The Olympic torch visits West Wales

I'm a bit excited that the Olympics are in London this year and, although we haven't got tickets, I'll be glued to the TV when the games are on. I was very keen to see the torch too - we already met it in Cardiff when I ran the half marathon last October and I've had the date it was due to pass through Pembrokeshire written on the calender for months.

Then we found out that Caroline - H10's guides leader - would be carrying the torch into Cardigan. Cue scenes of great excitement. She was due to arrive with the torch over the town's old bridge at 3.44pm on Sunday, so we assembled an hour in advance with the other guides and brownies. There was a happy buzz of anticipation as the torch relay procession approached.

H10 and her fellow guides made banners at guides on Friday. They all adore Caroline which was clear from the posters and the air of general excitement.

R8, H10 and grandma were interviewed for the radio on their thoughts and feelings about the Olympic torch relay.

Caroline enters, torch aloft, huge smile.

Big cheers go up as the guides spot their leader.

One of 8,000.

Caroline hands the flame over to the next torch bearer.

What a fabulous day - it's something I won't forget and I hope H10 and R8 remember the sunny May day they saw the Olympic torch relay too. Knowing one of the torch bearers made it even more special too.

Drama queen

We're very fond of our little dog. On Wednesday he wasn't quite right. He leapt as if electric shocked. He ran as if chased by demons. He panted. He sweated. He was hot and damp.

He looked at me with white-rimmed eyes. I am a poorly dog. Brace yourself, I may be dying.

He didn't bark at the postman. He didn't even look out of the window. He just lay, rigid, in his bed, eyes wide. I'm not well at all. I'm a very sick doggy.

At lunchtime he sat, sorrowfully, in front of his bowl of doggy dinner (he has such a sensitive stomach, he has to be fed three times a day, yes, I know, spoiled, anyway...) he sat sadly looking into his bowl of untouched lunch for 20 minutes. I'm far too poorly to eat. I'll just fade quietly away.

When H10 and R8 got back from school Scamp had a bigger audience. He threw himself to the carpet like a swooning Victorian maiden in too tight corsets on a hot day.

He shivered. He shook.

"Aw! He's cold!" cooed the girls, wrapping him up in fleecy blankets. Outside the thermometer hit 23 degrees Celcius on the hottest day of the year so far.

The dog shivered pathetically from the depths of layers of fleece.

"Is is like Lucky (recently deceased guinea pig) is he going to (gulp) die?" The girls were worried. I reassured, not feeling terribly confident. Things did look bad. Had he eaten poison? Caught a virus? What was it?

Brian came home from work. The dog threw himself at his master's feet, rolled over onto his back, legs in the air. Sorry master, this is it.

"Hmmm," said the Boss, reaching down onto the dog's pitiful belly and plucking something small and hoppy from it. A flea. A flea? Is that bad? Is it the end? Goodbye, I've enjoyed being your dog will you miss me?

"You big wuss," we chorused. Disgusted. All that drama over fleas?

Fleas is not fatal then?

He was bathed in anti-flea shampoo. All bedding has been washed and both dogs have had flea drops applied. He's right back to normal now, eating like a horse and barking at the world. What a drama queen!

We love May because...

We love the sun on our whiskers.

We love to sit on the wires and chatter.

We love the flowers on the wild plants in the strawberry garden because it means lots of lovely juicy white (not red) strawberries.

So that's why we love May. What do you love about May?

Bags of May

I don't just do sewing these days but it seems to be all I'm taking photographs of at the moment. I've finally perfected my own pattern, designed by me to my own (and my friend Jo's!) specifications. It's a shoulder bag with a flat base which is big enough to carry a book or an A4 file, a bit of shopping and the things your kids (and husbands) ask you to carry for them, with a pocket and either a button or a magnetic snap closure. I've never designed a pattern before so I'm rather pleased with this one.

I also finally finished my The Great Getaway Bag which is from Lisa Lam's The Bag Making Bible. I've had the fabric for this one since last summer. The outer is a PVC coated fabric from Laura Ashley and the inner and trimming is made from a rather expensive bit of woven gingham. But it's a bag made to last so it was worth spending a little time and money on. I used the handles and fittings from my old overnight bag and bought it a new strong zip (which is why my old bag bit the dust). It has a big outer pocket, an inner pocket and a zipped pocket. I can't wait to use it!

Having practised my PVC sewing skills I then made a Magatha Bagatha bag in this lovely beach huts print material. I've got this in the fabric version too but I wanted a bag for me (to carry around like an advert). It has a gingham lining too - red gingham and heart-shaped buttons are a Magatha Bagatha signature thing.

Another thing I've been meaning to do for a while is a cushion with an appliquéd dog design. For this I chose a picture of my late corgi Poppy which I posterised on PicMonkey, printed out and made into shapes for the appliqué. I used some corgi-coloured velvet for the main part of the dog with mercerised cotton for the details.

The finished cushion.

Finally, after a cold and wet April, we had a weekend of sunshine. Brian took this with his new camera with Bullseye demonstrating just how sloping our fields are and how close the hills are too. I love the shades of green in this shot. I meanwhile wasn't sewing (for once) but was finally getting rest of the early (late?) spuds in by making a lasagne bed which is a no-dig method of growing them - more on that in a future blog.

This week we also had visitors in the form of my cousin Keith, his daughter Claire and her delightful children. It was lovely to see them and hear some proper Midlands accents for a change. The sun came out to smile on them too just as it did for the barbecue in Llysyfran that we went to on Saturday night. After weeks of rain it was lovely to eat delicious food outdoors with some good company.

May

The story so far

I love writing fiction. Like many I'm an aspiring and as yet unpublished novelist but I haven't written anything for ages. I'm not sure why really. I avidly read blogs about other writers and devour advice on how to write but just cannot apply bum to seat (as Chris of Home Thoughts Weekly - author of Turning the Tide and Move Over Darling - would say).

Anyway Chris has passed on a Lucky 7 Challenge in her blog this week (she threw the baton for anyone to catch - I caught!). The challenge is this:

• Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript
• Go to line 7
• Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentances, as they are - no cheating
• Tag 7 other authors to do the same

Okay. I have four manuscripts to choose from - no, five! I have a trio of novels - all 50,000 words or just over - written during the three times I completed NaNoWriMo (after which my family begged me not to do it again, so I took a break). I also have a chick lit novel, the first draft of which is 54,480 words and a children's story, written about a character my children invented for stories at bedtime. That one's at 8,261 words so far.

Which one to choose? I have different feelings about all of them. The pain of writing the NaNo novels - 50,000 words in one month - is unforgettable. Do I despise them? Almost. Line 7 of Chick Lit is awful - notes rather than prose - and line 77 is too rude.

Instead you can have a bit of Eskima in the Land of the Giants, my story for H10 and R8. Eskima is a litle blue magical dream guardian for two little girls, Henrietta and Romy, their Mum Sweetie and Dad Darling. He lives in Attic Land (a magical land in the roof space of the house) where he deals with the characters and situations the children dream up every night. The book opens with him using his magic on an army of huffing and puffing wolves and some angry giants called Bozzarks.

By page 7 Eskima and the wolves are coping with a huge quantity of party food dreamed up by Romy, the younger of the two sisters. So far they've been snowed on by marshmallows, hailed on by humbugs and rained on by hot chocolate before becoming lost in thick, pink, candy floss fog.

By line 7 of that page they are wound up in the candy floss fog, all rather sticky and stuck.

Some days, Eskima reflected as he stood there swathed in candy floss, could be a little tiresome in Attic Land. He summoned up his magical powers and concentrated on the tips of his little blue fingers (which he could not see because they were hidden in a layer of pink spun sugar). There was a fizz, a stuttering yellow flash and then a small plume of grey smoke which wound and twisted its way up to his nostrils carrying with it the unmistakeable caramel smell of burned sugar. Eskima remained stuck to the spot like a big pink fluffy scarecrow. He resigned himself to a long boring wait while he either figured out the answer or it figured itself out for him.

Either way would be fine as long as it did figure itself out eventually and preferably before Henri and Romy filled Attic Land with any other weird and wonderful dream beasts or – worse – more Bozzarks. Talking of which, the ground was rumbling and shaking.

The Bozzarks are Eskima's main problem in Attic Land but later on he has to risk everything - being discovered by the adults - to help Romy when she gets into danger in the real world.

So that's mine. Like Chris I can't think of 7 authors to throw this open to, so I'm handing the challenge on to anyone who reads this and would like to have a go. Come on, don't be shy!

A little bit of catching up

We've been a bit busy over Easter and I've rather neglected my blog so, instead of a long waffly post about what we've been doing, I have made you a montage:

We had lambs (I've lost count how many; mum has them all written down in her meticulous records); Brian chainsawed the unruly garden hedge into submission and found this froggy chap (Mr Frog now lives in our new big pond); I've carried on sewing bags and developed a new addiction - turning old jumpers in to cardigans; H10 and R8 cycling at Pantmaenog in the sun; delicious sesame flatbreads; Scamp had his haircut and we scoffed ice creams in New Quay.

We had some sad news on Saturday when one of our guinea pigs Lucky (left) died. He'd been showing signs of old age for a while and we'd been preparing for the worst. It really tugs at the parental heartstrings to see one's children being brave in such circumstances. We had a touching ceremony in the garden and H10, R8 and their friend G10 carried Lucky around in his little snuggle bed, cuddling and stroking him while Brian dug a hole under the apple tree. The girls tucked Lucky into a box with a small toy teddy bear for company and Hannah has painted a slate headstone to mark the grave.

For a little pig, Lucky had a big character. We rehomed him after someone found him alone in the middle of a big field of sheep near Llandysul three and a half years ago. We found another baby guinea pig on Freecycle to live with him (guinea pigs must be kept at least in pairs) and Lucky and Patchy became our Morecambe and Wise in guinea pig form.

Patchy is definitely missing his friend but at least has something to snuggle with until we can get him a new live companion - R8 stuffed one of her old socks with hay and drew a guinea pig on it. It's not Lucky but it's better than nothing apparently.