Thursday 8th January

Things I love and can't live without
Trivial I know but I love my coffee machine.Well both of them really.This is my filter coffee maker.Yes I am addicted to coffee, sad but true.This is my self portrait for Self Portrait Thursday which is a group on flickr.I don't do one every week as I don't like the way I look at the moment and I am not very good at photography or photoshopping although I did make my nasty mole disappear on this photo.
Picked up tiles for the utility room today.Hubby is threatening to do tiling at the weekend. I did spend some time in my sewing room today and started planning a piece for the UK etsy monthly challenge topic Japan.Just waiting for hubby to get home after work.

Getting Ready

On Friday I am off to the etsy retreat in York. Really excited about this but don't really know what I am going to do. I am not in the slightest worried about being with so many strangers for the weekend because they are not , strangers that is. I have met a few of them, the rest I feel I already know and I am certain that we will all get on fine. I haven't done much to prepare for this trip but I have bought my first 2 bars of Green and Black's chocolate which I understand is an essential ingredient for this weekend.
I have also signed up for flickr's 888 event so I will have to take my picture and post it before I leave for the train on Friday morning.

Monday June 30th

June nearly over and done with.
Have joined a new flickr group called day2day Take Five Ordinary Beauty
Take a 5 pictures of ordinary things.Try to see beauty everywhere and improve your photography skills.My first series of photos(Only 4 of them) is of clocks.
The cat clock was our Christmas present to each other.Hubby spotted it and took me to see it thinking that I would not like it but I did so we bought it.Hopeless for telling the time but a bit of fun nevertheless. The old clock was my Greatgrandmother's and family legend says that her first husband bought it for her out of his wages on his first harvest.My family were all either farm labourers or in service.All really poor.Great Gran was born in Maldon workhouse as her mother was not married.She did manage to keep the baby. However when Great Gran found out she was illegitimate she tore up her birth certificate so we never knew who her mother was. My cousin has been researching the family tree and after much searching ,tearing of hair and knashing of teeth has tracked her down.There were other children also born 'out of wedlock'
She was a great character my Great Gran and lived to 98. I often ponder on the tremendous changes she saw in her lifetime coming from an age where the poor did not have electricity or running water,no cars or free health care.We live in a very priviledged age