"D" is for Dog.

Day 4 of the A- Z challenge means that today it is “D”  I am going to continue with the theme of blessings. 

“D” is for Dogs. Dogs are my passion. I have loved dogs my entire life. My Mum used to say that even as a tiny tot in my pushchair I would reach out for any that were nearby.

I was never allowed a dog as a child as my parents weren't really doggie people, although my Dad did come to love Alfie and Loulou in the last few years of his life.

My Mum used to say “when you have your own home you can have as many dogs as you like”. We have had 6 so far. At one time we had 4 together. Currently we just have one.

In the last 3 years I have been able to take my passion one step further by doing volunteer work for Three Counties Dog Rescue. I now regard myself as having over 70 dogs. Every one, of our small band of volunteers at Three Counties, treat the dogs just as we do our own. We love every single one of them. I just wish they could all find loving homes. Sadly as one goes out to a home another little soul comes in.

Here are some photos of the 6 doggie blessings that I have been privileged to have in my life.

Buick.

Sandy.

Rosie.

Alfie.

Loulou.

Beanie.

Jilly

A - Z Challenge - A is for Art.

My cousin Wendy is taking part in a blog challenge this month. Blogging from A - Z. One post a day, every day except Sundays. You can find out about it here: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/what-is-blogging-from-to-z.html

I have just read Wendy's post for today which is A is for ancestry. Wendy is keeping to a family theme for the whole month I think. However I don’t think you have to do that, I think you can just have a different thing every day. A bit like I did way back in my Yahoo days.

Anyway, I don’t want to actually join the challenge as I am pretty certain I will fail. But, I thought I might join in from time to time. So today is the letter A.

My theme is Art. I want to know what art means to you? How do you define what is art and what isn't?

That definition is something I have always had a problem with. When I was at secondary school we had lessons called “art”. We mainly drew things and did some painting. I was hopeless at it. To this day I still cannot draw. Although, that said, I guess everyone that can make a mark on paper can draw. It is in the eye of the beholder if it is good or not.

Because of those “art” lessons I have always thought that art was about drawing. I do know that many other things come under the heading too but I am thinking about drawing and painting right now.

So, what makes something art? For me I think it is when something is a true representation. Something that looks real. I really do not like abstract stuff. As for some of the stuff that looks like a 2 year old may have done it, well I just don’t see how that can be art.

I guess it is all to do with how we actually define that word isn’t it. “Art is a visual expression of an idea” according to the dictionary. So I can see that my limited view of it being just about paintings isn't quite right! I know that really

I think my problem is where do we draw the line? So a beautifully handmade quilt is art. An intricate piece of handmade jewellery is art. A lovingly hand knitted garment is art. A hand embroidered doodle is art. Hand crafted paper flower bouquets are art.

I can agree with all the above. Here are a few examples. Do you think they are art? **

Handmade Chainmaille by Victoria Sol:  

Hand Embroidered doodle by Kim's Handmade Cave. 

Handmade paper flower bouquets by Dawn the Funky Flower Girl

Hand knitted Cushion by The Feminine Touch

Needle felted Hamlet Hamster made by Jenny of Mythillogical

What does not in anyway constitute art for me are things such as “My Bed” by British artist Tracey Emin. I mean come on, how is that art? It is just a horrid example of what a room looks like when it is left uncleaned for a few days! She is clearly a sloven not an artist. This “room” was sold at auction in 2014 for a little over 2.5 million pounds!

If there are any takers out there I can create you a piece of art like that in no time at all. It isn't art. It's bullshit. Actually wasn't there another so called artist who actually painted with shit? Don't get me started!

What are your thoughts? What constitutes art for you? Do you have any examples?

I am going to finish now with a cherished piece of art from my own home. It was painted by my Dad and I love it.

** The above examples of art are by some of the members of the Etsy team that I belong to. Craft Britannia.

Jilly. 

Blessings - Shafiq Morra Usman Abdullahi

Phew, just managed to make it here. That's 3 days in a row. Simon has finished now for the Easter holidays. He will be at home for 18 days so it is a good long break for him.

We have had a relatively lazy day. This morning we were sorting out Tallulah ready for next week. Simon had to change a fuse which had blown on our last trip and stopped the heating working. It took a bit of figuring out. I gave her a thorough vacuum to make sure she is spick and span for her next adventure. I also loaded in some new food supplies and got all Beanie's food sorted and stored.

With that job done, I set about doing some online banking whilst Simon got our potatoes planted. We already have onions and garlic in that have overwintered. We just ordered some seed today. This year we would like to grow some of our bedding and basket flowers from seed.

This afternoon we paid a visit to the kennels to drop off a load of stuff for the market tomorrow. We are not able to go this month as it is Morra's 1^st birthday party tomorrow.

Speaking of Morra gets me back to my theme of blessings. Morra is Saskia's little one. All our grandchildren are wonderful blessings and all very special. Morra came to us at a time of great sadness and he bought such joy and happiness with him. He was born just 4 days after we lost my Dad.

The day Dad died, I travelled with Verity and Jackson to Saskia in Leicester. Because she was so close to giving birth she was not able to be with us at the hospital. We could not tell her that her Granddad had gone over the phone, so we had to go to her. I will always remember that journey and Saskia's reaction. We were all so upset that Dad never got to meet little Morra. Every time I visited him in those last weeks, the first thing he asked was “how is Saskia doing”?

Morra was born on the 23^rd of March. He should have been born at home and Saskia had Coralie there with her but in the event, due to his heart beat dropping very low, she was swiftly moved to the hospital and he came shortly after. What a gift he was too. I can't tell you how much he raised our spirits. It was good to have something to smile about even though my every thought at that point was tinged with sorrow. I would have given anything for Dad to have been able to see him. I am sure that Dad knew that he was at the funeral service with everyone else despite being just a few days old.

He was quite a small baby but grew rapidly. We think that Mummy’s milk was gold top! Now at a year old he is about average, although on the tall side. His Daddy is tall. It's hard to say who he looks like but in the most recent photos, I can see the Sansum in him.

I can't believe he is already a year old. I have no idea where that year went to. He is walking now and I am looking forward to seeing that tomorrow. I have seen videos and he was nearly there last time we saw him.

His party is tomorrow and all the family will be there except Sam, Lisa and the girls as they are currently in France. I am so looking forward to it. I love the occasions when we are all together. To have a large and close knit family is another blessing. Doesn't mean they don’t get on my nerves sometimes! LOL.

Here are some photo's from Morra's first year.

 

 I love this one of Ellie.  It was the first time they met.  The eldest and the youngest!

 

 Three of my four boys.

 

I will post some photos from his party after tomorrow.

Have a great weekend.

Jilly

Blessings - My Dad.

Righty ho, I said I would blog so here I am blogging. Trouble is I am limited for time today as I have a fair few jobs to get done this morning as I want to go to the big city this afternoon for some shopping. I need to buy a present for my little Grandson's birthday.

I have to use public transport to go anywhere as we only have the one car and Simon uses that for work. The buses from my village go once an hour and it takes around an hour to get to the city. I have to change buses in the nearby town of Bourne and then I can get a bus to Peterborough which is the nearest big place with decent shops. It is a bit of a trek so I don’t do it very often! However going today I can come back with Simon in the car so that makes it better.

Anyway, where was I? See I am already waffling on. I can't just write a blog without some waffle. Yesterday I mentioned that despite recent sadness we are also very blessed. So I think I will restart my blogging habit by talking about some of my blessings.

I am going to start with my Dad. He was the most wonderful man and one year on I still miss him terribly. I think of him every single day and talk to him too.

He was born in the East End of London on the 13^th of December 1926. The 2^nd child and 2^nd son of Harry and Edith Sansum. He eventually had 4 more siblings, another brother and 3 sisters. They were a typical East End family of that time. They were very poor and eked out an existence. His Dad liked the drink a bit too much so although he worked, the family didn’t see too much of his earnings. His Mum was a very strong, sensible lady with good morals and I think it was her influence that made my Dad the man he was.

1951. Great Yarmouth

He was kind, patient, honest, hard working, and devoted to my Mum. Many of you will know how hard it was for our family once the Alzheimers took over my Mum. Dad never faltered in his love and care for her right until the end. Once Mum had gone we thought he wouldn't be long after her but in fact he enjoyed 2 more years.

They were good years. He once again became fully engaged with all of the family. He adored his great grandchildren and we had many family occasions where he had the best time. He also started to visit us every school holiday. He had never done that while Mum was still alive because he would never leave her. He really looked forward to coming to stay and in fact he always knew when the next holiday was due.

This was taken on his 87th birthday and is the last photo of him with his Great Grandchildren.

So we were both eagerly looking forward to the February half term break last year. I had various plans of things we were going to do together. Little did either of us know that it wasn't to be.

Dad suffered a stroke at the end of January. In the first few hours the news coming from my sister was that it might not be too bad. After all he had been out doing his shopping and had walked to his doctor himself because he didn't feel so good. However over the next few days we realised that actually it was the very worst kind of stroke. It had occurred at the back, right in the centre so had effected not just his ability to walk but also things such as his swallowing reflex.

He was in the Lister hospital in Stevenage and over the following weeks they tried hard to do some physiotherapy with him but he was very down. He also had an operation to insert a permanent feeding port as it seemed that he would never regain his swallow. After around a month they moved him to a rehabilitation unit in Old Welwyn. They seemed positive that they would get him back on his feet. To be honest, I always had doubts, I just couldn’t ever see him making it home. I did try to have hope though.

Sadly from the very first day there things went wrong. He contracted some kind of infection and was in a lot of pain and discomfort. They could not begin his rehabilitation as he couldn’t move from the bed. This went on for several weeks during which time they had him in isolation as they were not sure what the infection was. It was a miserable existence for him and he told me on several occasions that he didn’t want to be here, he wanted to be with Mum. That is very hard to hear but I did understand.

Finally after several weeks he got pneumonia and they decided that he needed to be transferred back to the hospital at Stevenage. They moved him on he Monday night. I went up to see him on the Tuesday. I was shocked. I knew then he was never going home. He had on an oxygen mask but he kept fighting to take it off. It was hard to hear and understand what he was saying with it on. He did remove it briefly to say he loved me. I will always remember that.

I had a long journey home and didn't get in until around 8.30pm. I rang my children to let them know that he really was very poorly. I knew it wasn’t going to be long. I didn’t however expect it to be a matter of hours. I got a phone call around half an hour after I got home from my sister to say that the hospital had phoned for them to go in as he was asking for them. At around midnight she phoned to say I should return.

Simon and I were straight in the car. Once we were there the doctor came and spoke to us. Dad had made up his own mind that it was time. He refused all further treatment and the doctor told him that without it he would die that day. She asked if that was what he wanted and he told her yes. She asked my sister and I if we agreed. We had to say yes. It wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted my Dad back. I didn’t want to lose him. However I did understand that he wasn’t going to get better and that he had simply had enough. It was time to go and be with Mum.

They switched of all the machines and removed everything from him. We were moved into a private room as by this time most of the family were there. He died about 20 minutes later. It was very peaceful and he knew we were all there. He even had his youngest great-grandson Jackson, sitting on the bed holding his hand. Jackson was just 1 year old. We asked Dad if he knew Jackson was holding his hand and he nodded yes! A few minutes later the light went out on my world.

I found it incredibly hard. I was inconsolable. Even now I cannot write this without the tears streaming down my face.

And now a whole year has passed without him. The last one of the “first anniversaries” has passed. It isn’t any easier. So many times there is stuff that I want to tell him. On several occasions I have actually picked up the phone and dialled the number before my brain has reminded me that he won't be answering.

I wonder what he would make of it all? I know what he would tell me. “Life goes on and you must pick yourself up and get on with it”. He once told me that my sister Julie had described me as pragmatic. He said “I don’t know what that actually means but I know you will be OK because you are e a coper. You deal with things”. He is right. I am dealing with it. One of my ways of doing that is to try and live by the mantra of always remember the good times and also to always count my blessing every single day.

My Dad was one of the biggest blessings of my life. I was so blessed to have such a wonderful man as my father. A man who showed me how to be the best that I can. A man who taught me that no matter what, family are the most important thing. He will always be a blessing.

I love you Dad.

PS. I hope I haven’t made anyone feel down with this blog. As I wrote it, I got quite upset. It's OK to be upset. You know, my sister is right, I am pragmatic. I am a coper. As far as I can see there is no other choice. Whatever life throws at us, all we can do is carry on. I have my tears and my sad times, but then in the words of my grandson Evan, I “give myself a talking to” and then I follow my road.

My friend Deb will understand the reference to following the road.

Count your blessings every single day and whatever happens follow your road.

Jilly

1st January 2015

January First 2015. A Happy New Year to everyone. What did you all do today with this first day of the year? Did you all stay up to see the old year out?

New Year has never been that important to Simon and I. It is after all just another date in the calender. A marker of time passing.

We did stay up, but not especially. We are always late to bed in school holiday time. That will all change next week with Simon back to school. (Work!) We were both busy on our lap tops but we did stop about 10 minutes before midnight. We both had a drink and we raised a toast to my Mum and Dad as Big Ben struck the midnight hour and the new year officially begun. I did shed some tears. It is hard not too, but I pulled myself together quick sharp.

We watched the firework celebrations on the banks of the Thames in London. I really don't like fireworks as a rule; I find them pretty “samey” If you have seen one, well you’ve seen them all. Hate the noise of them too. That said the display last night was pretty spectacular. I was happy to be watching it on the TV though. It would be one of my worst nightmares to be there in amongst all those crowds.

We went to bed shortly afterwards but I couldn't sleep so I read back through my old blog entries. Right the way back to 2012. It was lovely to be reminded of the good times as well as the hard ones.

I was very interested to read last years “Goals”. I call them goals you may call them resolutions. I had 5 and I relist them below. Only one had any measure of success.

Lose some weight, improve health and fitness. LMAO. If anything, I probably added more pounds.

Find new ways to raise funds for 3CDR. I had some measure of success here. Myself and Coralie organised a quiz evening in September which raised £700. We are now also collecting used postage stamps although it remains to be seen what money we will get for them.

Double my Etsy sales. I did increase sales over last year but not double. It was helped by selling the little Tibetan silver charms.

Learn how to use camera properly and improve photos. Never even looked in the camera manual and my photography skills are still poor.

Try out a new craft each month. Started knitting in January and, well you know the rest.

So “goals” for this year? Just one. My goal is to do more of what makes me happy.

We did that today. We had a little tip out to Peterborough to go to Hobby Craft. I wanted a few bits for some new crafts. I have the best husband. He patiently followed me around carrying the basket.

Do you set goals for yourself? Were you successful in your 2014 goals.

Hopefully, I will get my blogging mojo back this year and will keep you up to date with everything that is making me happy.

Bring on 2015.

PS.  "A goal without a plan is only a wish".

31st December 2014

Remember me? Hopefully there are still a few of you around that do. It is 11 months since I have written a blog. I started 2014 with such very good intentions. I even managed a photo a day through January. I also began a Fabrilushus blog where I was blogging about knitting. I intended to try out a new craft each month. I was looking ahead to a good year.

Sadly it all went wrong at the beginning of February when my dear Dad suffered a very bad stroke. He was in the Lister hospital and initially we had hope that he would recover and go home. Sadly it never happened. He went to a rehabilitation place in Old Welwyn but they were never able to even begin helping him as he was ill from the moment he arrived. He was moved back to the Lister hospital on the 17^th of March and he died 2 days later on the 19^th of March.

As dying goes it was the best. He was not in pain and he was aware what was happening. In fact he actively chose it. He refused treatment. They told him he would die that day and asked if that was what he wanted. He told them yes. They asked my sister and I if we agreed and we said yes, it was what he wanted. He was ready and wanted to be with Mum.

He had pretty much his entire family around him including his year old great grandson, Jackson sitting on the bed. When we asked him if he could feel Jackson touching his hand he nodded his head, yes. I am so grateful that he knew we were all there.

It was the worst day of my life.

Since then the year has gone on without him and I have found it hard. I miss him so much it is hard to even describe.

In a lot of respects I am feeling sad tonight because tomorrow is a new year and a part of me doesn't want to be in a year that he will not be a part of. On the other hand, I am glad to see the back of 2014 as it was such a sad time for me.

I know he is up there somewhere with Mum and that they are watching over us all. He is probably saying pull yourself together, get yourself a drink and toast the new year.

In an hours time I shall do just that, except I shall raise a toast to both of them and thank them for being the best parents I could wish for.

Tomorrow is a new day and I shall pick myself up and go on.

Mosaic Tree Memorial

Yes, I know it has been an age since I have been here.  I just did this for Tumblr which I am using to promote my Fabrilushus shop.   It occured to me that maybe you would all like to see it too.  So........

"I lost my Mum to Alzheimers 18 months ago.  She spent the last years of her life at Victoria Court which is a part of the Lister hospital in Stevenage.  My Dad would regularly sit with her outside in the gardens.  They had some lovely mosaic sculpture work on the walls and fences and from the first time I saw them I knew I would like to try my hand at something similar.

Gradually the idea formed in my head that it would be lovely to do it as a sort of memorial to my Mum.  Something to remember her always.  I knew I wanted a tree design. I knew I wanted a heart in there somewhere with her name, Iris.  

I began to get my bits together a few weeks ago. I purchased  my tiles, glue and tile cutter tool from Mosaic Heaven in Market Deeping. They were incredibly helpful and I would thoroughly recommend them.  If you are not local then check them out here : http://www.mosaicheaven.com

My gorgeous Iris heart was made by a fellow Etsy seller, Louise of Loutul, http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Loutul  It is made from pewter.  The board is a piece of marine plywood which my husband got for me.

Once I had everything together I was itching to get started but I suddenly thought how good it would be to do it with my Dad.  He was due to come and stay with us so I decided to wait.  I am so glad that I did as I will have lovely memories in the future of the 2 of us working on this. 

So, we finally got started last week.  My Dad drew the design after we had looked at images on Google for inspiration.  It is a tree, with a few “flowers”, plus the heart.  The sky is blue and the grass is green!  Oh and there is also a large yellow part which is a corn field or something!  LOL. 

Anyway, here are the first photos of the process.  I hope you like them."

I am quite please with the way it is turning out.  I think it will look fantastic when it is completed.  Since Dad went home I have done a lot more which I will show you another day.

This is my first attempt so if anyone has any advice for me it will be gratefully received.

MIA again

I have just looked back at my blog and it appears that I have been missing in action again for well over 2 weeks.  Time flies when you are having fun!  Time flies when you are busy too but I have had some fun along the way.    So where to begin with my update?  You know me, I won't possibly be able to remember the whole 2 weeks.

I guess Jackson is a good starting point as my last blog was about him being back in the NICU.  He is now 5 weeks old.  Incredible.  Of course he wasn't even due to be born for another 5 weeks yet.  He is doing really, really well now.  He was moved out of NICU last week on to SCBU.  He is now out of his incubator and just in a "hot cot" which they are turning down day by day.  He only has 2 wires now, a heart monitor and a temperature  monitor.  He still has his feeding tube although he does now have a sucking reflex and is beginning to feed from Mummy.  It is slow progress as he finds it hard to suck and breath at the same time. He weighs 4lbs now. All his test results are now fine. The heart specialist is pleased with him.

Here are the latest photos of our little guy.

These next 2 were just taken yesterday.

Last week was the school half term break in Lincolnshire.  As always it was really busy.  Simon spent one complete day moving cars around.  His truck has gone to someone to do some work that for some reason he can't do. His dragster is now residing in the garage. We had dentist appointments, several meals out, a day in Lincoln,  an evening out with staff from the old Walton school, a trip to Stevenage to collect my Dad, then to Stamford station to collect Saskia. We had a day in Leicester at the fabric shop, lots of kennel visits and we saw lots of the grandchildren. It was busy.

Alfie had a day at the vets for more scans and X-rays.The good news is that his very large bladder stone has broken down into much small pieces and they were able to get some of them out. He has been given more tablets which should hasten the process. The bad news was his arthritis is looking pretty bad. More bad news was received in a letter........our insurance will not cover the cost of his very, very expensive prescription food.

I am sure I have missed stuff out.  I don't seem to have any photos though.  How about one of Alfie the evening he got back from the Vet.  He is still very drugged up.

Here is a  recent one of my 2 gorgeous boys.

Photo blatantly stolen from Coralie's Facebook page!

We had a good few days with my Dad. He saw 4 of his great grandchildren and he enjoyed that. He came and had a cup of tea at the dog rescue kennels and he got to see Jenson the Dalmatian.  He took a walk down to our village church and lit a candle for my Mum.  That seems to have become a regular thing when he visits here.  I'm not sure why as he doesn't do that anywhere else. On Sunday we took him to Leicester to the Fabric Guild.  He has wanted to go for ages. He is really into his sewing now.  He has made me 4 tote bags for the fund raiser for the doggies and also this table runner for me.  He has made a good job of it.

The Fabric Guild was disappointing.  They had a sale on, which was good but they had less than a quarter of the stock that they would normally have.  Also I thought they closed at 2pm and they close at 1pm so we only had about 40 minutes there.  It was a good job that we had combined it with taking Saskia home otherwise it would have been very annoying.  My Dad still thought it was a fantastic place and I still managed to spend lots of money!

We had some good news on Sunday evening.  My niece Carly has just had her first baby.  A little girl named Annabelle Iris. Both are doing well.  My Dad was so thrilled.  He especially liked that she has Iris in her name as that was Mum's name.  He can't wait to see her.  He now has 6 great grandchildren, 3 boys and 3 girls. She is my sisters first grandchild so they are all very excited.

Simon took my Dad home yesterday and he is now back at school so peace and quiet is here again.  I will probably be spending the next few days getting the house back to normal.  It deteriorates rapidly when Simon is on holiday!  I get out of my routine.

Today, I have washing, ironing, cleaning etc, etc. Hopefully I will find some sewing time too.  I have done lots of sewing the last few weeks and will do a show and tell soon.  Right now, I am having a coffee  before hoovering my bedroom.  Our lovely cuddle arm chair is being delivered this morning.

Well my coffee is finished so I suppose it is time to move myself into gear.