School Arts Week Project

This is what I have been busy with at the local junior school. For Arts Week they decided on African art, and Mrs Griffiths, who is co-ordinating it all, collared me in Mrs Rose's class one lunch time. ( I go there on a Thursday to teach her class how to cross stitch.). She asked if I could help that class do some thing for the event in stitching and said she was thinking " Sunset, mountains, silhouettes, etc" I said " are you confusing this class of 8yrs olds with a GCSE class?" lol Any way, the upshot was that I found some fantastic fabrics in our local fabric shop, many of them were for quilting place mats etc. So I grabbed them and together with Mrs Rose we toyed with several ideas, the main thing being that I could get the children to cut out the animals and quilt around them .... hopefully and we'd put together some sort of hanging. These came out fantastic, although when I told the children to pull the stitches a bit tighter to make the animals stand out a bit, the lad who did the legs of these rhino's got a bit carried away and pulled that tight I couldn't straighten the material again rofl. I took them home and machine sewed the borders on them, while the children painted the background with another 'helper' who obviously had a great 'eye' and did a fantastic job with them. Mrs Rose got the projector out and 'projected' an image on to some black felt like paper and the children drew around and cut out, the Masai Warrior. We purloined some of Mrs Rose's bead necklaces and cut out some fabric to make the cape and decorations and the boys ran around the school field to find a suitable twig to act as the warriors staff/spear lol

The final day was putting it all together, and we decided that fabric glue was the best bet, as trying to stitch it all together was going to be a night mare for the children. We left it to dry for a couple of hours then I took it home and sewed on the backing and the tabs. I did a few crafty stitches on the animal pieces as they hadn't glued right to the edges and I didn't want them falling off while it's hanging up lol When I took it in on Friday, the kids, and the headmaster, who came in for a sneaky peak, thought it was amazing.
It will be going up in the assembly hall on Monday with the rest of the school's work, masks, prints etc But just for now, Mrs Rose has hung it on her class wall so they can all admire their handy work rofl

Today is Fathers Day here in the UK and hopefully dad's all over the country will be getting spoilt. I'm especialy thinking of my own dad today, I miss him so much . The girls gave their dad some smellies, beer and chocs today, and tomorrow they are taking him go-karting as Janine had to work today and wasn't free.

where does the time go?

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, the time has just run away with me!

We've got some lovely weather at the moment and I've been spending time in the garden, tidying up and rearranging the pots, furniture etc as well as the weeding and lawn mowing, which ALWAYS need doing!

I've cleared the 'quiet' corner under the pergola and set up a new patio set I bought which matches the one I already have. The shop have 20% off every thing this week end so I couldn't miss that opportunity lol. I also bought Jack a metal butterfly mobile for in the quiet corner, which he loves. It has a little battery powered motor on the top and it turns the mobile around constantly. It's brilliant for when there's no breeze to do it. :) The wind chimes he bought me for my birthday ;) have been moved there too and the sound is just wonderful. It's a lovely place to sit, out of the sun, to read or stitch the afternoon away.

I'm having a few problems with Jack's feeding at the moment and it seems he's asperating his food (breathing it in to his lungs). If left, it can cause serious life threatening problems, so I've asked the GP for an x/ray to see where the problem is. It may mean Jack having a gastrostomy tube fitted into his tummy and being tube fed :( He really loves eating so it will be a real shame if we have to do down that route :(

The garden is coming along nicely :). As you may remember, I had it dug up and re modeled 3 yrs ago, so it's been a little bare up to now. The right hand border is looking a treat just now, the spring flowers have finished and the shrubs are now in bloom. Most of these I took from my Dad's garden, but the rhododendrom and the twisted hazel (which you can't see but is just to the right, were presents.I've put some plants into pots on the patio and they're looking good too. I especially like the Cape Daisy, I think it's really beautiful, and the hanging baskets are just gorgeous !

My youngest daughter Janine is away this week end at the Download rock Festival in Derbyshire. She's had good weather so far, and is having a whale of a time with her friends. She text me at 00.15 one night to say she was at the fair!! The down side is that she lost her mobile! She used her friends phone to ring me and ask me to block the sim, which I did straight away, then rang back yesterday to say she'd found it again! What do you do with them???? lol

Blogger has, on the odd occation, let me post some comments on your blogs, but it is still not right. I quite often can see the shortened version of your new posts but when I click on them to read the blog all I get is a white blank page ....gggrrrr! I have noticed that Julie hasn't been posting and I hope she's ok. She mentioned not feeling very well, so Julie, If you read this, I hope your feeling better soon, big (((hugs))))

As a quick PS I must just mention that I had another visit to the herbalist last week and she's very pleased with my progress, as am I :). I'm feeling soooo much better, more like my old self again. I have more energy and enthusiasm, I'm sleeping much better (although I'm still snoring! rofl), and I feel much more possitive. So thank you Karan for your postings about your visits, as I wouldn't have thought to visit Therese if I hadn't read about your progress after visitting your herbalist.

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Up, Up and Away !!!

We have actualy made the trip in the hot air balloon !!! I bought the tickets last September for Cindy's 21st birthday, but it's taken 9 attemps to actualy get up in the air, as they were all cancelled because of various unfavourable weather conditions.
The day started at 04.30 for me, the girls managed to stay in bed an extra 30 mins!! We had to be at the launch site for 06.00 for the initial briefing. We had to get in to the basket before it was attached to the balloon and practise getting in and out and getting in to the landing positions! It was no mean feat getting in, I can tell you! The basket is quite high and only two little foot holes to help you. Most of us 'older' ladies had a job getting in rofl
Once the balloon was inflated, which took about 30 mins, we all climbed back in and they started adding more heat to the balloon to get us in the air. The burners give off a LOT of heat and felt very warm on the head! The basket rocked a bit before we lifted completely and was a little bit scary, but we lifted off ok. The rise is quite quick and Cindy was a bit nervous but once we got up to the height the pilot wanted ( a woman by the way :) Lyndsay Muir) she was soon hanging her head over the side to see where we were and who's house she could see lol
Unfortunately for us, the balloon went, because of the wind, over the other side of Whitchurch and we didn't get to see our house . We'd been hoping to take some arial photo's of it! Also, there was a bit of low cloud and we couldn't see any thing when we entered it. It was very spooky! No noise and nothing but white ..... quite scary!! The one good thing though, was we got a lovely view of our balloon shadow on top of the cloud... awsome! We came lower again and floated north west over the town and out in to the country side towards Chester. At one point we went over the 'hunt' kennels and the fox hounds started howling! The kennel maid was not happy and we could hear every word of her sarcastic mutterings as it all came up as clear as a bell rofl
The flight lasted about 45 mins before the pilot had to find a suitable field to land in. One that didn't have crops, cattle or pillons in.
The landing was not as bad as it could have been. Lyndsay said she thought we might drag and tip so we had to get into our 'landing' positions, but we bounced about 3 times and landed upright .... phew!!! We then had the job of helping to pack away the balloon which was great fun, if quiet heavy work! After we'd got it all packed away and on the trailor (which had followed us along all the country lanes and got permission off the farmer to go on to his land) we had a champagne/ bucks fizz toast and got a signed certificate as a momento of our flight.
I had to make a slight detour, via a public foot path and style which was covered in stinging nettles, to behind a hedge .........!!! before we climbed on to the side of the trailor and got transported across 3 fields back to the road and the waiting mini bus. The driver stopped off to give the farmer a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of wine ( he could have had 2 free balloon flight tickets, but what farmer would want them? lol ) as a thank you, and then we drove back to the launch site and home.

You can see some of the photo's HERE

These were taken by the ex on his phone as we were taking off. As soon as I get the ones from our camera's of when we were IN the balloon, I'll share them too, but I have included the one of the balloon shadow :)

It was an awsome experience and one I'd reccomend to any one. Even if your scared of heights as Cindy and I are, you feel very safe as the basket sides are quite high and sectioned off so you do feel very safe.

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Phew it's warm!

Isn't this lovely weather we're having just now?

I confess it's a tad too warm for me, but I'm not complaining!!! Oh no, not after the summer we had last year lol

The garden is looking gorgeous with the rhodedendrom and the geraniums in full bloom and the rose bushes finally coming in to bud. I was starting to think they'd given up on me, but they're coming along nicely. The clamatis is showing some buds too, although mine is a later flowering one and the potato plant ( I don't know it's 'official' name) has some lovely purple flowers on it. I think my peony bush is dying though :( I'm watering it copeously but the sun seems to have done it's damage and it's looking very limp.

Did you see Britain's got Talent? Wasn't it good? I thought the acts were brilliant and most of them deserved to be in the final. I voted for and was glad that, Diversity won, I thought the choriography was brilliant and the skill of the dancers was just some thing else. I would have liked the saxofinist to come second I thought he had a very real talent, but Ms Doyle had a lovely singing voice I must admit (even though I wasn't one of her fans) As for Holly !! I'm sorry but after her paddy and foot stamping in the semi's, I don't think she should have been in the finals, and if she hadn't been a 'cute little girl' I don't think she'd have been given a second chance.

Talking about 'cute little un's' here's my boy enjoying the sunshine over the half term holiday, now isn't HE a cutey???? although I think 'handsome' would be more appropriate rofl He had a visit to the barber the day before and had all his hair cut off to keep him cool and it's suddenly made him look like a regular 12 yr old even though I still see him as my 'little boy' rofl

No stitching to show this time, it's been too hot and sticky to stitch, but I'll make up for it when it cools down, which should be Wednesday

I'm hoping that it stays dry and no wind as we have booked Cindy's 21st birthday, balloon flight for that morning. This will be the 9th attempt and if we don't get up this time, it will almost be her birthday again!! So keep your fingers and toes crossed for us :)

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