A year goes by.....

I can hardly believe that a year has passed since my beautiful African Grey, Cocoa, died in my arms.  I still miss her so much and the funny thing is, occasionally I think I hear her whistle, which is probably one of the neighbours in the next street to ours, who has an AG called Luna....African Greys have quite loud voices! 

I would love to have another African Grey but so far have done nothing about it.  I have thought about it often over the last year and did casually mention it to hubby this morning, he said he understood why I'd want another, but that was the end of the conversation.  Maybe come the spring I'll bring the conversation up again and perhaps we can make some enquiries about breeders here in Spain.  I think Brians main concern would be that it might be hard to find a good breeder here in Spain as we'd not want to go through the same thing again as we went through this time last year.  

Cocoa giving the Evil Eye!

One of her favourite foods as a baby!

And one of her favourite perches, the wall mounted soap dish (soap free!!) in the bathroom!

She was very clever too...always 'on' the computer!!

It looks here as if Minnie Mouse was about to club her!!!  Not sure who'd have come off worse though!!!

Good old Cockney Fare!!!

Yesterday we went to Nerja for lunch in a sports bar called OLAS. OLAS means Over Land And Sea which is the name of the West Ham Utd football club fans magazine, and as hubby and son are big WHU fans, we had to go there.  However, my main reason for going was that they have started to serve good old traditional Cockney Pie n Mash with Eel Liquor!!!!  And that, I have to say, is my all time favourite food! (And you thought it was chocolate!!!)   Sam, my 20cm Elfdoll Hana Angel, also came along....here she is showing you the menu!!!

 

And here is the meal prior to splitting open the pies and adding Sarsons Malt Vinegar....and traditionally Pie n Mash is eaten with just a fork and spoon.

 

The minced beef pies were excellent, the pastry had just the right amount of flakiness to it, the beef was really tasty and the bottom of the pies was just the correct consistency.  The potato had been mashed with butter, whereas the traditional way is for it to be just mashed without any butter, spread or milk, but the taste was nice and it was good and fluffy.  The eel liquor was tasty but could have done with being just that little bit thicker, and maybe a bit greener.  Apart from that, it was lovely!!!  Plus it really was the only time I've ever eaten this traditional East End meal in full sunshine with the beach and sea in front of me!!!!

In other news,  I changed the eyechips on Heather Sky for her new handmade glass ones...they are really pretty and easy to apply.  I like them a lot!   Here you can see she's stolen Baileys beret!!

Heather was one of my earlier Blythe customs and I can't decide whether I want to redo her a bit, maybe give her more of a philtrum and carve her lips a little more.  I am always worried that anything too drastic will change my favourite dolls to the point that they are no longer the dolls they were....I've found in the past that even a new faceup can change the 'personality' of a doll to the point where I no longer want him/her.....so I'll have to give it a lot of thought.  But she really could do with some more work I think!

And finally, I removed all of Baileys hair, she is now a little baldy again!  Well almost bald anyway.  I realised once I'd tried pulling the plugs out, that I really had done a great job of the knots inside her head! :)  I thought I'd try the Prince Gregor wig on her because I'd seen Sarah Williams' (Vintage Sasha) little wider faced ex Gregor wearing it as a girl and she looked so incredibly cute!  Well I think Bailey looks so sweet too that now I'm wondering if I might save myself the job of rerooting her again, and might keep her as a wigged girl!!!!!!  I've not quite got the wig on her right yet, but will keep trying and see how it goes!!!! 

As Sweet As Chocolate ... and called Lindt!

My son Brendan came down to see us here at the coast today and, as usual, brought our mail with him!  I had five packages, so a lovely lot of dolly things to open!

I've received the deep brunette hair for rerooting Bailey, plus Brendan kindly brought all I need to make a start on her too, bless him!  Another packet contained 4 lovely berets by Hattie plus a Sashapotamos tee shirt that I bought in Dee's after sales from her Chat n Snap.  A third package contained a Prince Gregor wig from ABCeta in the UK.  I have washed and conditioned the wig because although it is new, it had a very strong musty smell to it.  It is currently drying in the kitchen and smells so much nicer already!  Two pairs of handmade glass eyechips were next...they are for my favourite Blythe, Heather Sky who is customised by me.  I hope that I can insert those this week too.

My biggest parcel was a lovely new doll!!!  I first saw her on Facebook in early September, and admired her photos.  The owner, a lovely lady in Switzerland, wrote saying that if I were interested, she was prepared to sell her.  Sadly, at that point, she was beyond my reach.  I always try to stick within my dolly budget and will only spend what I have in my paypal account, so had to decline, even though the lady was more than happy to hold her for me and even offered me layaway.  However, although I did decline, I told the seller that if, and when, I had enough money, if the doll were still available, I would certainly be back in touch with her!

So earlier this month, I had enough and contacted the owner and sure enough her lovely girl was still available....I secretly believe that she had 'held' her for me, or at least hadn't made any effort to sell her elsewhere, because I'm sure she would have easily found a new home!!  And so here she is and I love her!!!  I have called her Lindt, just like the Swiss chocolate, because of her beautiful thick shiny brunette non falling hair!!!!!! YES, NON falling!!!!!!  I'm so happy!!!  She arrived in her brown corderoy farm pants, white blouse and a cute cardigan to keep her warm on her journey.  I added the lovely beret by Dee's Hattie, stripey socks and these boots which are a trial pair that  I made last week.  I only used some faux suede this time but am planning on making my pattern 10% bigger and using soft leather and real suede for them next time.

I know I'm prejudiced but isn't she lovely!!!

Ellory....

Today was Ellory's turn to get some attention, and along with that she got a new outfit.  Well a new kilt actually, as I'd already made the polo neck jumper and long striped stockings a while back, she'd just been waiting on the skirt.

Here she is looking out the window as the sun started to go down:

 

And here is her full outfit from the front.  She has teamed it with some lovely red leather boots by Ruthsdolls:

Unfortunately the kilt is slipping down a bit because poor Ellory doesn't have any knickers on.....she's a bit of an exhibitionist really....I don't know where she gets it from!!!!  But I will get around to making her some underwear one of these days, especially now that the weather is a bit cooler!!!

Ellory likes to 'travel', she is, however, just an 'armchair' traveller, but she enjoys herself all the same.  (I found this on a photo site, so thought it would be fun to use her photo on here!).

Changing the subject entirely, Santa Claus came early here again this year and here is what he has left for me!!!  A lovely new bike!  Well I think the reason 'he' comes here early is because my hubby thinks if he gets in early with a particular idea for me, I won't ask for another doll!!!!

Yes, it is a bike!!!  (in case you didn't guess!! ;) )  I've been wanting one for ages!  Well originally I had wanted a moped or scooter but we found that the insurance was really high, so a push-bike it is!  I also got a helmet and a gel seat!  I'm delighted with it all and will keep it down here at the coast as it is much flatter.  The bike is called a 'town bike'....or as my son called it "an OLD LADIES bike!"...blooming cheek!  But I know what he means!  When I look at it, I'm reminded of Mrs Gulch, the neighbour of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz....see what I mean?  (Please excuse all the fallen leaves that are waiting to be swept up....I don't even have the excuse that I'm in Kansas and there's been a tornado, do I!!!!)

Now all I need is a big basket on the back for the Chihuahuas!!!

Siesta time.....and another beautiful sunset!

No dolly news again today, although there are several packages waiting for me at home, so there will be lots to 'show and tell' once I get my hands on those.  So I thought I'd share a few photos that I took yesterday.  We had another beautiful sunset....I hope no-one's bored with sunsets, but I can't resist running outside with the camera when I see such gorgeous colours!  But prior to that, I actually managed to get a photo of all 5 dogs looking at the camera!!!!!  So I just had to share that here too....it's not often I can get all of them to look at me at the same time! 

Poor hubby, he is the human cushion, which is, according to dogs, the best cushion of all!!

Bailey....

As most of my Sasha friends will know, I've been struggling with Bailey, my former brunette with the wider face.  I really love her little face but I'm still not happy with her hair.  So today I finally decided that I'm going to remove the hair that I recently rerooted her with and I'm going to either wig her again, or I'm going to reroot her once more.  I've already half made the decision because I've bought some more hair but this time it is closer in colour to her original hair, I've chosen Chocolate Brown, I just hope it's dark enough because this little girls hair was pretty dark before it all fell out.

This is the sweet little girlie that I want back!!!

Mr Stinky cleans up nicely!

A few weeks ago I blogged about the new brunette boy who'd arrived from the UK, having a few problems and smelling none too pleasantly!  His badly falling brunette hair was removed and I'd wigged him as a girl, but despite a good clean, he still had a very cloying smell about him.  I was going to give him the cat litter treatment but thought I'd leave him outside in the garden for a few days first, just to see if that worked.  And luckily it did!  He now smells just fine and for the time being he is back to being a boy again!   He only has a pair of trousers so far, a simply made pair of jumbo cord ones that quickly made him today, but he does have a wig!  He is currently wearing a Monique Gold Jojo which I've trimmed in length at the back, but it is still nice and long.  He is a bit of a beach bum and surfer dude so he likes to keep his hair long!!  I have cut out a shirt for him and hope to sew it together tomorrow. 

He hasn't got a name yet, but might end up being called Jack!  We shall see!

The beautiful colours of nature....

Last night I took some photos of the sunset as the colours were so pretty.  I thought I'd share them here as I've not taken any dolly photos for the last week.

I hope you'll enjoy the beautiful colours of nature as much as I did.