Tirbute to Mum

Hello

Thank you for all your kind words to my last post they did give me some comfort at a very difficult time.
Yesterday was mum's funeral and we had a celebration of her life service. I think mum had a word with mother nature and sorted the weather because the rain had stopped and the sun shone warmly and the icey winds had ceased. Thank you mum.
With the help of my three brothers and dad I wrote the tribute and and I would like to share some of it with you. Hope you don't mind.

Mum was born in 1938 in Stayley Bridge, Denton, to Stanley and Annie Pollitt. She had two older sisters, Annie (sadly died in January also from dementia) and Brenda, a younger sister, Jean and two younger brothers Eric and Brian.

At the tender age of 11 the family moved to Blackpool where mum attended Claremont School. On leaving school she went to college to learn baking and confectionery but didn't like the science so she took a different path and went into nursing. She worked at Wesham and Rossall hospital.

Mum loved going dancing at the Winter Gardens and  Blackpool Tower Ballroom where she gained a bronze and a silver medal for dancing. On Valentine’s Day 1958 she met Stanley. Love blossomed and they married on 8 October 1960.

They had four children Carol, Stanley, Alan and Ian.

Mum enjoyed the family camping holidays first down south to Cornwall, Devon and surrounding areas. However she didn't enjoy the one and only holiday to Wales. It was cut short by howling gales and lashing rain. Many tents were blown away during the night. All our things were packed up the following morning and the holiday was continued at home. After that, camping holidays were taken around Scotland in a trailer tent and as we (the children) grew up mum and dad worked together converting a transit van into a caravanette so there was more living space on holidays. When us children had all left home they enjoyed their first holiday abroad to Lake Garda, Italy. Eventually they decide that they liked Belamadina, in Spain and went many times, so often in fact that the staff got to know them by name and welcomed them each visit.

For their 40^th wedding anniversary they enjoyed a cruise around the Canary Islands even though mum got sea sick just looking at a boat.

Mum didn't always enjoy good health and had two artificial knees fitted, a curved spine that gave her a lot of discomfort. Heart problems which resulted in valve replacements/repairs and then a pacemaker. In later years she developed the cruel disease Alzheimer’s.

As we (the children) were growing up mum didn't go out to work because dad was a shift worker, so she worked from home working for various factories, making up blouses, tea cosies, hemming towels and made huge kipper ties (during the 1970’s). Afterwards she worked for herself making soft toys. This was a proper family business as we and dad were involved one way or another. Mum would sell the toys to local shops and individuals and then the government changed the rules on health and safety she had to give it up.

Mum was a great cook, cooking everything from scratch. Her Christmas cakes were the best – using a recipe from her collage days. This lead on to being asked to make wedding and other celebration cakes and this became her new interest for a while.

Mum enjoyed all kinds of crafts but knitting was her favourite. She learnt to knit at the age of 7. She would knit at home, in the car, and she even took it on holiday. She would have several garments on the go and swap from one to the other. She had a dream of owning her own a wool shop one day and eventually her dream was realised and her shop was called, “Vogue Wools”.  Mum was often seen reading a knitting pattern but never a novel until later years.

Mum continued knitting up until last summer when she cast off her stitches and put down her needles for the last time.

Mum also had a passion for gardening and could make anything grow. She loved to grow new varieties of vegetables that you couldn't buy in the shops. When the garden wasn't big enough mum and dad got an allotment and worked it together. They joined the local Horticultural Society and showed their vegetables and mum also entered the home crafts section with her baking.

When working on the allotment became too much, she continued to going with dad watching him work and chatting with the other allotment holders, she also enjoyed the peace and quiet and the warm sunshine on her face.

All of Mum’s craft skills, the knitting, gardening, baking, sewing, and business mind, she passed on to us the children in one way or another. 

Mum was a loving and devoted wife and mother she also loved her eight grandchildren and will be greatly missed by all her family and friends.

L also read a poem by an unknown author

 Something Beautiful Remains. 

The tide recedes but leaves behind

bright seashells on the shore

The sun goes down, but gentle 

warmth still lingers on the land.

The music stops, and yet it echoes 

on in sweet refrains......

For every joy that passes,

something beautiful remains.

Carolx

Sleep in Peace

Sleep in peace and comfort Mum. 

I am missing you so much already.

03.03.1938  -  04.02.2015

Hello

Hope you are all keeping warm. It's been so very cold here this week with a few frosty nights and biting cold breezes. No snow although we do live in hope.

We've had a fairly good week. Mum is so much better but still doesn't want to get up in the mornings. I don't blame her for not getting up out of a nice warm and cosy bed when she doesn't have to.

Where have I been this week that has been different from the usual? M and I went to my Aunties funeral which was a lovely service. It was a non-religious service (although she was a regular at the local Methodist church) but a celebration of her life. Afterwards we all met up at a quiet pub.

L and I went to a careers convention at her school. L got some great information on the different career paths she's interested in. I did too because in the not too distant future I will be looking a different and more fulfilling job and at the moment I don't know what I want to do or capable of.  The one thing that all the people we talked to said was that L had to work as hard as she could to get the best results she could for her English and Maths. Some things never change do they?

Who have I met? I met up with some of my cousins that I've not see for quite some time. It was so lovely to meet up again although it would have been much nicer had it been under different circumstances. Now we can keep in touch.

We met lots of interesting people at the careers convention. some I knew and some that we've met before.

What else have I done? I bought a dress pattern for L for the Gala and bought her crown from last years queen. She had two because the first one they bought was too big and didn't look right. Looks good on L. She's four years older so I suppose that makes quite a difference.
I've just finished a little blanket for my unborn niece. Will take pictures ready for next week. Some wonderful ladies at the craft club are still making the cuffs for the twiddle muffs so I've been decorating them again and want to finish them for a week on Thursday so that I can drop them off at the hospital's dementia unit when I have my eye check up.

That's my news for this week and now I need to get the roasties in the oven ready for L and M coming back from archery. The hall they shoot in is so very cold even though there is some heating on it just doesn't get warm.

Have a good week

Carolx

Emotional Roller Coaster

Hello

We are now heading into the third week of the new year and Christmas holidays fee such a distant memory.
We, really I should say, I have been on such a roller coaster this past two weeks.  The first week back at work and mum was very poorly and we had to persuade the Dr to come out and see mum as we just couldn't get her out of bed (and we didn't want to). We were so worried that we were loosing her. Anyway the Dr came and it turned out she had a bad chest infection and gave her some antibiotics. Woe they were good, We saw a difference in her after the fist dose. She is much recovered now and is to return to day care tomorrow. Also the same week mum's sister, who also had dementia (different type though) died and the funeral is tomorrow at St Anne's crematorium. Mum and dad are not going so I'm going in their place.

This past week L was chosen as our local Gala Queen and her friend S is Prince Charming. She is well pleased. We've already sorted the theme and design of the float (need agreement from the retinue mums yet) possible colour of costumes and the design of dress and cloak for L. It looks like it's going to be another super busy year, There are a lot more children in the retinue this year so hopefully there will be many willing hands to make the float (fingers crossed).

Oh no just spotted the time, must dash off to mum and dads to help feed mum her tea and give dad a break.

See you soon.

Carolx

Happy 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hope you all had a very enjoyable Christmas and New Year. Our Christmas wasn't as planned but was very enjoyable all the same. L has had a lot of art homework to do over the holidays and has worked on it every day except Christmas day and Boxing day. Poor thing was so stressed about the amount she had to do so we broke it down into chunks. There is still a fair bit to do but the majority of it is done and there is still two more weeks to complete. It will be done if we keep chunking away.

Here are to pictures of the two bags I made for my baby nephew and niece. They were made from my scraps of fabric I already had and some that I was recently given. The embellishments were hand stitched (whilst watching TV) and then put together by machine. I filled them with age suitable gifts (not hand made)

I haven't made any resolutions again this year but I have made some goals. Last year I said I wanted to get rid of 365 things from the house. I think we made it I forgot to keep my records up to date and I want to continue with this again this year but try and be a bit mire ruthless. I feel I should adopt the motto of "More out, Less in". I have a plan to do, on average, 15 minutes a day on this project starting in one area at a time. I'm 45 mins behind already so my plan is to start today whilst L and M are at archery.

My other goal I want to do is to continue to loose weight. Last year I wanted to loose 2 stone before our holidays. I didn't achieve 2 stone but I still lost some. I'm down 2 dress sizes. My ultimate goal (not during this year) is to come off my diabetic medication. So far I've cut back on all the unhealthy carbs and having a small amount of the healthy ones. This has been hard over the holidays because we have more chocolate than ever before (should last us until Easter) and we didn't buy any of it.

Last year I had a goal of blogging more regularly but that didn't happen and won't happen for the time being (please keep popping by though) as helping dad with mum and working at lunch times (in school) and family life doesn't leave much time to spare. I will try to do at least one post per week.

Best wishes to you all and see you soon.

Carolx

  

Some Christmas Knits

My mums hands always feels cold and I remembered seeing old Steptoe (from the black and white comedy series Steptoe and Son - I hated that old man I though he was so creepy) wore fingerless gloves as does Auntie Wainwright from Last of the Summer Wine and it got me thinking and I gave it some more thought. I then trawled the internet for a pattern for fingerless gloves. I didn't want anything fancy or lacy just plain because all I wanted was the number of stitches as I could do the rest. I eventually found some and these are the fist ones I made in a really soft arran yarn, The colour is a mid blue but the light isn't good at the moment for taking picture. The background was a white table cloth. 

I've already given these to mum but they're too big but they will do for a couple more weeks because I've made another pair in double knitting and I'm just sewing up second pair. I think mum likes them because they only come off at bed time so extra ones are needed for the sake of washing.

This little cardigan is for my little nephew. His mum asked me to make it earlier this year but I was so busy with the twiddle muffs that I just didn't have time but said I would do it for Christmas.  The cardigan is the same arran as the gloves in the first picture.  The little dress is for my little niece and is done in double knitting (same lilac as the fringy gloves). If you click on the pictures they'll come up bigger so you can see the details more clearly. I'm in the middle of making a couple of little bags (will do a show and tell when they're finished) to put these in with another (bought) item. 

Time to start making tea and I don't know what we're having. Have to have a hunt in the freezer - plenty there.

Carolx

December Garden Surprises

I had a wonder around my small back garden this morning after hanging out the washing. It was cold, nearly frosty, but the sun was shining and it was lovely.

Come and see what I found

2 Alpine strawberries almost ready to eat. There was another hiding under a leaf ready to eat, not any more - delicious. I do love the delicate flavour of these but you do have to grow many for a dish full.

1 plum tomato that needs just a little more ripening. You can see the sun reflecting off the skin.

These are Nasturtiums. I pulled all the plants out early Autumn because I didn't want them to dropping too many seeds but because it's been so mild some seeds have sprouted.

Blueberries. These were very small so I left them for the bird but they're not interested - must be plenty of other food stuff about. I think I'll pick some over the weekend see what they're like.

This Fushia (not sure of the spelling} twig is from next door that grows right next to the fence and under it. Even so it's still flowering.

It feels really strange seeing these plants in December when they should all be asleep.

Does anyone else have plants in their garden that should be asleep but are not?

Carolx