Stowaway!

I suggest you don't read this if you are just about to eat/have just eaten ....

A friend came to do something in the garden on Monday afternoon and when she had left I found a little string of brown beads on the bathroom floor, firm, dry and about the consistency of plasticine. I assumed it was something from the garden that had got caught on her clothes, but couldn't think what. Yesterday I found another one on the living room floor on my way out to the shops, and thought: "If I didn't know better I would think that was an animal dropping." (I don't keep an animal, and I hadn't seen or heard one coming in with me ... )

Yesterday morning my neighbour's mother called and asked if I had seen their cat. I told her I hadn't but if I did I would let them know. About 8 pm last night I suddenly heard the loudest of noises, not a miaow but one that could be a cat, just outside the front window, and it went on for a time, though it didn't sound like a fight. It was the loudest cat I had ever heard, so I rang the neighbour. Meanwhile the cat noises stopped. Next thing I know, my neighbour is at the door saying please could I come because her cat was my side of the door. So I go to get my keys and see a large black cat by the door!!

Cat and neighbour are now reunited to her great relief. I am a little worried, because if that cat was in here from when he disappeared on Sunday evening he must have left more behind then I have found, most probably a smelly damp patch, which needs disinfectant quick ... but there is not room to move the furniture easily and I cannot, anyway, do it myself. I have checked the most likely place he could have been (on the bed in the spare room - cats like to be comfortable!) and there is nothing there and no smell. I will ask a neighbour to come and check later: someone coming in from outside will be more sensitive to any smells.

I cannot understand how he can have been hidden for so long without making himself seen or heard, especially as I have been cooking since and I would have expected any cat to appear as soon as I started. He must have been both hungry and thirsty. Just where has he been hiding???

Blog candy! (for C by C)

I promised my friends on the Crafts by Carolyn forum some blog candy to celebrate the forum's seventh birthday. That happened on 12th March ... but the candy didn't arrive until afterwards :-(

It is here now:





so any member of the Crafts by Carolyn forum who drops by to leave a comment between now and midnight Easter Monday will have a chance of this addition to the stash.

Croydon shopping, Nikki

I promised I'd do some piccies of the stuff I bought in Croydon, and at last I'm on the case! Here's the first:



It's not quite what I was looking for (I was looking for cheerful or pretty; I think this comes under the heading cheap and cheerful)but if I made a mistake it cost me less than a cappuccino, so I can't really go wrong ... and I hope it will be right for one of the kids.

The second one is the opposite extreme, maybe a little too sophisticated, but I fell in love with it! I have another project in mind if it isn't right for the kids.



I am pants at getting it on the scanner straight! Mind you, to get it really straight I'd probably have to iron it, and I don't DO ironing!!

Anyway, it will show Nikki what I've got so she can decide if it suits - in reality it's nearer navy than royal blue, and has and is shaded with purple which hasn't shown up on the scan.

She of the feminist/eco/demo leanings dropped by and remarked that she liked to come because I was so quiet and peaceful (and this time - no mishaps ;) :)) ). That is something I aim for: to have a place that is welcoming and peaceful. I never have been the sort of person who buzzes around doing, and if I 'do', I do slowly and quietly - who knows, maybe she will pick that up and relax: I have wondered if her tendency to rush at ideas comes from her mother being the sort that buzzes around doing (something I have never experienced: we were more the sort that sat talking about anything and everything after supper). If I can tidy up the sitting room a bit, it will be more welcoming - something to do this week in case people come by after Easter.

stamps

I've just spent some time ordering sheets of stamps from the Royal Mail website. A friend on C by C reminded us that the rates were going up (again!) on Monday, and it's quite a steep increase. It also saves me the hassle of going to the post office right down the other end of the High Street: I hope I have enough stamps to last a good long while.

Must go post some Easter ribbons, otherwise they will be no use!

shopping

I've been wondering if my last was a bit mean ... I don't like to be negative, but perhaps I am not being so, just straight. Enough of that frustrating circumstance and on, to more such!!

As it is now possible to go out without looking like a mummified creature and I hadn't been for some time, I decided to go to Croydon for a mosey round and to see if there was anything promising for a friend on C by C who makes cushions for Kids Company.

The kids they work with are abused and deprived and it really makes a difference to them. I remember hearing from elsewhere that some of the kids who do burglary don't have any sense of what it means to be robbed of your possessions because they have spent their lives in children's homes where they haven't had anything that is their own, so I can imagine it must be a great help to these kids to have something made for them. I can't imagine that sort of deprivation or how their own parents can be so vicious.

But I am beginning to see where the Nazis might have found their concentration camp guards ... I wonder whether their propaganda had the same sort of desensitising effect as the abuse: some people would have been subjected to it from a young age ...

To return to the shopping expedition -

First frustration: they have moved the haberdashery department to the basement, where it is much more difficult to find, difficult to see what they have (and no longer conveniently near the ladies' loo ;) ).

Second, the remnants box yielded only miserable pieces of nylon material in the dullest of green and brown and had neither trimmings nor buttons.

Third, what was in the sale was the sort of stuff, again polyester or the like and rather flimsy, which you would use for carnival costumes or party dresses - though gorgeous red and gold. I found one lovely red and gold cotton in the sale, but realised it was a pattern of little holly leaves!!

They did not even have the craft cotton they had had earlier. I did find one bright stripe in the sale, which if it is a mistake is only £1.60 worth of one, so I got that even though it wasn't quite what I wanted. (What I really wanted were small flowers or daisies.) I also got ribbons and buttons, but not in the sale, and a really nice dark bluey purple fabric with doodled flowers on it in white. I suspect it is a bit sophisticated for those kids, but if it is I have something else in mind for it.

I think I was probably too late for the sale and too early for the new stock. As is always the case, they had no idea at all what they might have coming in or when - everywhere you go they say all their stock is supplied from elsewhere and their job is merely to receive what they are given.

I am expecting some more craft stuff for swaps and projects on C by C which I hope will arrive tomorrow so that I can get them posted before the new rates go up (by quite a jump - which will be no help to struggling small businesses .... )

Summertime???

Well, I've kept away for a few days now, so time for an update. Mum and sister are away in France for Easter, so maybe my brother and family will come here for a visit.

The advent of BST came, as usual, with the weather anything but appropriate! Saturday was cold, wet and windy, but Sunday a little better, and I was able to get to early evening Mass AND BACK in the light, which makes me feel things are on the up (and the long-range weather forecast is promising reasonable weather over Easter, too!).

On Saturday, too, someone I know came and we observed the hour for the earth - switching the lights off for an hour - NOT something I was planning on doing, but she had come by on her way home from the demo in London (she is into every cause going of the pacifist/feminist/eco variety and probably more besides) because she hadn't anyone to observe the event with and thought I might be free. She is one of those people who somehow manages to cause disproportionate disruption in my house ... and this time I was left with a jumper that had candle wax all the way down the front, which wouldn't have happened otherwise because I wouldn't have been sitting by candlelight!!

That is just typical - she doesn't actually mean to disrupt, it just happens - every time!! In a sense I can't really blame her as I moved the candle, but if she hadn't been here I wouldn't have had the candles lit so it wouldn't have happened. She is also prone to bright ideas which she communicates to me with great enthusiasm and without seeing the practical consequences. Her most recent suggestion is that I could replace the fence (which apparently is in a state of disrepair) with a hedge, thus establishing a more ecologically sound barrier with a bonus for wildlife.

All very well BUT:

- next door is responsible for that fence

- it needs someone who knows how to set it up, and that is a lost art these days

- it is bound to need maintenance, expensively so.

This follows on her giving me a bush for my birthday, despite my reply to her suggestion of giving me a plant, which was that I did not want anything for the garden at the moment as I needed to get the garden organised (and weeded!!) properly before putting anything in it. (It has been neglected since I was ill two years ago.) To add insult to injury, she had chosen a bush which needs acid soil and ours is alkaline ... as she claims to know a bit about gardening, that is another thing not thought through ...

Mother

My mother, sister and I are going out to lunch today for Mothering Sunday and my birthday, so I've found this card for her from my box. It doesn't have Mother's Day greetings on it (just as well as that has come and gone, and I am going boss-eyed thinking the paper isn't on straight - if it isn't, and it very much looks like it!, the white being the card blank, she will notice!) but it's a pretty card and will go with the sweet pea kit I bought from Sainsbury's - I saw it and remembered she had said she loved sweet peas, so I hope they won't be too much trouble for her to look after. My uncle used to grow sweet peas in the garden at home and I still remember those.

We enjoyed lunch - my sister works as a special needs teacher for dyslexia and the like, and was filling us in on some of the ways she works, and my mother loved the card, even though it was about the easiest one I could have made.

I've also got some cards for kids to show you - there's a challenge on C by C at the moment for kids' cards. I'm not sure these will count, as in the immortal Blue Peter phrase: "Here's one (or two) I made earlier.", but I haven't been able to show them before because I didn't know how to!!