Coming along nicely

My scrapping has stopped as I've been busy with wool this last week and I'm pleased to say it's

"Coming along nicely".

Lots of little piles...............

 turn into one bigger one.

Just the edging to do now.

Today

A few moments from today before giving myself an afternoon of crafting.

:: 1.  The dreaded ironing.  No need for a photo of that as we all know that picture.

:: 2.  A walk with Moss.  The weather today has been a positively tropical 16 degrees C, which after yesterday's 4 degrees was very welcome.
As we hadn't been for a few days I took Moss for a walk around the pond on the local Estate.

The sun was shining

The colours were beautiful.

There was dappled light through the trees.

The sky was blue

One side of the pond was sunny

While on the other side the clouds gathered.

and the sun glistened off the water.

and now it's grey and raining so perfect for an afternoon of ME time.

Flowery cushion

My "Cauliflower" is at last finished and I'm really pleased with it.  I used the pattern that Luci over at Attic 24 blogged about a few weeks ago.  I have to say that doing the petals while watching a good programme on TV will only lead to un-picking and having to start again and that the back does curl up a lot but after some gentle persuasion while ironing it will lie flat!!

::  The front ::

::  The Back ::

Happy Mail

The other day my sister, Ruth posted about all the Happy Mail she was sending out.  Well today mine arrived and it's lovely.  It's some fabby Joy Crafts, Paris themed scrapping papers (very kindly donated by her BF) to go in my France album.  She was a bit worried about it being pink as it's not a colour that features heavily in my layouts with having two males in the house (3 including the dog).  But never fear, I've got a solution..................I'll just scrap a photo of me in Paris and can go mad on the pink papers :0)

The rest of this mornings mail was also Happy and now means I can get on a scrap some more France photos.

Self Portraits

My sister, Ruth has just posted here recent Self Portrait so I thought I'd show mine from last week after being out on the deck of a ferry on a VERY windy afternoon...............

Hhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!    :0)

A new book

Give a boy (who doesn't read) a good book and look what happens....

In Waterstones book shop..................

On the ferry............

and in Marks & Spencers coffee shop!!

The Book?

Holes by Louis Sacher

At the beginning of the story, Stanley Yelnats IV, a timid, fat boy supposedly affected by a family "curse", has been wrongly accused of stealing the baseball player Clyde Livingston’s shoes from a charity auction, and sentenced to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention facility where boys of similar age are forced to dig holes to “build their character”. There, Stanley learns that the warden of Camp Green Lake is searching for the buried treasure of Wild West outlaw "Kissin’ Kate Barlow, in connection with whom Stanley finds a lipstick tube inscribed with the initials "KB".

My perseverance has paid off as he's now onto the second book, "Small Steps".

A wet Monday evening

What do you do on a wet Monday evening in October?  You go to see Blood Brothers of course.  Last night we went to the theatre to see Willy Russell's Blood Brothers and it was absolutely brilliant, hilariously funny and tragic at the same time and a definite must for all theatre buffs. As they say "If you haven't seen it, then go.  If you have, then go and see it again".
The lead role - Mrs Johnston - was played by Niki Evans who I had never heard of but apparently got to the semi-finals of the X-Factor in 2007.  (That was one of the years I didn't watch).  She was amazing as was the guy who played Micky, Sean Jones.

Read the review


Blood Brothers is a musical written by Willy Russell.  The story is a contemporary nature vs. nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins who were separated at birth. The twins' different backgrounds take them to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming an Oxbridge-graduated councillor and the other unemployed and in prison. They both fall in love with the same girl, causing a tear in their friendship and leading to a tragic conclusion.
The musical debuted in 1983, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. The current West End revival is one of the longest-running musical productions in history, opening in 1988 West End and still running as of 2011.

Crochet update

My "Cauliflower" seems to be taking shape.  No longer just cream and green - now with added red.  I still have to finish the "Other side" then hopefully it won't be too long before the big Ta Dah!!

There are one or two mistakes in it but I'd gone quite a way past those before I realised and I wasn't going to "frog" it so they will have to stay.  At least there won't be another one anywhere in the world exactly the same as mine :0)

Still blooming

With the temperatures ranging from 14 to 28 degrees C in the last week my Clematis doesn't know whether it's coming or going.  I thought it had finished flowering but it seems IT had other plans.  I now have half a dozen buds waiting to open.





































My honeysuckle is also still blooming and has been since about May.

and my Geraniums just don't want to give up yet.

Weekend catch up

With one thing and another I didn't get near the PC this weekend so here's the posts I was going to blog but never got around to.
1.  Rock Buns the old fashioned way.  I bought this book Feeding the Nation last year and have made a few things out of it so far (I can recommend the liver and bacon casserole :0)  ) so after having Rock Buns at the MacMillan Coffee Morning at school, last Friday I thought I make my own.  The recipe was so easy to do and the buns tasted delicious.  Even John tried them!!

2.  What Moss really thought of having a bath!!

Shimelle's sketch of the week

I didn't know if I liked the idea of three small photos so I printed out a larger photo and cut it into three.  I used Crate Paper Restoration papers I got in a kit from Sarah's cards, cut up the flowery piece and used American crafts alphas.  As the paper is so bright I kept the layout quite simple.

Works for me!!