Sixty two and Raring to Go.

Hi to all my blogging friends . Hope you are all enjoying this lovely Spring weather that we are having at the moment. Just hope it lasts!

I wanted to post this photo of me posing as a mod on my nephews sixties Lambrette. It brought back memories of when i rode on the back of my now husbands Vespa 180. Oh how i wish i was that age again, We had such good times then.


I never thought i would be sitting on a scooter again at my age, but it goes to show. never say never.......

Five Fluffy Chicks

Just over three weeks ago Mr Fox paid us a visit and killed five of our laying hens. As you can imaging we were very upset especially as we had hatched them ourselves over the last few years. Cocky our cockerel was the only survivor of the massacre. He put up a good fight to try and protect his girls, but was no match for crafty Mr Fox.  He is now so sad and lonely after loosing them and its heart breaking  to see him wandering around the garden all by himself. But good things have come out of bad and that is we have 5 healthy chicks.
 Luckily i had some fertile eggs from the hens and put them in the incubator. Last week after 21 days they hatched out and here they are, Delightful balls of fluff.

The chicks are now 6 days old and doing well.

Finished At Last !

I started making this zig zag  granny blanket around Christmas time, but as i had to fit it in with all my other craft work it has taken longer to finish than i thought. The thing is with such a large piece of crochet i find i can only manage 1 row at a time before i start getting bored.

The pattern was from an old vintage crochet magazine i had when i started crochet in the sixties

The Chaise Lounge that the blanket is displayed on was my Granny Claydon's. I think she bought it second hand years ago.

I made this one for Mia my granddaughter Now i have started another one for Darcey my other little granddaughter. I hope they will appreciate all the time and effort i put into making them.

May project for my U3A Photography group.

Hi everyone i hope you are all well and not too damp during these watery days we are having here in Essex. Still ! the much wanted rain has been a blessing for us gardeners as you can see by my lovely Auricular.. They are my VERY favourite flower. These were also a great  favourite of the Victorians. They liked to display them on staging to protect them from the rain as it spoilt the flowers. As you can see my staging is very primitive, but as i only have a small collection the rustic shelving suits me.

 At last months U3A photography  meeting we explored both manual and automatic setting on our cameras. At first i found it quite hard to understand, but after a while it seemed to sink in.

To see how much we had learnt we were given an assignment to do for the next meeting at the beginning of May. The assignment was to take two identical photos so i chose to take the photos of my Auriculas. The first one using the automatic setting and the second one using the manual setting.

This photo was taken on the automatic setting.

  
 This photo was taken on the manual setting.
I set the aperture at 4.5 and the shutter speed
at 1/200.

I don't know about you , but i can't see any difference between the settings. How ever i'm  pleased that i am able to take photos using the manual setting .

My Rainy Day Patchwork Project

Hi to you all and a Happy Easter despite it being a rainy Easter Monday.

As a dedicated gardener here in drought Essex, the rain has not come quick enough, but it has given me a good excuse to spend the day doing some craft work.
I chose this Easy Star Block which Joy from my patchwork group introduced me to.

 
A Tutorial for the Easy Star Block.

Stage one.

Stage two.

Stage three.

Stage four.

Stage five.

Stage six.

Stage seven.

Stage eight.

This image was taken by holding the finished piece up against the light.

I'm not sure what to do with this piece of patchwork yet. Maybe a small cushion or a large pincushion........xx