Good Girl

Mammoth scrapping done last night with the new Modscraps kit. It's the K&Co Bailey collection. Now this is not my cup of tea at all, very heritagey feel to the papers so i'm really struggling but i've managed a few layouts and a card for my mums birthday tomorrow. I also tried a 6x12 layout for the first time. Again i'm not really pleased with it, but it's a start. I'm trying to scrap a lot of old family photos using the papers but i find the size of the photos very difficult to work with as most are square and small so anyone who has any ideas for me....let me know!

There were some lush items with the kit, the most gorgeous luxurious looking fabric covered brads, some lovely rub ons and a little tag book but i still find it so hard to get my head around these types of papers. I like the second layout i did which is one i've done for this weeks team challenge on UKS. I love these pics of my dad....whoever said that dressing up is a girls thing. We came from a very run down area of Plymouth, council house family, dockyard worker grandad and they never had two pennies (or whatever the non metric equivalent would be) to rub together. But they were such a close family. It was a house filled with love and i'm so special to have been brought up in the family that i was. It was a stark contrast to the family on my mothers side who had a bit more money, weren't close and we never really saw...even though they lived a 20 minute walk away.

For those that know me, they'll know what an influence my nan was on my life. Even in one of the roughest areas of the city, all the kids knew her and would greet her 'hello Mrs Hallett', even the real troublemakers. Half Irish, convinced she was a gypsy who could put a curse on people and do all kinds of strange things. She was such a strong independent woman, something quite rare for her generation. She's the only nanny i ever came across who had a tattoo. And standing at only 4ft 11, she could easily be towered by everyone around her and yet she was always the biggest character in the room.

I was basically brought up by her as both my parents worked full time and i really couldn't have had a better role model. She had high morals and always brought us up to be respectful and polite but she also a bit of a rebellious side for a woman her age. I remeber when i got married for the first time at the tender age of 19 she took me aside during the engagement and asked me if i really understood what i was doing by not 'playing the field' and settling down so young.

I remember cooking buns with her (she always let me lick the spoon), she used to let me iron the tea towels, i remember having jam on toast (only cooked on one side) in the mornings, the way she always had a tub of glace cherries in the fridge (that me and my sis would sneakily eat), how she'd sing Carma Miranda songs to me and blare out Irish Rebel songs. She spent a lot of her youth in Singapore where her dad worked in the oil business and they lived a charmed life there until the Japanese invaded. She lost an eye when she was 9 from kids throwing stones....she would go crazy at kids in the street if she ever saw them throwing stones and would freak them out with her eye as a warning as to what can happen. They came to England to escape occupation...leaving her dad to meet them later...but he never did..he was captured by the Japanese and they never saw him again or even knew exactly what had happened to him. It was something that burned my nans heart greatly and her adoration for him was everywhere in the house. She had a pic of him on the wall which always had poppies on it. When her eldest son was 17, he drowned...just another major upset in her life that she found hard to deal with. But you would never see her act as any kind of victim or feel sorry for herself, she got on with everything life threw at her and I really admired her attitude to life...it sucks, get on with it! But despite the bravado she had the biggest heart i've ever known. She was always the one i went to with my problems (even if sometimes she would go all gypsy on me and pretend to read my future to reassure me). Her hugs were second to none and everyday i miss her, even though she's been gone now 12 years. I still talk to her, I still ask her questions. She'll never leave me completely. Woah i've rambled here haven't I? Sorry got carried away!

It was a gorgeous day yesterday which seems to be the opposite to most people...lovely and sunny an this morning started sooooooo hot that the air con was on at 9am. As the girls wanted to play in the garden i smothered them in sunscreen at 10.30 only for the sun to swiftly disappear, the temerature to drop dramatically and the sky to fill with rather grey looking clouds! Oh well, can only be the Great British weather eh?!

Half term here so kids are pottering around today. Tonight i have to drop Rob back to his mums, pick up Freya from her dads and pop round to see my dad. Then Freya has her best mate Shannon staying for a couple of days so no doubt i'll hear High School Musical on repeat for the next three days! X