70 ROCKS!!!!

Yup! It's Official!

Being 70 really does rock (if you let it).

I must admit that I approached being 70 with some apprehension, after all every one knows that that's REALLY old!

Hubby was none too happy last year when he found out that he can't hire a car anymore!

With the wisdom afforded to me by my grandson(see my first post on being BACK) I decide to enjoy being 69 ......but now that I AM 70 then I will enjoy being 70 as I will never be 70 again!

My funniest Birthday present was from my cousin's wife to whom I had told grandson's tale.

Mmmmmm!

I heard a true story while I was away.........

......young lad was taken to Great Grandma's 94th Birthday party.

He was most impressed and blurted out.....

"Blimey! 94 and you're not dead yet!"

I remember when I was at school and we discovered the lines on our hands and their meaning, and I seemed to have a short lifeline! I always had a suspicion that I might die young.

Well now at 70 I don't have to worry about dying young anymore....that's one good thing(about the only one I can think of!).

So I determined to hit 70 running! in the hope that it might not catch up with me.

Partying with as many family members that I could visit in 12 days....preferably those who were older than me to make me feel a young sprig.

So after my exploits on a barge in Lancashire, we went to Cheshire and then down to Norfolk to see my cousin who was 70 a whole two weeks before me.

His wife as well as giving me the coaster had made me a beautiful hand stitched card.

Don't you just love it when people go to so much trouble.

They also gave me a copy of our family parties...every Christmas at Grandma's.

 

That's me and my cousin leaning against the piano. We reckon that we were 11.

Grandma is on the right. She must only have been 68 and yet she was always sooooh old.

Back to the ferry in Wales all the way across England, We looked for a nice place to stop half way and hubby suggested Stratford. Oh YES I thought.

I was asked by Kathy in a comment (yes I Loooooove your comments, they make it all worthwhile) if it was a coincidence that I visited Jane on her Birthday. The answer is no, not at all.

It wasn't actually ON her Birthday, it was a week after mine and a week before hers.

When I emailed Jane to suggest we met as we were both going to be 70.

She replied (seems that both her brain cells were out for recharging! (sorry Jane couldn't resist that)) and her BC3 was concentrating on what it does best......that she had forgotten that it was my Birthday, had even forgotten that it was her Birthday and had certainly forgotten that she was going to be 70!!!

But that it was a great idea to meet.

Back home there was time for just one more party with my tatters.......especially as one of them had a Birthday coming up, the same day as Jane.

Hubby couldn't understand why I would want another Birthday Cake so long after my Birthday!

This one a real girly cake befitting my age!

Talk to again soon.

It's been a long, long time!!

Yup.It's been a LONG,LONG Time!!

since I.....

.....wrote a blog post....

.....read many blog posts....

....chatted to so many of my very special blogging and tatting friends.......

met a real live tatter

IN THE FLESH!!!!

So last weekend...a whole week ago now, I finally got to meet one of my tatting heroes!!

(I know she will protest about that).

And

it was just what I needed.....a poke in the ribs to get back blogging again.

It's not as if I have been doing anything different, been tatting up a storm, working on my TAT Artisan, been teaching, been dyeing, been traveling and been getting older!

OK get to the point Tatskool !

Who did I meet.....well if you read her blog you will already know!

It's Jane Eborall...yeah!

Jane was just about the first person that I ever communicated with when I discovered that tatting was alive and well and on the internet!

I remember that she replied and asked me to send a photo so that she could see who she was talking to!

In the last 10 years at least, emails have zoomed backwards and forwards between us, often many times in an evening when we were both on line sitting back relaxing....she will say relaxing what's that??? You see I know her pretty well.

But we had never met even tho' she is the nearest REALLY FAMOUS  tatter to me!

The last couple of weeks have been really special as I had a big birthday to celebrate....

My little grandson is 4 and a pillar of wisdom.

earlier in the year he started pre school at a super new Steiner School.

His mum was walking behind him as he chatted to another boy...

'How old are you' he said,

'3 was the reply...but I'm nearly 4!'

to which grandson said..

'you must enjoy being 3,you'll never be 3 again!!'

And so following his advice I determined to enjoy being ****** as

I'll never be ****** again.

Thus I set forth to party for all I was worth, to eat drink and be merry in a 5* Hotel in the Lake District (canapes in the music room and all). Steer a canal boat down the Leeds to Liverpool Canal....

 

.......birthday cake in the open air...the breeze blew out my candles!

......... tie up where we pleased.....

....walk to Frederick's Ice Cream Palour to choose from 58 flavours and endless shapes of cone,and eat the biggest Ice Cream I ever saw.

Luckily our Narrowboat was still where we left it!!

........ Later to meet with family that I hadn't seen for years.

Especially good was getting together with a cousin who is just two weeks older that me...got to drink his champagne and eat his cake! and with two great friends whose birthdays are just after mine.

Jane was one of the latter so I finally pinned her down and she met me.

As we waited for her....hubby was concerned...'how will she know you'...

'she'll know me alright'...wasn't I wearing tatting after all!

Saturday evening in a pub in Stratford on Avon we were talking tatting...yeah!

I gave her a pendant that I had tatted (much more about that coming later).

I had asked her to bring some tatting and she produced a bag which she tipped put onto the table of the most stunning brooches in a multitude of colours.and asked me to choose one. Hardest decision ever.....and I seemed to be drawn to one of my favourite colours...blue.

 

Here we are. a couple of happy internet mates....

Jane suggested that if we didn't have to leave TOOOO early in the morning, she would give us the 'alternative' Stratford On Avon....Shakespeare Tour.
YES PLEASE.......more about that soon.....

The Pink Elephant and the Sat-Nav!

NOTHING TO DO WITH TATTING AGAIN!

I have been 'told' by Sally my VIT that I should tell you the story of the Pink Elephant!

This is because she ended up in a supermarket car park instead of my driveway...well that's HER story! (probably true!)

I am like many, many women 'right/left challenged'!! That is we have difficulty deciding which is right and which is left.

This affliction really only affects me when I am stressed and there can be no more stressful situation when you need to know your right from your left than driving a car.
Especially when your better half starts shouting "LEFT.... I SAID LEFT!"

I suspect that's why I failed my driving test first time when I went right instead of left!

I remember as a child having an inoculation at the top of my left arm, and from then on for many years I had a sort of sixth sense sensation in my arm whenever anyone made me chose left or right!

The trouble is that as far as I am concerned the words right and left are man made and don't actually mean anything to me. If someone says dog then I can picture a dog...but I can't picture left...it could equally well be right!

Right is obviously easier than left and never gives a problem...because I write with my right hand. You could say that left is the hand that I don't write with, but involves a second brain process and there just isn't time for that when someone shouts turn left! (He says that he doesn't shout!...he just gets a bit stressed!).

This is my car, my beautiful blue car...be in no doubt about how much colour affects me. Whenever I get into my car I immediately feel good...and that can't be bad. I waited to get this particular colour..turning down red and silver which were easy to get.



You can't see this but the pots in my garden are colour coded with my car!
My car used to live down the drive and our 1971 Volkswagon Variant was parked on the road. But when the old car was towed away to a better life, I moved my car out to the road knowing full well that somebody else would park their old wreck in that spot if I didn't fill it.

What you can't see in this photo is that inside the car attached to the windscreen is ...wait for it...a pink elephant!



Let's take a closer look...



..now isn't that the cutest pink elephant you have ever seen!!

He was donated to my car by my son in the interests of safety!

I am sure you have already guessed his function.

Yup whenever himself wants me to turn left he just has to say "Elephant Way!" (if he remembers that is) and it will be done.

After all I can SEE an elephant!! Now isn't that clever!

We do also have "non elephant way" but that's taking it a bit TOO far!

So what about the second part of this post....the Sat-nav!

Well, hubby for some reason known only to himself thinks that I am a rotten map reader.
I can't imagine why..we always get where we are going.

I don't really like map reading. Again like many women I have to turn the map upside down if that's the way we are going, and the left/right thing doesn't help!


And soooooh, one day a few years ago we were walking down the main street of the town where his dad lived, when hubby suddenly became serious.

"I have been thinking" he said, "I am either going to have to get a Sat-Nav...or a new wife!!!"

"and" he added, "I think it would be easier to learn how to use a Sat-Nav than to train in a new wife!"

Very funny!

And so he bought his first Sat-Nav and the pressure was taken off me or so he thought.
The first setting was fine, we navigated to the rural pub to meet his sister.

Next day we left for the ferry a long way away. Sat-Nav was set but herself the Sat-Nav lady insisted on telling us to "make a U-Turn when possible". Pulled into a lay-by and reset it..to no avail... "make a U-Turn when possible", was all she would say, and the same thing happened everytime he stopped and tried again.

The instruction manual was no help....so while he was trying figure out what was wrong....Didn't I have to navigate (we had a ferry to catch)...proving that it wasn't easier to learn how to use a Sat-Nav than to conserve the wife you have!!...and didn't I do a better job.

Finally many miles and attempts later...it became clear.
At the final part of the setting it asked..."do you want to cancel the current route?"

Well of course not or we wouldn't have set it would we!! Turned out that the current route was the old route!! so she was constantly trying to take us back to the pub from the night before!!

This same Sat-Nav was chosen because it did actually have a map of Ireland...but it stops short 5 miles from home and thinks we have gone into a field! That's true of everywhere but the biggest cities.

A new Sat-Nav was bought in frustration this summer and it is super..it even has our road marked tho' it doesn't acknowledge it's existence!

It was super travelling through UK...the estimated arrival time was so accurate and we had constant updates on traffic delays and would be offered a shorter route.
It's still not as good tho' as the American system we had on a hire car in Chicago. That contained the entire yellow pages and could take you anywhere, so finding an Hotel was a doddle.

Have to get back to my tatting to get some tatting content in here again.