There are two eucalyptus trees in our garden.   They are not ours, they belong to our neigbours, but they overhang into our garden.   And for the past year the growing trunk has been pushing over the fence and so, reluctantly, it was agreed that they would both be taken down. Now I have a thing (I have a lot of “things” it would appear) about just chucking stuff

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I love a free gift.  Who doesn’t?  A little something for nothing is always welcomed.  Like our lovely local Indian restaurant who always sneak an extra main course in for us, or extra naan bread.   Lovely. Recently however I have seen free gifts that are making me very grumpy.   And I am not normally ungrateful. As a for instance, this actually dropped through our letter box this week.

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If you have been to our house or seen any photos taken in our living room you will have seen these: Super sized cardboard cartons.   They were made by C as part of her GCSE art project a few years ago and we loved them so much we keep them in the living room.    The orange juice box is about 4′ high! And for this week’s theme of

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Did you read the story in the paper this week of a fourteen year girl who tragically died after an asthma attack last week?  Her name is Cleo Lloyd and she has had asthma since she was two.   Sadly after an attack at her grandparents house she had to be rushed to hospital and hooked up to a ventilator.   After two days her parents made the heart breaking

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We saw JoJo Moyes talking about this book (and her best seller from earlier this year: Me Before You  WHICH YOU MUST READ IF YOU HAVE NOT.  And if you haven’t I am buying it for you for Christmas) at Henley Literary Festival.  Reviews for this book have been fantastic so I would love to know what you think as I dive into this month as well.   The blurb

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  When I read a book with a title like this I think “I could have written that” as I am always trying to find ways to streamline my life and find ways to make it so much easier.   It is how my Dotty Diary was born! This is a little book, just 100 pages but it is bursting with fantastic time saving tips, with 21 chapters that give

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Now that it’s December I am now trying to get into the Christmas spirit.   We have an embargo on Christmas until after E’s birthday on November 16th but now that December is here there is no excuse and so here is an idea for how to make Christmas decoration out of magazines. I follow a lot of crafty people on Twitter so thought that this year I would have

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Once upon a time I used to read the Daily Mail.  I actually used to buy it and read it on the train on the way to work. Then when I stopped work and was a stay at home mum I had it delivered. Until one day I woke up and read it for what it was.   Misogynistic, xenophobic tripe. Whenever I look at the side bar of shame

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  Did you hear about the guy last week who wrote to his three children?  He signed it off  “… bitterly bitterly disappointed, Dad”. Here are my thoughts on why you should never tell your children you are disappointed with them. I read that and the first thing that I thought was that he needs to take a good look at himself as a father.  Surely any parent who writes

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Well it wouldn’t be Christmas without some board games, would it?  Part of Christmas law to play games and have a row about somebody cheating or playing by different rules. I remember as a child we often had Christmas with another family and they introduced us to a game called Pass the Pigs.  A very simple game where you simply throw too small pigs and depending on how they land,

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So last week I did a Gallery post of my own since Tara hadn’t set a theme for us to link up to.  I picked “Eyes” as she was off having hers lasered.   A posted a pic of our cute dog Cheeky who has the best puppy dog eyes ever. Tara this week, unsurprisingly, has gone for Eyes as the theme.   Which leaves me needing a new pic

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