31: Summer is over.......

My energy has departed. Summer is officially over now. I have been slowly assembling all the outdoor furniture to be cleaned and packed away and, in the window of dry weather this afternoon, I did just that. Packed them away. Covered. Stored. And maybe half clean, so some of my children had better be around when they are next unveiled to do the cleaning properly. I am now inching along like a geriatric crone and the hair, which I straightened and even sprayed (!!) this morning is now delicately arranged in spikes in all directions. I would prostrate myself on the floor to recover, if there was a snowball's chance in hell of me ever getting up again.

I crawled out of bed reluctantly this morning. (That should have been an omen.) It was 6 degrees C. And I decided to head straight to the Fairtrade Coffee Morning in the village because a) they would supply the coffee and b) also the cake and c) it was 10am and d) it was warm there. By the time I got home it was 11.54. I tell you this, because I opened the door and there was a delivery note saying a parcel was at the post office, which closes at 12 noon on Saturdays, so back in the car  I leapt and walked into the post office at 11.59. I do not think they were thrilled to see me. But I retrieved my daughter's parcel. Success.

While I was at the coffee morning, I chatted to some young friends, and they were saying how much they wished they could sew and make things themselves. That they had never been taught. So I said, hey - I can teach you. The basics at least. Everyone at the table was bemoaning the fact that life-skills were not taught any more that everything had become academic at school. I have talked about this ad nauseum before. And the end result is that, as the 14 year old said - some girls don't even know how to take in their clothes, or mend things. I could most certainly teach that. Around my kitchen table. It is a big table, remember. It could be a whole heap of fun. Another homeschooling friend mentioned that her junior school age daughter wanted to learn a while ago as well. So you never know.....Linds's School of Sewing and Craftiness may fling open its doors one of these days.

Did I ever tell you I used to make photo frames out of fabric covered cardboard, complete with piping around the photo and ric-rac or lace at the edge? Or that I covered notebooks with thin foam and fabric? Thank the Good Lord for the invention of double sided sticky tape and hot glue guns. One can make all kinds of things armed with those two essentials.

It has been raining while I have been sitting here, and that has made it seem even colder. More coffee will warm me up but then I have to get up and make it. It would be great to have a slave robot to do these things. You know - for a brief moment, I wrote "slave", then deleted it, then wrote it crossed through. Political correctness gone crazy. You all KNOW I do not mean a real slave. A child would do. One of my own, of course. Or a mother. Or a husband. Or a friend. Or...... It is a turn of phrase , impossible/improbable and ridiculous, but I am quite sure you know what I am getting at. Gah! I refuse to filter everything I say through 10 metres of correctness.

So I am going to go and make my own coffee and put on the slippers and watch the rain and twiddle my thumbs.......