A weekend to lift the spirits

Good Sunday afternoon everyone, from a "rapidly getting colder by the minute" Lancashire! It's been a lovely crisp and sunny day but now, at approaching 4pm, the temperature is dropping like a stone and I've had to cave in and put the heating on - that's always a bad moment. Thomas is tightly curled up on "his" shelf in my work room and I've just found Tara cosily ensconced on the pillow on my bed so there's only me up and about!

After the dark and depressing news that we heard on Friday night I know that I wasn't the only one to be feeling very low and, as expected, I hardly slept. I was up very early - woken before the alarm by Thomas jumping up onto my head - nice! The day didn't start well as my train was cancelled and the alternative journey I was advised to take involved three changes and arriving at Port Sunlight an hour later than planned - gggrrrr. As an experienced train traveller though, as soon as I got to Preston I searched the screens and found another way though it did involve lots of rushing up and down stairs and dashing to catch connections with seconds to spare! I got to Port Sunlight in plenty of time after all though, so it was worth all the puffing and panting.

As usual, the Happy Stampers show was busy, busy, busy and being in the presence of so many enthusiastic people really gave me a lift. I was cheered up further by some lovely gifts that I was given....

....the gorgeous tag was from Ruth and the skirt of the dress is made from pleated tissue tape - lovely! The card at the top was made by Millie, who won the blog candy last week, and she drew the whole scene....isn't it amazing?! Thomas and Tara are both there as well as so many other tiny details. The Cats plaque was actually given to me by Chris at the Burnley demo last week but I've only just had chance to photograph it. Chris thought it would be something that I could artistically alter...I think you may be right Chris! The luscious poppy brooch was from Karen and it's fab - I shall wear it with pride and it will definitely be with me when I'm at the NEC in November. Wonderful gifts that all brought smiles to my face and thank you so much ladies.

Here's a picture that my friend Esther took when she saw the card that Millie had made...

 .....me, the card and the artist - Millie! Is that the only top I possess I wonder? I seem to be wearing it in every photo recently!

I had my sister Heather's company for the day as she travelled over and was soon acting as cameraman, coffee and sandwich gopher, personal shopper and table sitter during loo breaks (whose bright idea was it to paint the ladies toilets at Hulme Hall on a day when the place was invaded by hundreds of women?!?!! Hence some long queues!). After Heather posted some piccies on her Facebook page where she referred to me as "sister Lindsay", I thought I'd share this one her looking rather Angelic - ha ha...she'll really tell me off now!

What a lovely day it was and thank you for all the positive comments about my stamps and my mixed media work too...they really did cheer me up. Thanks too to Karen, Liz and George from Happy Stampers who, as always, made me very welcome and made sure everything ran like clockwork.

Here are the latest two mixed media pieces that I made last week and are now on the shelf in my Etsy shop!

This one's a large tag shaped wall hanger "Change Gear"....

 .....and this one is a canvas entitled "Wings"....

As people kept telling me yesterday, the photos don't really do justice to the colours as they really are. Very hard to photograph the metallicy sheen.

It was really great to have Heather with me yesterday, and it certainly made the train journey home more enjoyable having her company. Then it was a naughty Chinese takeaway for me and watching Strictly on catch up!

This morning I was up and off to Church early as I was on duty as well as being one of the puppeteers during our Harvest Festival service. The Church has been filled with stunning arrangements....

 ....this is the Font, filled with flowers, fruit and vegetables and surrounded by individual flower baskets which will be distributed amongst the housebound tomorrow. The flower guild ladies have excelled themselves! This is a view towards the Altar with more arrangements around the pulpit and Altar itself. There were boxes, bags and baskets filled with harvest offerings to be distributed tomorrow as well.

I'll be off back to Church in an hour as we have a special Harvest Evensong accompanied by Rossall School Choir...this is a renowned choir who recently sang in Westminster Cathedral so I'm expecting it to be a lovely evening.

I'll be walking back home in, doubtless, very nippy weather, so I'll be having a warming curry when I get back - that will be a very nice end to a lovely couple of days. Hope everyone else enjoyed the weekend  - keep warm!