One day older

After a weekend of fun, spent in the company of dear friends, I feel at least one day older today.

It kicked off with the final of a quiz we’ve been involved in for the last year.  Still full of antibiotics and paracetamol, I’m sorry to say I was more of a passenger than a full team player, but thanks to my clever friends, we didn’t do too badly even if our answers of Willy and Wally in Round 4 fell short of the mark.

Though we didn’t bring home a cheque this year, we came in around fifth or so, which we felt was a respectable result, all things considered!

On Saturday, we took our friends over the border and spent a lovely day out in the fresh air.

We listened to tales of bravery which might have inspired us

but some still admitted they didn’t have the stomach for the shortest, rather unconventional trip, however impressive the engineering.

In the evening, we enjoyed one of Jamie’s 30 minute suppers, which I thought was a wizzard wheeze.  Took me just over thirty minutes to prepare but with such a great team of washer-uppers, not so very long to clear up.

Sunday was a day full of friends, flowers and sunshine.

I have some new and very interesting books to add to my library and I’m looking forward to spending a while with them. 

 

Then, there, underneath the furry armlets which I’m looking forward to wearing, is the clue to the gift from my Hero.  What a treasure!

Our sweet and very generous friends had shopped in the most elegant of places and the day was full of surprises.  We were so pleased they could join us in the afternoon to hear Tra play a small concert in Cheltenham and I was honoured to have her performance dedicated to me.

We rounded off the day with cocktails and supper around the restaurant’s  largest table. 

I’m a lucky girl!

I will need to remind myself of those four words frequently during the coming weeks, because today, we have cleared our garden room in the hope that the builders will begin their work on the roof.  Emptying our box room of every-box-that-ever-there-was and the polystyrene packaging it contained has been the work of my hero, who has worked wonders in finding homes for it all (three trips to the tip so far, together with a whole raft more things up in the loft now).  We are hoping that it won’t take too long and are consoling ourselves that we will gain some extra space in the form of a dressing room/walk in closet but nevertheless can’t summon up much enthusiasm for the thought of living with builders once again.

It’ll be lovely when it’s finished.

Work begins

I’ve been thinking about my Mum quite a lot during the last couple of days.  It started when I was sorting through some old emails, stumbling across some of hers, sent to us when we were off on our travels somewhere.  As my finger hovered over the delete button, I came to my senses and clicked save instead – though I didn’t feel like reading them there and then, I had no doubt that sometime in the future, it will be lovely to read her words again.

I thought about her again yesterday morning, when I set out for the dentist to begin work on the replacement of the lower molar I broke and subsequently had extracted during the summer.  Mummy was absolutely terrified of the dentist and would do anything to avoid a visit.  Though my fear isn’t quite in the same league, I nevertheless don’t find the prospect of an appointment easy and over the last couple of days I’d built myself up to this particular one, feeling some relief when the time came to get it over and done with.  After all, there are times when we need to be grown up and summon up all courage – and I smiled to myself knowing that, in these circumstances, having my Mum there for me would be no use whatsoever!

My anxiety was wasted however, because it appeared that this appointment was simply to talk through the options, to discuss the viability of an implant and to make sure I knew what I was letting myself in for.  I hesitate to say, but it was also, I think, to make sure I agreed to pay for this treatment, because it doesn't come cheap.  It was clear from my expression that I was feeling ambivalent about the wasted anxiety and apologies were forthcoming and fulsome.  A promise was made to begin work as soon as possible and between my leaving the surgery and finding my way to the reception desk to make the next appointment, an hour and a half yesterday afternoon was found.  Exactly the kind of strategy used by her friends and family to coax Mummy to the dentist!

So, I understand – believe – hope that the worst is over.  The work has begun and in the next three months hopefully my jawbone will grow around the titanium and all will be well.  I must say, the process wasn’t as bad as I’d feared and although it’s a little sore and swollen this morning, the antibiotics and paracetamol will hopefully sort that out in a couple of days.  I’ve sent apologies to my meeting this morning on the advice of my dentist, who said that I should take it easy and enjoy a restful day at home.  Clearly he had no idea what life at home is like right now!

Because work is beginning here too, in that we are at last able to have the leaks in our garden room roof repaired.  The planning permission came through at the end of last week which will mean we can sort out the flat roof issues which have plagued us continually since this room was built.  At the same time, we can repair the chimney which the sweep declared a safety hazard and somehow sort out a couple of niggles in our bedroom too.  Get the picture?  Builders likely to be here there and everywhere, currently sorting out scaffolding but soon to begin work in earnest.

And yes, it means I have to sort out my clothes.  Oh heck.

At the same time as the builder was here working out a plan for the scaffolding, the tree surgeons were next door, taking the tops out of their overgrown and unattractive leylandii at our request.

In other words, it was exactly the kind of day Mummy would have loved.  People coming and going, things happening all over the place and work being done.  Friendly faces appreciative of frequent cups of tea and best of all, someone to bake some currant buns for.

Shame she’s not around to enjoy one.

Red-haired twins

As she picked up the pot to pour me a mug of tea at WI last night, my friend Liz said “oh well, I’ll just risk the red-haired twins, then”.

What?

Clearly my puzzled expression revealed that I had no idea what she was talking about, so she went on to explain.

“When two women pour from the same teapot, one of them will have red haired twins”.

This morning, reading a little more about teapot superstitions reveals that Liz wasn’t making it up – I even discovered the link to “I’ll be Mother”!

Sorry Liz…as if I’d ever doubt you ;-)

Incidentally, that link to Alec Gill’s website opened a door to a huge and fascinating resource with a strong link to my home city of Hull, too.  I guess I owe Liz thanks as well as an apology!

Inspired

I’ve been at Denman College this week, working with some extremely inspiring and very knowledgeable women and in the company of some old friends.  Spending time with like-minded people is such fun and inevitably, I came home last night feeling sad that the time passed so quickly.

Our time was spent in the classroom working on their craft judging skills as they embraced every challenge set to become fully qualified WI Judges.  The days were long, the list of things to do seemed to grow longer rather than shorter and everyone had so much experience and so many ideas to share that our heads were buzzing in the early hours too.

Questions such as “when is a soft toy not a soft toy?” and “is this cushion hand weaving or a bought piece of fabric?” kept coming, and my colleague Linda and I did our best to instil enough confidence in our students to enable them to summon all their knowledge and experience to be decisive.

In the evening we left them to party in the bar and returned to our little cottage where a bottle of red and a wonky corkscrew demanded more attention than a screwcap.  Six hands on the bottle suggest rather more desperation than was really the case and having plied my Celebrity Masterchef judge friend with a few glasses, she still wouldn’t tell me who won!

The course finished yesterday lunchtime and I returned to the (beautiful) classroom later in the afternoon to finish clearing up and to check I’d left nothing behind.  Everyone had gone their separate ways and all was quiet.  In that blast of activity, we’d done so much.  Not only had we shared a huge amount of knowledge and experience, we’d also gathered a bunch of new friends as well.

We might have had a bit of fun along the way, too  ;-)

I brought home a very sweet card signed by all the class and their comments were very much appreciated.

I also brought home some bedtime reading in the form of 480 comment slips from their final assessment!  Yes, I’ll read every one as a reminder that it is indeed possible to find something positive and encouraging to say about every single thing.

Even the scary rabbit.

Time to pack - again

It’s a different type of packing so far, though I need to put some things into a suitcase in a minute.  I’ve spent the afternoon pulling together all kinds of crafts, bits and pieces I’ve made, things which others have done which represent all manner of skills and techniques.  Because tomorrow, I’ll meet sixteen extraordinarily talented and knowledgeable women who are up for a challenge!

I’m going to work with them for three days at our college. We are going to learn all kinds of things from one another and hopefully, I’ll be able to do my usual “enthuse, encourage and enable” well enough to get them through.

What fun we’re going to have!