I won a Candy

Hi,

This was not the post I was going to do, but I won this candy. Its the first on I have ever won and I cant believe it. The candy was from Clare Curd.

I wanted to say a little something, I am waiting for a scan on my gall bladder this time they want it with dye. I got a comment from someone the other day and I thought I would just set the matter right, although the comment did not come from anyone in the crafting world. I feel a but upset, I have a mother that thinks I am not ill and I am sure the girls I work with think that I that I am not in the pain I say I am. The trouble is I have a face I put on when I go to work, I try so hard not show I am in pain, we are not allowed to say to our residents when we are ill so therefore when I walk out of my door at home I put a face on to say I am fine. the trouble is no one sees me at home they have no idea how many pain killers I take. No one sees me in the middle of the night in pain and not able to sleep, walking around the house or fidgeting around the bed to try and get comfortable so I can manage another few hours of sleep. No one sees me when I feel sick and don't want to eat My husband sees it all and knows that I am fed up with pain and cry a lot at home, yes I cry its the waiting that gets me down, not knowing how much longer I have to sit in pain until the next scan and when they will deceide what they will do. Do the doctors care... no does the NHS care ..... no but like thousands of other people I have paid in all my working life since I was 15 years old, I have never had time off for children so they have had over 40 years of money off me and still we wait for something to be done. I have had pain now for over 5 and half years on and off, at first it would moan for a couple of days and settle down, and come back every so often, but last year I was diagnosed with Polymalgia and put on steroids, the high dose of steroids killed the pain but as I came off the steroids the pain started again and by the time I was completely off the steroids the pain was bad and since then has never gone away. Now I am in pain 24/7 and on the top dose of pain killers, I cant take the full amount because I drive and they send me off to sleep so I take them when the pain gets unbearable. Unfortunately I have a tan at the moment from Turkey so I look better than I am. Well there you have it, so for anyone who thinks I am not ill perhaps they might think again.

I hope you will come and see my blog again and next time the post will be tatting as promised.

In the meantime have a lovely weekend and take care

Hugs Margaret

Turkey Full of Turkish Delight - Side Kentia Apartments

Side - Kentia Apartments
Hi,
First I must apologise for not uploading this piece about my holiday. The delay was due to illness not only with myself but my Mother, who is now hopefully getting stronger and getting to be able to look after herself and her dogs. I am now waiting for another scan with dye this time, I suppose one day they will find out what is wrong and sort it and then I can be out of pain. In the meantime its just carry on.

Whats the saying - Sun, sea and sand plus sex Turkey has it all, between Europe and Asia Turkey tries to be both. Turkey is a very large country it takes as long to fly to Turkey as it does it fly from end of Turkey to the other......... 4 hours.
Cloudless skies of blue,with an occasional white whisky cloud that neither shields the sun but just makes lacy patterns across the sky. The two weeks has been very very hot although at first the locals said it was cooling down towards the second week the temperature went up to around 46c. When we landed at Bristol it was 7c, we lost 40 degrees in four hours.

The picture above is the apartments which we stayed at. they were very nice and all the staff very friendly and helpful. We had a great rep Billy, the best rep I have ever had on a holiday. I have written a letter to the company giving prise where prise is due.
This was the pool at the apartments at night with the fountain going. Relaxing by the pool is oh so hard work, this pool with music all day some of it back to the 60's. It was nice to hear some of the old songs including a lot of the Beatles. The apartments were clean and we had the most wonderful cleaner who one day did the most wonderful pattern on the bed with bougainvillea flowers, that was the day I was feeling really ill and she cheered me up. I was making some tatted Christmas stars and I gave her one when he left as a present with a tip. As you can see she made the bad look lovely and worth a picture. Everyday the sheet was put back on the bed as a fan. There are some more pictures of the apartment at the bottom of this piece.

Side pronounced See-day in the ancient language of Luwian meaning Pomegranate.
Side is a very large area of Antalya region of Turkey. The rep said we are one of the nearest apartments to the old town but its still 40 minute walk into the beginning of the old town and 10 Turkish lira by Taxi.

The old town is worth a visit on the outskirts between new Side and the old town is the Greco-Roman amphitheatre. This is the best amphitheatre there is outside Italy.

The shops in the old town our mainly jewellery, clothes, spices, Turkish delight, and restaurants. In the harbour pleasure boats take visitor's out on trips, at the bottom of the town is the Temple of Apollo ruins see picture above, when the sun sets in the harbour (see picture) the then rush abound to the Temple of Apollo ruins and catch the last of the dipping sun on the stones.

Turkey is a very colourful country, buildings are painted with shades of pink, yellow, or creams and browns. Lush green areas in the gardens and around the apartments and in the middle of dual carriageways palms, banana, oleander, hibiscus, bougainvillea, roses and various plants that we would have as pot plants in this country they grow with abundance.

Again like Icmeler we are not far from the mosque, there are several in Side, but like everything else these days they don't have one Emir per mosque. The Emir's are share several mosques, something like here with vicars having more than one church to look after. They are connected by radio therefore at pray time, you hear like a mobile phone noise, and then the call to pray. Its seems like they take it turn to call from different mosques. The call to pray is five times per day everyday of the week.
We did a trip to the Manavgat river, the water is the colour of green and at the end of the river it meets the sea and you can swim in the sea one side of the beach and then go over to the river and swim in the fresh water and have a swim to clean off the sea water. We had lunch on the boat before going back up river to Manavgat and seeing the weekly market - huge is the only word to describe the market and then to the Manavgat Falls these are Turkeys Niagara Falls see picture.
Its been a very restful holiday we have had some lovely meals at My Corner restaurant, we were looked after very well by Ali. Every meal started with flat bread, garlic mushrooms, garlic butter, sour cream dip and a tomato spicy one which I did not try. This was free before the meal and then with the bill finished off with a little something!!!!

We found the Turkish people very helpful and obliging but there driving left a lot to desire, the streets are wide, they have no idea what side of the road to drive, the buses are small, there are no bus stops everyone just puts their hand out and he stops, squeeze on, and then pass the money down to the driver who without stopping driving sorts out the change and its passed back.

This was the side street from the apartments, and yes it was as wide as its looks, the surface was tar and then chippings, but their chippings are more like rocks and very painful to walk on.


This was the road down to the restaurant on the corner at the end of this picture. Side streets in Turkey do not have names only numbers and only main roads have names.

Turkey is worth a visit, but the summers are very hot and the winters are cold.

Finally we saw this on the beach in the old town the ultimate luxury seating, I don't know how comfortable they are but they had their own table to go with the seats.......
I hope you have enjoyed reading about Turkey and our holiday.

I hope you will come back and visit my blog again when you are in blog land, the next blog will be on Tatting which I did on holiday.

In the meantime take care and keep well

Hugs

Margaret

Just a few more pictures of the apartments.......

Kids pool



The gardens

Reception

National Cardmakers Day 1st October

Hi,

Its been a lovely day today with clear blue skies and some lovely sunshine, after the pouring rain yesterday we had it was lovely to see the sun and it was quite warm for this time of year.

Today I am bring you two cards that I made for the National card makers day that was last Friday.

The one above was for Whisper (do crafts member) I used messy rabbit image and placed it on a silver damask background on a silver card and used blue holographic dots in the corners and each corner of the mounted picture and words. with white ribbon finished off with silver peel offs

This card which I made two of for Suzanne and Jeanette two very good friends in blog land and members of Do crafts. I used the owl image from Dawn Bibby stamped I wanted to make it looked as if the owls were in a tree with foliage around them, the little flowers have some very special gold colour gems in the middle which I found in Rhodes a few years ago, they are used for finger nails in the shape of flowers. I was only able to buy one packet so I only use them on special cards. I mounted the owls on the same silver damask paper and placed on a green glittery flowery paper on a silver card. and white ribbon finished off with silver peel offs.

I hope you have enjoyed vising my blog and look forward to seeing you again in blog land soon. My next post will be our holiday in Turkey.

In the meantime take care

Hugs Margaret

Home from Turkey

Hi,
I expect you are wondering why I have put anything on my blog, well its a long story and I wont bore you.
We arrived home in the early hours of last Saturday morning, to be honest we were knackered as the flight was delay by an hour and half, having had to leave our apartment at midday we had to sit around for many hours waiting to be picked up to go to the airport. The weather was beautiful in Turkey but very hot and at 45 to 46c it was a long hot wait. Then an hours journey to the airport and a long wait for the plane, we were hot and tired, when we finally got home. When we landed at Bristol Airport the temperature was 7c we had lost 40 degrees in four hours. At around 9.30 on Saturday morning we had a phone call from A and E Royal United Hospital in Bath telling me that my Mother had been admitted during the night.
I have a post ready to put together as I wrote a piece in Turkey so when I have time I will upload the photos that go with the piece and load it onto the blog for you.
I did some tatting in Turkey, our maid who look after really well was really taken by my tatting and I gave her a piece that I had made when we left, it was only a small thank you for all she had done, plus a tip, but she was over the moon with it. I will be putting a picture of the work later on my blog, plus I also designed a piece while I sat in the shade by the pool.
In the meantime I hope you are well and thank you for visiting my blog, I look forward to seeing you again in blog land soon,
In the meantime take care
Hugs Margaret

Flying tomorrow to Turkey

Hi

We are off on our Turkish holiday tomorrow so there wont be any posts for a couple of weeks. I will wave to you as we pass over southern England , sorry if you live in the north but we take off from Bristol International Airport. We are hoping that I will be OK while we are away, we get the results to my MRI scan on the 27th September, I hope they find out what the pain is.
Take care while I am away and look forward to seeing you all in blog land in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for having a look at my blog
Hugs Margaret

Special card for Garduation

Hi,

Today has been quite a nice day, the sun was shinning most of the day until we had a few spots of rain, its brighten up now, at least I got most of my washing dry.

Today I am bring you a special card for Vernon's niece Becky who is graduating from Lincoln University tomorrow. In a couple of weeks she is off to Africa for a year on work experience and at the moment is having to learn Swahili as the part of Africa she is going to does not speak a lot of English.

I am afraid my mojo is not working very well at the moment and I tried to do a really special card for her. I stamped out the owl image ( from the Dawn Bibby range) and coloured it in with pro markers, I am still learning how to use them, and them stamped foliage around the owl, I put or tried to put a university hat on the head of the owl. I want to add something of Africa at the bottom of the card and ended up with the elephants, not my first choice but I hope Becky will like her card.
I hope you have enjoyed my new card and I look forward to seeing you again on my blog.

until the next time take care

Hugs Margaret

My hosptial Hell Day

Hi,
No cards tonight but I wanted to tell you about my Hell day I had yesterday,
I went to the Pain Clinic Royal United Hospital Bath, I was referred to them from Fenchary Hospital last January, because I have a problem with my neck, they found a bowed disc and I get a lot of pain in my neck.
He said he could put a steroid injection in my neck, I went into a theatre room and sat down, the doctor started putting an injection in my neck, both sides and then both sides at my hair line, and then two more further up my head in line with my ears on both sides. I felt like a dart board, he was moving my hair around and before I got over the first one he was on number three, but by the time he got to the last one, I was in shock at the speed he put them in and pain.
Then the doctor walked out we both thought that that was the anaesthetic and he would put the steroid injections but the nurse said no it was all done and the anaesthetic and steroids were all in one.
The last one bleed so much the nurse had to clean my hair, telling how lovely to have thick hair (NOT) by the time she had cleaned it perhaps she did not think so either. I was wearing a white top, it just missed most of the top.
Vernon said if he had known what he was going to do he would not have let him and he hopes I never have to go through that again. In someway I hope I don't have that again.
I had a letter this morning with my MRI appointment for my gall bladder and guess what we have told them I am on holiday from the 10th for two weeks so the appointment is for the 21st I blow my top and now I am having it on Sunday afternoon. Why cant they listen when you are kind enough to tell them you are going on holiday. I now have an appointment on the 27th to see the surgeon I hope they find something on the MRI, as the pain is all the time now.
Sorry for my rant on my hell day, I will find something nice for the next post, promise.
The weather has been lovely this week and I have managed to do some spring cleaning washing ie the settee throws and some of the cushions and my fluffy mats in the lounge and landing ready for the winter. We have rain forecasted for tomorrow, I was hoping to wash the other cushion covers and my table cloth and material I use on my craft table, hopefully it will stay fine to get them done, and then I am finished and leaving the house clean.
Thank you for visiting my blog and I look forward to seeing you again in blog land.
take care
Hugs Margaret