frayed at the edge

Two very different days

 Before I tell you about the weekend, I thought I would share this piece of absurdity with you.  This enormous plastic envelope arrived for Malcolm on Thursday - it is actually folded in half.  That's a mini bag of M&Ms (I just used it to hide the address) - the pencil gives you the scale

 

in the envelope was a folded piece of A4 paper, and a little plastic bag containing a tiny brass nozzle.  I don't know why it couldn't have been put in a normal sized envelope - so much for cutting down on plastic waste

 

so, on to the weekend.  It rained all day on Saturday in Berwick - not showers, just constant rain.  However, you don't have to go out to take photos - I took these through the window!  Out on the river beyond the dock, dozens of seagulls were diving into the water

 

they flew round and round for quite some time - then simply flew off!

 

this little fishing boat sailed out of the dock, trailing a cloud of smoke behind it.  I think they are needing to do some serious work on the engines!

 

this swan was having a good peck at its feathers

 

stretching its neck over its back to sort them out

 

finally it straightened up, every feather back in place

 

as we weren't able to get out for a walk on Saturday, we had a detour on our way home yesterday, as it was a bright sunny morning.  We decided to go to Bamburgh, as we prefer to go there in the winter, when it isn't crowded with tourists!

 

there were lots of daffodils .......

 

...... and snowdrops growing under the trees

 

I shall have to remember to plant daffodils round our trees in the autumn

 

this camellia was smothered in buds

 

unfortunately this shop was shut, so we couldn't sample their wares

 

this is the local cricket ground 

 

I wonder if it is the only one in the country situated in front of a castle?

 

the tennis court is being refurbished - Malcolm wouldn't let me play with the machines!

 

guess which way the wind mostly blows!

 

I wonder if the cricket club would let me borrow their heavy roller, as some of our grass is a bit lumpy and bumpy, and would benefit from being rolled

 

another view of the castle

 

it was a day for looking up at chimneys ........

 

..... set against the blue sky

 

the birds looked as if they were deep in conversation

 

as we walked round the cricket ground ......

 

this little robin followed us

 

sitting prettily for his close-up

 

we popped in here for a cuppa

 

but we didn't have chops and ale

 

instead we shared a delicious piece of carrot cake

 

I have now remembered to take a photo of my Charming Bag - I'll share it with you on Wednesday!

 

A Charming Bag!

First, thank you to those of you who let me know about the comment page in the new design being dark grey, making the comments hard to read. I get your comments in emails from Typepad, so I don't look at the comment page, and I wasn't aware of that, so I have changed the design again!

 

Now, on to the Charming Bag.  On Tuesday, I was teaching a class at The Quilt Shop, showing the ladies how to make the bag ....... and here we have a big oops - I forgot to take a photo of my bag!!  You can just see a little bit of it in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo!  I called it the Charming Bag as it is made with a charm pack, which contains 40x5" squares cut from one range of fabric

 

the ladies were soon hard at work, piecing the front and back of their bags

 

to make sure I got the right name to go with each bag, I took a note of the order I took the photos in!

 

 

Moira's Japanese themed version

 

Sonia chose William Morris

 

Hollie arranged her fabrics to go from light to dark

 

Christine chose bright fabrics

 

Karen used the same fabrics as Sonia

 

Pat chose pretty fabrics

 

Jo too chose William Morris

 

while Gillian chose soft fabrics

 

Karen was the first to have her zip stitched in place

 

after that it got very busy as the ladies sewed at a great rate to get as much finished as possible before the end of the day, and I didn't take any more photos.  But on Wednesday, at our usual sewing day, Hollie had almost finished her bag

 

and Sonia had finished hers!

 

while I was busy teaching, Malcolm was busy in the kitchen, and when I got home I was greeted with the delicious aromas of a chicken and ham pie!

 

when we were out and about yesterday morning, of course we went for a cuppa.  You know that we usually share a scone, but there was a "morning special" when a cuppa and a scone wasn't much dearer than just a cuppa, so of course we had to have a scone each (and as usual we traded half).  This was an excellent fruit scone, with homemade raspberry jam

 

and this a very tasty cheese scone

 

I hoped recently that spring is nearly here - and these snowdrops show that it just might be!

 

we are in Berwick, and as always hope that we will get out for a walk.  I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne