Happy Leap Day!

Statistically, a baby has a 1 in 1,461 chance of being born on a Leap Day. This baby is know as a Leapling. Unknown

Don't worry; I've not been taken over by aliens just because I'm posting again so soon. It's just that I won't have this opportunity again for another four year. I want to direct you to Diamond Geezer to tell you all about this special day. I found it very enlightening and hope that you learn at least one new thing from it. Thanks for visiting ...

People will buy anything at jumble sales.

At the Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table. Connie Willis I awoke in the night wondering about the meaning of the word vintage. It’s bandied about quite frequently nowadays and seems to relate to anything from a certain period to which it might be possible to add a price tag to rather than second-hand which has always to me meant something that perhaps would be over-loved and definitely in the shabby department ie cheap.

I looked up vintage in the dictionary and there are two very different definitions: one was ‘out of date’ the other ‘first-rate’ which is rather a contradiction. In the mid-fifteenth century it related to wine and the year it was produced. Looking up second-hand, apart from the obvious [but not] the dictionary talks about ‘a pointer on the face of a timepiece that indicates the seconds’. It’s also defined as ‘recycled, cast-off and used’.

I rather liked the description of second-hand; it somehow evokes in me a time gone past of days when there used to be genuine second-hand shops and a bargain to be had. There are now ‘vintage’ style stores in many big towns and you can buy copies of items that our granny would laugh at the cost of. There are also charity shops where you once could find things that bring back those special memories of days gone by but more likely now to purchase a nearly-new garment or book that has just lost favour with its former owner. Anything that might have a larger monetary value has usually been snapped up by the dealers. Seldom seen [by me at least] there's good old jumble where the dictionary tells me there will be a sale of a mixed collection of things that people no longer want, especially in order to make money for an organization.

The idiom ’one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ would appear to be very accurate particularly relating to this subject. What do you think? Thanks for visiting …

The bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches ...

... and many a blithe heart dances under coarse wool.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin

What I like about blogging is being able to find a like-minded person just from following a link.

I can easily spend an hour or so researching [read time-wasting] moving from one blog to another and finding out all sorts of interesting things.

Today's thing was reading Penelope's latest blog entry. She's made a delightful pillowcase for Alice and as well as using a really pretty fabric she's finished the completed article with a crochet edging.

She's given the link for the tutorial on this and you can find it here.

Heidi's blog has lots of other interesting things on it too so I've spent a good deal of time today reading that when I should have been doing other things - like dusting. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. It must be time for tea and cake.

Thanks for visiting ...

If the knitter is weary ...

... the baby shall have no new bonnet.
Irish Proverb

And sad to say, my baby will have no new bonnet either. I'm not talking about a real baby here, I'm trying to be illustrative in that the baby is a tuna tin and the bonnet its cover.

Here is the tin:


and I wanted to make this:


It didn't look that difficult but I've not been that successful although I have managed to cobble together a cover for it from wool. Instead of working in a circle as Lucy suggested in her tutorial [because I couldn't manage to work out how without getting a Mobius strip] I crocheted to and fro in stripes making it slope inwards as I worked upwards [not on purpose, it just went like that because my crochet is so bad]. It had the right effect though and having sewn it together it is now on the tin and in the back of a very dark cupboard - hence no picture to show you. That's not really true - I just don't have a working camera at the moment but even if I did it wouldn't deserve to have blogspace.

I think I might look for local crochet lessons.


Thanks for visiting ...

Live in the sunshine ...

... swim the sea, drink the wild air ...
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you seen this on Lucy's blog?


I love it. I want one. I decided that it couldn't be that difficult even for someone of my miniscule hooking skills and had a go. The result is like this:


I'm not being defeated that quickly though and will have another go until the tissues have to come out as I'm crying because I can't do it after all.

On a different theme but one very close to my heart, I'd like to introduce you to this site if you haven't already seen it. Now that's something I really could finish off quickly and easily.


Thanks for visiting ...

In the end ...

...it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away
shing xiong


Let me point you in the direction of Tina and her Quiet Home. I found the post 'Keep the Home Fires Burning' and was so-o-o taken with it. It was how I want to be but also how I am.

You might remember the Flylady post I made last October. I'm afraid that the Fly is well and truly stuck to the paper and not going anywhere soon. I wonder if I'm too hard on myself. Nobody ever complains or says that I run a lousy house. There's always something to eat and stuff does get done eventually.

Possibly the most important thing to remember is that you enjoy the journey you're on. No one's going to say 'She had clean worktops' when the road ends after all.

Thanks for visiting ...

Hello, hello, I'm back again ...

... I've been a lost lately. I don't know what happened but I totally mislaid control of my blog and couldn't log in at all after the last post.


I kept popping back to see if I'd returned without noticing but no, here I wasn't. I'd actually made the tentative decision that perhaps it was a sign and I should give up blogging. It's not as if I was making a huge difference to the world, universe and internet but I quite enjoyed it nevertheless.

I asked Kitty who has always been really clever at helping me out when I got into technical holes but she was unable to assist on this occasion.


Any more than I know where I've been, I don't know how I've managed to return but hope that I'll be here for a while again and blogging on a more regular basis.

In the meantime, thanks for visiting...