trimmingthesails

Hello to November ...

Hello to a Downton Abbey-less future as the final episode of this series has come and gone - roll on the Christmas special. (And my money's on an announcemenmt about a baby). Now what am I going to do on a Sunday night? It may need to include the words 'house' and 'work'. I fear I am turning into a sloth.

Hello to looking out some winter clothing to accompany these first frosts. Probably time I started wearing socks again. I am rapidly becoming a blue-toed sloth ...

Hello to 'putting the garden t'bed for the winter', as our lovely former neighbour used to call it. A.k.a. in my case a quick sweeping of the final leaves, and a decision not to bother doing anything else now till Spring. I will regret it, I know, but somehow that's not motivating me. So that's a blue-toed sloth with attitude, then.

Hello to a coming weekend with my dearest daughter: I'm anticipating tea- and book-shops, and catching-up time curled up on a capacious sofa. If she can accommodate a blue-toed sloth with attitude and a huge cup of Earl Grey, that is ...

Hello to Week 3 of Junelle's Art of Wild Abandonment 2 (comfortingly subtitled Bless This Mess). Exploring my Creative Mind got me to here ...

And that's it for today, from this blue-toed sloth with attitude, a tea-habit, and vaguely artistic pretensions. Now if I could just locate my copy of Carla Sonheim's Imaginary Animals and find a pencil, I might be on to a winner ...

Happy Creating this week, wherever you are! :).

Just another ...

onday morning - hello!  This week, according to my diary, will be bringing its fair share of things beginning with M: meetings (the service I work in is being disbanded in March and we are facing unemployment) with concomitant misery for me and my (not so) merry band of comrades ...

h my goodness, I'd completely forgotton that I'd signed up for Shimelle's Scrapbook Remix and it starts today; if I haven't made any inroads into my eight boxes of patterned paper by the time class is over, I'll be offering the lot to the first of you who wants it. (Until you discover how old most of it is).

ot a happy pumpkin painter. Acrylics went on like a dream. Then I thought I'd scratch through for a distressed look. Wow, it wasn't orange underneath - it was black! Was this some new chemical reaction? Peeled off most of the paint excitedly before remembering this one was originally a dark green squash.

owton Abbey: how on earth did I miss the first series? I am not often hooked by television, but this has me gripped. if you are still waiting for it (I used to feel the same about the new series of Friends!), get out your shoes with a bow, silk sash for your hips and a fetching cloche. Oh, and a hanky. (Lace, naturally).

pologies for not yet having the Linky for Simply A Moment: it needs Paypal which requires a verification process which demands a bank manoeuvre which involves a three-day wait - you get the picture. This should be under M for Moan. (Or C for Cranky - see below). Wonderful to read so many Moments :).

oga, Pilates, Yogalates (no, I didn't make that up), Tone Yourself, The Exercise Book for Scrapbookers: I've got 'em all. Isn't it funny how just reading about exercise makes you feel fitter? Any day now, my toe is going to reconnect with my nose. Virtually speaking. (Sorry, I lied about the Exercise for Scrapbookers.)

My hitherto unsuspected Inner Crank has been romping round my psyche and (oh dear) cranking out birds. Himself has a message he wants me to pass on to you: Aimiable and amenable Alexa appears to have gone AWOL. If you see her out there somewhere, please send her home ASAP ...

What makes a good page ...

"Are they all from the garden?" Himself asked, surprised, as I set the basket down on the kitchen table.
"I didn't realise there were as many as this left, either", I replied, scooping up the bits of raffia hoarded from a former bouquet and laying them on top. "It hasn't been that great a year for flowers".
"Oh, and you've put in some rosemary!" he exclaimed, rubbing it between his fingers.
"For remembrance". We both said it at the same time and smiled.
"And look, there was an Albertine rose." I lifted the opening bud, still moist from the early morning mist. "Last one of summer ..." We smiled at each other again.
"It will make a lovely posy", said Himself. "Natural and simple. Just what she liked best."
And it did ...

Later, when I had time to think again about Sian's thoughtful post over at From High In The Sky on what makes a good scrapbook page, I remembered the sun beginning to shimmer through the mist, the quiet headstones, the birdsong, and the posy. I thought of a few insignificant blooms, scattered across a garden. How, gently placed next to each other, each seemed to glow more brightly. How, tied together in a simple arrangement, they had come together to create something more lovely than each on its own. And how they expressed something which travelled beyond words. I think I found my answer ...

There are two 'e's in leaves ...

I thought they might not be, this year. Just not exist. That after the gloom of cool summer skies heavy with rain, the leaves might simply drift from green to sodden brown. But finally, the soft russets of autumn are beginning to shade across the garden. Every morning I am reminded as I perch on the stone step, wisps of steam from my tea curling into the moist air, how like, and unlike, them I am. They have no idea of how or what they will become: it belongs to us, the ability to envisage what might be, and it brings joy and sadness. But we share with them the ability to endure, to go on; and - who knows - we might even glow with the markings and tatters of age ... Today, I am inspired by these:

envisage: to conceive of possibility in the future.   If you have a few moments, this  xylophone in a forest is a witness to its power.

endure: to make hardy, to bear with patience, to withstand adversity without sinking. If you love colour and stitch, honoré's beautiful quilt, fashioned in the intense heat of the Washinton summer this year, is surely a testament.

Envisaging and enduring: I need to draw on these, this time, this year. And I'm wondering: is there is something in the season where you live which speaks to you too ...?

And there is wonderful gathering of simple moments in September over here: scrolling down to the linky at the foot of the post, you'll fnd Linda, Irene, Amy, Miriam, Cheri and Rinda. :)

Midweek mulling over ...

Hello there! You find me, midweek, in a bit of a tangle over white space. On the one hand, as a clean and simple scrapbooker, I love it. It makes my heart sing. I am delving happily into the new book on my desk "White Space is Not Your Enemy" with gay abandon - though this sentence, italicised at regular intervals, is beginning to grate just a smidgen. Wouldn't "White Space is Your Best Friend" be a more soothing and, well, amicable mantra?

On the other hand, in Alisa's Ode to Nature class, the activity this week is to fill a whole page in colour. All of it. Every last bit. And I am in a blue white funk. Which colours? You mean, the entire background as well? Supposing I'm halfway through and don't like it? Covering the watercolour paper with my doodley honeysuckle was fun, but I confess to quite liking monchrome...

Hopefully by Friday, I'll have worked something out - probably by trial and with plenty of errors. Mind you, I've spotted one or two of the latter in the aforementioned book. (Have editors gone out of fashion?) Somebody please tell me I'm not alone in thinking that the placeholder text Lorem Ipsum is Latin and not, as the authors claim, Greek.

But I procrastinate. Time to take a deep breath and load a brush with pink. Wish me luck, everyone!

Ode to Ode to Nature ...

 If you've ever thought "I need a change,
a challenge - hey, that class looks fun!"
Then listen up, my blogging friends,
And I'll show you how it's really done.

First of all, you mustn't check
Your diary or consider how
You'll fit it into your busy life.
Just take a breath, and hit "Pay Now".

Then, next, forget you've ever signed up.
That way it comes as a big surprise
When the 'Welcome' mail lands in your box
And you've done bu_ _ er all about getting supplies.

Never mind, whizz over to the online group,
Sign in, say hi, bookmark and chat,
Learn names, visit blogs, and bit by bit
It dawns on you, to your chagrin, that ...

These lovely people aren't beginners like you,
They've loads of skills, they're really clever,
They can stitch, paint, design, draw, sketch and knit
And unlike you, they've been doing it for ever.

But don't despair, you have got a choice:
You can manfully join in, and simply not care
That anything you make looks like the cat brought it in,
"It's a learning curve, peeps, I'm doing it for a dare,

I'm only here to make you all look good."
Or you might think "Nah, it's too big a risk,
I'll do a Br'er Fox, lie low, say nuffin,
And file it all away on that nearly-full disk ...

... with all the other classes I've not quite done!
(Let's face it, there's probably quite a range).
And then one day you'll hear yourself say:
"You know, I think I need a change ..."

I've got as far as the title page,
With a bit of doodling, and some painty fun,
Still, plenty of time yet to welch out of this class,
We've only got to the end of Week One!

Stepping out ...

I would like to say "Stepping out in style", but our back views belie any semblance of elegance. Mind you, our concentration was focused on just staying upright. In the many years since we'd last visited the gardens, we'd all forgotton just how tunnelled, stepped and generally tricky the meandering paths were, especially for those approaching four score years and ten ...

Immediately afterwards, we delicately negotiated a dark and winding uphill tunnel to emerge, blinking, onto the bright veranda of the pagoda; and Himself snapped us as we crossed the bridge, quietly triumphant ...

That's just how life is right now: difficult terrain, small victories, with occasional dollops of borrowed Olympian strength - and a good memory with which to greet another Monday! And, I'm wondering, what's helping you as you begin this week? Wishing you well ...

Adventuring ...

Remember the series of adventure stories by Enid Blyton? The Island of Adventure, the Sea of Adventure, the Castle of Adventure ... How, when the children got measles or 'flu, they'd all be packed off to some distant relative at the seaside to recuperate? And inevitably, it would be full of danger, with nary an adult in sight. Ah, those were the days!

Sometimes, only the sea will do. And so we went west, all of us, for a weekend. We stayed in a prettily coloured house looking out onto the strand ...


Round by the harbour, we trod the boards of the weathered pier stretching out into the estuary ...

Underneath it hung a bell, cleverly positioned, whose metal tongue clappered in warning across the bay, as the water rose and the tide came in ...


The canoes, later in the day, provided much entertainment as the youngsters practised flipping under the water and righting themselves ...

I couldn't resist hunkering down to look at the textures up close ...


Himself let me snap him after a long clifftop climb ...

And I returned the favour at the start of an inland wooded trek ...


And, of course, there were reflective walks along the wet sands as dusk settled across the shore ...


It was our own kind of adventure; we have recuperated a little, laughed a little, and had a chance to knit ourselves back together a little. Next adventure? Choosing a design for the scrapbook pages. You can see we live really dangerously up here!

Pebbles and sticks of memory ...

It has certainly been a most memorable Christmas present to Himself and me from our lovely son, and we're only a third of the way through it - fifty-two "thank-you"s, pebbles of memory from his childhood and teenage years plopping gently and happily into our inboxes once a week. Each makes ripples of recollections in my mind too: things we'd forgotton, things we remember in turn which he may have forgotton ...

One of the biggest surprises, is how important some things were for him - and how little I knew it at the time. And how significant they are for me too, though I did not realise it till he brought them to my attention. I'm still absorbing them, letting them find their place, touched by hindsight. Perhaps that is one of lovely things about a memory shared: it can bring a gift to the listener too. Perhaps when we scrapbook, our pages hold a memory, an event, an intuition, a moment, until it can plop into the life of a reader years down the line, creating ripples of meaning for them ...

All this was hovering at the back of my mind on a walk with one of my favourite people, when I saw her hesitate by the path, look down, take a few steps, then go back and pick something up. Nothing special: just a stick. Some lovely things from a pack of Julie's Plundered Pages helped me record it:

It might be just a stick. Or perhaps it is something more. Perhaps she'll tell me, years down the line, when she reads the page ...

Pond-liner and Acronyms ...

"The thing I'm wondering is", Himself said carefully, "where does it all end?" He peered into the teapot and gave it a stir with the spoon.
"Meaning ...?" Brevity was the order of my day. I held out my cup.
"Well, to  be honest, it was the mention of the pond-liner that did it". He poured.
I studied the tide of tea rising inside the white china. "Uh-huh?" I replied. I wasn't quite clear where this was heading, but it didn't feel like anywhere I wanted to go.
"It seemed a trifle ... over the top." He picked his way carefully through the potential verbal minefield as he chose a ginger snap.
"It was recommended as a surface for printing on. You know, for that screen-printing class I told you about."
The reply was a trifle biscuity. "Is that the same one as the painting class? Or is it the wild art-journalling class?"
"No, it's neither of those, it's coming up later. April. No, May, I think." I was warming to what felt like his interest.
"Right", he said. Though it clearly wasn't. There was a slight pause. "It's just that there seem to be a lot of different things lying around. Especially of a Not Quite Finished nature."
"In process", I explained. 'My Bloom True canvases have got to the Bolshy Teenager stage and I'm waiting for them to grow out of it, and the bits of patterned paper are Going To Be Something in my journal ...

Himself coughed slightly. "You see", he said, "I'm thinking of starting a blog myself."
Hot tea coming down the nose is even hotter than when it goes down the throat. He fished in a pocket and passed me a hanky. "For the friends and spouses of CAPs."
"CAPs?" My vocal chords were still wobbly.
"Creatively-Affected Partners," he said. "Though I'm thinking that A could also be Addicted". He brushed a few crumbs off the table into the palm of his hand. "Do you think you could ask your creative friends if this is what happens?"
"I'm sorry?" I hoped my voice didn't sound as quavery as it did inside my head. "You've lost me." He hadn't quite, but I wanted it spelling out.
"You know the kind of thing", he elaborated. "It starts innocently enough with just one craft, then there's another, and before you know it there's a whole load of stuff sitting on the AmPal bill ..." (Code in our house for Amazon and PayPal.) It'd be useful information for my FAQ page."
"Right", I said. There was another slight pause. "I could also ask them how their friends and spouses and partners cope", I added. "What they say. If indeed it is a problem for other people. No point in a blog there'd be no interest in."
The sarcasm whizzed right past him. "Brilliant!" he said, rising from the table. "Let me know how it goes, then." And he went.

Any CAPs reading? Or d'you know one? Please help me out - all comments and experience welcome! :)