Hello my friends. Once again I have been MIA. I cannot believe how much energy it takes to help with the Food Share programme – so I may not be very speedy commenting! – but it means my Wednesdays are now really busy and tiring. Am I getting old??? Careful how you answer that, now.

Once again I have moved around the house over the past three weeks – different activities going on in different rooms. It really may be a good thing I live on my own, you know… some days there simply wouldn’t be room for anyone else to sit down! Ooops!! Anyway – here’s the main working space recently…

Camilla and I are going to run a Christmas Crafternoon next month. We are going to do glass painting. The trouble with that choice, we realised, is that there wouldn’t be sufficient time for folk to do the outlining, wait for it to dry, and then do the actual painting. So, we set ourselves up at the dining table… and outlined 4 dozen plastic baubles!

Having got these items onto the dining table… we also had to allow them time to dry… so… before too long, Cam had gone home… and I started on the next task!

Please note the careful – and very essential – left shove!!! Now, if I want to eat a meal… well, let’s just say that a stool in the living room is handy to put my plate on! So here we have some silk paper sheets being made into 3-D pieces, ready to have a Christmas gift in them. Also, some pergamano – while the silk paper is drying. I made one of these bauble “covers” some weeks back – but wasn’t happy with it. Too tight. So I have endeavoured to make it a fraction larger by expanding the pattern. As you can see, it’s half done on the parchment sheet… and that’s where it is still! Now three quarters done. I really don’t think I will have a dozen of these done before Christmas 2022 – it may well be time to do a re-think. They were going to go into the silk paper bowls…

It’s quite difficult to do these sort of things all the time – so for some “down time” I go into the living room and…

“Down time”??? I must be certifiable to have tried this! Took me quite a time, but I finally finished it Monday evening. Large blocks of solid colour with no variation in shade!

I have made a shed load of Christmas cards, all the ones for the church as well as lots for my friends and family, and a few birthday cards. Here’s just one…

The big news from here this week is that Nathan, my grandson, continues to recover from his liver surgery. It will take over 6 months, and it’s only 6 weeks! However, his mum and dad are hoping to take him off to university this coming weekend to meet his new flatmates, meet last year’s friends, and “begin” his second year. A good result of covid lockdowns is that the lectures are all posted on-line within an hour of being given – so Nathan has been able to access them from home and keep up.

So… with that good news in mind… let’s be glad, and enjoy the colours of autumn… a tree in my garden. The colours were actually much more vivid in real life! They have been glorious – and then, one night, the wind blew… and that was the end of the colour. No leaves left. However. Enjoy !

So that’s me folks, here on the North Wales Coast. Do take care of yourselves. It will probably take me a couple of days to visit everyone. Cindy, Thank you for the ATC and card – there’s a little something in the mail for you.

God bless you all.

Margaret

Hello my friends. Another week has gone by. I didn’t make it to the crop last Saturday – it just felt too far to drive – 80miles each way, plus what would have been a fabulous day with you all. I was sorry to miss out, but covid left me feeling rather wiped out. However, things are improving. Today I actually feel as though I have achieved quite a lot! My desk has seen some action – at last, I hear you say – and quite rightly too.

I have been making some thank you cards so I can write to folk who sent or gave me gifts for my birthday. So, you can see open inks (they are safely shut and away now), blending brushes, metal ruler, pile of scrap paper for stamping on, box of closed inks, specs, DST, scissors, cutting plates for the Big Shot, and the finished cards. I have rather stolen Brahms’ idea when he wrote his Variations on a theme of Paganini!!! In other words – one idea, a dozen cards!

Very simple, but I’m reasonably pleased with them.

Also this week, as I have been watching more mindless tv, I have done another jigsaw…

I really enjoyed doing this one – easy to do as it broke conveniently down into small blocks. A bit of fun.

And so that’s me this week. I will visit – but Wednesdays are going to be busy from now on. Food Share North Wales – a sort of food bank, but folk have the dignity of paying something toward the cost – has opened up in our church building. When the idea was mooted within the church it really struck a chord with me, so I have volunteered to help. Tomorrow will be my first day. I imagine it will be a busy day!!! Tea and Toast (the post-covid smaller answer to Step Inside) runs alongside Food Share. So the main church room, and the back room where we held our crop some years ago, will be filled with people and food. That is just so encouraging.

So take care, my friends. God bless you.

Margaret