Five On Friday.

 It's many years since I did a Five On Friday Post but I'm linking up with  My creative Life. this week, it's a good way to catch up on what's been going on of late.

Before I start I would just like to thank everyone for the comments you left on my last post.  I'm pleased to report that both groups were well attended with 16 attending the Hobby Hub and then 26! attended Udance. It was so nice to see everyone dancing and having fun. 

This leads me on to number one in my five..

1 Health Matters

Regular readers of my blog will know that I slipped a disc back in October 24. You would think that it would be healed by now but unfortunately it's not. I'm still in a lot of discomfort especially after doing any sort of exercise like dancing. 

I did eventually see a GP and he prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and told me to take it three times a day. I wasn't very happy to take it as it irritates the stomach and you have to take it with food six hourly. So if I have breakfast at 8am lunch at 2pm that means dinner won't be until 8pm which is far too late for me. I am managing 2 doses a day only. He says the left side of my back is in spasm. I got to see a physio a week after and she gave me some back strengthening exercises to do, which I'm doing twice a day, that was two weeks ago and nothing has helped so far. I have an appointment for a bone density scan on the 17th but then will have to wait 4 weeks for the result. So watch this space.

2. Garage Door

My very temperamental up and over garage door broke at the beginning of January. I use the garage for storage only as it's far too small to house a car. I have struggled with this door since I moved into this house and decided I needed an electric operated door, but finding someone to install one was proving very difficult, what is it with tradesmen these days. Anyway when the door broke I persisted and eventually found a local company to install the door for me. Two very friendly young lads who talked a lot, promised that they would take the old door away for me and install a new door. To cut a long story short it took three phone calls to actually set a date for them to come. When they did come and it only took them an hour to install da daa...

They assured me that they would be back that afternoon to collect the old door and seal the edges.

It remained there for four days and after three phone calls, one man came to collect it, the struggle he had to get it on the truck was painful to see, I told him that there should have been two of them to lift it and he would hurt his back (see number 2!) but I can't see anything changing anytime soon.

 What about sealing the edges of the garage door I can hear you say, well I'm still waiting, I phoned again this morning and he said today, haha what do you think will they come? again watch this space.

3. Grandchildren

Enough of the moaning something far more pleasant a quick snap of my 3 youngest grandchildren 

Big brother mikey will be turning 7 on the 8th of March too.😀

Louis and Daddy

Little Louis is as cute as can be, he took his first steps last week, he's wearing that little jacket I made back here, 11 years ago! still big for him but he will grow into it.

Julian took his first steps just two weeks ago, another little cutie.

Fridge magnet shots of little Sophie wearing a hat and jacket made by grandma 

It's lovely to see your crochet being put to good use, at least the blanket made by grandma is giving her a hug even if I can't just yet. Do you recognise it? you can find it and how to make it here.

4. Crochet

I have quite a few things on the go at the moment but this is what I have made today

Easter baby hats for babies born on and around Easter, very cute I think, I'm going to make some with bunny ears next.

5, New Yarn

Just feast your eyes on that, bought yesterday, buying yarn is still one of my favourite occupations but after my huge stash busting enterprise back here lessons have been learnt. I still have far too much yarn but I don't buy as much as I once did. This little lot is for my crochet group, the u3a treasurer had gifted the Knitting and crochet groups £50 each to buy yarn for charity projects as our efforts raise the profile of our u3a so it's a win win situation.

If you have managed to get through that lot well done, because I'm not blogging as much there is so much to catch up on, I used to blog three times a week at one stage, I don't know where I found the time.

Have a great weekend. 

New Starts For the New Year.

 So here we are at the end of January, I know everyone thinks that January seems to be a long month but it's passed very quickly for me.

Lots of things have been happening to keep me busy.

I have started two new groups in our u3a, I have called the first one The Hobby Hub where members can come along for a couple of hours and sit in a warm inviting space, have a cuppa a chat and work on their favourite hobby, I have things there already available for them to use, like puzzle books, adult colouring books, playing cards, a book and a magazine exchange.

At the first session we had members knitting, making jewellery, bead art, Iris folding, crochet, chess and chess tuition, some were using the puzzle books, reading magazines and some just came for a chat.

I was very worried because the weather was bad that no one would turn up, but thankfully we had good attendance and I think we will have even more people coming to our next session next Monday. I am going to introduce Decoupage and Diamond Art, one of our male members is bringing his backgammon set and we are going to set up a jigsaw to work on.

BEAD ART

CHESS

IRIS FOLDING

PATCHWORK

JEWELLRY MAKING

I MADE EARINGS! 

Please let me know if you lovely people have any suggestions.

The second group I called UDance, I compile a playlist of music to dance to from YouTube and we have two whole hours of dancing pleasure. Members are invited to send in their requests, but it looks like they are quite happy to let me do the choosing, some have asked for line dancing so I have selected a couple of line dances along with tutorials for them to follow. 

Trying to find enough music for a couple of hours of dancing was proving quite a challenge until I came up with idea of finding tracks from the top twenty pop charts, as it's January 2025 I have found music from January 1965, 75, 85, 95 and 2015. That way I'll just change the month and I'll never be stuck, ingenious don't you think haha. 

Everyone seemed to enjoyed the first session, as we are all in the 60's and up age group I started with a warm up video and told those who were unable to dance to just sway in their chair or tap their feet, even stand up and hold onto the back of it.  I myself have got to be very careful because if you remember I slipped a disc last October and my back is still troubling me but I'm sure that gentle exercise can only help although I have to say I was aching after the last session.

We are very lucky as our u3a meet in our Town Hall and there is plenty of space for us to dance in and the staff help me to set up the laptop to the screen and speaker, I wouldn't have a clue otherwise. I'm looking forward to our next session next Monday, it will be a very busy day, Hobby Hub in the morning and UDance in the afternoon.

Come along and join us you would be very welcome. 😊

Looking Back At The Year Of The Sock

 I try not to set myself resolutions or targets when it comes to a New Year, I used to and I would get very stressed when I wasn't able to meet them, now I have learnt to do what I can and be thankful for what I have achieved. Last year I did set myself a target to make four pairs of socks for my Lip reading group as you can see in this post here. 

I was convinced that I would manage that easily but when I set that challenge for myself I was in the sock making mode and had already made a pair for Kevin..

Kevin's socks came first, for his birthday in February

I didn't really enjoy making stripy socks and was looking forward to making a straightforward pair for my lip reading teacher Anne, that's when I went out and bought four balls of lovely sock yarn

Anne's Socks were ready by April..

I didn't really enjoy making these either because they were a large size and it took me while to discover that I had the wrong number of stitches on the needle and I had to start all over again, it seemed to take me ages to finish them, the finished result was worth it though because they turned out really well. I knew that the next pair would be more fun to make because the colours were so bright and cheerful and they were a smaller size ...

LIz's Socks were finished in May...

As I thought, these were a pleasure to make and didn't take me too long at all. So two pairs down and just two to go but by this time I was really fed up with sock making and decided to have a break..

Maria's socks were finished in September

 I didn't enjoy making Maria's socks they seemed to take forever, it looked like my sock making mojo had well and truly gone and I still had Cecily's socks to make, I really couldn't do it and I felt really bad that I didn't have a pair of socks to gift to Cecily at Christmas, I don't think that she's that bothered I didn't make any promises and I did give her something else instead, but that ball of yarn looks at me accusingly, it's willing me to pick it up and get those socks underway, I still can't, and if I'm not in the mood there's no use me even trying, I'm happy that I managed to make four pairs of socks last year and I can't wait to meet up with the Lip Reading group to see if they liked them. 

This year I'm just going to go with the flow and make whatever appeals to me, crafting is supposed to be fun right?

Have you made any resolutions this year?

Thank you for all the good wishes for the birth of little Sophie, she is two weeks old already and she says hi 💖