Thank you thank you thank you. I had so many lovely emails and messages about the sack dress. I was so touched by people reaching out and reassuring me.
It really was a very weird experience to receive the sack when I was 17. But I now see the problem was them. Not me.
What have I been up to? Well table scaping, obvs. If I’m awake I’m either scaping or planning a scape.
I made one last week just because I wanted to see what I could create with my new bargain finds, from eBay, boot sales and junk stores.
These photos are from the Mrs. Alice table scaping company website…
The glass jug alone costs £95.
The ornaments are hundreds of pounds. The table cloth is over £100
These table scape sets are incredibly beautiful. But they are incredibly expensive. A 4 person place setting set can be three or four hundred pounds. (Excluding crockery and cutlery. That’s available to buy separately).
I have a 12 seater table, I can’t do the maths but that is A lot !
They are spectacular feasts for the the eyes, and that’s without food. And let’s face it, I’m only really interested in the scaping. Cooking well is not on my list of skills, achievements, or even goals.
Following a recipe is made trickier by dyslexia. My brain skips words and drops lines. Oh the fun we have when I serve up my Gousto creations for dinner and we try and guess which bit went wrong. Usually there’re plenty of bags of ingredients I haven’t noticed were needed, which aids the “what’s missing tonight?” game. Hahah
Anyway, at cooking I’m a 2/10. Preparing the table though, I’m a good 7, maybe even an 8! :)
Thursday I was at a bit of a loose end. So I decided to have a practice of my blue period table scape.
Inspired by Mrs. Alice, but for a bargain basement price instead.
I bought this fabric at a local fabric store. Chris hemmed it for me. It was a bit pricey at £95 but my table is just over 3 metres. Which means the Mrs Alice one for £130 wouldn’t fit my table anyway.
Candle holders from Neptune Colchester.
This jug, a close enough substitute for the Mrs. Alice one was £2.50 from a car boot sale.
The tureen was £2 from a boot sale, the little blue ginger jar was from eBay. The little pot below was £2 at the boot sale.
I had a lovely time playing table dress up. I find it very relaxing. I can lose myself in creating something. And for someone with no classic artistic ability, it’s been really rather lovely seeing what I can create.
I can’t paint, draw, sew or craft in any way shape or form (believe me, I’ve tried and many people have tried to help find my hidden skill or talent, but there was nothing to be found). So it’s been a revelation that I can actually make something beautiful, that I enjoy, that I’m good enough at to show others.
Chris came in from the garden office while I was just adding the finishing touches. He was somewhat surprised and confused as we weren’t having anyone over.
But he did enjoy his lunch surrounded by beauty.
I think it’s safe to say that after 27 years together he’s used to the crazy. :)
I tidied it all away. All put back in the cupboards, as if it were a dream.
Now we just have to wait till humans can visit again. :)
Friday came round fast! I had been so looking forward to the weekend. My birthday was on Saturday.
Chris and I missed out on seeing family at Christmas, like most of the country did too.
So now it’s possible to meet up in the garden we made the most of it.
We planned, I thought, a quiet, low key, family bbq.
What I didn’t know was Chris had decided to pull out all the stops to make it an incredible birthday. (People did ask if it was a ‘special’ birthday, which I always find an amusing question. Since the time I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer, aged 36, I have found All birthdays special and poignant. I find every day special. I’m getting to live something that wasn’t guaranteed after all, I class myself as incredibly lucky.
So yes, it was a special birthday, I turned 48! (I have no idea why people are only excited and fixated by the zeros, to me all the numbers are special, all the days you get are special too).
But this particular one Chris blew me away. We usually have a Colin the caterpillar cake (other caterpillar cakes are available).
But Chris went big style!
Not only did he order a beautiful centrepiece cake, he ordered a carrot cake and a lemon drizzle, apparently he was concerned it wouldn’t be enough. Hahahahaha
He did something that I thought was very clever too. He told me Wednesday that I was getting a cake, he also said that I would be getting a present too on our day out in London.
This helped calm my stress, because as much as I love birthdays, I’m not very good processing anticipation or excitement. I get myself in a right tizz. To the point excitement becomes anxiety and I can’t enjoy anything because I’m in a twisted ball of nerves.
I don’t like surprises, I don’t like wait and sees. I like to know what’s happening and when.
This birthday blew all my others out the water because I was fully prepared, and more than anything, so was Chris. He thought of everything and more! :)
I was literally jumping up and down with joy when the cakes arrived! I have never had a cake from a bakery (well, I’ve had loads from Greggs, but this was a bit different). This was a masterpiece of a cake. Well, a collection of masterpieces as it turns out.
I had cakes, I had flowers, I had presents. And I had the most important thing of all…My family. Particularly the youngest member of the family. My beautiful little Zak.
It was so exciting to have Sam, Milly and Zak up to see us, they haven’t been up for over a year. I wasn’t sure how Zak would take to seeing us in the flesh, in our home/garden.
I needn’t have worried. I took him into the marquee to show him the toys I had set up for him.
He walked in and saw them and said in a loud, excited voice “Woooooweeeeeee Nana!!”
My heart nearly burst! It brought me nearly to tears. He’s such a sweet natured little boy. He reminds me so much of my boys.
The toys in the photo above belonged to Sam & Ben when they were tiny. I’m so happy I could give them to Zak to play with. It’s just so special.
I tried my boy’s dressing up costume on him too.
The dinosaur might be a tad big right now but he loved giving it a try.
I have the Bear in the big blue house costume still too.
God, he makes my heart sing.
Would it be an occasion without a scape? I don’t think so!! Hahahah
Sam asked me in the week what theme was I going for for my table. I said ‘lemons!’
‘Lemons!?’ He says, ‘that’s not a theme!’
It bloody well is if you want it to be! :)
Table cloth from an artisan home wares shop online called Faro home.
It’s hand screen printed in Jaipur. I absolutely love it. I wish very much that I was in Jaipur.
(My heart is breaking for the horrific trauma of covid India is suffering right now. They are in my thoughts, especially my friends there Xx).
The lemon tree is from an Etsy company called Kokken home.
I bought a lily of the valley from them too, which is also very beautiful.
My daughter in law Milly mentioned Time lapse video might be fun for my table scaping. It really was too!
Very happy with this new skill to play around with, so thank you for that Mils! xx
Dress from Ghost X Marks and Spencer’s collaboration, Wellies from Le Chamaeu
Everything was perfect, except the weather and that wasn’t a problem because we have the marquee up.
He thought of everything. To be honest, I was overwhelmed. Family, flowers, presents, cake. It was really a lot to take in.
I loved every second of it too.
And no birthday is complete without a…
Dress as above, Shoes from Chanel, Balloon arch from Amazon
…Balloon arch!!….I guess that should be - no birthday in Essex is complete without a balloon arch!
Last year, all I kept seeing on Instagram was birthdays with balloon arches. I was getting a bit green with envy to be honest.
And in the name of full disclosure I did actually buy this arch kit for myself, complete with electric balloon pump.
Sam and Chris worked on it. I have a feeling it was my first and last balloon arch too. It took considerably longer than expected. And really really fiddly. I have a feeling my arch days are over! Hahahahaha
I absolutely loved it though. :)
I was without a doubt spoiled rotten, by my friends and my family.
Ben bought me an immersive art experience for a Van Gogh exhibition and lunch after at Bluebird. Really really can’t wait. The exhibition will be amazing, as will lunch at one of my faves.
Kaitlyn bought me some wonderful bits for hot chocolate making, which was so thoughtful, one of my favourite things to do is make us all fancy hot chocolates, with all the trimmings. It really helped get us (me) through lockdowns, when we couldn’t go in people’s houses. Hot chocolates in the garden by the fire pit will be one of the lasting positive memories of this pandemic.
Sam and Milly bought me a book on Table scaping!!! They’ve Pre ordered it because it doesn’t even come out till Friday this week. I had no idea table scaping was even a thing till recently, I thought it was just me playing giant dolls houses.
My mum made this gorgeous replica outfit of one I had as a little girl for Little Suzy. I absolutely love it!
I was absolutely amazed at how spoiled I was. And that’s on top of having my favourite people here.
Last year, was less than ideal.
Ben and Kaitlyn live just round the corner, they came over, with a beautiful cake, but due to unfortunate weather conditions they had to leave fairly quickly as indoors visiting was banned.
It didn’t feel like a birthday once they had gone. I face timed with Sam, Milly and Zak but it obviously doesn’t compare to seeing them in the flesh.
I was overwhelmed in a good way this year. I had such a lovely day. Chris put on a lovely bbq.
I foolishly didn’t drink enough water and by the end of the evening, having picked Zak up countless times was in terrible pain with my hernia. It’s been behaving very well of late but some things can push it over the edge.
By the evening I was thinking I might have to go to A&E (ER) as the pain was getting a bit too much.
But I drank lots of water, laid down and massaged the hernia back in.
It didn’t fully help it. But the pain reduced enough to be able to sleep.
It was tender in the morning but so much better than it had been.
My hernia likes to rear it’s head on occasion. Usually special occasions, where what I eat, drink and do are vastly different to usual day to day life.
Thankfully no harm done this time though, which is quite surprising really as the pain is really something.
The weekend was amazing! I can’t think of a better to celebrate coming out of this peculiar time, than with all the family gathered round the table.
By Sunday afternoon Chris and I had slumped ourselves on the sofa, and felt jet lagged or hungover (which is quite some feat as we obviously haven’t travelled anywhere, and neither of us drink alcohol)
It could have been caused by the vast amount of cake we consumed. We were maybe in the midst of a huge sugar crash. Plus, I think seeing people again is actually quite exhausting. We’ve had over a year of just being in our tiny family/house groups.
It’s quite taxing on the brain to hold large scale conversations again. :)
And then came Monday. Chris took the day off from work and arranged a day of fun in London. First stop was seeing a friend of ours that we haven’t seen since before Christmas, and rather handily she works in a very beautiful jewellers in Sloane Street.
As I lay in bed before our day out, an email came through from Chris. He had got one of those personal video messages you can get from ‘celebrities’.
I was greeted by Sophie Herrman from Made In Chelsea (my little guilty pleasure).
Seriously, he literally thought of everything for this birthday. I cracked up when I watched the video.
The weather here at the moment is disappointing, disgusting and downright rude if you ask me. It’s May! We should be getting to the point of summer dresses and sandals. But no, what I had planned to wear had to be scrapped.
Instead I wore a thicker fabric dress, a vest and boots.
As it was going to be a very long day I didn’t want to risk jeans, or even stretchy leggings or trousers.
I’ve had a few issues with filter failures of late. So as it was an intentionally long day I opted for the safest option.
Dress from Ghost, Boots from Jimmy Choo
A lot of the time I get paranoid about people being able to see my bag through my clothes. Which I guess is odd as I’m happy to parade around in a bikini on the beach. But much in the same way that I don’t want my knicker lines to show I don’t want to see my bag out line.
I think it is a slight bit visible through this dress, but actually I felt in a ‘so what!’ kind of mood.
If people are offended by it they are free to look away, and let’s face it, no one is going to notice to start with, except me anyway.
We parked under Cadogan Square, yep, we drive into London still, I can’t see that aspect changing at all. We started just before the pandemic, as a friend of ours told us how cheap it is to park (we had always assumed it would be an expensive option and difficult to find spaces) on Sundays it’s actually free to park.
Once we park up we use the electric bikes for hire to get around. Or we walk.
I’ve not got a phobia or dislike of the underground or anything but it is grimey and usually packed. I have gone off it somewhat, now I have found alternatives.
We came out of the carpark at Codagan Square to find these beautiful sculptures in Cadogan Place Gardens.
How serendipitous that elephants from my favourite place in the world greeted me as I arrived above ground for my extended birthday day out.
How stunning are they!?
Anyway the day’s forecast was rain, rain and more rain. I changed my boots in the car for a more suitable rainy day pair.
I also had a change of clothing, some blankets to cover the car window’s should I have needed to change outfit, plus full make up repair kit and colostomy bag change equipment.
I use the car as a mobile home. :)
Dress as above, Coat from Burberry, Bag from Jimmy Choo, Brolly from Aquascutum, Boots from Russell and Bromley.
We had such a great day. Chris bought me my big birthday present, which I absolutely love.
We had a lovely catch up with our friend. We then went for lunch, we were sitting in the 5th Floor restaurant in Harvey Nic’s, when the waiter seated two people at the next table (at the required distance). Well, it was Tristan and Liv from Made In Chelsea. I thought Chris had paid for a meet and greet, but no, they were just there for lunch like the rest of us! Hahahahaha.
Somehow we managed to avoid every big downpour. The gods were on our side the whole day, for which I was extremely grateful as we were out to dinner in the evening, and although I brought spare everything, I hadn’t packed a hair dryer. ;)
We strolled up New Bond Street, Chris offered to buy me some new shoes…this may come as a shock but I turned them down. I’ve had 3 new pairs since Christmas and I’m yet to wear any of them in the real world.
I did go into Victoria’s Secret to get some PJs for an up coming weekend away. I tried on 5 pairs. I liked a couple, I particularly liked one pair.
I was just about to buy them when I looked at the price. The little, nothing to it, strappy vest top was £35, the very basic, plain bottoms were £45!!!!
A whopping total of £80!!!?? For some very underwhelming, although admittedly, comfy pyjamas!?!
I could get some, pretty much same, almost identical in fact from Primark for about £16.
So I hastily put back Victoria’s ones. Perhaps that is the secret? the price and quality don’t match up? Hahahahaha.
Call me tight, but no one but Chris and I will see them anyway. I can, and have been known to spend ridiculous amounts of money on day clothes (although since I grew out of most of my nice stuff since the start of the pandemic I have gone off spending big on clothes), but I’m not ever going to waste money on pjs.
So back to Primark it is then! :)
We finished our fabulous first day back allowed inside restaurants with the second restaurant of the day, at….well, where else would we go?!?…Chutney Mary!!
Ohhhh it was so good to be back.
Obligatory mirror selfie by the loos.
And my usual table photo. It’s the photo that’s usual, I don’t have a usual table. :)
We had been joking earlier in the day about ‘what if they’ve changed the menu?! Hahahahahsh, just imagine!?’
Well I didn’t have to imagine, they actually did!! And they took off my favourite, Butter Chicken.
I was nigh on having an anxiety attack, I did tell you I don’t like surprises!
Anyway, I was very brave and very strong (I know, I’m an inspiration to all hahaha).
I chose The Goan Green curry. I didn’t have high hopes as I like what I like. …and now we can add Goan Green Curry to my list of likes because it was amazing! Utterly delicious. Definitely recommend.
We’re back there again this Friday coming so I know what I’ll be having!! :)
I did mention that Chris had thought of everything, well, on the booking for the restaurant he said it was for my birthday…
What a birthday, I welcome 48 with open arms!! :)
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Just a bit of info about the elephants. Also this Saturday some of the private gardens and squares are open to the public if you’re in town and fancy a little look how the other half live…
