I want to Accessorize

OH, had to drop in before bedtime, you know that purse, which amazing is above, it was new never been used with tags and the tags said Accessorize. I didn't have a clue who they were, though I knew they had to be English because of the 2 pound coin, and while looking at Helen Phillips blog I saw her mention them and I looked at their site and found not exactly my purse but one similar for 7 pounds. Yeah I didn't spend anything like that and it's so nice, although it must be my latent other Northern Irish genes showing through, being a UJ and all. Ha ha, but it is so cute and I like the web site as well, oh to be in England or Britain and with the Irish bit thrown in, with a huge credit card loaded to the hilt, oh what fun I would have ...........dreams are made of this, soul less little capitalist wench that I am. Must remember if I ever win the Lotto not to tell Basil my plans for spending it. Love  Aunt Bee, just had to share my discovery, pathetic creature that I am.

You know the photos will be out of sequence, but I know you can cope.

lovely filmy black/roses scarf

Isn't it wonderful, a cute UJ purse, it did have a English 2 pound coin in it ,but the stall holder kept it.

All these buttons, I've put them in a bowl I had previously thrifted.

See we  have a sense of humour . So clever to paint a portaloo as  the Tardis.

The Grand Chancellor is the tallest building in Christchurch and its so damaged it's to come down.

This is the Sumner RSA the building at the back is wrecked unfortunatley people died here.

This is a huge rock which fell down the cliff face

This is the main street of Christchurch, Colombo Street.

3 books, including the very good American cook book, I love American cookbooks. 

As I sit here I smell the delicious aroma of Brownie baking in the oven and it's Monday. Whoa what do you think is wrong with me?  Monday is washing day not baking night, well it's 5.30pm. So the photos are from the Tiki Tour of Destruction and my great finds at the Market. Bloody blogger wont let me up load anymore photos, just as well, I need to taste the Brownie in case it's poisoned, the things I do for my family, what a wonderful person I am. I'll try and up load or down load the photos, someone did explain it to me the correct terminology, but I wasn't interested and promptly forgot. Need to make dinner before "the men" become wolves, it's not a full moon around here that makes my hairy bunch turn Lupine it's lack of food.Love to all Aunty Bee. 

Food food glorious food an eating kinda of week.

Yummy with a crisp NZ white which I found  luckily in the back of the cupboard.

Coffee cake to die for ,I kid you not.

I did it again, came home from work Monday and got baking, cheese and chive biscuits and coffee cake, I love coffee cake but hate to drink coffee, odd I know but that's me. The cheesy biscuits we had with a bottle of wine, I mean we, the Contessa (ConT) and the Yorkshire terrier (YT), who had come down from the North for a visit, and Basil and I. I asked them to stay for dinner and that was nice but not truly great,  then we had the coffee cake for dessert which was even better. ConT and YT had bought cakes on their way down from the North Island  via the ferry which goes from Wellington to Picton, they stopped at a highly recommended store and bought 6 pieces of various yummy things. They (the cakes) lasted till Friday, which was pretty amazing in my house. I have to down load some photos of their week and I don't think I took one photo of the ConT and I, so that's a bit sad but we did have a great time. We went out to dinner on Wednesday which was fabulous, they had dinner with us Monday, they went out to a top restaurant Tuesday and then so you don't think we are all about food we, ConT, YT and moi went out to Oxford to a well known cafe for lunch on Thursday, which was disappointing and poring with rain, but the town does have a wonderful book shop which was great to browse in. I shall have some photos to post tomorrow, of  our Tiki Tour of Destruction which I took them on, on the Thursday morning, we also took our 92 year old Auntie as she hadn't seen any of the city properly, well in daylight, so that's all to come tomorrow and I'll also include my thrifty/market finds which even If I say so my self was pretty good. So tomorrow it is. Oops forgot to say we had individual fish and chips for 40 people at work on Wednesday as it was the Trust's 14th birthday and lots of fizzy drink (no  I mean fizzy drink not champers) and heaps of orange cake, shades of dear Enid there I think.It'a  wonder I can push my portly frame between the chair and the computer. Love Aunt Bee.

The Fat Hen comes back from the the market

the estuary at 8am this morning

the incredible hand woven blanket

nice English tray

some books, lovely murder and mysteries

two prints

pillow cases

An oil painting which I'm going to hang before Basil sees it.

pretty cushion

Winny for Basil

The fat hen (me) went out this morning after dropping Aj at work. She got some great photos and some great bargains, well she thought they were. Sorry talking in the 3rd person or the 3rd hen will stop it now. I had noticed the local Anglican church, St Giles were advertising a Garage sale for this Saturday and I know the world is about to end according to that crazy American pastor, starting with a big earthquake in New Zealand which would trigger eartquakes all around the world, ( mmm, he must have missed the memo we have had our earthquakes in Sept. and Feb. but I thought I'll take the risk and go. It was good and I bought some white pillow cases, very useful, one 70,s purple/lilac pillow case and a purple flower one, an oil painting for $5, it's lovely and a pretty pink cushion vaguely Indian and I love anything vaguely Indian. Now I'll attempt to place them in the blog, and you know it's not going to go well, but here goes.Then I went to the market at English Park and again I did well. Books, handwoven blanket, floral tray and a cheapo clock, that I need  for work. The boss took the candle room clock out to replace a 'you know what " damaged one and I've been late for lunch everyday this week without a clock to check the time with, we can't have that can we.So that's it for now, I'm off to the League with a client, we are going to watch Linds a co-worker play, he's 53 and is very fit, he has got sick of soccer and has returned to League, Presidents grade of course, for this season, he hasn't played for 20 or so years. It should be fun. Or not as I have the most recent Red Cross certificate I prepared for anything, or I'll yell for a nurse or doctor, or possibly grab Maggie and hastily leave. The 3rd option looks the more likey. Bye for now, thanks for all the comments on the last post, I can tell you I'm fully recovered from my baking after work breakdown and Basil has a clean bill of heart health from the hospital. So all is right with the world for now. Bee.

Baking on a Monday.....very odd.

Returned home from work at 3.45pm.

Entered house, no-one home.

Husband at hospital for Cardiac check-up.

Son's at Uni.

Have complete brain explosion what if I baked before they came home.

Result Basil and Tom walk in the door as Ginger Loaf and Lemon Drizzle Cake are taken out of oven.

This is very unlike me, to bake on a Monday..........what can it mean. Please note bigger font only learnt to do this, and now I can read my own blog with ease, did I tell you I get the large print books from the library. I'm such a tidy baker, yeah go on, you believe me don't you, I found the clean-up vaguely therapeutic............what's happening to me, I don't know myself but it's a little like spring cleaning in the last days of Autumn.

Busy at work and busy doing nothing home.

I have been very busy at work at the moment as one of our co-workers is swanning around Europe, Vienna at the present time and I'm doing her job and mine. This is never a good idea and I know other bloggers have been under the same pressure in their jobs and at least I know when Mare comes back it will all go back to normal. I haven't done much, although it's pouring with rain and I have towels on the line as I type this, bugger, I shall continue on and put them in the dryer later, see I just don't want to go out in the cold. The weather has been lovely, but today is the start of winter apparently, cold winds, snow down to low levels and general misery.
Down to low levels reminds me the East side of the city has sunk 30cm lower than before" the you know what ".

plus CD's and a really good crossword book

We are feeling the pain of the people of Spain, bloody earthquakes. We had a decent 5.3 last week, but it seems just rumbles and small shakes since, people are really quite down now, with winter upon us and no real improvement in the state of the place, we are hearing day after day of people leaving, it's a little depressing, the paper said that the school system has lost thousands of pupils. The flow on effect of just that will affect the whole city less teachers needed, less schools, less buses it's all munted, actually we don't use that word anymore we use a word more connected to our Anglo Saxon heritage. A insurance man came to our work building and said it wasn't good and it might be best to tear it down and start again but it's in the lap of the Gods, so who knows. On a bright note the Contessa and the Yorkshire Terrier are coming down for a holiday, yes some people like that sort of thing, well to see us and the city so that's something to look forward too. I've been reading a lot and knitting, not much thrifting except for the book fair, if you desperately need a copy of the da vince code and lets face it you would have to be desperate I can get one, they tried selling them for $2, there was probably 50 on display and more in the other hall, and then he started begging us to take one, not pretty seeing a grown man beg. Love to all, Aunt Bee.

Photos of a destruction, excuses, excuses, and the sewing machine from Hell.

Nice shops in an old wool store building, still standing by the skin of their teeth. Not that they are open.

Many years ago as a department store it had the best cafe in town

This once was a fabulous Country style store.

I've been in here hundreds of times.

This is the Catholic Cathedral, they will be removing the dome in a few weeks .

To be honest I've been a bit tardy with posting, as for last 2 weeks I've had, a hard to shake bout of asthma. But I think it's under control, I don't have it often but since the "you know what" so many have people been having asthma attacks, it's all the dirt, silt and dust. Every little shake brings dust down to coat everything at work.A funny thing happened on Tuesday,  while 2 co-workers were telling one of our darling men, who has returned from a 9 week holiday in the North Island, while their house was being repaired, not to worry if a aftershock happens to go under the table, know matter how small it is, and low and behold we got a 4.1 kindly sent from down the road at Aj's (the son's) workplace before the words had left their mouths. So that joins the long list of things not to do to avoid bringing down another quake upon us, like don't buy clocks of Trademe, don't take Paul E. out for dinner, don't say "we haven't had one for awhile",and most definitely say " gosh it's really calm and still, perfect earthquake weather".
I was going to tell about my sewing machine , I bought it from a Aussie company with many shops in NZ, it was the most expensive machine I have owned but not expensive in the way of things. It wouldn't let me machine quilt anything,( I'm useless at machine quilting anyway) all though it's called a Quiltmaster. So I took it in to ******* shop (insert) name of popular brand of machine, and said it wasn't sewing well. The lady who served me looked vaguely familiar, said " Dear, when I sold these at ********* we had many returned because they had  the wrong walking foot with them, they aren't a good make". Yes is that's right lady I thought it was you who sold it to me. She was very disparging about the machine and said they are no longer sold by ********* as the were so bad..............lovely. Tried to get me to buy a second ex school machine for $1,300 or a $3,000 machine with all the bells and whistles. I smiled through my teeth, but silently made the decision never to buy one of their machines because if she sold me a machine which she knew to be **** once, I'm ****** sure I wont be trusting her again with even more of my money.
I know I'm sorry it's Mother's Day and  I'm moaning, and I did  get some shoes and gorgeous socks, of course I'm cooking dinner while the men watch the boxing, at least I'm at the kitchen table sewing without interruption. Now that's a real present. Happy Mother's Day to all Mother's, those who have children whether they are human, feline or canine.Love to all Aunt Bee.