I must be mad!

Last week was the Exhibition of Quilts at the NECand I had a fabbie-fantastic time! The good thing about living here is that the NEC is just 20 mins away. I went with this photo of an Autumn runner with the intention of buying the fabric to make a throw for the little settee in the conservatory in this pattern.

Of course I bought more than I needed, but you know what it's like you see one that's just right and then you see some more.

I love it all and I can't wait to get started. This chart was in a quilting magazine that I bought in America when we were on our honeymoon four years ago

And this is the BOTM I have signed up for which comes all the way from Australia.  I actually saw this this on saturday at the NEC displayed by another Aussie shop!! And they also had another one so beautiful I could have bought it there and then but........

I have four Cross stitch WIPs  and 2 charts kitted up and ready to go so I need the winter time to stitch and sew!! At least the garden won't need much doing to it.
BIG NEWS
But the most important thing in my life at the moment is that I am no longer leasing out my house.
So we returned to my lovely house in Billericay, we stayed there for five wonderful days.. it's  such a pretty house. The garden is now just trees and shrubs all the flowers appear to have been choked by the weeds of four years. However extra-ordinarily the damson tree was absolutely loaded with fruit. Mike picked 17 pounds and there must be another 17 pounds still there!! I was amazed and delighted as that was a little tree bought one evening on my way home from work from good ol' Woolies! The apple tree hasn't done as well but with some TLC I am sure we can get it fruiting.
This is one side of the garden showing the damson tree. When I bought this house in 2001 there was just some tumpy grass, a shed that was rotten and an old concrete garage. Inside of the house was horrible but when I saw the size of the garden, I could see the potential of the house. It took three years to get it how I wanted and the best thing was my raspberry pink carpet all through the downstair rooms, hall stairs and landing. A very girlie thing!!

Then I had the huge extension built  for my dream kitchen and as it was to be my home for when I retired a

downstairs loo.

We will be travelling back  and fro for a few days each month, so lots of stitching time there although we would like to change the deco it looks clean and tidy, I have a carpet cleaner booked second week of September and the original bathroom fitter that fitted my bathroom suite as well to do some repairs after the last tenants.

So with all this going on I am quilting I must be mad!
But isn't that life and the busier it is the better it gets! I say a prayful thanks each day to God that I can enjoy my life and that it is full of happy days and the love of my DH and family.
Hope this next week is full of happy times for all you bloggers out there!

A good read

One thing I do more than anything else is read. I read all the time. I sometimes don't want to go to bed because the book I am reading isn't as good as I would wish! Perhaps my love of reading stems back from my childhood of the fifties. We didn't have TV and I lived my lonely childhood through books. I didn't have any great preferences then I just worked my way round the shelves in the Children's section of Porthcawl Library , the small seaside Welsh town where I was born and brought up.

Today I like modern novels and greatly admire Anita Shreve and Emily Barr and a host of other female writers.  I want to be able to write like them!

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

When this book first came out for some reason I didn’t fancy reading it but, as it was my reading groups choice this last month I read it and loved it and wondered why I hadn’t read it before.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini explores the nature of friendship, of forgiveness and of redemption, set against the turbulent background of his native Afghanistan.
The son of a rich and popular merchant, Amir leads a privileged life, wanting only to please his beloved but demanding father, Baba, and to play with Hassan, the child of Ali, Baba’s lifelong servant. Both Amir and Hassan are motherless. They spend almost all their time together, playing games and sharing stories in their favourite pomegranate tree. An encounter with Assef, the local bully, in which Hassan springs to Amir’s defence has appalling consequences, destroying their friendship and driving Amir to desperate measures to rid himself of Hassan, measures which result in a puzzling reaction from his father. When Ali and Hassan decide to leave of their own accord, Amir’s relief is short lived; he knows that his cowardice has been detected.
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Threaded through the story is this feeling of guilt by Amir although he was only a boy himself when the dreadful act was commited against Hassan, he still feels that he should have done something. Perhaps he should have told Baba his father, but he as was always trying to receive recognition and praise from him, to allow his father to know he hadn't helped Hassan would have detroyed that.
As the story unfolded I came to like Amir more and more although as a young child he did have a mean streak and teased Hassan to the point of cruelty.
This book is well worth a read and if you don't choke back the odd tear I would be greatly surprised.

WIPs and something to start

The lovely thing about being retired is that I can cross stitch

all day if I want to. I have got on really well with this and am loving it.

ABECEDAIRE

My houses are coming along too and I have done some of the back stitches as well as huge chunk of the trees. Still a lot to do but I still love this and am surging ahead to get it finished.

And something new although the colour of the cashel linen is pale yellow instead of what was suggested in the chart. It should be tobacco so I am going to use one of my dyes and darken it a bit. Hope it turns out ok!

And of course I had to buy the WDWs threads.

And they are lovely!

And this is to stitch Blackbirds 'Willow House' which I have loved for a long time so I am proud of myself that I haven't bought all the materials earlier and left my WIPs !

The sun is shining here today and I am home listening to The Archers although I listen to all the episodes each day in the week.,  but I am a 'Archerholic' and have been following the story since 1960!!

I have laughed and cried with this radio programme over the years and even looked up the synopsis to see what was happening when we were in Australia last year.

When Pat and Tony's son John was killed in a tractor accident I was listening as I was driving to see my daughter and had to stop and pull over I was crying so much.

I am still busy writing trying to get one of my stories published and have had my first rejection slip, I wasn't upset just put out that some body thought it wasn't suitable to be published in their magazine. But it has made me more determined and I am actually now plotting a novel which is the next assignmnet for my writing course.

Watch this space one day I will be a famous writer!!  LOL

Wedding Anniversary

It was our forth wedding anniversary on the 29th July,
Mike had this beautiful bouquet delivered to the house and it arrived before I was dressed!

Mike had asked for some summer flowers and they certainly were, with a beautiful delphinium, dahlias, carnations, clarkias, lilies, and chrysanthemums.

And we had a lovely lot of cards, so nice that people remember us.

I spent a long time on thursday morning going though our wedding cards all 82 of them.. as on the day there wasn't that much time although Mike did open every one in the evening in front of our family and friends, as we were back at my house with all our guests with a feast of food all from Waitrose .My best friend Yvonne and her partner organised serving it so that meant I was free to enjoy our guests. We had had a delicious meal at our Wedding Reception at lunch time, so don't know how I ate more but  I did!! It was a perfect day and evening. It was still very warm and we were all out in the garden so a lovely time was had by us all, It was truely lovely looking at all our cards again and brought the memories of the day back to us. We went to America the next day early, (very early 5:00am!!) and toured California and when we got back we only stayed two days in Billericay before we travelled here to Coventry, so no time to look at the cards then.

To celebrate on Thursday evening we went to Bella Italia in town for a super meal, it is so lovely to eat out but now it is lettuce and water for the rest of the week. before weigh in at SW!!
But it was worth it as it was a lovely day.

I am still stitching!!!

This is Lynn's Round Robin for Stitch & Stash, it is ready to post off at the end of the week, and I should be getting Jaclyn's from Dusty in US... who will be the last in  this RR.. Quite exciting when I  remember this started back in the new year.

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And  I have stitched quite a bit now on my Golden Gate Houses, still lots to do all the back stitching and the trees which I keep leaving so I must have a good 'tree' session or this will be left!

But I am still enjoying this and love to stitch it, all the houses different colours make it look so pretty to me. 

And this is a freebee from gazette94

Lots of lovely free designs on her blog so well worth a look.

I am using 32C Belfast linen so a bit creased at the moment with just two colours. I love the way it is already looking good! 

I saw this on Gayle's blog who is such a busy lady wiith knitting, dressmaking, stitching, crochet and recipes... I felt a failure just reading all she did.
This is easy to stitch and so I am alternating it with my other stitching.
Hope everyone is enjoying the sunny weather like us although we have had some welcome rain for the garden in the last week, which was really needed.
Happy stitching all

It is my two year blogaversary today,,, I can't believe  I have been blogging all that time!

Who am I ??

I have been asked to complete 15 random things about me so here goes!


1. After being over weight for over 20 years I am now seriously trying to lose it. I have no allusions about becoming a sylph like in under a year, just not over weight!

2. I really love my husband and wish it had been he I married the first time.

3. Our wedding anniversary is 29th July and this year we will have been married four years, our song was Elton John’s 'Your Song ' which my step daughters sang at our wedding which made me very emotional.

4. I have a degree in Education achieved in 1983 as a mature student which I loved doing, I never realised till then quite how ‘brainy’ (for want of a better word,) I was. Although I left school with 11 ‘O’ Levels.

5. I could have had an affair while I was in college but didn’t and don’t regret it, at that moment in time I was madly in love with my first husband

6. I have four children all grown and flown and three grand children.

7. I have travelled nearly around the world, just need to do the bit between Australia and America. I have been to all five continents, but now think my need to travel is over, although I want to go to Australia again and we plan to go next year.

8. The happiest days in my life were when my children were small and before they started school and when they said Mummy for the first time.

9. If I was to be asked what I regretted most in my life is not having a Mother, she died when I was two and my father remarried so I didn’t have a father either. Yes, I saw him but I lived with my Victorian grandmother and two maiden aunts. I really miss not having memories of a normal family. I always feel jealous of large families.

10. Becoming a teacher was just because I was at home with nothing to do, and I actually liked it very much. I was a nurse when I left school and still meet up with the other ‘girls’ who like me are now in their sixties and live all over the world.

11. I cry easily, sad books, sad films, or when I am happy, and then especially when they show the soldiers being brought back from Afghanistan and the cortege goes through Wotten Bassett, so sad.

12. I keep a journal and this now plays a part in my efforts to get published I write stories all the time and find it quite easy to think of something to write about. I send them off to Magazines so one day one might get published and of course I have a novel started!

13. I read all the time and never stop I always have loads of books stacked on my shelf ready to read

14. I cross stitch constantly, at every moment truth be told so I never really watch TV because I am always stitching

15. I seriously regret not keeping up with my piano playing and wonder if I still can.


And that’s me!

A show to see!!

On Tuesday evening we set off in heavy rain for the Birmingham Hippodrome to see Connie Fisher in The ‘Sound of Music’.

It was absolutely delightful.. right from the opening scene which were the nuns singing to the very last ‘Goodnight’ song sung by the Von Trapp family before they left to escape the Nazis. It was so beautiful and the singing so wonderful I felt quite emotional.  The children were fantastic and sang with real enthusiasm.

And Connie Fisher was wow!

Of course now we would like to see another live show.... it is so different to seeing films or TV.. we are booked for 'Chicago' in November, but that seems ages away. As we will be in Essex for a few days in August we are looking to see what else we could book in London. The Proms are on so perhaps an evening in the Albert Hall, a live symphony can be amazing or even an opera at the ENO.  My grand daughter has never seen Phantom of the Opera so I would like to try and book this and take her.. with my house in Essex available for us we can stay there and travel to London to see it. I said she must see it as her second name is Christine!!

A wonderful day in Cambridge

Last Thursday I had a super day, when I went to visit my two eldest grand children, Saskia and Christian , wish I could have more like it .. We went into the city and had lunch in a pizza restaurant up stairs in their roof restaurant outside, it was lovely, both the lunch and the view all around us.
In the photo of them, you can just see other roofs behind...... then after we had eaten (I had a courgette and mushroom pizza with lots of mozzrella cheese and drizzled in oil, it was amazing!!) Christian wanted to go to this toy shop so we walked and walked and walked, he went in the toy shop Saskia went in the music shop next door and I sat under an umbrella one of the many outside little cafes and had a coffee. I needed the sit down! Cambridge has so many little alley ways with cafes and stalls, such a lovely city. We had also been in HMV, which was huge and I asked didn't they have any grandma seats??? LOL

But it was a wonderful day, when we got back to their house, we had some of the chocolate cake I had made. My daughter arrived home with Theo later and I had a cup of tea with her and left about 6, it took me nearly 2 hours to come home as I drive tucked in behind a lorry when I am tired and they only go 58mph!! The one I was following took a sharp left when we left the M11 on to the A14 and I suddenly found myself in a Service area so had to go round a round about and back onto the road!! I wondered if the driver had seen me and wondered what I was at, I wondered myself!!  LOL

But it was such a lovely day! Wish we did live nearer...ah well, we'll be nearer in Billericay. Only 4 weeks to go till we are there and although we won't be fully living there, we will be able to stay there when ever we want!
It was a super day and I so enjoyed myself but it was a lot of walking and it was hot so Friday I had to have an afternoon kip!! Well I am a grandma!

Our Haven!

We were given quite a few Garden Vouchers when we married (nearly four years ago now) this was one of the roses we bought.Its called 'Wedding Day' and has spread along our fence. The scent from it is heavenly and it is lovely to sit in the garden with this around us reminding us of our lovely day.               Here is the garden struggling in the heat although DH waters each evening it could do with a big rain fall ( sorry all you sun lovers but we want rain!!)

And here is my basket with the serafina now flowering, it is beautiful and lots of people stop and look at it.

And our first carrots this year. Each year I plant the seeds in pots stood on bricks up above 60cms as the carrot fly can't fly that high!! I never get round to thinning them out enough to get  a good size so this time I patiently planted the seeds one by one in a smaller pot and these are the first we have pulled. We ate them sunday with our beef dinner and they were sweet and delicious!

Our garden is our haven and all the hard work is worth it to get it looking beautiful.

Hope everyone has a place they can call their Haven too!

A night the Ballet

We had a wonderful evening at the ballet seeing Swan Lake; Birmingham Royal Ballet is amazing.. we had booked this months ago so it was lovely that DH reminded me  that the date had arrived.

The second half opened with the curtain rising with the stage two foot deep in a white mist and then the swan dancers rose out of it.. spectacular!

How can they dance like that on their points so graceful and well worth seeing. The music alone is lovely too, this will stay in my mind for a long, long  time.