Flowers and thanks!

Buying the first bunch of daffs of the year is one of my favourite things. A glimpse of spring when I'm trying hard to fight off the post-festive/grrr it's freezing and wet/doesn't everything look dreary blues. I really want to enjoy winter, I love the seasons but blimey Mother Nature really makes it hard in January so I enjoy the first bunch of daffs and take them as a promise from her of more beautiful things to come.

I love the smaller, daintier blooms so I've treated myself to a pot of paper whites that are just beginning to emerge, for my bedside table. As you can see, having taken down all of the Christmas decorations I'm sticking with the winter reds and whites and the snowflakes are still up because I am hanging on (and truly hoping!) for some snow. Driving home on Friday night it was white-over across the White Peak but frustratingly had turned to rain by the time I got in. Surely we're going to get some soon? Please?

When the crocuses and daffs appear outside, that's when I think I'll ring the changes and really welcome Spring into No. 25. Until then I'm enjoying rare pleasures like these and doing my best to see the beauty in the bleak, bare fields and trees and the stillness of it all.

My thank you is to everyone who's left a comment for me recently. Its wonderful to be in touch with such lovely bloggers and sharing beautiful things. Thanks for sticking with me, I never imagined people would be all that interested in my bits and bobs and I'm thrilled that anyone is! Thanks also to Rosie at Corners of My Mind who kindly gave me this Award, I'm really touched, thank you. I'm now supposed to tell you 7 weird things about me, I could probably go on for 7 pages but hope these will do!

1) I'm allergic to nuts, all types and turn into a bit of a foaming monster if I accidentally eat one. Its not nice but I'm very lucky not to suffer too badly, as long as I have pickles and lemonade in, things can be sorted out(you really don't want to know why!) The weird thing is that I didn't even know other people had it too - until I was 17! Yes, I have lived all my life in cave it seems!

2) When I change the sheets on our bed I must, must, thoroughly clean the bedroom too or that lovely, fresh, clean feeling is totally spoilt if you ask me.

3) I am a medieval history nut and have often lived for a weekend as a peasant - well the last time was ages ago admittedly but it was tons of fun, even the evening when someone dropped an iron-tipped flag pole on my head and I bled for England.

4) Simple arithmetic is beyond me despite my mother being an economist and one sister a maths teacher. (I admit to failing GCSE Maths first time around - oh the disappointment!) I am firmly on the other side of the family gene pool; words/pictures/music speak to me. I have no idea what "the rhythm of numbers" could possibly be.

5) I used to scream inside when mum dragged me out of my teenager slumbers to come and gaze at a comma butterfly on the buddleja or a tree creeper on the old apple tree. I am now drumming into my little ones, in the most over zealous fashion, the joy of wildlife in the garden (now we've got one - yeah!). At the moment Barney is fascinated and is ticking all our visitors off in his little book, but I'm not so sure how long it will last. I promise not to drag him out of bed though...

6) I have an aversion to certain words and I don't really know why, they just sound weird. My worst ones are; pinny (yeughh!), bap, piece (as in 'a piece of jam' - Stoke phrase for a sandwich), There are more but I don't usually don't remember them until someone says one and its like fingers being dragged down a blackboard!

7) I nag my family into being cosy. "Ooh, don't you feel all snuggly?" I utter on bleak, dreary days and everyone rolls their eyes, especially my poor dad who yearns for spring. Actually its all his fault because, as with most things, he sparked my imagination with tales of rainy childhood afternoons with a pile of books, an even bigger pile of toast and a roaring fire - oh what bliss. Not that this happens much in thesedays as the parent of two young boys, but I've already got them in training. Barney loves to curl up under the snuggler (my eiderdown) and watch the tv and even my littlest man gives himself a cuddle when I say, "is it raining Arch?"

I must pass this Award onto 7 fabulous bloggers and apologies if they have already received it (lots of people I was going to send it on to already have) but here goes:

*** Jess at The White Verandah

*** Lucy Bloom

*** Cathy at Pink Green

***Catherine at Mollycupcakes

*** Julia at Vintage Heaven

*** Faye at Country Chic

*** Jennifer at Buttercup & Roses