Happiness

Tea after a fabric shopping spree

This is an extract from an article by Lesley Garner from the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago, which actually struck a chord with us all:-

Happiness is what we feel when we lose our self-consciousness and let down our barriers. Happiness is a side-effect of complete absorbtion in some activity which demands all our attention. It is more likely to find us when we are joined with a group of other people, losing our egos in a collective experience.

Secret Santa

Sharon's fantastic cookie -decorated tree

Sandra likes this one!

When we meet in December it is near the end of the month and becomes a Christmas celebration. As well as bringing food and having a festive drink or two we enjoy our Secret Santa gifts. Not for us the tame drawing of lots for gifts, we have adapted our own rules, which are basically these:- There is a cash limit on each of the gifts, and they must anonymously be put in the basket. When the time comes, we are each issued with a number to show in which order we must choose a gift. Number one can do nothing more than choose a gift and open it, but from two onwards you choose a gift, open it and decide if you like it better than any other previously opened one. If you covet someone else's you just do a swap. This year we decided to bring two gifts each, which made for a much livlier occasion, as we have previously been a bit reluctant to steal things when people really seem to like them. Imogen swears that her gifts are always taken from her, I don't know why she should feel that, but she does always seem to choose nice ones from the basket.

Now Sharon's got it, it was the one that Imogen wanted

Thanksgiving Photos

Red beads to represent cranberries on plant material from Imogen's garden.






Imogen did a little reading for each of us about the meaning of Thanksgiving, half were on corn shapes and half on fish. The turkey place names are from a Martha Stewart pattern. Find it at http://www.marthastewart.com/ along with a lot of other interesting ideas.

Sharon, under an American Flag!!


A well-used copy of a book I bought in the '80's, Martha Stewart 'Entertaining' provided the recipes for cornbread and a cranberry, orange and walnut relish. The turkey stuffing came from an adaptation of two recipes I found on her website, the first one was highly calorific and the second more modern version, far too sensibly low-cal for us. Principle ingredients are apples, chestnuts and prunes, loved by all of us

Midsummers Day 2007

This is Caroline's Post.

We all met up for our annual garden Midsummer Madness get together. Last year it poured down with rain and we sat under the gazebo with umbrellas up. What a laugh that was!

Time came around for our get-together in the garden again. We could not believe our eyes! Raining again but harder this time so we moved inside for our Bun and Tea fight. You'd think we would have had better weather in June but no, someone up there is having a laugh!

What fun we had, stuffing our faces talking of men, eyes, hips, hands etc. Honest, we are like walking nightmares!

It came round to our Midsummer Madness parcel surprises - Santa's Secret really- Nobody wanted to swap. Sharon's was the best - A packet of Rich Tea Biscuits - How original for a group of Mad Quilters! Hoots all round. Everyone enjoyed themseves and we are looking forward to next year

Introducing Imogen

This is me at Jane's 70th birthday party with the pavlova I made.

I am the badly behaved drunkard on the first photograph swigging back---a bottle of lavender liqueur with the lid firmly on! I am a retired primary school teacher and have discovered that my 'Lavender Licence' is wonderful i.e. doing what I like , when I like , how I like and with whom I like!! AND I like my quilting days more than I can say. We decided ,gathered round and sewing one evening, to sparkle up our get-togethers,so various hilarious suggestions followed. Our next get-together was round about my birthday so ,egged on by Sharon, I decided to give the evening a lavender theme. I made a victoria sponge and soaked it with lavender liqueur,topped with the last of my lavender from the garden, and served it with cream. Then I made shortbread and tipped the liqueur into the mixture. It actually tasted nice-subtley lavender. We watched Ladies in Lavender, did absolutely no sewing and laughed a lot!

My husband (banished to another room for the evening on the promise of some cake) took the photograph.

Since this evening we have had other wonderful outings/evenings with plenty of hilarity!!

Jane is 70

Jane and Sandra






Jane was 70 on May 23rd, the first of us to reach
that milestone, so we decided to have a supper party, just the eight of us, with everyone doing something. We made up a menu and printed it with our Ladies in Lavender picture on the back, and a purple ribbon trim on the front.

You will guess that we are very fond of Jenny Joseph's poem 'When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go', but I had better say quickly that three of us are only in their early fifties.

Sharon made a very festive looking, and delicious punch with raspberry and pomegranate bucks fizz from M&S mixed equally with their matching juice, and lots of summer berries. It suited the evening perfectly.







The menu for the evening started with a vegetable terrine, followed by chicken tagine, with cous-cous (or rice for the cous-cous haters), delicious puddings, pavlova with beautiful fresh fruit and a lemon meringue pie. We all ate some of each I'm afraid, but we could not manage birthday cake as well, so Jane took it home to share with her family. There was a photo on top of the cake of some of us on a shopping spree... for fabric of course.