Taking a Leap

My father was born on 29th February 1912, just before midnight. A hundred years ago. He weighed 3 pounds 7ounces and the fact that he survived is nothing short of a miracle - he was carried around on a pillow for several months because he was so small.    We always celebrated his birthday on the 1st of March, but today is actually the centenary of his birth - he's been dead almost a quarter of a century but I always think of him especially on his leap year birthday.  You may have seen this photo before - my father's the smaller one with the natty lace collar and belt!

 There are so many family birthdays around this time -my brother yesterday on Feb 28th (he only missed 1st March by a few minutes), my niece and her eldest daughter both on March 1st, and more recently my cousin's grandson.  Strange isn't it how birthdays can come in clusters - yesterday was also my best friend from school days and tomorrow is also my daughter's godson's.

Four years ago we were living a peaceful life, just the two of us, who knows what we'll be by the next leap year - though I fear nothing will have changed.  I like the idea of this 'free' day, an added extra - not that M brooks any change to her routine, but I'm letting that flow over me .  I treated myself to breakfast at the supermarket - only toast and coffee but it was very peaceful which is more can be said for this house when M gets into her telephoning stride at around 10.00 a.m.  I think we need earplugs so we don't hear all the fibs and complaints - bad for the blood pressure!

The weather is lovely today - pale blue sky and fluffy white clouds and blossom on some of the trees around.  Perhaps March isn't going to come in like a lion.  I'm beginning to feel guilty about everything that needs sorting in the garden - definitely need to get someone in to tame some of the wilder shrubs, and the sunshine is highlighting dusty surfaces in the house too.  But today I'm giving myself a day off - I might start spring cleaning tomorrow (or I might just go to the craft show instead!).

Hoping you're enjoying this extra day - especially if you're a leap year baby!

All mapped out

Did you have mapping pens at school?  Showing my age here!  I used to love to draw with them, not least because it was an opportunity to buy drawing inks in wonderful bright colours.   I hadn't thought about them for years until I found a packet in the local scrap store.. (Do you have one of those locally?  Ours is well worth a visit as they often have art materials as well as all sorts of things like mannekins, leatherette pieces, sticky foam etc. - it must be a great resouce for drama groups and childrens' play schemes, terrific place to buy 'junk' to make monsters!)  

The pen and nibs cost me a princely £1.95, and after a bit of a search I found I had about a dozen bottles of Winsor and Newton inks which come in lovely little bottles about an inch and a half tall,

Contained within even lovelier little boxes each illustrated with art work in the colour of the ink.

They're almost too nice to use and the colours are super, though a couple of mine had dried up - bad habit this hoarding of art materials, but it goes back to childhood when finding the money to replace things was matched by the difficulty in getting hold of them pre- internet. 

So, I'm making a resolution to start using all the 'stuff' I've been hoarding - beginning with my mapping pen and those lovely inks.

Of course, when we were first allowed to write in ink at school we had old-fashioned dip pens - though not with the fine mapping pen nibs.  The pen holder was rough painted wood - usually red, and the nibs fairly broad and scratchy and prone to drip and create large blots of nasty  idelible blueblack ink. The relief when we were allowed to buy fountain pens - both to us and our inky fingers and our mothers struggling with blotted clothes!  Blotting paper was a treasured commodity and woe betide anyone who didn't have a piece - can't remember when I last saw the soft pink sort we were given at school.

Nowdays, of course, drawing pens have been replaced by fineliners.  Excellent as they are, it's nice to play around with ink and nibs sometimes. 

Thanks

Thanks to this...

Which has now turned into this - a truly fabulous day.  I was totally stocked up and have no need to go out until about Tuesday (thanks to my veg box delivery as well), so I was able to get on and finish this....

I'm quite pleased with it, especially as the wool cost me nothing having come in my sister's stash from Australia (thank you brother-in-law), and the button came free with a knitting magazine.  And it can now go off to E for her birthday next week and I can root around in the wool and fabric cupboards  and patterns and start something else!

And thank goodness we aren't even snowed in.  

Waiting

I shopped in packed shops this morning, everyone stocking up against the snow.  I only wanted milk and bread and I tried hard not to get caught up in the panic, but I did buy a few cupboard and freezer items.  I got stuck in a traffic jam both going and coming back - some problem with a water main, so it took me most of the morning just to buy a few items and make an all important trip to the pharmacy at the Dr's surgery.  The thing that always worries me most about possible snow is whether we're up to date with M's prescriptions - and there are so many of them, none of which seem to coincide.  Her surgery won't issue repeat prescriptions until you have only a weeks supply left of any tablet and her eye drops have to be discarded every 28 days, so it's quite a full-time job keeping track of everything.
It's raining as I write, so I suppose that will turn to snow later.   It can do what it likes now, I'm going to put my feet up and finish E's hoodie - wonder if H can be persuaded to go and do organ practice so I can watch an old film!
Keep warm and safe everyone.

Snow came, but it isn't going to stay I hope. Still it was a good excuse to sit down and sew up some knitting.   Two of the expected babies have been arrived, more or less on time and safe and sound, both boys, so I'm hoping one of the two still expected will be a girl! 

Little E will be two next week so I'm frantically trying to finish a hoodie for her too.   Must try and get back to the sewing machine - the stash is making me feel guilty and I've hardly used the new machine.  I bought a couple of new sewing books recently but so far I've only skimmed them. 

Like many bloggers, I get a weekly order from the excellent Abel&Cole and this weather seems to require stews and soups so I've been spending more time in the kitchen.  We've recently resorted to 'hiding' green veggies in M's food as she'd taken them against them - no-one except us ever sees her in these unreasonable childish moods so the health visitor, OT and physiotherapist treat our tales with polite incredulity. 

Hope you're all keeping warm.

If wishes were horses........

Ever since I was big enough to hold a crayon and make intelligible marks on paper, I've drawn horses.  Over the years they've galloped, ambled and grazed through school 'rough books' and homework diaries, college notes, work notepads and shopping lists - they're what my hand draws or doodles while my brain is otherwise occupied!  Occasionally, they're accompanied by other animals - here are a couple of pages from the note book I use on a daily basis for household matters (don't try to make sense of any of the writtten stuff!)

Sometimes - though rarely these days, they mange to make it into a sketch book in their own right  (not always totally well proportioned as I tend to draw horses with too small heads having kept breeds with neat dished faces and small ears when we had horses in the 1980's). 

 And sometimes they even get to be in colour - even if they haven't any legs!

So when I saw this chap in an online sale at Great Art, I couldn't resist him.   For years I coveted a beautiful mahogany one in the window of a artist's materials shop in Croydon but he was way too pricey for my  pocket.  (they had an elephant too, but that's a whole other story!).  

Now loping elegantly across my work table - though I see someone has knocked into him since he was last posed - he's a lot nicer in reality than he looks in the photo!

When you give in to the inevitable post-holidays trip to the bottle bank, it helps if your local one is surrounded by stunning views on a bright January morning!

Do click on the photos, especially the first one, to see the distant view