Being Mrs C

Making the most of the good weather

After the snow earlier in the month this warmer spell recently has been a wonderful change. We managed to spend a large portion of the weekend in the garden and the fresh air made all of us feel so much better.

It also gave us the opportunity to get quite a few jobs done that we've been putting off since the autumn. Weeds were cleared, the apple tree pruned and dead leaves swept up. We also finally assembled and put up one of our Christmas presents - this lovely birdhouse made from cardboard! Over on UK Nature Blog Mr C has told you all about it and he'll also be reporting back on just how successful it is.

Of course there was a certain someone who was very keen to help us as we worked in the garden. Although she does seem to think that brushes are to be used to spreading stuff around rather than sweeping it into piles which made sweeping up leaves a bit of a never-ending job!

seven days

A weekly photograph capturing one of the magic moments of the last seven days.

It's not what you think - Chris Evans

I think it fair to say that Chris Evans is someone who divides the country. From his loudmouth days on the Big Breakfast through to the controvesy when he took over from the "Nation's Favourite" Terry Wogan on Radio 2 he's often been on the front pages with people praising and criticising him in equal measure.

As a teenager at the time I loved the Big Breakfast and also was a regular viewer of TFI Friday and Don't Forget your Toothbrush. When he then went back to radio I didn't really follow him, yet it was hard to escape all the stories in the media about him buying Billie Piper a fancy car, marrying her, moving to LA and losing it a bit. Finally though he came back to the UK, they separated, divorced and he seemed to have calmed down and grown up a fair bit. A Radio 2 afternoon slot came along and when all the "Sachsgate" scandal hit the station it was interesting to see that he was then seen as one of their dependable presenters whereas in years gone by you could well have imagined him as being in the centre of a similar mess.

When it was announced that he was to take over from Sir Terry I was very, very surprised. The whole fit just didn't seem right and the first few weeks I hated listening. Everything was so different to the Togmeister that I was used to easing me into the morning with his lrish lilt. Amazingly that change was over two years ago now and I have to say that in that time I've become a convert. The listening figures suggest that I'm not the only one with more people tuning in than did for Terry himself. Now, when he's away my morning routine is disrupted.

When I picked up a copy of Evans' first book, It's Not What You Think, I had no idea what I was going to think. The book covers his life in the pre-Billie Piper days, right from the early days in Warrington through to the Radio 1 breakfast show that he lost. The thing which struck me right from the start was just how hard working Chris has always been. From his first job as a paper boy following his father's early death it is fair to say that he has never been afraid of hard work. The tender way in which he describes losing his father and his relationship with his mother brings out a much softer side than what can come across on TV or radio.

If you listen to his radio show, or watch him on BBC's The One Show then I'd definitely recomment reading this book to understand where Chris come from and what makes him tick. It's all there from the paper round and being Timmy Mallet's assistant through to being the media star that he is today. Chris' second book Memoirs of a Fruitcake has carried the subtitle "From Billie to Breakfast" and I'm certainly intrigued to read about what also went on in that period of his life. 

The advantages of shopping local

As much as I love the internet and do plenty of online shopping (including my weekly supermarket shop) I am really trying to make sure that I use my local shops too. If you don't use them then I figure that you've no right to complain if they then close.

As I've mentioned on here many times before I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful local toyshop in St Albans in the form of Cuthberts Toys. When a friend was asking on Facebook if anyone knew where to get hold of some specific Octonauts toys that she'd promised her daughter as a reward for having to take some particularly nasty medicine I knew exactly where to ask. A quick tweet to the shop and I discovered a batch of toys were due to be delivered in two days time. They sent me a tweet to tell me they were in and I was able to pop into the shop and get the toys my friend needs. As long as Royal Mail do their job correctly overnight there should be a very happy little girl at the end of her course of medicine. All organised via Twitter and Facebook, but the role of a local independent shop here was the key thing.

With Amazon offering free p&p these days it can be hard to drag yourself away from one-click ordering, but a weekend trip to Oxford and the delights of their huge Waterstone and Blackwells branches made me realise just how much I was missing spending time browsing in bookshops. Sadly St Albans only has one real bookshop left in the form of Waterstones but bearing in mind that if it wasn't used by people we might lose it I headed in there on Monday having promised Little Miss C a new book as a reward for something. As soon as we reached the children's setion LMC was beside herself with excitement. She loves books and seeing so many in one place meant she didn't know which one to pick up first. The addition of a fish tank at the right height for her and we could have spent all day in there!

Whilst there I decided to see if they had the final two Louisa May Alcott books from the Little Women series. I'd looked online for them, but only seemed to find Kindle versions that were readily available and I'm someone who hasn't yet embraced the non-paper book. I couldn't find them on the shelves, but found a very helpful young man who looked the books up on their computer system, ordered me copies and took my phone number so they could let me know when they came in. This was 11.30 on Monday morning. Just 24 hours later I received a text saying that my order was in store and that afternoon I collected the books. With their standard free delivery Amazon couldn't have got them to me that quickly.

Just goes to show that good customer service is so valuable and many local shops can provide a level of service that you don't always get from big online retailers. Make sure you use your local shops before it's too late!

Pancakes

We don't normally bother with pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, but I thought we'd make a small effort this year. A very small one. Only problem was that my tossing wasn't really up to the required level...

Please don't laugh.

seven days

A weekly photograph capturing one of the magic moments of the last seven days.

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

I'm not totally sure why, but recently I have bee feeling a bit guilty about the number of "classics" that I've never actually read. I own many, often picked up in charity shops like many in my book collection, but most of them still sit in my "to be read" pile.

Rather than feel bad about it I decided to do something about it recently and am therefore making myself alternate between classics and more modern books. Having looked at my bookshelf I realised that they all appear to be in alphabetical order by author, so starting at the beginning I found myself reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

Now this is a book that I think I read an abridged version of whilst in school. Certainly I knew some of the background to it, but not the whole story. Little Women is the story of the four March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - and their lives as they travel from being girls to women. Written in the 1860s the sisters in the book are said to be based on Alcott's own sisters with herself being the model for boyish aspiring author Jo. All the sisters' characters really do come alive on the page and give a womderful insight into what life must have been like in America for young women at this time.

Initially the book was written in two volumes - the first entitled Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - whilst the second was simply known as "Part Second". When the books were published here in England the second volume became Good Wives. Whilst these two books became the best known of Alcott's work she also wrote Little Men and Jo's Boys which appear to be much harder to find copies of at present. I will keep looking though.

A review of Good Wives will follow shortly!

seven days

A weekly photograph capturing one of the magic moments of the last seven days.

Topsy and Tim

To say that Little Miss C loves books would be an understatement. The first things she wants in a morning is for us to read books to her. When we put her to bed at night the main reason she doesn't want to go is because that means no more bedtime stories.

I remember Topsy and Tim books from my childhood and happened to pick up a couple of modern versions in a charity shop recently for LMC and she already loves them. In one day last week we ended up reading about Topsy and Tim visiting the dentist seven times!

Of course today's Topsy and Tim books are somewhat different from the ones I remember from childhood. They are now published by Ladybird and appear either as small square hardback books, or in the more traditional rectangular Ladybird format. When I was a child they were published by a company called Blackie who ceased to exist in the 1990s.

Judging by the sales that I can see on eBay the original ones appear to be very popular, but I'm amazed by how little information I can find out about them online. I can't even find a complete list of all of the ones that were published - so I've decided to try and start my own based on what I can find out.

I do have an old copy of Topsy and Tim at the Zoo which my MIL managed to find in a local charity shop. This was published in 1968, but in a larger format than the ones I remember, but I understand that this was the original, original format (If you see what I mean), before the books became physically smaller.

It does give me a relatively good starting point though on a list of what had been published in the series at that point in time, so here goes:

• Topsy and Tim's Monday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Tuesday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Wednesday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Thursday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Friday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Saturday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Sunday Book
• Topsy and Tim's Birthday Party
• Topsy and Tim's Bonfire Night
• Topsy and Tim on the Farm
• Topsy and Tim Go Fishing
• Topsy and Tim's Foggy Day
• Topsy and Tim at the Football Match
• Topsy and Tim Go on Holiday
• Topsy and Tim Go to Hospital
• Topsy and Tim's Paddling Pool
• Topsy and Tim Go Pony-Trekking
• Topsy and Tim Go Safely
• Topsy and Tim At School
• Topsy and Tim At the Seaside
• Topsy and Tim's Snowy Day
• Topsy and Tim At the Zoo
• Topsy and Tim Take no Risks
• Topsy and Tim Learn to Swim
• Topsy and Tim Go Sailing
• Topsy and Tim Go Hill-Walking

I know that there have been several more titles since then as well as re-issues of some of the above - now I just need to try and work out what else was published when. If you have any hints then I'd love to hear them.

seven days

A weekly photograph capturing one of the magic moments of the last seven days.