Three cheers for coffee

 Summer Daze Well we finally have our Summer! I really miss those long, hazy days of a full three months of Summer. Back when seasons were seasons! The summers of the 80s and 90s where as kids and teens we would stay out all day, off on adventures and strolling back in for tea and a bath as the street lights came on. I spent a lot of time reading in the summer holidays too. Devouring books by daylight then reading with a torch under the covers! I am a very nostalgic person and look back very fondly on all the seasons of my youth. But the summer is my fave to look back on with love. I do wear rose tinted glasses. But then I was born in the 70s, a kid in the 80s and a teen in the 90s so who can blame me? We grew up in a row of terraced houses with backings. There were always folk to 'lake out' with and so many places to roam free. I was lucky to have a big bro to follow around and my friends and I, along with their brothers, we all made a fab group to play cricket, rounders, foot...

Bookshop Love I have grown up loving bookshops. I have so many lovely memories of bookshops, bookstalls and even book sales in the old library. I always feel better for a visit to a bookstore. All those lovely books waiting to be read, all in one place! I tell myself I am only looking. That I do not need to buy another book. Who am I kidding? I used to go with my dad to our old library to the Discarded book sale. Most books were hardbacks and were 10p or 5p. I would look through every stand and bring about 5 or 6 home with me, the word Discarded in pen across the first page. The summer fairs at various schools had fab book stalls too.  I loved our town library and visited regularly with my parents as a child. I loved choosing the books and getting them stamped. It was such a lovely atmosphere, downstairs in the children's library, especially after school in winter, all cosy, curled up with a book. I loved both my school libraries. Our secondary school library was a magical place an...

 Paddington Bear I have just watched the Platinum Jubilee sketch with our beloved Queen having tea with Paddington Bear and I got all emotional again! It was one of the highlights of the Jubilee weekend, a surprise for everyone and heartwarmingly nostalgic. Lovely memories of this little bear with a blue duffle coat and a suitcase have come flooding back. I can hear the narrator's voice from the 80s even.  I really enjoyed the sketch with the Queen smiling and getting her marmalade sandwiches out of her bag. If Pooh bear is jars of honey then Paddington is marmalade sandwiches! I mean, you never know when there will be such an emergency! I would have Marmite sandwiches though! This is such a lovely illustration too from pinterest. They both look so happy. Look at all those marmalade sandwiches he is stuffing into his suitcase! When we were growing up in the 70s and 80s, there were a few famous bears. Winnie the Pooh, Rupert and Paddington being three of the beloved bears we re...