Moving Day

...in Blogland.
 My new home is here

Hope you'll join me soon.
xxx

Stats....and a Bloggiversary....

pic courtesy of Google 

So, this month celebrates not only a 'significant' birthday for  me (numbers ending in 5 are equally significant, right?) but also the fact that I've been blogging in these here little space for 9 years! Can you believe it? I can't quite get my head around it either and when I first started out, enabled by two lovely bloggers who are no longer blogging, thank you Clare and Emma, I was very nervous about putting finger to keyboard and telling the world a bit about myself. My angst was immediately put to rest when I was made to feel instantly 'at home' in cyberland  by the response I got from so many fabulous people, some of whom are still with me and who have become firm 'friends' in the real sense of the word (you know who you are!). 

Recently though, my popularity seems to have waned, judging by my 'stats' which I don't pay a whole lot of mind to normally but now and again, I like to see exactly who my 'audience' is. Thereby the question of whether to continue with this little space raises its head. The jury's still out on that one. I'll take some time to mull it over. Oh yes, I could be one of those bloggers who rely on the simpatico of others, moaning and whinging about not being 'popular' anymore and thereby invoking loads of empathetic comments but that doesn't achieve anything other than making folks feel guilty about ignoring one and that's not my way. I would rather just be myself and pootle along in my own inimitable fashion, more as a way of diarising (is that a word?) my life so that I can look back on my blog in years to come and think 'did I really say that'?!!

I was also thinking of changing my blog name - I seem to have outgrown the existing one, though I'm still a 'Nana' but not with so much of the 'go-go', if you know what I mean.

In the meantime, I'm very,very grateful to those of you who have given up your precious time to 'visit' me and leave your much-appreciated comments. 

I hope I don't sound too whinging in this post, I just wanted to express my opinion on the whole matter.

Thanks for reading and listening. 

What are your thoughts on blogging and does anyone have any advice on how to change your blogname?

Loads of Love

xoxoxoxo

Christmas Past.....

A neighbour's house lights up the street and always cheers me up when I turn the corner and see the multi-coloured spectacle which is in complete contrast to the gentle and serene scene down at my local church. Both sides of the Christmas Story, I suppose.

My own decorations were rather subdued this year, including this little crocheted candle holder (don't worry, I would never light the candle while it's in its cosy which is purely for show). I even found a 2ft high Xmas tree which was perfect for the corner it needed to be in and looked pretty with some led lights placed around it and some miniscule tree decorations.

Our Wednesday Walks were very gentile when the weather permitted and of course, baby came too!So December hurtled on at full speed and at work, things were certainly hotting up for the Festive Season because another one of my boss's daughters was getting married in between Christmas and New Year. The wedding had been in the planning since the engagement was announced last February and all of a sudden all the crimping and primping and spraying (150 fir cones gathered by my own fair hands from the garden and sprayed silver, gold and snowy, for the table arrangements) alongwith all the cleaning, polishing, washing and ironing, finally fell into place and after the arrival of some very big trucks......

this started to happen......

and hey presto, the marquees were assembled and the fun part of putting together the Winter Wonderland Wedding began.

Lots of chairs were required!

Also, lots of big, heavy electric cables were laid across the lawns to provide all the lighting, inside the marquees and outside amongst the trees.

This was my favourite light fitting. I'd quite like one in my house, if my house was big enough!!

Then I had to make some signage. This one is self-explanatory!

The view from the road as you drove past.

Home is where your hat is!The sofas were inflatable and very comfy to sit upon.I made this little arrangement from decorative artichokes grown in the garden then sprayed silver. The look was quite stunning, if I do say so myself.

I had time for a little R&R in between all the festivities. Edinburgh was looking good one cold but bright December day.

This is my new favourite spot, not far from my house and the location of a fabby new coffee and scone place. The views were quite stunning whilst partaking of a frothy latte and cherry scone.

My Bestie in NZ sent this in my Xmas parcel. I must say, I'm not living up to the name so far this New Year.

xoxoxoxo

Thank you for joining me on my rambles. 

Next time, more wedding pics.

xoxoxoxo

Happy New Year .....

......One and All, Near and Far

and

hoping especially that it's a very good one with very few curveballs!!

Much Love

xoxoxo

Happy Christmas 2018.......

....and beyond.

I wish you all Peace and Joy this Christmastime 

and

Happiest of New Years to you and all that the new beginning brings.

Have a truffle on me.

Lots of Love

from

Me

xoxoxoxoxo

Never Forget.....

From the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry

Arts and Crafts........

I love art, although I don't know how or when I became a huge fan of anything drawn, painted or made with great skill since I myself can't even draw a tree! It doesn't stop me enjoying other peoples' great work though and many hours have been passed in many,many art galleries and museums worldwide (well, London, Paris and Amsterdam are the furthest I've got as far as the rest of the world's museums and galleries go but never say never - I WILL visit MOMA one fine day).

Anyway, I digress. I've spent the rest of my little mini-break doing nothing more exciting than some gardening, trying to paint my garden fence which is trellis but after 2 hours and one panel later, I gave it up for another day, since painting trellis is no longer my favourite thing in the whole world to be spending my precious time on. Maybe the paint fairies will arrive in the night and the job will be done by morning. I live in hope! I have also been binge-watching 'The Good Fight', clearing out kitchen cupboards (tinned peaches from 2015, seriously??), filling bags with rubbish, earthly and priceless treasures and relocating them from my bulging, neat and tidy cupboards to the nearest charity shop and mostly, trying not to think about going back to work tomorrow, when I will be hitting the ground running and my little mini-break will be relegated to the back of my mind as a dim and distant memory.

Then after all that domestic trivia, it was time for a little R&R so I took myself off to the library to exchange some books and my first port of call whilst there is always the 'craft section'. I get a little confused as to how much time I have/will have/actually have to devote to making anything so have honed my choices to those that I think could be realistically achieved if I really set my mind (and time-management skills) to it. With this in mind, I picked this book up and was immediately charmed by the beautiful projects inside.......

...all achievable, right??(well I don't think it would be any trouble for my friend, Julie who is an ace seamstress. Pop over to hers to see her fabulous creations). We'll see.

The highlight of my week came when my artist friend who is putting on an exhibition at a posh gallery in Edinburgh, invited my sister and me there to give us a grand tour and his paintings are indeed grand (although a bit out of my financial league!). He told us that although some of his paintings had been sold, as indicated by the the red dots on a few of them, people can still change their minds about buying them, in fact so much so that on one occasion, the buyer went to all the trouble of getting the painting home then changing their mind and asking for a refund!! It's a tough old game being an artist, I wager. Anyway, this is a postcard of one of his paintings (signed by the artist, if you please), and it's called 'Pink Sky' and shows Edinburgh (the subject of most of his artwork) in a really beautiful light.

This is my favourite piece of artwork at the moment, made for me by my eldest Granddaughter. That works for me just fine and dandy.

xoxoxoxo

I've been getting a bit 'crafty'  myself and on Saturday which must have been the most miserable, grey and rainy day so far this season, I set to with some tweed and tartan fabric and made a little autumnal wreath.

My contribution to the Arts and Crafts movement!!

x0x0x0x0x0

 See you next time.

x

Out and About....

Not many movies entice me to the cinema these days but when I heard about the release of the remake of the remake of the remake, 'A Star is Born', featuring the delicious Bradley Cooper and his co-star, Lady GaGa, I rather liked the idea of a night at the flicks. So armed with popcorn (sweet and salty, I like the mystery of it!) and one of my sisters (good to have someone to nudge at the good/funny/sad bits of the film!), I left my memories of the Streisand/Kristoffersen version firmly in 1976 because I didn't want to compare the two films (I have a vivid memory of crying into my Kia-Ora juice carton at the end of the earlier version) and wanted to see this new one with a fresh perspective, off we went.

***pic courtesy of Google

Well, you'll all probably know the narrative of the story by now so I won't bore you with the details but I really enjoyed this film. I had no idea that this was Bradley Cooper's directorial debut and what a great job he did, along with his singing prowess! I've never been a fan of GaGa but I have to say that she delivered a powerful performance and boy, can she belt out a tune! She's actually very pretty au naturel. There were nice little vignettes in the film that I liked, especially the parts including GaGa's father and his cronies adding their little touches of good humoured banter. The 'morning-after' scene where the lead characters were having breakfast was straight out of 'Pretty Woman' and of course, that 'I just wanted to have one last look at you' scene was sentimentally sweet. I'm not going to give away any spoilers but you could have heard a pin drop in the cinema at the end!

Go and see it if you can. I loved it and might go see it again, That Cooper man is a wonderful sight in full cinematic mode!

****

Last week, my sister and I took a train trip to Dundee to see the new V&A which has just had it's grand opening. After a bit of a false start with a cancelled train, we were on our merry way and after a pleasant journey which included a trip over the Forth Rail Bridge....

....a girder, with the old Forth Road Bridge and the new Queensferry Crossing Bridge behind it (not easy to capture from a moving train!).

Here we are at our final destination. It's quite a magnificent building designed by a Japanese architect. Might explain why it looks a bit like a Japanese tea house? Or maybe not!(I think it's meant to have more of a 'naval' look).

Every single one of these slats is made of concrete!

Once inside, which is also incredibly beautiful,  

I found a few of my favourite things in the Scottish Designers Centre part of the museum. The tiara was especially made for the Duchess of Roxburgh  (who was a commoner before she 'married up', a fact which I found very interesting!), in the early part of the 20th century. I tell you, those diamonds shone! Apparently, the wings were designed to 'move' when the tiara was being worn. I suppose you had to be a Duchess to find out for sure.

This was a costume designed by a Scottish couturier for a Star Wars princess to wear in the film 'Attack of the Clones'. She was very atmospheric in her glass case. I loved the Paisley pattern aligned down the front of the dress.

This little silk purse is from the 18th century. I'm not sure of its provenance, I had to hide my camera because the security people were hovering!

And this is the 'Discovery' which is permanently berthed at the harbour in Dundee, right next door to the Museum. We didn't do the tour this time. Just to see this piece of Antartic history was enough. The story of Scott's journey there is what adventures are made of but with an incredibly sad ending.



So there we have it, out and about in the crisp Autumnal air and now I have three days off work this week for more adventures. What to do??I shall go and put the kettle on while I ponder.

Until next time.

xoxoxoxoxo

Pinch Punch, First of the Month....

......unbelievably, it's October!

 Knitting Season starts in earnest now......

(actually, I was knitting this cardi the whole of September!). My friend in Australia emailed the pattern to me after I admired the one she made and posted about on her FB page. I finally finished it at the weekend but after hand-washing it carefully, already the yarn has lost it's 'halo' (knitting-speak for 'fluffyness'!). 

I'm hoping that the fibres will recover after flat drying it overnight, otherwise the whole of September will have been a total waste of time, energy and money and the cardi is confined to wearing on 'indoor' days! 

I had a much better result with the little matinee jacket which I knitted for my Niece's new baby due in March. The pattern was a 'top-down'  which means you start at the neck and work your way, well, down! It was very simple and quick. 

 Babies are so much easier to knit for!

Xoxoxo

Now, what to make next.......?

xoxoxo

September.....

...going by in a flash......

 Harvest time at work unearthed these yellow carrots - which don't have much flavour but they look nice!

 A new crop of Beefsteak Tomatoes which do taste very nice. I made a couple of jars of tomato sauce (learned the recipe when I lived and worked in Sicily some decades back, they call it 'Sugo' there).

A couple of weekends ago, I took a rather lengthy bus trip in a rather tinny and bone-shaker of a bus to visit my younger sister. The scenery was pleasant though. I took the train for the return journey, pure luxury compared to the bus!

 We climbed a very big hill to visit the site of a rather large mausoleum which some rich person had built for himself. Unfortunately, we couldn't get inside because there was scaffolding everywhere while some renovation was taking place but we liked the lions guarding the entrance. One had a snooze while the other kept watch.

My sister painted the dresser in her new house. 

 

Here are my sisters. They both have health issues at the moment but always manage to keep smiling through the stress and strain of it all. I'm very grateful for having 'wee' sisters, although someone obviously broke the mould after I was born for I am the old, short, round one!

September also signifies the beginning of the latest series of 'Strictly Come Dancing' and I'm looking forward to watching it with the usual gusto! Who doesn't love a bit of glitz and glam on a Saturday night??

xoxoxoxo

What are you looking forward to as Autumn falls upon us?

xoxoxoxo

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxoxoxo