Pocket Money Tales

Pocket money - spent as soon as it reached by young chubby grasp.
Twinkle comic - 'Specially for little girls',  setting the magazine love off that's still with me.
Glossy pages, pretty illustrations, the smell of the paper. 30p of wholesome delight.
School started and soon my pound was spent on stickers. Glorious stickers.
Care Bear infatuation. Book filling up. Still need the sparkly Grumpy Bear. Keep buying more packets.
Sealed surprises. The start of being a collector. A great way to spend your weekly 'spends'
Friday night. Handed over. Ready to spend at the shops that weekend.
Rubber erasers, whole aisles of them. Strawberry smell, hamburgers, glitter cases. Filled up my pencil case.
Acorn Savings Account with my first building society. Coins fill. Encouraged to save. Worked for a while.
The order of 10 pences and pennies pleasing to the eye. Soon emptied. 
Hair bobbles, bows, new stud earrings.
A future career in IT started by spending pocket money in Woolies on the cheap Spectrum games.
Manic Miner, Jet Set Welly. Took forever to load. Worth every penny. Made me so happy.
Putting my money towards larger purchases. Learning that you can't always have what you want.......
.........at least straight away anyway :)


90's pocket money increase in return for keeping my room tidy. Good intentions.
Getting into trouble and only receiving half the amount. Hormones and arguments.
Receiving extra money for doing well at school. Up and down from one week to the next.
Teens brought supplementing pocket money with a paper round for more expensive tastes.
Flash trainers (hideous now)  Keeping up with the trends.
Buying my first CD from Manchester. Going there with friends on the Metrolink. Independence.
Too many sweets before the school bus arrived.
Shopping at the market. Hair accessories - hundreds of scrunchies and friendship bands. Fluoro trends.
Money spent on a love of reading. The best thing in my opinion to spend your cash on.
Magazines that were really too old for my naive eyes at the time.
Eventually getting a proper Saturday job and saying goodbye to my weekly pocket money.
All grown up.

When to start pocket money with your own child?
What would my three year old buy?
Small toys and tonnes of ice cream. 
Not quite old enough to understand about money but learning about helping out.
On reflection I was too spoilt as a child. Not many chores, no responsibilities.
This time - reward charts and rotas. Encourage him to save. 
To give more meaning to money.
Learn from the mistakes that I made. Save up, don't spend it all at once.
For the time being, I put money into an account for him. Growing all the time.
In the next few years I will pass the coins into his chubby hand
just like my chubby grasp once did.
I'm sure he will have his own ideas about how to spend it too.

For money saving, please check out  www.vouchersky.com

Little Bird and the Big Bugs

 An impromptu trip to the zoo seemed like a great idea they said..... until........they scared me with the most frightening creatures I have ever seen in all my three years. Huge ants eating big red apples and strange clawed monsters that squirted me with water. When they said zoo I was thinking happy penguins and pretty flamingos not these monstrosities!
 Snap, snap, run! Squirt, squirt, hiss, run! What is happening? What do these signs say - Mind-bogglingly big BUGS!  To be honest being squirted with water by this rude bug was of little effect since the huge grey rain cloud that appeared as soon as we entered the zoo burst and made all of us soaking wet through. No coats, how silly but then it was warm and sunny when we left. So this mean squirting bug was wasting his time.

 Didn't fancy messing with the spider, although he did whisper across his silky threads that his big brother was around the corner. Ermmm bigger than you? Probably just a joke Mr. Spider and I'll be moving on. This was a nice chap who was more interested in eating his stalk. Very weevil like. More of a pest really as we passed him munching away. Getting a bit frightened again now. Never should have watched that Jeff Goldblum film. Mum did say it was strictly off limits. The size of these insects tells me somebody has been experimenting.  How strange you look grasshopper of such ginormous proportions but it's ok because I'm not a plant, honest, I think you prefer them, not little boys. A friendly lady at long last. We all love you in our garden, please come to out garden and clear out the aphids. Thank you. Your house is NOT on fire, so don't fret.  What the.....yikes....oh my. Quick run! That spider was not telling lies after all. Oh this is horrendous. Even my mummy is running and taking me with her. Go away and don't turn up in my bath later. Off to hitch a lift now before I get washed away in all this rain. Come on Miss Ladybird, let's go. I hope I don't have nightmares tonight and I hope I only ever see small bugs again.

The last sunbeams at the allotments

August saw handfuls of berries and jam jars full of fragrant sweetpeas. An intoxicating smell that drifted through the house. Pure smell of summer to me.
Runner beans that struggled this year and peas with unwanted tennants in the pods. Wigglers. Yuk. Next year I'm going to just grow french climbing beans and borlotti. I find runner beans too fiddly.
Pumpkins and courgettes if I'm honest were a no show. I really need to fertilise the plot this winter.
Teeny, tiny grapes.
 Berries were my largest harvest. Dripping jewels. Red currants an added treat into morning cereal and porridge. I baked a red currant cake too that worked out well, filled with cream and yet more berries.
 My father's plot was much more successful. An abundance of everything. He knows what he's doing. A muck man. A producer of nettle and comfrey tea. Meticulous.

His plot neighbours are keen too. Lots of smart looking allotments with pretty displays. Cut flower areas and clematis climbing sheds. Huge lavenders and pergolas to allow sweetpeas to climb up. Some plots are more like little gardens, I like this. 
Hello there Miss Scarecrow. This would be fun to do with Little Bird next year. I must go and look for some scarecrow festivals this weekend - one of my favourite trips out.

Grandad as silly as ever, pretending to be a dinosaur. Cue giggling Little Bird.

These grapes are just a bit better than mine. Ha, ha.

Harvest box from my dad to take home with us. Cauliflower cheese, rhubarb crumble, courgette fritters and lots of soup. This week I need to get back to my plot to start tidying up and taking the tomatoes off now - still green, to ripen at home. I promise you allotment that I will do better by you next year and will deliver you lots of horse poo.

Joining in with How Does Your Garden Grow? at Mammasaurus.

Urban Seaside

Sunny days and unusual sights of children skimming the surface of a pool in large bubbles. What must he be thinking at this I wonder? Just a jump and a skip of approval that this is interesting and an attempt to bypass the barrier. Being three and brave.

Before I ended up carrying a sodden child through this urban seaside that had sprung up at the shopping centre, we moved onto the sand. A mini beach to rest at with your shopping bags and a cappuccino. Bouncing bungee's and carousels were busy with children, happy for some entertainment during the tedious shopping excursion. I remember them well as a child, bored stiff, stood below rails of clothing whilst my mother and nana couldn't decide between pink or peach. I don't take my son shopping very often.

The fountains are our highlight. Jumping droplets and squirting water are of the utmost interest to Little Bird. As the fountains perform their dance, so does my son. Forgetting quite where he is and who is around. Mesmerized.

We were here to actually go to Sea Life Manchester but the queue was winding its way across the plaza, so we spent a little time mooching about first. Eventually we did line up and it was certainly worth the wait. Spiny, colourful, puffing, gliding, jelly, snipping, scary and flat. All varieties, all deserving of a few more Little Bird happy skips. I was expecting to see Jaws but they were just weenie sharks - I'd still be scared with them though. Personally, I thought the big head was more frightening - making me dream of Atlantis and Poseidon. The deep, deep blue.

Dig the City - Part 2

 

Back in Manchester again for the second part of the horticultural meets city tour. The first half is here if you haven't seen it. I was really tempted to buy another Hydrangea as the one in our garden didn't flower this year - no idea why? I think I'm going to get one in the spring to go in a big tub at the front door so I can manage the pH of the soil better. I'd like to blur the edges of our small driveway a little with some flowers.... so Hydrangea and Lavender will be a pretty combination. Think froth. 

 

Another idea I have is to put a mini pond together and the picture below has inspired me with Primulas and Astilbe as marginals.

 

Through the arcade into King Street where all the posh shops are. 

 

To a funny little alley with umbrellas above and interesting detail. Boardman's Entry it is called, found after a bit of internet searching. The inspiration for the brollies was the scientist John Dalton who apparently kept weather records of rainy Manchester. I found a great site by the way for finding amazing architectural delights in the city  - Skyliner

 

Gorgeous VW Campervan that I would love. Some care has gone into restoring this.

 

Vertical gardening ideas here reminding me to complete my pallet garden next year. I think this is so effective and will break up the fence at the bottom of our garden a bit. I'm thinking grasses and Day Lillies with some Heucheras .

 

Little Bird loved his buggy ride around Manchester. He has become very lazy recently and just will not walk anywhere. If we don't take the pushchair with us he runs around the front of us, arms up and if we don't pick him up there will be a full on knees tantrum. He's 2 stone and my arms are going to be stretched. 
What to do? 

 

John Rylands Library - a truly spectacular building. I've never been inside which is shocking and seek to remedy this soon. 

 

Next to such modernity. 

 

I fancy one of these huge red pots at the front door. Hmmm I may be on the lookout for one now and paint it up. 

 

Glass, glass, glass.

 

A city garden, very trendy with the orange chair. Must grow Dahlias next year.

 

More my style. Rustic and using whatever is available. Plenty of herbs.

 

I think this the back of The Palace Theatre. Reminds me of Alice in Wonderland with the colours.

Cupcake cafe! Box shrubs in shocking pink containers - yes please. Another idea.

 

That concludes my little tour around Manchester and I did get some inspiration for our front and back gardens. I'm doing nothing more than tidy up the garden now, no more spending aside from spring bulbs. It's always nice to make a few plans to get you through the winter's armchair gardening though.