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 💖

A Good Start To The New Year!

 Happy New Year everyone, I hope that you all had a great Christmas and that you enjoyed your New Year Celebrations. 

My Christmas was very hectic and extremity tiring, like I said in my last post I was hosting this year and if you are the one preparing the lunch I don't think you can enjoy it yourself, you're too busy making sure that everything comes together at the same time and the food is served hot. When you tell your family to be here at 1pm and one half come at two and the other half at three that doesn't help either especially as I had the food ready by 1 30. I can't even remember what my meal tasted like I gulped it down so quickly, but the family enjoyed it and Mikey enjoyed the scavenger hunt I'd planned for him and my eldest son enjoyed his birthday cake so that's all that matters. I had son number two and family on boxing day but thankfully that was a more laid back affair.

It's all forgotten because it's now in the past and we move on to this New Year and on New Years Day my first little granddaughter was born, how special is that! My son and daughter in law decided that it would be better for the baby to be born in her Mothers country South Korea as they were so impressed with the health care there,  my son will stay till the end of the month before going back to Qatar, and Minju will follow him when the babies a little bit older. He is besotted with her already it's going to be so hard for him to leave her.

The care she is receiving is amazing, following the birth she and my son have gone into a postpartum care centre for two weeks where they are given  guidance on how to look after the baby and the Mother is closely monitored to make sure she is recovering well from the birth. 

Meet little Sophie

Welcome to the world little one 😊

I just want to give her a cuddle but unfortunately it will be a while before I get to meet her in person.

More coming later have a great week ahead.