CLINTON CARDS DAY...

As with a host of other calender dates, what used to be a family gathering of feast or fast, to celebrate or consider, to pray or to holiday we now have a whole stream of never ending Clinton Cards with obligatory over the top gift selections to take us almost weekly from January to December... Mothers Day as far as I know, is a Christian celebration! Perhaps I should be doing some research before putting this to blog but I'm pretty convinced its a spring festival and is associated with Spring Flowers and Re-birth...All very understandable and rather charming in its ethnicity...Then, along come multicultural good ol, Gr8 Britain and the high streets, web sites, magazine, papers, tv and anywhere else that advertising can find itself full to the brim with ways to treat your 'mum'...from Thorntons chocs/flowers wrapped in ghastly pink paper, the obvious teddy bears to tell us we're the best in the world or maybe surprise tickets to a weekend Spa in Toronto (okay, maybe Teeside!!) or at least to hear IL DIVO...but out of hand it has got.
Do I wait to be told once a year that i'm a lovely mum? well frankly actions speak louder than words and its the other 364 days a year that will underpin that thought and smugness which I'm not at all sure I'm deserved of. Just the same I might as well appreciate the carefully chosen card, more the thoughtful words and even the trinket which in my case was a bright pink HEAD GIRL school monitor badge and the cutest rubber duck to float in my bath. Perhaps she thinks I'm quackers!!! Indeed, maybe I am.... So whether you'll be in church parade or just having lunch with the clan....i guess you -like me- might as well appreciate the effort...next week it will be another reason to do much the same for the best fathers in the world....maybe its not such a bad idea after all....

CREAM WITH EVERYTHING!

I'm definitely not the first, nor likely to be the last person to write for 20 minutes about Cream. Not the milky stuff, no, i'm talking decorating, colour charts and paint pots! To say I have felt nothing less than exasperation about the choices, from the hues of tinted whites to the richness of custardy yellows, not to mention the full range of citrus tinged lemons and some that are simply brown n dull. No, what I wanted was the right shade of cream for the room in question... In this case one that doesn't get any sunlight being at the back of the mansion and with a blue carpet currently covering the floorboards, something that wouldn't appear green or dingy...Should be easy...Check out any mainstream colour chart and take your pick....then put some up on the wall and..............yep, you've guessed it...it's wrong..Just not right.. too light, too grey, too dark, too peachy, too lemony and simply not what I had in mind...Of course if I were of male persuasion i'm sure MAGNOLIA would have been 'perfectly fine' but being a woman with so many buttons and controls perhaps I can be misgiven for checking out the Calico, the Barley, Whicker, Almond, Ivory, Nude Glow and frankly even the Snuggle Up...Whoever makes up the names is deserved of an award..Still in these recession hit months, its keeping the Returns desk at Homebase and B & Q busy!!