188/365 Cos I am still ill at home (bleugh!)


I thought I would share another 80's party photo, this time me modelling my BF's HUGE cowboy boots! You know what they say..."Big Feet... Big Boots!" :)

187/365 A walk to Datchet Library one sunny Tuesday afternoon





Last day of holidays today! Boooooo! Still recovering from tonsillitis so the highlight of my day was a trip to Sainsbury's and then a walk to Datchet Library (with a Mountain Man look a like in a sharp suit jacket! *grin*) I do love Datchet, its so quaint and cute. Spookily one of the books I got out of the Library was a biography of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and as the librarian checked it out for me, she told me that they lease Datchet Library from him! And in fact its called Montagu house! He opened it when it first became the Library 6 years ago! Spooooooky!

186/365 To know me is to love me (I hope) and....





... to know and to love me, is to know I love peanut butter, and I mean LOVE it! In fact various parts of my single life were spent subsisting on almost entirely peanut butter :) So it's kind of odd that today is the first day I have ever thought "hmm I wonder how hard it would be to make my own??" and thus by the power of Google, I found the answer.. not hard at all! Peanuts in blender, add oil, whizz up, done deal! YUM! So so SO much tastier than any shop bought ones (and I am a connoisseur of most brands I assure you!) and works out at 24p per 100g as opposed to say Sunpat which is £1.06 per 100g! Thats what we call a Win Win :)

185/365 Feelin' hot hot hot!



And no, I am not referring to my temperature (although that's also true at the moment!) Our house warming present from the in laws was a chilli plant! So cool! (well hot really!) It's a beautiful plant in its own right, and we have already harvested our first tiny crop of little chilli's and then dried them ready for culinary use! The gift that keeps on giving! Love it!

184/365 Not AGAIN !!!


When I woke up with an inability to swallow and generally feeling like I had been beaten up, I worried that it might be my old friend of not long ago back for a return visit... and sure enough a trip to the emergency docs, and the look of horror on the GP's face at the size of my tonsil confirmed it.Yes tonsillitis again :( :( This time, double dose antibiotics and told to return on bank holiday Monday if no improvement... which leaves me wondering - did I ever really get rid of it the first time!?!?! So I wave off the BF to go and stay with friends and have our fun weekend away which I was really looking forward to (despite his vehement protests and want to stay with me and mop my fevered brow!) and prepare myself for another few days of feeling like proverbial death warmed up! Woo hoo!! (sarcasm anyone??)

183/365 Waistcoat Restyle






The BF had a lovely pin stripped waistcoat which had an acid burn (car battery - say no more!) in the back, and also on the inside lining. So I decided to see if I could bring it back to life with a new funky back and lining. I wasn't sure if it would work, and had no idea where to start, but we bought some funky purple material in John Lewis when we were in London the other day and I took it apart and then cut out the same size pattern from the new material and hand sewed it back together again. It came out SO much better than I thought it would, and I covered the inside burn with a little handmade "By Jules" label :) It took me a good 4 hours, but I REALLY enjoyed the challenge and the result! And the BF is delighted :)

182/365 OWLS!!!!









Does anyone remember how much I love owls? My recently discovered passion for them started in May this year in the Lake District and so with a week off of COURSE I was going to find my local Bird of Prey centre, and so we went here and it was really great! Really friendly staff and a 45 minute display of the birds flying, and 200 birds to look at, all out of cages, so you could get really close and great for my photography purposes :) I was like a kid in a candy shop, SO excited!! :)

181/365 Beauty right outside my front door!..........




.................but do I mean the sunset, the car or the man? Or all three :)

180/365 London Day!







We had a great, if wet and humid day in London :) Starting at the Imperial War Museum what caught my eye the most were the WWII propaganda posters. We then walked through a number of Royal Parks including St James' where the squirrels were quite frighteningly friendly! We watched one run up someone's trouser leg and eat food from their hand! Then off to Oxford Street for some shopping, and to a wonderful Asian Fusion restaurant for a 3 course meal with champagne cocktails and wonderful Merlot, then a run for the train! haha! We walked nearly 7 miles in total, MAN were we tired the next day! Great day out though :)

179/365 Teeny Tiny!








In 1927 Mr Roland Callingham, a London accountant, instructed gardeners to dig a swimming pool at his home in Beaconsfield. The pool and tennis courts were used for garden parties, attended by the high society of London. Politicians, minor royals, aristocrats and the movers and shakers of the era would come out for a breath of country air. In 1928, Mrs Callingham made a short but moving speech which suggested that either the indoor model railway went, or she did. The model railway moved outdoors. Mr Callingham commissioned a model railway firm to build the largest outdoor garden railway in the UK. In his spare time Mr Callingham, with his head gardener built some model houses to complement it; the pool then gained two islands and a pier. Encouraged by friends and staff, Mr Callingham planned a rural landscape surrounding the pool, railways and rockeries with boundless enthusiasm and unending passion for detail. His excitable team, including local schoolboys, turned their hands to modelmaking and the construction of Bekonscot Town itself – making it something of a post-school club for those inter-war years. Local buildings and personal favourites of the staff provided much of the village’s inspiration, for all were constructed from memory, photos or imagination. Following suggestions from friends and family, Mr Callingham opened Bekonscot to the amazed public in 1929. The village was seen in newspapers, cinema newsreels and magazines across the world, with thousands flocking to Beaconsfield to see the ‘real-life Lilliput’. It attracted the attention of the Royal Family, living just a short distance away in Windsor. The first visit was on 20 April 1934, the eve of Princess Elizabeth’s eighth birthday. The future Queen of England returned several times in later years, along with Princess Margaret, Queen Mary and the King. After her coronation, the Queen’s children came too and were equally enthralled with this, the smallest of kingdoms. There wasn’t an admission charge – but visitors were asked to put charitable donations in a box if they wished. Since then, all profits have been donated to charity each year – and they have given the equivalent of almost £5,000,000 to date.


We had a trip down memory lane on an August afternoon, as two of us had been here repeatedly as children and it was surprisingly good fun even at our advanced  age :)