busy doing nothing

The calendar looks very strange for this week - there is nothing written in for the whole week. Each morning I wake up and can decide what I will do that day - so it has been a week of doing things that have been left for months - no... years, waiting for some spare time.
When we moved in, two and a half years ago, curtains were hung up but in most cases they were too long. The curtains in the bedroom were floor length, which is no good if the radiator is under the window - so for the last two winters, each evening when the curtains were drawn the spare fabric was stuffed onto the window cill. They now end just below the cill and I shall save the spare fabric to recover our matching cushions - one day!
This morning I decided to shorten the bathroom curtains which were originally in my study when we lived up north. They are made in the William Morris design 'Strawberry Thief'. 
Many of our curtains are made in William Morris designs which is mainly due to my school days. The school consisted of three large Victorian houses in twenty-six acres of grounds.
Two of the houses were then joined together by the 'New Building'. One of these houses was originally owned by Mr Sanderson of wallpaper fame who was friends with Mr Morris and the whole school was decorated with Sanderson/Morris wallpaper with a piece of original wallpaper underneath the glass top of the 6th form table in the library. As a first year I remember looking longingly at the table thinking that it would be years before I would be able to sit there. But the day did come and although I cannot be certain, the design may have been 'Iris', the same as the bedroom curtains.
No photos of the bathroom yet - still work to be done but the end does seem to be in sight!

Happy Christmas

Our Christmas Day services always start an hour earlier and folk like it to be short! and I'm quite happy to oblige. There was a slightly larger than usual congregation and the singing was superb - but then we are in Wales. There were no children with their already opened presents - but a few of the grown-ups told us what they had received. One lady was brave enough to tell us that her grandchildren had given her some anti-aging cream!  
We celebrated Christmas on Friday with some of the family, so today we had 'left-overs' for lunch. Cooking a large meal for more than just the two of us seemed to slow the oven down and I always find it difficult to make sure that everything is cooked at the same time. But today was a far more calmer event and although we both enjoyed Friday's meal, today's seemed even more tastier!
So what will I be doing for the rest of the day? Well after the recent visit to the Chapel by the local school - the teacher saw that we collected stamps for BMS (the Baptist Missionary Society) and has kindly donated a huge amount of stamps to us - and so I will be sitting trimming off the excess envelop from around the stamps. I've already spent several hours doing this but it keeps me quiet and out of mischief! 

I'm ready!

It's been a while since I last blogged but this is not due to either ill health or being too busy - in fact I've been in better health with more energy than I have been for several years, so instead of sitting down playing on my computer or watching the tele in the afternoons I have made myself a coat, put underlay on the bathroom floor, been to a couple of Christmas parties, made mincemeat and turned half of it into pies. 
I've not overdone things - just made the most of the new found energy! and in the last few days I've made the Christmas pudding, cleared my study of all papers on the floor and every available work surface, made chocolate mousse, stewed pears in red wine for Sarah who doesn't like dried fruit and made two batches of ice-cream and - oh yes - prepared the service for Christmas morning!
I will now wrap the last few presents that I bought this morning ready to celebrate Christmas on Friday - Paul and Sarah and the grandboys are coming for a couple of days, which I will really enjoy and it will be so nice and quiet on Christmas Day when they will be at their other grandparents!

back at school

Once again I'm at college, ready for the day's course tomorrow, and feeling so much better - thank you for all your messages. 
I am so grateful to my Mum and the way she treated me when I was little and poorly - she got me to really think about how I was feeling, never pushing me or molly-coddling me. It has helped me not to push myself when I'm not quite right and not to over-do things. 
But I did make full use of the time. As you must realise by now, although I love dance I also love sewing and stitches of all kinds and over the last few weeks have made myself a long jacket (they used to be called car coats!) out of some lovely fabric I impulse bought three years ago! and also picked up a tapestry I put down 30 years ago! 
That was when we adopted Mandie, then I lost the instructions and have since found them, many moves later! The tapestry is for a cushion, all stitched in beige with various stitches including one which is used for making carpets - it's a cross stitch with a loop in the middle which is then cut - it looks good but takes ages! 
I have now completed the 2nd quarter of the cushion and put it down once again to knit myself a cardi with some wool which has been waiting its turn for the last two years.
This evening I met with Mandie and Dave for dinner, then tomorrow after the course, its down to Brighton in time for Stanley and Ted's bath-time and I will then babysit so that Paul and Sarah can have a child-free night out. On Saturday, I will drive up the M23 round the M25 to Epping Forest to cuddle Oliver and will ask Mark very nicely to tweak my computer while Katie and I catch up on Oliver's progress.
After lunch I'll be back on the M25 to the M4 and home ready to take the service on Sunday morning - fortunately I love driving and I have also been able to prepare everything before coming away so that I can have a lovely time with all the kiddies.