Words of the day and a fact or two

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~Words~
Kindle - a group of kittens
Clowder - a group of cats
Rotational ambigram - a word that reads the same if looked at upside down.

Wikipedia commons

~Fact~
Cats only meow at humans. They growl and hiss at fellow felines, but reserve the meow for us.

Cats understand tone of voice. They can tell when you are angry at them, though they most likely don't care! :)

Hugs.

P.S ~ We're feeling quite a bit better, not 100% but better. Thank you for your prayers. xxxx

Poorly sick

The girls and I have been suffering with a horrible flu-like cold - aches, fever, upset stomach, shivers, etc. Hopefully we'll be back on top-form soon.

Please pray for the girls especially, Squidge has had this since Saturday night and Chatterbox is now quite poorly. They both have fevers. Chatterbox had hallucinations the other night, poor little mite.

Hugs.

Chrismassyness

It's been a busy day. I have trawled around every shop in our town looking for size 2 wellies for Chatterbox. Honestly, just before I'm about to lose the will to live, the very last shop we look in and I find some. Pirate wellies no less! Captain Jack Sparrow would be proud of them! :) It was exhausting. Hubs had a fun time at home fitting a light unit in the kitchen that involved pulling up carpet in Chatterbox's room, pulling up floorboards, and some electrical fiddling. We've checked the smoke detectors work just in case!! ;)

We've had a lovely evening, mulled wine and mince pies. Very aromatic.

Here are some of our Christmas decorations. Sorry for the blurry rather orange photos but we have a small camera and a very small living room! Apologies over...I love Christmas.

A bit blurry and orange, but you get the picture. :)

You might just be able to make out in front of the television right in the centre is a tiny tiny nativity scene. Lol, I bought that off eBay last year and I expected a full size nativity. I was rather surprised when it came through the post - to say the least. Always read the description, photos can be deceiving! :) Hub's feet and the X-factor on TV can also be admired! :)

Our nativity, you might notice the white dove lying in front of the crib. Lol it's fallen off the top of the stable and I didn't notice until after I'd taken the picture.

For some reason this is the only picture that didn't come out orange!

Through the mirror which reflects the window which in turn reflects the Christmas tree.

I love my tree, its design reminds me of the White Tree of Gondor

Misty Frosty

It's been all of a Sherlock Holmsey TV show foggy out there yesterday. The freezing fog left a layer of frost on everything. I didn't have much time to take many pictures but I got a few. The spiders' webs were beautiful.







This week has been busy busy. The girls are doing their school Christmas shows this week. It was Squidge's show today. She was a fairy ballerina dancing to the Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy from the Nutcracker suite. She danced beautifully. Though like every mother watching these sort of productions I couldn't get enough photos for other children getting in the way! Lol. :) It was good that I could sit at the front though, I zoomed through my work and was allowed to get out earlier so that I could get to the hall to get a great seat. I haven't got any pictures I can show, but she looked very pretty in a fairy outfit that someone bought her last year for Christmas.

Chatterbox's performance is on Thursday. She is supposed to be a Victorian Londoner. Here is the outfit I made for her from an old nightdress, lace from an underskirt, and old skirt of my Nan's and an old top of mine. I can't wait to see her show.





I can't wait for Christmas! I love this time of year.

Hugs.

Working Children in 19th Century Lancashire by M. Winstanley

Mining children

I've just written a review of this book on Good Reads and thought I would copy it here since I'd mentioned the book in a previous post.

This was a very interesting book. The plight (and it was a plight) of working children in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire was a dark one. To read of children who worked from 6.30am until 10pm;

Mill work was dangerous, legislation did try to improve the lot of children, but many mill owners for many years ignored legislation. Children often worked barefoot as it allowed a better grip of the oily floors

to read of children of eight and younger left at home to care for their siblings (of which there were many) and the siblings of family members and neighbours whilst mother went to work;

to read of children who worked for hours sat in the dark of a mine waiting alone for a cart to come along so that they could open the door (see 'trapper' picture below from the 1840s);


to read of children who worked 60 hours a week on top of their school hours...is rather disturbing to read. Yet for many, this was the only way to survive, the only way for a family to have enough to eat and a roof over their heads.

The poorhouse or workhouse loomed heavily over the heads of the working classes.

As the author points out, often we idealise the past, "There was, it seems, an uncomplicated golden age not so long ago when children were children, families were united and happy, and moral standards were universally adhered to...[O]ur modern concept of 'childhood' is, to all intents and purposes, a recent construction and not one which would have been recognised by previous generations."

Snowman and snow baby