One for Ross..

I had some time left at scrapping last weekend and managed to do this lovely single page for Ross and my mum.... his darling Gran. It shows just how great she was to him and to me as a first time mum, always there to chat, listen or just be company for me in the learning years. Funny how things go 'round..

The photo was taken about 20 years ago in Mum's garden in Mousehole, on the old bench in front of the really high leylandi which Phil refused to cut, much to the annoyance of the lady living in the (dark) house next door, and no doubt many others in the centre of Mousehole... and I have NO idea what they all thought when he kept chickens as well!

When I enlarged the picture it came alive and I had to give it the page it deserved.. along with the little pic of Ross blowing his bubbles on the same day. I cut away the leaves on the paper to overlap the picture and used some lovely metallic brown ribbon and card for mounting.

These are the days of our lives..

I chose this Queen song for my music scrap last weekend and really enjoyed working on the LP for the front page..I used greens and oranges in circle shapes to brighten things as I knew I'd have lots of black & white pics.

When I looked through photos I found several old and new ones featuring the same houses at Penberth where Ken & I grew up, and where Dad and his Dad also grew up.

The front page shows the thatched house opposite our home, I hid some other pics of exactly the same spot, and the Penberth Cove sign for the National Trust. On the double layout I used acetates and vellum with the lyrics, the pictures again featured old family photos of Dad & Grandad with colourful pictures of the same spot taken in August when we visited with Colin's Uncle Bill. On the last page I covered a CD with music on vellum and a few new pictures, also one of Kate splashing her feet in Penberth's (always) icey water..so we show 3 generation of my family all on one page.

Mum told me that in the picture of my Dad as a child, he is seen holding a fish, but he didn't like having his picture taken and afterwards hit the photographer with the fish!

..........When we were kids when we were young
Thing seemed so perfect - you know
The days were endless we were crazy we were young
The sun was always shinin - we just lived for fun............

Well away again to Christmas prep... enjoyed the interlude..x

Late night shopping (and photography!)

We went late night (well late afternoon / early evening) shopping in Truro on wednesday and my faithful phone was with me when I saw my latest Christmas diary pic... Kate with a beautiful halo of lights in Victoria Square!
Nearly there with the shopping, always seem to have some last minute things to get, but generally feeling relaxed. Kate had her Cheerleading perfomance at Club2K this eveing and the Leedstown Christmas Lights were turned on (though none of us are much turned on by the gruesome wind and rain!)
Will called from the USA today, they are all geared up to arrive in London on 24th at 10pm and then sleepover and drive down for Christmas Dinner on 25th in the late afternoon....clear the roads.... Will's coming through!

At last photos >>>Scrap pages

At last I have mastered the phone pics and this is one of my favourite scrap pages. It shows a pic of Kate at her last Primary School fete having her face painted. The plan was to use some packaging for inspiration and I used a chocolate cake box to frame the pic which brings out the purple so well.

The other page shows her 3 hours later when she first met little Lilly her new niece, only 16 hours old!

And on the baby pic Kate was wearing a butterfly jumper, and I realised I had the perfect piece of butterfly bag from one of the baby's presents to match it..now that's what Lisa would call proper scrapping!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Thanks ASDA for the meme.. a great little ditty Kate and I kept singing to Colin as we shopped yesterday for everything from curtains and paint for the (nearly) newly renovated sitting room, to books and DVDs galore for presents! Poor Colin, he really isn't a Christmas person, but he tries to enjoy us enjoying it!

(Note to selves : no more house changes in December, can't remember a year when Christmas wasn't preceded by a new

roof, new room or a holiday return with only days to get into festive mode!)

Anyways, I am being good, took note of the Just Scrapbooking newsletter and am trying to picture log our Advent time to make a mini book or scrap pages in January. the girls and I made Christmas cake last week and I took JB shopping in Truro (for her birthday treat)., then yesterday we celebrated a visit to St Austell by bringing home dad's favourite.. Domino's Pizza!

Amazing how interesting and craetive a boot full of shopping can look to a Christmas blogger scrapper!

Not to mention Colin and Kate playing bottle top

hockey with Domino's sauces for goals! (and I said he wasn't Christmas man!)

I got the music in me!

Can't believe it was a month ago I last wrote, it's been a busy time but not really worthy of much comment..but we've had a nice weekend and here's the latest ... Had fun day Saturday at Linda's Just Scrapbooking session at the Centre in Newlyn (what a great place they have made there, so welcoming and so well supported)

We had Music as the theme for the day and we used an old vinyl LP and CDs as a base. I chose the Queen track 'These are the days of our lives' and manged to match a bunch of old photos of Dad and Grandad at Penberth with ones I took in August when we were on the way to the Minack with Uncle Bill... came out real nice and the words fitted how I feel about life there so well...

When we were kids when we were young
Things seemed so perfect - you know
The days were endless we were crazy we were young
The sun was always shinin' - we just lived for fun
.........Cos these are the days of our lives
They've flown in the swiftness of time
These days are all gone now but some things remain
When I look and I find no change
....I still love you...

Promise to post the scrapped pages, now my Zacman has showed me how to load my phone pics onto PC (old duffer Mum!)... and for those of you who have read previous posts, Mum's Cornish sun came out on a grey morning as I drove towards Newlyn, and I smiled back.

Guy Fawkes Night!

It was Rudi's idea, but as it was such a good night I shall claim the victory as my own!

I was in my element for most of the day, cooking and blending soups, making bread & butter pudding and sticky cake (oops! forgot to take it out on the night!)...Colin and the guys worked hard behind the scenes making everywhere safe and welcoming, I could hardly believe it when I finally got outside about 7pm to see fairy lights at the edge of the yard, all the tables and barbecue ready for the off.........it was really festive..

Most of the STS crowd turned out with desserts at the ready and it was lovely too to see friends from close by, so close by we rarely make the time to spend time together, Al and Kath and their families, and all those lovely girls they have created! Ross' friends too turned out and were good company as ever.

Jordan had speedily sorted the Guy (though I thought he looked more like Boy George in his Culture Club days!) Kate and Georgia carried him out and Zac and firestarter Simon made sure he got a good send-off! (the old fireproof overalls made sure he stayed visible for long enough for Jordan to get the great shots!)
Zac was in charge of fireworks and earned a round of applause following the spectacular final flurry of explosions, though John and Kath and a visit to Lidls really deserve the credit.

Soups, hot dogs and plenty of goodies kept everyone warmed and the weather once again did us proud...thanks everyone, See You Next Year?!!!

It's that season again!

As much as I love the sunshine I think I do really like the autumn and winter seasons...just received this great pic of my friend Michele Krupka from the USA, we keep in touch a lot and she and Will are coming to spend Christmas with us.

I was a bit slack on Hallowe'en myself this year but tomorrow we are having a works and friends Firework and Bonfire party... lots of feel good food... soups, hot dogs, hot chocolate and sticky cake!

Colin worked hard all weekend and the family is now proud owners (and lighters and stokers and pokers) of a woodburner in our sitting room...it makes such a difference and we can even sit together in there now without TV....what a difference a flame makes!

Reunited

Yesterday would have been my Mums 83rd birthday and we took the opportunity to celebrate her life and to attend to her last wish, to have her ashes laid with my Dad, her first husband, who died almost 40 years ago.

Just like at her funeral 3 weeks ago we were basked in warm Cornish sunshine; like Mum's easy going nature, a tonic on a stressful day.

Kate and Jordan (11 and 13) came along with Colin & I, and as my brother was at sea, his second daughter Jana came with her 4 year old daughter Beau. Our close and dear friend Hazel Burn, who is a lay reader in the Church of Wales officiated, said some lovely words and prayers. We met in the little church at St Levan and then walked up to the graveside where the funeral director gently placed the exquisite box containing the ashes into a small hole, just beneath the flower pot which had marked my Dad's grave for the last 40 years.

The girls were really great, tears were shed, I felt gratitude and sadness, alongside a feeling of great conclusion that Mum and Dad, first loves, were together forever. Afterwards I wandered a little visiting the stones marking the resting places of so many of my Dad's family and friends. Before we left Jana and I had a huge hug, silently, as if to remember that now Mum is gone the next generations are responsible for 'family' continuing.

Special places..

It's Sunday evening and I've been wanting to add a little something, then I came upon this little pic and decided it was perfect... Treryn Castle taken from across Porthcurno bay. You get this view as you round the corner at the top of the hill on the way to St. Levan Church or the Minack Theatre.

I have loved this view since childhood, seeing it often, in both sun and storm, as we travelled to Church on a Sunday morning in the back of the George's carpenter's shop LandRover, often sitting quite uncomfortably on pieces of wood to be cut tomorrow!
My cousin Penny and Barry had their wedding reception at The Mariner's Lodge Hotel overlooking this view when I was a kid. I remember everyone made food and Neil gave Penny a rolling pin as a present outside church. I always promised myself I'd be married at St Levan and have my reception there, so it was nice to at least achieve half the dream when Colin and I married in 1992.

We got married in the second shoe-box on the left at the Penzance Registry Office (then located in St John's Hall... and being a weekday wedding we were not treated to a full event in the Magistrates Court... not that I would have wanted this as I had worked in probation and my main memory of the court was seeing people sent to prison from there !)

Needless to say we didn't have photos taken there so we headed off for the Minack and then our meal looking over this view. It really was a great day, simple and just what we wanted...and it IS lovely to think of the day when we go past every now and then.

Good friends..and a much missed Mum

(Little pic of Penberth, memories of days to treasure)

Hard to write today, been putting it off the last week or so, but wanted to say a little about how great my friends are.. last week Frans and Lesley from Holland came to Cornwall to celebrate his 50th birthday and it was really good to meet up and spend time together..we all commented about how you know a good friend because you can see them seldom but always pick up right where you left off.

I've also had lots of lovely messages from friends old and new, following Mum's death on September 30th (there, it's written, hard to do, but should become easier each time I say it or write it)

In fact Frans himself called me unexpectedly the week after and my email telling him about our loss had gone astray, but we reckon Mum had begun her work from above getting us in touch that very week. He said she was like his second mum, and we included some of his words in her funeral service....

'I will definitely celebrate her as one of the most remarkable women I ever encountered and I can only hope that we will be able to be as nice, understanding and wise as she was.'

Thanks also to Will and Michele, Linda, Debbie, Trace and Noemi , for their thoughts, notes and kind gestures, they have made me feel loved and cared for at a time when I guess you could feel lonely and afraid.

Oh and the kids, such a tonic on any sad day and little Lilly, evidence of how the family cycle works and what we should be grateful for.

I will write more later, just needed to move on from 'the day' and be back in touch!

More Kate madness..and one from JB

On receiving a two pound coin from a very generous tooth fairy the other night (masquerading as Dad having to prove how much he loved mum, when she remembered the tooth fairy chore just after going to bed!), Kate had a discussion with us about how times had changed and how much a tooth was now worth..
'I used to get a pound from the Tooth Fairy, and then a couple of times I've had the Generous Tooth Fairy who gave me two pounds......ahhh, but my friend has the Only Child Tooth Fairy.....she got five pounds!'

So as she is not left out here is one of Jordan's howlers we must never forget..
Kate wanted twin dollies for Christmas, I managed to go one better and get a set of triplets. Dying to share the achievement with someone who would appreciate the fun (as is my want), I showed Jordan the 3 little dolls in a box.
'Mum', she squeeled, 'Kate wanted twins and you got her TWIGLETS!'

Kate's so funny x

Our Kate is eleven and just started and secondary school.. and getting herself a lovely little sense of humour....
Last evening we were enjoying one of the September late summer barbecues outside and Kate snorkelled a little of my lager, (as has been her habit for as long as we can remember). shortly afterwards she asked Jordan for some of her drink...one of Jordan's concoctions: orange, sparking water etc etc. After taking a mouthful of the potion Kate remarked..
'Too fizzy, and mum's was too strong.......what I need is baby bear's drink'
Clever cookie..and funny...and we love her.

Just Scrapbooking Weekend

Had great day yesterday as day visitor to Linda's Just Scrapbooking weekend at Cape Cornwall, about as far west as you can get in this part of Cornwall... Linda Knight as creative as ever, with Debbie Emery, her Stamping Up demonstrator friend in professional support (not to mention Jules quietly in background preparing acetate templates and the like!)

Managed to complete six pages in the 12 hours, only one needing finishing touches,
had to leave the 'Looking In' page for another day as want to give it the time it deserves.

Will photograph and upload pics tomorrow, daughter Jordan's photography aid permitting.. (great when your 13 year old is in control of your computer ability!)

The first layoouts featured my darling Dad from the late 60's in an old photo which had once been featured in The Grower magazine (now defunct or incorporated into something more trendy I guess).. it is the photo all the family have of Dad, taken in our kitchen whilst he was having a cup of tea with William Jackson the local milkman who always stopped to chat mid morning with us.. life seemed so much slower and when I look back somehow more valuable per minute than now.

Well Dad had told the photographer to 'go for a run' as he was going for a cup of tea, and the guy took his photo just as he was, sat on the edge of the sink, wedged against the cooker.. the feature was about Dad's winter work of violet growing in Penberth, West Cornwall, feeding the markets at Covent Garden.. it seemed amazing to me, a small girl at the time, that our violets would wend their way to London to be sold.

Mum always told me the story that when she and Dad were on honeymoon in London in 1946 they saw someone selling violets on the street corner, 'Fresh from Cornwall' the seller cried... and Dad spoke to her telling her that he grew violets in Cornwall. As quick as a flash the lady shouted, in true London street vendor style...'Cornish Violets... and here's the man who grew them!'

Must go now, blabbing too much as usual, will post pics asap and tell the story of the other pages I did yesterday...thanks again Linda & Debbie x

Pure musical nostalgia!

Just had to tell you...have been flitting about a lot this morning and twice got in the car to hear the best songs ever from my past...there must be about 50 songs which could fall into this category but the two from today were real raves from the grave...

Dave Edmonds : Girls Talk and then Thin Lizzy : Boys are Back in Town...recently revived to great effect in A Knight's Tale..lovely when our oldies get approval in the kid's world... though I was pleased when Walk the Line was big and we overloaded on Johnny Cash and even the kids were onboard.

Girls Talk was a huge favourite when I was at Uni in Exeter, along with Crazy Little Thing called Love (Queen) and Elvis Costello's Oliver's Army...well that'll date us!

Ticked the box..

Kate has just started Secondary School and had to write about one of her achievements (she took and passed a ballet exam last year, she only started in Sept, aged 10). She also had to say what she would like to achieve in the future.. to start some more dance classes, maybe tap or cheerleading. (quite a committment for us as it involves another night driving / waiting / shopping)
Well I thought it would be nice to make her little dream come true a bit sooner than she'd have hoped, and last night took her along. Dear thing, she looked so chuffed, tall and lithe in her leotard and leggings and the beautiful tap shoes Marie has given her to wear. Watching her move about on the heels she looked a proper lady, and her smile was worth the drive to and from Newlyn.
And the food shop got done as well and no big chore left for the w/e. .. though I'm just glad she's the last of the children, I wouldn't have wanted to be on the Kid's taxi bandwagon for all 5 of them.. (and yes Ross, I WILL come and watch you surf again soon..you 22 year old!)

Pieces of Me?

As I said I have recently got into scrapbooking, it is my first ever hobby to speak of and I love it.. I think it is related to a desire to do something constructive in response to the sadness and nostalgia I feel with my mum's condition, but I have always loved my photos and remembering the days way back when...

Well this w/e I am doing a layout called Pieces of Me.. and have to write 10-12 statements about me, so I asked the kids.. and Colin.. his was unprintable but really quite flattering, the kids were generally sweet, but Zac said my favourite phrase is 'Could someone just...', this means they all get out of it cos no-one is called Someone!! Colin tries hard to make me more assertive, but sadly if it worked it would probably only work against him in the long run!

I visited Mum this morning and spent some time just sitting with her and trying to talk about when she was young, just in case she understands more than it seems. On the way home I decided that one of my phrases will be that I am more contented now than ever before.. quite ironic given the situation I find myself in with the exerience of Mum's dementia, but I think it's because I am older and happier with where I am, don't feel the pressure so much to 'do something' or achieve something for everyone else.

... also that I understand now what IT is all about...coming back home to find Lisa here with little Lilly, 2 months old today, a new life to be lived.. and me as Nan playing a supportive role, and loving every minute. Seeing the family grow and the cycle of life has taken on a whole new meaning this past year.

Scrapping frenzy!

I am off to Just Scrapbooking's weekend on Saturday, can only get there one day but Linda is happy for me to go along on day basis.....I've been in a frenzy all w/e getting pics together. Lots need to be B&W so it's a steep learning curve with our printer (also learnt how to clean the nozzles.. it helps!)

One layout is called Pieces of Me, it gives you quite an insight into what you really are about and who is important to you...Col and the kids are going to contribute the phrases to describe me, hope they are not too painful!

(This is my first note, really odd writing to no-one in particular, haven't even told anyone I'm doing this yet!)...and for those who don't know me I am not only a scrapbooker.. it's just I was long overdue for a hobby and family changes in February meant that I was set free a little and I rewarded myself with scrapping couple of times a month.

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