Category Archives: Life in General

To the seaside…with cat…

Hellooo and Happy Sunday! I’m here to tell you all about our adventures returning the Mad French Cat to his family, and also fitting in a couple of relaxing days out of the Planet Penny orbit (mostly!) I think you all know from past posts that I do love to be beside the seaside but the South coast is very different from our wild windswept beaches here in Norfolk. Very genteel and civilised, no need for wellies or anything…

Except, except…

Except the day we decided to travel.

There isn’t a lot of scope for spontaneity round here because as well as having to fit around Tim’s work patterns, Higgins has to be booked in with a family for a holiday (ensuring the continuation of all home comforts) and I have to arrange cover for my Mum’s care. Also we had all been bolstering ourselves up for weeks for relocating Clovis. Although he was not a suitable pet for a old and disabled lady ( think Kato in the Pink Panther!) he’s beautiful and affectionate and we knew he’d be much missed.

So a little bit of snow wasn’t going to stop us. Clovis was actually very good in the car, after mewing piteously for half the journey he gave up and slept. We drove in and out of snow showers all the way until the last 15 to 20 miles when it was really snowing in earnest. If we’d left home even half an hour later it would not have been nice.

Having unloaded Clovis into a quiet bedroom with a bowl of food and litter tray to settle down we ventured out to experience snow at the seaside. I’ve never seen snow on the beach before, have you?

It was getting dark, and snowing heavily but the snow reflected an eerie light. The tide was out, and the sea was foaming away at the edge of a bank of cloud and snow just beyond the rocks…

By the morning the snow had stopped, but two small boys were delighted that their schools were closed and we ventured out once again in the freezing wind. Quite the wrong snow for a snowman alas, but perfect for snowballs!

By the third day the sun was out, the snow was melting and it was perfect weather for a stroll along the front.

And Clovis? Well even though he’s been away from his proper family for a couple of years he slotted straight back in as though he’d never been away. Despite the new house he seemed to remember the furnishings (especially the soft furnishings, in particular the hand knitted wool bedspread!) He had a little problem with the stairs – my mum lives in a bungalow – but was soon thundering up and down with his mouse.

….and he found the bannisters a particular source of delight.

Back in Norfolk I’m missing the family, the cat and the seaside but it’s great to be able to pop to our new shop for milk and a Sunday paper. Thanks so much for all the lovely comments about our new community Shop last week. I will announce here that despite my reservations I have volunteered for staff training and I will try very hard not to destroy the till!

I’ve rambled on for quite long enough so I shall save the crafty bits for the next post but if you need reminding about Kato and the Pink Panther I will leave you with a little clip…

See you soon…x

Edited to add, if you want the other side of the story, check out Thomas’s blog right here!

Community Spirit

I’m straying from my usual crafty ramblings to share a little bit of the real life and community outside Planet Penny for once. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you will know that I live in quite a rural part of Norfolk in the UK. A corner of a muddy field as I frequently say!

Our ‘patch’ is a virtual island, with the river and Broads to one side of us, and the main Norwich to Great Yarmouth road creating a boundary on the other side, and in the middle three parishes which, while each having fiercely protected individual characters of their own, operate together very effectively.

Over the years things have changed, as is true in rural areas all over the UK, and gradually the local industry which kept the communities thriving has died away. It takes a real effort of will to keep the community spirit thriving, and I’m so proud of where I live and what has been achieved.

In 2009 our wonderful eco built Village Hall was opened after many years of fundraising and diligent application for grants and this is now a thriving hub for the community. We have a vibrant amateur dramatics company who keep us entertained two or three times a year, a Farmers Market, a Community Gym, WI, a choir, a band, Gardening club, well, I could go and on!

But last year we were all despair when we lost our last remaining village shop. It had been in decline for sometime after the enterprising couple who had been running it very successfully moved on to pastures new, and things started to fall apart after that. Less than a year ago the building was in the hands of the receivers, an undiscovered water leak had led to mould and rot throughout and it seemed all hope of having a shop was lost.

White House Stores Community Shop

But that was before a small group of enterprising and determined people got together. Within a matter of weeks they had formed the The Three Villages Community Association Limited, come up with a business plan, got the local housing association on board, the Plunkett Foundation and the Lottery Fund and got the village together to put forward the proposal that we, as a community, would buy the premises and run it as a shop.

In order to qualify for the grants on offer the village had to come up with a certain proportion of the money, a not inconsiderable sum. Thanks to the hard work of the committee in working out a system whereby everyone could buy shares in affordable amounts we raised the amount just in time to qualify for the grants.

Unbelievable that was in July last year and with work starting in the depths of winter, and a huge amount of commitment being put in by volunteers, and donations from local businesses the shop opened today!

We had the most appalling weather for the Grand Opening. The rain came down in buckets, the main street in the village had a virtual river running down it, but still dozens of people donned wellies, put up their colourful brollies and turned up to celebrate.

Our MP, Norman Lamb came hotfoot from making waves in Westminster to make a speech and cut the ribbon. Everyone cheered and the visiting dog barked in all the right places! It was all terribly British, especially the rain!

It’s run by volunteers, so the community spirit doesn’t stop here, but carries on. I’m still trying to pluck up courage to man the till, I have a bad track record with tills, and am convinced I’ll either bankrupt the place in a week, or blow it up… I’m the window dresser though, and running the Facebook page and Twitter, and doing my shopping there, which is the most important thing!! Eat your heart out Mr Tesco…

I wanted to share this with you because it just shows what can be achieved with the right community spirit. Who knows, it might even make someone else think, yes, we can do this too and put the heart back into another village. And last, but not least, anyone on holiday on the Norfolk Broads and finds themselves on Barton Broad can make a short trip down the dyke, walk a few hundred yards down the road, and find out for themselves just what a community shop is all about.

I might even see you there!

And now? Well the pub is up for sale….. any takers?

P.S. If you would like to find out more, and see photos of the work and progress over the weeks visit the White House Stores Facebook Page and or follow us on Twitter @whitehousestore

Feeling Blue…and Grey.

This is a post in two halves because I’ve had a few days where my usual Pollyanna disposition has been conspicuous by it’s absence. I’ve been in two minds too, as to whether to even write the post but in the end I felt that appearing relentlessly upbeat is probably a tad annoying and maybe letting on about the down times is a good thing (occasionally)

It’s not been helped by the weather. Not just the cold, but the unrelenting gloom. I don’t function well under sullen grey skies and feel like I’m carrying the weight of them around balanced on the top of my head. I know this means I’m feeling blue but I love blue, and grey, well not so much.

Add to this an M.E. flare up, my other half being in the middle of the North Sea and the boys heading off back home to the South Coast it’s been a bit grim round here, I’ve definitely been Mrs Grumpy.

But today there was sunshine.

The aches and pains have subsided a little so I could enjoy my walk with Higgins properly and I could almost see the flowers in the garden opening…

Apparently the Met Office consider March 1st as the first day of Spring, so the end is in sight. Lets hope it sweeps the grey away!

I celebrated the sunshine by announcing an upcoming Facebook Giveaway which will happen when I reach the 2000 ‘likes’ milestone so if you’d like the join in the link is here.

…and I also indulged in some silliness with a little sheep. I retired the sheep I’d had on my keyring for some years when I changed my car and swapped it for a crochet heart keyring, but despite looking a little battered and tired I couldn’t bear to part with her.

So after a quick wizz around in the washing machine she has now been spruced up and given another car based role. Together with her knitting she’s going back in the car to sit on the dashboard to bring a spot of Planet Penny colour to what is alas, a grey car!

Next step, a crochet cushion or two!

Back soon …x

The Best Laid Plans…

Oh, woe! I’ve just read my last blog post and all the plans I wrote about have gone out of the window as a nasty cold virus flew in! It’s bitterly cold too. Britain has done it’s usual thing of falling apart at the seams as soon as there’s any snow or ice, Norfolk was particularly badly hit yesterday afternoon. I drove in in the morning with very little problem to get Tim to the heliport, it was sunny and beautiful with the blue sky and the fresh snow.

However, despite the optimistic Radio Four weatherman reassuring us first thing in the morning that it was all over and moving away, we had an hour or so of heavy snow in the afternoon and it caused huge problems. I’ve heard from several friends that it took up to five hours for their children to get home from school, some having to overnight with a school friend, and others taking 2 hours to travel just a mile on their way home from work on gridlocked roads.

I would be happy not to venture out at all today, but I need to pay my daily visit to my mum to make her lunch, wearing a mask and gown perhaps to protect her from the germs!

However, Higgins and I went out when the sun shone, and I do try hard to look on the bright side of life so I thought I would share our walk, doing my Pollyanna thing!

This was what came down at lunch time…

But when the sun came out again it was glorious…

The fields were best place to be as our little spot suffered from a rash of tractors driving sugar beet of the fields, the roads looked as if they were filled with mud slush puppy! Higgins knows he looks good in the snow doesn’t he?

…it didn’t take him long to get into puppy mode though…

It’s just as well we had a good walk yesterday because today we are both staying tucked up by the fire…

see you soon …x

The End of the Year Show – 2012

Well, more of an End of the Year Tidy Up! I’ve just been sorting out my blog photo files so that there’s room for all the new ones I’ll be taking in 2013 and have made a set of photo montages of the past months on Planet Penny. It’s been an amazing year. My year’s review from WordPress tells me that I’ve had 160,000 views in 2012, enough to fill the Barclays Center, or the O2 Arena in London for 8 sell out performances! That’s a little scary…

And you’ve been visiting from 146 countries, all over the world….

It’s hard to get my head round it, so I’m not going to try. The blog has always been me and a few chums sitting round the craft table with a cuppa, some cake and big heap of crafty stuff to play with. If some people are sitting a little further away from the craft table than I realised and there are rather more of you than I first thought, not to worry, it’s lovely to have you and I hope you keep coming back!

So this is a big THANK YOU to you all. Thank you for all the lovely comments which I so enjoy reading, for your support of the Planet Penny shop and all the love that comes Higgins way, which he revels in!

We’ll be back again very soon and in the meantime here’s a reminder of some of the things which went on in 2012…

January

February

March

April

Photo Montage - End of the Year 2012 May

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

All that is left to say is…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Advent Calendar – Day Eleven

The Advent Calendar make today has me revealing my secret hoard of wrapping paper, well, a tiny bit. It’s too embarrassing to reveal all! I do love wrapping paper, but when it comes to using it I can’t bear the thought of the eager recipient tearing it off and discarding it, too eager to get at the gift to appreciate it’s beauty and preciousness! (I know, it’s me that’s getting precious!)

But this make means that not only is there no necessity for any reckless ripping, but both sides of the paper can be on show (another cause of head scratching, if it’s gorgeous on both sides which do I use? No wonder I end up with the brown paper!)

I bought this paper the November before last at the Pick’n’Mix Market and it’s been wrapped in tissue ever since..

the robins…

and the winter flowers and berries, which is by Emma Bridgewater…

I found a great little tutorial here on a Japanese blog called Mairuru which explains beautifully how to make gift bags. Apart from a slightly tricky bit of paper folding when you construct the bottom (which is fine if you concentrate hard and keep your cool!!! (I’m saying nothing!) ) I just used a hole punch so I could thread through the ribbon handles. It’s a very simple and satifying little skill which will come in handy for more than just Christmas.

All ready to be filled with all sorts of goodies…

Remember, that little grey mouse could be yours! Have you entered the Prize Draw yet? All the details are on Day Two of the Advent Calendar which is here. All you have to do is to leave a comment to say which way you follow Planet Penny, whether it’s on the blog, or Facebook or even Pinterest. And if you follow via multiple sources tell me that too, because then you’ll go in the Draw twice!

The little brown Mouse? Well he’s appearing later on in the Advent Calendar, wait and see!

See you tomorrow….x