Since then.....

We took our honeymoon in Jersey. For non-UK-ers, I mean one of The Channel Islands, between here and France, not the New Jersey that gets slagged off on US crime dramas :)

We stayed at a hotel called Longville Manor. Click the link and have a peek! It was glorious.

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I don't have any photo's of the honeymoon to share, as we were burgled a month after we returned home. We lost everything of value, whether monetary or sentimental. All my jewellery was taken. None of it was costly, but to me, every piece told a story. 

Our camera and laptops were taken, and these had our honeymoon photo's on. It also means, of course, that I lost about 4 years of other photo's. It all only hit me when I realised that I had lost all those pictures of Scooter, and the last video I took of him- just a week before he passed over. In that video he was belly up on cushions on his bench, sunbathing. He was purring as I rubbed his tummy. You would never have believed he be gone a week later- he only started to go down hill 2 days later... I had never published the video anywhere like here, or YouTube, as I had always been too upset to process it on my computer. I had only just thought about it, and thought yes, I'll do that, I can handle that now.

I had saved everything to Amazon Cloud- but when I next got online, I discovered that my files there had disappeared. If you save things to a cloud, please remember to check it regularly!!

***

A few more pic's to cheer us up :)

I forgot to show this picture of our Ring Bearers, as carried up the aisle by Hazel, our Ring Bearers' Bearer. Bob has my ring on his arm, and Dilly has Kevin's on her snout.

 

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  Doesn't she look every bit the princess! She said it was HER day, of course, and particularly enjoyed having a bigger tiara than me or Hazel.

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 Here's Hazel, the Ring Bearers' Bearer. Hazel is my God-daughter.

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 This is Jo, Hazel's mum. Jo and I have known each other since we were 8 :)

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This book was one of our readings. 
I can't imagine who influenced us in this choice ;)

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The children in Kevin's class drew pictures for us to display:

 Lots of people took a photo of this particular work of art. Maybe it's because Kevin bears a remarkable resemblance to Bradley Wiggins...

 Hope it all makes you smile :)

 **** *** **** *** **** ***

 Love, tea & cake,  
 Helena

What a lovely surprise!

I feel terribly guilty- I should have thanked Di of Pixie's Crafty Workshop much sooner than this!!! My only excuse is computer problems-

Have you ever had this? I helped Dilly update her blog on Monday (had to- it was her birthday) but then when I came to this page my anti-virus/anti-malware/firewall popped up and told me that this was a dodgy website and that part of its contents were being blocked -???? I tried other blogger sites and it popped up on all of them. OK..... so I went to my Hotmail account; same thing happened. Weird!


I ran a scan and it said it found 21 infected files. WHAT???? So I then I did a reboot scan too, and it took hours. I left it to run overnight and then did some Windows updates. Seems all OK now. But I still don't know what all that was about.

ANYWAY!.....................

The other week, Bob T Bear (esq) spotted that Di was offering this hoard of blog candy!

He added his name to the hat and GOOD LORD! HE WON!!!! And when the box arrived, a few days ago, he gave it all to me, saying that he hoped it would get me crafting again. Awww what a great Bear! And what generous blog candy! THANK YOU, DI!!!!!!!

 The box arrived Monday morning and Bob waited with it to show me:

 He was delighted to see a card inside, addressed to him:

 

What a gorgeous card! Bob loved that there was a Bear on it!

Di sent lots of stamps:

she even sent off for another stamp, just for Dilly!-

Dilly slowed down the unwrapping a wee bit as she wanted to enjoy the pink tissue. She's mad on pink.

 And then- ribbons!!

And flowers!

Bob wondered if the glue would make a good toy:

He liked the charms, especially the Bear one:

They chose their favourite paper stacks:

Then Dilly settled down for a doze in the ribbons and tissue....

What a wonderful surprise! It really gave me a lift! I haven't put any of it away. I like opening it up and looking at it all. I hope it leads to my creative muses getting a kick up the pants. I haven't drawn or made anything in a long time!

THANKS, DI!!!! (And thank you, Bob, too!)

It's the little things....& little critters :)

It was Mother's Day here in the UK on Sunday. Or "Mothering Sunday", as I'm told it should be called. -My friend Jo's mother insists on this name, so poor Jo has to search out a card with this exact wording on it, and they are becoming rarer each year! I told her she'll soon have to start making them ;)

Ah well. You shouldn't think I missed out, just cos I don't have kiddywinks. No, no. Luvbug came to stay for the weekend here at mum's. Here's what greeted me when I got up on Sunday:
These wee critters, for those of you who've yet to come across them in Blogland (don't blame you, you're probably far too sane) are Bob T Bear (esq) and Dilly St George, the Croco-dragon from London Zoo. How they became our "offspring" is a long story. And not one that Bob T Bear (esq) particularly enjoys, in Dilly's case. He still says he wanted a scarf, not a sister.

The back of Dilly's envelope carried a strict instruction/warning:"If not be Dilly Mummy, leev lone!"

It had a beautiful elephant, made from a leaf, on the front:

Inside was a long message. Every "i" was dotted with a heart or a flower. Aww Dilly is such a girly-girl....

Here's Bob's:Bob wrote me a poem.
Er, or "pom":

Translation:

My Mummy
is a luvly
Mummy an an
an I fink
she mite be der
bestist Mummy in
der weruld but I
havant bin abol to
chek wiv ol der uver
bears yet.

(Bob would like to point out that "poems don't have to rhyme, you know".)

Awwww :^)
Luvbug spent a long, long time "helping" them with this.

The cards are beautiful, from a church Traidcraft Sale we'd visited the day before. We had driven mum up to Colchester to refresh her memory of the bungalow again. (As soon as she was there she was OK.) Then we drove into Dedham, a lovely wee village in Suffolk. It has an enormous church, so we went in for a wander. We found the traidcraft sale inside, and also a great exhibition of quilting and embroidered art. Alas, no camera!!

Anyway, on Sunday, I had already given mum her card and presents. When I showed her that Look! I got something on Mother's Day, too! she laughed and laughed.....

THANKS, LUVBUG!!!! -You always know how to make a difference, and always just at the right time!

My cards have gone AWOL - again!!!!! :(

Kirsty Wiseman has been collecting handmade cards for some time now, to be sent over to our soldiers in Afghanistan, so that they have access to something nice to send home.

My brother was in the first Gulf War with the RAF and, although he wrote to me lots, he said he didn't send many letters home to mum because there wasn't much to say that wouldn't just cause worry. And there is a limit to how often you can just fill a page with small talk. So I can understand that having access to some blank cards would help them keep in touch, let alone sending something nice home for birthdays.

So! At the beginning of April I completed 10 cards and sent them off to Kirsty. It was a busy day at the Post Office so I didn't pester them for a 'Proof of Posting' slip. I had tons of Easter cards to weigh and the queue behind me was muttering. So I thought, ah, it'll be all right.

WRONG!!!! The package never arrived :(

Undeterred, I double-checked I had the right addressed (yep) and made another eight cards and sent these last Friday. This time I sent them "First Class, Signed For". I thought that the glaring big orange sticker that this put on the front of the package would help steer it in the right direction, if the other one had just been lost, and put off any thieves, if the other one had been taken.

Today I checked the tracking number at the Post Office website. AND rang them. Guess what? They don't know where this one is either!

I asked them to investigate and they said they can't until 19 days have passed, so I have to wait till 14th May, then fill in a form. When they've got the form, then they'll look into it.

I am so annoyed! I know stuff does go missing by genuine mistake, but to me this is too much of a coincidence- two parcels to the same address in under a month gone missing????

Earlier this year someone online very kindly offerred to stamp up some images for me and sent them, first class. THESE never arrived here!

So now I'm afraid I'm rather convinced that somebody in the Colchester area sorting office is being very dishonest, and is skimming the post for packages that might have something valuable in them, i.e., anything that looks like it could have a gift inside.

Although he spent most of his working life in the Royal Navy, my dad worked as a postman for a few years in the 1960s. I have 'postman' under 'father's occupation' on my birth certificate :) I'm sure there was a time when this was a friendly, respectable job. Certainly you could trust the post. It's a sad sign of our times that when you send something now, even if you pay to have a signature the other end, there is no guarantee it will get where you sent it if it looks like the contents might be of interest.

))))SIGH!((((

Well I hope they get there eventually. But at least this time I remembered to photograph the cards first :) although they weren't as nice as the first batch, as I was rushing this time........

I made them all using just 2 stamps :(Oh! Hullo, Dilly! Fancy seeing you there!)

They were coloured with my Pro-Markers and most were decoupaged a wee bit.
Here you can see what I mean, with the middle section of the design double-layered.They were all lined inside with heavyweight white cartridge paper to make them easy to write long messages on.

Matching envelopes, too, and each sealed in a cellophane bag.WAAAHHH!!!!!!!!! I hope they turn up :(


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UPDATE!!!!
*** *** *** *** ***
They've arrived!!!!!
Horray!!!!!
(But I wonder what happened to the first lot....)

Valentine's Day....

Belated Happy Valentine's Day!

I was delighted to receive this from Ms Peach!Dilly, lover of all things princessy, was very taken with it, too!It has lots of lovely different pages...
...and a lovely pawtrait of Ms Peach herself :)
I spotted this clever montage of hearts over on Stardust's blog. I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing it!
Here is another heart.
I bought a plain, cardboard heart-shaped box from the craft shop in Colchester.
Then I coloured it using my pearlescent glues and sprinkled fine black glitter on it.... filled it with chocolates wrapped in tissue, made a tag, and wrapped it with red raffia...... et voila. A present for Luvbug!
....And for the card...

first let me explain something:

Luvbug speaks fluent Spanish. He worked in Ecuador for a couple of years so used it a lot. Spanish has some funny little sayings, as I'm sure all languages probably do.
One is to say that someone is your "half orange"....... if you cut an orange in half, the two sides look the same, they go together perfectly. Hence the saying that your partner is your half orange. SO.......
I made the half orange out of felt. I couldn't remember what orange blossom looked like, but hope the black outline flowers look like it enough!He liked it a lot...
...once he remembered the significance of the half orange, and that no, it had nothing to do with half-time snacks at football.

Oh well! :)