Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 32

It is again time to look back at the week and highlight the happy moments. Well it has been a mixed week. On Sundays we have music in the park and this week it was a jazz band and as the sun was shining I decided to take my chair out onto the litle concrete step under the front window, to do my sewing and listen to the music. It was very plasant for a while and then it actually started to rain and I had to move indoors!

It turned out to be a damp and windy night and the next day there was a whole flock of seagulls on the grass. We are quite a way from the coast so maybe it was really wild there and they were driven inland. We do not usually see them in the park.

The garden has benefitted from some rain though we haven't really had enough to do much good. However my pink carnations are thriving, and I am pleased with these. Many years ago, my late brother-in-law taught me to grow them from the little side shoots that are always found on the stems when you buy a bunch as cut flowers. I had some several months ago and kept six side shoots in water until they started to root. Then I planted them in a container outside. The birds kept pulling them up, and I kept replanting them and five did take root properly and I have had a lot of flowers on them. They are a bit tall this year, but next year I will plant them in the garden and hopefully they will be a bit lower and bushier then.

We had a wasted afternoon on Monday as we had to go to the hospital in Shrewsbury for Chris' eye injection. The bus is only hourly so sometimes we have to arrive rather early. There is always a long wait at this clinic and I was annoyed that I had forgotten to slip my Kindle in my bag. After his initial check-up we waited an hour and he was then called down to the doctor's room. There were a lot af folk already down there so he came back because there was nowhere to sit. Eventually he was called again and then he came back almost immediately to say they weren't doing any more that day because it was too hot! It really was stifling in there so we were happy enough to walk outside for the shuttle bus to Shrewsbury bus station. But then we had another long wait for the bus back to Oswestry. We had left home at 2.00 and got back just before 7.00. A five hour trip for nothing, and we will have to do it again soon when they send him a new appointment. But the injections are helping a lot, so I guess it is worth it in the long run.

This is what has occupied most of my time. I saw the cutting file for this owl in an Etsy shop and I knew I would enjoy making it. It is probably the most intricate piece I have made so far, using my laser cutter. 

There are six layers of wood. Layer 2 is walnut and layer 6 is mahogany, and the rest are basswood ply. I went on Amazon and chose a range of wood dyes, and dyed each layer to get the contrasts I needed. Then each piece was varnished lightly and then it was assembled and glued together. I am really happy with it and he will go up on my wall with my other owls.

I have also managed to make a couple of birthday cards and aother few Christmas cards ao I catching up now.

The cloudier skies we have had this week have given us a few nice sunsets. I don't always see them because the sun goes down behind the houses at the back of us. But on Tuesday I was up on the third floor, in my craft room, and I caught this one from my window. It disappeared very quickly so I'm glad I spotted it when I did.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week31

It is hard to believe another month has gone by, but here we are at the start of August which is usually a fairly quiet month for us. I mostly relax with a good book or do a little bit of sewing, and occasionally some crafting. I have almost given up on the garden until the autumn as I feel guilty hosing it at night, though I have managed to keep my tomatoes going, but many of the plants are dying off already. I hope they will return next year!

I have started having my milk and eggs delivered twice a week as it saves me carrying them from the shops, but the delivery is usually at around 3.00am, so it sits on the doorstep for several hours before I get up to retrieve it. While it is so hot I have agreed to leave the empties out in a cool bag with a couple of ice blocks in it, and the new delivery is put in there so it stays cold until I am awake. Last night I put the empties out just before I went to bed and I was captivated by the moon seen through the big tree in the park. I took several photos trying to catch the atmosphere and here are the ones I lked best.

Also peeping through one thing to see another, here is the main flower beds in the park, viewed through a statue of Wilfed Owen, a First World War poet and soldier who was born in Oswestry. His poetry tends to describe the horrors and futility of war, unlike other poets at the time. He is commemorated in various places around Oswestry, but this is a relatively new statue in the park.

The sun is now streaming through my window and I am too hot to sit here any longer so I will close for now and prepare this for posting in the morning.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 30

The temperature has dropped just enough to make this a more pleasant week so my time has been divided between sewing in the garden and making cards up here in my craft room. This week I have made a set of six Christmas cards each with five little angels on it, so there was some colouring to do, but fortunately my Silhouete cameo did the cutting out for me. You can read more about how they were made here, on my craft blog.   

I am sewing little bits of my counted cross stitch/embroidery project most days, but in the evening the light is not good enough for this so I have done some simpler sewing and made a set of four of these Christmas decorations. They are cut from thin wood, and the pattern marked on them using my laser cutter. Then two identical ones are stiched with embroidery floss, and then blanket stitched together which hides the untidy back of each one.

When there is enough shade to sit in outside I do my sewing and am entertained by all the birds. A pair of wood pigeons visit daily and their wings make so much noise and always make me jump. But this week we had some other visitors. These three baby sparrows are just fledged. They followed their mother onto the fence and then sat there, not quite sure how to take off again. They chatted together, demanded food, and eventually took off to land on the fence on the opposite side of the garden. One of them missed and needed a second try but he made it OK.

Then this very scruffy juvenile blackbird hopped along the path. I think he is just shedding his baby fluff and getting a full set of feathers, but he is very untidy right now. I fed his parents all through the winter so it is good to see they have successfully raised at least one young.

I really wanted to grow some runner beans in the garden but the ground just wasn't ready in time. So instead I have four tomato plants, one golden cherry, one red cherry, one standard red and one big beefeater type. I bought a very flimsy box to plant them in, and because it kept blowing over and falling apart, it is now roped to the wall. 

Despite the rough ride they have had, they are growing well and yesterday I picked my first two 'sungold' cherry tomatoes. There are lots more to come so I hope the sunshine keeps coming for  while yet.

There has been nothing particular in the park this week, but now some of the schools have broken up, there is no shortage of people to watch. It is very well used throughout the day.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 29

 In contrast to last week when I had more photos than I knew what to do with, this week I have very few, so I will keep this a short post.

My week has been dominated by all the horrifying photos coming on the news from Spain. The wild fire was, of course, right by what was my home village until last year, so I recognised the area, and knew many of the people mentioned and interviewed. Although the fire was not actually in Los Gallardos village it was in the area under its juridiction, and it did come right up to the perimeter of the village so the smoke and ash have left their mark, and the air quality is awful. Plus the death toll is so sad and there is still fear for the more than twenty people who are unaccounted for. We went up to Bédar many time, and took our visitors to a restaurant there that we liked. Because the houses are made of stone, many are still standing but the wooden parts, door frames, outbuildings etc, are gone. So too are the livelihoods of the Spanish families who have lost their orange groves and almond groves. This should be the week of the big annual fiesta in Los G. but that has of course been cancelled. It all has made me very sad.

But this post is supposed to be about what has made me smile so here are a couple of garden photos.  As the back garden is not yet ready to do much to, I scattered a packet of marigold seeds over some pots, (each containing a baby fruit bush that hopefully will come into their own next year), and they have given me so many flowers, making a lovely splash of bright colour out there.

Also, despite the heat, our new rose bushes are giving us a second flowering and the little 'tequila sunrise' is so pretty. The flowers are smaller this time, but they are very full and frilly, and go through a lovely range of yellow, to orange to pink. I am really glad we chose that one.

As it is too hot to sit outside until late afternoon when the garden has some shade, I have been busy in my craft room. I made three birthday cards needed this month, and also a set of six Christmas cards using a clear script stamp which is one of the very first ones I owned. It was bought on my first visit to the NEC craft show in Birmingham some thirty plus years ago. I was fascinated by Barbara Gray (Santorelli then I think) and her Clarity stamps. I stood watching her demonstrating for ages and this was one of the stamps I bought.

And that is it for me this week. Stay cool and hydrated everyone.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 28

 Well I have a lot to smile about this week, and lots of photos to share, but I will start with last Saturday when again the park came alive to the shouts of excited children as TNS (a local football team who play in the Welsh league), organised a fundraiser fun day, with bouncy castles, inflatable football pitches and games. And No! I didn't take any photos even though I met my very excited grand-daughter over there. 

It was also the Oswestry Food and Drink fayre so all the streets around were lined with stalls selling street food, local produce, baked items and locally distilled whisky. It was too crowded to take a meaningful photo, but I bought some very tasty pies and some lovely cheeses.

However, the day before that, on the Friday I took loads of photos when I had a day out with my daughter-in-law Ella. Months ago she told me she had been to Oswestry Ironworks with her sister and I mentioned that I had never been there but woud like to one day. She promised me we would go there for lunch one day but it has taken until now for us to find a day when we were both available! Fortunately it was another lovely sunny day so off we went. I wasn't sure what to expect though I knew they had sculptures made for scrap metal. Probably their most famous sculpture is the "Knife angel" - an angel made entirely from knives surrendered after an arms amnesty. Sadly that was not on show for us as it is currently on a nationwide tour.

But we did see the famous gorilla made from 40,000 plastic spoons collected by children from around the world. 

https://www.blackcountrymetalworks.co.uk/spoon-gorilla

It is in the centre of this collage along with some more fantastic exhibits.

These are some of my favourites, especially the 'Grim reaper' carrying a lantern in place of a scythe. I hope you can click on the image and enlarge it enough to read the caption next to him. 

I also liked the cut away head listening to music through headphones. The work involved in creating each one is amazing.

There were some cute little characters with an explanation of the materials used, and also some characters familiar to the younger visitors.

These fruits stood out because of their bright colours which clearly show the cogs and gears used in their construction.

The vehicles were pretty cool, especially the car made from drift wood, and the van with a millipede wound round it and each of its legs was a golf club.

Of course there were lots of mythical creatures allowing the makers to use their imagination, and all were very striking.

We walked a good few steps as the sculptures were spread over a wide area. I couldn't stop taking photos which is why I have put them into collages, but this is only some of the ones on show. But tired and hot, and mindful of the time when Ella's daughter needed to be met from school, we decided to stop our wanderings and were glad to settle in this lovely restaurant for a very tasty late lunch.

And finally, not an exhibit but my lovely smiling grand-daughter enjoying her day out.

One last happy event for this week is that now the garden is cleared of builders rubbish we decided to buy a little bistro table and chairs for our patio. There isn't much space out there yet but this is big enough for a cup of tea each, and even a light meal if we wanted it. It is a very pretty design, and we actually both agreed on the same one which made buying it easy.

And that is more than enough from me for this week.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 27

We had another weekend with activity in the park. This week it was for Oswestry Pride. There were a few tents and stalls set up early on Saturday morning and people drifting in from all sides. At around 12.00 they all formed a line and there was a parade through town. It was fairly low key by most town's standards but we are a fairly small town. Anyway there were lots of colourful costumes and people enjoying themselves and that what I like to see.

Another addition to the park is our stone snake. I don't know who started it but I have watched it growing as the days go by and it is quite an impressive length now.

The front area of the park is looking beautiful. I showed it newly planted a few weeks ago, but look at it now. I want to know what magic spell the gardeners uses to make them all bloom at exactly the same time!! The judges for "Towns in bloom" were in the park on the hottest day so far, so I hope they take the temperature into consideration when judges the flowers. Like us, they were wilting a little.

All through July and August there is music in the bandstand every Sunday afternoon. The first week it was a band from Shrewsbury and this week it was the more local Porthywaen band. One of my sons played a trombone with them a good few years ago. Quite a few people come with chairs to sit around and listen, but we can hear them from our house.

Last week I told you about the red-tailed bumble bee. Well this week we had another variety in the garden. He was sitting on my ox-eye daisies, and seemed exhausted. So I found a syringe and gently dripped a few drops of sugar water onto the flower. You can just see it in one of these pictures. He immediately drank it all so I added a few more drops. He became a bit more active after that and eventually flew off. I googled his photo as his big red thorax was very distinctive and not something I had seen before. He also had a white tail not really visible in these photos. Apparently he is a "buff-tailed tree bumble bee", and they have only been seen in UK since 2021. The first siting was in Wiltshire and they have since spread widely. He was very big so just possibly 'he' was a 'she' and was the queen about to form her new colony.

We have had a painter in all week, painting the ceilings and any bare plaster walls in the kitchen, utility and bathroom. He finished today and it all looks so much better. So now I can hang a few things that have been waiting for this, including a pin board, a kitchen cross stitch picture I made many years ago, and various other bits. Also we had a skip to take the rest of the building rubble etc so now we can take a deep breath and rest until the autumn, when we are considering having the sitting room decorated and new carpet put down.

I don't get many sky pictures these days but this one really made me smile. Either the cheeky cloud is putting his tongue out at me and winking, or it is having a smoke and the smoke got in his eye! Either way I hope someone else can see the face. It jumped out at me so clearly, but maybe I just have an odd way of looking at things.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 26

Week 26 already. That's halfway through the year!Is it just me or does time speed up in direct ratio to your age? This has been a pleasant week. Nothing exciting happening but nothing bad either and that's the sort of week I like. 

Firstly 'Thank you' to all those who took time to read my blog last week and leave nice comments. I hope I  got back to you all. My computer is in my craft room which is in the roof, i.e. it is a loft conversion, so in this weather it gets a bit like an oven and I tend to only come up here in the morning, but I am actually trying to make a run of Christmas cards as I am very behind with them this year, so my browsing time has been limited.

I did have a fairly drastic haircut last week which is fine for the summer, so I will try to get the photo changed for my profile. It is a bit shorter than I had planned but it will grow again so that's fine.

I happened to cut through an alley between some shops on my way home one day, and I spotted a little shop that only sold anything related to cats. Of course I had to pop in to take a look and I came away with a new mug. Some of you may remember that I have a pint mug which I fill with tea in the morning and again at tea-time. (The rest of the day I mainly drink water so it is not really too much tea). Anyway, with there just being the two of us, I only put the dishwasher on every two days so I wanted a second mug for day two. However I have tried many and although they are described as "fine bone china", they are too thick and therefore too heavy even before I fill them. My new one is proper fine china, lighter full than my most recent one is empty. It is so fine that I can see the level of tea in it through the sides. It also has a big wide handle making it easy to get a grip.

As you can see it has a 'happy' cartoon cat on the side, and there is a small one inside as well. I was chatting to my son Ben on a video call and he was having fun experimenting with Ai to edit photos and make videos. I am not a fan of Ai as I want to believe what I see, but when it is just family playing around I don't mind. He wanted a photo to show me what it can do, so I sent him one of my mug, (taken at an angle to show inside as well), and said "Tell it to change the cats to Maine Coons" and within seconds it sent me this one back. 

It's a pity it isn't for real because I like it better than the original, but I must admit it is clever, and a bit scary at the same time.

I made my strawberry jam as planned, and it is so good! It made more than I expected but I have given some to my boys when they popped in on Father's day and the rest will see us through the year.

Despite the heat, I prefer to sit outside rather than in the house, and in the afternoons the back garden does have some natural shade, so I have been sitting out there to do my sewing as the light is so much better and I can do it without using the magnifier. I like listening to the birds, and watching the bees going in and out of my foxgloves. The rose petals shower me like confetti when the breeze blows. I sit next to that shrub I showed a couple of months ago when its new leaves opened like tiny curled ferns. Now it is in bloom with clusters of tiny, frothy white flowers.

And I am so pleased to have my first flower on mum's Peace rose. She would have loved it too.

I don't see sunsets here because of all the housing at the back of us, and at this time of year I am not up early enough to catch the sunrise! But up here in my room I can see over the roofs a bit and managed to catch this pretty sky one evening.

And that is enough rambling for this week. It is time to get back to my card making,

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 25

Time is running away so fast that I am not sure I will ever really catch up with myself. But here are my high spots from this week.

Sunday morning I drew back the bedroom curtains to see marquees once again going up in the park, and soon we heard a PA system being tested. I cut across the grass to go to church but I couldn't decide what was going on though there was some stripey flag bunting being tied around the bandstand. My knowledge of flags is not good enough to tell me what was going on. But by the time our service was over and I was walking home, I had learned that it was a special celebration for the Bulgarian community in our area. I had no idea there was that many of them around, but there were delicious smells coming from their food tent, their music was cheerful and their costumes were beautiful. I stood and enjoyed watching some of their traditional dancing. It reminded me a bit of Spain with music costumes and traditions. And it was a lovely day so they enjoyed themselves until passed teatime.

As I walked home I spotted this little fellow on the grass. Apparently it is a red-tailed bumble bee.  I didn't know there was more than one type of bumble bee, but we learn something new every day!

My new sewing project is making progress, albeit slow progress. It is a real struggle to see what I am doing for long, so I usually only sew one long thread and then have a reast. Meanwhile I needed something a bit more simple to take to my knitting club and they were meeting this week. (1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month). So I decided to make a start on a crochet project that has been calling to me for several months, ever since my daughter-in-law got me interested in it. I won't tell you what I making yet as it will be a Christmas present for someone, but here is just some of the wool I will be needing.

Today I popped into town for some essential food shopping and Sainsbury had a huge pile of strawberry punnets all on today's date, so they were marked down to half price. (Obviously World cup viewers are more interested in the huge mountain of cheap beer than in strawberries and cream!) I immediately thought "strawberry jam" and bought some. Now there is just two of us, I only need to make a small amount, and I don't intend to get into selling it like I did in Spain. But the fruit is perfect, and very sweet and juicy but, of course, they will not keep for long, so after this I shall make a start on the jam.

Tomorrow I am busy with a hair appointment in the morning and a Spring Covid injection in the afternoon, but I will get round to you all over the weekend.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 24

 Hello again. It has been a mixed week of sunshine and showers, but fortunately the sun shone for much of the day on Sunday and it was the day of the Community Games in the park. When we woke up the men were already setting up maruqees and sound systems, and soon we heard music across the park as they tested it out. All day there were demonstrations from all the local sports groups from badmington to gymnastics, to martial arts and kayaking. They had each perfected a routine and the loudspeaker was calling out how to contact their leaders if they fancied having a go. I went to church as usual in the morning, but after lunch I wandered over and watched the gymnasts. Two of my boys were in the first group of children to become members of the club when it first started back around 1992. There were a lot of stalls around the central arena selling sports wear and equipment, or raffle tickets to raise funds for their club. I came away with a clump of mature michaelmas daisies which will hopefully give me some flowers in the autumn, and a couple of tomato plants. Not very sporty but it helped their kitty!

I have made a start on my sewing project. It did prove very difficult to see as I had feared it would, but I bought a large neck mounted magnifier, and with that I am managing quite well.

Chris had another hospital appointment on Monday but as it was only a consultation he didn't need me to go wih him, so I stayed home and made a couple of birthday cards for later this month. But we are both going there again tomorrow for him to have a CAT scan. They are now looking into what they were investigating before when they discovered his aneurysm, which was critical so it took priority. Now that is out of the way he is back on track.

My garden is slowly taking shape. I can only do a little bit at a time but the side border is being helped by the beautiful rose next door. The border is backed by a brick wall and this is topped with a narrow wooden fence. Their rose is a climber that has spread almost the full length of the fence and branches hang down on our side. It is smothered in buds and the first ones opened this week. It was in flower when we arrived here late last August, and went on flowering well into the autumn, so we will be enjoying it for a long time I think.

And that is all my news for this week. Next week is due to be sunny again, so enjoy it everyone.