Dolly's Dreamings

Thank goodness for a great health service

It was quite a day yesterday.

First thing in the morning Nigel just casually dropped into conversation that he thought he might get his eye checked out! He said he had developed a huge floater like a spider's web in his right eye yesterday and it hadn't gone overnight and so he thought he might like to get it checked.

Um -yes!

We both knew that a change like that, a sudden increase in floaters etc, was a warning sign of something like a torn retina or even worse a risk of a detached retina. We got up straight away and went to Poole.

We figured, rightly, our best shot was the optician where Nigel knows the manager at Specsavers well. He was fab and booked us in for a couple of hours later with one of the specialists there. We went back and Nigel was dilated and examined and yes, he had a possible tear and so they phoned the hospital and checked us in there. A drive across from Poole to the Eye Hospital in Bournemouth (highlighting the fact that when the two hospitals merge and Poole loses its A and E department people are NOT going to survive that journey if they are critically ill - but that is another story)

The hospital was fabulous and we were seen within the hour. They confirmed a small tear which had taken a bit off the disc at the back and so it would need to be lasered which acts as a sort of welded seal to stop any more fluid leaking and stop a detached retina. It sounded horrible but Nigel said it wasn't bad. It was a bit scary but it didn't hurt. His eye is safe now but the big floater is still there and whilst it might lessen a little it is unlikely to go away however his brain should learn to compensate for it.

Once again we are left amazed by the quality of our NHS, the service we received, the care of everyone involved, their kindness and their expertise. We are truly lucky in this country and yet again we cannot speak highly enough of the NHS. 

No scrapping yesterday but I do have new things to share

 

This is a page documenting the amazing PATH station at World Trade Centre - it looked like a dove of peace

It was breathtaking

 

 

This is a page about St Augustine and how pretty the huge number of B and Bs were

 

and this is another page made for A Trip Down Memory Lane using Simple Stories Simply Vintage Botanical and shows Thomas Hardy's cottage in our home county. Love Dorset!

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• a happy and positive resolution yesterday
• great stuff to play with from such super people at A Trip Down memory Lane
• retirement - we were able to deal with yesterday without any letting people down at work. For that we are both so grateful.

 

 

Buses for Nigel

Today has been a lovely day - warm and sunny and one of those sort of free flow days that just evolves.

We headed out to perhaps pop to the bus rally in Boscombe. No definite plans but we took lunch!

We took a wrong turn and ended up headed for  Christchurch. There was a parking spot near the priory and so we headed there and caught most of the sung matins for Pentecost which was wonderful and very special. We were both glad that that happy little accident happened. 

 

We parked on the cliff top to have our lunch in the sunshine watching some sort of powerboat race in the bay which was interesting. Then we meandered to the bus rally which was small but interesting. Nigel loves his buses and we enjoyed a pleasant half hour. Nigel enjoyed the buses and I enjoyed the wildflowers in the hedgerows. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some were smaller than anticipated!

These are actallyEVC's that a local man made into buses - they were pretty fab. 

All in all a lovely day.

 

I came home and did a few more pages in my Fabulous Fall travel journal ... remember the sketches are deliberately basic!

 

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• a lovely Pentecost service
• days out
• simple pleasures
• biological washing liquid. Hopefully, most of the choc ice I ended up wearing will come out!!!

 

 

 

Such a lot of fun

Work is over for half term - never thought I would be saying that again - and I am enjoying the break.

In fact, enjoying it so much I haven't had time to blog!

I had physio on Friday which was not a great success, to be honest. The physio was late arriving and then couldn't log on to her computer and so rushed around int he corridors looking very stressed. I was so sorry for her as she tried to sort things out but that sorry feeling vanished quickly. She was clearly having a bad day and suffice to say it didn't bring out the best in her. She was rude and unnecessarily abrupt and dismissive and quite unpleasant to be with. I tolerate most things but I almost walked out. I might as well have done a little use either - other than suggesting I bought orthotic insoles as my ankle was turning in the wrong way. Knowing that I did have issues with the longstanding injury from when I was 12 I bought insoles and went for my first walk with them in today. I can see they will be helpful once the pain of feeling like I am walking with a ping pong ball under my arch wears off. 

We went to see Disney's live-action Aladdin on Friday and it was amazing - we loved it. It was bright and vibrant and so much fun. Really enjoyed it.

This weekend FTLOPP are having their NSD cyber crop (I am so glad it wasn't on the NSD weekend - much more fun to spread it out) and I have been really enjoying the challenges. I have made 12 pages so far over the weekend - don't worry I won't post them all today. The challenges have been great and, true to their name, challenging at times which is good.  Colour has been the theme which is also great fun as I shy away from some colours.

Anyway here are a few of my pages

 

This is the one I am most pleased with as it is something I have never ever done before and have shied away from but I am so pleased I did it

 

I used a mix of paint and texture paste to stencil a background

 

 

This is the finished page

 

 

The rose bush was bought by a parent when her two daughters left the Junior School. Yesterday one of the stems broke and so I bought the flower inside and my goodness I have never smelt a rose so beautiful. Whenever it blooms it reminds me of the two girls who went through my school from 3 - 11.

 

 

 

This was a kit designed by one of the admins at FTLOPP - Laura Rumble - and it was such fun to use for a challenge about why we scrap.

 

This is also not my usual style - a pocket page type page.I printed out the cards and elements.

 

This was using a sketch and such a fun page to make as I had been playing around with snapchat filters.

Don't want to see butterflies for a while though - they took ages.

 

 

 

This is Montacute gardens last summer for an outdoorsy challenge

 

 

and finally for today one using red and navy - a beautiful quote on the wall in the 9/11 museum.

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• a wonderfully busy and fun weekend
• scrappers sharing their creativity, ideas and inspiration - it truly is a wonderful hobby and a fabulous community.

 

 

Berry Big Deal Day again

Today sees new releases at Pickleberrypop with the Berry Big Deals - great bargains all colour coordinated - you can find them all HERE

I am excited to share the pages I made this month with the new collections

 

This one was made with Smile More by Tiramisu Designs

 

 

This one was made with Meet me at the shore by Palvinka Designs and features my painting of Pigeon Point Lighthouse

 

 

This one was made with Ocean Vibes by et Designs

 

This one was Happy Feeling by Lorie M

 

 

This one was using Damsel in Denim by Jen Yurko

 

 

 

And finally, this one uses caught on Camera templates and  also Undreamed Shores both by Heartstrings Scrap Art

 

 

They are gorgeous collections so do check them out.

 

In other news my new window on the world is awesome.

This is before

Old window - was brown hard wood. You can see how the small frame was totally blown - it was like looking through fog.

 

 

room wrapped and ready

 

 

 

My gorgeous new wood blinds

 

 

My new clear windows - he even mowed the lawn!

 

 

Happy lady

 

Today I am thankful for

• a wage rise at work - totally unexpected - yey
• my new windows
• great designers to work with

 

 

A grand day out

I confess to being a bit down about the whole knee thing and so what I needed - what I really needed - was a good day out and some physio and reassurance.

Tick - both accomplished.

 

Yesterday we went out on the spur of the moment. Having seen a friend's photos of SandWorld in Weymouth and having put it off several times over the years, we decided it was the day to go. We knew it would be tacky - but it looked a kind of fun tacky. And actually, it was better than we expected. It doesn't take long to see it all, but the sand sculptures were very good and just made of sand. OK so some of the people's faces were not as realistic as the real people, but heck - they were carved from sand which made it all pretty impressive. Here are some photos of the sculptures 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lady who runs it - the daughter of the man who founded it - was fab and as there was pretty much no-one else there we played for ages in the sand pit learning to compact and sculpt. Making the spheres was amazing

 

 

 

oh and there are 3 Nigel's in this one

 

We finished off with dinner at the local pub - was great value at £8.99 for 2 meals! All in all a great day out.

 

Today I had my first physio session and she was lovely. She felt - as I do - that it is not ligament but cartilage which I think is better and actually I think what I needed was someone to listen and to give me confidence and she did that. One thing that was interesting was she spent ages looking at how I stood and moved and she said that - presumably as a result of the horrific leg injury when I shattered my ankle, displaced my pelvis and broke my leg when I was 12, my stance has been 'off and where as my left leg is straight, my right leg is straight to the knee then bends in the wrong way from the knee and as a result 45 years of walking with it out of line has worn the knee and cartilage down on the side that normally does not wear! It all made perfect sense. I will see her regularly now and she has given me very very gentle exercises to start with which is good. Most importantly - the fear is less so I have more confidence.

 

I am still working my way through the iNSD challenges so have a couple more pages to share and also a digital page made for one of the mojo challenges at PBP.

 

This was for a Disney challenge

 

 

A very young naive girl on her first trip to America some 36 years ago. 

 

a digital challenge to scrap the same view at three different times of the day - this was the view from our balcony at Myrtle Beach

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• great days out
• people's creativity
• our National Health Service and the skilled professionals who work in it

 

 

Gorgeous weather - out and about

I really am taking live each moment quite seriously at the moment.

The weather has been gorgeous and so we have had a row of nice days out.

 

Yesterday we went to the Purbecks, Swanage and Corfe, to see the Flying Scotsman which is in Swanage Heritage railway for a few days. It was cool to see it as it has so much heritage but to be honest I thought some of the other stream tarins were prettier.

I took a lot of photos and even scrapped them already!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the two pages I made using the photos

 

 

 

Today I had a very slow toddle - I have done something reasonably significant to my knee. No idea what. It doesn't hurt to press anywhere ont he outside but inside is agony. I can't put weight on it easily and am dosed up on pain killers. I hope it is short lived. However the spring photos captured the lovely weather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• lovely weather
• spring
• blossom
• days out
• painkillers

 

 

Loving long weekends

I am loving the long weekends again.

Work is finished until the middle of May and I have time to just chill and scrap and enjoy myself with Nigel.

Yesterday we had a well-deserved lie in, we went for a walk, we went to the library, we had Starbucks, we watched a rubbish film (Us) and we had a pizza out. It was a lovely day.

Today - well today I scrapped and am up to date on all of my design team projects for A Trip Down Memory Lane. My March kit is done to death - I loved it and managed so many pages and my April virtual crop class is complete (they were awesome papers for it too)

 

Obviously, I cannot share the April class but I can share all of the March Design Team pages - some of which you have seen already but it is nice to pop them all together. They used Cocoa Vanilla More than Words and Midnight and Pink Paisley Indigo Hills - all available from A Trip Down Memory Lane of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were very different papers from my usual style and I absolutely loved them all.

 

I also made this yesterday

 

They were the seating booths in the Macdonalds at Conway (a ski resort in winter) and just way too cute not to use on a page.

Today I am thankful for

• being on the design team for Mel and Jill at A Trip Down Memory Lane - they are so very generous and I love creating for them
• weekends
• lush long bubble baths

and these were just things that made me smile and made me think

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quite a scrappy weekend

What a scrappy - and yes that is S-crappy - weekend I have had. There was another cyber crop on Saturday with 5 challenges - which I managed - and in addition, I have made another 4 paper pages too - so 9 paper pages and 2 digital - quite a productive weekend. So I guess I better share some of them then.

 

 

These are the 5 I made for the cyber crop over at For the Love of Pretty paper

 

This was my first and was my favourite actually.

 

The word was a wood veneer that I embossed as it didn't go with the page

 

 

and I had to dye the sequins with alcohol inks

 

 

This is a beautiful house in Concord

 

This one is an odd size as it was for my Home Town album which is an 11" x 8.5". I had forgotten this album and how much I liked scapping this size. 

 

 

Another page for Williamsburg - I have so many stories I want to tell of that day

 

 

and our first picnic of the year followed by our first ice-cream. Long may this continue

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• a productive weekend of lots of scrapping and also managing the housework, good home cooked meals, a walk and chill out time.

 

 

Loving the weekend and International Women's Day

I am loving that our weekend started today. I cannot believe how tired I have been workingt his week. I mean come on ... it's not rocket science. It is invigilating which involves doing absolutely nothing at all but watching. But goodness me it is exhausting. Totally and utterly exhausting. Plus being up at 6 is against my new found retirement regieme! But heck - it's not for long and I do love being back in a school, meeting people - they are a great group of fellow invigilators and I have made some good friends. Plus, think of all the bonus spending money

 

But today - today is the weekend so I have been scrapping and we have been for a walk and we have had a Starbucks and we are even having wine tonight. Wow! We have had one glass of wine THIS YEAR! Yup none in January, one glass in Februarya nd I am guessingt his will be our March glass. It is not because we are trying to do dry 2019 - we just don't drink much!

 

I have new scrapping to share today and the first page is inspired by the fact it is International Women's Day. It is something I feel quite passionate about having been the head of a girls' school for 29 years and focussing on empowering girls, showing them there is nothing they can't do.

 

Google had a slide show on today with 14 quotes from inspirational women and so I challenged people to make a page featuring one of the quotes. It would have been churlish not to do one too. 

 

 

 

and as I had time I also carried on witht he holiday album - two pages about Halloween from different parts of the holiday. (Well I had the papers out for one so a second was easy!)

 

This one falls into the 'weird stuff we see by the side of the road' category ... just loved the decorated Bug.

 

 

and this documents our very first Halloween in America - 31st October and the celebrations at Port Orleans

 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• work - I do enjoy it really
• the long weekends

 

God was busy creating woman on the 6th day. An angel came by and asked.” Why spend so much time on her?”
The lord answered. “Have you seen all the specifications I have to meet to shape her?”
She must function on all kinds of situations,
She must be able to embrace several kids at the same time,
Have a hug that can heal anything from a bruised knee to a broken heart,
She must do all this with only two hands,”She cures herself when sick and can work 18 hours a day”
THE ANGEL was impressed “Just two hands…..impossible!
And this is the standard model?”
The Angel came closer and touched the woman
“But you have made her so soft, Lord”.
“She is soft”, said the Lord,
“But I have made her strong. You can’t imagine what she can endure and overcome.”
“Can she think?” The Angel asked…
The Lord answered. “Not only can she think, she can reason and negotiate.”
The Angel touched her cheeks….
“Lord, it seems this creation is leaking! You have put too many burdens on her”
“She is not leaking…it is a tear” The Lord corrected the Angel…
“What’s it for?” Asked the Angel….. .
The Lord said. “Tears are her way of expressing her grief, her doubts, her love, her loneliness, her suffering and her pride.”…
This made a big impression on the Angel,
“Lord, you are a genius. You thought of everything.
A woman is indeed marvellous”
Lord said.”Indeed she is.
She has strength that amazes a man.
She can handle trouble and carry heavy burdens.
She holds happiness, love and opinions.
She smiles when she feels like screaming.
She sings when she feels like crying, cries when happy and laughs when afraid.
She fights for what she believes in.
Her love is unconditional.
Her heart is broken when a next-of-kin or a friend dies but she finds strength to get on with life”
The Angel asked: “So she is a perfect being?”
The lord replied: “No. She has just one drawback
She often forgets what she is worth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New release day ... and I am released

I have newreleases to share and a new creation to share. 

 

Let's start with the new creation ... it's a painting.

 

We have been looking at the work of Gordon Benningfield and we were all paintinga picture based on one of his pencil sketches. I knew the church and cottage were in Evershott, a Dorset Village, so we went out there last week to take pictures so I had an idea of colours, light etc as there was not much on the sketch.

 

Yesterday I finished the painting and for once I am quite pleased with what I painted. I can see all the glaring errors, but there are some good bits too.

 

 

 

 

and the photo I took last week - maybe I ought not to have posted that as you can see my painting isn't that good really.

 

 

 

 

Yes it is framed and up - untilt he next one. We have one framed picture up and I just change them around.

 

Now to new releases

This is Sweet Life by Cheryl Day Designs which I found quite a challenge but found a cut photo of Alice that worked

 

 

 

 

 

This is the latest kit you can get free with a purchase fromt he store and it's one that is well worth having  called Spring melody

 

what a difference a week makes - it was beautiful just a week ago when we went to Lulworth. Much colder and greyer today.

 

 

This is Let Dreams Soar by Jumpstart Designs

 

 

 

The photo is of Swanage Steam Railway. I do love a bit of steam.

 

 

and finally this is At The Dawn of Spring

 

 

and the photo is of the side of EvershottChurch - the painying church from the first picture. 

 

 

Today I am thankful for

• art - the joy it brings me to paint pictures
• scrapping - also brings great joy