glued his feet on it is another outing for the varnish then WHAMMO! he is done. Of course I also must varnish the three Wise Men who sit in those spaces then perform a little jiggery pokery construction then voila! another finished item. But he is cute, no?





Finally I have my delightful bin.





Tres grown-up and elegant I think?





Now this I really should finish but am kind of stuck on those pointy bits. The painting there is all fiddly and I need to 'think' about it some more.


So back to the freak weather.....





In September!! Would you credit it?!?!?


One of the side effects of this clear-out was boxes lying around waiting to be assigned new lives. The rubbish had gone out and I had nearly cleared my desk. This left just one little box and I was going to see if a friend wanted its contents. Next time I looked out the front door it was just as if there had been a blizzard blow through.


This was the content of the box spread wide across my garden. I spent the next hour sweeping up wet bloody polystyrene beads. As the wind blew. And the rain came down. I was less than amused. (Some may say they were leopardmonkey guts ;-)


Because this post doesn't have enough pictures I want to show you the box I did for my Russian Doll swap giftee.

I was a little chuffed with this one because I made it all up myself. The words in Cyrillic writing around the outside read 'Happy Days'.




I liked it so much I have done the whole thing again on a tray for my house :-)