By Stephie, on Monday 29th March, 2010 at 13:31 pm
I think I may have sorted out the upside down picture problem for the time being. Well, I say that. I think iPhoto is the problem, it’s only allowing me to upload the original photo and not the ‘corrected’ versions (ie the ones where I’ve turned the pictures up the right way). That’s what I think. At the moment. The other irritating thing is that I can’t find a way of viewing the actual images, rather than just a list with the names. So annoying because all the files are numerical rather than descriptive and therefore it takes an inordinate amount of time to find the right one. Well, I’m sure you don’t want to hear me waffling on about software do you? I know I would have found something else to read by now!
Let’s have a look at some pretty pictures instead shall we?! It was Mother’s Day recently, a couple of weeks ago now wasn’t it? Well, I made this, not for me, but for my mum. She knits a fair amount and I thought a big bright bag to keep her projects in would be fun. I made up the design myself. Actually I just made it up as I went along, didn’t make a pattern first or anything. Didn’t even use a tape measure! I used 2 coordinating fabrics from Amy Butler’s new Love range and added a large pattern and needle pocket inside and a smaller pocket on the outside for bits and pieces like pencils.
Mother's day present for my mum!
Rowan in the bag, of course!
Yep, I went a bit dotty with the polka dot theme!
My mum seemed to like it. She said I was very clever, which made me smile like the cheshire cat (age 10). I don’t think she’s ever called me that before. Usually the complete opposite. So, things are looking up!!!
What did you do for Mother’s Day, anything nice? I hope all you mummies received something lovely, or put your feet up and were waited on for the day Well, we can live in hope! I was taken for a picnic on the cliffs at Chapel Porth, make hay whilst the sun shines as they say! It was such a beautiful day.
Mother's Day picnic spot
I was also very fortunate to receive a lovely book along with a box of Thornton’s Turkish Delight – which Kim said he’d been waiting all week for me to open, ha, ha!!!!! But I am a good mummy and I did share them! Here’s the book I was given: (click on the image to take you to the Amazon page).
It’s very good, even though I don’t have an allotment! I’ve been thinking about applying for one for ages – the trouble is they’re all at least a couple of miles away and I’m told that the further away they are the less likely you are to use them… Still, I’ve already got lots of tips from the book for my little salad/veg patch in the garden. I’ve been digging out there, when the weather’s been ok, and I have to say I feel that spring is definitely in the air! Well I did until I went out this morning and was almost blown over by a freezing cold wind and soaked through by pelting rain.
On that cheery note, I’m off to raid the cupboard or the fridge, or both. It’s lunchtime and I’m soooo hungry!
Not me obviously, if only I was 12 again. Well, no actually forget that and switch the 1 and the 2 around – that’d be okay (well, erm, probably!). It was 12 years ago today that I had a caesarean section and my one and only child came rudely into this world. This time every year I have a little ritual that I go through: I take out an album filled with ephemera from the time of his birth and remind myself of the agony and the ecstasy!
Kim's first ever wash - he hasn't had too many since! He was 8 pounds 4 and 1/4 ounces
I've kept scan images from 12 weeks gestation;
records of my pregnancy made by my midwife Tina,
even details of what I had to eat during my stay in hospital!
Which brings me neatly on to what we'll be eating later today! Mmmmm. want some?!
Happy birthday Kim, my beautiful boy, I love you! xxxx
By Stephie, on Wednesday 24th February, 2010 at 02:23 am
Yep, here we are again. I lovethis place. And you can probably tell! Despite the wet weather and the Shaun the Sheep exhibition, Kim was keen to spend quite a bit of time running around the gardens outside of the Biomes, and I was glad to get to see some of the plants. I paid even more attention than usual – checking out the Latin names before my RHS horticultural exam a couple of days later. I’m often ok on genera, but have never really bothered with species or cultivars/varieties in the past. And knowing a few Latin tree names would definitely have been handy. Naughty? Nah, probably just lazy! I mean, they’re often long unpronounceable words; who can remember them! Er, quite a few of my fellow students, as it turns out. Bum. How did I do in the exam? Well, I’m not that confident I did very well at all, but I hope I did enough to scrape a pass…we shall see sometime in early May I think. In the mean time, I’m going to forget about that and remember the wonderful afternoon we had mooching about the gardens of Eden.
Kim clambered on a great big tree stump, as you do. (When you're 11!)
It had the most beautiful whorls, like a finger print
and spikey bits, like a miniature alien landscape.
We stumbled on this lovely lady, relaxing in the trees
looking so serene in her contemplation.
But, it was the simple seed heads against the grey sky that truly captured my heart.
I think that’s all the ‘getting back on track’ I have time for this evening (actually it’s the wee small hours, as usual), but call back later and I’ll have one or two more for you, I promise. I’ve even got some more drawings to show you. Put the kettle on and I’ll see you then!
By Stephie, on Wednesday 24th February, 2010 at 01:42 am
In my last post I said I’d show you some of the positive things I got up to during half-term week last week. I’m trying to get back on track with the blogging (I’m behind on everything at the moment), but I decided it would be better, and make more sense, to break them down in to several posts. So, here’s the first!
No half-term break would be complete without a trip to the Eden Project in Bodelva; there are always so many activities for children to do that they couldn’t get bored even if it was pouring down with rain! This year’s Shaun the Sheep exhibition was much anticipated by Kim for weeks. By no means as comprehensive as another Aardman exhibition we saw in Bristol a few years ago, it was still totally amazing. If Kim can’t be a Lego designer when he grows up, I think working on sets like this will be his next best dream job!
It's Timmy! Can you spot him? You might need to click to enlarge the image.
It's Shaun the Sheep! He even mucks around with those that cannot bleat...
Baa, there's a sheep in The Farmer's garden!
Father and son posing in front of the set - just to give you an idea of scale!
Concentrating hard (?!) on warming up the plasticine...
to make his very own Shaun the Sheep - with one leg left to go!
By Stephie, on Wednesday 10th February, 2010 at 17:46 pm
Just in case you’re getting a bit fed up with my self-portraits, I thought you might like to see some of Kim’s recent projects – he’s made both these in the last week!
The front
The back
This is a castle he made for a school project. He modeled it in clay and then painted it with acrylics. Sorry the photos are so poor – there were really low light levels at 7.30 in the morning when I was trying to rush him out of the door with it to the school bus! (Other photos of other aspects were even worse than these.)
And, finally, and probably his favourite, another movie he made after school last night! Not bad for an 11 year old
By Stephie, on Thursday 28th January, 2010 at 00:42 am
Today I cheated. I did something I wouldn’t normally do. It was selfish. My son has a heavy cold and he was complaining that he didn’t want to go to school this morning. I let him stay home. Obviously the few hours extra sleep that he got benefitted him, but he has no idea how much his being with me has benefitted me today. I’ve been functioning on autopilot, but I’ve managed to stop myself cutting off completely because I’ve been trying to appear like a mother that’s just a bit under the weather. I’ve been slow. I’ve been drawing, sat on the kitchen floor. He’s been running around with a light saber, making his first youtube movie, snuffling a lot, vegging… I slept. I ate very little, but I did manage to feed him, even if it was haphazard and off the cuff, even if it was just beans on toast. Guilt was washing over me most of the day: he should have been at school, but instead I was ‘using’ him to maintain my sanity, to keep me in the here and now, the present. He’s in bed now, fast asleep. He looks so beautiful, his skin is amazingly clear and soft. I hope he’ll never be troubled.
I can feel that I’m allowing myself to shut down now, to withdraw inside completely. My eyes are fixing, staring blankly at this bright screen. I see shapes, pale blues and the paragraphs moving, growing, but I see no detail. I touch type, so I don’t have to concentrate on finding keys; my eyelids close like they’re in slow motion. I have no control over this. My mouth is dropping, I can feel it giving in to gravity. There’s a throbbing on the top of my head. Words from songs float round what feels like a large empty space . The words are incoherent. They’re snatches of songs that have been playing incessantly today. The same songs over and over. Repetition, familiarity, soothing rhythms. Words with emotion. It’s all empty now, meaningless. I’m having to read every few words I write again and again. I don’t know if they make sense, I can’t tell any more. I don’t care.
I can see my arm, scarred from yesterday and the day before. I run my hand over the sore welts, feeling the rough surface where the skin is broken. I’m looking at the red lines in an abstract way, like cross hatching on a drawing. Disconnected. They’re curious marks. They’re my breathing holes.
My chest is tightening, feels like my heart’s being wrung out again. Don’t ask me to speak, please. I can’t.
Well, we can live in hope! I was taken for a picnic on the cliffs at Chapel Porth, make hay whilst the sun shines as they say! It was such a beautiful day.
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