Every cloud has a silver lining

As you may have gathered from an earlier posting, our family had a slight setback last Monday/Tuesday. The individual/s concerned did not want me to elaborate further, so I won't, but it did mean that we were all together to celebrate Alex's birthday, which we would not have been otherwise.

My visit to WAAA HQ

Firstly I would like to say a very big "thank you" to everyone who has bought cards and knitwear from me over the last couple of months, which has enabled me to donate to this wonderful cause. I was invited by Caroline Corrigan, one of the fundraisers, to visit their office to hear all about the wonderful work done by the helicopter, and, joy of joys, to actually see the helicopter close to. It was, quite co-incidentally, Alex's birthday, so as he was home with us I asked him if he wanted to come along with me, and he jumped at the chance.
When we first arrived the helicopter was out on a mission, but having had a look at the photos in the reception area and then a look at the hangar, we could hear that the object of our interest was, in fact, coming in to land. We were only allowed to look at it through the hangar door windows while it landed, was checked over and refuelled, and then Caroline and one of the paramedical team (I think his name was Ross, but I met so many of the team that I'm afraid I couldn't remember all the names) took us outside for a close encounter. I was even invited to climb up into the rear compartment area where the stretcher and medical equipment was stowed, but it was rather a large step up, so I politely declined, and let Alex have the pleasure.
It was a really enjoyable opportunity for me to get close up and personal with the helicopter, the team of policemen and paramedics who man it, and the fund raising team, many thanks to you all.

Picture 1, Helicopter and pilot




Picture 2. Checking propeller and refuelling




Picture 3. Alex (birthday boy), Caroline, fundraiser, and one of the paramedics.




Picture 4. The pilot's seat




Picture 5. Screens for the navigator




Picture 6. The stretcher and medical equipment




Picture 7. Alex inside the rear compartment




Picture 8. The black box flight recorder (actually an orange box!)




Picture 9. The WAAA logo on the door




Picture 10. Alex and his Mum




In order to keep the helicopter in the air the fundraising team need to raise £1,369 PER DAY, so please help, or help me to help, in any way you can.
Donate directly to the WAAA by visiting the website here
Purchase any item from my Folksy shop or my Zibbet shop and 50% of the purchase price will be donated
Purchase any amount of cards, stationery, gift wrap, etc from my Phoenix website and 10% of purchase price will be donated.
Clicking on the highlighted words will take you directly to the websites. Thank you.

Due to unforeseen circumstances . . .

. . . I have decided that at the moment I am unable to continue with my self-imposed 365 blog posting. All will be explained tomorrow - or the next day, but soon. In the mean time I was able to make my planned trip to the WAAA HQ today (and will go into more detail tomorrow), Alex came with me, today was his 22nd birthday.

268/365 A floral interlude

He bought me some flowers the other day, for no other reason than that he loves me. Thank you my dear, a beautiful gesture.

267/365 Aren't grandchildren . . .

. . . great? (Well, I think mine are, anyway).

266/365 Snowdrops

Not long now before they open

265/365 Silent Saturday

264/365 Moonset over Roundway

Today's the day I was to have paid a visit to the HQ of the Wiltshire Air Ambulance, but sadly I had an email yesterday to say that the helicopter has to go in for essential maintenance, so my visit is postponed until next Friday.

Yesterday morning it was very, very cold, but clear, and I was able to watch the moonset from my bedroom window.










When the moon had disappeared below the treeline a sudden mist appeared.




If this had been today I wouldn't have been able to see a thing, we are surrounded by thick fog.

263/365 No more . . .

. . . breadmaking for a few days - one of my dough hooks has snapped. I was half way through the kneading and had to finish off by hand (one hook on its own refuses to enter the dough, just whizzes around the outside!).

262/365 Full moon, almost

261/365 Red boxes and green shopping

If you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that during the late spring/early summer of last year we had an outbuilding at the bottom of our garden renovated into an office for Rog and a studio for me, and these were decorated and finished ready for use by about the middle of August. I was able to move all my various bits and pieces, books, yarns, knitted things, Phoenix stock etc. etc. out there from odd corners of the house and have been using it on and off ever since. Except that most of my knitting/crocheting is done in the evening in front of the TV, so rather than keep running backwards and forwards in the dark (and often wet and cold) I keep a little corner of the lounge stocked up with needles, scissors, various yarns and work-in-progress. This is it, with everything I need all nicely within reach and tucked down beside the sofa out of harms way.



Yesterday when I got back from shopping I put all the fridge stuff on the worktop ready to put away, then noticed it was ALL green!

260/365 Blue sky

We seem to have had dull, grey skies for such a long time, that when it cleared at lunchtime today and the sun came out, I got a bit excited.
Sad to say, it didn't last very long.

259/365 Coming along nicely

Rog spent some more time on my new P.C. yesterday. Look, I've got a new fan and lots of cabley bits, woo hoo. Today he is installing the software, but I might need a different graphics card, as the one that is fitted to the motherboard might not be up to the job (or so I am told, by he who knows) so, we progress.



And now for some more shameless self-promotion.
I have a shop on a site called Zibbet. Zibbet has been going for a couple of years, its based in Australia but has an international market. I've had my little shop for a few months, its a free shop, it has no extra bells and whistles, but listing is free. I guess if I sell something there will be a selling fee, but as I haven't sold anything yet I'm not really sure. The prices are listed in US dollars, which may be a bit off-putting for some UK buyers, I just work on a rough guide of a pound being worth one and a half dollars, so a ten dollar scarf is approximately just over six pounds (I am using words rather than figures because for some reason blogger has taken a dislike to my keyboard, and puts a hash instead of a pound sign).
It is possible to pay a monthly fee to get a silver service or an even higher fee for a gold service, but I'm not ready for that yet. In fact I'm not even sure if I'll keep the shop going when my listings run out (after 6 months, I think). So if you would like to take a look at my Zibbet shop please click here, and if you see anything you like then please get back to me, I may be able to reduce the prices a little to help move some stock.
I've also got a free shop on a site called Groovy Cart, where I sell stationery. I'll keep this shop as its about the only one I've found where you can sell stuff that isn't hand made or crafted. Most of the stationery I have for sale is from the fabulous "dots and spots" range, I have only listed some of it, but I have almost the entire range of cards and decorative tapes in stock. So please take a look at my Groovy Cart shop by clicking here, and then have a look at the "dots and spots" website by clicking here, and if you would like to buy anything from their range which isn't listed in my shop, please get back to me. Postage is free on all orders despatched to UK addresses.
You might also like to look at my Folksy shop and my Phoenix website.
Oh, and I almost forgot, I now have another blog to chart my learning journey for this year, and I would really love some more followers, you can find it here, thanks.

258/365 Silent Saturday

257/365 A giggly hour with Jean

I dont have a great deal of oomph at the moment, I think its a touch of SAD, but I had a very enjoyable hour with my friend Jean, of Talking Beads and Craft Cupboard at lunch-time today in the Castle Hotel, which cheered me up immensely. We chatted about this and that, and had a bit of a giggle over a coffee (Jean) and a tea (me). Jean is learning to crochet, and is coming on really well, she puts me to shame, as no way am I going to learn beading!
Before we met I made a visit to the Post Office to despatch my latest sales, another two headband/earwarmers.






These are not for sale in any of my shops, as yet, but are available direct from me, they are (please pretend there is a pound sign here as my pc doesn't want to put one in)5.00 each, of which 2.50 goes directly to WAAA, you can choose any colour(s) for headband and flower. I am practising all sorts of new flowers, knitted and crocheted, so am offering no guarantee as to which flower I might fancy making at any one time.

256/365 Its grey and gloomy . . .

. . . outside, so here is a little something to brighten your day, my gorgeous 8 week old granddaughter

255/365 Home made bread

I dont make bread when there are more than just the two of us at home, its not that sons 3 and 4 dont like my bread, just the opposite, they like it so much that if I make a loaf its gone before it has a chance to cool down. So while they are with us I could spend the whole of my time just making bread - instead of which I choose to buy bread and spend my time doing other things. Now Rog and I are on our own again its back to bread making. I have no objection to the all singing, all dancing bread making machines, the bread from them is lovely, but the downside is that all the loaves are exactly the same shape and size. I prefer to make mine a bit more hands on, OK I dont do the kneading by hand now, I use dough hooks on my food mixer, but I like to ring the changes now and again, so yesterday I made a granary blob (my name for this shape), here you can see it after kneading, then after rising, and finally after cooking. If you can imagine a picture of my smiling face that will be after tasting, yum.

254/365 New P.C.

My p.c. has been playing up for a while now, and I dont think its going to last much longer. I am extremely lucky to be married to an IT professional of some 40 years standing (when he was at Newcastle University in the late 60s the computer room was huge and contained one computer that filled the room!) so instead of having to pop out to PC world and spend several hundreds of pounds to buy something that may or may not be what I really need, I just tell Rog, and he buys a load of bits and builds me a new one. The first picture, I am told, is my motherboard and the second shows it after fitting my CPU! It still needs a fan and a few other things and then it needs to be loaded with the linux operating system (we only use microsoft when we absolutely have to, and have a dedicated machine for that!) but I'm told it wont be long now, just hope the one I am using can hold up for a few more days!





And just a little bit of self-promotion, here is todays listing in my Folksy shop

253/365 A short trip to Marlborough

(or Maulbra, as pronounced by the natives - rather a posh lot)
As it was nice and sunny, for a pleasant change, we decided on a short trip out by car. Marlborough is about 10 miles from home and up till now we've only ever just passed through it, so this time we parked up and had a walk along the High Street. It was pleasant enough, but we are spoilt with Devizes so Marlborough High Street left me distinctly unimpressed. As per usual on our outings, we managed to find a nice pub, The Sun, right at the far end of the High Street in the shadow of the rather dominating church. We were the only customers at the time, so able to bag a nice warm spot next to the fire.



I liked the look of this ancient leather and wood chair, very interesting.




On the way home we stopped at Overton Hill, on the outskirts of Avebury, where we saw these burial mounds.