My day

I came downstairs this morning to a heap of lovely email.

So many friends remembered my birthday, I spent most of the morning emailing my thanks, replying to sweet Facebook greetings, talking to family and friends on the phone and opening presents.  I had cards from some of my oldest friends, women with whom I grew up, went to Brownies and shared so many happy days.  How lovely to hear from them still.

I had a lovely collection of parcels to open including a couple of interesting books.  One is particularly apt.  It’s a beauty and the perfect antidote to those pictures of perfect studios.  I mean, who couldn’t love a book which celebrates images like this one?  I’m looking forward to sitting down and reading through it page by page, rather than just dipping into it as I have done so far.

This one’s an interesting book, too, and definitely one to spend time with.  I’m not sure about some of the animal images, but there are some fascinating concepts in there.

So, I’d opened cards and replied to emails.  I’d read the paper and spent the morning being busy but doing nothing when there was a knock at the door.  A HUGE parcel arrived!

My hero had ordered a rocking chair for me!  Not an old lady rocking chair though, but a super cool Eames rocking chair which we’ve both coveted for a while – but guess who’ll get first dibs on sitting in it?    Love it – and I was given the perfect “dove grey book” to read whilst I try it out, too.

Then, just when I thought all surprises were done for today, a young man arrived in an Interflora van with a gorgeous bouquet of orchids from Tra – a real sense of Asia on a wild and woolly Autumn day.  I’ve put them on the kitchen windowsill in the hope that some of that oriental heat will miraculously radiate from those stunning pink petals. 

What fun it is celebrating being just one day older than I was yesterday!

Human frailties

I know several of my failings (too long a list to post here, btw) and two of them are a dislike of confrontation and a determination to win.  So, if I really must pick a fight, I’ll choose a comparatively weaker adversary and will keep going until I get the better of it.

Quite often, my opponent is a sheet of paper.

If Linda is reading this, she’ll remember that the only thing to catch my eye in the craft magazines (with the exception of the crochet baby reindeer) was this paper ball, for which there were no instructions.

Red rag to a bull. 

Had the instructions been there alongside, I’d have had a quick go, satisfied myself that it wasn’t worth the bother and that would have been that.  But no.  I had to come home, to google it and pin the instructions to my Pinterest board and pick a fight with it later.

First of all, take six strips of paper and arrange five of them in a star.  How difficult is that?  It took me three or four goes before I watched the short video here which recommends sticking them down to the table.  Good advice!

That’s because, the next step requires every other one of those strips to be pulled through the circle made by the sixth strip and believe me, those paper strips are a mean opponent at this stage of the game.

It wasn’t looking good for quite some time, but I can be quite determined to get the better of those paper strips and after an hour or so, I beat them into submission.

Ta dah!

Just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, I had to make another, smaller one.  That was tricky!  Don’t imagine that shorter strips are any less obstinate than longer ones, will you?

But armed with a few bits of washi tape and some instant-dry glue, we got there in the end.

Shall I make a hundred for our Christmas tree, do you think?

Please, don’t say “yes” – I’m bored with them now.

Sunday morning

I hesitate to say “with a morning to myself”

Anyway, avoiding all thoughts of things that I didn’t want to do and channelling all energy into things I quite fancied doing, I cranked up the Silhouettte machine and thought I’d give this a try.  I’d bought the cut file from the Silhouette store for 65p (major purchase) and having just emptied a tin of our favourite cinnamon sweets, the tin was there, begging to be tarted up.

In just over an hour, I’d used some sheets from a 12” paper pad I’d bought from a Michaels sale ages ago, which I keep for test cuts and trial projects to create a pretty nice transformation of an otherwise dull and commonplace tin.

OK, so the craft judges reading this might wince at the sight of excess glue (!) and I might cringe at my haste in neglecting to sand off the paint around the edges before diving in.  But really, truly, for an hour’s work and pretty much minimum effort (that was all done by the designer of the cut file), I think it’s rather good as a prototype.

Next time, of course, I’ll take more care!

Actually, the making was fuelled by these date and rum bonbons which we’d tasted at the cookery demonstration I talked about in my last post.  With the Ghurka chef running late, the Cookery School manager put on an impromptu demonstration for us, relying on his repertoire of recipes from storecupboard ingredients.  For a quick and easy make, these are really good and having bought some more dates yesterday morning, I had to give them a try.

Yummy.

Oh, and just eleven or twelve months after buying the ingredients for this, I finally got around to putting the eye hooks around the frame and threading the wires.  My Hero will be delighted about that, because I’ve lost count of the times he’s tripped over the picture frame leaning up against my desk in our studio!  Not bad for a £4.99 picture frame, a couple of yards of hanging wire and a pack of eye hooks, is it?  I had the metal hanging pegs in my stash already and, remarkably, was able to find them when I needed them.  That must be a first.

So, I think I’ll put my feet up this afternoon and read the paper!

Not quite what was planned

I suspected that there might be problems from the minute I heard the news that the M4 was closed on Thursday morning, due to a traffic accident.  When I heard another traffic report that the A34 was also closed as a result of another serious crash, I wondered how it might affect any plans for the day, because I was meeting friends at Denman College for a cookery demonstration.

Sure enough, when I arrived I learned that Pemba Lama, author of the Ultimate Nepalese Cookbook was stuck in all of that traffic and, despite setting off at 6am, he was not going to make it in time for the planned demonstration.  Arrangements were hastily made for Peter Lien, head of the cookery school to do an impromptu demonstration which we sat back and enjoyed.

After lunch, the message came through that Pemba was just minutes away and shortly afterwards, he arrived to enthusiastic applause.  His military training clearly equipped him with the stamina and presence of mind to launch straight into his work, because after six hours of being stuck in traffic, he was able to create some remarkable food in front of eighty women.

We had all the benefits of screens and cameras everywhere, so could see every bit of the action.  Grating carrots for a pudding, stir frying marinated chicken or whizzing up fresh spices for a Nepali-style salsa, Pemba explained all in great detail.

What a delightful man, too!  He radiated sunshine and good humour – who’d have thought he’d spent most of the day in a traffic jam?

Having tasted the delicious dishes he’d created, we simply had to buy the book and were grateful for the author’s signature.  That task completed, he jumped in his car and drove all the way home again.

He was cooking dinner for his wife that evening!

Feet. Haven’t. Touched.

I wouldn’t have it any other way, really.  We’d had a really lovely weekend with friends here for a couple of days and Edward, too.  We went to a couple of thought-provoking events at the literature festival (Melvyn Bragg and Michael Dobbs) and had a fun supper at Jamie’s Italian in Cheltenham afterwards.  We accepted the management’s birthday greetings and subsequently, their apologies in complimentary bottles of prosecco and after that late night spent Sunday afternoon in a bit of a heap after an indulgent lunch at home. 

All of that made it extra hard to get up at 5am on Monday morning, to take Edward to the station on my way up to Lancashire, where I was heading to teach a group of potential WI Craft Judges with my colleague and friend, Linda.  They’d sent me all their portfolios already so armed with bags of tracking sheets, assessment criteria and related paperwork together with a boot full of handmade “exhibits”, otherwise known as the contents of my studio, I set off up the M6.

I’ve said previously how much I enjoy this and what a privilege it is to spend time in the company of these talented and extraordinary women and the last three days have been no exception.  As they arrived on Monday afternoon, I realised that, although I felt I knew them really well from our email conversations over the summer, I might not actually recognise them at all!  

I needn’t have worried – of course I did – and over the next couple of days we had great fun “identifying techniques, acknowledging skills and offering encouragement” as we talked about such things as crocheted fish, made from “plarn” and exquisitely knitted socks  (thanks Aprille!) which came with both siblings and cousins, depending on how well the stripes in the yarn had been managed.

Our clever and talented friends had lent us some remarkable items to judge (thanks Marion and Nina!) and the conversation prompted by such beautiful things never stopped.  Shirley kept us well fed and Linda had remembered everything else, so that we could focus on the things which interest and intrigue us all – a huge variety of hand made beauties.

Linda and I weren’t the only ones to pull exquisite items from our bags, though.  Chris casually took this gorgeous flower out one afternoon and soon had a little crowd around her as we wanted to know who, how, where?  (The answer is here by the way and yes, I do want to have a go myself!)

The days were long but sped past in no time and by yesterday lunchtime we were finished.  Eight new NFWI Craft Judges left the building and very generously entertained Linda and I to lunch nearby.  For almost two hours we never stopped talking and if we’d been able to bottle the knowledge, experience and enthusiasm for crafts that was concentrated on that table, it would have been priceless.

The other lovely thing is that I said ‘bye to eight new friends.  That’s priceless, too.