It's been a long time, but I'm back!

I had a fabulous time away with the family; it seemed longer than it was, time to laze around & catch up on reading, swim, sunbathe, eat lots, chat with our friends, look at the sights & just be.

No pressures really, sure we had to be careful in 35 degree heat for half the time & breezy
sunny weather for the other half  but only one day of pouring rain - my sandles streched they were so wet but that was the day we were looking round the Chateau Villandry inside & the beautiful gardens looked fine in the rain anyway. Sure there was the clearing up after 3 delicious meals a day, a bit of laundry & watching the boys help to rip up the attic floor & chuck it out the window 3 floors up hoping they wouldn't put their foot thru to the ceiling below. Fair enough in return for our keep! (the 'DIL' & I were invited to add to the mural on the wall by the pool, that was our contribution!)

Getting 10 stitches in my calf from walking past a naughtily protruding bit of glass in the recycling bit of the house was a little bit of a trial, but I learnt lots of new bits of French that I didn't ever think I'd need, & our friends now know that the old people's home has a very helpful doctor who gave us directions in excellent broken French (hardly anybody spoke English as it's so rural) to casualty in the town 15 kms away. The boys were well impressed with the wound my 'DIL' less so, my D being quite pale & they all guessed I'd have about 16 stitches so it must have looked bad!

Our friend was brilliant at all the explanations needed along the way & driving me to l'hopital, but first we had to remove the rubbish & recycling bags from the back of the car so that my D could stop rolling around in back distracting me from keeping my leg in the elevated position & the floor from being covered in blood. So, no more swimming. The irony of our holiday, for the very first time, being spent right next to a swimming pool, was not lost on me. But I didn't need to worry - it could have been my D, who'd have been more than a shade of pale, one of the kids which doesn't bear thinking about or the head of the little dog who walks at a perfect calf hight.....  Dammit, I should have taken a picture before they stitched it up!

I'll sort some pics of the holiday but this really says it all.

My boys; youngest, middlest & eldest over our friend.

This is NOT photoshopped!

Back to real life & November weather in July, that's normal here! Lots of post,  emails & phone messages to go thru & of course washing & shopping. But in the pile were 3 more cards, woohoo!

They were from Trudi at Quilting Prolifically from Lincoln, UK. This is amazing, all that wonderfully quilted delicately colored fabric, stitched flowers & that cutaway to juicy lime green, I love it! I have no idea how she made the circles with grids of thread!

I feel like Im up in the clouds, thanks so much.

& from Pat at Lost & Found, Ohio, USA, in an interestingly addressed envelope with a note & I even like the protective cardboard!

 This card is gorgeous, a mixture of paper, hand painted paper & fabric all stitched down beautifully.

But I've got another card on the other side! Absolutely lovely. I'll have to work out a way of 'hanging' these cards so they're interchangeable.....

I feel alternately warmed & cooled, lovely. Thank you so much.

Then I opened Marie's cards, she sent me two! Marie hasn't blogged for a long time & I really hope she'll get back into it one day & we can all visit & see her work when she invites us thru a comment.They came in these wonderfully stamped envelopes - I want to carve my own house stamp now!

 Her cards are fantastic & I got two as she couldn't decide which one to send. I love them both! They are papers, I think, beautifully hand painted - the middle bits are either textured paper or embossed - then there are lots of layers of varnish making a really solid & shiny piece. I love both of them, couldn't possibly decide - I'm so glad I don't have to send one back!

Looking into the depth of these pieces makes me feel totally secure.  Thank you.

I'll try & get some holiday snaps up in the next few days. Even tho I'm well practiced at this loading of images after nearly 50 days of doing it it still takes ages to load 8 pics. I could make the file really small but isn't it great to be able to look right into a piece of work? I love it, so it's worth waiting for. I definitely feel all these cards deserve it.