Miss Calamity...

You know that scene in Calamity Jane where Doris Day Calamity is dressed like a lady, blonde hair all perfect, and is in the woods picking flowers, but when she gets back to her cabin she's taken a tumble in the creek and is dripping wet and covered in mud?  Well that was Lola this morning!  Left the house beautifully groomed and returned like this!  The difference between her and Calamity's roll in the mud being Lola's was deliberate!

A hose down, towel dry and an hour lying by the radiator and she was back to her golden self.

K the Physio was here to see me today.  It's been about a month since my last session.  I've been doing my exercises as regularly as I can including the pool exercises so I was pleased she saw a difference.  Didn't stop her working me hard though and she has left me with a new set of exercises that are designed to stretch my torso upwards.  The stretch felt really good, which is half the battle in finding the motivation to do them.

Andrew, Nikki and baby Esme are visiting on Wednesday (guess who'll be featuring in my blip that day ;-)) Nikki has sent me examples of photos she would like me to try so here's hoping I can deliver the goods!  

I would like Esme to have Alan's baby shawl so David looked it out today along with his Christening shawl (I'm not quite ready to part with that one yet) and although they were washed before they were stored away, I wanted to freshen them up before handing one over.

The last person to wash them was my mum and as I filled the sink with lukewarm water and Woolite, the smell of the woolite reminded me of her filling the bath in our old house and pouring in the woolite before slowly and gently submerging the shawls.  She spent about half an hour swishing the shawls through the water and gently squeezing it through the delicate wool.  She gave them four cold water rinses before letting the last of the water away and gently squeezing as much water from them as possible before spreading each of them out on separate towels laid on the floor and rolling them up to soak up as much excess water as possible.  They were then laid out flat on towels on my dining room table to air dry before getting a half hour blast on the clothes line outside the following morning.  

As I wrapped them in tissue paper to be stored away, I remember wondering who the next baby to be snuggled in them would be.  I could never have guessed 20 years would pass and it would be my nephew's daughter (Andrew was only 7 at this point!) but I can't wait to see her in it.  Assuming I've not ruined them of course!  

I wasn't nearly as diligent as my mum, no bath this time, just the big Belfast sink in the utility room, but handled just as lovingly.  They are now resting in the rolled up towels and I will lay them flat on dry towels on the dining room table before I go to bed.  So lovely to handle them again and feel their softness and remember Alan's little face peeking out from them, a lifetime ago!