🎵🎶🎵 Snowdrops and Daffodils . . .

 . . . Butterflies and Bees  ♫♬🎜🎝

Hello Friends!

I simply could not resist, and for those of you who know not of which I speak, or for those who wish to trip down Memory Lane, please listen here . . . 

All Kinds of Everything

As my photos today will be predominantly snowdrops and daffodils I couldn't help reminiscing over the sweetly innocent Dana who won Eurovision in 1970 with the most charming song.  Some great songs have come out of Eurovision, as well as Dana's All Kinds of Everything, Abba gave us Waterloo, and later came The Voice sung by Eimear Quinn, not forgetting in 1967 Sandy Shaw with Puppet on A String, or Love Shine a Light by Katrina and the Waves, to name but a few of the classics.  I digress.

The flowers that herald the imminent passing of Winter are flowering, so can Spring be far behind?  Snowdrops and Daffodils ~ the opening words of Dana's song!

Just to round out the opening bars, here are the butterflies and a bees. . . 

Do you have a favourite Eurovision winner?

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xx

The Poster Girl

Hello Friends

Well it's February and where did January go?  At least the days are lengthening noticeable now.

I've been feeling down lately so been keeping myself to myself.  Nobody loves a moaner but it's been rough. My spirits picked up some when my new metal butterfly dies dropped through my letter box.  

Did I need them? No.

Am I glad I bought them? Yes

I am beginning to think I am the Poster Girl for the peculiar hobby of just buying craft supplies.  Did you know that buying materials and actually using them are two entirely different hobbies?

Here's my first sample run.  There are five dies in total, two solid and three lacy cut out.  The two solid dies fit perfectly under two of the cut out ones. As this is a test run, I used different cardstock and paper weights from vellum to mirri. Anything else will be too heavy as they are not deep cut dies.

I have puzzled over what to do with them, it's not as if I sell them.  I did think to donate to the local hospice for them to use in craft sessions or to sell but then it was suggested that I put them on picks and sell to a florist.  Now there's a thought!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xx

It Snowed ~ Or Did It?

Hello friends!

It snowed last night.

We hardly ever get snow where I live. The last time we had any discernible snow was about 14 years ago when it snowed and it snowed. And it snowed. And it stuck with us for three long weeks. Long enough for the novelty to wear off.

Before that, I think the biggest snowfall we had was 1963. I had not long started primary school. and the school was shut for three days because the toilets froze over. We still talk about it all these decades on that's how often we get snow.

So last night close to midnight I got a surprise to see my garden lightly dusted as snow started to gently fall. ' Late though the hour was, I got my phone and took this photograph, just in case I thought I had imagined it when morning came.  I went online and posted it on Facebook. And lo and behold, my feed was full of photos of snow falling across the city. I was not the only one bringing proof that we did actually have snow.  We all knew it would be gone in an hour.  That's just the way it is here.

If we had a centimeter that's all we had. However, by this morning it had started to melt but then the temperature plummeted, and it has frozen. So my patio is now like a skating rink. I will not be venturing out on it today.

It's all geographic as I live on a peninsula, which sticks out just enough into what is the North Atlantic Drift, on the northerly reaches of the Gulf Stream. This elevates our temperature by an almost indiscernible amount. Yet it is enough to keep us relatively snow free unless it gets really bad in the rest of the country. Even three miles down the road, they can have a few inches of snow, and we get nothing.

Here are some photographs of the last time we had snow.  Some of the clouds were spectacular.

Roll on Spring now, the novelty of keeping warm has gone.  Unfortunately it seems this coming weekend sees us back in the land of gales and storms.

I also need to tell you that my air fryer makes perfect toast, in fact the crispiest and driest toast, the most delicious toast I've ever eaten.  I put it in the drawer on a rack on the Max Crisp setting and five minutes later I'm tucking in to the Best Toast EVER!  It doesn't even sweat on the plate.

Until next time.

Stay safe. Stay well. Stay warm.

Debbie.

Roses Are Red My Love {voices from beyond}

Hello friends!

My late mother loved roses. It has been five years now since she left this mortal coil, but a long time before she died, she spoke that she wanted one single red rose on her coffin. However, when the time came, I couldn't bring myself to do this as I felt she meant it to come from my father, who had died a few years earlier. So I bought a beautiful wreath instead.  Then this happened.

Years ago, when I lived abroad. I used to send money to one of my cousins who would go and purchase flowers for my mother from me on Mothering Sunday every year. One year we discussed it and she bought a potted miniature rose instead of the usual bouquet of cut blooms. After the potted rose had served its time, Mum planted it into the garden where it flourished and grew. Some 30 years passed, and the small rose survived. 

During the last few years of my mother's life between my duties of caring for her as she slowly succumbed to Alzheimer's. and my own illness of Parkinson's starting to take hold the garden started to suffer from neglect. The borders became overgrown, and plants  choked and died. There was no sign of her rose. Where I live, roses flower from the Spring to late Summer. By the end of September, they are spent.

Fast forward to the morning of my mother's funeral on a cold and windy November morning.  I came out of the house to get into the limo and as I walked past the borders I noticed. not much bigger than the size of a 50 pence piece a red bloom in the middle of all the overgrown weeds. I had to stop to take a closer look. I could scarcely believe my eyes Here we were in the middle of November  and the tiny flower that I could see was a single red rose flowering on the plant that I had given my mother all those years before and I had given it up for dead amongst the weeds. Can you even begin to imagine how I felt at that moment?  November, when the roses should have stopped flowering and this particular plant was being choked by the weeds that surrounded it. And here we were on the morning of my mother's funeral, looking at a single red rose.  I was being reminded of the request that she had made years earlier and it was being fulfilled.

Here are a few pictures of some of her roses.

Then a few months later there was this.

It was January, three months without Mum, and I had been very down and unhappy since Christmas and missing Mum more than words can say. My neighbour asked me to go down to Whitesands with her so I did. It was a beautiful day, cold but blue skied, and the tide was way out. As we walked along the vast expanse of sandy beach, I suddenly felt myself being drawn instinctively away from the path I was treading across the beach. A few feet away, a tiny heart shaped piece of sea glass called out to me and I answered its call.

Just to say, Whitesands is  a big beach, especially when the tide is out, see above, and it is not known for its sea glass, yet I found this tiny piece of heart shaped glass. I have never found sea glass before. This is my first piece I have ever found.

I don't know if you believe in the afterlife, or voices from the great beyond. but between the experience of the glass heart and the single red rose, there is no doubt in my mind. None whatsoever.

Until next time. 

Stay safe. Stay well. Stay warm.

Debbie.

The Oliphaunt

Hello Friends!

I am very happy with my little oliphaunt {as Samwise Gamgee would say}  It was drawn from a copyright free stock photograph as part of the online Drawing Magic Secrets at Atelier Ida Andersen Lang.  It took me somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes.  I would like to revisit this image and do an in depth study with all the shading.

I was rather intimidated at first as I'm not used to drawing animals and it pushed me well outside my comfort zone, but that is how we learn.

I received this lovely A5 pocket sketchbook by Winsor & Newton for Christmas.  It is vegan pleather.  What a thoughtful gift.

I hope you are not too badly affected by the weather. It is awffy cold!  I was reading just this morning that the NHS recommends the minimum temperature for health is 18*C, or 64*F.  I do keep mine at that balmy setting but do my best to keep myself warm with layers of clothing, quilts hot water bottles and hot drinks.  Funny how in the summer months 18*C seems most pleasant. 

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well, stay warm

Debbie