Storytelling Sunday 2013

Yay it's back for another year, Storytelling Sunday!  For 2013 Sian, over at From High In The Sky, has added a little twist and has asked everyone to Pick Your Precious for this year's storytelling.  I do hope you'll join in.

It was easy to pick my current 'precious', although it will be packed away later today for another year, it's the stocking that I made Maddie for her first Christmas 18 years ago.  She was six months old and it was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to make it, I knew she was too young to understand, but went ahead anyway.  I sewed each stitch by hand and she has put it at the end of her bed every year ever since.

It was filled on Christmas morning this year and instead of putting it at the end of her bed and disturbing her I left it under the tree...big mistake!  I left the room for 20 minutes and when I had returned Alfie had the stocking in his mouth and was trying to get the chocolates out!  I shouted, Maddie ran in, saw what happened and ran straight out again.

I managed to wrestle it from his jaws but it kind of ruined Christmas Day.  There were lots of tears and lots of discussions about how the stocking could be repaired, at one point Maddie wanted him gone, never to return.  It was during the day that I realised how precious the stocking was to her too.  She asked me how I would feel if the dog chewed something my mum had made for me, I couldn't answer because my mum has never made anything for me.

The next day I inspected the damage and we've decided to leave it as it is for the time being.  It has even more history now and, like I said to Maddie, when Alfie is no longer with us she will always look at her stocking and remember the naughty dog that we loved so much.

It did take her a couple of days to make friends with him again though!

Now it's your turn, tell your story about something precious to you.

Thank you for stopping by
Jo x

Halloween

It's the first Sunday of the month so that means only one thing, it's time for Storytelling Sunday over at Sian's.

This month the storytelling has arrived at the same time I was about to start scrapping some pictures taken at a Halloween event in 2002.

My friend Lynne had stumbled upon a village with a great little pub that was having a Halloween party.  She said it all looked so fantastic that she'd booked us rooms at the local hotel so that we could join in the fun.  This was long before Halloween had really got big in this country so it was a bit unusual but, as it was one of our favourite nights of the year, we were certainly up for it.

On the weekend in question we packed our bags and Maddie's witches costume and headed off to Stockbridge in Hampshire.  The pub was called The White Hart and the efforts the landlord had gone to were amazing. The whole place was decorated with ghosts and goblins, skeletons and witches, giant spiders and cobwebs.  Games were laid on for everyone to join in and my layout shows one of those games:

The game was to turn your partner into a mummy with the aid of a toilet roll.  Maddie stood still while Lynne did all the hard work of wrapping her.  The winners were the first ones to be totally mummified, they were plenty of laughs being had by everyone and in the end Maddie and Lynne won first prize!

Maddie also went on to win the fancy dress competition and some other games so we returned to the hotel weighed down with her prizes! I think the landlord of The White Hart had made sure that all of the children there won lots of prizes :)

It was such a lovely place, so welcoming and so much laid on for us but the funny thing is I've never been back there since.

Even though Maddie is 18 now we still enjoy Halloween very much and have made it a tradition to watch Hocus Pocus every year on the 31st October.

Head over to Sian's now to tell your story and to read the stories of everyone over there who get together on this day to tell a tale or two.

Thanks for reading mine.
Jo x