happy mothers day

"chicken wife," original papercut by Sarah Bell

Happy Mothers Day, everybody!
Just to wish all the mums who may read this a happy day...

I'm lucky to have a child still living at home to say this to me,
and bring me coffee and a pressie in the morning, and it's always a special time.

Mother's Day this year will be rather poignant though, as it will be the first year when I shan't be picking up the phone to ask my own mum if she has received her card and package in the post,
all those hundreds of miles away in the North of England.

At teatime on the last day of last year I received a phone call to say she had been rushed into hospital. The following hours were awful: hanging on the line waiting for each text and call from my sister who was with her. Mum died suddenly, twenty minutes into the New Year of 2011, whilst all the celebratory fireworks were popping and fizzing over the night sky.

I don't want to linger on that time here, and it's still difficult to believe that she's not in her little flat in our hometown, always ready to chat and dispense good advice and home remedies. I want to say something positive rather than disheartening on Mother's Day.

Mum: I'll always love you.

I wish , wish , wish I'd made the time to see you more often. But when I did it was wonderful.
You were wonderful.

One of my great ambitions is to be as good a mum as you were for me and my sister, but I know I can never come close to the example you gave me. But I'll keep trying.

Mum was only 68 when she died. I'd expected we might still perhaps another ten years together.... Ten years of trips up north to visit her; take her out for lunch or a night away; have a little potter around Clitheroe, or St Annes or Southport. Of sitting with her as a matching pair in the chairs by the fire after tea reading the local paper, listening to the radio, (and sharing an illicit bar of chocolate before bedtime.)

Well it turned out that those extra years weren't to be, but she has left me a lifetime of memories as priceless and rich as a tapestry.

Thank goodness for mums. Let's cherish them.

Happy Mother's Day, all....

Mothers and Daughters

Last Saturday I was having a tranquil time, teaching watercolours to a group of beginners, with the sun shining in on the jug of tulips on the table, and some 1940's big band music on in the background... Couldn't have got much better, really. The postman arrived, and I opened some letters as I waited for everyone to finish an exercise in mixing colours.

And then the day got even better. This photo (above) came out of an envelope. It shows one of my students, Jen, with her daughter Sarah, and Sarah's tiny daughter, too. Here's what Jen's husband John said in his letter,
"My wife and daughter enjoyed the "Painting Chickens and Ducks Workshops" last Wednesday so much that that they decided to practise the following day.
Of course Sarah's daughter wanted to join in as well, as you can see. But she has to learn that you have to paint on paper and not cover your hands in paint!"

Although the little toddler is using a brush, her hands are covered in paint right up to the cuffs of her overall. I just love this photo. It makes me laugh, but I find it really moving, too. As a child I loved nothing better than painting with my dad, or sewing and making things on the living room table with mum. And some of my best times with my own eleven year old daughter are when our heads are bent over the table together, drawing, cutting and sticking. ....

Well, on another subject entirely, I did promise ages ago, to show you the photo of the twin orphan calves at my friend Elizabeth's farm. Here they are, below. Aren't they beautiful? And they are doing a great job of looking after them down at the farm. I'm hoping to get over to Elizabeth again in the next few weeks and I'll take another photo of the twins as an update, to show you.

" I never thought I'd see the day..."
Nope, I never did think I'd see the day when I would bake an apple pie ( and make the pastry by hand!!) like this.
Although I love the idea of baking, and have every kind of tin, biscuit cutter, piping bag and dish under the sun, the idea somehow rarely becomes a reality.

The last time I made a chocolate cake it turned out like two oversized chocolate biscuits on top of each other, and I never remember to defrost the frozenm ready made pastry in time for an apple pie, so it always ends up as an apple crumble instead. But at the prospect of Nigel's venerable uncle and aunty coming down to stay from Tonbridge Wells, and in an uncharacteristic fit of bonhomie, I offered to cook Sunday lunch for all Nigel's family so they could all meet up with the long lost uncle again. I decided I'd better do something a bit more impressive than the usual crumble.
Luckily I saw a deep dish apple pie made on a TV programme and was inspired. Ok, it took a long time (most good things do,) and the apple inside wasn't quite as cooked it could have been, but hey! It looks pretty convincing, don't you think? I had to take a photo of it to prove that I had made something like this , if only once in my life...

Today is a nice calm day: the birds are singing, the sky is gloriously blue and sunny, my admin is finished for the day (phew,) I'm sitting here writing my blog and am just about to go out and plant some Sweet Peas and Ox Eye Daisies.

Tomorrow, however, the forecast is rain and cold, and I'll be driving to the county of Somerset to take part in a "Women Do Business" Day workshop on "Exporting Abroad."
Well, it sounded a good idea at the time....
I'll take a clipboard with me. It might make me look a bit more official.

And Nickie in America: if you're reading this, I might have to prevail upon you to buy one of my postcards next week or something, so I can say that the workshop worked, and that I've already started exporting my work .....

Call again soon! The kettle will be on....
( But it's only fair to tell you that last Saturday night I met up with my friend Alice again (the one who prompted my little diatribe about elections and voting a few weeks ago) and we were putting the world to rights once more. Some Rum and Cokes were involved.)
.
So you might be in for another lecture on The Nature of Modern Life, on your next visit.
And you can't say you haven't been warned....

Honey, I'm Home...!
Just got back last night from my trip to The North to go and see mum for a few days, and here're my two jars of Lancashire honey to prove it. Phew: my porridge just hasn't tasted right these last few weeks.......

Mum, Eliza and I made a trip to a little market town called Clitheroe, where my dad's family came from, in the beautiful Ribble Valley area of Lancashire. First stop was to the special Butcher's stall on the Saturday Market where they sell phenomenal local honey.

We made a little detour to another butchers where I spotted some tripe to show Eliza, who'd never seen it before. For those happy souls who aren't sure of what tripe is, it is the rubbery, bleached stomach lining of a cow. Mmm, mmm... The previous night Mum had been regaling us with some horrifying stories of having tripe for lunch every day for six months, about twenty years ago, and how much weight she had lost. (Some might say it was hardly surprising: it would put me off eating for life...) On the days when there was no "honeycombe" (that's a particular kind of tripe,) available she would have to make do with a cow heel. Aargh! And that's what I spotted at the butchers stall: some genuine, bleached white ankle bones complete with the insides of the hooves. (Hoofs?) Eeeeughw.... I know it's considered a delicacy in Venice, but even the Venetians can't get absolutely everything right.

After that little diversion we ambled on to buy some pie tins and muffin tins from my favourite baking stall; pottered around town and then drove on to Oswaldtwistle, a little former mill town where one of the cotton mills has been converted into a shopping centre. There I bought some crafting materials and three scrapbooks. I've got plans ( well I've always got plans, but it's a miracle whenever that actually come to fruition!)

The plans are to make a scrapbook called "A Year at Sampsons Farm", to show the visitors to our B&B a little bit about our life here; another one about the Watercolour Workshops I teach here, with lots of photo's of students' paintings; and the third one, well I suspect that one will hang around in a carrier bag in a corner for a while. Probably for a couple of years, on previous form. Here's a pic of the window box of pansies, for the scrapbook, and another chicken one (oh, surprise!) of Charlie:Charlie , our Buff Orpington cockerel,
Whilst at mum's I managed to do the first three double page spreads for Winter part of the Sampsons scrapbook: I'll post a photo tomorrow. As much as I love crafting and scrapbooking , I do seem to spent two thirds of my time searching through every item I possess for the elusive perfect colour of paper, or the right kind of glue, and just one third actually making it. But I managed to get lots done and it was really satisfying, sitting at my mum's dining table by a big window, sorting through photo's, stamp pads and ribbons, my daughter curled up in a chair, engrossed in a book, and hearing the squeak of the rocking chair and the gentle click of knitting needles as my mum soldiered on with making a cardigan for her friend Janet. How lovely and homely. Time spent with my mum is very precious......

Tomorrow I'm off to Honiton Textiles Fair. Can't wait! Will tell you all about it very soon.

And I know that in my last post I promised some lovely photo's of lambs and calves from my friend's farm where I've been sketching and painting. Well, they are coming later this week, but here's just one as a little taster...


Come and see me again soon, and don't forget to put the kettle on ready for next time...