I'm a big fan of galvanised tin baths.  Not obviously, as baths.  That would be silly.  Next thing you know I'd be recommending you use pipe cleaners to clean pipes.  But no, as a large ice-filled drinks cooler at a 1920s themed speakeasy party, or as a garden planter, they are perfect. In fact I've used mine for both (not simultaneously you understand).

I picked up the bath for about £30 at an antique shop, but you can also find them online.  Although not cheap, they are pretty good value when you compare them to similarly large containers

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I have decided something about sheds; it's always good to get the smallest one you can. 

I mean, don't get me wrong, you need one big enough for the things you have to store otherwise you've just put up a wooden box in the garden, and that would be silly

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I've just done something a little bit Ground Force.  Thankfully it didn't involve painting trellis a frightening shade of lavender, installing a water feature or forgetting to don a bra. Instead I put up a mirror

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It's spring, which of course means daffodils, lambs, crocus and... snow.

Yes, I know. Ridiculous, isn't it

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Spring isn't here yet.  I just wanted to make that clear.  It won't in fact be here until two minutes past eleven on Wednesday 20th March.

If you hadn't guessed, I'm a bit of a pedant about this whole spring business

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I'm not good with the cold. Yesterday I was wearing thermal-lined wellie boots and an electric blue ski jacket.  This is worrying, not just from a fashion standpoint, but also because I was only in the kitchen.

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Yesterday the children and I planted nine crocus rings in the lawn.  I was feeling smugly pleased with myself until I remembered it's mid December and I'd planned to have these in the ground two months ago

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In my book fakes aren’t necessarily a bad thing.  I’m not averse to the odd spray tan (provided the needle doesn’t tip towards the TOWIE end of the scale), my hair is quite used to a helping hand in the colour department and I think I can confidently say the orange handbag I bought in that Chinese market is not a genuine ‘Birkin’ (the fact it began shedding its skin in the manner of a snake on a growth spurt should have been a giveaway)

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As a woman with a weakness for double-sided sticky tape, I can tell you with some authority that craft materials get very pricey. It’s all well and good the children recycling the living daylights out of old cereal boxes and toilet roll inners but the glue sticks they use to join this detritus together are getting so expensive I feel sure they’re made from the ground hooves of centaurs.

Oh and don’t try to tell me you can buy cheap, own brand versions, I need something that can stick surface A to surface B not something that will simply dampen and darken a surface whilst endowing it with the adhesive properties of a light drizzle. Thankfully, we’re in what some people call ‘autumn’ but which I call ‘free stuff falling from trees’. Yes, that’s right. Look around. We’re surrounded by multi-coloured craft materials in abundant supplies.

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"Christian!  NON!"

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