Church Flowers (Again) On A Sad But Special Day

It was Church flower time again and it worked out really well, as it was the 19th November and that was a very appropriate day for me to make some nice arrangements. as it was the anniversary of my Mum's death, the 31st sadly.  As I may have mentioned before I was a teenager when I lost my Mum and so the numbers have racked up over the years.  It is only a matter of months now and Mike and I will have been together longer than my Mum and Dad, which from my perspective is a strange sort of fact - but not surprising given her early death.

We were doing flowers as a memoriam for a member of the congregation and I asked J if she minded if I brought some additional flowers and made a special arrangement from me for my Mum. 

So despite the sad nature of the day we had a lovely time as usual and it felt very fitting to be in Church.  Some photos of the arrangements we did ..... I wanted to do this one on the font it is my favourite spot in Church to do!!

 a closer look, yes it breaks some rules but why not, the large chrysanthemum were quite pricey so I only got 3 and not 5 or 7,  and leucodendron safari sunset always looks good, but I love this style of container they have at Church, it works in many ways including upside down.  Of course I can see all of the mistakes - the line of yellow roses could be a little further over to the right and bigger blooms would have helped, they do extend out to the left but you can't see them in the photo.  I always feel with the font that I want to take some interest around the back of the arrangement too for the congregation who sit behind the font so it becomes more an all around asymmetrical arrangement!!

 J's pedestal, she said she wasn't feeling it, but once the lilies were opened I think it would have filled out and looked even better.

 J's favourite spot on the poor box.....

 There were some ornamental cabbages (Brassica oleracea - possibly crane bicolour or white crane) so I teemed them with some contorted hazel, foliage and made a modern arrangement on the Missionary table which worked so well and looked lovely against the white painted wall.  It had the beginnings of a Christmassy look about it.

Sadly I wasn't available to help out with decorating the Church for Christmas as it was on a Saturday when I was busy with Jamie's activities and Mike was working, but fingers crossed I may be able to help out next year.

Finally an arrangement I did at home using garden foliage and 5 Iris, simple line arrangement, in a glass dish with stones - it has a Ikebana feel about it too.

Ciao

Sue
XX

Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (not off my reading challenge)

November Scrapbooking Crop

The November crop came around again very quickly, so I headed off totes packed and raring to go - I seem to be getting worse these days and only managed two layouts but I did win the challenge this month which was lovely.

I find my scrapbooking style is very fluid and this month I seemed to do very simple layouts but I love them both - perhaps even more so for their simplicity.

My Little Prince - the challenge winning layout - very muted tones, some My Mind's Eye paper and embellishments, a grungeboard crown and a petaloo (I think) flower, I love the saying from Elegant Word Art "when I count my blessing I count you twice", says it all really, a little bit of  ribbon and I just need to complete the journalling card - also from MME.  I'd also used my SU punch for the edge on the sub-heading.

 My second layout was of our darling little Pebbles who we lost 3 years ago, in the photo she is sunning herself in the back garden, which she loved to do.  I picked the background paper because it picked up on some of her colouring - she was the most amazingly coloured tortoiseshell (well she was to us!!).  The 12 X 12 is Costco (I think), other papers Basic Grey as is the title, a prima flower and more EWA for the sub-heading - "Dogs come when called Cats take a message and get back to you".  The journalling reads "Our lovely Pebbles sunning herself in the back garden.  She was regal, loyal and stately.  I loved watching her make her way around the kitchen to get to her food bowl, which she did via the table, breakfast bar, sink and cooker.  She also used to love sleeping wrapped around our heads purring on our pillows."  (We had to keep the cat food on the worktop to stop the dogs eating it - hence her route to her food - why do dogs love cat food so much?)

and here is my fab prize, feel really lucky and thank you to everyone at the crop - can't wait for December as that is our special Christmas crop with a Secret Santa and food - it should be a lovely day.

Ciao

Sue
XX

Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (not off my reading challenge)

Book Review - The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Beware Spoilers!

I hadn't planned to read this yet but picked up a brand new copy at the library and thought I may as well make use of it, having it on loan from the library is also a great incentive to read a book fairly quickly, although I didn't think I would need one for this as I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code and loved Angels and Demons.  This sadly I didn't enjoy quite as much, still a good read and an enjoyable story but it didn't quite hit all the excitement and involvement for me as the other books mentioned.

The story was fast paced and dramatic, the plot complex and puzzling, some of the scientific information startling, interesting, mind boggling and both believable and unbelievable.  But this time I just didn't seem to care quite so much, Robert Langdon just seemed that bit more boring, and surely after what he has already been through in his life would he really be so naive as to allow himself to get dragged into yet another mystery like this, wouldn't he be questioning every invitation he receives no matter who it is from.  I am beginning to think of him as a very unlikely hero (or maybe that is the point)

The story all takes place in and around Washington DC which brings this book some differences to the European set books, but I was also less familiar with the places which may have made this book less enjoyable.  There are some amazingly dramatic events and one or two I was quite surprised to find Langdon was able to finally escape from, the characters were typical Dan Brown characters and the villain perhaps the worst of all his villains (although I had had a sneaky suspicion that he may have been who he turned out to be all along - with no evidence for this in the book!!)

Overall not up to the other books of his which I have read and it is quite a long book at over 600 pages, a good airplane or beach novel.  So I was glad I had borrowed it from the library as it kept me focused to finish it and I didn't feel cheated that I had had to pay for it!!

Ciao

Sue
XX
Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (not off my reading challenge)

Some Odds and Ends Which Don't Fit Elsewhere!!

Jamie had a busy November with a couple of school events and Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night. 

Jamie had his school assembly which was about World War II and in particular about Anderson Shelters.  Jamie had done a particularly good piece of writing about what it would feel like to be inside one during a school day when an air raid was going on and how you would be worried about where your Mum and Dad, brothers, sisters and other family and friends were.  It was a lovely piece of writing and he read it out as his part in the assembly - below a couple of photos of him doing his bit in the assembly. 

As part of the World War II project they were doing Year 6 went on a visit to Holdenby House where they were to live for the day as evacuees.  We tried to put together an outfit which made him  look like a 1940's boy and he had his little pack with his gas mask in (cat food boxes came in handy as I passed another onto one of Jamie's friends too - they worked well wrapped in brown paper and some gardening string attached!!).  Below a  photo of him dressed for his day out.

Finally a couple of photos from our mini firework display in the garden, we eventually got around to using up the sparklers over New Year as it got so cold on Bonfire Night itself.  We just had one very very small box - garden ones with lots of colour and not too many bangs but fun.  Overall there seemed to be a lot less fireworks than in previous years which was a bonus (thankfully Binnie doesn't get as distressed as Mika and Nelson (particularly Nelson) did but it still bothers her) - sadly someone always lets things down and this time it was the idiot who lives behind us letting them off at 11.40 - with young children still running around in the house and letting off fireworks which were clearly far too big for the garden - he was lucky he didn't set his next door neighbours fence on fire!!  A couple of pictures from our modest firework display!

Ciao

Sue
XX

Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (not off my reading challenge)

Doctor Who Live

We are, I may have mentioned, Doctor Who fans in this household, so when it was announced there was to be a Doctor Who Live of course we were going to get tickets.  First a moan about the price of parking at Wembly Arena.  We went to the Sunday afternoon show and parked in the event parking BUT it cost £20 to park (now this is not the most expensive gig parking - the 02 is £25), so overall the parking cost us roughly £10 per hour that we were there (it was not a very long show at all).  Yes the parking is convenient, a couple of minutes walk into the arena and yes it should be safe it is monitored but really £2.50 for 15 minutes is a bit much - even MK doesn't charge that yet!!  Should we ever find ourselves in the position of parking there on a Sunday afternoon again, we shall say we are going to the Sunday Market - the parking charges for that are less!!  Just as if you go to the 02 and say you are going to the cinema the parking charges are also a lot less!!

To be honest I wasn't really sure what to expect and I think they probably did a good job trying to pack as many of the monsters and baddies into one story as they could and it was a thrill seeing Nigel Planer who will always be Neil from The Young Ones to Mike and I, but overall the whole event was a little bit lacklustre, something was missing and it didn't have the magic and sparkle that Doctor Who should have and that similar events such as the Walking with Dinosaurs Live had.

Saying that they had put a story together based on a very old Third Doctor (1973) story called The Carnival of Monsters (which coincidentally Jamie and I had watched a few days before the show - unaware of the connection) and the machine used in that episode now contained all the modern baddies and one or two others, and the character played by Nigel Planer was in control of the machine.  Of course the monsters escape and the Doctor ends up trapped in the machine, but we knew we would be safe and the Doctor would save the day.  Saying that we did see some of the amazing creatures - some good and some bad from the Ood ......

the Silurians ....

Winston Churchill - played by Doctor Who stalwart and legendary voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs and one of the stars of Doctor Who we have met and he was lovely.

The Doctor and Amy Pond only appear on the big screen at the back of the stage.

Here is one of the ways the characters got onto and off the stage via the lift Churchill is standing on .......as we were heading to our seats we passed some getting into position in the concourse for their entry into the arena.

There were one or two plants in the audience too who were also part of the cast - here the amazing Judoon are looking for aliens - it must have been an amazing experience for those sat on the floor aisle seats and front row.

The very scary Weeping Angels!

The Clockwork Monsters looking amazing .....

Smilers .......

Liz 10 ......

Cybermen entering the arena - they are big and scary .......

 that was close enough for me .....

 You see it really is Neil from the Young Ones !!!

 And then there were Daleks and the newer bigger version .....

 oh no who is going to save us all .........

 and finally the Doctor to the rescue.  Jamie loves Matt Smith, not quite a David Tennant - I will always prefer my skinny boy in a suit  - but still a promising Doctor.

 The encore and here you can see it's Nicholas Briggs!

 Mike and Jamie with the new Wembly behind them.

 Gorgeous boy in a Chelsea shirt!

 Jamie and yours truly!!

 A bit too close to a Smiler for my liking.

Overall - not bad - not brilliant but somewhere in between.
Ciao

Sue
XX

Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (not off my reading challenge)

November Flower Club - My Favourite Ever Demonstration - Well So Far??

It was time for Flower Club again and it was a change of demonstrator at short notice but the lady who came to demonstrate was brilliant.  After dropping Jamie at cubs I headed off to pick up J and we headed to Stony.  Not much chat just photos from the evening and I have very little to say as they were stunning arrangements - amazing creations.  Her theme for the evening was musicals and she gave us some music to go along with each - I will put the songs each represents at the bottom of the blog but see if you can guess what song or musical each one represents!!

This is very clever as the demonstrator had made the triangle shapes which in this design represent sails, I love the way she has used gypsophilia to represent the foam on the waves - brilliant.

I love the use of this style of stand - it is so clever and looks so dramatic - standard flowers just made to look extraordinary - Anastasia chrysanthemum, eryngium, carnation and gladiolus and some wire added to gave some extra movement and a modern twist - love it.  A harder one to guess!

There is a huge clue in this arrangement  - what can I say it is, as Sylvia might say, perfection in pink!!

Love this one too, from the container to the choice of flowers everything works, just love it!!

And finally the one that I won in the raffle, this was a bit too far for some of the ladies, a bit to modern and alternative but I loved it.  All the gerbera are pointing in different directions and look so random but so in harmony - it really does represent its musical very well, and a musical I am very very familiar with!!  I think this demonstrator may have been my favourite ever, and at the very least in the top 3.

A wonderful evening.

Ciao

Sue
XX

Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

True Love from High Society
We Will Rock You
Phantom of the Opera
Mama Mia
Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat

Halloween

Jamie had an enjoyable Halloween as he went to a party at a neighbours house on the Saturday where there was a lot of traditional games such as apple bobbing, everyone was dressed up and looked fab.  Jamie went as a ghoul or something that looked a bit like an Ork (?) from Lord of the Rings. 

He hollowed out his pumpkin and cut a face into it and then he went out trick or treating with his friend K, as we set off we bumped into our neighbour and her two children and some other friends and she asked if Jamie wanted to go as part of their group.  It made sense really as it also meant that people weren't getting disturbed quite so many times and Jamie and K both came home with a sack full of sweets, cakes, biscuits and some pennies too.   Jamie was again dressed up as a ghoul and K was dressed up as the Mummy.  We had some tea after that and then K went home, it was an enjoyable evening for everyone. 

We had only a handful of callers which gave them a good choice from our sweets and then Jamie and K shared them out and K took some home for his brother K too.  Jamie's pumpkin looked really effective lit and sat just outside our front door.

I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that I wanted to have a go at making a Halloween arrangement in a pumpkin and here is what I did.  My top tip would be to ensure the oasis is protected from the pumpkin and vice-versa - I've done that here with some cellophane (you could use the cello that the flowers come in if they come from the supermarket).  It is likely that the pumpkin will start to deteriorate before the flowers and this does allow you to remove the arrangement from the pumpkin and place into another container to get a little longer out of the flowers.

A bit of science here - but flowers, fruit and vegetables produce ethylene, a gas, which has an ageing effect on flowers, the more exposure to the gas the quicker flowers will deteriorate so using the cellophane as an extra layer of protection will help slow that process down slightly.  I would normally advise not to keep flowers and fruit near each other, but on occasions such as Halloween there is a great opportunity to use such a fantastic container it is worth the loss of a couple of days of flower life.  Saying that, this arrangement lasted well over a week and I transferred it from the pumpkin to an orange container when the pumpkin was heading past its best.  It looked good sat on the stand I bought in Harrogate too.

I found a witch pick which I added into the arrangement to give it that extra Halloween feel - can you spot her hiding away in the centre of the design.  For extra longevity, when using fruit or vegetables choosing flowers such as chrysanthemum and carnation which have a long 'vase' life is also a useful consideration.  I also used dyed oak leaves, fir cones and some pretty leaves which I found on the walk to school - as they were all dried they lasted very well and gave a real backbone to the design.

The design is a very standard autumnal colour scheme of reds, golds, yellows and oranges, for me it is one of my favourite colour schemes.  I added some ting ting to give height and an asymmetrical line, overall I was pleased with this design.

Ciao

Sue
XX

Reading challenge 15/16 - currently reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy