sunrise

On the first day of the summer holidays, what you should do is leave the children fast asleep in bed (hubby was in charge - don't worry, I didn't actually just leave them!), and meet up with some friends and set off at 3.30am to Dunstanburgh Castle

in search of PeaceCamp2012. When we got to Craster we learnt  the camp was closed due to high winds, so the lighting and the poetry weren't active, but we walked up to the castle anyway, where we sat with a flask and watched the sun rising over the sea.

and I decided that actually for all the beauty of art installations, you can't actually beat what nature does every morning.

last day

So it's here, Miss K's last day of middle school. When we moved here I knew she'd have three years there before moving up, and it seemed like that time would last forever.

I guess it didn't.
In this time we've had our share of tears and plenty of homework traumas. Thankfully these are vastly outnumbered now by the great friendships she's made, the fun of piano lessons at school, the discovery that actually she Is good at maths,  and science, and the spelling will come, eventually, I hope.....

We made some little cases to hold a special treat for the teachers, can you guess what's inside?

chocolate of course! what else.....

and now I'm going to pop out and buy some more chocolate, as I think that actually Miss K might need an end of term treat too. (and me!)

hope all your last days are going well if you're having them, and roll on the summer I say xxx

this week

the last week of term
things to do, lists to write, plans to make, more things to do.
explain to me then why I spent this morning reading a book that I Couldn't Put Down.
it said that on the cover and I didn't believe it............

Miss K is moving up to high school so there are even more end of term things, including a party tomorrow night. Which requires a party dress. Miss K is even less likely to be seen in a dress than I am, she doesn't get her love of jeans and a hoodie by co-incidence. We finally found a dress she liked, and it almost fit so I thought it would be easy to adjust. Big mistake, I have re sewn a panel at the neckline four times now. It has just been pinned again, if it's not right this time she can go in her jeans! If anyone would like to explain to me exactly What tall slim 13 year old girls are supposed to wear then I'd love to know, the children's clothes are too small/childish, the adult clothes are too big/frumpy/"adult".......


meanwhile E has a scouts bbq at the beach tomorrow night, and guess what, even though it's actually been quite like summer for the last few days (on Sunday we actually spent the afternoon outside at concert and the bag of coats/gloves/blankets was totally unnecessary!) the forecast tomorrow night is for torrential rain........

wish me luck.

edited to add.
the party went really well, and Miss K looked gorgeous, the scouts had a lovely time at the bbq and stayed dry as far as the weather was concerned, but there was the small matter of the sea.........
the book was called "no time for goodbyes" about a teenage girl who argues with her parents and wakes up in the morning to find them gone, and then the rest of the book is 25 years later when no-one had ever found out what happened
trashy summer reading, just what I needed.

greetings cards of textile embroideries

I had a range of greetings cards printed made from some of my textile embroideries when I was preparing for the arts festival, (which was a great sucess, thanks for all the best wishes, and yes I sold Lots of lavender fish!)

I was ridiculously excited when they arrived, (much jumping about saying "look they are so pretty" and other embarrasing behaviour......)

I was also thrilled by the response to them, and so I've just re-ordered,  (cue more jumping about getting excited, this time Miss K joined in!)

and now I'm trying to choose which is my favourite.

At the moment the washing line is winning. Perhaps that's because it's so Wet this summer it makes me dream of sunny weather...............

I've added a new greetings cards page tab under my header, where they are available for sale.

sometimes

sometimes when you read something remarkable, or hear about someone special you want to tell someone about it.
this is one of those times.

this story is in today's Observer.

a young woman who has a future ahead of her when it looked like she might not have had, and is determined to do something remarkable with it.