A quiet week ahead

Jacob goes away with school on Monday, they are off to France for a week.  I am being a flustery mummy, packing and ironing and wondering if we've forgotten anything.

But I am very proud of this. I made a little wash bag out of some lovely fabric I was given (Thank you Dagi!)
I lined it with a strong carrier bag to keep it waterproof, a drawstring is speedier than a zip.

Even though it will be very quiet next week, I plan to do lots of crafting.  I have been looking at lots of beautiful blogs and am inspired to try to make a few things, finish my kitchen curtains and make the forgotten shelves in the kitchen more interesting.

Some flowers rescued from the rain in the garden.....

My reading list

Well its a very rainy day here (again!) and sent home from work early because the electricity went off. The house is all nice and tidy because some kind person got there first. I have tucked my guinea pigs up warm and toasty for the night, ( I tried to take a picture but all I got was a speedy blur) , so now its time to write about books. 

I have been reading a lot of very interesting books lately and some seem to naturally lead on to others, also lots of lovely picture books for inspiration and dreaming.

First some more serious books.

I read this non-fiction book by Lisa See ',On Gold Mountain' , Lisa is a descendant of Chinese immigrants and she writes about their journey to America and how the family grew and changed.  Very fascinating.


Then I found another book by Julie Otsuka 'When the Emporor was Divine'.  This is a very moving story based on fact about what happened to Japanese people living in America during the war.
Very sad and moving....

My sister and I share a great love of reading, but we have very different tastes.  Sometimes we want to share our books and give them to each other as a present.  I received one of the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan.  A children's novel based on the Greek myths.  I picked it up several times but never really got into it.  This must have been a year ago, but last week I started it again and couldn't put it down, now I have gone and borrowed another one from the library.  I gave my sister books by Marina Lewycka and I think she was not to keen, but when we talked the other day, she had started reading 'We are all made of Glue' and was really enjoying it.

Now the look and dream and make books:
Go Slow England by Alastair Sawday. Beautiful places to go, to eat and just to dream about, an inspiration for a slower way of life.


Homespun Style by Selina Lake- Just makes me want to head to the sewing machine and paintbrush!


And dinosaurs.....  I have been busy knitting dinosaurs over the last few months, some in vivid colours ( I will post a picture when the latest one is completed)
So take a look at 'Knitted Dinosaurs' by Tina Barrett


Hungry humans need my attention, then dinosaur making tonight. There are advantages to having a very wet summer (especially if you are a slug or a snail, but thats another story!)

I have had complaints that I haven't been here since my birthday, what have I been doing?

I am not entirely sure, there has been a lot of boring work, but I have also had some time to do a little bit of sewing and knitting.

We did have good weather in early spring, but since then it seems to have been a lot of rain, rain and more rain, however that is not entirely a bad thing.  I had one lovely rainy sunday where I fixed an old patchwork quilt that I had made many years ago.  In the early 1980s I had been given a huge box of shirt material samples from the 70s, lovely retro fabrics.  Back then I stitched them into a small quilt and appliqued animals on them.  With the help of small dogs and large children, the quilt was now looking very tatty, so I put patches on the patches (more lovely fabric, a gift from my friend in America) and it now looks much more presentable.

The shirt samples are perfect for patchwork, I am going to be cheeky and see if I can manage to obtain more from a local shop


And here is a lovely cushion I made last night, I bought a little bag of patches at a school sale, and with some bits I already had I constructed this....

I have also been doing quite a bit of dinosaur knitting and also lots of lovely books to tell you about, but that is for another post.  Now I have to mow the lawn, and then put together a knitted rabbit for a new baby I know!!

Half a Century

Last week I reached the grand age of half a century.  It is a good time to reflect on your life - and I decided all in all that I was quite content and happy with what had happened.  Some of your life you are able to control and decide to take it this way or that, but other times there are things that you just have no control over and have to 'go with the flow'.  But I decided that I really had very few regrets and no urgent need to get things done that had not been done, and I am very much looking foward to the next years... more travelling in this country and others as a pillion passenger on my husbands motorbike, more walks in the beautiful countryside where I live, more projects that may or may not get finished and lots more books to read and maybe just maybe a more flowersome and vegetablesome garden and of course more lovely cakes to be made!

Now my treat for my birthday was to be taken away for the weekend to Weston-Super-Mare...., now you may think this is a strange place to go, but both sets of grandparents lived there and I spent so many happy holidays of my childhood there, but that is for another post with lots to remember.

This weekend we went by car not motorbike and just as well, because it snowed quite a lot and was so, so cold.  But how lovely to walk about and see all the old places and some that I didn't remember seeing before. No donkeys on the sands on this day just lots of snow.

It is hard to find a nice place to eat when you really don't know what they are like, but we found somewhere just so perfect. Everyone who ever goes to Weston should try it - it is called the Lounge Cafe Bar on the sea front, close to Marine Lake. The food was lovely, the setting was lovely and we were so spoiled. Outside it was now raining and so cold and windy, but we were cosy and content and being treated like royalty - but we didn't need the royal mint to pay for it!!

And now all is back to normal, birthday cakes (two of) devoured, chocolates eaten, but very happy and content with my lovely life and family.

Christmas Stockings

I think we have quite unusual Christmas stockings in our family.  My Mum made them on our first Christmas, she had seen them made by a  Canadian lady who lived in the upstairs flat (although my sister remembers it as a German lady).

The stockings are traditional red with some kind of fur at the top, but the nice idea is that each year a different charm is added.  Each year the children eagerly await receiving their stockings on Christmas Eve to see the new charm. The charms can be any kind of thing, mine includes an old ear ring that once belonged to my Mum, a pretty wooden badge that my aunty brought back from Austria.  They have such lovely memories for me.  Sadly now that my mum is no longer here,I don't get new charms, but it is lovely to search for new ones each year for my children.  I started off their stockings with a charm taken from mine.

My sister in Greece has made her children's stockings in more elf like shapes rather than Santa's boot shape, and she has green velvet at the top.

The photo also shows her stocking that my mum made when she was a baby.  Naomi was born about a month before Christmas, and myself and my other sister were aged about 11 and 10.  I still remember Naomi's first Christmas and nearly everything she had in her stocking including talcum powder and a wooden tortoise!

The first Christmas of your children is the most magical time of all.

While I am getting sentimental, I shall put in a photo of my favourite Christmas story.  I have had this one since I was tiny, I know that nearly everyone knows the story, but I just love the illustrations in this particular book and was so pleased when I had children to read it to.

I would love to know if they really have stockings like ours anywhere else, although I have read quite a lot of foreign magazines, I have never seen anything quite like our Christmas stockings.

Nature's Bounty

It is half term and I am so lucky to be living where I do.  Lovely country walks even in blustery and wet weather.  We went to Durlston on Tuesday and were so lucky to see the dolphins, we have been looking for them ever since we moved here.  We were just watching a fishing boat rocking along in the stormy sea and there they were, we watched them for about five minutes and then they disappeared. I tried to take a photograph but they just looked like black specks in the distance - so here is another picture from this holiday.

Keeping cheerful

It has been a bit stressful on and off for the last few months. Nothing major or life-threatening but just a bit full on.  I wondered what I could write about because you don't really want to hear about me sobbing in my tea cup or hollering at the dog, or the keeping the house clean efforts, so I thought about what I have around that makes me laugh.

Just inside my kitchen door I have pinned on the wall this cutting from a newspaper.  He is such a cheerful soul and always makes me smile!!

My other thing is my Mary Engelbreit calender.  I first came across this artist when a friend gave a small book her quotations 'Life is just a chair of bowlies'.  Now I have a calender every year, it is a treat and I keep all the illustrations, which one day I will make into a little book. I have jumped ahead to November and the quotation is by Leonard Cohen (another all time favourite person) and it says something like  'When your heart is broken, then there is a crack where the light can come in'.  Someone very dear to me has had a tempestuous time of late, but it is true a lot of light has been shed on the matter in question.

Well, this is all rather heavy, and of course when the going gets very tough, the tough eat chocolate (or cake!!!) There is nothing better for the soul (but not the waist) than making a big cake and then munching it!!