Portmanteau Post!
What have I been up to these past few days? Well on Sunday the children and I ran a cake stall at the end of church to celebrate the end of the academic year. There were some very nice cakes they had made with their families, and I took plain ones for them to decorate on the spot before we started. Then we set everything out before the end of the service.
Mostly there were small cakes, and a couple of large ones that a grandma had wrapped as individual slices. So, to make things simple for the sales team (one aged 8 and two 11 year olds), we put a pile of the small wooden trays I get things from the local supermarket in at the end of the table, and said that, apart from the five or six big cakes that were individually priced, people could fill a box for £5.00.
This turned out to be a really good idea - some people put just 2 or 3 cupcakes in a tray, whist skilled packers who wanted more were able to pack a couple of slices of cake, a couple of cupcakes, some brownie and a couple of slices of chocolate covered flapjack at least in. I think the best 'packers' were an 18 year old and his 20+ brother - they got 8 bits into one box.
Result was lots of fun, easy maths, satisfied customers, and £110 that will be split between a local cancer charity and the all-ages mental health charity Isle Listen.
Those are the champion packers in that first picture.
I was at the GP's on Monday, getting a steroid injection in my wonky knee. I think it is helping.
Yesterday I pottered, and watched the Olympics on TV - and fell into a reading rabbit-hole at AO3 for about 5 hours!
This morning I took Cactus Kate down to the garage for her annual service, before the weather broke. Then walked up home - and I mean up - all the way is up a steep hill. A test for the knee. Then a walk back down the hill to collect her after lunch - fortunately the thunder and heavy rain had fitted nicely in between the two! This was a bigger test for the knee, and it did hurt, but not as badly as I think it would have done a week ago, and the doctor tells me it will take 3 -4 weeks to get the best result, so I am hopeful.
Then a shorter walk (only about 200m) to the opticians' with S2C to help him choose new frames - he can't see how he looks himself, so I give my opinion and take pictures for him with my phone!
I have a few more garden pictures to share and I will put them under a cut, too -
I planted some of my job lot of summer bulbs in this trough - aren't they lovely? I wish I could find the note I wrote of which I had put where as I have no idea what they are :(
This is the area that doesn't show well from the kitchen window because the peas grow in front of it -
The pale lavender coloured mallow is almost over its first flowering now - but soon it will begin to flower again as there are lots of buds. As you can see the clematis has decided to grow into the camellia this summer.
Here is the view along the back of the garden when I sit on the decking ;
You can see the back of the clematis in that one.
And here is some of the lavender that grows around the edge of the vegetable patch -
And finally in this portmanteau post, there is another picture under another cut. I mentioned last week that D-d was worried, as one of a 3 person organising committee, with her history for major events, that she might jinx a major black tie dinner where the guests included the Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor. She didn't - there is a picture under
The gentlemen at the ends are her two fellow organisers I think. Next to D-d on the left is the Lieutenant Governor, the lady in black is the partner of the main speaker, then comes the Chief Minister, and then the main speaker - Bill Dale who is the founder of Beach Buddies, which started on the island and is now being copied world-wide, with Mr Dale being part of a UNESCO initiative. She says it was a really good evening, and Bill Dale quietly kept her right in her role as compere and host :)
This is related; about 25 years ago S2C bough me some absolutely beautiful gold evening sandals for Christmas. I wore them maybe once or twice a year until I began to find them too high to wear comfortably. But I loved them so much that they then lived on a shelf in the bedroom. When we moved house I asked D-d if she would like them as she does go to events where she might use them.
If you click on that picture you can enlarge it - and you will see that she is wearing a pair of beautiful strappy gold evening sandals... I think they now count as vintage!
This may mean that it was the NYM who was the jinx all along :)
Mostly there were small cakes, and a couple of large ones that a grandma had wrapped as individual slices. So, to make things simple for the sales team (one aged 8 and two 11 year olds), we put a pile of the small wooden trays I get things from the local supermarket in at the end of the table, and said that, apart from the five or six big cakes that were individually priced, people could fill a box for £5.00.
This turned out to be a really good idea - some people put just 2 or 3 cupcakes in a tray, whist skilled packers who wanted more were able to pack a couple of slices of cake, a couple of cupcakes, some brownie and a couple of slices of chocolate covered flapjack at least in. I think the best 'packers' were an 18 year old and his 20+ brother - they got 8 bits into one box.
Result was lots of fun, easy maths, satisfied customers, and £110 that will be split between a local cancer charity and the all-ages mental health charity Isle Listen.
Those are the champion packers in that first picture.
I was at the GP's on Monday, getting a steroid injection in my wonky knee. I think it is helping.
Yesterday I pottered, and watched the Olympics on TV - and fell into a reading rabbit-hole at AO3 for about 5 hours!
This morning I took Cactus Kate down to the garage for her annual service, before the weather broke. Then walked up home - and I mean up - all the way is up a steep hill. A test for the knee. Then a walk back down the hill to collect her after lunch - fortunately the thunder and heavy rain had fitted nicely in between the two! This was a bigger test for the knee, and it did hurt, but not as badly as I think it would have done a week ago, and the doctor tells me it will take 3 -4 weeks to get the best result, so I am hopeful.
Then a shorter walk (only about 200m) to the opticians' with S2C to help him choose new frames - he can't see how he looks himself, so I give my opinion and take pictures for him with my phone!
I have a few more garden pictures to share and I will put them under a cut, too -
I planted some of my job lot of summer bulbs in this trough - aren't they lovely? I wish I could find the note I wrote of which I had put where as I have no idea what they are :(
This is the area that doesn't show well from the kitchen window because the peas grow in front of it -
The pale lavender coloured mallow is almost over its first flowering now - but soon it will begin to flower again as there are lots of buds. As you can see the clematis has decided to grow into the camellia this summer.
Here is the view along the back of the garden when I sit on the decking ;
You can see the back of the clematis in that one.
And here is some of the lavender that grows around the edge of the vegetable patch -
And finally in this portmanteau post, there is another picture under another cut. I mentioned last week that D-d was worried, as one of a 3 person organising committee, with her history for major events, that she might jinx a major black tie dinner where the guests included the Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor. She didn't - there is a picture under
The gentlemen at the ends are her two fellow organisers I think. Next to D-d on the left is the Lieutenant Governor, the lady in black is the partner of the main speaker, then comes the Chief Minister, and then the main speaker - Bill Dale who is the founder of Beach Buddies, which started on the island and is now being copied world-wide, with Mr Dale being part of a UNESCO initiative. She says it was a really good evening, and Bill Dale quietly kept her right in her role as compere and host :)
This is related; about 25 years ago S2C bough me some absolutely beautiful gold evening sandals for Christmas. I wore them maybe once or twice a year until I began to find them too high to wear comfortably. But I loved them so much that they then lived on a shelf in the bedroom. When we moved house I asked D-d if she would like them as she does go to events where she might use them.
If you click on that picture you can enlarge it - and you will see that she is wearing a pair of beautiful strappy gold evening sandals... I think they now count as vintage!
This may mean that it was the NYM who was the jinx all along :)