Betty the Pianist

Well, what happened was.... I got this great old clockwork musical doll from the seventies, called Betty the Pianist.. and I thought I should try to video her.. and I got a bit carried away... and then I saw the Pantene advert with Mylene Klass... and I just thought... well, why not?

Sorry I haven't been blogging or commenting much lately. I'm trying to get down to some work and not get too distracted.. Oh! Well, yes, apart from the doll video thing...

Easter Parade

I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend! The sun was shining here for most of it, which put a spring in my step, and made me want to put on an Easter bonnet, trimmed with blooms and blossom!

We had our London Friend staying with us, who likes to see countryside and green space when she comes to stay with us. So on Sunday, we went for a walk up Solsbury Hill, just outside Bath (yes, the one Peter Gabriel sang about). It's an old iron age settlement, a hill with a flat top - and steep sides, as my legs can verify! It was very hazy, but the view from the top is lovely. I thought we had been there before, but neither London Friend, nor Mr Kitsch could ever remember having been there. This means it must be over 20 years since I'd been there, back in the days when I lived in Bath. That's scary!

Then we went for a walk round the park, and in particular, to the Botanic Gardens, full of spring flowers and blossoms. Then we dropped London Friend off at her parents, and came away with some of her mum's delicious home-made fruit cake and marmalade. Yum!

We were all set to just have a lazy day yesterday, but we somehow managed to summon up the energy to do some gardening. It was probably fuelled by guilt, really, as the poor blackbirds were getting lost in the long grass on the lawn. I did a lot of pruning and after a run-in with a particularly aggressive berberis, my arms are so scratched, I look as though I've been in a fight with a wildcat. But now the garden looks respectable again, and we were able to sit back and feel smug!
(I'd like to pretend the snakeshead fritillary in the photo above is my garden, but it was in the Botanic Gardens...)

Over-egg-cited

Happy Easter!!! This lovely cup and saucer set was a present from Mr Kitsch today. I love it!
I'll add it to my collection of cute nursery china. Here's one of my old favourites, with an Eastery theme.

I've also added them to my Easter display of crazy cuteness this morning, which is coming along nicely...

Mr K also gave me a cute selection of Hello Kitty goodies. Cute and chocolately!! Yay!

I made Mr Kitsch a 'space egg', as he's been reading lots of books about the Apollo space programme recently. He loves space! I was inspired by getting a really nice little vintage spaceman.

And finally, I got this rather wonderful craft book from Ebay this week. I've put some other photos of the 'egg-citing' projects on Flickr. One of them is described as "truly an adventure in eggery"!

Things that go bump in the night

We've been hearing funny noises lately. Out in the dark. Just outside the window, on the rough collection of stones we laughingly call a patio. Shuffles, bumps, that sort of thing. Then one evening there was a loud crash and we found the bird table had been knocked over. When Mr Kitsch opened the door he could hear rustling in the bushes. "It must be a cat," we said, not wanting to worry ourselves. "Or a fox.." There are a lot of urban foxes in Bristol.

Every now and then in the evenings, we'd hear something, but never saw anything. Mr Kitsch started to refer to it as "The Beast".

Then last night, I was reading in bed, while Mr Kitsch watched TV. He suddenly rushed upstairs to tell me The Beast was in the garden. It was a badger! I ran downstairs and looked out to see it happily rooting about on the lawn. Apparently, when Mr Kitsch first saw him he was energetically digging up one of my pots outside the patio door. Cheeky so-and-so! He wasn't the least disturbed by us or the light from the house, and wandered off in his own time.

So, another visitor to the garden. I'm thinking he might be called Bill - I can't think why...