As usual I am writing this on Thursday. Tomorrow it is my little grand-daughter Niamh's first birthday, so I will be out visiting her. How quickly that first year passes. She is the most contented baby I have ever known, always smiling. Now she has found her feet, standing unaided, but not quite taking those first steps, she is into everything, but still happily amuses herself with whatever she has found.
So part of my week has been making her a card, and again I used Ai to put her smiling face in the cetre of a flower.
But I have also continued to make odd bits with my new cutter, always exploring new ideas. I engraved on a slate coaster for the first time and that turned out quite well. I tried several ideas I have seen on Facebook, and the one I think gave the best image, is prepping the slate with a light covering of varnish before engraving on it. Here is one I did.
I also looked at all my trial pieces and thought it was wrong to waste them so I used all my little print-and-cut images on card, to make Christmas cards using a very old stencil of a sunburst that has languished in my box for many years without being used!
Then I found the wooden engraved and cut, cute cat and I coloured it with acrylic markers. I thought it looked quite good and I have since given it a quick spray of varnish to make it shine.
Last Friday my son Mike and his partner had a trip to the town of Bakewell and they brought us back a Bakewell tart and a Bakewell pudding. I didn't know such a thing exosted as a B. pudding but it was very tasty. It differed from the tart because the base was very flakey pastry and there was no icing on the top. Neither of them tasted strongly of almond, but I think maybe my taste buds are not as good as they used to be, because nothing tastes as strong as it once did. But we enjoyed the treats all the same.
On Monday I had a 'kitchen' morning. First I made a big container of my sugar free muslie. It has lots of nuts and seeds in it as well as oats, bran and other cereals, and is a very healthy start to the day. I sometimes add a few blueberries or some banana, and occasionally plain yoghurt, and always some milk.
Then I baked a batch of Wesh cakes on my griddle. My new light-weight griddle, bought to work on my induction hob, is quite good, but I miss my cast iron one that became too heavy for me and I have passed it on to my son who's partner loves Welsh cakes. I do cook other things on it as well, and we both like drop scones which it is perfect for. Here are the Welsh cakes, after we have eaten some of them! It is a big mixture but fortunately they do freeze really well so we can enjoy them on future days too.
A van pulled up outside this morning and the man driving it jumped out and started topping the holly hedge between us and our neighbours'. He had to come in our garden to do the last bit and seemed surprised that we weren't expecting him, but it is a good job done. I'd happily take it out completely because any dead leaves are painful to come across when working out there, but the hedge is in next door's garden so the only thing we can do is cut it back now and then. He filled the back of his lorry with the cuttings anyway, so it has let more light into the front garden.
Also out there is a small shrub that we nearly took out last year because every leaf was deseased to the extent that I couldn't identify it. However, when Chris went out to dig it up he said that the main stem was healthy and perhaps we could just prune it right back and give it one last chance to come good. So that is what we did and this year it is a healthy shrub and has just produced a few clusters of pink and white flowers. As soon as I saw them I thought it was a Viburnum and when I put this picture into google lens, it confirmed that. So I am glad we didn't dig it up last year.
