Family

9th February 1980

Life's never quite what we expect, is it? Thirty years ago today, I got married for the first time. I was not yet 20 years old. He was 27. We were truly in love, folks, truly in love.

I expected the marriage to last forever. It didn’t. At the time he left, he told me that it was because I didn’t do enough for his career. The truth was that at aged 40, he changed his mind about what was important to him. Marital & family obligations got in the way of work commitments, so he left.

I cried for 2 years. Then I got on with living my life again, not just breathing in and out. I raised the four kids, went to university, then went to Europe & finally went to live in another town where I met The dearly loved MOTH, some time later. The rest is a story for another day.

This long ago marriage was a failure, so why am I celebrating it here on the blog? For me, the most important thing in life is family. The marriage failed but friendship between us & our sense of family prevailed. The ex wasn’t around for most of my 30s nor early 40s, but, for him, somewhere in the early to mid-noughties, family life took front row again. It’s one of those scenarios where you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s really gone (kids grown up, wife married to someone else, everyone living 2000km away). All off-spring, no matter what age or stage need both parents. We made a great team as parents!

July 1991


June 2007

Family, warts and all, is always a fabulous reason to celebrate!

My simple advice is old wisdom:

Don't ever be afraid to try to make things better;
You might be surprised at the results.
Don't ever stop dreaming your dreams.

Happiness & laughter to one and all. I'm enjoying the beautiful flowers he sent this morning.

Felicity

House repairs

Picture taken March 2005

I haven't been doing much stitching since I arrived home. We had more water into the house while we were away, so my primary 'creative' focus has been to organise repairs to the roof.

It's going to be a major job! The builder gave me a list of things that I need to do, so I've organised plumbers to fix blocked downpipes, arranged the chopping of the offending trees (and a couple of others that were termite infested), looked at paint combos (to spruce outside the place up - the worst bits cannot be seen in the picture, but they were last painted when the house was built 16 years ago), made decisions to get a couple of skylights installed at the same time, etc. It's hot work but a lot of fun. We won't know the place when we are done.

I probably went too far with the tree pruning, to be honest. All the shrubs that have offended me over the last 4.5 years got the chop. They are the ones at the back of the veranda that you can see. I've made way for some citrus and mango trees (just one mango tree). I will be off to buy self-cleaning Alexander palms for around the swimming pool, too.

Lucy & Harry don't know what has hit them, either. The house has had a good cleaning, so they are not allowed inside until I have enjoyed (for long enough) the dog-hair free zones. LOL.

Happiness & laughter to one and all,

Felicity

OT - Black Lucy

I thought I’d give this little meme a go …

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Felicity M G D
   
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (first 3 letters of real name plus -izzle): Felizzle
   
3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (favorite color and favorite animal): Blue Dog
   
4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle & street names):Maggie Coburn
   
5. STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of Mom's maiden name): Grafeduf
   
6. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME (2nd fave colour, fave drink): Crimson Water.
   
7. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME (Mother's middle name and father's middle: Mary Noel - I think my Witness Protection name is cool, but now that you all know it, I'll be forced to change it. Darn!
   
8. YOUR GOTH NAME (black, and the name of one your pets): Black Lucy - the best!

Happiness & laughter to one and all,

Black Lucy

Friendship Happy Dance

Hello everyone. I'm home!

It's unbelieveably hot, I'm jetlagged and I'm suffering from 'what next?' syndrome, but hey it's good to be back home again (one could make up a song that goes like that, huh?).

The house is a mess! Obviously, no one has done any housework in Castle Bliss since about August 2009 when the Drama Queen who lives here took herself off to work at School for Nerds. I cannot believe the paper clutter and dog hair which have accumulated in cracks and under tables that I haven't noticed for the last 6 months. Sigh.

Time to clean up. I put on my specs and took a serious look around on Tuesday ... and got distracted by the arrival of a month's worth of mail.

So what's the picture here all about? It's a happy dance that I've never declared even though I finished it some time back in 2006. It was just a quick stitch that, despite its size, only took about 10 days to do. It lives in a drawer in the spare room because I'll never be able to afford to frame it.

I've dragged it out today in celebration of all it represents - friendship. I've spent the last 48 hours going through the mail I have received from cross stitchers around the world since I started this blog. Some of it I didn't know that I had because the flood from late November 2008 meant that the house went into 'hybernation' for a couple of months and The MOTH carefully packed it in a 'safe place' (you know the story). As I sorted through the current stash of Christmas friendship mail and stowed it for safe keeping, I found the other box of about 20 letters.

Thank you, people, for your letters and cards and gifts over the years. In life, it's not just what you do that counts, but with whom you do it. 2009 will go down as the year of stupendously hard work (studying, teaching, house repairs and dragging myself around after The MOTH and his cruel work schedules). It has all been worth it when I read your letters of friendship and encouragement. I teach part time so that I can spend more time with The MOTH when he's around. I stitch AND I blog even though blogging uses up valuable stitching time because of the friendships I've formed with people who do the same. Together we make the yearly travel around the Sun something worth doing as we 'talk' about our lives and our happenings. My long ago friend, Roz, taught me the value of friendships like ours and how they do good in both directions of the friendship. We also keep the family GP worrying about the big stuff while we work out the small stuff together. Thank you!

I'm slowly getting through the pile, rereading your letters and replying to each in turn. Be patient with me because I'm probably going to take some time to get through it all.

Happiness & laughter to one and all,

Felicity

An Afternoon with Claire

Felicity & Claire
at Le Bonheur des Dames

One of the greatest joys about this trip to France has been the chance to catch up with friends. On Tuesday, the MOTH & I spent a wonderful afternoon with Claire. Words are going to fail my efforts to describe exactly how wonderful an afternoon we had, yet it was talk, talk, talk the whole time we were together.

After a long lunch at the local Italian ristoranti where we swapped life stories and gifts (Claire generously gave me Isabelle Vautier's book of hearts) & proudly showed off our Grand Marquoirs (Claire's daughter's marquoir inspired my choice of colour), we wrapped up warmly & headed over to Le Bonheur des Dames to explore a little and have a photo shoot, & then back to a Tabac to keep warm while we chatted some more.

I've always thought that Claire's blog was inspirational. Claire herself is charisma personified! She was truly one of the special people to meet in life, even if it was just for one (all too short) afternoon. My simple advice to readers is that if you get an opportunity to meet a fellow stitcher, take it. My experience with Claire has taught me that it's a well worthwhile thing to do.

Happiness & laughter to one and all,

Felicity

P.S. For photos of my last trip to Le Bonheur des Dames & examples of the beautiful kits available in the shop, click here.

Happy New Year

Love, happiness & laughter to one and all in 2010,

Felicity

Back to Limoges

Jocelyne & Felicity


Michelle, Felicity, Danielle, Naddy & Jocelyne
(together again after 10 years!)


The MOTH's business dream come true!




Jocelyne & Pascal
in George Sand's garden

Between September 1998 & May 1999, I had the wonderful opportunity of working at a college in Limoges. During our time in France, I had another wonderful opportunity to return. The MOTH & I travelled by train to stay with our friends, Jocelyne and Pascal, and their two children (not pictured for safety reasons). Pascal cooked for us the most delicious meals & Jocelyne organised some wonderful excursions in and around the town (walking in the old village, excursions to find cross stitch shops, trips to the local porcelaine factories & to the Aubusson tapisserie museum & George Sand's magnificent house included). She also organised high tea with fellow teachers who I met while I was there the first time. It was wonderful to catch up! Thank you, dear friends.

Les Petits Points - Limoges

Come on in and be inspired by the beautiful work of Patricia Linder!










My purchase: Le Carnaval

"Let me tell you what I ate, Mum!"

Crown Princess, aged 7 years, announced as
she climbed into the car after her first Brownie Camp
(Gladstone, Qld. 1988)

Le Jour de Noël 2009 has come and gone. Thanks to everyone who sent me good wishes for the season, either here or on Facebook. Your comments were much appreciated. It was only my second Christmas in France (I was in Limoges in 1998) and only one of a handful I've not spent with my family since I became a mother just over 28 years ago. I needed a bit of a boost, to tell the truth.

I have to say that it didn't seem like Christmas this year. Joyeuses fêtes and Bonne Année don't do much for me if celebrating the God bit at Christmas is totally ignored by the general public because it's politically incorrect to say anything. Why bother to celebrate Christmas without a reason for the season? It smacks of hypocracy.

Because of the unexpectedly sunny day, The MOTH & I took the Metro only as far as L'avenue des Champs-Élysées and walked the uncrowded few blocks further to our rendez-vous for lunch at Brasserie Lorraine at place de Ternes. We spent a delightful and delicious three hours in the company of our Australian friends from Newcastle, NSW, Natalie and Paul (& their three young children) and Sandra, from Huston, Texas, USA. The food was wonderful and the friendly table service without fault. What a Christmas treat (my only ever meal in a restaurant for Christmas day)!

After a wonderful three course meal, The MOTH, Sandra and I walked home via the Arc de Triomph, the Eiffel Tower (where we left Sandra at her apartment) and Montparnasse almost back to Gare de l'Austerlitz. Where else but Paris, huh? It was magical! There were no kilojoules to rest on my hips after that 7+km walk, let me tell you. LOL. I had Bûche de Noël for afternoon tea, today.

Food experiences have been a highlight of our 'trekking expeditions' around Paris, this week. Eschewing the Metro, we've walked for miles just so that we don't miss viewing a thing! Each day, we've lunched somewhere different (spaghetti in the Latin Quarter on Monday, a Corsican restaurant just off rue de Rivoli on Tuesday, a pub at the Mouffetard markets on Thursday). Delicious! Thanks to Harry and Lucy, I am quite fit enough to do it!

On Christmas eve morn, we planned our route to Cluny museum before leaving home, not realising how wonderful the markets were in rue de Mouffetard. I'll leave you with mouth watering to enjoy what we found - pictures say a thousand words.

Happiness & laughter to one and all,

Felicity