No Back To School For Me

I can smell fall in the air. Walking the dog in the morning, I am noticing the air is a little crisper and the leaves are starting to turn, some have even fallen. I stepped on my first few crunchy ones this week.

I LOVE this time of year and the back to school feeling that goes with it. However, for the first time in a very long time I am not going back to school. And it feels odd.

My school days stretched from pre-kindergarten aged 3 up to 18 in the final year of secondary school. Then I went straight to university in the September and thus the academic yearly cycle continued for another four years.

Then I graduated. And decided to take a year out doing something I had always wanted to do - working in a special needs school. It was awesome. And it meant I still went through all the motions and seasons of a school year. Now, I have finished working at the school and am going back to working as a dietitian.

But I must admit, I feel a bit lost. 

I just bought a regular year diary fill rather than an academic. I just cannot get my head around the year starting in January and ending in December.

Here's what I will miss about going "back to school."

1. Buying stationary -  This was probably the most exciting thing to do towards the end of the holidays. I was a stationary addict and had to have a new pencil case every September. And usually a new school bag too . . .

2. New uniform - I can still remember moving to a new school aged 9 where the uniform was very old fashioned in the colours brown, beige and bottle green. Yup, it was as ugly as it sounds! But when I put on that new scratchy woolen beige jumper, God it smelt good. I can still smell it today and I am immediately transported back to my bedroom, putting it on for the first time, anxious but excited.

3. New workbooks - when you wrote your name on the front and start off with extra neat handwriting - such a nice feeling!

4. Enthusiasm to learn - I always concentrated so much better in the first term back, wanting to get off to a good start, doing all my homework in time. By Christmas however . . .

5. Feeling older and wiser - with each new year you had that little more responsibility and felt that bit more grown up than the year before.

6. The run up to Christmas - having a Christmas birthday, this was always the most exciting time of the year for me. I loved having that to look forward to as the days got shorter and colder.

Oh well, guess I will just have to make new fall memories instead!

Bath Bombs - Alternative Uses

I have been having a major sort-out at home and I came across a bath bomb which someone had given me as a gift a while ago. It has been sitting in my bathroom cupboard because a) I'm not a big bath person, I much prefer showers and b) my skin is so ridiculously sensitive I avoid using different / unknown products.

I enjoy being thrifty and am trying to be more so. The current Pinterest trend is helping me (to waste time) with this due to the never ending inspirations for crafts.

So rather than throw the bath bomb away, I had a quick search on Pinterest for alternative uses for bath bombs but couldn't find anything. I tried google instead and there were a few suggestions including drawer scenters which I thought would be perfect for me.

Here is the bath bomb, still in its box. It came packaged with popcorn which I thought was cute! I like the blue crystals in the top of it too:

I popped it inside a plastic sandwich bag:

And gently squeezed until the bomb started to crumble. It took a while to break up and get rid of all the lumps:

It was at this point that I discovered a fatal flaw to my plan . . . . the bomb powder was . . . . scentless. Perhaps because it had been sitting in a cupboard for a year or more : / How I managed to miss that crucial fact I don't know, possibly something to do with hayfever and sinus congestion.

Since a scentless drawer scenter is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, I went back to googling for other ideas.

I found something slightly less exciting but equally useful: using the powder as a scrub for the sink. Well, my sink needed a clean so I gave it a go and indeed, it worked beautifully. I only used a two-sided sponge, water and the powder and the sink looked super shiny! Plus I only needed a tiny bit of powder so there is plenty left over for future cleaning!

Showing you a picture of my shiny clean sink is a bit boring so instead, here are the pretty bags I would have put the powder in and used as draw scenters:

Thrifting complete for today!

Colours of The Rainbow

I snapped this pretty flower in the grounds of Hertsmonceux Castle during the Jubilee Weekend. I love how the colours change gradually from red to orange to yellow to green as you look down towards the stem. Isn't nature amazing?
 

Pashley Manor Gardens - Sculpture Festival (2)

My last post featured some of the beautiful sculptures at Pashley Manor Gardens scultupre festival. Here are some more, this time of the animal sculptures and grounds:

Pashley Manor Gardens - Sculpture Festival (1)

Yesterday, my Mum and I went to visit Pashley Manor Gardens, supposedly one of the finest gardens in England, loacted on the border of Kent and East Sussex. It had been on my to do list for ages and, well, we weren't disappointed.

It was one of the most beautiful gardens I have visited in a long while. In addition, they had a sculpture festival event with beautiful sculptures strategically placed throughout the gardens.

The Paper Mama - Fave Photo From May

My favourite May photo of my favourite boy! Head on over the the Paper Mama to check out all the May time favourites.

Heathfield Agricultural Show - Animals

Following on from my post on the vintage tractors, I just had to share some pictures of the gorgeous animals at the Heathfield Show.

Walking round the sheep enclosure, I realised how different sheep can look!

This beautiful guy was my favourite. He looked soooo silky and clean:

This one, on the other hand, needed a good old hair cut. It's hard to tell where the hair ends end the straw begins . . .

This one was dinky and cute:

But my favourite animal of all at the show was  . . . .



THIS gorgeous boy:

The was a pen full of real working bloodhounds. It was a hot day so the owners were splashing buckets of water on them to keep them cool and the dogs loved it. I wanted to take one home but Minty would have something to say about that . . .