Celebrating new friends

I feel as though I haven't paused for breath this week, because it's all been a bit full on. Nevertheless, I'm happy to take a break now to celebrate the small things.

I met some lovely new people last night when I ventured out to a different ukulele group. I'd met the host before, but only in passing and she turned out to be a wonderful lady: full of life and interested in everything and everyone. She welcomed us into her home with tea and cake, so I knew it was going to be a good evening. Among the new friends I made was a woman who not only makes medieval clothes, but also wields a longbow. As if that wasn't interesting enough, she has been the women's longbow distance world record holder! Another was a family support officer, specialising in children with ADHD. Honestly, you never know who's around the corner.

Elsewhere, I'm celebrating the safe return of number one son from (yet another) stag weekend in  Amsterdam and the triumph of number two son's performance with his music-teacher colleagues at the grand switch-on of Kettering's Christmas lights. 

There's also been sadness, though, with the funeral on Monday of an old school friend. I was acutely aware on Tuesday that while it was business as usual for me, for his wife, who I've also known since school, things will never be the same. So as last week, I celebrating my simple life. 

Celebrate the Small Things  is a blog hop. Visit Lexa's Blog for the rules, and then post every Friday about something you're grateful  for that week. Originated by VikLit) and co-hosted by L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge and Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog.

It's curtains!

I've had a bit of a triumph on the Domestic Goddess front in that I've actually managed to turn up a pair of curtains. I know! Who'd have thunk it.

This is the sort of task that many of you will be able to do in your sleep, and I have many crafty friends who can whittle things out of wood and renovate chairs, knit and sew, and perform all manner of tricks with glitter  and bits of card. The handicraft gene seems to have skipped a generation, because while my mother can happily whip up a cushion-cover, I struggle to thread a needle.

I have what is laughingly called a needlework box that contains a colourful tangle of bias binding and other bits and pieces I have no recollection of buying; but the only items I usually reach for when something needs mending are Copydex and a stapler - and yes, this includes fixing clothes. I might, if pushed, manage to manipulate a strip of Wundaweb, but there really has to be lots of luck and a following wind.

However, now that the external renovations on our house are complete, for now, we're turning our attention to the inside, beginning with our bedroom. Since my husband was kind enough to put up a new curtain rail, I thought the least I could do was to wash the curtains. Unfortunately, they shrank. Fortunately, the friend who originally turned them up for me had left a generous hem for just such occasions.

With much grinding of teeth and puncturing of fingertips, I managed it. True, I did stitch the material to the living-room carpet at one point (always my work surface of choice), but then again, I once stapled an early-years reading book to the classroom floor when I was a parent helper at my son's infant school.

Anyway, they're up, they're level and they meet in the middle. Good times. 

Time to celebrate

Has there ever been a better week to celebrate the small things? So much of what is going on in the world at the moment is just too big. I don't understand it and I certainly can't do anything about it. Therefore I'm going to focus on improving things in my corner. Perhaps if we all do that, the little patches of goodness will join up.

So today, in very general terms and in no particular order , I'm celebrating family and friends, music and books, having a home with central heating and enough to eat, health and relative wealth, and just leading an ordinary, uneventful life.

Celebrate the Small Things  is a blog hop. Visit Lexa's Blog for the rules, and then post every Friday about something you're grateful  for that week. Originated by VikLit) and co-hosted by L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge and Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog.

Hooters and tooters!

Every social group or society has its own rules of engagement, which can make it seem rather odd to the outsider. At a jazz concert, for instance, the audience is expected to clap after each solo, mid-song, and the performer will give a modest nod in acknowledgement.

I mention this because we had another extraordinary evening at Kettering Arts Centre yesterday at which we were introduced to brass band etiquette. We went to see Boobs & Brass, an all-female ensemble that was founded here in Kettering 10 years ago. It is a scratch band: that is to say, its members rehearse separately and only come together for performances. They have raised in the region of £175,000 for charity, predominantly for research into breast cancer.

Now, brass bands aren't really our thing. Apart from having watched the fabulous film Brassed Off many times, our only other brushes with the genre have been seeing The Unthanks with the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, and catching the tail end of the Raunds Temperance Band's set at a local music festival. We only went last night because we wanted to support the Arts Centre (tickets hadn't been selling well) and because it was for a good cause. Actually, there was a decent-sized audience, but how many of these were related to the band members I wouldn't like to say.

Anyway, back to the etiquette. We began with the national anthem, which took us by surprise. Then through the evening we discovered it is apparently quite normal to have an exposition on each piece that is played. This meant that we saw quite a lot of the redoubtable compere, and interesting though it was, I'd rather have had a couple more tunes and read about the music in the programme.

There is, of course, much fun to be had with the name of the band. Its website says that some magazines have been unable to promote them because of the word 'Boobs'. We managed to come with some alternatives - and I'm sure you can think of more: Tits and Trombones is almost too easy; Menopause and Mouthpieces; Vaginas and Valves; Fannies and Flugelhorns;  Dames and Drums; Uteruses and Euphoniums; and one very rude one involving cornets.

It was a surprisingly entertaining evening. I can't help but wonder what Victoria Wood would have made of it.

Coming back to the surface

Whitstable in the mist

It's been a while, I know. Did you miss me? Probably not. I know how busy  you all are. Anyway, I'm back and if not normal service then at least some service has been resumed.
Actually, I haven't really been anywhere, apart from a couple of days in Canterbury at the end of October for a bit of a birthday break. I've just been really busy trying to earn a living. I've picked up a couple of interesting jobs, one editing copy and the other teaching a private yoga class. All good stuff, but it's taking me a while to adjust my schedule to fit everything in and still keep an eye on home life. There have been a couple of days when the fridge has been empty because I forgot to check if we needed supplies.

Added to this, the builders, who were just getting going when I last posted, are still here, although the end is in sight. Tarick and Lewis (for it is they) have been brilliant, but they've been here. It's hard to concentrate on anything when there is a young man outside my home-office window throwing gravel at the walls.

We've had a skip outside the house for three weeks now, due to an administrative misunderstanding (it should have gone back last week: don't ask!). Needless to say, some random items have appeared in it that have nothing to do with us. The latest additions are a door and a toilet. If someone had knocked on the door and asked if they could avail themselves of the skip - which we hired at no small expense, I might add - I would have said yes, except to cardboard. There's no excuse for dumping cardboard, because the council collect it. To sneak stuff in under the cover of darkness, though: well, I ask you!

On the other hand, I was standing looking dolefully out of the window when the scrap metal man drove past, did a double take and reversed back to our skip. Through hand signals we agreed he could have a rummage, and he managed to retrieve a double buggy, an iron, something computerish and a box of goodness-knows-what that looked heavy and seemed to delight him - none of which had been donated by us.

We came home from Canterbury via Whitstable, which I'd never been to before, and as you can see from the photo it was very misty-murky - all very Dickens. A promising prompt for a short story, perhaps?