Piglet sidled up behind Pooh

"Pooh" he whispered.

"Yes Piglet?"

"Nothing" said Piglet,taking Pooh's paw

"I just wanted to be sure of you".

A.A.Milne(Winnie-the Pooh)

When I read these words three things come to mind.The first is the vision of a little child looking up at Mum or Dad and saying nothing with words but absolute chapters with the look in the childs eyes.

After all, that is all a child really needs isn't it in life, just to be sure he or she is safe in the arms of the parents,hopefully both but in the cases of broken homes the need to be sure of the one parent with primary care.

As I look back at my life as a child of an abusive home first then leading to a broken home,I can say with all honesty and pride that my Mum made me feel those word,for we were sure she would always be there for us, and she was, and now I am looking after her and as a tiny little lady 89 years young I make sure she can look at me and she "can be sure of me" for I will not fail her as she did not fail me.

The second thing is did I make my children feel "sure",and do I make my granchildren feel "sure". It is their story to tell one day but I know I have done everything I can to make them feel safe.I have cuddled them,soothed them,LOVED them with all my being,is there anything more important?.

The third thing that comes to mind is friendship.Over the years I have given frienship too freely at times and have gotten badly burned, it is now in the September of my life that I look back and see the wonderful friendships I made in youth still standing,I look at old photos and think of some faces "what was their name?where are they now?". I believe friendships in life have seasons and reasons, people come and go into our lives and the ones still standing are those that we can be "sure" of.The ones there through thick and thin,some we only touch base with at Christmas but the heart feelings are still there.

New friendships have come along in the last 12 months and these people are so wonderful,I knew instantly they were people that I could be "sure"of.These are myCackle Club friends,and in my troubled times as in theirs we have all been there for one another,proving we can all be "sure of each other.

Above all these of course is my husband,so that makes 4 things .The song says "good and bad ,happy and sad"  this probably describes most marriages,and when you go through all those things and get to the 40th year you can look at each other and say,"I just wanted to be sure of you" and I am.

Other than our precious Lord ,our Heavenly Father,it is nice to know there are others in life we can be sure of, who will make us feel safe,shelter us in our storms in life.

Knowing that our God is there to take our burdens lighten our yolks makes our daily lives so much easier.We only have to ask Him to take our troubles,let our worries and woes go..Let it Go and Let God ... it is the one thing in life we can "be sure of".take care..

Beary Interesting

I was looking at the all the lovely people that follow my blog and saw a new member Bumble Vee, I decided to go visit  her blog and saw that she loves making bears,has a motor bike etc,how wonderful we also have a bike and although we have not been able to go on  it much since mum came to live with us it awaits us in the shed.

What reading her blog did for me was to remind me of how much I loved making bears,my favourite ones are the small ones and I just loved using mohair.There are many bears around our home but my little ones reside in the draws of our old singer sewing machine where they just hang about being beary good.

The wonderful thing about making bears is to see thier own little personality develop as you place their nose and eyes and mouth on, until then they pretty much all look alike.

Two of my favourites are Rosey bear and Little Bob.

 Meet Rosey,I made Rosey especially as a friend for Little Bob,she is a very good little bear,pretty with her rosebud near her ear.I thought Little Bob was lonely so  that is how she came about.They just hang about in the drawers being beary good,having beary interesting chats.

Meet Little Bob,now his story is so beary interesting,he has travelled far and wide and has so many tales to tell. I made Little Bob for my husband Bob when we got our motorbike, Little Bob always came on the bike with us in Bob's vest pocket.He is a beary nice little bear,I was going on a trip 5 years ago and thought I would miss hubby very much so we decided that I should take little Bob with me then I would not miss Bob so much.

What an adventure,Little Bob has been to England,Ireland,Scotland,he has been to 19 countries in Europe including going to Paris, to Amsterdam,Vienna,Venice on and on. He has had a go of driving a tour coach was seen ,having a guiness in a pub ,he has had an amazing life.I originally took all the pics of him in all the wonderful places to write a book for the grandchildren, sadly I did not get around to it,maybe I still should do it.

When I went back to the UK, 2 years ago with Eva I had planned to take Little Bob and Rosie,I thought the could have a beary romatic honeymoon but alas in the rush a bustle I forgot them,and they stayed home with Bob.

It is so nice to read other peoples blogs and see their interests,it brings back memories as to what you have done, brings insperation to what you would like to do and other times makes you just plain envious.So thank you Bumble Vee for reminding me of how much I loved making bears until I started to quilt so now I am inspired to make another one. So thank you beary much indeed.

                  
                                                    A Huge Thank You

Sorry I am a little late with this but we have been without a computer for a week or so, so I want to say thank you to Karen first for my beautiful Boudiour Swap partener. My parcel was gorgeous and so beautifully wrapped,it made my day and came just when I needed a boost.

I am a good girl and have not had the chocky yet,I just loved the little tag with the lavender and want to ask Karen where I could get some they are gorgeous.It was such a thoughtful parcel.

While I am here I just wanted to make a comment on how important it is to build memories.As you know Mum lives with us full time which is wonderful,it has so many wonderful good points but the sad thing is we cannot travel to see our grandchildren as often as we hoped.They both live 2 hours away and both have 3 children of their own. We miss them dreadfully and for lots of reasons they have not all been able to come to visit much this year, however our daughter has come home more than ever which is just wonderful,hopefully our son will visit with his family soon.Beacuse of work etc it has not been possible.
I have no favourites of the 6 as it should be but it has been the fall of the cards that we have had more time with William than we have with any of the others,he has always wanted to stay behind when the family went home so he has built up a bond with Great Nanna,he adores Mum, the others all love her but he just LOVES her.She plays games with him and one of his favourite games is trains,in the lounge room,the train made form our best lounge's cushions!!!On his last visit the three of us had to go on the Morning Town train,rockin', rollin' ridin'what a hoot.I know that we will all remember this day,well it is only a lounge after all lol.

Great Nanna 89, William 4, Grammy 61..(all 4 at heart).

Thank you Lord for the graciuosness you have allowed us to have Mum still with us, for William and the joy he brings,the smiles and the burst of childishness that we find whenever the children are here with us.We are thankful for our health,the love of family and the warmth of our home.We praise you Lord and feel so blessed,we know that you will watch over the children when they are away from us and that you hear my prayers for the safety of them and their parents, and that they will feel the longing to come home every once in awhile.Amen.

Nana Burrows Tomato Relish

When I went to do my regular shop last week the supermarket fruit section were bagging up produce that was getting a little worse for wear. I got 3 bags of vine tomatoes for $2 a bag, could not resist as I knew exactly what I needed them for.When I opened the bags on arriving home they were perfect,the whole lot not a blemmish to be found.They smelled like home grown and I knew I would get a lovely batch of relish from these.

This is my grandmothers recipe for tomato relish, she always supplied the whole family with pickles and relish's so that is where i get my love of making them from,it is a comfort thing with the added bonus of being delicious.

Tomato Relish

6lbs Tomatoes

2lb onions

2lb sugar

1 pint vinegar

4 tablespoons cornflour

2 tablespoons curry powder

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon  cloves

1 teaspoon ginger

(All powdered)

Place all tomatoes in a large pot or bowl, cover with boiling water and rotate them and leave for a few minutes.You will notice the skin blistering and you can then start to peel the skin off,it will come away very easily.

Cut up your tomatoes and onions and place in a bowl together sprinkle with salt and leave overnight .

Drain off the linament,boil this liquid for 30 minutes,while this is boiling add all your dry ingredients except the sugar together, make them into a paste with some of your vinegar.

After your 30 minutes add your sugar to the liquid mix and the rest of your vinegar,then add your vegies to the mix and the paste and boil another 15 minutes.

Jar and store.(Makes about 8 jars).

This keeps for a long time sometimes I have to make sure I have checked the dates but we have used them 12 months on and they are still perfect.You will get about 8 jars from this mix.I usually try to fill 6 good size jars and then fill 3 to 4 little ones eg.mustard jars so that I can give a few oldies in town a little jar to enjoy as I found that with our Mums the big jars at the shops are just too much and they go off before they can use them up, not only that the lovely smile you get makes you want to make more!! lol.

Anyway enjoy.