Remembering a Very Special Day

Unforgettable!

It's 29 years since I married this lovely man. Missed always. 

Elizabeth

Friday Smiles - Week 424

Hello Everyone,

This has been a week in which I have had much to smile about so I thought I'd join in with Annie's Friday Smile weekly meme over on A Stitch In Time. 

What stood out for me this week was a trip my daughter and son-in-law took me on last Saturday. We went north of Glasgow to Balloch Castle Country Park on the shores of Loch Lomond. We took a circular trail around the estate through the grounds, along the shore of the loch and into the walled garden on one  of the hottest days of the year. Here's a selection of the photos from the walk.

There are a lot of huge old trees as can be seen from this photo of Juli standing in front of one of the biggest.

And here's the daftest photo taken on the day. 

I was gesturing to my son-in-law to join me just as Juli took the pic! 

It was a lovely place to walk round but we have had to admit we really overdid it in the extreme heat. We will keep to shorter walks there in future but that's easily done as there is still much more to see around the estate including the Fairy Trail, Chinese Garden, Pleasure Grounds, Quarry Pond, Kitchen Garden, Secret Garden, Woodlands and Parklands. Well worth a visit. 

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Take care,

Elizabeth

WOYWW Week 841: Starting a New Job

Good Morning WOYWWers, Followers, Everyone,

Shameful, I know, but despite Silver giving me the eye, there's nothing on my desk this morning. Well, no actual scrapbooking is going on but there is a massive pile of paper, stickers and part done work to the side. It's been toooooo darned hot! Until yesterday, that is, when it rained and the temperature dropped to a much more comfortable level and that brings me to the new job. 

A few months ago I was approached by the Volunteer Development Coordinator for the charities, Unity/Carers Gateway here in Ayrshire, asking would I be, based on my experience as a carer for my late husband, interested in becoming a volunteer myself. Of course, because of that very experience, I agreed. Since then I've completed various online training modules and attended the Carers Gateway Conference North Ayrshire, posted about in this previous post, in preparation. All this prep has led to me being made welcome at the offices in Irvine and taken through the official induction yesterday. Now a volunteer peer mentor, I will be involved in supporting unpaid carers here in the area of the Three Towns where I'm based. 

I could bore you with the facts and figures about the huge number of unpaid carers in the UK, but I won't.  Instead, I will just say that what I learned from my own experience is that for carers to keep caring, they need to care for themselves too, and to enable to do that might mean they need support from others just as I did. Unity/Carers Gateway is an organisation dedicated to supporting the many carers and their families. When things were at their hardest for me, the kind support I was shown by a visiting support worker from the Gateway was invaluable. 

That's not to say I'm going to be too busy for scrapbooking. Now that I've finished with the alterations to my clothes, the sewing machine has been found a new home elsewhere, and I'm able to get on with scrapping again. That's what that pile of stuff on my desk is all about. First, I need to persuade Silver to find somewhere else to cosy up. 

Nearly an impossible hope, Here she is snoozing in the basket used to store small paper scraps.

That's me, you'll be relieved to know, for this week. I'll leave you with this photo taken at the weekend on a trip to Balloch on the shores of Loch Lomond just because it's so beautiful to look at. 

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

WOYWW Week 840: Printing Multi Photos for Scrapbook Pages

Hello Everyone,

Happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday to you all. 

The answer to that question is that there's not a lot on my desk today. For good reason. I have had another fall. This time I tripped on Silver's new cat box.

It replaced a smaller cardboard box kept in the hall that she'd chewed to bits. I hadn't got used to it being larger and tumbled over it on my way to the kitchen to make my first cuppa of the day. I'm now sporting some very colourful bruises, still a  bit shaken, and hurting in places I'd rather not. Happily, no damage to my ribs this time.  

Back to the photos. A few days ago I was inspired by a fellow scrapper on Facebook to try printing multi photos using my Canon Selphy Printer CP910.

It's an old one, bought in 2011, but still going strong. It's not just compact, it's wireless and I am able with the Canon SPL app to print direct from my mobile phone. Usually, I print the 6"x4" size but occasionally I've printed two 3"x4" images on one print. 

The inspiration was to be more daring and create collages of more images like the one above; making it a way to deal with the huge number of photos taken on my mobile phone - many more than I would have taken before the digital age! It's also money-saving. The price of packs of toner cartridges and paper have risen considerably in the last year or so. 

These eight photos were all taken while having a stroll down at Ardrossan's seafront so I could use them on one 12"x12" layout. However, there's a very different story attached to each strip which leads me to decide to create two pages rather than one. The top strip is of a visit to the newly opened Wellbeing Cafe at the end of the beach road. The lower strip shows the emergency helicopter looking for the best place to land as near to the beach as possible, aiming to bring medical aid to a canoeist in trouble. 

Silver has already made it to this post so let's skip straight to a this week's funnies.

Life with Silver in cartoon form!

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 839

Hello Everyone,

Happy WOYWW to you all.

Not much has changed on my workdesk since I last posted two weeks ago. I'm still working on alterations - a pair of pyjama bottoms this time. I missed posting last week and for good reason. I woke in the early hours of last Wednesday to find a flood in the bathroom, The water was coming from the flat above. The next few days were spent mopping up and trying to get the leak stopped. Not easy when your neighbour is out and his flat can't be accessed. It was Saturday before the plumbers were able to get in and stop the leak.

Usually I show my workdesk, first photo, because it's where I make scrap pages but today I thought I'd also show you this lovely desk. The one where I store the laptop. And where I now plan to type up these blogposts. This was Alan's writing desk and until last week was just tucked away in a corner of the main bedroom. Recently, though, I decided that I wasn't making enough use of the living room. In fact, except when I had visitors, I rarely spent time in there. The cat spent more time snoozing on the sofa than I did sitting on it! 

This room is front facing and looks out on to a very small garden area, much neglected until recently. There's a privet hedge screening it from the road which, because it's a well-known shortcut to the beach, can often be very busy. It's also on the shady side of the building. Nice when it's been as hot as it has been this week, but not when the weather is, as it so often is here, not so fair. Indeed, today the temperature has dropped by 10 degrees, it's grey and overcast above and rain is forecast shortly. 

It's been a few years since I could do this, but at last I'm able to pick flowers from the garden and fill a vase. Just nasturtiums and cornflowers for now but I'm delighted!

I'm also delighted to see that Annie's Rose is in bloom, joining Alan's Rose and the Douglas Rose. Lovely!

Silver is never far from me, Here she is on the sofa hoping for some fall-out from my lunchtime snack. 

And finally, a few funnies.

Obviously AI generated but this 'Blowin 737' cracked me up.

Phone box of the day: Outer Hebrides. Pic by Joan Irvin

Silver has obviously attended the Kitten School!

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 837

Hello Everyone,

Good Afternoon! So late. No excuses beyond the fact that life has been busy and this morning it all seemed to catch up with me. Sometimes, I forget how old I am and do more than is good for me then pay for it and need to rest for a day or two to recover. So what have I been up to that's taken so much out of me, you might ask? Well, gardening yesterday, after days of seemingly endless rain, sorting through and reorganising of my entire wardrobe all Friday and the weekend too. and the all day conference on the Wednesday. 

The conference was held in an interesting venue, the cinema in Saltcoats. I attended as someone who has been one of the many unpaid carers this organisation tries to support and also as someone who is, as a volunteer, about to undergo training as a carer mentor. I found the speakers informative and interesting and I met a lot of lovely people too.

No scrapbooking has been done at all. No time. Instead, my sewing machine is making a rare appearance on my workdesk today. I don't think I've used it for about three years! Not that I'm planning to make anything pretty, like a quilt. No. It's just that, after the wardrobe sort out, I have a little pile of alterations now waiting to be done. Mainly waists to be taken in and trouser legs to be shortened. The instruction book is at the ready just in case I've forgotten how to use the machine, and I've found the box that's full of sewing accessories and the one that has the dressmaking scissors in it. I think it's nothing short of a miracle that I was able to put my hands on everything that will be needed after all this time. 

All this reorganising has meant that I've finally had to decide, what to do with Alan's treasured collection of coats and jackets, some never worn. Soon they will be on their way to a charity shop where I hope they will help raise funds and where they will be bought, used and loved by shoppers there. 

Out in the garden the rain has worked it's magic and the rose bought in memory of my husband, Alan's Rose, is in bloom for the first time. 

Simply beautiful. It's a floribunda rose named by the breeder after his son, Alan. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find out more than that so the breeder remains unknown for now. 

Another rose that has just started to flower is The Douglas Rose, gifted to me by our Jan and Julia in memory of my late brother, Douglas. 

He's blossoming among the ox-eye daisies that have gone a little mad and are looking fantastic. That heatwave earlier in the year followed by all the rainy days we've had has just spurred them on. 

The garden was looking a bit wild and out of control until yesterday when I took advantage of a few hours of sunshine to get out and do some tidying up with the secateurs. 

There's more screaming out to be done but this recent injury is slowing me down. I don't know what I did, but it still hurts! 

Silver is doing her best to console me.

And finally, a couple of funnies I saved thinking you might enjoy them.

This one rings so true! 

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 836

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all well and you've had a good week. What's on my workdesk this week is a series of part done project life style pages. Apologies for the glare from the plastic pockets. They are for a very special project I've been working on for fifteen or so months now. It's an album in memory of Alan for his eldest nephew who also appears in a few of these photos. They are all original - I've kept copies of course - that I think should be kept in his family. 

12/2025 - The Oban Games

This is the last of the scrap pages completed recently. The photo is another taken on our holiday in Scotland in 1995. We stopped off in Oban for an overnight stay on our way north and just happened to arrive in time to attend the town's Highland Games. Alan was really impressed with the pipe band, particularly the outfit the drum major was wearing so insisted we pose together for this photo. The rowan sapling I'm clutching was free from the Scottish Woodland Trust, distributed as part of a drive to encourage the planting of more trees. 

Once again I've matted the photo onto a bunch of leftover scraps before adhering it all on to a tartan patterned paper, 'Nantucket', from a Carta Bella collection from 2018. The base of the clusters are made up of punched circles, again from scraps. Alphas, stickers, fussy-cut flowers and enamel dots from stash. 

Seen on my walk to the shops yesterday was this demolition in progress. Bear with me, I have good reason to show you this. 

It's a 1970s block of flats/apartments that I'm told were in a bad state and no longer fit for habitation. 

This is the far end of the block. I looked up and had to laugh at what I spotted in the second window on the right.

Someone has a sense of humour. That dummy head must have had more than a few passers-by giving it a second look!

And almost finally here's a couple of snaps of a sleeping Silver.

Love that smile!

And she has the cutest paws. 

Finally, that's all from me this week. I will be late commenting today. It might even be tomorrow before I'm able to because I'm off to an all-day conference that is being held by the Carers Gateway here in North Ayrshire  It's a service that provides support and resources for unpaid carers in Ayrshire. When Alan was ill, the Gateway very kindly provided me with advice and support when I most needed it. 

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth