De-cluttering

Clutter abounds in our house and time has come (others would say is way over-due) that action must be taken!

According I took a table at the Girls Brigade Table-top sale yeserday.Unfortunately, although I did make some sales, the majority of the takings were from marmalade & cakes. And what space was liberated was more than taken up by the boxes of railway magazines that somehow made their way into the house from a railway exhibition!

However, all is not yet lost in the de-cluttering stakes. I have now opened a third etsy shop, MarmaladyAllsorts for my de-stash supplies & vintage items. Imagine my delight when I actually sold a cup & saucer this morning! A small start, but a start non the less! I hope to be adding stock regularly!

National Marmalade Day -- Feb 15th

Today has been designated National Marmalade Day, so this post is about my marmalades!

After 3 weeks hard work, all the marmalade oranges were finally processed! (Chopping oranges can get soooo boring!! lol ) Most are in the freezer for use throughout the year, but I also made 150 lbs of marmalade of various sorts.

I am trying out 2 new varieties -- Golden Marmalade which is a mixture of oranges, lemons and carrots and also an Orange marmalade with Earl Grey Tea -- inspired by seeing a marmalade-flavoured tea!

Also this year, I have jazzed up my marmalade names -- hoping that an eye-catching name will inspire people to pick up a jar --and result in a sale! It has been fun & also brain-taxing during the last few weeks to think of appropriate names for all my varieties -- or new marmalades if I come up with a name that doesn fit any of my existing ones!

Today, I have re-vamped the marmalades in my etsy shop -- I have added a section for Marmalades ( rather than have them in with other preserves) and added several new varieties. I have also taken some new photos, and edited the listings to include the new names

It's that time of year again!

January is seville orange season -- the time all marmalade-makers have to buy their oranges for the year ahead. Acordingly, this morning I collected 8 boxes of seville oranges weighing 40 lb each! So for the next couple of weeks I shall be living and breathing oranges as I get them all chopped, cooked and frozen!

According to the leaflets in the boxes, this year's oranges are from the Ave Maria Farm in Mairena del Alcor, Andalucia, Spain.

Sunday shopping & culture

Yesterday we decided to go into Manchester for some shopping and culture. Due to husband not checking the opening times of the shop he wanted to go to, the shopping aspect of the trip was truncated! I did ,however, buy a nice summer blouse for only £5.40 in Debenhams sale.

After a lunch of delicious soup at a cafe we pressed on with the second part of our day -- the Holman Hunt exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery.

As it was the last day of the exhibition it was quite crowded --there was actually a queue to get into the rooms of the exhibition. It was an excellent display of a lot of his most famous paintings and some lesser known ones too.

Holman Hunt's religion-inspired works have never been my favourites amongst the pre-Raphaelites although his earlier ones like Autumn Leaves are nice. I must say tho, that i am warming to his "Light of the World" now I have seen the actual painting rather than just reproductions of it.

Happy New Year!

Another new year already! Where did the old one go?

Last night we went to out local Italian Restaurant (the Vecchia Italia) with a group of friends as we have for the past 20 years or more. As always the food & company was great. Usually on New Years Eve there is a good party atmosphere as midnight approaches. Last night was a bit weird tho. The restaurant was full when we arrived, but most diners left as soon as they had finished eating, so at the magic hour, there was only our party remaining to celebrate! Was this a result of the recession, the bitterly cold & frosty night or did everyone have somewhere better to go on to ?

I don't like making New Years Resolutions -- it is too dissappointing if I have failed to keep them up even through January let alone the whole year -- so instead here are some of my goals for the year:

to lose some weight and keep it off
to be more organised generally
not to fret over things & people I cant change but concentrate on things that can be improved

Happy New Year everyone!

It was Christmas Eve and all through the house....

.... it is absolute chaos!

After a busy December for Markets & on Etsy (there's a lot of people getting fudge for Christmas this year!) I still have a lot to do before tomorrow! (so why am I sat here? lol)

done:

presents all bought (I hope!)

food all bought

lounge tidied

still to be done -- in no particular order:

dining room to tidy & vacuum

bathroom to clean

best table cloth to iron

best china & cutlery to sort out & clean if necessary

presents to wrap

stuffing to make

alternative christmas pudding to make

christmas tree to erect & decorations to put up

sort out what I am wearing tomorrow --and hope its clean & ironed already!

have a bath & wash my hair

and anything else that occurs to me as the day progresses!

Happy Christmas everyone!

Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia -- an almost unpronouncable word for a condition that makes every day life very difficult for its sufferers. A more descriptive term is "face-blindness" - the inability to recognise faces -- in extreme cases even those of your nearest and dearest. There is no cure, just coping strategies that vary in effectiveness.

It was quite a surprise a year or so ago when my brother announced he had this condition very severely -- none of the family had ever suspected he had this difficulty. Since he sent us various links to articles about the condition we all took the on-line test. My results came back as borderline as having a problem -- I just thought i was bad at remembering people!

Today he has been featured in the Guardian Weekend Magazine with an article on the subject in which he describes his difficulties: I don't recognise my own face . He has also written more about his condition on his website here: http://www.barryw.net/me/pa/prosopagnosia.html