Yarn Bombing The Station.

 Early last Sunday morning before most people had even risen from their beds a group of knitters armed with bags and bags of knitted and crocheted items, arrived at Seaham station, the plan was to decorate the station and put a smile on peoples faces after the long dreary months of Covid-19 and lockdown.

The theme -  Trains and Flowers

As commuters stood on the platform watching with interest, the station was slowly transformed, passing trains revealed passengers smiling pointing and peering out of the windows trying to get a good look at what was going on.

It took nearly three hours but the results were well worth the effort, it was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed every minute of it. As people came and went it was obvious that it was a huge success, questions were asked about the u3a and lots of interest was shown. 

I left a lot of my painted stones around with our u3a address on the back, which have incidentally become quite famous the picture of my rocks was the headline in the June u3a National Newsletter.

It has led to requests for me to teach how to paint rocks which made me smile as I'm certainly no expert, I can however point people in the right direction and I may start a Rock Art tab at the top of my blog which will have links as to where people can find more information. 

In other news our u3a website has been down for almost a week, apparently the auto renew for our domain didn't work and so we have had to purchase it again, it's been quite complicated process but thankfully it's now working again.  It brought it home to me just how poor my knowledge is in terms of technology, anything out of the ordinary completely throws me. 

I have been so busy with u3a things these past two weeks I haven't had much time for anything else so I'm now off to have a look around blogland to see what you have all been up to.

Have a great week. 

It's Been A Busy Week.

The Rock Art

 Well I have been back and checked all the places where I hid my rocks and they have all been taken.  The one that I left in the most prominent part of the town centre was the last to go, just as I don't want to be seen leaving them people probably don't want to be seen taking them either. 

They have appeared on the u3a Day blog on the main website and apparently will be shown in the newsletter too along with other u3a's pictures of their celebrations for u3a Day.

My latest craze is flower bugs I think everyone I know is going to receive one sooner or later as they are such fun to paint.

The Replacement

Look what I've got at last! I have managed to get a replacement treadmill from a different firm. I am hoping that this one lasts a little longer than the last one in fact a whole lot longer. It has taken me ages to decide on a replacement so I hope that I have made the right choice,  This one has an incline adjustment as well so I'll get a better work out.  It's good to have it for awful weather days. 

I have just received my credit card statement and have discovered that the refund for my first treadmill hasn't been credited to my account even though I had an email to say that it had been, that's why I went ahead and bought this new one I should have checked first, anyway I am on the case, I'm sure that I'll get it but it sure is taking a long time. 

Lovely Weather 

It has been lovely to have some nice bright sunny weather for a change look who came to visit last Sunday.

Little Mikey playing with his toys with a very tame Robin looking on without me realising it, I only saw the Robin when I looked at the photo. 

Spooky

I had a phone call from a very dear friend, we don't speak often but we do keep in touch, this time she phoned me for a very sad reason, as I picked up the phone to answer her a robin flew right up to my window and perched on the watering can just in front of the conservatory doors, it stood there looking in while my friend broke the sad news that our very lovely mutual friend Frances had passed away. That Robin stood there looking in right up until the end of quite a long conversation. Coincidence? probably but I thought it was spooky and since then that robin comes into my garden and stands very close every time I go out (see above!) 

That makes four very special friends of mine that have passed away over the years, one just before last Christmas. Cancer in some form of another has been the cause for each one of them passing, of course as we get older it's inevitable but it's very sad just the same. 

Mahjong

Thank goodness for the busyness of this week it has kept my mind on other things, one of which is Mahjong, we have a u3a group which hasn't opened yet but four of us from the group meet when we can to have a game or two, this week we met in Paula's garden and had a very pleasant afternoon, if only the weather could be like this all the time.

Progress

Well there has been some progress on the station display, yesterday six of the ladies from the knitting group met in my garden and it looks as if we are getting there, we hope to erect the display a week on Sunday.

Coffee with a view

Sitting in The Outlook coffee shop with a friend down in our marina last Saturday, it's so lovely to sit there in the warm sunshine and take in the view, this time we had a visitor, that starling was sat just a foot away from us listening in to our conversation, it even posed for a photograph.

 It looks like the crochet, knitting and sewing have been put on hold at the moment nothing has been done, I'm not in the mood and the weather has been too nice to ignore, I'm making the most of it because it won't last long.

I hope you all have a great week 

Spreading The Word.

 As I mentioned in my last post, it was the first national u3a day this week, in normal times we would have planned various activities to spread the word about our u3a and to encourage people to come and join us. Unfortunately because of the pandemic not much has been going on at all in our u3a and getting together to organise any kind of activity has proved impossible. 

As I also said in my last post we were hoping that the display for our train station would be up and ready but because of the bank holiday weekend  people had other plans and not much has got done.  I have manged to finish my portion of the net but there is still a way to go with the rest.  It will happen, just not as soon as we had hoped. 

The station is just a very small one consisting of two platforms so whatever we manage to display it will have some kind of impact.

With that in mind and with u3a day approaching I came up with an idea which was advantageous to me and would also raise peoples awareness of our organisation. 

As you all know I am totally hooked on painting rocks and love leaving them around town to spread a bit of cheer, what better way to spread the word about our u3a. This way the message will reach a more diverse group of people rather than a poster or a leaflet, posters are rarely read and leaflets usually end up in the bin. 

I have written our website address on the back and invited people to join us I'm hoping that whoever finds the rocks may pass on the information to a relevant family member, it could be a case of look what I have found Grandma, Grandma admires the stone turns it over see's the address and investigates.  I have painted stones that will appeal to all age groups so it may even be Grandma who picks one up who knows.

These are just a few of what I prepared, I added some of my decoupaged ones too,  it took three walks at different times of the day as they are quite heavy as you can imagine,  I did leave one on each platform at the station yesterday, but have saved a few for when we erect the display and I will add to them, it's a good excuse to paint more stones. 

I had fun leaving them around town in various locations, doing it without being seen can be tricky but I think I managed it. 

We have had a very disappointing bank holiday weekend, while the rest of Britain basked in warm sunshine we had sea fret to contend with from the North sea which made it quite cold but although it was still dull when I set off to deposit my stones luckily the temperatures had risen a little and it was quite warm.

Taking in the views as I passed by..

You can see how dull the weather is, this was the beach when I went for my walk last Saturday

It felt quite eerie, there were quite a few people searching for sea glass, the weather never stops them, they are there come rain or shine.

Can you remember how upset I was last year when they felled all those trees in the dene.....

 the ugly scars have disappeared under a mass of wild flowers and spring foliage. there is no sign of building work going on so I am still at a loss as to why the trees were felled in the first place.

Sea fret creeping in..

I am watching to see what develops, hopefully it will remain a wildflower meadow but I remain sceptical. 

Have a great week.