Whats under the cover AGAIN!

Yesterday I had a new car, I know I had one three weeks ago but...
I bought the VW Up! car from Johnsons at Solihull and it came with a 30 day or 1000 miles exchange with no questions asked if I did not like it.  I liked the car reasonably well but hated the gear box and also the boot was rather small when I tried to get all my sewing stuff into it for a workshop, so decided to go for a bigger car with a different gear box.

We laughed at the markings under the car...looked like a criminal act had been performed!

Better change my coat for a blue one!

I now have a VW Polo in a sparkly dark blue and I love it. The girls were with us when I went to get it and gave it a thumbs up for space. I must say the garage were wonderful and made the exchange [plus a little more money]  so easy.

On our way to the exchange we had time to spare and visited a garden centre where the girls fell for a big polar bear... guess this means Christmas is around the corner and I had better start thinking about it.

Kumihimo

The girls loved making Kumihimo braids and attached bells to the bottom, here they are showing off some of their work.

A favorite game is shops / post office and cafe.. they seem to take over the whole lounge area with every stuffed toy and doll they can find, luckily they are pretty good at clearing up their toys when its time to go to bed.

St Helen's Church Sibbertoft

The girls have gone Kumihimo mad, they cannot stop making the braids and as soon as breakfast was over they were threading up to start another!

Yesterday afternoon we were talking about our ancestors and decided to make a visit to the church in Sibbertoft where some of them are buried. The girls were excited to see the headstones I knew about and even managed to find some I did not know about.  I think it is so important to know where we come from and both girls like hearing the stories about their relatives.

Martha PERKINS 1820-1902 wife of Thomas SIMONS

Thomas SIMONS 1814-1883

Martha Louisa SIMONS 1859-1877 daughter of Thomas and Martha

Headstone of Jacob SIMONS 1839-1920 and wife Mary ADDISON 1839-1915
Right hand side a mystery to be solved, D A June 1st 1878
Left hand side Joseph SIMONS 1862-1888
Base stone Jesse SIMONS 1870 - 1883

Jacob SIMONS and Mary ADDISON are the girls 4x Gt Grandparents. [my Gt Gt Granparents]
Joseph SIMONS is there son and my direct ancestor, he died very young leaving a widow with two small children.

Half Term with the granddaughters

Monday Abigail and Eleanor arrived to spend four days with us. I always look forward to their visit and try to plan adventures.
A visit into town to pick up my new glasses and a shopping trip were the first things on the agenda.
Eleanor crossed things off the shopping list while Abigail added up how much we were spending [ I had a £4.50 off £30 shopping voucher and did not want to go much above it].
After lunch the girls "got messy" preparing pumpkins for Halloween that they had bought while we were out shopping.
The evening was spent at the gym doing rhythmic gymnastics.

YUK!

This morning our plans for the day involved learning how to make Kumihmo braids, both girls caught on the sequence quickly and love watching the braids grow.

Serious concentration

Edna Harris 90th Birthday

Tuesday saw me meeting up with two of my cousins, Rosalind and Andrew plus his wife Rosemary, for lunch. A very rare occasion for us to get together, although we live a few miles from each other. It was great catching up on news and wondering why we did not do it more often!

We then went to see our Aunty Edna to celebrate her 90th birthday. Rosalind had taken her a cake earlier in the morning so we looked forward to cutting it with her, thinking we might be the only ones there in the middle of the day. How wrong we were! the house was full of people, her two sons and their families had taken time off work and travelled to be there plus friends had dropped by, only half of the cake remained!

I decided to give Aunty a lap quilt I had made that I backed with fleece, she has always liked and appreciated the things I have made her. She immediately wrapped herself in the quilt after removing her apron [ I have never seen my aunt in her house without an apron!].

Edna Harris was born Edna Simons on 21st Oct 1924, the youngest of 5 children [ my Dad was her brother] she is my last remaining aunt.

Aunty Edna with me and the quilt

Cousins Andrew & Rosalind plus son Stephen

The snuggly lap quilt

Fly Jab Yes or No?

Yesterday we went for our annual flu jabs, my opinion is better to be safe than sorry. Last year I had a sore arm for a couple of days but this year I had forgotten I had it by the end of the day. Chris on the other hand has it as he is in the "at risk" group and has been suffering every since with a sore arm he cannot lie on and it is red and hot. [ A well know side effect].

After the flu jabs I went to Nene Quilters Day. A large hall of about 100 ladies attended to celebrate the groups 25th Anniversary. There were displays of quilts [ why didn't I take photos!!] traders and two large celebration cakes. After our packed lunches Sally from Threads and Patches gave us a talk about her life as a quilter, she is so entertaining and has some great ideas.
The next speaker was Jan Sharpe and although she had great ideas she showed them through a film show and there were quite a few people asleep. At the end of the film show she produced the quilts she had shown on the slides... such a shame she did not show them as she talked.

The day continued with a visit to our friends Dorn and Bill for a delicious meal of salmon that Bill had caught in Scotland and vegetables and fruit from their garden. This was followed by a late evening of playing cards. I was so tired when we got home at midnight that my head hardly touched the pillow before I was asleep.

Halloween machine embroidery

Thursday was our regular monthly meeting at BSK Bedford, where we can choose from the many ideas on offer what we want to machine embroider.
As Halloween is just around the corner I thought I would sew out spooky designs for Halloween bags.  I now just need to find the time to make them into bags!

Friday was spent preparing for a workshop I will be teaching in a couple of weeks time. I have almost managed to make the 18 kits for thread catchers, just need to eat some more cereals so I can have the boxes to cut up!

Black & white with a dash of red blocks

A few more blocks made to add to my Black and White with a dash of Red quilt.
This project has been hanging around far too long, I hope to make some real headway on it in the next couple of weeks.
I managed to make 8 more blocks yesterday before the nice weather called me outside to do some clearing up in the garden... there are just not enough hours in day!

Paper piecing blocks, with precut strips and a wooden "iron"

Happy Birthday Mum 15 Oct 1914 - 2014

Today would have been my mothers 100th birthday, sadly she died two years ago.
I miss her terribly as we have lived close to her for the past forty years.

Mum and Dad with me in my Christening dress, made from part of  Mum's wedding dress

Many happy days were spent on holidays together especially having fun on narrow boats!

Mum age 90yrs enjoying her first Great Grandchild 

Yellow flowers always a favourite

Monday... busy busy busy

Monday started off wet and got wetter as the day went on, not a day to be out and about. However Chris had been asked to go back to work to help with some new contracts and the fact one of the members of staff was off work for three months after an operation. His day was long 7am to 7pm.

My companion, Astrid, and I had planned our monthly Relief Society visiting teaching for the morning. We have four members of church that we visit each month to see if they need any help and to give them a gospel message. I love doing this and always come away from each house having learnt more than I am sure I "teach". The rain continued to pour down and we both got pretty wet.

I dashed in home and had a quick sandwich for a late lunch and as I was already wet decided to go to the post office and post a heavy parcel of items I had sold on Ebay. I also had a £6 off £30 voucher to spend at Sainsburys, so fitted a visit to the store while out. I love shopping and using my maths to add up what I am spending as I go around, so my total was £30.75 before the voucher was taken off.

Back home I decided I deserved a nice warm drink and to work on my crochet before getting dinner.
What a busy day.

It's growing slow but sure.

Happy Birthday Richard

Today is Richard's birthday and no one could wish for a better, more loving son.
He came to live with us when he was eight, very shy and tiny for his age, he has grown into a caring husband and father. His career choice was always nursing and spent many years as a Parkinson Specialist nurse before moving into a  managerial role.
Chris and I could not be more proud of him if we tried.

Could not wait to try out his new boat!

Holding Abigail the day Eleanor was born

Finished at last!

Before we went on holiday I machine embroidered the months and year, 2015, but did not have time to actually make up the calendar. It went together really well and will hang in my Happy Room.

I had machine embroidered and sewn together the picture above but never finished it, mostly because I could not think what to do with it. Since I am in a "finish up mood" I decided to add tabs and back it keeping it the same shape. I am running out of wall space to hang things so the smaller the better.

My first car WAC348

As there was some interest in my mentioning in an earlier post about my first car I thought I would give you a little more information and show you a picture. 
From about 1963 to 1970 I lived in Knightsbridge London with my first husband, we owned a Chauffeur driven car hire company. Leslie Caron, and many other stars, lived very near to us, and many were customers. Leslie was one of our customers and for some reason had a Morris Traveller that she no longer wanted and gave it to me.
I was wanting to learn to drive so it was an ideal car for that purpose. I wish I still had the car.

Leslie Caron, born on July 1, 1931 in Boulogne-sur-Seine, was a French
actress and dancer. She died on September 19, 2014 at the age of 83. My favourite films of hers are GiGi and Chocolat.

On a visit to my parents in their new house in Northampton these photos were taken. The field showing at the end of their new garden is now a large estate of houses. Who knew then that one day I would be living in one of those houses with the best husband I could ask for.

The poodle was named Elvis but my Dad said he could not stand in the garden calling "Elvis" so he became Fritz.

My Mum died two years ago she would have been 100 next week.

Guess whats under the cover!

An exciting day today as I picked up my new car, a VW Up! High Up!
After completing the paperwork the salesman asked if I had seen the car, I said "no" and he then took me across the showroom to a blue cover with my name on a stand!
Sadly I had forgotten my camera in the excitement so the poor photos were taken with my phone.

Guess whats under the cover!

The big reveal

Home on the drive.

I think it will take me sometime to get used to all the bells and whistles but I love it already.

One slight problem I have always named my cars after the salesman or previous owner. The salesman's name was Richard and my son is Richard so I cannot give my car the same name, any suggestions for this Tornado Red Volkswagen Up! High Up!

IAM craft day

What a great day yesterday spent with friends in my Happy Room.
Dorn was on holiday so Pauline joined us for the day. I can only sit eight around my tables, so Pauline likes to join us if someone is away.
After the initial "Emergency Ward Ten" when eight women of a certain age seem to delight in talking about all their ailments, we settled to work on the different craft projects we all had with us.
It is so inspiring to have a get together with different crafts being worked on.

Everyone tucked into the packed lunches and then Ann, whose cake turn it was, brought in a lovely Cheese cake and Roulade. Yummy.

To allow time for the lunch to go down we have "show and tell" and wow what a lot of show and tell this month from wonderful cross stitch to quilts, crochet, cards, gift ideas etc etc..
Clare brought the most exquisite Japanese cross stitch and quilt but I do not seem to have a photo, sorry Clare.

Packed lunch time

Cake time

Shirley's crochet

Penny's quilt

Ann's fancy crochet buttons

Pauline's quilt

Maureen's mug insert

Happy Birthdays

Sunday was spent celebrating birthdays, Chris had his while we were in Spain, Abigail had hers while we were in France, Richard and Eleanor both have birthdays within the next week!
This is an expensive few weeks around here.

The family arrived late morning and we had Sunday dinner before holiday gifts were exchanged.
Thanks Richard for the baked white chocolate cheesecake... yummy. Next came birthday gifts followed by games.

We played pass the jelly, a sort of pass the parcel game without the parcel! Some years ago I got fed up with trying to wrap up a pass the parcel so instead wrap everything individually and place them in a bag with a ribbon attached, a sort of squiggy jelly like thing is then used until the music stops and someone can pull a string from the bag and get a gift. The girls love this and the game is always requested.

Saturday morning I spent a couple of hours laminating sets of nine playing cards for a game of playing card bingo, prizes being packets of smarties [ the things Grandma's do!!] .. this kept everyone happy for a while.

Our last game was Mexican Train played at the table with a 12 set of dominos.

After all this excitement we then had tea which no one said they wanted but everyone ate plenty. The coffee and walnut birthday cake Richard had made for his dad was scrumptious.

The Driving Licence

How time passes? I have had my current driving licence since 1978, when it was changed due to my name change. It is crumpled and old and has lived in my purse for the past 36 years. Now I have to give it up and get a new one with my photo on it as I will be 70 next month.

How technology has changed during that time, I am now able to apply for my new driving licence on line and they will use the photo from my passport. A few clicks of the mouse and keyboard and I will have my new licence without leaving the house.

I learnt to drive while living in Knightsbridge London at the age of 20. After one miserable paid for lesson I decided to drive with no help [ I was a wild child!] removed my L plates and took to the roads. I had been given a car by Leslie Caron the actress who lived round the corner from me. When the time came for the test I asked someone to accompany me and bought L plates, I passed first time.

Happy Memories.

Day 35 nine hundred and thirty six!

The B & B in Abbeville come highly recommended by me. The owner set out a wonderful selection of food and drink for our breakfast in her lounge.. All very elegant.

Our bed head that I really liked, plus the little lounge leading to the other two bedrooms.

We then set off on the Autoroute, something we had been avoiding all holiday because of the heavy tolls. The toll to the EuroTunnel was only €8 so worth it to get to our train crossing in time. As the car is too high for the normal car area we were on the floor with no upper deck, which I much prefer. The crossing under the English Channel is only 25 minutes and seems to be over before it begins.

 

Have you guessed why I entitled this final holiday page 936? That is the number of emails that awaited me as soon as I signed into my home computer. It is nice to be home, I wish some kind fairy would unpack everything and find homes for everything.

This has been a brilliant five weeks away and the company of Pat who lives in San Javier plus Pauline and Brian, our friends on holiday in the next house, made it all the more special. Only three months and we will be back!

 

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