Nature photography

I was invited to share a nature photo each day for 7 days on Facebook.  I trawled the archives and here is my selection. The first 3 were taken in the UK and the rest whilst in Florida.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Saturday School Stories

Schools have featured heavily in my life from the age of 4 when I started school to 2005 when Andy left school.  That's 51 years of school related life.

When I started school, my mother went back to teaching.  In the same school!  In reception I was taught by mother's best friend.  In middle infants I was in my mother's class.  In top infants I was in the class of another of my mother's friends.  In later years we occasionally went on holiday with her.  And my parents almost bought a house next door to this lady and her husband.  Coincidentally about 350 yards from where I live now.

School 50 year celebration 2003:  My reception teacher, the headteacher and my mother.

The reception class teacher?  She was my Guide Captain.  And before that I was in the Brownies and Brown Owl was my Godmother.  As you might imagine, I never got away with anything!

And just to add to all this when I was in my last year in the Junior School, my Dad was doing his special needs diploma teaching practice with one of the classes in my school.

The Infant School was connected to the Junior School by the school kitchen.  When I was in the top juniors my mother couldn't understand why every now and again I would have greasy marks on the left sleeve of my blouse.  Of course the cook told her!  My friend and I were on a rota for collecting the headteacher's lunch on a tray.  If there were roast potatoes, the cook would give us an extra one which we wrapped in our hankies and pushed up our sleeves!

After primary school I went to a Grammar School.  I mentioned some of my experiences in my post on qualifications.  After school I went to Teacher Training College and then I became a teacher.  I did feel that I was rather institutionalised!

I taught in various schools from 1970 until 1987.  Some experiences were better than others.  It really depended on who was the headteacher rather than where the school was.

I had intended staying at home with Andy until he went to school but I wasn't really suited to not working.  I went back part-time and then full time until I took ill-health retirement in 1992.

By this time Andy was at school so my life was still bound by term times.   It has taken years to realise that 3.30pm or 4pm isn't a significant time in each day.

What memories do you have of school?

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

 

Starting a new textile piece

I still have lots of fabric left from the time I was at Leah Higgin's studio for Breakdown Your Palette.  I used some of it for a wall hanging about a walk along the Stratford Canal.  I have wondered what to do with the rest of it and then I spotted this painting by Paul Klee.  It's called Highways and Byways.

I'm obviously going to be drawn to the colours - you know how fond I am of turquoise and orange.

However it gave me an idea for using the fabrics I have.  I didn't have any rust coloured plain fabric that matched my fabrics but Liske at Littleheath Barn Studio kindly sold me some that she had dyed especially for me.  I tore 3 pieces of it to piece with some of the brakdown printed fabric.

 

 

I had some pieces already stitched together from the previous hanging to give you an idea of what I am planning.

I've sewn those leftover pieces together and added some more.  This will be the central strip.

I'll keep you up to date with how this grows.

In addition I am taking part in a fundraising event that Liske is running called Pieces of Positivity.  After a donation to Cancer Research she sends out a piece of drop cloth - that's the fabric that covers the table in the studio and picks up any paint and stencilling etc as we all work there.  My piece looked like this:

 

 

I have cut it down to size and bonded it to a backing fabric.   Liske is going to make the pieces we all make into bunting to put around the studio.

It looks enormous in the photo but it's actually only 15x20 cms.  I'm going to handstitch it and then see what else it needs.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice