And the winner is

Mama, could you let me know your address, please?  E mail link is on my profile.  Thanks to all who entered.

Reminder

Just  quick reminder that you have until midnight tomorrow to win these three books.

Just make a comment on this thread.  Sorry, UK only.

Giveaway

I've been winning a few competitions and I'd like to share some of my good fortune!  Actually I won these books pre-Christmas last year and decided to hang on to them until now so that the winner could have them ready for the winter as they all have "cold" titles.  "The Winter Folly", "The Snow Goose" and "The Snow Rose" all by Lulu Taylor  All are new and unread.  

Sorry, this one is just for UK addresses but I have something else in mind for international posting in a few weeks.  Just leave a comment below before Friday 25th August and I'll do the hatty thing.

The Gift of Time

Today has been my Sabbath.  I have been keeping this special day for over three years now and each week I still look forward to it.

If you had come to my home today you would have been welcomed and offered a cuppa but you wouldn't have been pressed to stay.  This is a day of quiet and seclusion.

It's nothing like a Jewish Sabbath which is a family celebration and starts with a family meal.  I am a single woman and I use this special day to embrace my solitary life.  My meal each Friday night is special.  I make sure I use a freshly laundered tablecloth and napkin.  Plonking the food on the plate is not an option: this is a day for serving dishes and maybe even ceremony, even if just for me.  Or maybe especially just for me.  A candle may be lit or a small vase of flowers placed on the table.

After my meal I settle with my sewing or knitting or maybe I write a letter or two.  I read or listen to an audiobook and after Compline I often have a early night.

Today I have been making Christmas cards, a lovely thing to do as I think of all the friends I will be sending them to.  I delight in my home which I have cleaned and tidied to make sure it feels calm and is an aid to tranquility,

It is a time for thanking God for the great life I have, not regretting what  I don't have, a time to remember that contentment is about wanting what I have rather than having what I want.  It is a time for thinking what is important and resolving to pursue it.

It is indeed God-given time.

A little upcycling

The kitchen notice board was much too small and was looking a bit tired.  I looked around for a new one but I knew all too clearly what I want and I wasn't going to find it.  So I had to make it.

First I needed a canvas.  a new plain one would probably be around £10 but I visited a few charity shops and found this one for £1.  24 inches square.  I found a piece of red fabric in my stash.  I bought a piece of cheap thin wadding for £2 and 7 metres ribbon for £2.80.  Add a squirt of fabric adhesive spray and a few staples and I've now got a notice board  for around £5.80.

I'm rather pleased.

A Parcel and a Puzzle

"Me time" means I get some thinking time and when I get thinking time I like to keep my hands occupied.    I sew, I make cards, I crochet and I knit.  Nothing too complicated.

I've made dozens of these hats over the years.  I knit them for The Sailors Society.  This brilliant charity helps seafarers at sea and ashore.  Looking around my sitting room I'm pretty sure that many things (or their components) were brought to this island by sea.  Wood, computer parts, cotton, even the ingredients for paint are imported and most will have come by sea.  Next year The Sailors Society will celebrate two hundred years of providing chaplaincy, welfare and health services (and a lot more besides) to seamen all over the world.  They are well known for giving woolly hats to sailors and in fact they give out over 10,000 hats each year so they need quite an army of knitters.  

And yesterday's picture?  I've made one small change to it.  I'm not going to show you the completed cards as a few readers may get one of them!  (With apologies to anyone who gets the collywobbles at any whiff of C******* before mid-November.)

Summer time and the living is easy

August is a strange month.  A lot of people are away and those of my friends who are around are on grandparent duty.  Many groups don't have August meetings or they have trips out.  September is when things start up again and then life gets more hectic towards Christmas.  

So I've decided to have some "me time".  I realise that retirement is theoretically all me time but if you believe that you're probably not retired!  I'm not the sort of wrinkly who can't think how she ever found time to work but I spend quite a lot of time visiting people who get few visitors and although it is sometimes fun, on other occasions I come back feeling a little low, maybe even guilty that I can't visit more often.  So, as I said, I've decided to have some "me time".  For the next few weeks I am going to catch up on myself, do things which I have been longing to do for ages, enjoy days out if the weather gets better.  

So here's a puzzle for you.  Look at the picture and guess, what have I been doing today?