Well first it is sunny and then it is downright freezing and the then the rain won’t stop and then it is that rather darling word inclement and though one wants to be in the garden, nothing is growing yet and there is only so much much tidying a person can do and the house is sparkly after a rather intense month long Seasonal scrub and you can’t quite get your creative brain into gear and really you just want to feel better about your garden and the cat litter  and your thighs and your husband and your lack of ambition and the stains you can’t shift from the linens you unearthed at the car boot sale on Sunday, you know?

Well of course I do.

And though obviously I can’t help at all with most daily dilemmas, I can of course come up with a precious little list of puttery treats for cheering a person up now can’t I?

* Disguise brown plastic garden pots in the house by wrapping them in folded white paper doilies and tying them with ribbon. Quick, effective and pretty while seedlings are growing on the windowsill…

* Use this lovely on-line monogram generator to personalise a set of blank note-cards and use them to send out springtime greetings to far-flung friends.

* Soothe frazzled nerves and and anxiety by mixing a teaspoon of Ashwagandha powder with warm milk, rosewater, cinnamon and a little  maple syrup and drink after a cosy bath. Nothing, upon nothing is more pampering when the world feels as though it is falling in.

* Use  a peg to clip gardening gloves to the end of the washing line so they are always handy…

* Find a happy but not too precious vintage mug and use it to hold an array of plant markers and few pencils in the greenhouse.

* Print out this lovely reminder to simplify on to a postcard  and use it as your bedtime bookmark…

* Buy a pack of really pretty labels and use them to mark every plastic container, zip pocket and file you own. This simple act reminds us not to use each place as a catch all and prevents the accumulation of junk in places formerly allocated for a specific purpose.

* Wrap pickle and jam jars in vintage hankies secured with ribbon and use them as tea-light holders. Make as many as you can and light them as the sun goes down.

* Print a bedtime prayer or blessing on to paper and frame it at your child’s bedside.

* Convert a lace trimmed pillowcase into a drawstring bag and use to store carrier bags in the kitchen.

* Have two holes drilled through a vintage baking tray, string from velvet ribbon and use in the kitchen as a magnetic noticeboard.

* Take yourself to the nursery and buy a house-plant sized aloe vera plant to keep in the kitchen. Just perfect for springtime bicycle cuts and scrapes. Just pull a leaf, slice and wipe over the wound for super fast anti-bacterial healing.

* Buy a tiny little spiral bound notepad and keep it in your bedside drawer. Use each page to write down a single worry and rip them out when the worry has gone. See how quickly your worries disappear because all too often they never really come to pass…

* Sew dried lavender into a tiny square of muslin, then lay flat in-between two doillies to make a collection of darling little vintage scented sachets.

* Make a small pot of tap-scrub (baking soda and peppermint oil mixed into a paste) and keep in the bathroom. Apply wherever black yukky yuck has built up, leave for a few hours and wash away.

*  Keep a small pretty watering can hanging in the kitchen and pour the water your veggies cook straight into it. Allow to cool then nip outside and use as a delicious, nutrient rich feed for plants.

*  Crochet yourself a hanging plant holder and buy yourself a spider plant to purify the air. Kitsch and healthy.

* Make yourself an evening cocktail of Pimms, cucumber and  tincture of borage  to gently whoosh away any feelings of mild depression.

* Start saving egg shells in a jar in the kitchen. Let them dry before crushing and adding to the jar then use them to provide much needed calcium to the base of tomato plants.

* Cut a sprig of fresh lavender about three inches long and steep in a little teacup of boiling water. Place the saucer over the cup and leave on your bedside while you take your bedtime bath, then climb into bed and sip this lovely calming lavender water slowly.

* Onions sliced in half and left around the house where flu or nasty colds or other ailments are spreading are thought to draw away the virus, and though this is barely the loveliest of treats one should consider this age old remedy when illness threatens household harmony.

* Have a pull out shallow basket under the bed to store decorative bed cushions overnight. So much nicer than chucking them on the floor.

* Plant a few  pennies around the base of gorgeous blue hydrangeas and they won’t fade…

* Astonish vintage loving friends by serving lace patterned biscuits. Simply roll a rolling pin over a small doilie pressed into chilled dough and bake. Sooooo pretty.

* Paint a little bucketful of smooth stones with eggshell paint and use as pretty plant markers in the garden.

* Mix up a bowlful of baking soda with enough water to make a paste, then use a cloth to apply it to your kitchen sink dish rack. Scrub the nooks and crannies with a toothbrush, then leave for ten minutes and rinse away: odours be gone!

* Buy a length of strong wire and use to wrap around terracotta pots and tie to trellis to create a hanging garden.

* Smash old chipped vintage china and place on the saucers of garden pots to add colour and make those darn slugs life that little bit harder.

* Fold tea-towels in half and loop over the towel or oven rail. Mark the depth of the rail on the towels, then stitch ribbon ties on both sides so they can be tied on and won’t go wandering around the kitchen. Gorgeous with short lengths of old lace on plain white towels.

* Make your own lavender essential oil (oh bliss).

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So everyone I know is suffering at the moment- suffering with general Winter malaise, aching limbs, stiff joints, coughs, colds, sickness bugs, sore throats and ear infections. You name it and one of my family, little or large is currently enduring it. Even the kitten is looking a little under the weather. And one could of course troop off to the Doctors and declare oneself unfit for purpose, then get down on our knees and beg for antibiotics or NHS sponsored cures , but we all know that only endurance and comfort will really do the job.

And so Dear housekeepers, here are a few Brocantefied alternatives. (Brocantefied is a good word isn’t it??). While I hesitate to call them treats, for there is little to be deemed joyful in the sniffly depths of February, they are in the best tradition of all my puttery recommendations resplendant with natural goodness, require a little bit of your heart to create and make life feel that little bit cosier. And more than that, from the plethora of alternative remedies to be found on the internet, these are the ones that require the least faff, and from my own experience, go some way to soothing the misery of poorly sick ailments…

* The main way to tackle a fever is to increase the heat in the body and we can do this comfortably by eating salads sprinkled with liberal doses of pepper and soups souped up with spices. Or if you are up to it, indulging in currys and the hottest chillies you can stand…

* Basil is well known to have antipyretic properties and so works wonders when your temperature is rising and you are feeling clammy. The best way to take it is in a tea infusion, so simply steep a few fresh basil leaves in hot water and sip slowly throughout the day. Better yet, get yourself an infusion teapot and keep a pot of basil tea warm at your bedside.

* Take a just warm chamomile bath and add a few drops of bergamot oil to increase the chances of lowering your body temperature.

* Two drops of lavender and two drops of chamomile oil dripped on to a cotton wool pad soaked in boiling water and applied to a boil will take the soreness out and draw it to a yukky old head.

* A tisane  made from thyme leaves soaked in boiling water for ten minutes will gently relieve an irritating cough.

* Mix three drops of eucalyptus oil and four drops of lavender oil into 25mls of sweet almond oil and use it to massage around your nostrils and across your cheekbones to relieve the misery of stuffy nosed catarrh.

* Soak a flannel in hot water and drip on four drops of chamomile and four drops of lavender, then use as a wet compress against a painful ear. Repeat as often as is necessary to keep the flannel warm.

*  Use four drops each of tea-tree, eucalyptus and pine-needle oil in a few bowls of warm water to purify the air in a sick-room and prevent germs from spreading.

* Gargle with warm water to which you have added two drops of tea-tree oil to banish a sore throat.

* Cure breathlessness by allowing cold water in a copper cup to steep overnight at your bedside, and then drinking it as soon as you open your eyes in the morning.

* Don’t plant that lavender outside, keep a pot growing on your bedside for the permanent heady, sleep-inducing scent of it:  just perfect for rubbing between your fingers and making a scented wish on nights when you are feeling a little yucky.

* Cut through a mucussy cough by sucking on half a lemon liberally sprinkled with black pepper. Eye-watering but it works!

* Banish a headache by drinking juiced watermelon every couple of hours until the symptoms ease… fresh, delicious and effective.

* Keep a small tube of aloe-vera gel in your first aid cabinet and dab on to cold-sores at the first sign of that horrible tingle.

* Soaking slices of orange in red wine overnight dramatically increases their vitamin C yield and if then gently stewed the following morning they provide an effective remedy for the kind of irritating throat phlegm left behind  after a cold. That and copious glasses of delicious pineapple juice.

* Carrot soup (to which you have added half a tablespoon of salt) taken every hour will gently halt Winter diarrhea.

* Stop a cold developing by adding two drops of Thieves Oil {Genius stuff!} to warm water and sipping every couple of hours. Or mix with almond oil and rub into your little one’s feet every day during the Winter.

* When nausea strikes press an ice pack to your head and sip slowly on a cup of Miso soup. Works everytime!

* Warm icy cold bones up with a cup of ginger tea to instantly boost your circulation and get that frozen blood pumping all over again.

* Taking a rosemary oil and epsom salt bath will ease aching muscles and eradicate twitchy, tired legs. Add two cups of epsom salts and ten drops of rosemary oil to a warm bath and relax until the water cools. I have insanely restless legs and this along with drinking tonic water and taking Kalms is the only way to sleep well at night.

* Un-block waxy ears the gentle way by popping a few drops of salt-water into them daily to break down the wax.

* Add a spoonful of apple-cider vinegar to every glass of water you drink to gently lift the Winter blues. I don’t know why it works, but it does.

* Slice a lemon in half and use one half to wipe across the skin on your calves and banish the dry skin central heating and months in wellies so frequently causes, rinse with warm water and massage with almond oil, et voila, happy pins!

Feel better soon Sweetie!

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Though it is part of my evening routine to take a bath before I snuggle up in my rather becoming thermal nightie and socks with pom-pom combo, there are some nights when I can barely spare the energy, or indeed the will, to wander up the stairs, let alone run myself a sweetly scented bath and lounge around in fragrant waters when I could be curled up with a book, or dare I say it…  watching Coronation Street.

And yet if I don’t mark the end of the day by soothing my worn out achy lady bones, my mind descends into a sleepy slump and the night is lost to drooping eyelids and the relentless mean and nasty wriggle of the Restless Leg Syndrome I have been afflicted with since my pregnancy with Finn.

So on days like this I take a hot, steamy candlelit shower with a few drops of essential oil splattered on to the shower floor, then wrap up snuggly and go downstairs. All well and scrumptiously soothing. But it turns out that there is a better way: a little something that means we don’t have to risk life and limb scattering an oily substance on to a slippery shower base, a little something I suspect you all knew about and nobody thought to tell me, so all hail the ever so slightly blissful Shower Tablet!

(Dear me I’m sooooo paranoid! An aromatherapy conspiracy? I think not).

Anyway, who knew?? I just chuck one into the shower and before I know it I am standing in a cloud full of deeply fragrant steam. While I have only managed to get the Aura Cacia Eucalyptus ones here in foggy old Blighty (which unblocked a stuffy nose in a jiffy!), I see you lucky people state-side  are positively inundated with choice when it comes to aromatherapy in the shower.

Another gorgeous little something for our comfort drawers, Housekeepers?

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Now that I have an oven that doesn’t burn things and a kitchen in which I can actually find things, life in the baking department is double the fun.

Take the search for the holy grail of chocolate chip cookie recipes. Over the years I must have baked hundreds of the darn things with not one batch being the chewy, crispy soft centred epitome of cookie perfection I usually hoped for as I sat on the kitchen floor watching them bake in the unreliable, frankly downright naughty oven I owned for the majority of my baking life.

And then came my cream beauty: a darling of a double oven affair with fan and convection options and a snazzy probably destined never to be used plate warmer affair to boot. Readers, I am in love. Not only is my oven handsome it also delivers cookies to die for.

So I can’t stop baking them. Last night found me in the kitchen at ten o’clock, so I could devour one perfect specimen for supper and again slaving over a hot stove this morning, so I could wrap a couple of cookies in layers of foil so they would still be warm at playtime for my little munchkin.  Something made possible by dividing the dough into tubs and chilling overnight ready to pop into the oven as and when required.

I have, in the past couple of weeks tried oodles of cookie recipes, taking out this and adding that until I have finally settled on a basic recipe that thrills my taste-buds and has my house scented with warm cookie love in fifteen minutes flat. I made the choice to combine unsalted butter with margarine because it really does make a difference to the texture and does away with the need to add extra salt. The recipe below is for chocolate chips, but I have also tried them with rose-syrup and pistachios, smarties and white buttons and they were all good.

So good in fact that they are gone in a flash…

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Hello Darlings. Imagine the scene, your slightly unhinged protaganist, sitting huddled on the sofa, wrapped head to foot in a Granny Blanket because she is too lazy to go upstairs and put the heating on. Yes. Here I am wrapped in crochet squares and wearing holey socks, my child spirited away by his Father and a weekend of who knows what to do in front of me.

It is Autumn. Proper Autumn now. I have bought good drinking chocolate and orange scented star shaped cinnamon nibbles for a night in alone, and I have been whiling away the hours before the witching hour searching for teeny little pieces of the season to share with you… and so for your pleasure, please enjoy a quote, a song and a book celebrating all that it is to be blown into yet another gorgeous Autumn….

A Quote…

“If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It’s a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it’s time to reflect on what’s come before.” ~Mitchell  Burgess.

Time to reflect…

A Book…

Autumn by Muriel Hine(1917)… I do so love books in which our heroine finds it necessary to go find herself in a cottage left rather conveniently to her by a long lost relative, and this M’dears is exactly what we get in Autumn: a cottage, a dis-contented wife and a manor house, all the ingredients a lover of domestic fiction needs for retiring to bed and reading by condlelight on a chilly October evening…

Time to snuggle!

And a song…

Tis Autumn by The King Sisters, 1941

Time to dance!

Have a lovely evening Housekeepers.

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