It's in the print.......

On Friday my daughter arrived for her Dad's birthday with a wonderful present for me.

A bag full of old newspaper.  The newspaper was found when she had some windows replaced and is dated May 2, 1922.   It was a copy of "The Star"  a tabloid London evening Newspaper which just happens to be the evening sister paper of the News Chronicle where I worked when I first came down from the north, unfortunately it closed a few months after I arrived.
I worked in the newspaper library. Every morning the Librarian would mark  the articles to be cut from all the newspapers and then in the afternoon these were filed in manilla envelopes. The men did the news and the girls did the people, we each had a section of the alphabet, can't remember mine exactly but I know I had the P's as I remember filing Judge Pennycuik(because of the unusual name) I hated the Daily Telegraph because it use to continue  it's stories onto another page, double cutting.
So a few memories in the bag. Breakfast in the Black and White Milk Bar on a Saturday morning.  Felt very sophisticated and exciting.

This image from Getty Images ( breach of copyright intended) is a good few years earlier but it hadn't changed much.

I have just started to try and straighten the pieces as best I can, very careful ironing,  it is very brittle of course and could take a while but today has unearthed a few treasures.  Some intriguing headlines

 and one that I sent to my "touring"daughter.

Who can do all those things. Currently playing Madge in "Top Hat"

Laundry day......

"'Twas on a Monday morning that I beheld my darling......a washing of her linen O",so goes the old song because for generations Monday was Wash Day. There is a very good piece here which will jog memories, I remember one of these, a copper.

 

 How fortunate are we to have machines to do it for is and so now instead of slaving over the "dolly tub" we have time for other activities. One of our favourites is to go to the cinema because before 12 on a Monday it is half price for OAP's and because we like going to the cinema. Not every week you understand but recently there have been quite a few films which appealed. We call it  "Doing the Washing". Yesterday it was"  Shaun the Sheep-the Movie".  What a delight, cleverly made to appeal to children and to adults.  I wanted a freeze frame to admire the details of the sets. Loved it. Next on our list is "The Second Best Marigold Hotel", hoping it is as good as the first one.

Knowing I was going to see Shaun, in John Lewis  on Friday, I was delighted to find  that Coates in conjuction with Rowan Wools had produced a pattern so I was able to make this to present to my friend.

Much as I hate doing the same thing twice, I think I may have to make one for me.

 This is progress on my bundle where the string has started to bleed.

Contrast..........

Yeserday I took the train to London with a very firm objective but as this month has disappeared  and  because I had time to spare I decided to squeeze in a visit to the Remembrance Poppies at the Tower of London.I love walking through the City, especially at the weekend, time to look around. At the old and the new, cheek by jowl.

 

as expected the vista of the poppies was amazing and very moving, especially where they fell from the ancient walls .

A variation on roses round the door

 

They are still adding poppies and there was large number of people assembling and "planting ".

Just a couple more shots, closer

and closer.

As I was leaving i caught site of these metal beast, I suppose representing the wild animals that were kept here at one time. I didn't have time to investigate fully but for some reason I found them very disturbing.
I searched and found they were made by Kendra Haste, wonderful but they are very ghostly.
And now, as they say, for something completely different.

 Onto the main event, the NFL Fan Rally in Regent Street.  What a good day.  I saw Raiders' fans

 

Dolphins' fans

We took photographs of the cheerleaders

and then the players took photographs of us.

No 71, Menelik Watson  comes from Manchester.

I met a really fun group of people who made the day very special,

 Thanks for the laughs. 

The appearance of legend Dan Marino made their day (and mine)

It was a great family day out with lots of activities for children, it was fun jersey spotting trying to see all 32 teams, oh you get the message it was fun. 

Can you spot me? 

From the NFL UK web site no copyright breach intended.

My biggest smile of the day though was the three ladies of indeterminate age who had obviously come, in their killer heels, to shop in Regent Street and looked a bit bemused. Unfortunately camera was off at the time.

Right now to watch the Ryder Cup.  It's all go but at least I can sew while I am watching.

T........

From the four pages of Y to pages and pages of T....too much choice...panic and then, as usual, flipping the pages the word jumped and stuck.  I find it fascinating and I am loving the Craft Barn Alphabet Challenge .  The word is TESSELLATED, my dictionary says "formed in little squares or mosaic work" I have marvelled over the micro mosaics of the Gilbert Collection which are now in the V&A and I have clever friends who make mosaics.  I opted for squares. I made a gelli "landscape" and cut it into 99 pieces.

I now have even more respect for the makers of real mosaics.

Not having any grandchildren of my own I can still imagine the joy this little bundle has brought.

 Welcome Prince George. Image from the Daily Telegraph.

Times gone by....

 A friend found this on You Tube, a different view of a city I love.  I particulary like the poiceman on point duty. Remember?


Her find fitted in nicely with a little book I have just finished.  I used the black cards which come with  DH's postage stamps which he collects. I am quite cross because I have just rid myself of a pile of these cards because I thought I didn't have a use for them. Typical.  The ATC are cut from a  cereal packet with my Sizzix and then decotated with flower prints. 

The Big Road Trip, Delaware...

this week. I have never been there so no personal memories.   The first thing that came to mind was the Perry Como song, which I have had on the brain ever since. Who remembers that one?
Then of course there is Washington Crossing the Delaware.  

There is a fascinating piece here as to how artistic license was given free reign with this subject.
Delaware is known as the First State and is famous for it's peaches. Peach blossom is the state flower.
The last piece of knowledge I added to my rag bag mind was the American Bald Eagle can be found in the upper Delaware River valley.

 I am afraid I haven't had any artistic inspiration on this visit but I have enjoyed looking around.

Just found....

I have just downloaded this app to my i-pad today.   The History of Ireland in 100 Objects. A gift from the Goverment of Ireland.  You can see all the objects here . This exquisite model boat is my favourite so far.
 
it can be seen at the National Museum of Archaeology in Dublin. Stetching from pre-history to the present day there is some fascinating stuff. (No breach of copyright intended, image will be removed if it offends.)

Ice Age.......

no not the weather (is winter ever going to end?) but the exhibition at the British Museum. I have been looking forward to it for some time and I was not disappointed.   I loved the animal carvings and was interested how many examples of female carvings there were.   Many objects were so tiny it is a wonder that they have been found. Photography was not allowed, as you would expect, so I have made my own cave painting.

Gelli background, my attempt at the bison and a digital frame.  There are pictures of some of the objects here
The thing that really caught me was a little disc (it would fit in your palm)  with a hole in the middle.  One side was carved with a cow and on the other a calf.  Apparently the heads are so precisely positioned that if the disc is spun on a string the cald appears to "grow up".  So they had moving images 22,000 years ago.  I couldn't take in anymore after I had this in my mind so I will have to go back to do the latter end of the objects..

Family tree..

 I think am I am delighted with the new resource on the Find My Past site. They have added a selection of British Newspapers from 1790 - 1950.Not only have I found the death notice for my Gt x 3 Grandfather but I have I have found a source of fascinating reading.
  This obituary caught my eye...
"...of Covent Garden Theatre. After an illness of three weeks, caused by excessive inward debility, brought on, as it is supposed, by a diseased liver, and which at last attached itself to the lungs, he breathed his last a few minutes past eight o'clock on Thursday evening, at his house in Hyde Street, Bloomsbury. He was in his 47th year, and has left an amiable widow and seven young children to lament their loss, for whose future support there is reason to fear he has not made the most slender provision. Mr E. was highly esteemed by all who knew him, and everyone who has been a frequenter of the theatre is well aware of his superior talent as an actor."  Seeds of a whole novel here I think.
Poor woman.
The reason I only think I am delighted with this resource is that I can see me spending even more hours glued to the screen.
The little church at Crosscanonby in Cumberland where my Gtx2 Grandparents were married.

Neil Armstrong......

We woke the children in the middle of the night, my son was 2 and my daughter just a month old but we wanted to be able to tell them that they were there, when a man walked on the moon.

Time travel.....

yesterday I stepped back to 1553...at Kentwell Hall.  I took over 100 photographs (so I will edit them a bit) and even then now realise the ones I missed..    The Hall and the grounds are given over to a recreation of life in Tudor times and great pains are taken to achieve authenticity.  The vist kept us absorbed for nearly five hours and kept the conversation and questions going all the way home.  One thing was evident though, for us the day had been about cloth. For rich and poor, the making, using, wearing  and mending of cloth was an intergral part of life. We saw the spinners and weavers

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the felters, cross I didn't take a picture of the hats.

 The dyers, (so taken with the results I missed taking the vats).

The laundry had been done.

and in the house the seamstresses stitched their linen with linen thread.

and everywhere people wore clothes which had been made to create as nearly as possible the clothes of rich and poor in those times.

th

 

 (Mask on the last two thanks to skeletal mess)
There was one more personto do with cloth but for me she was very special and deserves a post of her own.

Looking for something else entirely this morning I found this copy of  The Morning Post dated January 21 1936.
I bought this paper in an junk shop sometime ago and had forgotten about it.  Having just seen the wonderful film "The Kings Speech" and it being the 21st January yesterday it was too serendipity-ish to ignore.

I thought you might like to peruse (or use) a section of the Personal Column. Rivetting stuff.

(Click to enlarge)