365/60 Extraordinary.

Being a kind on ordered person (well in my head at least) I like that this extra day comes at day 60, like it's at a tidy place in the year. I read the prompt as soon as it was posted, I was up early as I feel the responsibility more when on my own with the girls..and have to do the college taxi run.  All day I have been looking for and noticing the out of the ordinary..

...as I drove back home at 8.30 the sun broke through, the first time in lots of days, like a welcome reminder of the souls we have loved and lost acknowledging they are still close..it wasn't as dark as the picture but the contrast is high and it was early..

 Later as I passed the landing I thought I should share this second coming of the orchid...

and now, amazingly I am home much earlier than usual as we have been doing work on updating our system and well, why not....and tomorrow will be painful with all new software to get used to.. lots of damns, blasts and oh, I sees !!!!

....though a couple extra hours is soon lost here! .. and just in case blogging isn't enough, my craft bag, tidy, or close to it, is ready to get jumbled..you see, a very extraordinary day!

365/59 Grey.

When I mentioned to Jordan what Suzie's prompt for today was she asked me if she may be a little depressed... mmm, grey / misty / rain... so we're hoping that March will bring some brightness all round.

It's hard to find an interesting 'grey' in today's happenings. The weather, (still bland and miserable) my fridge and freezer (?) , my girl's favourite of all my outfits (and no, I'm not going up to get changed just for a photo..) ..

...so here it is, my black / grey spot craft bag and a bag from my favourite of shops, especially knowing there is a nice new cardi in there I have yet to give an outing! Funny, you know you are a fully fledged grown up when you buy new clothes and they stay in the bag a couple of weeks before you start to wear and get enjoyment from them... it's a children of the 60's thing I think, where you had to savour the wait and then have the new item as 'best' for the appropriate amount of time before it became regular wear! I have still got many 'best clothes' items in my wardrobe which never got the right occasion to get full utilisation before going out of fashion.. we never learn it seems, and sadly I have passed the inclination on to my girls.. well one of them..

.. so, the boys are out, easy tea for J and Pops and me.. and I'm a poet!!.. and off to do a little scrapbooking..third time in a week.. go girl!

365/58 Misty / trees

Well Suzie didn't reckon on there being much mist about today, but hey, this is Cornwall and for those of us who live here it is pretty regular..but at least mist means quiet and no wind or driving rain.. every cloud has a misty lining eh?!

I thought I'd show our monkey tree, it is the mainstay of our garden, everything around it changes but not the tree. This view is from our front door, which is kind of the back door as we always enter the house from the yard behind.. but when you stand back it is definitely the front of the house. When we bought the house the garden was so overgrown and the house had a deep dressing of ivy. It was sad to remove it all but it harboured so many bugs which ended up in the house!

Well, it will definitely be a changing view over the year, the hedge at the back fills right up and makes the garden really private in the summer..

365/57 Light.

Well I slept better last night, somehow, and lost an extra hour by dozing off again this morning, so to be honest, I didn't really have a morning..!  Later Col and I went out, taking flowers for our Mums and my Dad of course...the weather 'out to the westard' we agreed was pretty pensive, no real movement, grey, almost drizzle, like it was waiting for a good gust of wind to come move it along... a bit like us, waiting for the next adventure, the next season..


It can be a dreary feeling going to visit churchyards in that kind of weather, but as we got to St. Levan and got out of the car the air seemed clearer and the drizzle had gone, so much so we took a good breath and we even spoke about how much better it felt.  Although I am not a regular church going person, I am one of those who attend on the usual occasions, there is a certain something for me there... its a combination of nostalgia, contact with the people I grew up with, a payment of respect / homage, I'm not sure, but even Colin agrees that that place has a special aura, and being 'at the end of the road' literally makes it all the more quiet, special, personal to you, a place to appreciate the quiet and family.  I love it that it is something he 'gets' ..as often I ramble on and he just humours me, crazy bird!

I had in mind the prompt for today and hoped a ray of light may peek through the grey sky or onto the sea as we got there, but nothing we could capture. I took some pictures anyway and here's a selection and in retrospect I think you can see the light in them...the reflected glory of the daffodils, the pure white light of the snowdrops in the vicarage drive.. and I couldn't leave out the single garlic flower hiding across from the snowdrops which it surely would love to be!

'wish I was a snowdrop..'

365/56 Saturday.

There was a time when it was an early start for acro and dance class, followed by the usual food shop and catering for everyone, but of late the girls have been more occupied with work and generally doing their own thing and we have found ourselves 'home alone' for a few hours on Saturdays.  No chance to feel the empty nest though as taxi duties for the teens kicks in later on, tonight even collecting the pa-in-law from a social, so the best bit is a bit of blogging by the fire and 'easy tea'

.. poor Col, his day has involved plumbing in a bunch of new taps, we have been here 15 years and the life of lots of things seems to have been 14 and a half years!

Today we had the grand daughters here for a bit, its nice to mind them in the daytime so you get to play with them and also M&D get to have a break in daytime hours... going out in the evenings when you have young kids isn't always great, esp when an early night is really preferable to getting done up to have a night out!

The baby one is waving and a moment away from walking, but maybe she'll save that for her first birthday on 6 March..big sister is growing in leaps and bounds, and somehow we think that if Mum were here she'd say she talks as much as I did.. xx

365/55 Cloud.

Well there was a blanket of it over Cornwall all day today so I toyed with a blank entry or even a 'day off', but I know we have a lot of lovely sky pictures we have taken over the last few years and so I thought I'd share some.

Jordan took this one whilst on a Sail training week, then she Picassed it, showing promise for photography way back then, must have been two or three years ago..

.. but I guess this is one of my favourite recent pics (and I may have posted before) but how many blues can you paint into one picture, only nature itself has the full pallete..

365/54 In the detail..

Mmmm, so as I've been pondering a photo and something to say today, my mind kept wandering to the 'detail' in one of my layouts but I couldn't find something which hadn't been posted before... and there it was..
 Last year our scrap group had a monthly challenge and only a few of us completed it.. I only got 5 layouts finished and it was only an 8x8 album so pretty poor show on my part.. but I did try to make it an album about me and using some of the old photos which might not otherwise get the attention., and I do hope to finish all the layouts one day.

February was 'scrapbok a childhood memory' and I chose to do a double layout about me and my best childhood friend, a boy who lived opposite. He was about three years older than me, like an older brother, in fact more so than my only brother who was 11 and at Grammar School by the time I came along!


I really liked this page, the button papers were reminscent of the days : knitted jumpers with those pearly buttons on the shoulder, wooden pegs for the days before washing machines and tumble driers, a picture of us and my dog Meg, hanging out in front of Teddy's house where we played cars and sometimes tennis in the road.


I was so much the younger 'sister', I was the gullible trusting one, perfect foil for the long tall stories he loved to tell! I used to have his cast off wellies (he got new ones as the old ones had holes.. I had wellies you couldn't wear in the water! ) I had his trike the year he got a bike, then promptly ran it into the swollen river as I looked back to see if he was eating into the 'head start' he had given me in our race to the Carpenter's Shop!

After I left the cove we kept in touch through our teens, then we both got married and we haven't been in touch more than about twice, but I think of him a lot, we shared the same slot in time, the same experiences and there is something to be said for that...I think his birthday was February too..xxx

365/53 Ordinary....not!

Well the day couldn't end in a less ordinary way and that's fine by me! All the men in the house are away, Zac in Mexico somewhere this week,(well to be fair, he's at sea off the Mexico coast, with glimpses of cruise ports as a bonus!?)  Ross has gone out on his first trip with Colin, visiting customers and getting to know the M4! His dad is out at bowls and Kate out for tea, leaving me and JB at home.


Not wanting much tea and having some homework to do Jordan suggested I do some scrapbooking... now my kit is still in the kitchen hidden under the table after Saturday and my scrap room is a pit, (really needing an OCD son to come sort it again) but I was persuaded.. and got to do about three hours.. I used some of the great bits I bought on Saturday, fell head over heels in love with the Charcoal Inka Gold and did some crackled letters in prep for an album I have in mind...all very satisfying... tea never got made, we made do with bread and cheese and cups of tea, the fire never got lit and the TV not turned on...couldn't have been 'less ordinary' .... but hey, if our plan works it won't be the last time..

PS the charcoal silver is less shiny than it looks.. not too chavvy at all!

.. and as I wrote this two more interesting less than ordinary things have been discovered this very evening..... I have one of my pink orchids flowering (first as a gift a year ago when our 2nd g'daughter was born, it flowered til November).. and Richard Armitage (aka Guy of Gisborn and aka Luca in Spooks...swoon) is in the Hobbit.. sadly with a nose and beard, but the thought was good!..ahhh, and so to bed!

365/52 Sky high!

Well I am feeling a little fragile this evening,  probably fighting off a version of what Col had over the weekend, but so far not succombed, but I do think an early night and good sleep, maybe aided by couple glasses of wine will help!  Col has taken JB out for her first time driving with him, en route to 2 For Tuesday I imagine ... Kate and her chap and I had pancakes and I added raspberries to the usual lemon & sugar.. and I love raspberries!

 

So an easy photo for today, but given that it was from my HTC and indoors not a bad pair!

365/51 Fragile.

Well several of us in our house have been feeling rather fragile of late and that was my first thought when I saw this prompt but something kept coming to mind ... several of the challengers have gone off to find, or is that 'not find' little ornaments which have turned up a little broken....and again this came to mind.

Over twenty years ago, I think when my eldest daughter was born I bought a little frame with some money from my auntie... not sure how but the frame got broken really quickly but I felt gquite uilty about it and couldn't throw it away, so I put it back together, I think the photo. actually helped the parts stay together.. I moved twice since then and every year the photo frames get put away for the 'Christmas Dresser' to be done, and every year I wonder why I kept such a broken frame...

..I just took this picture and I amazed at how much more detail you can see in the photo when it is enlarged. It shows me and my Mum sitting outside our cottage where I grew up,  we appear to have our tidy clothes on so it must have been a Sunday!  I love seeing pictures of my Mum when she was young, so many of our memories are of our parents when they are older and less agile so it's nice to see her how my Dad must have seen her all those years ago.....and oh how like Lilly I looked...!

365/50 Fashion

Well there is so much I could say for this prompt.. and then I recall it's not a prompt for soapbox ranting, it is for a photo!

Our youngest is the most fashion conscious of our crowd, though she isn't a slave to it, knows what she likes. Sadly a full wardobe of what she liked in previous months is testament to what she liked then. She always loves to wear the latest purchase and last weeks bargain is often relegated pretty quickly!

As with so many these days she is a slave to the straightener and it is a long time since we saw her hair in its original state... but I did snap this example of the randomness her wet hair can make when we were on holiday. Come back the scrunched up look..(or does that date me!?)

365/49 Domestic

Well I think the only domestic thing I did yesterday was put on a wash before I went out. It was a great day!

I went to our monthly scrapbooking session, hung out and chatted with everyone and finished my New Year layout, loads of photos of the party and also fell in love with a weathered crackle effect to use on chipboard with acrylic paints. It rained almost all day, but had cleared by the time we left, so no problem to us.  Then we had out Chhristmas / 4th birthday eats at the Dolphin. Sadly a couple of our ladies couldn't be there but we agreed it was a nice social time and we should do it more often... maybe just to natter, or perhaps to see a film or a show.. x

My girl who loves to bake, and the other too had kind of trashed the baking cupboard so I asked for it to be tidied whilst I was out... mm, looks tidy, but still somewhat 'floury' to touch.. oh well if you want a job doing... get them to do it twice?

Today I have tried to make up for yesterady and have done lots more washing cyles, the ironing and tended the sick with breakfast, teas and tablets.. awhh. A soup is simmering for easy tea and back to school tomorrow so the status quo is restored... not actually a favourite state for any of us much.. x

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365/48 Abstract.

Not an easy word of the day for someone who likes her things symmetrical and with some kind of repeated form. I sit here on my sofa perusing a world where the tiles around my fireplace, the design on my wallpaper and on my carpet and front door are all versions of a rectangle.  Even my ornaments have rhythm and form, one side matching the other, no randomness to speak of in this little world of mine!  And it's not even something I try to do!


It really is quite revealing, rectangular mirrors and bookcases, diamond shaped nets of lights and circular decorative baubles...



I am waiting for Jordan to come home from her work and present me with one of her random examples of abstractness...



JB and her example of abstract-ism.



Kuramathi chairs!

It comes to mind something my scrapbook pal Linda once said when she saw me tearing a pair of papers across a Fiskars random edged ruler.. 'only you could tear in an organised fashion'.. though as I have shown before now on this blog I am not known for tidiness in the putting stuff away kind of manner ..x



And for the record, the most abstract photo I have..



Good day..

..JB had the ok from her dentist, he thought he had misread her teeth, he had forgotten she had a load out last year! Did a little shopping and back to the office for our customer visit. All good, phones quiet-ish and I played secretary, on tea and biscuit duty, but I can do more than that, honest!

Last night I wrote Zac an email as I thought it would be a little more for him than Facebook comments by his pals,  and I got a reply right back this morning, he's close to Mexico now and LA to swap passengers on Saturday. Sounding really perky and I think he's finding all the talking late into the evening with Col about ships and the sea pretty useful!

I took Col up on his offer of eating out this evening and we went for tea at the Dolphin, nice weather too, pretty mild and it was nice to chill out for an hour, looking forward to summery evenings again so we can wander the prom too.

(short interlude there as I went up to see what Kate is up to.. creaky floors.. Zumba to some alomst Indian music..)... and on the way down the stairs I spotted some of my oldest 'from my past items'... these pictures of little Dutch girls were a wedding present for my Mum and Dad in 1946., just after the war, the whole picture is made up of sweet silver papers.

I have them on my stairs and must take them a little for granted as didn't think of them for that challenge, but as it would have been Dad's 90th today I thought I'd post them now...

365/47 What's in my handbag...?

Funny prompt today and most of us in the challenge have produced picture of a jumble of items and I'm not going to be any different. Handbags are kind of security / comfort blankets for most of us I think, just knowing there are those things in your bag is enough, using them is leaping over another boundary altogether.

This is my list:
Car keys, usually both sets!
Wallet with latest receipts and various vouchers (50% out of date!)
Small dairy
Lists of wardrobe and pizza requirements!
Velvet glasses case, usually empty as glasses on head!, glass polish spray
Old tickets & small pack wet wipes (show visit with g,daughter)
3 packs chewing gum, various states of use
Pair gloves
Hairbrush
Pain killers
Cheque book.. yes, still have one
Lip balms, lipstick, 2 handcreams, eye pencil (backups, rarely used)
Small card from flowers Zac sent me when he was away for my birthday his first week at college...... awhhhh
...and a tiny 60 in gold from a pals birthday party couple years ago!

..

365/46 Bloom.

I was hoping that my orchid, which has been looking pretty forlorn since just after Christmas, no leaves to speak of and no flowers, would let the new buds open, but they are a law unto themselves and it will probably be March if current progress is anything to go by.

Then I wondered if I could use a less than obvious 'bloom' but to be honest today hasn't been very blooming marvellous at all, inspiration wise... I have had too many people emailing and calling me too many times, finished work late and as we are playing taxi to the teen who is working I declined an offer to eat out..

(anyway, pizza last night and far too many easy meals the past week made me feel guilty) so I set to and did salmon and veg, went down well, though Col and I are a bit tense, both ranting about almost unimportant stuff, rambling as much as ranting, but hardly relaxed.  (We have big customer visit tomorrow and lots on so hopefully the approaching weekend will help, not least of all for me as it is my scrapbook monthly meet on Saturday)

So what else.. Ross is settling in well, seems to be enjoying working a real week instead of a catering week where he leaves for work as we finish. He has been doing lots of manual stuff, partly as we like to tidy well before customers visit, a bit like painting before the Queen comes.. but also so he can get to grips with all the jobs which need doing around here. Next week he gets to be tidy himself and is out on some training and sales calls so that will be interesting and tiring in a completely different way for him! 

Just browsing my library and this is probably my best pic of a 'bloom', it is a delicate yet prolific flower we see on our holidays nd I just love the colour and the effect that real hot sun has on the quality of the pictures.

.. but wanted to remind myself also of a lovely layout I did of lots of the blooms a few years ago.. have to get my scrap head on again for Saturday or I'll spend the morning just vegging out and achieving nothing!

365/45 Candle.

Well unless something untoward happens this is going to be my first 'fail' to find something for the daily photo prompt. Yes, I could go take a photo of one of the lovely tea light holders I have but it wouldn't quite give a flavour of my day... so I'll tell you the news instead.

I took my eldest grand-daughter to the Show Me show with Chris &Pui (those in the know will know, to anyone else this is the modern day equivalent to Play School heros!) She has been really xcited all week and that was lovely, we had a great time, singing (not her favourite thing, slightly bashful, amazingly enough, when you know her!),clapping, eating ice cream and having some complete 'out time'.


We had lunch (well scones and fruit) at M&S where she went off to find a table (still in my sight) and entered into conversation with everyone around her..and on the way home we ended up talking about volcanoes. At this point I wondered if I was rambling on about something this little girl had no idea about, her being only 3 1/2 years old and all that, when she asked me if it was the same volcano which has lava.... turns out she only has to hear something once and she gets it.. the lava was on some kids TV show..


..after some shopping for food we came home and JB cooked with her.. so she had a good day out, then we went home to deliver Mum and Dad the sewing kit, chocs, wine and brussel sprouts (!) she had found and got Nan to buy at Tesco.!

Sky over STS...

.. and to welcome a lazy Domino's Pizza / television and teen taxi evening this is the gorgeous sky over our workshops at 6pm..Happy Valentine's day everyone.. x

365/44 Friendship.

I have really enjoyed watching the evolution of the posts for this prompt... okay, so I should have been concentrating on my work but hey, it's okay, I can't sack myself!


I have a bit of wrangling in my head though as to what I should enter as my photograph. I even looked up 'friendship' definitions in Wikipedia and decided that by that definition one of the people I had been wondering about in the friendship stakes, isn't actually a friend at all....!


We have a pretty large immediate family and work every day with a group of 5 people we share many of our daily ponderings with, but we don't have any specific people we would raise above the rest to be 'best friends' Yes, there are a few great people I know I could call on, any time any day, who's phone calls and emails at times of sadness and joy have been a great comfort but even though we live close we never seem to have or make enough time to meet up like proper friends should.


Like the others in the challenge I think my closest friendships are now internet based, some I scrap with and some I haven't even met, but I know that some of the nicest friends I have came from the scrapbooking group Linda formed 4 years ago this week.  We meet monthly but keep in touch in between and genuinely care about each other.

As my girls have got older and now one of them is a Mum herself and the eldest one left at home is really growing up and a great support for a moany Mum, I really do think my closest girlie friends who I really miss nattering to if they have been busy or are away are my kids themselves..all so different but with their own special places in my heart..haha, now to find a picture..one is not keen on the camera and the other is generally on the other side of it!

.. and the boys are even good support for Mum (in case they are reading!)


Me & my girls..!



(ahh here we are.. three years ago almost, a rare find of me and my girls..note to self..photograph the unusual!)

 I sometimes bemoan not having a BFF but maybe the reason is actually because I have such great relationships in my own family that I don't need one really!

(now shut up!)

365/43 from the past!

As soon as I read this prompt I was sure I'd have a hard choice of all the nostalgia inducing items to photograph. Strangely though as I looked around my house it was mainly photos which I saw rather than objects. We have been together twenty odd years and Colin is not big on old furniture and with so many years with little kids about I have always kept family heirlooms in my Mum's part of the house , these days in a small glass cabinet.. the Worcester jugs, the little gold teaset, other odds and ends which just don't really fit into a busy household such as ours.


Around lunchtime I got a lovely email from my cousin who although she only lives about 15 miles away, but we don't see each other that often. But boy, when we do the chat, gossip and nostalgia gets a good going over. Her grandfather was best friends with my Dad, they joined the navy together in the second war and my mum introduced him to her friend, so the two couples ended up married.

Later on my Dad took Sarah's Dad Barry under his wing and helped him when he was starting out fishing from the Cove, so as you can imagine, even though Dad has been gone over 40 years he is still remembered by the younger members of the community... and as Sarah said even though she never knew him, he was a kind of legend in their household.  

She agreed with my words about Cornish fences being more like hedges and sent me this pic of a typical cliff hedge from a winter walk.

So to my pic of the day... on my chest of drawers I have  a pile of jewelry, some photos, a big vases of poppies and these two little perfume bottles.  I loved them for all my childhood, from when I saw them in the glass cabinet we used to have in our 'parlour'....you know, the room no-one ever went in except at Christmas (I used to think it was because it was a special room but on looking back I can see it was too expensive to heat and was best used as an ironing / miscellaneous 'stuff' store unless special times were upon us!)

I maybe liked them mostly as Mum always told me that my dad loved them and as they were kind of out of reach to me, from a playing with them point of view, and then after he died they gained even more special-ness. I think maybe Dad had loved them as they were his Mum's and she had died when he was about 16. I don't know.  Anyway, I got them in the end, probably when Mum remarried in 1973 and things became a little less reveered (sp?)

I had them valued once, I don't think they were worth much and in any case that wasn't the point.

All in all a good day, we had a halh hour chat with Zac lst evening, he has been fine, some bad weather and others feeling a little sea-sick but he was good. Spent Friday working on the launches and helping people ashore, you know, the young guys who hold your hand to stop you wrong-footing as you step ashore..and in the sunshine too.

365/42 Portrait of a loved one.

Well with all the children I have (five for those who don't want to hunt back and work it out!) I can't really feature one of those, they already vie for who is favourite.. well, actually the girls do!  And then there is my Col. He is not really the kind of posing guy who would let me get a portrait, so maybe this little snapshot will give you a better reflection of him (I can see those who know him smiling already)

He's a real hard working guy, devoted to us all but so good at making things happen and taking charge. But our nice leather sofas are way too soft for his bad back so whenever he gets chance of an evening he lays out. We love stand-up comedy and so many of the one-liners suit us and make us laugh every day.

If you should be a fan of Micky Flanagan suffice to say that whilst I am multi tasking this is what he likes to do.....**** ***! (you can fill in the blanks!).... kids these days just don't know how to chill!

And as a little PS this is the closest to a family portrait we would remember of my Dad. He would have been 90 on Thursday this week. This picture featured in The Grower in 1966 or so, when they did a piece on him violet growing.

Mum loved this pic and got copies of it from the photographer after he died, which was only a few years later.  It was just how he was, having a chat with a friend and telling the guy with a camera to go for a run!

365/41 Heart.

..not much to offer today, just a warm heartfelt hello across the world to our Zac who's ship has arrived in the Hawaiin islands.  He is about ten hours behind us which is easy to visualise in the evenings knowing he is having his morning, but during our mornings it feels odd to think he's asleep.

I think the guys we work with think I'm a little crazy, keeping an eye on the itinerary and knowing where they are, what the bridge webcam shows... but I feel safe in the knowledge that he would be the same if we were away, he embraces everything technical and showed me how to find the info himself.  I tweeted him today to say how warm it looks out there, compared to here, and added the hashtag #stalkingmum !!! xx

365/40 Compact.

I picked up the prompt early this morning and am getting quite good at having the word running beneath the surface, on the prowl for a link. I didn't have to but I took Kate down to school and really enjoyed the drive, a crispy frosting over all the hedgerows.. would have made good 'fence' pics yesterday!

Just as I dropped Kate I grabbed the moment and banked this pic.. the ubiquitous compact of blusher.. or as they call it now.. bronzer. Some blurring as I was under pressure not to embarass her at the school gate!

Good dqy pretty much, nice and bright, pretty perky all round and over lunch the light came on and I realised there was another pic to be taken..and the chance to show off Ross' handiwork. It was about a fifteen months ago when he expressed the wish to create himself a 'cabin' in the garden.. to be fair, at the time he was sleeping in our tiny 8x6 bedroom and his feet were almost hanging out the doorway...

.. and so it was.. after much effort on the part of Ross and Colin, and a good few helpers around the edgs, that in December he moved into 'the Cabin' It's the finishing touches which have been so sweet, a 20 X 10ft garden shed is now a cosy one bedroom home with shower room and a brilliant kitchen area, with all you need to make a mean fry up. My favourite bit is the pine breakfast bar with shelving underneath... we smile when he tells us that from a three shelf unit, he gets one and April fills the other two with her shoes!

...yes, it's almost like a kitchen area from Ikea..'compact'...x

365/39 Fence...?

Well as soon as I saw the prompt I knew it was going to be an obtuse picture for me today. Okay, so if I had taken time out to photograph Ross working on some of Pops' fencing, but I have been flat out busy. Now my Col loves a tidy fence, whether it is the wood panel we have running down the edge of the garden or the side of the workshops... but they don't really do it for me... yes, they look neat and tidy, but where fences are involved, this Cornish maid is a bit more of a hedge girl.. you know, the rambling dry stone kind of thing, a little more local here than a fence.

Anyhow, the day progressed and I dashed out of the office mid-afternoon to go get my hair cut.. well the roots done if I am honest, but hey, there is also a scissors involved, so technically I can say 'cut'.  By the time I was done it was almost 7pm and I could see a distinct lack of fence picture featuring in my life today...

..so, as I drove out of town I saw this huge thing in the sky.. if I was in a movie it would have been ET or something, the moon seemed huge and so so close.. if only I had a camera I could photograph it.. over a fence, standing on a fence or perhaps with a nice fence in the foreground? (desperate at this point!) so I followed the moon home, through winter trees, past villages and all the time it seemed to get.. smaller?
  
Eventually I pulled over and took this on my phone.. and I promise.. there WAS a fence between me and that moon!

Meant to say..

...that last Friday evening we went to see a small gallery exhibition of some photography work of the kids from Jordan's college. The gallery owner has loaned the space to the college for a month while he's away, there's a real mix of stuff, from canvases to postcard size prints and all the students held their own, professional and enthusiasm showing through.

Jb turned some of her favourite prints into cards and here's a mix of them. I particularly like the mannequin with forget-me-not posy, Jb says it reminds her of my mum who told her all about those flowers.  Col had not seen the Stephen King one and when he saw it he mentioned that it looked like the kind of picture Jordan would take...so she has a style..eh?

They look great on her shelf, and when she saw what Lisa had bought her last year, it was a great present in the box!

365/38 Damaged..

Well when I saw the prompt for today I wondered if anything would give me the chance to blog the events of the day as well as doing the challenge....mmm, I wondered if I would show the empty bottle of wine Ross and I might want to 'show the damage' of tonight, or maybe the damage you have to inflict in order to improve it, creating rubbish before the cleansing is revealed..!

It was a hectic day in all things 'STS' and we were all busy getting things done when there was a power cut. The workshop guys soon realised that the kettle wouldn't work so they got busy washing their cars.. and in the office we pretended they were on TV! (watching out the window as we had to pull the blinds up to max the light)

And so to 'the damage'.. when the power returned our server died, we had to call Pawel, our resident computer-doc in and here he is examining the patient. Seems we will need a new server but it's not before time ... and we will also be renewing our database system next week as Ross joins us and we need more user space.

(For those not in the know, our eldest son is joining us full time next week, taking on a whole range of jobs, all the roles we do not have full time posts for but are essential to us getting on and growing the company more.. he is slightly OCD as I have mentioned before so we think he'll love getting to grips with stores / stock taking and also getting to learn on the job, all about our kit so he can go out to visit customers and train them, saving Col precious nights away.. the appeal of nights in a Premier Inn have long gone, unless for the tasty jobs!)

Ross has always fancied working with us, but sometimes you and they have to grow enough for the time to be right to work with your kids...and when he decided to look at a job in car sales, happy to apply himself to that, we grabbed the chance to have him before someone else did!

365/37 Packaging.

Easy one this, I love collecting nice pieces of packaging, trouble is you have to eat the chocolates or use the smelly goodies first... oh what a shame!

Years ago we did a scrap challenge with packaging as inspiration and I used a Tesco chocolate cake box, perfect frame!


These are a few examples, inner of a GU dessert box, SuperDry bag, several boxes of chocs and my favourite Sanctuary Spa .. can you tell which is which?


Okay, I can't put it off any longer.. bureau to tidy so I can bring back in the two plastic boxes of pre-Christmas junk! x

Descendants.

Sometimes at the weekend we try to get to see a film, it's generally on a Sunday evening, in a rush to fit it in before the week starts again, but today I suggested we went in the afternoon, then we would still have time for relaxed tea and for Col to get ready for his week's trip away...so off we went to see 'Descendants' starring George Clooney. He is not on my 'laminated list' (Friends fans will get that!) but he could well be a reserve..mmm, shall have to firm up on that list one of these days..hahahah

So, how was it?... we actually really liked it, a good film, a mix of sadness and well placed humour which appealed to us as parents of growing kids I think, and best of all there was no CGI. Unless of course they weren't really in Hawaii!  Of course we were slightly extra interested as Zac will be in Hawaii next week.. typically island windy but more built up than maybe I expected, but some spectacular scenery too.. and oh, the warmth..x

One of the interesting comments that was made we liked.. give your kids enough to be able to do stuff, but not so much that they can do nothing.... good one..x

365/36 Rubbish!

RUBBISH is what I'd call myself of late when it comes to tidying away my 'stuff'.. we were really busy in the run up to our holiday and then Christmas arrived the day after we got home...then Col and I got a night away ten days ago..and the last few weekends I have finally learnt the attraction of chillin' out in front the fire..(you can kind of see the pattern of excuse making going on here...)

...consequently the jobs which I intend to do every Saturday and Sunday when I lay in bed 'planning' have gone by the by.. and my bedroom still has the pre-Christmas suitcase (well it was new, so hasn't yet been allocated a 'home') and the weekend-away holdall laying around, festooned with various bits of ironing (all done, just not put anywhere..) some reading from holidays and also half my scarf collection draped over the chair. The various black jackets and coats which have made the cross trainer a very useful clothes horse go without explanation!

And my scrap room next door is another story..a desk full of untidiness to be attended to.. looks like I need another night with R
oss and his OCD to sort that one.

The plan is to order the Ikea wardrobe stuff ordered for our room and get the scrap room sorted... soon.. well I could say 'this week' but that may be setting myself up to fail!

That's our boy!

Loving that khaki thing going on..

There was much excitement here last night when Ross came in and checked his Facebook... Zac had uploaded a bunch of great pics of his first port of call.. San Pedro, Los Angeles..

.. the Q now is whether Mum (that's me) relents and gets her own Facebook address so I don't have to stalk the poor lad over the shoulders of the rest of the family?

We will see...x

365/35 Liquid.

Well to be fair I was always going to have tenuous links with some of these prompts, helping them fit the events of the day and keeping this a little blog of life with the Jones'


Seeing the word for today as 'liquid' I knew where I'd end up.. okay, so the threat of snow has given way to the more usual Cornish sunshine of 'really wet' drizzle..and every day is a mix of liquids, from showering to cups of tea and my pans of Saturday Soup.....

but the adventures of our middle-child have definitely taken a little precedence today.

Zac called us last evening, he had docked in Los Angeles mid day and had loads to tell us about the settling in / familiarisation period since he joined them with his mate up in Vancouver on Tuesday. Contractors have left after the refitting and passengers arrive this afternoon expecting a holiday of a lifetime! When we spoke we weren't sure if he would get chance to set foot on dry land that evening, Colin said that when you are on a ship like that you wouldn't be bothered, but I kind of thought that it may seem too enticing to see the docks and not get ashore.

Well unusually I didn't check my hotmail and tweets this morning til about noon, then got a real surprise e-mail from Zac ... about 6am here.. and 10pm out there.. emailing from an eatery in Hollywood no less!  They got ashore and grabbed the chance to see something, there won't be many chances to be in port with no passegers aboard...Go Zac!

(so, to the photo and the word.. plenty of liquid to see as the ship leave LA, (above) and credit for this nice image from Wikimedia..)

..PS and this is a pic Zac posted from there today..

First port!

Slightly out of synch! 365/33 Buttons.

Well as soon as I saw the prompt for Thursady this is what I wanted to photograph.

 I loved these shoes from afar a few months back, pre-Christmas shooping. I especially loved the purple ones but since I rarely wear purple I rationalised that if I bought them I would then have to buy clothes to match!

Then January sale time came and I happened (yes, just happened.... honest) to be in M&S with Jordan and saw them in the sale... even better, there was no purple ones in my size so I wasn't tempted to buy a complete 'white elephant' and the black ones fitted great... and with only a little prompt from J they were bought..I just LOVE the buttons, though sure that having to do them up with button hooks way back in the days before the Zip fastener, may not have been quite so much fun.

mmmm, I really could do with a nice black handbag now...xx

You can see the rest of the 365 challenge 'button' pictures at Suzie's blog.. 365/33 Button