I´m back

Hi everyone, I´m back

What a trip and a half that was, I have gone from sitting there with a cardigan and fleece on, (it was really chilly, dull and raining) to coming home to temps in the high 20´s and today it was 30C at 10am. It´s hot in the UK too now, so take care everyone.

Luckily the weather on the day of the party was quite good and the last day of my trip I actually managed to wear a short sleeved top, getting me in training for coming home!

We took lots of photos, especially the decor, which I am pleased to say everyone loved, but they are on different devices so I will have to collate them to post.

A couple of weeks before we went we learnt that Mum had had a fall and banged her head, leaving her with rather a large bump, but she didn´t have signs of concussion and was luckily Ok.

So it was a shock to learn that other members of the family had taken it upon themselves to investigate a care home in Basingstoke. Not only that but Mum had been whisked over to view and they signed her up on the dotted line and had already started the procedure to sell her property! Talk about fait  accompli.

We had plans in place which meant we were hopping around the countryside to fulfill them, Chris was only over for 8 days so when

 we were suddenly given the task to remove any personal memorabilia, mementos etc it was panic mode. Especially as we had to find temporary storage ready to ship over to Spain.

Mum´s house is a 5 bed, 3 reception house that she has lived in for 63 years and she is a self confessed hoarder. It was absolutely bedlam, everything was crammed in and we had to declutter a bit first then find all the treasures.  Old Edwardian and 1920´s family photos stuffed in shoe boxes, Victorian items from Mum´s grandparents, including a mug from 1897 Victoria´s diamond jubilee, WW1 artifacts from her parents and many sets she has collected over the years.

We at least persuaded the others to organise auctioneers to come and value the items rather than their preferred method of house clearance. Most of the clearance companies wanted between 4 and 5000 and they kept the goodies! outrageous!

Anyway I´m sure you have the gist of the proceedings, so the whole trip was tainted by this sudden revelation with ´family meetings´, lots of stress and upset and that poor Mum will be living in one room, leaving most of her treasures and memories behind as the place is too small.

All this in 3 weeks, including viewings which resulted in accepting the first offer! Perhaps they don´t want Mum to change her mind!

However, we had a lovely day sharing Rebecca´s birthday with Antoni and we took the train to London, had a very nice meal (omg! the prices though) then went along to the Prince Edward theatre to see the musical Alladin. It was a brilliant show. To save money on taxis we walked from there afterwards to Paddington, it was a long way but we did save over 40.00 and passed landmarks for photo opportunities. 

So lovely to create memories and enjoy each others company. I used to take the kids to the theatre in Barnstaple which is where Rebecca got her love for going.

We also found our train fares covered the cost of the underground, so with much trepidation I agreed to go on it, I hate, long tunnels, caves etc so this was quite a feat, of course we then had to do the same in reverse which was not so pleasant, probably because I was tired, but I did it, although I think I shall quickly gloss over that bit

Well I really need to find the various photos so will go now, enjoy the good weather and weekend. Catch up soon

take care

xcx 

Busy bees

We have both been very busy with prep for Mum´s birthday party

Chris has been sitting for hours on end at the computer, firstly making a photo album ready to be sent off for printing, then making a narrated video for screening at the do

Last time we were over he took images of the old family photos and even managed to re video some footage of their old cine movies of the 60´s and 70´s.

Using todays technology, he is a whizz at making them look like new by taking out the grainy bits he has even managed to colour her original black and white wedding photo. It starts out in b/w then gently turns into colour.  A bit of clever conversation being used to find out the colours of her bridesmaids dressses and flowers

He has made it into each decade with music suitable for that time, with a short narration, he has even taken a photo of Mum taken when she was in her late teens and at the end of the video this fades and turns into the latest one wishing her a happy birthday.

Think she will be blown away when she sees the video on the day

He is now putting the newspaper together using font from the era and all the research I have done over the weeks. We will then need to get it printed

Me? well I have been busy too, making decorations for the venue, the colour theme is purple, lilacs and silver

I decided to make a flower swag for the buffet table

just need attaching to ribbon now

I am going to make little posies for the tables, I have asked for glass jars to be saved and will decorate them and add coloured water by mixing some acrylic paint in 

In my stash I found some little lacy flowers so sat there separating the gems and putting them in the centers, unfortunately their sticky backs wouldn´t hold them in place when they were moved, so I had a rather laborious job of finding the ones that had pinged off then removing them all and reattaching using a glue gun. Now ready for the jars with some butterflies

Then made a little brooch for Mum to wear

Organza spheres - going to put different colours together ready for hanging

I punched out butterflies and added a little bling, wound organza around an embroidery hoop and made it into a mobile

(cant find that photo at the moment, have to add it later)

I found some really pretty wrapping paper so am hoping to make some paper fans with them. I shall have to make them and then assemble together when we are there

Luck was with me that day as I also found in the chinese bazaar, an English happy birthday banner with balloons attached, thought that could go on the outside patio, 

although the bunting is the wrong colour, it has given me the template, the card is cut just the lettering to do

Right, well I had best be off then and crack on

take care

xcx

What a day

Oh my word, what a nail biting day yesterday was!

I had a niggling feeling in the morning and messaged Daniel to see if everything was ok

only to find him waiting in the doctors in great pain

He was given a letter for immediate admission to the hospital for appendicitis 

He had to wait in surgical triage for hours before being seen by a doctor, luckily he hadn´t had any food etc since 8am so he was whisked off about 9pm for surgery and returned about 1am.

They warned him that they would try keyhole if not it would be the traditional method, but I´m really pleased to say that the keyhole was successful as the recovery rate is much quicker.

They gave him hot chocolate during the night for which he was grateful for as he was feeling really dehydrated. I think its a 2/3 day stay then at least 2 weeks recovery.

Daniel and Shine have spent a lot of the last three weeks moving house. They overlapped the move to make it easier to do it themselves. He now tells me this pain had been rumbling around for several weeks but he put it down to strain moving all the furniture and boxes. He is so lucky that it didn´t burst.

They will have to call in some favours to finish the move as he will be on enforced rest.

Our bodies do have a way to tell us when we are pushing the limits, perhaps we should all listen a little earlier.

They have also cancelled his scheduled dental surgery for wisdom teeth extraction on the 10th May and he now has to wait another 6 months. He did suggest they did the two things together but they declined! lol

It´s at times like this that makes the distance between us really hard at not being able to offer help

Four year old Leocia was collected from school yesterday wanting to know where Daddy was, when she was told she demanded to be taken to see him immediately for a cuddle 

aww bless

take care

xcx

Playtime

I haven´t really been in the mood for experimenting or hand stitching for ages, but I decided to have a ´play´ with some plastics and fibres.

I randomly cut some carrier bags and plastic wrappers, no thoughts on design, just to see the results

quite a thick material which could be embellished and stitched, certainly well fused

Then I cut the ends off bags, folded them and fused, really strong and could be folded and stitched making a waterproof pouch

This one is a single layer but with the plastic motifs cut out and fused

Next was some Merino tops between two sheets of cling film

the fibres were a bit too thick to fuses properly, but would take stitching

think the quality of the cling film would make a difference

This one is a mixture of plastic pieces, merino and Angelina threads again trapped between cling film

I do like the Angelina threads, so sparkly and they fuse to themselves, easy to stitch through too 

I have a needle felt machine, which takes the pain out of punching by hand, again I havent used it in ages, after randomly laying the fibres and felting I cut some flowers and embellished with beads. As this was just an experiment, the base fabric was calico but it would look better with a base of the same colour

The nice thing with felting is you can add more fibres to get the colour effect you want

This one was a bit more arty

I made a flower shape but only felted the center to give a 3d effect.

Well playtime over so it´s back to the lacy bolero, I have been putting life lines in which has saved the day several times, just the decreasing doesn´t seem to be working for me, so yet again taking it back and try again. It is not a project to attempt unless I am in the mood, too much concentration and getting a little bit frustrating!

Perseverance  I think is the word I am looking for!!

take care

xcx

Gota fria

I hope everyone enjoyed the Easter break
We had 4 days of deluge, pouring rain, they have listed it as a Gota fria,
The areas around the coast were particularly hit with many being evacuated from their homes and especially those visiting and camping. Cars were moved from underground parks, but still many have just been swamped, the local services have been working so hard to try to pump the water away. The´dry´river beds have been pulsating with the influx of so much rain, however, give it a couple of days and they will be back to their usual status. Someone reported 500L in 2 days.
Feel so sorry for those who decided to come over for the holidays for a bit of ´sun´ only to find a very different story, whilst those in the UK were enjoying such lovely weather.

Sunday we braved the weather and visited friends just a little further up the mountain, for a lovely lunch, mind you it was so bad you couldn´t see the mountains, we even had reduced visability in the courtyard and certainly couldn´t see passed the immediate garden. They are powered by solar panels desperately trying to conserve what power they had, so it was just candle light, luckily they have calor gas for cooking and a log fire, so we were all toasty. You would have thought with all the water the weeds would just pop out, huh, no such luck they are still fighting back

Yesterday was my birthday, I was actually born on an Easter Monday in a heatwave, as we were on a red alert, it was a stay at home day. I had some lovely pressies and cards and we had a roast dinner with a nice bottle of rosado, very pleasant.

Chris gave me, amongst other things, a very sweet metal garden figure

Looks like on of the Flowerpot men
(please excuse Benji in the background, practicing his yoga moves!)

I have been sprucing up some of my other pieces, perhaps that´s what prompted his thinking

The lizard was really sorry for itself

A bit more cheerful

Chris presented me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers on Saturday, as he said no point in hiding them till Monday

the only problem is Felix is interested in the ribbon and Amber loves to dip her paw into the vase for the water, you wouldn´t think they have fresh water available, so the inevitable happens........

twice!!

Our friends have recently rescued a Mastin puppy, coming from Granada, they split their time between here and the UK and have quite a large van, being very useful bringing goodies back and forth, also it´s large enough to accommodate Zoe.
Here she is, curled up as best she could in our courtyard, would you believe she is still only 10 months old, rather like a Shetland pony

judging by her huge paws, I think there is still some growing to do!

Anyway, back soon, take care
xcx

Taking the biscuit

I enjoy history, delving back and unraveling moments gone by. I always loved it at school, useless at geography mind, one word I remember most was meandering, which is what I think my mind did during lessons. the teacher didn´t help, a very tall, thin chap with a huge booming voice, used to terrify me.

Anyway, with MIL´s 90th birthday approaching I have been researching the history of her birth town, Reading, as we plan to make a newpaper for that year.

It was known as the 3 ´b´s, biscuits, beer and bulbs, although a fourth one can be added, bricks.

Biscuits were of course Huntley & Palmers, the brewery, Simmonds and bulbs were Sutton seeds, the fourth was Collier´s bricks.

Chris´s grandmother worked for Huntley´s and it´s been fun sifting through all the various sites finding out all about the company.

I´m sure we can all remember grandmothers buying broken biscuits from the grocers, mine used to say ít´s got to be broken to be eaten´

The company started in 1822 with 16 workers, which had increased in 50 years to 5000. Wages were quite low, especially for women and a pound of broken biscuits were given each week with the pay packet. Although, as with most occupations for women, once they married that was it, out of a job. It wasn´t until the mid-twentieth century that they changed their policy.  It seems the average working week was 54 hours, with a 40 minute break for breakfast and an hour for lunch, the rest of the time you were at your job.

Another Huntley relative supplied the biscuit tins and to begin with they were supplied with paper wrappers until they mastered the art of printing on the metal. Large tins to hold 10lb of biscuits were manufacturered for the grocers to have on their shelves, where they would weigh out your requirement before popping it into brown paper bags.

Decorative tins and novelties were made for special occasions, some of which are really quite sort after today, saving the biscuit tin for another use was quite natural, something I do today.

They became the world´s largest biscuit manufacturer by 1900, opening and winning awards in Paris and supplying the biscuits for Scott´s trip to the South Pole.

The town was known as ´the biscuit town´even the local football team were known as the ´biscuitmen.

The factory even had their own fire brigade and although rules were strict there were some perks, like a wedding cake if you married, and your funeral paid for if you were in service. They even introduced a Christmas gift, ranging from half a crown to one pound.

Around the mid 1920´s they released their first attempt at advertising with sound by producing a gramophone record with the song Reading biscuit town. Then in the 1930´s they advertised on the pirate radio stations Luxembourg and Normandie

Biscuit production in Reading stopped in 1976 when it was moved to Liverpool.

So there we are a little something to ponder when you are dunking your favourite biscuit.

take care

xcx

Tug of war

Been at it again this week, after more rain it was opportune to get out and tug up the weeds in the slightly moistened soil. Being usually dry of course all the weeds (and plants) tend to be very deep rooted so even the smallest of weeds seem to have roots that are about 9 inches long, just a game of tug of war.

This week I tackled another area that had raced away, couch grass and horrible plants that produce burrs amongst them, I had bought a new pair of gardening gloves, Ok I admit they were only a euro from the chinese bazaar, but the tops of the fingers were soon in shreds.

the before

and after

much better

Even the roses are beginning to bloom now

and the nasturtiums, loves the vibrant flowers and they are great added with their leaves to salads

I came across this little lantern, looking rather sorry for itself

it certainly needed a revamp, I wrapped the night light with a band of coloured paper to blend in with the colour theme in the courtyard

This afternoon, after 4 days of gardening I made myself admit defeat and listen to my body, enough now and sat with my knitting. I have left the lacy front to the point of decreases and carried on with the back and sleeves, they are just straight stocking stitch which gave me the opportunity to knit without the complicated pattern. Now though I am back to doing the right lacy front, so will carry on up to the decreases then I will really have to think!

How about these beautiful amaryllis

they are in a huge pot at the entrance to Maria´s

take care

xcx