London Mummy

Is it really that time already?

Wow, look what happens when you don't blog for months - lots of changes on Typepad!

I hadn't intended to take such a long break but then I never do, do I :)  Am still working 3 days a week with my friend plus London Mummy and am also in the midst of re-decorating Livvy's bedroom.  Of course, being me it was never going to be just a fresh coat of paint was it ........

Here is a photo of work in progress:

Our apartment is on the top floor of a Victorian conversion and Livvy's room is in what was once the attic.  The gaping hole you see before you is destined to become some much needed storage space in the void space, there is another on the other side of the window.  Love my symmetry you know :)  As I'm on a budget I'm doing the majority of the work myself in my spare time, hacking off plaster, sanding and painting the floor etc. I actually don't mind doing stuff like that but it is frustrating having to keep stopping and starting due to time constraints.

My design brief from my hard to please client, is to create a more grown up bedroom, somewhere to hang out with her friends which doesn't feel too childish - "I am eleven now mummy, after all!"  I'll post more photos as work progresses.

In the meantime, just how gorgeous are these beauties?

 

I bought these to make up into bouquets for end of Year thank you gifts for the teachers at school from Livvy and me.  I made up eight different bouquets which I sadly didn't get a chance to photograph as I am no florist and it took me a whole morning to do, just made it to school for the 1.30 pm pickup but it was so worth it.  I wrapped each bouquet in pink or purple tissue and cellophane tied with ribbon and if I do say so myself, they looked wonderful, especially all together and went down a storm with the teachers and office staff.  Not bad for £75 worth of flowers - they practically filled my bath!  The greenery I took from my garden.

I even had enough leftover to make up two more generous vases for home, sadly slightly wasted as it is all in such disarray at the moment, but the scent of lilies is simply wonderful.

I photographed these outside on my balcony with the communal garden below as I prefer to take photos in natural light and I took these at about 8pm this evening.

I love the colours in the huge mophead hydrangeas, hopefully these will dry beautifully too.

 

Will be back before the week is out, I have to, I've been tagged :)

Is honesty the best policy?

Having been somewhat absent from the blogworld for a little while, as I'm sure you've already noticed :)  I  found  Ali's post yesterday rather thought provoking.

In terms of one's own blog, is not telling all, the same as not being honest?  If so, then I am most definitely guilty on that score :)  People blog for so many different reasons, my initial motivation was to mark the progress of my little gift company and to encourage myself to keep going, keep trying even when things are tough.  Perhaps I should share a little of the history.

Livvy's father and I separated when she was three, my choice, no-one else involved but obviously my decision didn't go down too well.   

I set up my Interior Design practice in order to support Livvy and I financially which initially did well but I made the classic mistake of putting all my eggs in one basket - so easy to see in hindsight.  Subsequently I incurred a very large (well to me anyway) bad debt of £30,000.  Being a sole trader I was not entitled to legal aid and as my debtor was wealthy, was advised by lawyers that my only real option was to accept it and chalk it up to experience as if  I entered into legal proceedings against the client and then had to withdraw due to lack of funds then I would be liable for their costs and they could afford to protract the case for a long as possible.  Not a pleasant time at all, I can assure you.

As for my ex, well all I will say is that his subsequent behaviour assured me that I did absolutely the right thing in terms of leaving him; reneging on financial agreements, not turning up to see Livvy time after time, refusing to share any of the childcare in order to allow me to try and rebuild the business, knowing full well that I have no family on hand to help and just generally making a very difficult time substantially worse. 

Anyway, after the bank pulling the plug and my sailing perilously close to bankruptcy, a route I refused to go down, periods of depression and ongoing shenanigans from my ex we are moving forward, albeit slowly. 

One of the hardest things to deal with is trusting yourself again, constantly vacillating, constantly asking, is this the right thing to do, am I on the right path - I made such a monumental mess before, what if I do it again?  Am I making the best choices for me and my daughter? 

So, to try and get back to the question at the beginning of this now somewhat long post, is not telling it warts and all, dishonest or is it just an assumption that sometimes, telling it how it really is, is just a little bit too much information?

   

A promise to Olivia

Yep, today is my birthday - is it me or do they come round so much more quickly when you have to start ticking the little box next to the age 35-45 bracket on questionnaires?

I got severely told off by Olivia last night for not wanting to mention it.   I guess when you are a child it makes absolutely no sense why you wouldn't want to shout about it and generally encourage all and sundry to join in.

Anyway, in view of my promise to her to tell all, here is the lovely birthday card she gave me this morning:

I love you too my gorgeous girl :)

I managed to persuade her that I really didn't want a party so we are going to have a lovely afternoon making a start on the little Christmas village I promised we would make this year!

Overwhelmed .....

Yep, that's how I'm feeling at the moment. 

Well my planned week of website building didn't exactly go to plan, turned out my cold was a little more than that which mean't an enforced break - probably not such a bad thing in hindsight but not the best timing.

Still, I guess it did mean a break from the onslaught of spam emails I have been receiving - apologies to anyone who has emailed me recently and not received a reply, I managed to accidently erase a whole bunch of emails from both my desktop and my server - that's when I knew it was time to "step away from the Mac" for a while :)

Livvy, is as always, her lovely self - shame the same cannot be said of my ex who is quite frankly being a prize ......... !  As always, his timing is just perfect designed for maximum impact I'm sure :)

Anyway, whinging over and on to something much more interesting:

The girls over at Sew Mama Sew  have worked incredibily hard and put together  a wonderful resource of tutorials for handmade Christmas gifts.  Every day for the month of November, there will be a different theme so you should find plenty of inspiration for your gift list this year.

Have fun!

Playing catch up

Oh dear, I am way behind again!  Poor Livvy has been off school for a couple of days which has pushed my somewhat crowded schedule a little bit too far this week so apologies for the lack of posts.

First up I wanted to say a big thank you to Mandy over at Feltbug for doing such a wonderful job organizing the Autumn Art & Design Fair in Barnes last Saturday.  The sun came out for us and I met yet another bunch of wonderful women and had such a fun time.  Typically I did forget to take my camera so have no photos to show, not even my display boxes - sorry Ali. 

Livvy was away on a Brownie/Guide trip to a PGL centre and had another amazing time.  She got to have a go on a trapeze and try her hand at abseiling - both scary apparently but a great buzz.  She now has only another two weeks to wait until she is off again for a week at half term to the Little Canada site down on the Isle of Wight.  Oh what a lucky girl she is ......

Right, Lynsey has tagged me - somehow I have to come up with 7 interesting things about me .......

When I was 19 (now a very distant memory, sadly) I joined the WRNS - Womens Royal Naval Service - but left after just two and a half days!  Absolutely hated it.

I have a real aversion to tea, as in cup of, I cannot stand even the smell of it - makes me want to heave.  Not sure where that aversion comes from but yuk.  I used to get really embarrassed when I was younger, people would  just automatically make me one but I really couldn't drink it and was too shy to say.

I have a really really good memory, which while generally very useful, it can sometimes be a little scary.  When  I  do the round of Christmas Fairs I often see people from the previous year and they are always a little  thrown when I refer to something they bought the year before.

To me, Olivia and I don't look alike at all which I kind of find a bit weird to be honest.  Here's me aged about ten:

Here's Livvy, all fair hair and blue eyes:

I am one of seven children, five boys and two girls but am only really close to my youngest brother Chris.  (Apparently we do look alike - phew)

I met the actor, Matt Dillon once, when I was in my twenties in a pub in the Portobello Road.  I had absolutely no idea who he was, much to my friends' huge amusement.  He just started chatting to me so I chatted back - he was completely down to earth and absolutely gorgeous!

According to my friends, I am really stubborn and way too independent for my own good which drives them nuts. Oh and I'm also really good in a crisis apparently!

Gosh that was really hard,  I'm going to tag these people but won't be offended if you don't want to do it as I know sometimes people don't like to do it:

Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Melissa 

Heather

Mette

Maxine 

Bev

Michelle

Magda