Updates..... and a bit of crafting =) and trying to draw Miss Peach!

The beautiful leaf colours around tell me that autumn has finally arrived here, yet today was like a spring day. Luvbug and I went off for a bike ride in just jeans, T-shirts and jumpers. -Still no need for coats for jackets.

This time of year has a strange light in the afternoon. It makes the late flowers glow, especially the red hot pokers, which seem to fluoresce.

It was nice to cycle past fields being ploughed- with flocks of gulls following the tractor along. And passing under trees as leaves are shedding and fluttering down.... it was all very Enid Blyton! When we got back, we worked out from the map that we'd done about 8 1/2 miles. That meant huge mugs of tea =)

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Thanks for all the messages! The cold or flu, whatever it was, is out of my system now, I think.

I saw the doc aweek ago to get my test results, which were negative for everything. So no diabetes or any further thyroid problems. Hmmm. No clearer, then, as to weight gain and strange goings on in the running-to-the-loo department. As I had already noticed that wheat and sugar seem to make things worse, Doc advised I try strictly cutting these out.

So this is what I've been doing. I did it successfully for 8 days. I did fell less gurgly, less bloated, and the route to the loo was definitely less trod.

THEN! Oh dear. The "certain-time-of-the-month" demon crept up, whispering into my ear "SHOOOOOOOOOOGAR......SHOOOOOOGAR..... you MUST HAVE IT! YOU MUST!" and so on and so on till I gave in, some time in the middle of Friday night. (Sigh). I made toast- with non wheat bread- but slavered it all over in ginger jam. MmmMMmMMmmMMmm scrummy. Then, after about 15 minutes, it was HEY PRESTO! Gurgle gurgle, then orange poo. WHAT the????? I had to retreat to bed in a jumper and with a hot water bottle, as I was so cold and shivery, too.

Hmmm. A bit of a mystery, yes?

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Here are a couple of Christmas cards I made this week. The poinsettia is an outline sticker, stuck onto coloured paper, then cut out and layered up with silicone glue.
The bear stamp was free with a magazine. Isn't it cute? I coloured it with water-colour pencil, but left a lot of it as pencil rather than wetting it. I love the way the cat is clearly happy, but the bear looks a tad annoyed with having to pull the sledge!
Here are two dragons, stamped and coloured with Promarkers. The larger dragon is a Whiff Of Joy stamp. Not sure about the other, as I bought it used, on Ebay last year. Does anyone know of a "how to" video on Promarkers? I'm sure I could get more out of them than I do, I'm not too good at shading and highlighting at the mo.

Lastly, I'm trying to draw Miss Peach:I'm not completely pleased with it yet, so I'll have another go. But as the first cat portrait I've done in a while, I think it's quite nice =)
I've also been working on tag books and I'm going to do a how-to post on them soon, but I want to send off the one I made for a present first =)

I am definitely in an 'up' in the zig zag at the moment. I am doing so many things all at once!!!

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Hope you're all keeping warm and busy!
We are finally getting our central heating fixed- yippee! They start on 2nd November. This means it will be in by my birthday, the 8th. Luvbug even suggested it could be my birthday present. HAH! Nice try, buster!!!!

Packing away old stuff

The sun setting today, at 4pm. This is progress! It was getting dark at 3.30 when we went away!
It doesn't really show here but the sun was huge and so red, it made me think of a big, juicy, blood-orange.

Well, I took down our three Christmas decorations today. Big job, but someone had to do it :)

And all our cards, too. I never put cards away immediately; I sit them in a box for a few days, so that we can browse through them and rediscover who they're all from and enjoy them again. This is also where I pick up on the "please write" and "would love to hear from you" pleas. Oops. Sudden guilt. I resolve to answer them this year. They usually get put to the back of things because I have so many birthdays to remember in January (6 at last count). (Oops no -7 - just remembered someone else.)

There is a big push in the English media to recycle all our used Christmas Cards. A charity called The Woodland Trust -of which I'm a member so I should pay attention- is putting collection boxes into shops for this purpose. They promise to plant new trees if we do this. I forget how many trees for how many cards. I'm a useless ambassador, aren't I?

Even more so because most of my cards end up sealed in large manilla envelopes (I'm not even sure if they're recycled manilla envelopes), marked with the year in big black marker pen and stored in a box. I've kept the cards and Advent calenders from each Christmas K and I have been together. So far then, I have 6 manilla envelopes.

I do part with the ones we get from businesses. And most of the ones from the kids at the schools where K teaches. But the rest, I just can't part with them.

Maybe when I turn 70 (touch wood- quick!) I'll gather up our 35 manilla envelopes and drive them in a truck to the Woodland Trust's head office and ask for a forest.

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My cold bug is progressing nicely.
I am in the running-to-the-toilet-for-the-sake-of-both-ends stage.
Sorry about that.

I've uploaded our photo's from Ireland, so that is some progress! Hope I can blog some this week.