Meandering

I don't know about you, but I store up random odds and ends to tell you as I go through my day, and then something happens and I never get to post about them.  But going through my pictures today, there are a few things that I just knew you'd like, even if they come across as a bit random.

1. My sister asked me to buy an iPad which we delivered the last time we were home a few weeks back.  We spent a little time fiddling with it and generally revealing that we are not part of the tech generation (or whatever letter that is - we had generation X some time ago now...)  While we were distracted with something else, my niece got hold of it and drew a self portrait:

Isn't she lovely?  She is eight.  (If she could send along a picture of her brother, I would love to show you that too.)

I gave my sister this:

2.  We had a lovely day out in Brighton.  After pootling around furniture shops all morning, we had lunch at a cafe with this in the window:

Bonkers.  Lovely, but bonkers.

3.   I read here that vertical gardens are very much the thing at the moment.  But have you seen the one in Trafalgar Square?

Apparently, it's inspired by A Wheatfield With Cypresses by Van Gogh.  How lovely is that?

4. If you are ever near the National Portrait Gallery, then make your way to the fifth floor.  The bar offers such a beautiful view over London, even on a grim grey day.

5. Isn't the ship in a bottle on the Plinth just lovely?

6. I never did tell you that awhile back, Mr. P and I went to hear Edna O'Brien read from Saints and Sinners, her new collection of short stories.  Of course, I went for the stories, which are beautiful.  It didn't hurt that she was being interviewed by Gabriel Byrne.

Dodgy photo taken with my iPhone - sorry

We will draw a dignified veil over my failed attempts not to drool...

So, there you are.  Random things that I felt you needed to know.

C.x

(A bit of a cheat, but...) Ta Dah!

Mr. P is in England at the moment, taking to an architect and builder about the old lady house. I had to stay here and work, which I'm feeling a bit peevish about even though I know we both didn't need to be there, and that gallivanting across the Atlantic every couple of weeks is all very well but we have to watch our pennies at the moment if we are going to have any money to spend once the house is bought.

And it's raining. And will keep raining for the next 5 days if the weather forecast is at all accurate. So to take my mind off my strop and the weather, I decided to do some crafting. (It was either that or endless episodes of Lie to Me...). I tried first to fix the iPad cover I started to make a few weeks back. All I achieved was to understand how to use my seam ripper. If anyone needs lessons in using this nifty little tool, I'm your woman. I can tell you that an empty flat is just the place for this exercise, because I had free reign to swear liberally and loudly all afternoon.

I eventually abandoned my efforts in favour of repeating an earlier success. If in doubt, stick to what you know...


So I made another bag. Smaller this time, because I had less material, and because I wanted it to be useful for my 8 year old niece.




I'd found this lovely fabric at Purl Soho when I made my first bag. It's so Springy and happy and has this lovely pattern on a deliciously slubby thick cotton...





Very Princess and the Pea... I decided to use grey thread which would blend with the darker colour way and provide contrast to the yellow fabric...


I realise this was a bit risky since my days of sewing in straight lines are obviously yet before me, but still... It has all the same feature as the first bag, with a magnetic snap for the outer pocket and two smaller pockets on the inside...






And, of course, it's reversible and washable.

Having made it once already, this came together pretty quickly and I'm chuffed to bits with it. I only hope my niece likes it too. Do you?

C.x
P.S. I realise I've been completely crap lately, not really crafting much, and not commenting on all your lovely blogs. But I am reading them all and planning lots of future projects, so please bear with me. There's just lots going on right now.

P.P.S. The quality of photos is appalling because Mr. P. went off to England with the cable that connects my SLR to the computer, so these were transferred using the Blogger App on my iPad, which clearly doesn't do photos.  Humph.

Julie Andrews had a point

Today was my last day in a job that I have done for the last nine months.  This job has been challenging and I have learned a lot about myself and the way I handle stress, and manage other people - upward and downward.  I have decided to leave this job and go back to my old job.  This was not easy because it meant going down a grade again, and I always think it difficult to go back rather than go on to something else.  But this was not the job for me, so no point pretending.  Ten years ago, I would have ploughed on, making myself more unhappy in the process.  I have mixed feeling about the whole thing, but I am pleased that I now have some balance between ambition and happiness.

To mark my departure from this job, Mr. P decided that the time had come to buy me something that I first said was a gadget too far, and gradually was seduced into wanting.  Look!

So, Mr. P, thank you for your unconditional support over the last 9 months.  You are lovely and amazing, and I am a lucky lucky thing.  In at least one of my parallel lives I must have done something good.

(And thanks also for my ipad.)

And for the luddite in all of us, I give you this.  Enjoy.  I'm off to play with my new machine.

C.x