Autumn Equinox and New Beginnings

Ok, so I know that it was the Autumn Equinox at the beginning of this week but what happened to Summer? We had a reasonably nice weekend, in fact on Saturday I hopped in my car and shot off down to Harrogate for a couple of hours to the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza. The weather was really beautiful with a fab drive in both directions. Sunday wasn't too bad either. Then came the 23rd and in came Autumn and I've been frozen ever since.

In fact, on Monday I was working away in my little studio and kept seeing something fluttering past the window, so after a couple of times of being distracted by this 'something' I sat back and watched and yes...... the leaves were gently fluttering from the large oak tree in the back garden. It wasn't the wind as it was almost still and the leaves were still falling. I wouldn't mind too much if we'd had a summer but we really haven't this year and it's turned so cold, I've been muffled up in a fleece much of this week.

Then, to add insult to injury, I get this sent to me........

That's my 'baby' brother! and the photo was only taken on Sunday the 22nd of September. Clive is a Captain with an International Airline and just a few weeks ago he re-based to East Africa. He has been lording it up in a 5 star hotel since then while he underwent his Sim checks and looked around at houses. Now he's having to do some work and his first flight since his move (on a real aeroplane - not a simulator) is today. Actually, as I am writing this he is winging his way towards London Heathrow where he is due to touch down about 2000 hours this evening. I don't tell him half as much as I should.... and if you do drop by the blog and read this Clive - I'm really proud of you.

He's been trotting around the globe for a lot of years, first in the RAF and then with several large commercial airlines, and he's normally home every week or so for his days off. But this posting will take him away for longer periods of time. Thank God for the Internet and Instant Messenger and web cams but even that can be frustrating. I don't think Broadband has reached East Africa yet.... you wouldn't think so by the length of time it takes for him to load a web page.

Just before he left the UK I set up a blog for him. Now it's normally the other way around and he is usually the one giving me advise and sorting out PC snags when he's up in this neck of the woods. But he was so busy in the weeks before his re-base that it saved him time by me doing the set-up for him. I thought it would be a great way of the family and friends being able to keep track of him and share in the places he visits and if he gets a few visitors to the blog along the way then it will all add to the interest. So if you'd like to check out his wanderings you can ride along with him here. There's not a lot to see so far, he tells me he's been really busy! Yeh Yeh! But he's posted an essay about his childhood and his longing to fly for a living.

Reading it was really quite strange, seeing someone elses view of our early years. I howled at his account of riding his bicycle through a rather posh restaurant in Mombasa and his memories of being bullied at school back home in the UK brought tears to my eyes. After all, I'm his big sister and I would have loved to have given them a taste of their own medicine.... if only I had known.

It was his recollection of us setting up our own aircraft cabin using the dining room chairs and playing airlines that really brought memories flooding back. Gosh, what a great time we used to have. With Clive playing the Captain and me wearing my little forage cap and white gloves (just like air hostesses used to in the early 60's when it was very much a debutantes job) and I would put on my best BBC presenters voice to announce ' would all passengers travelling on BOAC flight 90 to Beirut via Anchorage and the Azores (yes I know, strange routing but it sounded so exciting) go immediately to gate 2 where your flight is waiting to depart' . Who would ever have known that within 10 years I would be doing it for real and 6 years later, so would he! I told my parents that I was going to be an 'Air Hostess' when I was just 6 years old and I was accepted at a cabin crew interview just a few weeks before my 18th birthday. Oh happy days!

I will put a link to his blog on mine in the side bar and if you do stop by, please leave him a comment - he'll be so pleased to know you've visited!

Well, I've had a lovely time reliving some of my childhood days but it's time to get back to NOW!

I've been working on a lot of Design Team things that I can't share just at the moment.... I will as soon as I can. Some of what I've been doing is for the Graphicus Guild to be featured both this month and next month. Coming up very very soon in this months Guild newsletter is my Christmas planner using the Bind-It-All.

A sneaky peak. There's a step-by-step on how to make the planner/organiser and you get to see inside too!

This sample has been made using a photo-realistic stamp, I love working with them and own lots of them by companies such as Stampsmith, Oxford Impressions and Magenta to name just a few.
They are really quite different and you can achieve quite a dramatic result with them.

I may be back later with more pics of some other things, my camera battery is completely flat and it's taking forever to charge up.