HOW Many???

Last year I went with Bob to collect some materials for a Men's Shed project, from a local decorating supplies firm. By the door was a large bucket with a sign saying "FREE!" It would have been rude not to check it out. It had some 2m lengths of wallpaper. I grabbed a couple of William Morris designs. A week later, I gave one to a friend who needed to cover a large gift box. In January, we went back again, and I took just one piece. I went to the counter to wait for Bob. "Can I help you?"
    "I'm with him - but can just I say thank you, for these lovely free samples of wallpaper"
"We will be getting rid of the big sample books soon, would you like some?"        
    "Yes please!"
"Give me your phone number and I will call you- I will be really pleased if you can use them, we usually just throw them in the skip outside"
And so a couple of weeks ago, she rang, and I went early next morning [they open at 7.30am for trade customers] I left Bob at home, preparing breakfast. The woman remembered me, and said the books were behind the counter. 

I said I would like to make a charity donation, and while she was getting them, I put a couple of quid inside the pink elephant box for the blind children.
"Here you are, where's your car?" The woman, plus another assistant helped me carry the sample books out to my car. There were TWENTY of them. She insisted that any I left would go in the skip, and I couldn't let that happen, could I? Bob was a little taken aback when I got home. "HOW many? Ang, will you use them all?"

We lugged them into the lounge, and stood them up against the sofa. A real mixture - patterns, plains, textures, stripes... Most from a French company, Casadéco, one from Crown.

I enjoyed going through them as I sipped my coffee, muttering "Ooh look! Isn't this cute? I can make use of this one..."

Later in the day, I took the Nursery Patterns Book, and made an Easter Card and a new baby card for my latest nibling.

I used a rabbit design, mounting the pictures on the co-ordinating golden polka dot paper. There are lots of great patterns in this book [animals, trucks, dinosaurs...] which will make good cards for children. I am planning to use one of the other books to mount displays for the Easter windowsills at Chapel.

And Bob is right - twenty is rather a lot. I took some to my good friend Val a few days later. Val has been a friend since 1981, when we lived in the Medway and Bob was student minister at her church. Teacher, Girls Brigade Officer, crafter - we have heaps in common and have been firm friends for 45 years. She still lives in the Medway with her husband Philip [like Bob, former employee of Marconi, and into woodworking etc] They were on holiday in Norfolk, it was lovely to catch up [now we are both mothers of two grown up daughters and we have grandchildren] I gave Val the books, and she gave me a jigsaw and a striped teeshirt! [Thank you Val, it fits a treat]
I gave three more to my young friends who are home schooled. And when I told the story to my old school friend [who is sadly back in our local hospital again] she laughed, and said "Please can I have one when I get home?" So that is one third of the hoard distributed... and I have so many ideas in my head for papercrafts! Look at these gorgeous pictures from the Casadéco website...

A Household Name?

Have you come across the author Geoffrey Household? He was an amazing guy, born in 1900, died in 1988 - and as well as writing, his  career also included training as a banker in Bucharest, selling bananas in Spain, serving as a security officer in WW2...He was passionate about cats, gardens, Spanish Rioja and pipe-smoking - a quintessential Englishman with a glamourous Romanian wife. He wrote 37 novels, numerous short stories and a few children's books. 

I first came across GH in the late 1970's, when his book "Rogue Male" was made into a film for the BBC, starring Peter O Toole. I thought the plot was brilliant and found a secondhand copy of the book, which I read, and re-read till it fell to bits. GH wrote it in the late 1930s. Told in the first person, it is the story of an aristocratic Englishman who makes a failed solo attempt at assassinating a 

particularly evil European dictator. He escapes captivity, and gets back to England where he hides from foreign agents seeking to capture and kill him.

Having grown up in Dorset, our hero returns there, and digs himself into a sandstone tunnel at the end of a country lane in a remote woodland area. Radio 4 commissioned a audio version of the [abridged] book, which was first broadcast in 1989, and starred Simon Cadell. Then in 2004, Michael Jayston read the whole book [15 halfhour episodes] 
During March 2026, to mark the 30th anniversary of Cadell's death, R4extra re-broadcast his Rogue Male. For the next few weeks you can hear Michael Jayston reading the sequel, Rogue Justice [which Household wrote in 1982, 40 years after the first book] 
Household was an extremely prescient guy - living in Europe in the 1930s, he watched Hitler's rise to power. He was aware of what Adolf was capable of, long before many others.  He hated the Nazi regime with a passion. This  inspired his Rogue Male story. It is considered to have inspired Fleming's Bond, David Morell's Rambo, Forsyth's Jackal, and a number of other action-hero books. 

Just before we moved to Dorset, author Robert McFarlane set out to find the "Hollow-way" where Household's hero hid, although GH had said it was not marked on any OS maps. He failed! But since we left the area [typical!] another author, Sara Hudson, claims to have located the spot.  One day I might get back...

It is a cracking adventure story, a true classic, and I think Geoffrey Household deserves better recognition. 

I recommend you get ahead of the game, and read Rogue Male now. If only because the lovely Benedict [Sherlock etc] Cumberbatch is busy making a new film version!
Have you read Rogue Male?

Do you remember the Peter O Toole film?

Palm Sunday 2026

As we enter Holy Week, we pray for others - especially those where 'spirits feel tired' 

Touching Base

I made some pizza dough in my breadmaker [never done that before] and then I copied Sue in Suffolk's idea, and divided it into 6 rectangular pizza bases. These shapes store so efficiently in the freezer!
I put toppings on the remaining two, we ate them with salad. Mine had cottage cheese, Bob's had cheddar. I used some leftover roasted vegetables, a chopped up cooked sausage, and a generous dollop of Keswick Ketchup. It was simple, but tasty.

I got this in Booth's at Christmas. It was so nice I bought another bottle when I was in Manchester last month!

Let's Raise A Glass...

 ...to Simple Things magazine, and the Friends of Glass UK [here] who just sent me a very generous shopping voucher.

The story began in December. I read Simple Things online, and noticed they had a feature promoting the benefits of glass. It is infinitely recyclable, and much better for the planet than single-use plastics. They asked readers to nominate businesses local to them which make good use of glass, and said FoG were going to give some prizes.

 I decided to nominate Dann's. They are the local dairy farmers who make splendid ice cream, and also sell delicious milk in refillable glass bottles from a wonderful DIY dispensing machine. It is five years since I first blogged about them I was astounded to get an email saying I was one of the winners!
Not that my answer was any better than any other - they had so many entries they just selected five at random. 

"Look out for the April edition when we will have a further feature on this" they said. Well the latest edition is just out. They have the promised article, but have only mentioned five largish companies [Yet again, Gü Desserts, who were in the original article] I had hoped Dann's would get a promotion. The ice cream is yummy, and their cows are very photogenic!

The shopping voucher arrived, and has already been spent. Thank you to the FoG, and to the magazine. A lovely surprise

Lofty Thoughts

To paraphrase a Randy Newman song*

It's a jungle up there!
Disorder and confusion everywhere

No one seems to care

Well Bob does

Hey, who's in charge here?
- He could be wrong now
    [but I don't think so]

Over the winter it has been too cold to spend very long up in the loft. I scuttle up the ladder, snatch what I want and come down again. Bob thoughtfully fitted an extra grab handle for me 3 years ago. I occasionally return items by putting them in boxes, climbing to the hatch, and shoving them hard across the floor without even going right up inside. This does make for disorder and confusion. The main loft contains my sewing and craft materials, out of season clothing, and other random stuff [two guitar stands belonging to Bob - who rarely sets foot up there] The loft above the Futility is much tidier. All the Christmas stuff, and those empty boxes from important items [to be kept until the guarantee runs out, just in case]
I set aside time this week to work on tidying the loft. This happens every couple of years.  I have rules for myself during this activity

1. Go to the loo before climbing the loft ladder [for what Ro and Jess call a "Safety Wee"]
2. Take mobile phone [if I don't, its sure to ring - and if something goes wrong, I need to be able to call for help!]
3. Take a sharpie, a pair of scissors, a tape measure and a trash bag, for efficient labelling and sorting
4. Organise 'stuff to get rid of' into three boxes/ bags while still up there. Donate, recycle, and general bin. It is much easier that way.
5. Be firm and realistic. I am retired now. I don't need half a set of class worksheets about algebra anymore. Yes, the children can do drawing on the other side of the sheet - but be honest, just how many pictures is Jess going to do when she visits? I have been filling a plastic box with random craft materials to take to our local Scrap Scheme. Somebody else will use them.
6. Pieces of ribbon less than 10cm long are no use to me. Particularly if they are grubby from being on the floor up there. Ditto tiny scraps of felt. And elastic that lost its stretch back in 1998. Bin them!
7. Sort things sensibly. Label the drawers so you can find things quickly. Next time, put things away carefully in the right place, however cold it is up there
8. Nobody needs to keep every envelope, jiffy bag, and cardboard box that the postman brings. Recycle!
9. If an item has not been used for a very long time, why am I keeping it? Rehome it or ditch it. Now!
10. If it is properly tidied now, I can keep it tidier in future. My word of the year is restoration. I need to restore order and sanity...

I last tidied the loft in autumn 2023 [see picture]. But that space in front of the drawers is full of more stacked boxes now. So I cannot get to my Velcro stash, or felt pieces, without a lot of shuffling. A tidy up is long overdue

The current disordered state! I need to do the winter/summer wardrobe swap in the next couple of weeks. Back to work...

*It was used for the theme tune of that great detective series "Monk". Adrian Monk was OCD, he would have a complete melt-down if he saw my loft.

NB that empty HiViz jacket is strapped to the roof truss, It is not a desperate kidnap victim.
Also, I found my little wooden eggs, just in time for Easter Decorating.🥚🥚🥚

Hen Party!

I was really tired on Saturday afternoon, after a busy week. "I just want to sit and sew this afternoon" I said at lunchtime, so Bob suggested I did just that. Then on the Sunday, after a busy morning at church, Bob was going out to the Hospice. I sat and sewed again. And I finished my hen! 

Here it is hanging from the doorknob. Approximately 12cm high, 12 cm wide. I would give this kit a 5* rating

• There's more than enough felt and thread to complete the project, plus stuffing, and ribbon for hanging loop
• There were very clear coloured instructions with helpful diagrams of the stitches
• The embroidery is quite complex in parts but OK if you practice first on a spare bit of felt.
• I found it helpful to draw the main lines with a Frixion pen [see here] to guide my stitching on the neck, body and tail and also position the eyes and the stars. The ink disappears under a warm iron!

I have loved making this French Hen, and I am glad I now have a paper pattern in case I feel like making more! Though whether I will make another before Easter is unlikely. I reckon it took six hours start to finish. In the absence of my little wooden eggs, I balanced her on some conkers!