Hello my friends.

I was MIA last week as I was kept busy at home and church. Step Inside, our café outreach gets busier! I was detailed to do the shopping last week and get all the stocks in for the invasion on the Thursday! Folk love to come – and it is so good to get to know our regulars, having great conversations with them week by week. I also had to make sure I was ready for the coffee cake and craft morning last Saturday. It was a great time – not a huge footfall – despite the homemade cakes! – but the total raised was over £140 – so the organiser was thrilled. I had some really lovely comments on my work, which was very encouraging – and after the coffee morning took the rest of my cards over to the hotel – only to discover they only had around 20 cards left to sell! Good thing I didn’t sell out in the morning!!

My desk this week is totally bare as I am having a few days off to catch up on everything else – like mending a pair of trousers, making two cushion covers smaller for a friend, putting elastic in a blouse where it had broken, getting the garden under control, and tomorrow I must make two cushion covers for my garden seats. I’ve only had the fabric for two years….

So… my pictures today are of my little stall on Saturday.

We really are incredibly blessed in our church building – no pews! The one behind my stall is one of only three remaining from the original Welsh chapel. Now it’s a big open space and we even have a dance floor in the middle of the room! What this means, of course, is that we can use the room in many ways – chairs out for a Sunday service, tables set out for a café or a coffee morning, no chairs in the middle ready for a party! It also means a lot of moving of furniture – but we manage that. So, this was my 6foot table. Mrs D had loaned me the tall unit her hubby had made some time ago. And a few close ups…

My little village of gingerbread houses soon became a hamlet, and by the end of the morning was an isolated farmhouse! The little Christmas trees went, too, despite looking somewhat drunk in the photo.

And a little something for ladies who lunch!! Exceedingly popular. Aren’t they the cutest little bags? I put a sticker on the latch so it could be closed when a gift had been placed inside.

And something for those cold winter evenings, when curling up by the fire with a good book and lowered lighting is all you want to do…

There were also around 150 cards for sale, but you have seen photos of some of those, so I’m not going to bore you any further.

Some exciting news for regular WOYWWers – Mr and Mrs D’s house sale is FINALLY going through!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, it really has taken 12 months since the offer on their property was made – ridiculous, but there you go – and at last, they should be on the move. I’ve spoken with Mrs D this evening and she tells me I can tell you all – they will be living on their canal boat for the foreseeable future until they find a property they really like with a canal mooring. They are becoming Waterways chaplains. No, I didn’t know such things existed either! There’s a large number of folk who live on the waterways out of forced necessity, or out of choice, and for some, they are very isolated. A hand held out in friendship when folk are in need is the aim… Last Sunday I abandoned my own church and went along to their service as a minister from the waterways chaplaincy came and commissioned them for the work. It was a lovely time, and good to see them finally on their way to the next season in their life. Who knows where they will end up living… They certainly won’t be on the North Wales coast – no canals here! Our nearest one is down in Llangollen and hour and a quarter away.

So, that’s me this week, folks. Taking life a little differently from recent days – even managed a lie-in this morning!

Take care. God bless.

Margaret