Goodbye November...

Hello December.

As November finishes cold and frosty I think back and remember the very grey month we have had.

There was a sparkle of sunshine, but not much. As you can see though, Grey can sometimes be beautiful!

~This is what I should be doing~

I bought a lovely book from the second hand book shop in Uppermill on Saturday. This is the front cover.

and this is one of the patterns inside.

It is full of little stuffed toys to make with some lovely ideas. I just don't know when I will find the time to make any.

I didn't do anything creative on Sunday as I hoped to. I was creative with some ironing-I hid it in the cupboard!!!

A pause in Advent

I am joining Floss in A pause in Advent.

The first candle to be lit at Advent is for HOPE.

Now I have to say I am an eternal Optimist and I hope that one day my time on this earth will be for some good use. I have hope that one day soon we will open our eyes to what we do with this planet and the people, animals and places on and in it. I hope that future generations will see more clearly what needs to be done and as I light my candles today I hope to stay forever hopeful for a bright future.

Owletes and outings

Owlets and outings.....

::Diane (from Heart Shaped) and I were going to meet up tomorrow but her son is poorly so we have postponed it till the new year. Hope he feels better soon. So tomorrow seems to be a different day to the planned one and I hope to do something creative with it.

I have finished my secret project, do you remember this post?


And I talked about my secret project. well I can show you what it was now.




I was making these owlets to give to a local Bird sanctuary. The Three Owls bird sanctuary in Norden near Rochdale is in desperate need of funds and they sent an appeal out.

The children at our school raised nearly £100 pounds and the school fund matched it and so one Friday I took three children to the sanctuary to give them the cheque for £200.
I made these little owlets for them to sell in their little shop.


They are ever so easy to make and the very lovely Brie from Roman Sock let me use her pattern and when I started I just couldn't stop. I made about 16 in the end and hope to do some more for them in the new year as they need all the help they can get fund raising to keep open.

These two ducks are best friends and can not be separated. The mandarin duck only has one eye and the Aylesbury duck has a bad wing. They will live out the rest of their lives together at the sanctuary. It's only a small place but they do such a wonderful job.

I couldn't show you sooner as I had made some as gifts, that's why it was a secret!

::Anyway last Sunday Hubby and I braved the wind and rain and went for a walk to blow the cobwebs away.


The gales in the week had stripped the trees bare but we caught a weak bit of sunshine as we left the house and walked up the footpath behind the house.

We walked through the woods on the hill opposite Millbank then as we climbed up the hill from the village the heavens opened and we got soaked!


It was nice to be out though, rain or not, the past few months Hubby has been studying and we missed out on our walks when we had all that lovely Autumn weather.

It was dark by the time we arrived back home. Wet, cold, muddy but happy!

I wish we were in Montserrat with Shan who is over there visiting her Dad for Christmas. If she emails me a lovely photo of the beautiful island I will post it on my blog to make us all jealous!


I know her and her dad are reading this-Have fun Shan!





::I bought these two kitties from the Cats Protection Christmas fair last week. They are for our two nieces who are 1 and 3 on the 7th December.


Today we went Christmas shopping in Uppermill. I forgot to take my camera so couldn't take good photos of the lovely Christmas window displays. I tried to take some on my camera on my phone but it wasn't very good. I am going to try and go back and remember to take my camera next time!

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving over the pond. I wish you all well on this day.

I am thankful for a kind, generous and loving hubby who bought me these beautiful flowers to (in his words) make me smile.

I am also grateful for my bloggy friends. I got a lovely parcel in the post today from Dolly.

It was my Christmas Stocking swap. The beautiful knitted stocking was full of lovely things.

Sweets, a pencil, a beautifully embroidered bag, a tiny book of cat quotes,

a snowman card holder, a little wooden Father Christmas,

some borders to use in scrap booking, a gingham heart with ribbon embroidery,

and my favourite thing most of all, a brooch with teeny tiny blue hips painted on.

Lucy even got a present.

Which she played with under the dining table for ages!

I love it all, Thank you Dolly!

So you see, we all have a lot to be thankful for in this house.

Better late than never...

Sorry it has been a week since my last post but I have had a busy week and although managed to read some blogs never quite made it to post on my own.

November has stripped the trees bare and we have had some miserable weather. I have made up a few Christmas Pressies (I can Show you now as Shan got hers on Wednesday!)

Not my own Idea but very effective. Layer all the dry ingredients in a Kilner Storage Jar and do a label with other ingredients and method to make up either Chocolate Chip Cookies or Chocolate brownies.

There have been some lovely sunrises this week.

you will say if you get bored of my sunrises and sunsets?
I am grateful (no.10) I have such a lovely run to work and home again. No traffic or queues maybe the odd wandering sheep or icy road to contend with.

I made Chocolate Chip cookies and Melting moments to sell at the Cats Protection Christmas Fair yesterday. I also did my Raffle to win a Pet Portrait.

I finished the painting of my mums dog (I have put a picture of it on my other blog Everyday Life Emporium.)

Look who had to come home with me.....

She is a cutie isn't she?

On the way home I found a new setting on my camera.

Rochdale at dusk.

Rochdale does have some beautiful buildings and with the Christmas lights it looked lovely.

Grateful no.9

I am very grateful for MUSIC!

Sometimes I have my own music soundtrack in my head, playing like my life is a movie.

I am grateful for music and when I sat down to write this post it got me thinking about my taste in music throughout my life. (if you click in the links you should get a sample of the music from YouTube-fingers crossed!)

I remember sitting on my dad's legs and him bobbing me up and down to The Scaffold's Lily the pink. Even now it brings back lovely memories and makes me smile.
My next musical memory is listening to my mum's LP's of Rogers and Hammerstein film music. Carousel, The Sound of Music, South Pacific and Oklahoma. She would put them on to do the ironing and I would listen while playing with my Barbie doll. I still know a lot of the words to songs from these shows.

Then we move on a little while and Donny Osmond.

Puppy love being one of my favourites of course.

I grew up with a brother four and a half years older than me who's own musical tastes influenced mine. I would 'borrow' his LP's to listen to in my room so the next music I remember is Saturday Night Fever, Earth Wind and Fire and the Commodores. Every Saturday night the last dance at the Royal Naval Club was this one.

Then onto another great John Travolta film and the music that went with it-Grease! I remember making a full circle bottle green skirt in my sewing class-taking many months to complete.

Years at Collage at the beginning of the 1980's were full of the New Romantics. I went all moody with Ghosts and Quiet Life by Japan , Tears for Fears, then later I went to see David Bowie on his Serious Moonlight Tour.

The days when it was alright to tuck your jumper into your trousers!

Then on to the mid 80's and doing my HND listening to my Walkman during the day in the class to Fleetwood Mac, the Housemartins and the Communards.


Early years at work meant more money to spend so we went to a few more concerts such as the M People, The Lighthouse Family and Simply Red.

But at this time I also started to listen to popular classical music and even to this day Vaughn Williams The Lark Ascending and Debussy's Clare de Lune are some of my favourite pieces of music.

Hubby introduced me to The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and we went to see them at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

Click on the picture for a clip of the film.

I have always been interested in Film Soundtracks. I like the way a group of songs can sum up a theme for a movie. I also enjoy having that mix of specially written pieces of music and chosen songs mixed together. I have loads and loads of Soundtrack CD's but some of my most favourite are French Kiss, Sense and Sensibility, Lord of the Rings, Yanks and Braveheart.




Our first dance at our wedding was a Louis Armstrong song from the French Kiss Soundtrack and we watched them shooting scenes in Scotland for the movie Braveheart in 1995.

I also like listening to 1940's music and songs that won the war compilation CD's, I like that era and the songs evoke a feeling of patriotism, love and sadness.


We have hundreds of CD's in the house. covering many different types of music, at the moment it's Paulo Nutini and Melody Gardot, who knows what I will be listening to next year.



I hope you have enjoyed looking and listening to my musical memories. I hope the links worked and maybe you discovered something you may want to rush out and enjoy yourself. I have enjoyed doing this post-although it took a lot longer than I expected.

We all have different tastes and it would not do to all like the same thing but maybe some things have brought back memories for you too?

Grateful no.7 and no.8

Today, on this grey November day I am grateful we still get days like yesterday where the sun is strong enough to make shadows on the wall.

And I am also grateful to still have roses blooming in the garden.

I have just been to the post office and posted my parcels to my Pay It Forward recipients so with luck and a fair wind they will arrive by early next week. I also posted my Christmas Stocking Swap to Dolly. (Yes and it's only 14th November!!!) Feeling very pleased with myself. I hope they like what I put together!!!!!!!

I finished my little secret project but you will have to wait a while before I let you know what I have been up to.

I hope to tidy up the house a bit tomorrow and then I may be able to carry on with my Autumn/Christmas Throw I started ages ago, remember?

Have a good weekend everybody

:o)

We will remember them.

Grateful no.5 and no.6

~There were four of us sitting at Miss Clare's round table that afternoon.

A cloth of incredible whiteness, bordered with a deep edging of Miss Clare's mother's crocheting, covered the table, and in the middle stood a bowl of primroses. The best tea-service, patterned with pansies, was in use, and the cut-glass dishes held damson cheese and lemon curd of Miss Clare's own making. The bread and butter was cut so thin as to be almost transparent.~

I am grateful for books. The above is taken from 'Miss Read Village school' published in 1955.

I love books, I just can not walk past a book shop (can I Shan?) We have hundreds and hundreds and on many subjects, fiction and non-fiction.

I am also grateful for teatime! I love having a proper teatime with china and fresh flowers, cakes and dainty sandwiches. I am thankful when we find time to share a teatime with family and friends.