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.