Year of pleasure #11: Pretty socks

I've been on a bit of a downer over the past few weeks, not sure why really just lots of things getting on top of me (house moving getting nowhere, juggling finances, lack of sleep). I'm having a proper little pity party today!

It means the little things that wouldn't normally annoy me make me so irate! It took me an hour this morning just to tidy the house for today's viewings - not clean, no dusters or bathroom spray were involved, just picking up things and putting them away. It doesn't really matter but I was stomping around the house swearing profusely under my breath. Ella must have thought I'd gone mad!

Two things cheered me up - my lovely mum 'babysitting' Ella over the phone while I dashed round (thanks Mum!) and putting on these pretty cherry socks. Weird how something seemingly inconsequential can make me smile and completely change my mood. Yay socks!

Year of pleasures #9: trips home

I had a bad blog week last week and skipped one, I promise I'll be good from now on!

I live quite a way from my folks, not in American terms I guess but it's a good five-hour drive from our home in London to theirs in Durham, south east to north east - definitely too far to pop round the corner for a cuppa! So I don't get to visit very often, especially with the price of train tickets and two kids in tow.

It means that when I do go home I try to squeeze in as many people as possible. We were up for less than 48 hours last weekend but we still managed to see my parents, my brother, my gran and uncle, two of my close friends and our closest family friends too! It might have been a fleeting visit but it was full of laughter, slightly chaotic but lots of fun.

I've lived in London for ten and a half years, and before that I was at uni for four; Hull and Arizona will always feel like home to me too. But Durham, where I grew up, where my family comes from, holds a special place for me. I love going home, back to my mum and dad, to the house I grew up in, the places I grew up in. And it's more than that: the north east is part of my identity, central to me. I've always thought that home is the place I feel loved, that it could be anywhere on earth as long as I'm with people I love. But I never feel more at home than when I'm there.

Making cookies

Logan made up his own little cookie dance, I think he was mid-flow here.



Eating cookies!

Muswell Hill in the snow

View from our front room



Muswell Hill Broadway



Why the buses aren't running...



The Broadway

Snow day!

This is what happens when Mark works from home...

Muswell Hill is snowed in - I'm sure when there was a blizzard at home when I was younger the buses didn't grind to a halt (even if the school boiler broke with alarming regularity). That's what I get for deserting the north east for the bright lights of the big city.

Snow pics to follow later for those of you on another continent.

This is what happens when you tell logan to smile for the camera

I think we need to work on that one...