Half-term

Minion chocolate flakes on bread and butter

colouring in , chocolate milk , Ceebebies , banana yoghurt and wooden frogs

 Monkey Town , whirling robots and singing dinosaurs , chocolate sauce , "Can you lick your elbows ?",  Bagels and Beans' make-your-own hot chocolate and topping it with squirty whipped cream , a red rabbit who's apparently really a bear

 Knock Knock jokes , halbardiers and crossbows , theocracies and Ghengis Khan , the Apollo programme and how to make cheese , glowing smiles and roaring tantrums , Animal Inside Out  at the Natuur Museum , "Why-ee ?", Discovery Science , the wooden elephant on wheels and a Dalek jumper , and "I must admit Granny , you have a very nice flat ".

Which is now a rather empty flat , minus two little boys aged 8 and 3 and their parents .

First Pom-Pom Of The Season

 

We'd been warned . Winter was on its way . Even Monday's paper got in the mood  .

Bushes full of berries , making even the car park look festive . Skeins of geese were arriving already . Siberian swans had arrived ... not just one as in England , but dozens ! El Nìño was doing its thing . Somewhere in the Amazon a butterfly fluttered . But this morning it was confirmed , winter was here ... I saw a bobble hat cycling up to the college.

It's time to stop stabbing celery and carrot sticks into pots of hummus and living on cottage cheese ... it's braised beef , baked apples and coconut muffin time again . 

And it was definitely time to stop padding about the flat in bare feet . The Rich in Years slippers were nearly ready . I'd assembled and blanket stitched the first one ... time to try it on . TahDah !

They lived up to their name ... in the '50s the average woman of pensionable age probably did have a bunion or two . The slippers are the oddest shape !! Tight round the toe and hugely wide round the big toe joints , loose enough round the ankles to allow for swelling and breathtakingly warm  , they are Tardis-like in their ability to whisk one back to the end of sweet rationing . Anyway ,  they didn't get their promised pom-poms ... instead I pimped this one up with a glittery bow and gave thanks that I never have to blanket stitch another thing as long as I live .

P.S. I didn't go and have a free breakfast in my pyjamas , I'm afraid . I couldn't quite face it , wearing a bright green nightie with Christmas Pud on the front , as I was

( MD is , for some reason,  responsible for my nightwear and takes a fiendish delight in finding the least flattering . ) .
But anyway , apparently only those under eight wore their pyjamas ... almost exclusively Frozen or Superman-ish .... and Disney-pink's not really my colour .

I Did Things

Having sat like a blob for rather too long , I've got to my feet and started doing things .

The twice-yearly Fabric Fair's always worth wandering around , for the people-watching alone . Like the rather harassed woman who was buying meters of fleece , tricot and other hard wearing stuff . When someone wondered what she was planning , she just said , "I've got five children " . Everyone winced .
 But I must say , this Autumn , the general impression was rather gloomy . Five hundred shades of grey only slightly livened up by dozens of grey/black/white busy little prints ... for all the world like Italian grannies' housedresses .
This was the liveliest thing there .

"You could perhaps use it as a wall-hanging against a deep purple wall ... " said Friend . We pondered ... and thought better of it .

I've been to the cinema , too . One of my keep-fit class companions , an avid film fan , wondered if I'd like to join her at the Film House and we saw 'Dheepan' , a French film about Tamil refugees in a ghastly drug-infested  'banlieu' in Paris . Hair-raising but beautifully filmed . Next week there's Anton Corbijn's film about James Dean . I could become an avid film fan , too ...

And , having thoroughly enjoyed the BBC 1's Sunday evening's adaptation of Cider With Rosie ,  I was definitely in the mood for even more country prettiness and charm on Tuesday .

The Glasgow Boys had opened in Assen's museum and I was ready to wallow in nostalgia . So , obviously , is everybody else ; it was very busy ,  even on a weekday morning .

  Lots of lambs , cabbage patches and fruit trees , misty hills and glens , pretty children ... with all the rough edges smoothed away .
 Even a sturdy veg. stall , like the one my great-great-granny is supposed to have supported her family with  ... maybe even the same carrots she grew ?

Unfortunately the artist , William York MacGregor ,  is supposed to have painted out his unsuccessful attempt at depicting the stall-holder and replaced her with some onions , so we'll never know .

But , now Autumn has really begun , the local high life is just beginning . I see in the local paper that one of the cafés in the center of town  is going to expand its breakfast menu and , to celebrate , will be serving a free breakfast to anyone who turns up in their pyjamas , this Sunday . I might just  give it a miss ....