Watch out.....

my Mum's about.

Here she is in the craft room (which she still insists on calling the dining room...she's trying to wear me down) sewing a scarf to the back of a knitted bears neck.....    

Looks like she's enjoying stabbing that little toy a bit too much for my liking.   Reminds me why I won't let her anywhere near if I have a splinter in my finger.  Or a boil on my head for that matter (I'll tell you about that later).

Success!!

After years of trying I finally persuaded my Mum to knit a toy.   I don't know who's more pleased... Mum or the bear!   It wasn't long before it had a little friend to play with....

actually bears are multiplying like rabbits over at her house right now.... what have I started!

Mac popped in curious to see what was going on.....

Him..... "Is that camera on?"

Me......."Yes"

Can't help but think I married Micky Mouse!

What about the sewing I can here you think...... well.....

Sweet Menagerie is almost done (not in the photo... that was earlier).   Only got one more white border to attach and it will be officially a flimsy.    As luck would have it I remembered I'd been working on a pinwheel quilt around the time I started SW.  After a bit of rummaging I found that project stashed along with no less than 2 metres of the exact same white fabric I'd run out of for SW.     How lucky can I get!

The pin wheel WIP was not so lucky though..... 

it's getting the chop... literally .    Decided what I didn't like about it (apart from the dodgy points) was that the pin wheels were just too big.   Seems I prefer them small.   As they were already sewn into rows (almost a flimsy) I took my trusty rotary cutter and got to work slicing and dicing them down from  8 1/2" inches to 6 1/2..... liking them much better now.... fortunately.

Bet you are thinking what I've done doesn't amount to much considering I've been AWOL for more than two weeks.   Well... I've had problems.....

the wheel fell off my barrow for one.   Right in the middle of me shovelling and hauling a ton of hardcore down the drive to fill in the worst of this winters pot holes.  I was not happy.

Was even less impressed by the state of the greenhouses.....

I've normally scrubbed and disinfected them way before now.  This year I'm so late the vines are in leaf and the strawberries already have their flowers on.   I'd like to point out.... it's not my fault... honest!    We've had so many months of torrential rain I was thinking about turning the whole place into a bog garden with the greenhouse as an aquarium feature.

The big (86 feet) flower bed looks like this.....

the field next door has moved in further than ever before.   As for the smaller flower bed.....

can you see it?   I'm having trouble and I know where it is... or is supposed to be.  As for the veggie bed....

perhaps this would be a good year to try out rice as a crop.

I've been forced to admit defeat!  I'm calling in a man do do the heavy digging for me.  Chris and Sally are having a real good gloat about it.   They've spent all winter telling me I'm getting too old for my turbo digging antics.  If they mention I'm 60 in December once  more I'll  be digging one big hole and planting both of them in it!

Apart from all that the caravan looks like a mobile Petrie Dish it's covered in so much Algae.  Mum wouldn't let me take a photo of it to show you.   To Mac and me it's a reminder of happy times gone by to my Mum it's an eyesore..... a very big... very green in your face one.    She's not a happy bunny.

This is though......

He/she (does anyone know how to tell the difference... apart from the obvious which I can't get close enough to see) has just feasted on the flower border.   What's the betting he/she didn't eat the weeds or field grass. Would you eat burger if there was steak on the menu!  Before you correct me... I know this is a hare not a bunny..... the long legs and big ears are a dead give-a-way.

Now... I said I'd tell you about my Mum and a boil I once had on my head.

I was about 10 years old when I developed a monster boil on my temple. In fact I remember my Mum and Nana discussing (at great length)  the possibility of it being a carbuncle.  Now...I was too young to have encountered a carbuncle but judging by the horrified look on their faces I knew it was nothing to brag about at school.   Whatever it was.... it was closely monitored till the day came when my Mum announced (with great zeal) that  it was finally  'ripe'!   If I'd know what was coming next you wouldn't have seen me for dust.

I was sat on a dining chair in the middle of the lounge and Mum began the Boilectomy.  She heated a glass tumbler... placed it over the boil and held it there.   When it was deemed to have been there long enough she tried to remove it.  I screamed loud enough to wake the dead.   Mum  let go of the glass and it stayed put on my head.  To give here the benefit of the doubt I think she'd underestimated the power of a vacuum!    Didn't do me any good though.... I was the one wearing the glass fascinator.

When she finally regained her composure  Mum scolded me for being a sissy and had another go at pulling  the glass (and hopefully the contents of the boil) off my head.   No way was that glass going anywhere without taking my entire brain with it.    Enter my Dad.    He took one look at me and my strange headgear muttered an expletive and headed off into his workshop at warp speed returning with a tea towel and a hammer!   I almost feinted on the spot!   

It all turned out well in the end.  Dad covered the glass with the tea towel then hit it with the hammer to break the glass and subsequently the vacuum.   He was my hero.   He saved me from having to go to school next day with a tumbler on my head.    Mum stopped trying to 'fix' me herself and took me to the local pharmacy where a nice man mixed up a glob of pink paste to put on my boil (with hindsight I think the tumbler was more attractive) and all was well in my world.

If you think that was bad.... my Nana used the same technique to cure constipation.  Being sat on a bucket with boiling water in the bottom was bad enough......trying to get up without taking the bucket with you or scalding your posterior in the process was something else entirely.  Besides.... it didn't work......  ever!

That I survived childhood never ceases to amaze me.    Don't you just miss the 'good old days'..... nah!!

OK.... I'm off.    I've rabbited on way too long and I have to be up early in the morning... hairdresser appointment.

Hope you are all enjoying whatever season it is in your corner of the world.

See ya soon....

Have fun...

Josie