WOYWW Week 843 : A Quiet Week

Hello WOYWWers, Followers, Everyone,

On the desk this morning is the February introduction page for this year's album. As usual, I've chosen a few photos that serve as a reminder of just some of what happened that month.  Scattered about are some bits and bobs I might add to the pockets, There's a pack of photos waiting to be dated and filed away until I'm ready to make pages with them. The book that can be seen just off to the right is one I've just finished reading. More about it later.

I've been able to not just work in the garden now but spend time relaxing in the summerhouse. I use the spotty bag to transport the memoir I've been struggling to finish since January, notebooks I jot stuff in, pencils, one of my favourite mugs and the flask containing a latte until I'm ready to drink it. 

Silver takes up residence in the spotty bag whenever it's empty. She's not fussy. Anywhere will do, even when it's been left on the ironing board. Oh, and those towels - I spotted them in Asda and just could not resist that gorgeous peach colour!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney. I love a good mystery. A couple living a normal, happy, almost idyllic life in a house on a beach in a friendly little Scottish village, Fairlie, with their much loved seven year old son and a dog. Sounds perfect until one day the son, while playing on the beach, disappears! From there the story takes us through the aftermath with some unexpected twists and turns that I certainly didn't expect. What made it all the more interesting to me is that Fairlie is just up the coast from where I am now. The villages & towns, landscape and places mentioned are familiar to me. Even the village my daughter lives in gets a mention. Although the author now lives in New Zealand, he was born and grew up in Ayrshire so he knows the area well. If, like me, you enjoy a gripping good read then I'd recommend this book.

Finally, a few of the funnies I've collected this week.

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

Friday Evening Smiles

Hello Everyone, 

I know it's a bit late to add this to Annie's Friday Smiles, Week 425, over on A Stitch In Time, but I've had a busy few days that has stopped me posting until now. I even had to skip Wednesday's WOYWW, No. 842, post over on Sarah's Craft Shed, but what kept me so busy gave me a lot to smile about. 

Here's why.

Finally, the makeover of my front garden is done. Well, almost. All I have to do now is freshen up the pots, plant up and add a few more and place them in groups to provide colour for next year. 

My daughter and son-in-law, Juli & Graeme, took me to the local building supplies merchants on Tuesday where we choose the material that is replacing the grass that was there before. It had to be removed because the surface beneath was very uneven and difficult to both walk on and to mow. I decided that as I'm getting on a bit now, it was time to go for something that needed less maintenance. 

The delivery was exciting to watch. 

The man who delivered the bags of pebbles very kindly slit the sack bottoms for the contents to spill to the ground. Much easier than emptying them from the top. Juli & Graeme came over yesterday  afternoon and finished spreading the pebbles after Graeme made a wooden edging to prevent them spreading to under the privet hedge. 

Before the day of delivery we had to cut the hedge and clear the trimmings from both the garden and the pavement. While Graeme used his electric shears, I concentrated on trimming round the clematis that had climbed its way upwards through the hedge to bloom at the top. 

It's one that I brought in a pot from our last house. I'd forgotten the name but, after a search on Google, I was reminded that it is C. Niobe. Isn't it a beauty? Well worth moving with me. 

That's only a little of what's made me smile this week but I think it's enough for this post. I hope you all have had much to brighten your week too. 

Have a wonderful weekend and take care.

Elizabeth 

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