Featured on Folksy Friday

I'm very pleased to have my Sun Blush Scarf included in this week's featured items page on Folksy. I'm particularly pleased because the scarf makes six items featured to date, actually it may be seven I think I'm forgetting one. I was sure my luck in being chosen for features had run out, but at least it tells me I must be doing something right.



It's a shame though that not all items fitting a theme can be chosen and I wanted to add a few of my favourites to the list.

I'm already a big fan of NelliD's work and the proud owner of the first teapot brooch available in yellow. I warned her I would go on about that for years (incidentally it's out of stock in yellow at the mo, so neener neener).

At least you can console yourself with the fact that you can show your love for the rain for one of gorgeous Rainy Day Brooches


And I love Firebird Jewellery's Prairie Rain Necklace. It looks as though it is lit from the inside and actually does look like a raindrop, it's so smooth. I'm normally more a fan of silver, but I must say paired with the gold this really is beautiful. I think it does it more justice than silver could.


I don't know nearly enough about art to tell you why I like this. I just do. It reminds me of days spent in the rain, being caught in the rain at the beach (or waking up in the rain and going to the beach anyway) and water streaked windows and birds flying low and a whole load of other things that I can only recall the memory of rather than any detail. Passion Paintings have a few original canvases currently in stock, though Good Earth Rain Dream is my personal favourite.



All the very best rainy days end with a Rainbow. Again, Glassprimitif is another shop I'm a big fan of and have already given this gorgeous green leaf plate a home, so I know from experience that photographs just can't do these pieces the justice they deserve. They're so much more tactile and have more depth than any photo can convey. You can take my word for it, or you can grab a piece of your very own.



And if you think that rain is a rather dismal choice for a feature, just remember all the wonderful things about the rain, like not having to wash the car, or cut the grass, or water the garden, but you can still go to the beach:)

Rainy Days

Rain we can deal with. Rain isn't a problem. Rain and you'll usually find us still playing outside in our wellies or making a complete mess of the poor husband's lawn by making mud with our bare feet.

However, rain which comes at us sideways is a different matter altogether. Not even Chloe will brave rain in a storm for the sake of a muddy puddle.

Still at least a morning stuck indoors ended with a few things to brighten up her room until Summer when she'll spend a few days with my mum while we repaint and carpet the room for her.

Bunting by mum....


And a kite by Chloe .....



At least the sun has come out since, we might even have to resort to buckets of water to get those muddy puddles on the go again:)

When I really should have done nothing but eat brownies all day...

Toots and I spent three hours, three whole hours, cleaning and tidying the wreckage that was once our garden today.

We're a bit famous in the UK for talking a lot about the weather, but there's a very simple and logical reason for that.

It's because we get so much of the stuff.

There has been a lot of flooding in Northern Ireland the last couple of days, now not the Westlink (spectacular demonstration of DOE workmanship flooding), but flooding nonetheless.

I had to leg it out into ankle deep water in my little back garden yesterday morning to save the cat.

The poor cat who was more than a little confused by my attempts to grab her and get her into the house and out of the rapidly rising water. She scratched, spat and bit before finally scurrying past me and straight up to her armpits in the swimming pool that was now my patio.

And even though I'm convinced that by that point she must have realised that my trying to get hold of her were in her best interests in the first place, she still managed to give me a dirty look, like it was all my fault she now resembled a drowned rat.

We dried off and stood at the kitchen counter with hot coffee watching the torrent of water pour down the steps in my garden, resigned to the fact that there was absolutely nothing we could do but watch and wonder why we'd bothered paying a guy to install a second drain in the back garden (which clearly wasn't helping at all) when we first moved into the house and woke one morning to watch a full sized wheelie bin float past the kitchen window.

And I'm not sure I'll ever forget the sight of my husband wrapping a freshly laundered fluffy bath sheet around the cat, scratching her under the chin and asking if she was ok, while I stood there soaked to the bones, with actual leaves (I kid you not) stuck to my shins, dripping on to the door mat without so much as a thank you to be heard, wondering;

1. Why I'd even bothered to put shoes on before running out the back door, and;
   
   
2. Why, when there was a perfectly good pair of riggers lying beside said back door, I'd chosen my cute new pumps.

"Ah, sure don't mind me, it's more hygienic to drip dry anyhow, and your welcome BTW!"

So today we dealt with the aftermath.

We unblocked the drains, scooping out entire plants never mind just leaves, we shovelled large quantities of mud and gak off the stone path at the front of the house, we lifted entire land masses out of the gutters, poked holes in the lawn to allow the water to drain away and brushed in sand and finally swept up the debris lying all over the place.

Finally, Toots and I were finished. We got a shower, jumped into to some warm clothes and settled down on the sofa with a hot cup of tea just in time to watch the heaven's open!