Now, Audrey and I go back a long time, way back to the 60's when I first became a Guide Guider again following a break when I had my son. She was Brown Owl at the Pack in Waterfoot where I was based. Much later on I took over a Guide Company in Crawshawbooth and when some of my Guides became too old to stay I opened a Ranger Guide Company as well.
We decided we wanted a flag to carry on Church Parades and other occasions so I set about designing one and it was with Audrey's skill that the two of us made the flag for the Unit. I could not begin to guess at the hours we spent embroidering all the different elements that went into making the flag but I do remember I did the easier embroidery stitches whilst Audrey did the more complicated ones. At that time I was at Uni in Manchester and travelling on the bus I would be sat there doing some of the embroidery on the various elements that were to make up the flag.
A couple of years ago Audrey was 80 and on one of my visits to her house she showed me some of her beading projects. Only a couple of weeks later she gave me this which she had sat down and made for me. It is a little purse made from seed beads, including the "chain". I was overwhelmed.
Isn't that a work of art
and done by an 80 year old!
Well, today we are off to see her in hospital, whether she will know me or not I do not know until I get there. Her daughter explained, last night when I rang her, that sometimes her mother is asleep and misses seeing her visitors.
Nonetheless I have made her a little card so that if she is asleep, when she wakes she will know that I have been.
Just a simple little "thinking of you" card, coloured with Twinkling H2o's which I am sure she will like.
I must find one of the newspaper photographs which shows Audrey and I holding the flag just before its dedication. Maybe I will upload it and tell you about the non-dedication we had that week and the actual dedication which took place in Blackburn Cathedral.
