I am focussing on music today. I don't know what is important to you, but there are two things that I would miss dreadfully if they were taken from me.
I could not function without books to read, whether on the Kindle (I am gradually replacing all my books with the Kindle edition as they fall apart or to save space) or the printed page.
Music is a real necessity to me. So much music triggers memories of things that may have happened years ago. When I was a child, I remember all the classical music that Dad used to play, all on 78's. He loved the voice of Dame Joan Sutherland, the Australian soprano, and his favourite record was the Puccini aria "O mio babbino caro",
rendered in English as "O My Beloved Father", or it was until yours truly sat on it. Not a good idea. Being a 78, it did not take well to that treatment and was in several pieces. I was not popular. I never had the guts to tell my Dad that it was partly his fault for leaving it on a chair. Fortunately, it was about the time when 45's were becoming popular, and I managed to track down a copy to replace it.
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The Four Seasons were not a group I liked in particular, but when I was living in halls at college up in Yorkshire, they were very popular, and the main song was "Let's Hang On", and it was always blasting out somewhere in the building, at full volume. So that song takes me straight back to that time, the first time I had been away from home for any length of time.
Right at this minute, I am listening to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, the version with Paul Jones in the lead role, the proper version for me. For some reason, it became the tape (and then the CD) that Geoff always played on a Sunday morning when he was washing up. So, if Joseph was playing in our house, it was Sunday and all was well.
My school put on a Gilbert and Sullivan show every Easter term while I was there. We could not be in it until the fourth year, unless we had a fantastic solo type voice, but in the third year, we were allowed to help with the half time refreshments in the dining hall. Unofficially, we were allowed to stand at the back of the main hall during the show, until we had to go to do our duties, which, of course, whetted our appetites to actually join in the fun on stage. I can still remember the order in which I saw or took part in the shows - Pirates of Penzance, Mikado, Gondoliers, Iolanthe, Ruddigore, Patience, HMS Pinafore. I only did the last two shows myself. In those days, we were limited in what we could do by the copyright held by Bridget D'Oyly Carte, but on the final night on Saturday, we had usually been inspected and things relaxed. My abiding memory in Patience was of the two leading men virtually climbing the scenery to get laughs, and then we, as the ladies chorus, had to go on stage, singing a doleful song and attempt to keep straight faces, while we were really cracking up.
I did join in with the Gilbert and Sullivan shows at college, but it was never as much fun - no costumes (we had proper costumes hired in at school) and no clowning around, a much more serious undertaking, so it is the school productions that really gave me my love of G&S.
My love of Christmas music is also sparked by my time in the school choir, and carols have to have the proper descants, the ones I learned so well at that time. Some of the solo songs I remember well for the people who sang them, and it takes me straight back to the lovely atmosphere singing in the local church to the accompaniment of the powerful church organ (it also gave me a love of real organ music). I can see those people whenever I hear that particular music.
In my final year at school, we had an electronic organ fitted in the balcony in the school hall, and it was decided that the morning after the Carol Service, the choir should give a performance at morning assembly. Unfortunately, most of the sopranos section had gone down with a bug overnight, leaving only two of us to hold the high notes and sing the descant. Also unfortunately, some bright (not) soul had decided that the entry of the staff, while we were singing, should be preceded by someone swinging the incense, which wafted straight up to us in the balcony above. Result - the total collapse of the descant into choking. Oops!
Some songs also take you back to sad times, and are difficult to listen to. Abide with Me was my grandfather's favourite hymn, and I remember that after he had died, it was sung as usual at the Cup Final. Dad said something about it being a shame that Grandad could not hear it. I, thinking of my surviving Grandad, said quite innocently that he probably could. That and the 23rd psalm ("The Lord is My Shepherd" to Crimond) have always been difficult for me to sing because they were always played at funerals, and brought back strong memories.
If you are still with me at this stage, do please leave me a message and tell me about your music memory triggers.
The word Filigraphy was conjured up by Barbara Gray to use instead of Zentangle. There is, apparently, an copyright issue over the word Zentangle, so she just invented a new word. It is a mix of Filigree and Calligraphy. 
Now I can get in the room, I have a chance to clear my desk and do some real crafting at last. That will be such a joy. Meanwhile, I shall have a play with one of Barbara Gray' s project, which is zentangle or filigraphy. If that goes well, I may show results tomorrow. More photos of the recovery of this room will also follow.
That set me thinking about dialects in general. I love listening to the Black Country dialect in particular and there is a wonderful version of the Nativity, all written in Black Country http://blackcountrysteve.blogspot.co.uk/ Don't try to just read it. Read it aloud and it will make more sense.
As you can see, the second photo is from a much earlier time, but shows the same building from the back. My grandparents are on the right, with their eldest son's wife. You can see planks of wood propped up again the building. This was the back yard where the coffin workshop was and also the even older bridle bit workshop (Walsall was the main centre of saddle and bridle bit making, in fact for any parts of horse harness). The wood was generally good seasoned oak for making the coffins.
The brown border is also a tree bark, this time from the Prunus Serrula, a tree also grown for its bark. this tree has the morst glorious peeling flaming copper bark. Seen with the sun shining through the bark, this tree is so spectacular. The bark tends to come off in fairly narrow strips, so I just cut it with fancy scissors to use it like ribbon, and added stripes of glitter. This is not the best photo I have of the tree, but it does show our resident woodpecker and that is yet another sorting job to be done, to reorganise and catalogue all my photos, get rid of the hundreds of duplicates etc, I hope it does give a little idea of the gorgeous bark on this tree.
During that time, I needed something to keep me occupied. I had one tiny cross stitch kit of a dolphin, specially for children, which suited me as I had never done any cross stitch. I had done some limited tapestry work, using kits bought from the local needle maker's factory shop (Redditch was the centre of needle making in this country and possibly worldwide at that time). Sadly, all the local needlemakers have all gone out of business, apart from one making surgical needles. All our needles are now made abroad and some get packed in this country - what a wicked sin!
Anyway, back to me and my vertigo and cross stitch. I found that I could do this kit and still keep my head perfectly still. From small beginnings grew a real passion, and cross stitch kits and projects now form one of my SABLES (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy). After a while, I wanted to do more complicated designs, and I found these three wolf pictures. They are all from kits. Please excuse the flash on each one, but they are hung safely out of direct light and I cannot reach to get them down. The two single wolf pictures are done on very fine linen, and were so satisfying to do. Once the first eye was in place, the whole thing came alive.
There is no particular order to these cards, they are showing just as the computer sorted them. I love how they show so many styles and how people like to work. Every single one is a masterpiece in its own right.
This first card reflects that increase in mojo, and uses the Clarity Stamps small Village set. I chose the Clarity coated card, which is perfect for brayering, and stamped the various bits into place. Then I cut masks for the houses, wishing well and lampposts from the sticky end of a Post-It-Note and put them into place. Another mask was needed for the sun, just a circle cut from the sticky end of the Post-It-Note again.
Once the stitching and framing was complete, then it was deciding how to best display them. The suggestions that came with them did not suit our purpose so a bit more thought was required. The idea for the two wooden trees actually came from another friend who had made one for his wife to display some other little cross stitches. They were made from some offcuts of wood lying around in the shed. I think the trees were painted with Humbrol, but it might have been ordinary emulsion, I cannot remember. The trunks were painted with Sadolin outdoor treatment because that was what we had.
