Gone

Ooh Mr Jenny has been kind this week! For this week’s Saturday Centus I have swapped the prompt to the end and continued with my week one contribution.

“Hey, looks like you could do with a hot meal – how have you been?” It must be five years since the last time we met.

“I’ve been fine” I lied, too ashamed to confess to how I’d been living my life. “How about you? Still working all hours?” As he pulled me to my feet I noticed that he was starting to age, fine lines across his brow, smile lines around his eyes.

We walked across the park to a cafe, “I need the bathroom” he said, “I’ll be right back”

Ten minutes passed.

“May I help you, miss? You look puzzled.”
“Mmmm… thank you, I’m just looking for my father. We came in together a moment ago, but he seems to have wandered off.”

S is for …

…sad son! There are a wealth of things that I could have written about for S but a few days ago I was reminded of this sorrowful note that my youngest son left under my pillow one night many years ago (please bear in mind that he is now 20!).

I can smile now when I read it but at the time it made me feel very sad.

Short and sweet from me this week – have a look at the other entries over at Jenny’s place.

I wish I’d kept more treasures like this, I have a few gems hidden away but there are a lot that got away as well!

May Secret Post Club

 

Remember I left you last week with a tease about what was  in that gorgeous pink jiffy bag that the postman bought me?

Well, I can reveal that it contained…

… a tube of Heathcote & Ivory Lavender and Lemongrass hand cream and a bottle of L’Occitaine’s Paeonia Eau de Toilette, which I have to say I had not heard of but that I now absolutely adore!!

This came courtesy of the lovely Victoria aka Mummy Bear!

Thank you, Victoria, for taking the trouble to read through my blog and choosing something so appropriate!!

More information about the Secret Post Club can be found here!

Mississippi Miracle Mud

Time for Saturday Centus hosted by Jenny. As usual the opening prompt is in italics and the rule is to complete a short story in a hundred words or less – and no pictures!

I look back over my shoulder, squinting into the late afternoon sun, gawking with stunned alarm at the broad rolling muddy waters of the Mississippi, when I say ‘alarm’ I really mean realisation. It’s at this moment I recognise that this is a glorious business opportunity – there are millions of gullible women (and some men!) all over the world who would pay an absolute fortune for some Mississippi Miracle Mud. Underneath those rolling waters lies a gold mine – I don’t understand why nobody has thought of it before or have they?

R is for …

…Rocking All Over The World!! I’m really sorry but that is a bit of a tenuous link to a great event that happened on 13 July 1985 – Live Aid! Status Quo kicked off the day with Rocking All Over The World hence the R link. Sorry – I’m rambling again. Last week for Q Kathy wrote about Queen – the rock band, not the monarch and mentioned Live Aid, I commented that I was there and she said I had to blog it! I figured that it was too late for L so I needed another way in and it came to me! Hence this post.

So, way back when in the days of no internet or mobile phones – remember that? Don’t tell me you’re all too young! The tickets went on sale early one morning and I have a feeling they were £25 which was hellishly expensive back then, anyhow we managed to get tickets and along with two friends John and I set off for Wembley for what was set to be the experience of a lifetime. I am so glad to be able to say that I was there and a couple of years ago when the DVD was released our eldest son asked for it as a Christmas gift we were only too pleased to be able to share our memories with him.

The big thing about the day was my realisation that Queen were probably the greatest rock band – ever. Before that I had been quite dismissive of them as I was more interested in Motown and the like.

Son 1 became a fan of Queen in his early teens downloading (shock horror) as many tracks as he could, of course Freddie Mercury was gone by then but his music lived on. We subsequently went as a family to see the stage musical ‘We Will Rock You’ which tells a story based on the songs of Queen and more recently to see Queen and Paul Rogers in concert which was fantastic. So that was a very tenuous letter R but I hope you’ll excuse me!

Let’s see what the other students have done for Alphabe-Thursday this week!

Chit Chat

What am I like? I’ve gone the whole weekend and haven’t blogged about last week and stuff – that’s because it’s really hard to type and crochet at the same time and I have given myself a real life project which will need to be finished for the summer – watch this space!

So what have I been up to? Let’s start back at last weekend. On Saturday I visited Janet to hand deliver her birthday present prize – if you click on her name you can see what it was! I was able to customise it because I waited to see who won before I bought it! We spent a lovely afternoon chatting and she showed me her garret where she does all of her creative stuff! She also kindly gave me a few plants that she had grown from cuttings to plant in my garden!

On Sunday I cycled to visit Son1 and FDIL – now that’s no real distance but when I say I haven’t ridden my bike for mmm, must be three years, I hope you'll be proud of me! (This is where I confess that I couldn’t ride all the way back up the hill and had to push it most of the way!!)

The work week whizzed by uneventfully and as it was my Friday off, I persuaded John that he would like to come to Cambridge with me on a yarn hunting trip! Now, Cambridge is about 60 miles away and is well served by Park & Ride buses – the ones where you park outside a city and catch the bus in. Trouble was we took the first exit which is not so well served – in fact it is not at all served. It took us almost as long to get to the centre as it had to arrive on the outskirts! Never mind, I knew where we needed to head and used Google maps on my phone for the first time to great effect. We drove into the car park and almost had a conniption when we saw the cost of parking! If we were over three hours it would be almost £10!!!!!! I wouldn’t mind but we mistakenly took the lift and it was disgustingly dirty – I’d have expected a lift attendant for that sort of money!!

And I was disappointed when I arrived at the large department store (hint - never knowingly undersold) to find that the haberdashery department was tiiiiiiny! I was so looking forward to being able to see and touch yarns that I’ve only dreamt about to discover that they had probably a smaller choice than the lovely little wool shop I found locally a few weeks ago. Before I started out I had decided that I wanted to cover the cushions in my bedroom and wanted lilac and purple shades to make up some granny squares – I was not going to be beaten and did manage to find yarn that matched what I wanted – just!

As I was leaving the store I noticed toilet bags & make up bags – not something I needed but when I saw the little beauty below I just had to have one!

Because – it’s just right for…

…storing my scissors and hooks!!

That was a little consolation to make up for the disappointment in the yarn department – well, a girls gotta have something now and again, hasn’t she!!

On Sunday there was a Vintage & Modern market at the waterfront here in Ipswich – some lovely stalls selling all sorts from crafty to antique to just plain old junk! (sorry!!) not being an antique person or a plain old junk person I opted for the craft stalls and bought this lovely cushion

to which John said ‘You could make that’ Yeah right – me and sewing don’t go together too good but I have long had a hankering to learn to quilt, so maybe just maybe…

Oh and then there was this gorgeous card holder that will be winging it’s way across the Atlantic in a few weeks to the perfect home!

Better finish now – time to get hooking for the evening but I will leave you with a taster  of what arrived today…tune in next time for more details!!

Last Lesson

Here’s this week’s Saturday Census from Jenny – she has decided to let Mr Jenny compose the opening paragraph which is in italics below  - I’m enjoying this so far and I’d like to thank you all for your comments last week asking for more! I’m not sure that I could do that – would probably need research and stuff!

The small Cessna 172 picked up speed as it roared down the runway, Sara at the controls, the flight instructor beside her.

She knew that she had a very precious cargo to deliver. This was her last accompanied lesson before she got her wings and theirs was the only plane available to make this urgent delivery. Sara took a deep breath and full control of the plane. It was only a short hop to the island but she had never made such an important journey before. Twenty minutes later she safely landed and handed over the red box labelled ‘Human Tissue’. One last tick from the instructor meant that she was a fully fledged pilot.