Two Awards

I have been really grateful to receive two awards recently, but have been so busy I have only just managed to post them!
The first one I got ages and ages ago, (sorry) from Old Kitty at Ten Lives and second chances.

And the second more recently:

from Alijane at Gingercat.

Both awards require quite a lot of thought from me to come up with 7 interesting/unknown things about me, I'm cheating slightly (as usual with me) by combining the seven things from both, as I'm sure I really can't think of fourteen. And I think I may have been supposed to do something else as well and possibly haven't done things quite properly but I'm so busy right now this is all I can manage! By now most of you realise I won't be actually passing anything on to specific people, but I do appreciate them both, thank you both of you very much.

So I leave you with seven random things, not sure how interesting they are! (they are a certainly long enough, I got a bit carried away once I'd started, for which I apologise.)

Perhaps the most interesting, although it's not about me really:

1) My mum is/was the first woman to read the news - she's not famous as it was only the regional news on a programme called Points West rather than nationally, which is why nobody really has ever heard of her. Here she is in 1957:

Now sadly the press cuttings from the time are buried somewhere in her hoarded papers and I can't wait to find them again one day, they contained some amazing letters from people, expressing opinions along the lines of - "how can we allow a woman to read the serious issues of the news - she just cannot give it the gravity it deserves" and "we don't want our husbands being distracted by looking at a woman" - I can't remember exactly but these were the kind of sentiments being voiced, really incredible and so interesting to see how things have changed.

Of course to me my mum is my mum, but she has had an absolutely fascinating life, involved in travelling theatre as an actress and even in 'A Town Like Alice'

She's the woman on the left. She only had one line, and died in the desert!
Anyway, that's my most interesting thing! Perhaps one day I'll share some more about her.

2) I grew up in a Sixteenth Century timber-framed cottage - reputedly the oldest house in the village. The walls were originally wattle and daub, with brickwork later, and I had holes in my bedroom wall that I remember plugging with pink toilet paper. My mum still lives there.

3) You wouldn't know it to see my DiY now but in my student days I wrestled our (I lived with a girl friend) dying twin-tub onto its side while it was half-full of water and somehow fixed it (I think prayer may have been involved in this process somehow - seriously!)

4) When I was seventeen I camped half way up a welsh mountain in gale force winds and rain, with other people from our youth group - we had gone on an activity week at an outdoor pursuits centre. It felt like one of the longest nights of my life. I don't camp any more.

5) One summer holiday when I was a student I got a holiday job in a cafe on the edge of Lake Winderemere in the Lake District. I hated the pressure, couldn't use the till and one day flooded the whole cafe with milk from the milk machine because I forgot to turn it off. Apparently everyone did it once. I decided to leave after a couple of weeks to make sure I wasn't the first one to do it twice.

6) I used to work full-time in a reprographics department with a massive photocopier, it seemed ten-feet long but was probably only six or seven. It did whole booklets at once, and with an attachment even folded and stapled them. Surprisingly very happy days, due to my lovely colleagues.

7) I was a terribly deceptive child - I used to hold the mercury thermometer over the heater while my mum went out of the room so it looked as if I had a temperature (got to be careful with this though to avoid making it too high). I coloured my thumb nail in with a pencil to make it look bruised so I could get out of a piano lesson (could only use this one once) and when I was fifteen I managed to get out of a whole half-term's swimming lessons by lying creatively, for a whole six weeks (I absolutely could not bear to be seen in a swimming costume). I can't believe I did all this now!

Well, that's quite a lot of information, not sure if anyone will have made it to the end!
Have a good week everyone.

A very busy week

I know everyone's (quite rightly) posting photos of snowdrops and other spring flowers at the moment, so here are mine. I made the pot years ago at a pottery class I used to go to. It was good just to go into the garden and bring some loveliness back into the house! I was trying to test out my new camera - you know the really posh photos have the background all out-of-focus in a special way - there's even a name for it which I forget. I'm only having success using my super-macro lens and my smallest aperture number, which works for some things.

In fact this particular photo I think isn't mine at all and was probably taken by my friend Tammy at Confessions of an Artist as we were having coffee at the time and she's very good at photography and was helping me!

Anyway, I must confess to being just a bit low this week - I think my hormones may be ganging up on me! The time has definitely come for some healthier eating and more exercise - both very basic things that can make a huge difference to how I feel. I've been very busily making things and filling every minute with tasks of some description - I think that's the problem really - the days pass quickly but sometimes you can feel you've missed something you should have stopped to notice!
I have had a rest today though, and a lovely lunch cooked for me by OH and the boys - salmon en-croute with a watercress sauce inside (very green but even son no. 2 liked it, and he doesn't usually do green!), and lemon souffle pudding - so I hope now I'll feel more ready for the week ahead when I wake up tomorrow!

I've started getting ready for craft fairs coming up later in the spring - I've done a lot of these needle-cases:

which have been popular in the past, just some more pincushions to do this week, then I'll get onto some new flowers and bags.

I've got a few other things to show you:

These are the beautiful cards I bought a little while ago from Sisters Crafty Creations shop - I have a couple of friends who like the colour lilac and these will be perfect for their birthdays coming up - I love the silver embroidery and like all the things in the shop they are real works of art. Wipso was the first person to leave a comment on my blog and it's been lovely getting to know her in blog-land. She and her sister Twiglet always amaze me with their productivity!

And I have very kindly been given this sunshine award by Juliet,

so a big thank you to her. She has very recently lost her dog and of course my heart went out to her having so recently lost Newton myself. As you know by now I'm afraid I break the proper rules of awards and don't pass them on officially, but again will take the opportunity to say thank you to all of you for your friendship.

And onwards we go into another week - I do hope you all have a good one.

Baking on a snowy evening!

It's been snowing here today - just as we thought it was changing to warmer weather, and we can't believe how white it has been again!

Time for some baking!
I had been meaning to try these delicious-looking torcetti piemontesi that Annalisa shared a few days ago on her lovely cooking blog. We have a bread-maker so I'm afraid I cheated (sorry!) by putting the ingredients in there on the dough cycle - not the proper way I know, but I didn't have the time to mix by hand. I used strong plain flour and added 150 ml of warm water, which was ever so slightly too much, so I had to add a few shakes of flour to the pan of the machine after it had started mixing just to make it not too sticky - I turned round after doing this to find a very surprised looking kitten sitting up with floury sprinkles all over the top of his little head - the bag of flour had a hole in the side and as I carried it through the room he'd got a dusting while he was napping on the chair! My OH said he'll have to get used to it as I'm a very messy cook!

I shaped the dough (though not as carefully as I should as I was so busy) and rolled in sugar as Annalisa said, and baked! It was quite a long time after our dinner when they were ready and we ate loads - lovely while still warm. In fact as I type this I think son no.1 has just come downstairs to get the last couple!

Annalisa has also very kindly given me these blog awards:


Even though she is far away she has become, like so many of you, a good friend, so thank you again!

I'm not going to pass these on to anyone particularly, but will again say how much I value your friendships, all of you!

A bit of Sunshine

Lyn at everyday life has brightened my day by sending me this sunshine award, just looking at the colours makes me smile as I said to her, especially at such a grey time of year, and I'm still feeling a bit low in all the greyness as I'm sure some of you are too.

Now I'm aware that blog awards, instead of bringing nothing but happiness, can cause some negative feelings in some people, I know a couple of you out there have experienced this recently. I will always be pleased to receive one and genuinely thankful, but also usually prefer not to pass them on to others specifically (I'm making a slight exception this time).

Please can I tell all of you who I've got to know through your comments and blogs that I very much value your friendship, and you really do all make me smile, I'm not just saying that - my sons see me smiling at my computer as I'm reading your posts and comments on my posts, and just say in an exasperated way 'Are you blogging again Mum??!'

So I would like to offer this bit of sunshine to any of you who would like it - please accept it to pass on as you wish. I would particularly like to offer it to my good friend Tammy at Confessions of an Artist because as you will see if you pop over to her last post, she's not having a very creatively-successful time despite much effort, and particularly needs a bit of brightness in her life, although not of the salmon-pink variety (you'll see what I mean on this post!)

But please all of you do feel included - it's a lovely cheerful picture to have on your blog!