".........because Nanny misses Bently"

Out of the mouths of babes......

My DD's and I had our belated coffee morning on Thursday and they gave me their lovely Mother's Day presents. I was extremely touched when my DD2 told me that when she went to buy my card her youngest DD, who's just turned 4 said she must buy me this lovely card, "because Nanny misses Bently", how's that for sensativity. And what a thoughtful present, just right for all the trips we can now make in our third age. I love those flamingos.

My DD1 bought me a beautiful early morning tea cup from the V&A designer collection, inspired by William Morris wallpaper, and of course my favourite chocs, all presented in this delightful bag.



And DD 3 bought me a lovely breakfast of Earl Grey tea and toasted tea cake and jam, what a lucky Mummy I am.

We do miss our lovely old dog it's true, and at the moment with our trips out we seem to see nothing but dog walkers, but I think in our hearts we both know that we have to give it time before we commit to another family member to care for, but it doesn't make the hole any smaller.

For now though I think I have plenty of things to keep me busy and our trips to the seaside have been wonderfully inspiring for my new course.

Here's a few more inspiration pics from our travels.



You can see where I took this here



And this is what they look like in closeup, definitely one for the texture file.

Mother's away

I wasn't home for Mother's Day this year, instead I was chilling out at , yes you've guessed, at the "Seaside". Well where better to do some creative research.
However, the bush telegraph must have done it's job and I received these gorgeous flowers and divine little chocs yesterday from my DS.





I shall be off for coffee my DD's on Thursday so I think I've got the best of all worlds.

We went to Littlehampton, which for those of you who don't know it, is on the South coast and is about an hour's drive from us.
My quest for beech inspiration proved fruitful , with these super beech huts all laid out in charming crescents.



And how about this for some mad beech sculpture, it's a cafe!!



I was trying to capture the rhythm of the waves going in and out, but this was the best I could do, still it's a nice pattern shot.



And here's a fish recipe for you, I thought this was pretty clever, there were at least 2 others with different recipes.



We were finally treated to this wonderful sunset before we went home.



And before that I had the chance for some sketching, so not a bad day, all in all.



For those of you who were kind enough to say you'd be interested in following my progress on the diploma, I've put up my first post here.

I'm gradually finding my old routines again and want to get back into regular contributions on the blog scene, so please be patient as I try to find moments in this new regime to surf around and comment on your blogs, in the meantime thanks to all those who've stayed with me and commented on my erratic posts, it's much appreciated.

News and catching up

Thank you to all who sent my OH birthday wishes, it was much appreciated.

We've been incredibly busy getting used to our new life in semiretirement, my OH only works one day a week now, so we've been enjoying the novelty of going out mid week as well as the w/e, so not much time for 'at home' creative stuff. Still I'm sure we'll calm down when we get used to it and the novelty's worn off.

We had a lovely w\e in Kent a couple of weeks ago and took one of our Grandsons along too, so here's a few pics of us enjoying retirement.


I just loved the colours of these beech huts, which have now become quite significant, as I'll explain later.


Our grandson fishing for clams, and nearly getting a soaking.


Us enjoying a quiet w/e at Bognor


And a bit of beech sculpture


The end of a very happy day

And now to a bit of creative stuff. It was DD1's birthday last month and she said she wanted something handmade, so after much thought I decided to make a jewellery roll for her w/e's away, thanks to Kathy's great instructions.





It was quite a hit, so I think there'll be a few more in the pipeline as well as one for me.

And finally to the Big News, I've signed up to do my C&G Diploma embroidery with Sian Martin at her online textile school, Distant Stitch. I've just received my first module where I've been asked to choose a theme for the duration of the course and have decided on 'the seaside'. I'm really excited to be working from my own inspirational source this time. I've set up a separate blog which I'll link to so you can follow my progress if you want to.
I can't wait to have something to blog about.