Just One More Thing…

The death has just been announced of Peter Falk – who played Detective Columbo from 1968 –2003 [that’s an amazingly long time!] The formula for each episode never changed – you knew whodunnit from the start, and Columbo was always shambolic, scruffy, and apparently hopeless [and did we ever see his wife?] but he always got his man [or woman] in the end.

He was 83, and had been suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s Disease. Sadly there was an unpleasant dispute regarding his care, and a court case between his wife and daughter – during which it was revealed that Falk could no longer even remember playing his most famous character.

RIP Detective Columbo

I’m Mad As A Hatter

…I’ve never felt better

It’s hard to believe that I’m out of my mind

I’m mad as a hatter, so pass me the butter

Cos life is a tea party all of the time

That’s the MH’s song from “Alice, the Musical” [you can hear the song here on the Out Of The Ark Website] and my friend asked for a new MH costume for this year’s school production – “very bright and colourful, and quite mad” she said.

So I took all those lovely scraps which I was given in March by a colleague at my other school. I cut out a simple jacket pattern in plain polycotton, then made a sort of Victorian Crazy Patchwork Fantasy Fabric…

…and sewed it together

I took it into school today and tried it on the girl who is the MH. Apart from the sleeves being too long [they’re easy to shorten!] it fitted fine – and it looks much better on her than on the hanger. And she is thrilled with it, so is the teacher.

Hatters were mad because they used mercury in the production of felt hats and over time, this was absorbed into their system, and mercury poisoning causes dementia. Lewis Carroll grew up near Stockport, where millinery was a popular trade. The UK’s only Hatting Museum is there – one of these days I shall visit. Till then, here is a brief virtual tour!

Hat Works open every day but Monday, admission free!

The Solstice is past, the nights are getting longer- and in a week’s time it will be July!

If I work really hard, I should have all costumes and teddies and HBC crafts done by then. And in July I shall sit back and create…nothing! [maybe]

Shop Till You Drop

Sitting for so long at the sewing machine recently has left me pondering on the deeper questions of life – like this one…

Why do my friends in the States seem to have many shops with names which are ‘reduplications’ [ie two very similar rhyming words] ??

Like Hobby Lobby

and Piggly Wiggly

I confess that I would love to visit either of these shops!!

We don’t really have anything similar here – although I do have friends who refer to the discount supermarket as Lidl-Diddle

and of course many of us shop in Marks and Sparks

…but they are nicknames.

Can anyone think of a British Store whose name is a reduplication?

The Plaques Of Egypt

No, it isn’t a misprint. The kitchen has been taken over by Plaster of Paris creations. One of the crafts at HBC will be to paint an Egyptian plaque.

But I only have the one mould – so I am starting now, to produce dozens of them before August 1st.

Eventually the children will paint them, and the final plaques should look something like this [half-finished] demo.

To maximise efficiency of production, I have to keep dashing into the kitchen every hour or so, and unmould the drying plaque, and mix up plaster and make the next one. They are drying out on my lightweight IKEA Lerberg shelf.

I am averaging about ten moulds a day. I keep getting interrupted by other things like mealtimes and choosing hymns** for Sunday!

Plaster Of Paris is weird stuff – the chemical reaction when the plaster goes into the water causes a lot of heat [NEVER put your hand into it - people have been burned and actually lost fingers doing that] It is also very dusty, and it’s not wise to inhale it! My plaster came in a huge tub from ESPO [who supply equipment to schools etc throughout the Midlands] and I am honestly quite surprised that it carries no health warnings whatsoever.

I have just realised that I have only painted half this Egyptian’s skirt! Finer details – like the glamorous red toenails – I picked out with a cocktail stick dipped into the paint.

**resisting the urge to choose “mould me, fill me, I give my life to the Potter’s Hand” - and anyway I chose that one last week.

A Real Fun-Guy!

Scientists have named a species of mushroom after SpongeBob SquarePants. Spongiforma squarepantsii was found during an expedition to Borneo. The scientific journal Mycologia has the details.

 

Apparently, the mushroom bears a strong resemblance to a sea sponge, and under a scanning electron microscope, the spore-producing area of the fungus looks like a seafloor carpeted in tube sponges, say the researchers. This convinced them to name the species after the cartoon character.

Whatever will future generations make of such a bizarre name?

[For readers abroad, who may not have encountered this chap, SpongeBob is the star of an eponymous television cartoon series which began in 1999. He wears a short pair of square, brown trousers, and lives in the fictional locality of Bikini Bottom]

Walk Like An Egyptian!

Today has been non-stop creativity! Tonight we have our first Holiday Bible Club Staff Meeting. That means examples of each of the craft activities for the five days. I have been going since first thing, producing Egyptian themed stuff. The programme we are following is Mission Rescue [ie Moses]

Here is a collage of today’s activities thus far. The mess and mayhem photographed earlier has now taken over the Futility Room as well [Bob has gone out, it is safer!] I have been spending a lot of time colouring in – sitting in the lounge catching up on recorded TV programmes whilst doing it. My crayons are Berol Karisma – and over twenty years old. The girls gave them to me one Christmas [when they were still at primary school!]

I’ve been given a hundred small terracotta pie dishes [just don’t ask!] and so I designed a strip and circle with hieroglyphs for the children to colour in and stick on to make ‘an Egyptian dish’.

It is really important that I make sure the craft activities don’t cost too much – we have quite a tight budget, so it is always wonderful when I can use freebies like this!

No idea what this says – I confess I just chose random graphics which fitted well!

There may be spelling errors  - “eye before bird, except after wave” as I may have mentioned before.

Expect more HBC craftiness tomorrow.

[btw a HUGE thankyou to Floss, and family. One of her sons has generously lent me his precious Egyptian Craft Ideas book, which has proved a wonderful source of ideas. Floss gave it to me in London the other weekend. I am looking after it VERY carefully and will return it before long. Thank you SO much!!]

Midsummer Mess And Mayhem

Oh, I love June! I really do – the sun is shining [mostly] and there is so much to be enjoyed. The rest of the world is busy at pop festivals and Wimbledon and Take That concerts. But here in The Manse we are doing our usual juggling act of preparation for school and for meetings and for Sundays – overlaid with the extra summer activities which completely take over the house – play costumes, teddy sweatshirts for Year 6 leavers, and the biggest task of all – Holiday Bible Club Preparation. Just look at my Dining Room!

The floor is covered with bits of green teddy sweatshirt, and the dining table is buried under bits and pieces of sewing equipment. In one corner is a large box of fabric [school play costumes] and in another, stuff from the craft fair waiting to be sorted.

Those lovely people at Genesis have already sent through the Holiday Club tee-shirts

 

So as you can see, the Dining Room is pretty much out of action for dining and entertainment purposes. On the sofa in the lounge is a box of craft bits waiting to be sorted.

And in the bath languishes a laundry basket, absolutely overflowing with ironing waiting to be attended to. Bob’s averaging a funeral a week this month, so that’s a lot of shirts to be laundered!

I haven’t yet mentioned the ongoing craft preparation taking over one end of the kitchen, or the all fabric festooning Steph’s bed [more play stuff]

Please spare a thought for my extremely tall husband, who has to negotiate a way through all this gear, trying hard not to tread on things. He is remarkably patient with me.

Should I mention that half the hall is currently blocked by a huge box measuring 5 feet by 3 feet by 1 foot containing a massive TV screen which he is about to help friends install at their church ? In the middle of my crafty mayhem there is also his PA activity.

One often hears parents complaining that their children make such a mess. In our family, I am afraid it is the other way round!

Kirby Muxloe/Kirby Mexico

“Hey, Rosita, I have to go shopping downtown for my mother,
she needs some Tortillas and Chilli Pepper!"

Back in 1962, when we wandered round the playground singing ‘Speedy Gonzalez’, I don’t think any of us little British kids had a clue what tortillas or chilli peppers were [I hope we didn’t understand the line about the ‘Floozie Named Flo’ either!].

But now I find that I almost always have tortillas in the freezer, cupboard or breadbin. they are so useful. Most often I make them into wraps for packed lunches- but today I was being extra creative. Bob really enjoyed the quesadillas he ate in Giraffe in Norwich at half term, so I tried making some this evening.

The Real Simple website has some helpful suggestions, and I used some cooked chicken, chopped tomatoes, and sweet chilli sauce. I baked them in a preheated oven for 15 minutes at 180ºC. Bob’s had grated cheddar, mine had Laughing Cow Extra Light Triangles [please note LCELCT do not melt into a gooey sauce, but never mind] I made a huge green salad to go with the quesadillas.

Forgot to photograph before we ate them, but they looked something like this internet picture – and were surprisingly delicious.

I’ve never eaten enchiladas or drunk tequila!

I Know You – YOU Are The Bare LADY!

That’s what a parent said to me at the school fete on Saturday! Initially I didn’t understand- was she confusing me with Dita Von Teese, or another burlesque ecdysiast? The other people at my stall gave her strange looks too – they were obviously baffled as well.

It transpired that she had seen the mini sweatshirts I had made for the Year Six pupils – and I was the BEAR Lady! [it just shows how stressing the wrong word in a sentence completely changes the sense of it all]

I’m glad we got that sorted out, before my reputation is thoroughly ruined. It would be the end of Supply Teaching and Lay Preaching!

Salad Days

Did you ever learn the nursery rhyme that went…

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

This is the end

Of Solomon Grundy

Some sources suggest the name is a corruption of salamagundy or salmagundi. Salmagundi is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a classic 'grand sallet' (great salad) that's a mix of boiled chicken, greens, beans, wild flowers, fruit, nuts, potatoes and herbs. And that name is probably derived from the French word "salmagondis" means a hodgepodge or mix of widely disparate things.

For our meal tonight, I cleaned up my Mum’s round steel tray and created a colourful salmagundi of ham, cooked chicken, and various salad vegetables [including more pea shoots]. Naturally we used the New Edwardian Serving Fork!

It has been a rather diverse and busy day, not quite our usual Monday Day Off.

I spent the morning on supply in school [one 4 year old was fascinated by the blue toenails peeping through my sandals and kept stroking my feet during story time!]

Then I met Bob in the City to go to the jewellers [my ring can be fixed, so that’s good] and buy blue fabric for Alice dresses, and go to the Bank – and pick up lunch in Subway.

We both had deliciously fresh 6” turkey and ham subs with sweet onion dressing.

Then we went off to Theddingworth to the NAM Conference.

NAMs are ‘Newly Accredited Ministers’. Bob and I go every June to the start of this event - organised by the Baptist Union Ministry Department – in order to encourage the Revs to join the Ministers’ Fellowship and promote Connexion for their spouses.

The event is held at the Hothorpe Hall Conference Centre, which I have mentioned before.They have beautiful gardens – I love this quirky little teapot-filled corner on the footpath to the Car Park [Jane, if you don’t like tea, perhaps you could copy this idea]

The other thing we have noticed, whenever we visit HH is that there always seems to be a skip at one end of the car park. And of course, we always check the contents!

Last year, it was full of dead lawnmowers. This year, however, there was a whole stack of tubular steel suitcase supports. [As seen on The Hotel Inspector] We felt that there must be a way to recycle them!

Having first checked with Reception, on our way out, Bob collected four of them and put them in the boot of the car. They seem in excellent condition. At least one will go to Cornerstones for the use of guests!

Now I am going to relax a little for the rest of the evening I think!

btw – my last bit of ‘Dumpster Diving’ – that reading lamp – has gone! Although it worked perfectly when we put in a bulb, the frame proved to be too bent to straighten, and a judicious application of ‘Brasso’ revealed it was a base metal and scratched beyond the point of restoration. Ah well…

To Brighten Your Monday Morning

This latest VW advert makes me smile every time I see it.  We have a Mini Darth Vader in our congregation sometimes, and this ad is so perceptive. Somebody in an ad agency somewhere spotted a great idea for a commercial [a parent of a kid who likes dressing up?]

Fabulous!

DV is played by a boy called Max and he is 6 – if you want to see some of the out-takes and find out more, checkout the VW page here – well done Deutsch LA [the agency who produced this]

Today I Made…

…people stay awake!

I was out preaching this morning, and the final comment as I went out to the Car Park was “I love it when you come and preach, Angela, because nobody falls asleep”

I think this was meant as some sort of compliment!

But the busy week of school, meetings, sewing, school fete and sermonising has left me utterly exhausted.

So instead of Plan A - a quiet afternoon’s gentle embroidery, I am off to implement Plan B – under the duvet for some serious shut-eye.

Putting the service together was quite enough creativity for me today, I think.

[I did a variation on the Coke&Mentos children’s talk, which worked incredibly well, with no splashes on the church carpet. Hallelujah]

May He Rest In Peace

Just in from church and read on the BBC website of the death last night of Brian Haw – the Parliament Square Peace Protestor. For years he had camped out and campaigned, in all weathers, for “love, peace and justice …for all”

A Christian who had the courage of his convictions, and was not afraid to make a public protest against war-mongering. Though his campaign involved people of all faiths and none, Mr Haw was a Christian, and one of the placards bore the legend 'Christ is Risen' as a symbol of divine life-giving in the face of death.

Thank you Brian, for all you have done to challenge us to speak out against evil. May God comfort Babs and the rest of your family.

Happy Fathers’ Day

Willow Tree have brought out a new piece, called “My Girls”

It’s a long time since my Dad and Bob’s Dad died. And it’s a long time since my two girls were this small!

But I am grateful to God for all the great fathers who have been in my life -

my own dad

my grandad

my father-in-law

and for Bob, who is such a wise and brilliant father to our daughters.

God bless Dads today!

Don't you see that children are God's best gift? the fruit of the womb his generous legacy? Like a warrior's fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth. Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children! [Ps 127, The Message]

I’m On A Roll!

Today was the School Summer Fete. I had booked a Craft Table. But I‘ve been so busy recently, dressing teddies and doing other things that I had not checked what I had to sell!

Last night I fetched the box from the loft, and that is when I discovered I had a selection of most things [tooth fairy purses, hairclips, tissue holders] but no pencil rolls. And they re among the top–sellers. So this morning I got up early. Bob made breakfast while I sorted out fabric etc – then after breakfast I worked for 2 hours solid and cut out a dozen pencil rolls – some in denim/camouflage fabrics, others in pinks and fairy prints, others in multicoloured stripes [but I only had time to sew up nine of them!]

The Fete – well, it rained and rained – and in the gaps between, the customers [fewer than last year] watched the Dog Display and the 2B Dancers. And I sold lots of tooth fairy purses and hairclips. And two of my pencil rolls.

Then a lady came and purchased six rolls for her grandchildren [all coming for lunch on Fathers’ Day, apparently] I had just the one left – and I realised I had not taken any pictures.

Within minutes of getting the camera out for this next shot, a child came up and bought the last roll.

Apparently he’d been wandering round ‘thinking about it’ all afternoon, and when he finally made up his mind, there was only the one left! At least it was a more masculine denim one, not one of the girly pink fairy ones!

I let the children have a go on the Janome to produce their facecloths [didn’t sell any bibs- they are usually very popular]

The children really seemed to enjoy typing their names into the embroidery machine and pressing the stop/start button. I have never had so many Dads taking photographs of their sons using the technology! [“Here’s my boy – working at a sewing machine!”]

My takings weren’t brilliant, but they’ll help towards the dental bills!