It's just fun after being married for nearly 27 years to ask. He said yes, which is a good thing! We have come through so much together, we are definately bomb proof by now. Both of us have had serious illnesses. We have be absolutely broke, had to climb back out of some very awkward times we got ourselves into when we didn't get on well.

My Husband decided to take me for a walk with the dog, and then take me out for a lunch. It was lovely and a simple enjoyable day. I have spent the afternoon cutting out dress fabric. I got the patterns I ordered and I started making a little summery dress monday afternoon. It uses my time, and although this one is fiddly rather than difficult sets me a challenge. It has lots of ruffly bits. Might make a change for me as I am not normally very pretty and ruffly.

I somehow think we are going to have a lovely summer, lots of warm sunny days. I just fancy trying out some prettier stuff, rather than everything being practical. Perhaps my mood is lifting from that heavy winter feeling I get. I can't say it's depression as I don't feel down, just a bit uninspired to do things.

I was saying to my Husband I think I am in a good place at the moment. I have always been 'driven'. Always needing to succeed in what I took on in business. I was always trying to put in every effort to get results. I suppose a perfectionism that few people want to live with. In the last week or so I have found this sort of feeling has gone. I haven't got to strive for results any longer, I can get the results I want, from simple days, with a bit more patience. I have arrived I suppose... into a mellow middle aged retirement!

My Husband didn't wake me this morning, not that he wakes me anyway. I think it is a phase of that episode I had back in November. I couldn't get off to sleep and I guess it must have been around 3am untill I did nod off, only to find I slept until 11.30 am. That is scandalous!

Perhaps I am becoming a teenager. So nothing much has been done today other than a trip into town to get some more happy pills, mooch about waiting for my Husband to come back and pick me up as he had some other things to do. I wandered into the Hospice care shop, more for something to do, and somewhere a bit warmer to be for a few minutes.

I am well trained. I don't go into shops, or buy magazines. It's all very well looking at stuff, but if you neithr actually want anything, or have already decided you aren't spending any money it's a bit pointless. You just get a dose of 'the wants', and get miserable because that thing you have the wants for is not going home with you. I don't have a need to buy anything right now.

However I did order two vogue patterns at half price from 'Sewing World'. None of the shops here stock sewing patterns any longer. Including postage they came to just over £18. I see that as a good investment as once you have a pattern that works well it can be made to look different in all sorts of ways.

I need to get and make some dresses with the material I have squirreled away in the past. I wasn't overly happy with the dress I made up last, but it will be ok for summer days. I prefer working from a pattern I guess, it just makes everything like a jigsaw if the instructions are followed. I can start doing some sewing for next week as hopefully I will get them tuesday or wednesday. I like having a progect.

The news, or rather rampant speculation, half truths, and probably complete fabrications about Syria are rife. I do fear for them. I would hate to see another all out civil war, with so much destruction to all parties. There isn't seemingly a proper opposition to the Assad regime, so if they were allowed to 'take over' it would be all those factions fighting each other in a power vacuum as they are doing in Libya. It just seems right to allow a diplomatic solution with a complete cease fire. Allow the democratic process to be established so that this country is not destroyed. It's the ordinary people caught up in crossfire that suffer.

I wish I understood why America wants to back Al Quaida? I thought five minuits ago they were 'the enemy'. I wonder if the American people themselves actually follow all of this 180 degree manic foreign policy their government has?

I spent the day weeding. The days are becoming longer. The postman said he wondered if this was our first spring day. The dog escaped to see if she could find a rabbit in the field opposite. I managed to catch her as she was half buried down a rabbit hole digging for all her worth. Naughty dog. I put her on the chain in the yard for an hour before I felt she wouldn't go through the gate again.

I feel better for the fresh air, and having done something quite useful. I moved some white daisy plants to brighten up the gate area when they grow this summer. I like gardening for this reason I suppose. You have to foreward plan everything, and then live in hope you get a result.

I looked at the patch I have been considering turning into a veg plot. It is big, but then considering I spent about 5 hours today in the garden and I just quietly got on with it, I think it might be do-able. We do need to provide more of our own home grown, even if it's just because we can. I suppose I will learn as I go along.

What puts me off is the thought of it all getting out of control very quickly! Weeds and weeding. However the weeds came out easily today from the flower border, and all in all there weren't that many. I just need to give it a go and see what happens. At least I feel there was some point to my day today.

I am delighted that it has come on to rain, I didn't bother watering in anything I had planted because it looked pretty grey and rainy. I am obviously not the nurturing type! I stick things in the ground thinking 'I wonder if that will grow', and then don't look after them enough to give them a chance. However nature herself has done her stuff and i have lots of new Hollyhock plants springing up. I am delighted.

I have some seed heads I took off of some garlic last year. I wonder if I put them in the ground if they will grow into proper garlic. We use a lot in cooking and the stuff we buy always seems about to sprout a week after we bought it. This is where the seed heads came from as I split up a whole Garlic and planted these green sprouty cloves to see if i would actually get garlic. I guess they just went to seed. I might as well look it up on some gardening forum they are very good at giving tips on just about everything.

Well thats enough wittering on for today, We have got sausages for dinner and i fancy cooking something different with them, not sure what yet

Well apart from the tidying and cleaning jobs round the house. I have read this week, not much and I haven't taken it in. I have watched the news on RT, just to see how the situation in Syria and all the other Arab countries are getting on, or rather not getting on with each other. There seems an overall divide and rule aspect to the whole affair.

With things so destabilised in Syria by evidently outside backed mercenaries who have no desire to allow any kind of peaceful diplomatic resolution to the Syrian constitution, Iran does not have the support that Syria could give it if America decided to get Israel into a war with them. This is all madness. I suppose the Americans think it's so far away from them it isn't important to the rest of the world what happens. All those weapons from Libya and probably some of those mercenaries have probably ended up in Syria.

I understood that Syria was a very tolerant multi faith country. There is a very strong Ancient Orthodox Christian Church and I don't think they have been persecuted.

I suppose most people would say why bother worrying about what happens around the world, but I do care. We all need stability, homes, purpose, and to see our families grow up in peace. To fight a war on any grounds just means there is somewhere in the mix, megalomaniacs who believe it is there divine right to wage war as a means to their end. I am tired of hearing of wars and uprisings. I wonder how this planet could be peaceful, and respectful of every race, and creed.

I am pleased that Russia and China aren't allowing the west to make resolutions about Iran and Syria. How this all works out I haven't a clue, but I pray there are peaceful negotiations, and that rebels and governments give themselves up to a peace process in all these countries. They need to forge new constitutions where everyone is heard, and has the opportunity to come to the table and work out solutions to problems, not fight over them.

Libya looks decimated, and there is no possibility of a democracy that everyone upholds. Their country is split and may end up becoming two countries. Meanwhile the west are carving profits out of them as they offer to rebuild and drill for their oil.

Yesterday was the funeral for My Husband's Aunt. It went very well. The service was a great tribute for Her. She had already chosen the Hymns and readings she wanted a few years ago, and shown my Husband where to find her chosen wishes.

This shows a lot of foresight on the part of Aunty. She had these things stored in Her Memory Drawer. I can't imagine choosing my own Hymns and readings right now, but I think it's a realistic thing to do. Like writing a will, and having paperwork in order at all times. Aunty is still an inspiration.

Somehow I expected to feel more sad and lonely at Her going. I feel warm and comforted when I think of Her, as though her memory is inside me, and right beside me. Perhaps I too believe so strongly that death is not final, and our essence lives on through the generations that follow. Even that we ourselves have no children, no one to tell her story to, Her story is part of our lives.

Aunty is a shining example of quiet Sainthood. Forever giving of herself, never questioning the cost. Never considering Herself and Her own needs first, always wanting to see others happy and loved. I have this shining feeling inside about Her. I know She is shining and bathed in the Glory of the Presence of God in His Eternal Kingdom. I would that her story be always remembered. She was a flower that bloomed in the field, and went on blooming until the end of her earthly days. That fresh pink rose, from blush of childhood to saintly old age.

In stark contrast I watched the news this morning, and see a world torn by self serving, lost morals, and greedy manipulators. The whole middle east is a tinderbox of unrest. With outside influences trying to sway country against country. If this is indeed the herald of the last days the Bible speaks of, I am glad that Aunty has left this mortal coil, and will not have to suffer world tormoil if all these incendiary provocations are ignited.

Perhaps we will not change unless we are hanging over the precipice of destruction? Is it possible that the USA now has so many problems in it's own country that they will have to withdraw their manipulating tentacles abroad? The words of Jesus 'The poor will inherit the Earth' could mean so many things. Perhaps 'The Poor' are those who have become displaced both physically and emotionally, and are deeply in debt. Nations and individuals.

I wonder if we must return to our extended family roots? There was great poverty during the first half of the 20th century, (and every century before that, great poverty has always been with us but we choose not to see it) and the only survival means was the extended family network.

This was what Aunty upheld, and was part of. During the Jersey Occupation years, when food was scarce, and people were starving here, it was only by sharing, and helping one another that the Islanders got through. Everyone was starving, the Occupiers and the Occupied. It was Red Cross shipments that saved both.

I must get myself a copy of The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and read it. It is about our sister island. Kenneth Brannagh is making a film of it later this year in Gurnesy, with Kate Winslet as the lead. These stories and reminders show us what interdependence in society is about.

Perhaps it has just become a western world so saturated with noise, media stations generating a semblance of news that does not tell real stories, a kind of propaganda to perpetuate the telling of 'news'. Simply an industry of the 'right kind of noise' to drown out our own voices and thoughts.
 
We have lost our ability to be 'knowing'. Now we are unknowns, statistics, unheard voices, unfulfilled in work, and destitute without it.

We have become addicted to noise. It fills our time, and makes us impotent to change the reality presented to us. This is why I think we are seeing revolutions all over the world. Perhaps we have begun to find the silence within that enables us to think our own thoughts again? Perhaps we are giving each other time to hear each others thoughts through the internet, and social networking. Perhaps the News media is in some dying death throws, as it continues to ignore the real stories, and present the world as it wishes us to see it, like the magician who works with mirrors. You are only shown enough to make you believe in the trick, or wonder at the speed of it's progression. Powerless in both cases to understand it, and distanced so far from it that you are not party to it's 'mystery'.

Perhaps this century is the one where we blow away the smoke and smash the mirrors of illusion. I am reminded of Exodus where Moses took the bronze mirrors from the women and made the Laver of Copper and the stand of copper from the mirrors of the women who thronged the Tent of Meeting. Somehow the women came and reflected the Glory of God that shone in Moses face back to Him so he could understand it. Moses only needed to see this revelation once to know that these mirrors captured and reflected a reality He had not understood Himself. A Truth had been reflected in them, so he made this special utensil to bear witness to this truth, that must have been unbearable, yet essential to establish Moses own identity.

We have lost our identities in this sea of noise and static broadcast by ourselves, and the media we subscribe to. We need to find ourselves again, and find a way to make ourselves heard back to those whom we have given our power to, in order that they understand what we require of them.

Recognition. We are not statistics.

I actualy 'designed' this. It hasn't worked brilliantly, but I would give it about 60%. I normally work with a bought pattern. It was interesting to try and make the dress from my own ideas, and try to get it to work.

I have got a lot of these types of fabric I collected over twenty years ago, and I just want to be doing something with them.

I have worked the lining and the sheer over fabric together, and pegged the hem, which gives the dress a slight ballooned effect when it is on.

I am just going to wear this around the house and mooch in the garden on hotter days wearing it.

I haven't worn dresses for years, and I like the idea of having some prettier things to wear that chear me up a bit.



Yup this is my new dressmakers dummy, I customised it with some obvious padding. She was a bit flat chested, and didn't have a roll of fat just above her waistline! Once I dressed her in a close fitting top I had, and padded her out in my extra curvy places she will be a great deal easier to work with for anything else I make.

She can also store back in her box if I have visitors and need my spare room tidy.

I just don't feel like doing anything, and I don't even want to find something to do. I thought I might get out into the garden. However although it's a bright sunny day it's freezing, we have ice on our water buts. My hands were painful after hanging some washing out.

I am looking forward to getting things growing again. I just can't stand being that cold. I am snugged up in lots of layers, and live in thick trackie bottoms around the house, so we aren't hammering the heating oil. I did put the heating on by lunchtime yesterday, as I just felt miserable.

I am going to cut my Husbands hair and trim his beard later, so He looks smart for Auntie's funeral on Monday. It has arrived so quickly. My Husband is an excellent organiser for things like this. In some ways it's bad for me, because I have simply got out of the habit of doing organising since giving up work.

I definately do need more to do, I am going to see what the wednesday stint at Ecce Homo involves, another wrapping up well job, sorting donations for aid to Romania. I do admire people that get these initiatives going, and are faithful to see them through. I think if I don't give more meaning to my life by doing things that are helpful, I am just going to die of boredom and lack of effort. They always say if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do it!

I am just not busy any longer. I have started to miss Hairdressing for it's busyness, and it's social aspect. I don't want to do it again, so I guess my feelings are more from a sense of lonliness and usefulness.

I think the medication I am on at the moment is fantastic, I feel the best stability I have felt for a long time. The meds stop me going depressed as well as high, so they are doing their job. I think if I wasn't taking them I would be suffering with depression quite severely, as the winter months are my usual time to kick off. All goes well on that front so that is a great blessing. I suppose it realy extends from the Autumn Equinox to the Spring. Once the days are warmer and I am in the garden, or getting more warmth I feel more enthusiastic about everything and get lots of things done.

I am going to post the photo of the dress I made next/above.

I decided to make some new oven gloves yesterday afternoon, which duly got used during cooking the evening meal. I had an old worn towel, and some sheeting I wouldn't use, so I had a go at copying the ones I had. They were realy old and worn through. They don't look very professional though. Very scruffy for me. Still they do the job. My Husband was realy quite taken with them! He does most of the cooking because he likes to, and he thought it was a nice thing for me to make for him!

Due to the sucess of this trial run, I might make a couple of single mits. I may even bother to make them better, now that I know the snags of getting a rather thick layer through my sewing machine. Simple things to do, please a simple mind like mine.

We are planning the funeral for Aunty with the minister this afternoon. The days seem empty, but pass quickly. There is a kind of limbo between death and burial for the mourners. My Husband wanted to read that thing I linked to about those born before 1940. However every time He speaks about doing it He fills up. I told Him this was not His element of the service to do, Perhaps if He wanted to do the Bible reading He would be able to. A funeral for a close member of family is a place to be a mourner. There is no shame in allowing others to minister to us on this day.

It was difficult choosing clothes for Aunty to be buried in this morning. I think I made a good choice of something she wore a lot. Her funeral is next week.

We packed up the rest of her clothes and took them to a local charity that sends clothes out to Romania called Ecce Homo Trust. At least her clothes may be of use to a tiny old lady in Romania. They were well worn, and I guess would not make the grade for our local charity shops. There is still warmth in a couple of coats, and the rest of her clothes were summery short sleeves which she wore under cardigans.

Talking of cold, I am frozen today. I have layers on, but to no avail. My fingers are freezing! My feet are so cold I can't feel them. I decided to put the heating on. More socks are required I think. I may have to get some fingerless gloves. It is February, and still one of our winter months. It is probably about 3C outside, but once I am cold it is like melting an iceberg to get warm again.

I think I mentioned that Tuppeny Bear and Penny Lion went for an adventure in Romania as well. I am sure a child there will love them as much as I did. I am sad in a way as they did inspire me to write some stories, and I think it would be difficult to write more without some more pictures of them.

I have some sheepskin left from making a gilet out of a slightly motheaten coat I bought at a charity shop. I am going to try lining my actual slippers with it! The feet are stinging they are so cold! Age... it creeps up on us and nips our fingers and toes when we aren't looking!

Still no word from the builder about fitting the vented out extractor to my town flat. No response to my phone calls. I just wanted to get it done, and pay him so we can all go our seperate ways. I just don't understand other people. Certainly ones who say they will do something then don't. It is giving me anxiety symptoms again. Still, I am the one with the money set aside to pay for this job. If he doesn't want to be paid until the job is done, it's up to him.

I may just have to get someone else to do it. With no response over the last three weeks, I can't see him showing up in a few months time either to do any snagging. It would be so much easier if he kept to the agreement he made to get the extractor done in January, and me to pay him over the next few months for the extras I had done. My Husband has said not to part with more money until it's done. In the meantime I am living on a very tight budget, as I want to pay up by May. Madness. I would love to go and do some art classes, go out for coffee, something anyway.

Well a layer of that sheepskin as a sole inside my slippers worked. We have a tiled floor downstairs, which is practical for us. However it was put down about 10 years ago before underfloor heating was coming in. I would really have liked a woodburning stove, but our tiny lounge couldn't take it, and the flue would be a nightmare to site.

I suppose if I didn't like the floor I have got so much I might consider having an underfloor heating system put in, and re-tiled. I am too mean though! I realy like my tiles, and it's only when the weather is like this they are that cold. Perhaps the extra insulation in my slippers will solve the problem. I am tight, I have just learned to be. Not spending money if I can avoid it is recreational I suppose. I did put the heating on at about 1pm though thinking 'blow the expense' at least once we have warmed up a bit I might do something crafty. I may just iron some of my Husband's shirts while I think up something else to do.

I was thinking while packing up Aunties things to go to Ecce Homo, that I would find out if they need more help. I need something to do that helps other people. Their shipment of two Lorries is departing this Saturday. I know the lady who got it going, and she has been running it for some time now.

Today seems a quiet day. No one to talk to. I would have visited Aunty.

The sun is shining and it's cold. I suppose if I put warm gloves on I could go and do some gardening. Get rid of some weeds, turn the ground over a bit.

I want to make some straps for the dress I made. I might post a new picture of it when I have the dressmakers dummy I ordered.

I feel I need a job. Something that makes sense to do. I miss hairdressing for this aspect of life. I have a volonteer job at the art house in St Aubin. It's an infrequent sit in to suppliment the staff and artists. I thought it might get me interested in more art.

The dressmakers dummy arrived a day early. I have spent an hour customising it, and its going to be great for what I need. It's difficult to get something to fit on yourself. Lots of fabrics to make up, and old patterns to customise a bit now.