Hello,

Gosh it's been ages since I've checked in here and I thought it was time to come by and reassure everyone that I'm still here - thanks Susan for the nudge.   

 

 

Under the beech tree on the garage roof
They're all in hiding now

 

It's a miserable day here and I've nailed myself to the desk to do some catching up and start getting work stuff ready for Christmas.   I have a real love hate relationship with Christmas preparations - as soon as I see things in the shops in October I want the biscuits and puddings and then I turn into Scrooge and don't want to hear a carol or see a decoration until Christmas week.   That all being said I made my cake at the weekend and start the choir on Christmas songs tomorrow - eek!  

 

 

We've been running between two houses since Mum passed away and for several months before that, and our own house was looking kind of unloved and unlived-in for a while.   We needed a concerted offensive on spiders - where are they all coming from! - and now it's just taking a day to feel like home again each time we come back.   

 

A lot of clearing out has been done and if this rain ever stops I have a gardener waiting to help me make her garden more manageable when we're not living there full time.  The penalty for living so close to the Atlantic is rain 90% of the time according to the builder who'd been doing some fixing up for us.  It dumps on Donegal and Fermanagh first so that by the time it gets to us here in Co. Down it has tamed down a bit.   I think people in Cornwall and Devon are the same.  

My lovely mum Margaret or Marguerite as she was known on one side of the family,
who passed away in July.  
She was 3 weeks away from her 95th birthday.  

 

 

Mum was a great crafter.   A life long member of the ICA (the Irish Countrywomen's Association, the Irish equivalent of the Women's Institute), she knitted and crocheted, made our clothes, embroidered my Irish dancing costumes and tried her hand at every new thing that came along.  Right up until a few days before she died she was still asking us to bring her crochet into the hospital to her.   And like every crafter she had endless supplies of everything needed - for every new craft!  So I have two trunks and two cupboards full of patterns and material and tools dating back to the late 50s and as yet I've not tackled the attic!  And that's after giving away enough wool for two or three blankets at least.   It's a real treasure trove and although I can hear her asking why I'm poking around in her stuff, I'm enjoying what I find.   Problem is I also have those collectors instincts and already have a house full of stuff that'll never be touched again!

 

Saxophone on a folk album you ask!!
Channelling our inner Van the man band on a couple of songs

 

We finally got back to recording over the past couple of weeks, finishing up pieces that we need other people to play on and fingers crossed the album will be totally finished by the end of this month. 

Tom at work making everything sound good.

 

We'll have a song out on digital platforms for Christmas and the album will hopefully have a February launch.   So normal service is returning.

 

Ah!  concertina!  That's more like folk

 

 

 

I find it hard to find up beat things to talk about when life isn't going so smoothly and I hate writing doom and gloom  - there's enough of that in the world.   But I'll be back at some point.  

Thanks for reading.   

Fil x