hot day

I live near a fairly small "market" town; I was going to say we don't have much of a market any more and likewise not much crime.

Then I remembered the recent serial killer.

Anyway this was a quick smash and grab that I stumbled across this morning while wandering around looking for something to edge my fossil strips. [I merrily cut them into 3 long strips without leaving margin allowance] so need tofind a way to finish them off.

The robbers presumably grabbed some expensive looking watches that are usually smugly laying on their velvet cushions in the window. Not sure how they got away from the hue and cry as it is a pedestrianised zone, but I guess if they are dastardly thieves they may break other rules too.

I finished the 4 books I have to make for the next exhibition.

We each had to make a sample of work 2"x2" some notes about our prowess and 4 attractive covers. Not my favourite occupation, so the stitching looks a bit sulky. We are charging £15 and pooling the money between us, haven't booked any away days on the proceeds!

Pic will follow but Retired Person, who does the technicals, is a bit sulky too. It is hot and feels like there will be a storm. He has been trying to expell the grass that cemented itself between the flowers in the drought and has got rather irritated, understandable.

So a grumpy couple.

The cat is happy, it is hot and he is asleep.

fossils

Thought it was about time I looked at some stitching. Small persons don't leave a lot of gaps in the day. I am/ was working on a piece for a Time and Tide exhibition, so thought i would do fossils.

I have three skinny panels now - not really sure how to present them. I made them by rollering paint and stuff over a lace doily and moving it about to make a background. Then printed some fossil type things and sort of stitched around. Everyone seems pleased with me that I have made something subtle for a change. Poo.

This stitching group is having a fit of the knipshers about what to price our work at. I suspect they think i price too low, but I do want to be affordable. They had a big meeting where they agreed we should charge more I think, I dunno I didn't go.

"Hell is other people".

I once worked at a psychiatric Unit and the chief assured us that "Life is other people". Hmmm perhaps.

Tempest 2011 Highlights

This is my son, he's the handsome one, mostly withou a cap. Their pool team have won it seems.

Yes, of course, he got his head stuck in his potty. We had to cut him out.

evidence

no place like home

Back now from sea-side holiday with DD and GG. Lovely weather but mood swings from squally to moody, mostly because young people these days seem to live their life on Facebook and there was no WiFi or even phone signal.
Even GG was disadvantaged as the TV signal was crap so no CBeebies and only 4 snowy stations, g'ma had to watch Eastenders thru the blizzard. I saw far too much of Spiderman and Mona the Vampite DVDs however.
Also! the beach was very stony which led GG to demented aerial warfare, so we travelled in-land to castles and lakes with swans.
Castles were appreciated muchly but swans were also in aggressive mood and knocked g'ma over when I was trying to show GG how they wouldn't hurt him.
Returned early to the comforting presence of technological toys and real + virtual friends .
Aggers the cat is not amused, he preferred the quiet and regular meals provided by next door.
Test Match started today, delayed by downpours, Aggers thought it amusing when Aggers the commentator was drenched as he watched the toss.
No comments please.
Auntie Pauline in Canada [87] joined Uncle Ron last night. I don't think they will get on. Ron was very slow talking High Noon Gary and Auntie P is where I am supposed to get my impatient tongue from. She is the youngest sister, so some comfort to ma and Cinders that they are winning.
Ma has gone up to London to inspect the Olympic Stadia today, you can't keep her down for long.

say cheese

song

90 years

It all went fabulously well and I have the aching neck muscles to prove it, I was rigid with nerves.

But great grandma, me, Daunting Daughter and Glorious Grandson [+ Retired Person of course] had a celebratory lunch at Jimmy's rare breed farm restaurant and walked the environs without mishap.

Jimmy provided a disgusting little cake for the 90 year old to blow out her candle and we all ate lots of Meat and highly coloured creamy things.

The walk round the estate was lovely in the afternoon sun, lots of little piglets and goats and chickens running around having a good time - for now. The nonagenarian led the way all round then refused afternoon tea and went home triumphantly clutching her cake. We all flaked out a good job well done.

The Glorious Grandchild has landed. We have been sleeping in my work room. He and Daunting Daughter are upstairs still asleep.

I am trying to work up the emotional strength [and physical] to go up and wake them and get everyone out the house in time to pick up mother for her 90th birthday lunch. Wish me luck.

taking the bins out

So the Bin-man has finally been binned. For what good it will do, and probably a lot of bad. There's a lot of legalised murder around, but i guess there always has bin. It's all very sad and totally outside my control, even if we get AV voting. Which we probably won't.


It seems to me that most men favour first past the stupid post and women are more inclusive, but I may be wrong. Picking up daughter and GG on the day, so must remember to vote, fore or aft.













We spent the weekend at a textile printing workshop, very amiable and peaceful.



















































in the main, tho tutor wanted us to make strange little vessels which I wasn't up for, tho others were braver and persevered with the origami like folding involved

She did show some stitch samples which I liked however.

It has been relentlessly sunny so it seemed a shame to stay in the village hall for two days, but it seems there is more to come. Poor dry garden. Son reports that San Francisco is fine too, which must be pleasant, but he has split up with his girlfriend so he is not enjoying it much. If only we could organise our off spring properly, either that or live in blessed ignorance like my parents preferred.

Daughter may get to see some bluebells if she gets over her jet lag in time.

Alternative Royal Wedding

For those who didn't get to see the Great Day, this is probably more fun. I did sit down and watch Kate and Wills become the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and even sniffled a bit at times.
The Abbey looked magnificently Gothic, but a little strange with trees down the aisle. I suppose Charles had to have someone to talk to.
The fascinators were amazingly huge, sitting behind what with the trees must have been very arboreal.
Apparently when Charles comes to the throne, if ever, he won't be a Charlie, it is thought to be an unlucky name for a king, so he will be George VII.

fairly bright

After the daffs we now have the blue bells,down the bank in the garden around the poor pruned apple trees, among the grass and on walks thru the woods.

and the wisteria is beginning to flourish.

I am not, I have a headache. I am extremely grumpy, if I was flower I would be a dark, manky weed tunnelling along under the ground and popping up to spoil the show.

We decided to break out this Easter Monday and toddled along to the next village to go to the Fair. I envisioned lots of ice cream and winning a monkey for the Glorious Grandson who will soon be amongst us [flower and weed! as he is now two and quite a handful].

Apparently monkeys come second only to dinosaurs in his universe, grand-ma will come way down when I start laying down the law...............

However the fairground was teeny, just a roundabout, 4 or 5 stalls , a bouncy castle [already deflated ready for a quick get away next day and some twirly machinery that was already turned off. The local kids seemed quite happy whizzing round - but no ice ceam and no stuffed monkeys!

It has been such a lovely run of sunny days I shouldn't complain, I wouldn't if I didn't have a headache. And Dr Who was crap.

released into the wild

I have been devouring books lately. Fortunately the library van is still chugging round every 2 weeks and the Wetterstones in town hasn't been closed yet.
Just as well as their advent closed all the other Indy bookshops in double quick time a few years back.
Finished The Rapture by Liz Jensen yesterday, she writes very well, richly and somehow in the "now" dunno what I mean by that. It just seemed her characters were living in a world I recognised, that is before it all went eco-catastrophe and religious mania..............but even that built on strains of behaviour and science I had heard of. It is set slightly in the future and goes a bit block buster at the end, but i did enjoy her intelligent approach to the madness.
Before that I read Mystery by JKellerman, absolute sensationalised rubbish.
I was so annoyed with him, that when I joined the Book Crossing website, his was one of the first to give away.
It is very happy contrivance for me. I have so many book cluttering up the house, even tho i do download quite a few, I do still prefer the actual pages.
With the Book Crossing wheeze I can just register them on the site, leave them somewhere and hope that one day I hear back from peeps all over the globe..................[well around here anyway] that someone has picked it up to read.
The other giveaway was The Gate at the Stairs, is that right, a novel by Laurie..........someone. It was a slow burner but in the end I enjoyed it. Of course I didn't want to leave 2 junk thrillers in the same spot, too shaming.
We went out to have a corned beef hash lunch at the Victoria, a country pub near us today, so i left behind my two prepared books - with Book Crossing labels to explain, stuck inside.
As was inevitable, a woman came puffing out after us to return them, just as we were making our Le Mans getaway.
So i had to explain the principle of releasing books into the wild.
Hopefully it will get to be a more slick operation.
In the past I have given books to friends [but do they really want them] and down to the charity shops [too much heavy lifting thru a pedestrianised zone] so this could be the answer.
I know the library is really perfect, as one has to return books but I am too impatient to get the new releases.
Have been to Wetstones already and replenished with The Sentry; The Last Werewolf and best of all the new Fred Vargas.
Yes, alright, they were doing 3 for 2.

blossom dearie

Yesterday was one of those sunny Spring days; no doggie to walk, but we went round the Long Fields anyway. We are learning to walk out without Hattie. Not our tree, it belongs to farmer up the lane, blossoms wonderfully every year and dares me to be depressed - about anything.

The magnolia is out again, too many flowers to count now, but cold windy day has made it easier yesterday

Our poor pear trees were cut back over the winter.

They are fighting back, but look very sad at the mo.

Goodness knows if they will have pears. Guess they will have a few just in desperation.

paper nylon

Yes the petticoats were "paper nylon" as Gillian says.

As I remember it we just used to soak them in hot water into which much sugar had been dissolved and then they drip dried on the washing line.

Dunno why we didn't use starch.

They used to stick out beautifully under the full skirts until the body heat from rocking and rolling melted the sugar again and we and our petticoats returned home somewhat limp but still sweet sixteen.

I have a pic somewhere but will have to add it later I guess. It is not very dashing, just me in black and white standing in my nana's back garden looking embarrassed and maybe in a fullish cotton skirt if I remember rightly. [Found it - only one petticoat i think]

I expect I was about 13, far too tall and with defiantly curly hair that led to me being nicknamed Golly, in those un-PC times.

My mother insisted I brush it back off my face, i hold much against my mother but that was one of the deepest crimes, she told me I would look awful with a fringe. Since leaving home I have never been without one.

stitchings

This hand stitched picture was on the wall of the Dorset house. I don't know if it was done from a transfer and instructions, it was certainly old.

I thought the variation of stitching in the clothes and scenery was really effective. It was also such an appropriate pic for the area. [double click on pic. to see the detail]

I enjoyed living with it for a week and thought i would bring this souvenir home with us.

I heard that I have sold the Dance IV piece at the library exhibition, this is good news as i wasn't at all keen on it.

I promised myself I would pull it apart and try again once I got it home, odds on I wouldn't, so it would just niggle.

So double good that someone else will take it home and hopefully enjoy it.

I did

I have been doing some "research" for my Open University assignment today. I have to do a bit of autobiography, so have chosen 1960 as a time of CHANGE. Hooray. I likened one of the boys at school to B Fury and when checking the dates, to see if they were close, I came across this video. Oh Boy, as we used to say, often, did it bring back memories. We girls used to get dressed up in very full and swishy home-made wide cotton skirts [at least 3 metres of fabric], supported by many petticoats [soaked in sugar to make them stiff], wide black elastic belts [with silver metal clasp] and pony tails [unfortunately my hair was short and very curly] and fore gather at each others houses on a Saturday afternoon to dance - together. I believe it must have been an early rehearsal of the mating ritual..........................

Corfe castle, everywhere we go it is grinning down on us.

The sun has been shining, blue skies, lovely scenery it is like a dream of summer. I expect to wake and find I am nestled drooling in damp leaves and mud.....presumably sucking a magic mushroom. But no, it is real.

suffering for art

On the way down to Dorset, for a few days away, we stopped off overnight in exotic Basingstoke. thought we would never make it as we got stuck on the M25.

Sailing round the clockwise ? loop we scoffed at the traffic jam taking root on the other side, and then passed miles of emptiness as that side of the motorway was closed because of an overturned car transporter.

As we were doing so well we decided to stop off at South Mimms services for an early lunch. All went well till we tried to rejoin at the roundabout.

What we didn't realise, was that this was precisely where they had closed the motorway, so all traffic trying to get on anti-clockwise was backed up to hell.

We spent an hour and a half stuck on the roundabout, all we wanted to do was go clockwise.

I nearly had apoplexy, no idea what was going on, no information. The driver is a persistent man and believes that in time all will work out, I tend to have a tantrum, it gives me something to do.

So it took 6 and a half hours to get to wonderful Basingstoke rather than a couple.

The satnav took us to the postcode, but no hotel in sight. Big Bad Basingstoke has a one way system, we now know it well, too well. At least half and hour rotating.

Next morning we went to the reason for all this faff, - an exhibition by Alice Kettle - worth every trial and tribulation.

Huge panels of her work hung in this excellent little museum gallery, the colours of the figures so stunning against wildly machined backgrounds.

Often she puts rich threads on the bobbin and stitches them from the reverse [silks would be too thick to go through the needle] mesmerising work, and maybe some clues for me and my background problems..........the gallery stewards liked the work, but not the wildly staring blank eyes "Zombies" one muttered.

Guess that wouldn't go down too well at home.

Pics can follow when I get back, not allowed to take photos, but 2 excellent catalogues can hopefully be scanned.

Saturday we drove on to the coast to this rather posh house we have rented for the week, cheaply because the weather is cold. So far the sun has shone every day.