Simply a moment - March

It is 9pm Saturday 22nd March. We are sitting at a table in a rugby club because we are part of the celebrations for an engagement. The music is very loud, as it always is on these occasions. My leg is hurting and I am at my limit of control. I am not at home, there are lots of people that I don't know and Mr M has gone outside for a cigarette so I am ALONE. Then several things happen very quickly and I learn that.... well let me describe the moment.

I can feel the panic rising inside me and I want to leap up and rush out of the building but I can't move because to move is to attract notice. Mr M comes back in through the door and the panic subsides. My phone whistles to tell me I have received a text. It is my daughter answering my plaintive message to say that the music is loud. "Have they fed you?" she asks, "Boo says if they haven't fed you yet then you must leave straight away. Tell them your daughter was attacked by an eagle. Now Boo is rolling about laughing."
I read the message to Mr M and we both laugh out loud and now I know I can stay for a while longer. The moment of fear has passed.

It occurs to me that you might wonder why the phrase "tell them your daughter was attacked by an eagle" would make us laugh quite so much. Here is the background story.

On Wednesday my daughter did a sponsored silence at work. She told her colleagues that if they could raise £100 in sponsorship she would be silent for the whole working day. They came back to her an hour later with £200 worth of sponsorship and Wednesday was "The Day". She easily completed the challenge and was packing up to come home when she saw 'something' moving outside her second floor window and heard a strange noise. Instinctively she turned away and closed her eyes as the something burst through the glass of the closed window. She said the noise was terrifying and she could hear and feel glass showering over her. something fell on her desk and then whatever it was went out through the glass of the other window and the end of the room, leaving feathers drifting down through the air and glass dropping and tinkling to the floor - oh and a rather battered collared dove on the desk.
My daughter was totally traumatised, as was the Dove, and she stood shaking for a moment before pressing redial on her phone. She is the Mental Health Administrator in a Forensic Psychiatric Hospital and her last call had been to one of the wards. When they answered she couldn't speak but just burst into tears. Fortunately they recognised her voice and pretty soon she had several nurses and staff looking after her. She was quite a while before she could drive home and when she got here she was still shaking. She was hugged by all of us and her daughter told her she was safe now because "Grandpa won't let anything bad happen, and I am here to keep you safe mummy". They had food with us and gradually the human ability to find humour in every situation began to seep through until Mr M said "...and just be thankful no one said ...EAGLE!!!" (just like the teabag advert) which made us all laugh. So there you have it. This moment has come to you because of a delightful idea by Alexa at Trimmingthesails now you have read my contribution why not pop over there and see what other moments have happened this month

We are going to a party!

That's us, the party people...................... what? you don't believe me? Well, ok. Perhaps we aren't the burn-the-candle-at-both-ends kind of people any more, but we are going to a party on Saturday. We have had an invitation

 

Isn't that beautiful? all neatly folded with the date and time hidden under a fold of the paper and the reason for the party on the little dangly note underneath.

The son of a cousin on Mr M's side of the family - who incidentally shouldn't be old enough to go out on his own yet because he was only 30 last year! - is celebrating his engagement to a lovely and talented girl. She made the invitations and so I have paper folding envy.

We have had visitors this past weekend. I love it when people come to stay that we have known for long enough for them to have become part of the family. So much so that they will get up and put the kettle on and make a cuppa for everyone. We took them to Hay on Wye but because I discovered that somehow the lens of my camera has been damaged I didn't take the camera. There were four other cameras in our group but no one has given me any pictures yet. I will document the trip when the pictures arrive..... when I do the page for the album. Closer examination of the pictures taken with my camera seem to show that the damage is not fatal, and I can still use it. I feel a whole lot better now. We also took them to the OK Diner and it was decreed A Good Thing.

Mostly feeling sorry for myself

Just when you think things are getting better. Just when you can go out of the front door without having to gather all your courage and breath into a tight ball. Something, happens that knocks you back down again. What is interesting is my reaction this time.
You see, this time I got angry about it. How dare my leg start with the cellulitis again! How dare that person upset me in the way they did! How dare the weather change to sunny and bright when I can't walk out to enjoy it! How dare I feel like this when there is so much to see and do out there!
The less interesting thing is that my default state when taking these awful antibiotics etc is to sleep. I wake at around 4am when the eczema flares. I have to get up and walk about because when I lie down I can reach my leg and scratch - not good. this eases by about 7am so I can take the next lot of tablets and then I lie on the sofa and sleep until lunchtime. More pills and something to eat and then guess what? yes that's right, sleep again and then the 4pm flare and so it goes.

Visitors this weekend so that'll cheer me up a bit and if it is dry we are taking them out somewhere good, can't say where until it happens. I might have to sit in the car but that won't matter as long as I am a part of the fun.

I just had to try it out

The Lakeland catalogue arrived the other day. In it were many, many things that I desperately needed. Well, there always are things that I desperately need in the Lakeland catalogue - I bet you find that too.

One of the things that screamed "buy me!" was the silicone chocolate marshmallow mould. Now that's a must have if ever I saw one. Mind you, I could hear my Dad's voice in the back of my mind, muttering something about neither use nor ornament, but I had to have it. I wanted to make chocolate marshmallow cakes. Those fabulous domes that were such a special treat for tea.
Do you remember how they were individually wrapped in red-striped foil and the mere sight of them set your mouth to watering in anticipation. Now I could make my own! any time I wanted, and eat them all, any time I.... ah but there is a lot of sugar in marshmallow and I am diabetic and so is Mr M so eating all of them would not be an option. In fact, eating any might not be a Good Thing.

Too late.

I had rung Lakeland and ordered the mould together with the replacement gas cylinders for our soda stream and the chocolate for the marshmallows and they sent everything really quickly, as always.

So there it sat, with it's recipe card, waiting for me to have a go at making chocolate marshmallow cakes. So I did. They are HUGE

Now I have to say that they take ages to make. First you melt the chocolate and leave it to cool. While that is happening you make the biscuits for the bottoms and after they have cooked they have to cool totally ot the chocolate won't set on them. While they are cooling you take the cool but still molten chocolate and spread it into the mould, easier to say than to do and you have to keep turning the mould around so you don't miss any bits. Then you come to the energetic part of the process. Making the marshmallow.

The recipe says that it is preferable to use an electric whisk for this bit. I don't have one so I now have muscles like knots in cotton from using a rotary hand whisk. Trust me you need an electric hand mixer because you put the ingredients into a bowl over a pan of simmering water and you whisk until they are all mixed together and standing in stiff peaks. My arms shook for ages after I had stopped whisking and the sugar did separate out a little afterwards where I hadn't quite kept going long enough.

While this cools down you use the chocolate to dip the biscuits and leave those to set and then fill the chocolate covered mould with cold marshmallow then put the chocolate covered biscuit onto the top and seal them with more melted chocolate and leave to set again.

I used the waiting time to sit and read - and wait for my arms to stop vibrating. When Mr M came home from work last night he had his sausage casserole and then a marshmallow as his pudding. 

I have to say that the combination of vanilla marshmallow with chocolate and biscuit took me right back to birthday teatimes in my childhood. I think I might have to buy an electric hand mixer just to see if the marshmallow is better ... I want to make them again but not too soon

Simply a Moment -February

It's 1.30pm we are just getting back into the car after lunch and shopping at Morrisons (we know how to live here in South East Wales). Lunch was not a great success, it wasn't busy but we still waited more than 30 minutes for our food and somehow it wasn't quite up to standard. The whole week has been like that, and it should have been perfect because it was Mr M's birthday week and he always has that time off from work so that we can do something special. This year the weather prevented any sort of going out and even the chickens decided that staying in bed was the best option.
Anyhoooo
I had managed to wash my hair in the shower this morning and as it still wasn't quite dry before we came out I simply brushed it back off my face and out we went, we ate lunch and did the shopping.
Two things I had not connected combined to make my moment.
1.  I have been allowing my hair to grow for the last year so that it can be put into a bun on the back of my head and I will then be the perfect grandma - Miss Boo told me this. So my hair is quite long now.
2.  It was windy.
We put the shopping into the car and as I came back from putting the trolley into its little house I had my back to the wind.
It went dark.
Well, it does when your hair blows forward and completely covers your eyes and you have one hand on the door and one on the seat to lift yourself up into the car - it's a Kia Sedona, the eastern version of the Chrysler Grand Voyager so you get up into it.
It made me laugh and because I laughed Mr M laughed and then looked and laughed more. This made me happy because it's the first time this week he has smiled as though he meant it

This moment is brought to you courtesy of Alexa at Trimming the Sails go take a look but make sure you have a cuppa and a biscuit to sustain you as the moments are just marvellous

Sometimes it all comes together

Last year I wrote about why I had to be at the Gwent FHS Open Day I am sure that my Dad was organising things, in the way that he always did, and meeting the lady called Kathryn was something that just had to be.

I sent her pictures of the Mill where her family had lived before we did and she was delighted.

I patted myself on the back for doing a good job, thanked my Dad for keeping an eye on things even though he no longer with us and thought that would be the end of it.

Until Wednesday.

On Wednesday I received an email from Pauline. She said she had just read my blog and was really interested because her father had been born at the Mill. Did I have any pictures, or information about the old place.

I did two things. I fired off an email to Pauline saying that I had loads of pictures (and attached one) and did she know a person called Kathryn who was also related to the family who lived at the Mill? Then I wrote a short email to Kathryn asking if she knew Pauline and if she didn't could I give Kathryn's email addy to Pauline.

Oh I also asked how Pauline had found my blog and she said she had simply put the name of the Mill into Google and my blog came up.

Then I waited.

To quote from "the Princess Bride" 'I hate waiting'

Pauline replied that she had a dropbox account so I could go look at her pictures that she took on a recent visit to the Mill and she had never heard of Kathryn. I sent back to say that she could now share my folder of Mill pictures and How much the old place had changed.

Kathryn replied that she had never heard of Pauline and yes please send the email address. I did that straight away and I have now received a message telling me that Pauline has contacted Kathryn. Isn't that just wonderful? They are related but, as is the way with families, the different branches had fallen off the tree. Now they are connected again - I love it, just love it.

Now that's why I had to be there!

Quilting for the family

Coming Home

I have been thinking about my quilts just lately and thought I would just put up a few pictures of some of them. All now given to people.

The first one is called Coming Home and is a magician standing on top of his tower in a howling gale waiting for his familiar to return home. For anyone who has ever played Dungeon and Dragons his familiar is a Pseudo Dragon. For those who haven't played it doesn't really matter. A Mage and his familiar do not take well to separation, hence the reason why he is standing at the top of his tower waiting for his tiny golden companion to return.

The Village

 The Village was done simply because we spent a glorious week in Port Meirion and I had this image in my head for months. Then my friend who owns a curtain making business gave me several bags of cabbage (Offcuts of fabrics from cushions and bedcovers) In it there were several beautiful greens and they just cried out to be used for the many trees.
When we stayed at the Village we were in the blue and yellow house on the left. It is called Chantrey and houses 8 people. We stayed with a fantastic group of friends. The advantage of staying in the village means that you can go out into the gardens after all the visitors have gone and you can play giant snakes and ladders on the lawn. Do make sure you go to the loo beforehand because you'll laugh so much you'll have to run with crossed legs to the bathroom

Claude

Orient

Claude is a Rainbow dragon. This quilt is based on a painting done by my dear friend Helen Rich. Her painting is called "The Other End of the Rainbow". I bought a print of it for Mr M as a Christmas gift and it hangs in our bedroom. I asked Helen if I could base a quilt on her picture and she generously said yes. My Youngest son now owns this quilt. You can't see in this picture but the ribs of the wings are beaded as is most of his body. From his mouth streams the rainbow. His tail is also covered in the only embroidery stitch I can do - chain stitch.
Oh, I call him Claude because at one end of the rainbow you get a pot of gold and at the other you get clawed.





The last quilt is called Orient. I based it on a card I saw in a shop. I went in and bought it because the design just screamed out quilt to me. I was so delighted with it and kept it for quite a while just so that I could roll it out onto the spare bed and look at it. The flute player is wearing beaded earrings that dangle. The centres of the flowers were done with offcuts from a very colourful waistcoat that I made for a roleplayer. When he got married I realised that I hadn't been keeping the quilt to look at I had been saving it for just such an occasion so I wrapped it up and sent it off as a wedding present.

I rarely sew now because my eyesight is getting bad, and I honestly haven't felt that burning need to make a picture of anything. I have idly thought that I should make quilts for the newer members of the family but enthusiasm seems to have departed. I am glad that I have pictures of the ones I made.