Birthdays and other things...

 Today these two tree climbers are 19 years old!

Snape Twins

Izzy and Esther.

Where did that time go?

Oh wait...it went with fun and meals together with the family...

...it went at High School and now work and university..

...it went with laughter and tears...

It was great!!

...always cake here at The Potters House..

A chocolate cake was baked and on behalf of both...Izzy blew out the candles!

Their mum and dad isolating at the moment missed the traditional blowing of the light!

...celebrating A level results this year...

...and here are some flowers from the garden....

..in the summer when things were easier all round!!

Writer's Workshop Warrington

My prompt today was a photograph taken out of a weekend magazine and one of many offered by Margaret K.

...and this was the result...

"Hopes and Dreams"

I might go to China this year.

Go and see the great wall of China.

I'm told that one of mum's relatives walked it in the 1800s.

She was a sturdy woman called Isabelle.

Isabelles are sturdy I think.

Maybe that's why one of the grandgirls is so feisty ....well part of the reason!

I tell her that the Queen of Spain was an Isabelle, Isabella actually to be correct.

So, a lot to live up to there, not that she is'nt quite capable enough.

She'll probably end up leading some political party in the future, then walking the length of the Wall of China before becoming the next Queen Isabelle of Spain.

The other Isabelle waas Scottish.

That says it all really

Determined, sturdy, feisty....all my Scottish female relatives in a nutshell.

So...China this year?

Sooner pigs might fly.

There was a lottery rollover yesterday.

I hear it was the largest ever...£50m!

I said, what a responsibility if you win.

The daughter said, I think I could find ways of using it.

We bought tickets and had a meal together while we waited for the result.

We had game pie made by another grandgirl.

She put the rest of the goose and duck from the freezer into a bechamel sauce in a dish and slapped a nice golden crust on the top.

Great girl.

I tell her she's a queen too.

Esther

The one who took a year out in finishing school before she wooed King Xerxes with her beauty.

Of course I don't think that they had anything like the Great British Bake Off then,

Or even the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme.

That's Esther's motivation at the moment.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award Cooking Badge.

Anyway we benefit from all that.

So all good there then,.

I heard nothing back from the daughter.

So I don't think we won the £50m.

Haven't seen any pigs flying either today.

I've stopped looking in the mirror much these days.

There's something happening with my face.

The skin has acquired a lot of unnecessary lines.

They started around my eyes a few years ago.

I bought the right skin cream.

The advert said that it stopped any aging which might occur....completely.

It promised a peach soft glowing complexion.

I followed the instructions for years.

Not one to give in at the first sign of failure. 

My mouth area was next to "line up".

Someone said that the top lip gets thinnner as you get older, they were right...

 ..noone said it disappears altogether. 

And what's that trick that lipstick plays.

A creeping red line from the lips to the nose?

Nasty.

Anyway, I think they were lying, that company selling the face cream.

So I just stopped looking in the mirror.

It lies too.

Peach soft skin?

Pigs might fly!

The Greening of Penketh.

The local council has set up a programme of tree planting here in Penketh...hooray!!...

We have been doing our own greening over the 34 years since we took over the land which belonged to Greenalls the brewers.

Then it was used as an unofficial tip...dumping ground for old bikes, prams, wooden windows and shattered glass....awful.

Below is the birch stand we started to plant as each member of our family was born.

Now there are eleven...and probably no more until the grandgirls...all five...add to the numbers...one day!!!

Each April I watch the greening of the birch grove and marvel at the soft green leaves as they develop.

Rotten Root

We had a favourite tree in the back garden/field...just up the steps and to the right...an ideal spot to watch the grand girls climb while we had a little relax in the sun trap at the back of the tool shed....

...then came the storm this week.

Well lots of damage on the east coast and lovely Morecambe prom pretty full on as well!!

Houses washed away into the roaring sea...cars and vans taken by the waves and lots of Welsh bungalows deep in water on the northern coast where the pensioners retire to live a quiet life....ha!

Yesterday morning woke us quietly.... until we saw the tree!!

A beautiful Stag Horn...I forget the latin name...gorgeous tree...sturdy ...broad trunked....ideal for climbing...

...well I did myself a few times when I thought that noone was around to laugh at my antics!!

We had been given it by old friends who once lived in Southport ... it had many memories.

But the thought that I had was that ...

...if the root is rotten...

...the tree will fall...

...now I think that could be well applied to so many parts of life today...it got me thinking..

...no matter how beautiful...

...no matter how big...

....if the root is rotten ...it will fall.

Anyway here's a collage from happier times and of course the potter already sawing away at it as we will have some unexpected wood available for the winter fires!!

Oh... I have insisted that the main tree be kept and made into a seat at the bottom of the field where there is a nice little spot that gets the late sun when everywhere else is in shadow...been thinking about it for a while...

...I call that redeeming!!

Grandgirls in the studio.

When the southern grandgirls come up to stay ...the cry goes up...

..."pops came we make something in the studio?"

This is good as there may be a slight possibility therefore that one of them could...and I emphasise ...could...think in the future of taking over the making of the ceramics!

No pressure then!!

Whether that ever happens or not, the art produced in these sessions, absolutely lacks of fear from any criticism....

..how good is that in this high-powered world of success!!  I love it.

...so I said..."who will take it over?"...and one was designated....but I'm not telling which one it was as she has a lot of growing up and having fun to do before any of that happens.

The Pumpkin Party.

It's sort of an annual affair here at The Potters House.

Not really Halloween...nor 5th November...and all that.

It's The Pumpkin Party.

 It starts with the pumpkins....normally grown by the potter...

...but this year...failure....bah!...

Never mind ...we bought one each for the grandgirls and as they were all together this week...

...let the carving begin.

 

It's hard for the grown-ups to stay out of this ...we want to get involved...always!

                    "Just look what a big head I have"

"That's nothing ...look at mine!"

 

Serious stuff this...seeds in one bowl and flesh in the other.

Seeds in the oven with olive oil and sea salt...

and the flesh for a pumpkin pie! 

 Lanterns glowing...

 

...bonfire crackling...care of the potter...

...old friends from Marseille join us...

 

...fireworks sparkling...

...then let the fun begin...

"Nevie-pie cakes"...has a go for a swinging dohnut!!

...a grandgirl takes it all in her stride...

...I can't let myself down...gotcha!!

Ballyferris Memories

I've written in the past about the shell collecting expeditions that I undertook on Ballyferris beach, with the friend of my teenage years...the lovely Victoria.

These were serious affairs!
No simple beach combing these...rather, contests of who could claim the quickest eye and the best cherry-picking in Ballyferris.
Please let me hasten to reassure anyone reading this, that I had no desire to enter competion with Victoria.....no! no!... my wish was merely to be amazed at the beauty of the treasure that I was able to discover on that windswept shore of Co Down.  But no was not a word to offer this companion of my puberty! and into battle I would go with her.

So to be ambling along on Thursday with one of the grandgirls on the town beach by Morecambe Bay, with nary a care or glare to do better or to hurry up...ahhhh! joy!

See here what a rainbow of colour we managed to winkle out of the sand and stones on that grey, misty afternoon. And how they shone after a good washing down in the old sink back at the house.

Heart of my heart...we sang that way back then...but this is how it feels now.