The Gate

 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

"Open for me the gates of the righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter."

 Psalm 118:19-20

You may have noticed on my blog that I often mention a place called Ashridge, this is a park area that belongs to the National Trust. When I was young I grew up in a town not far from Ashridge, each of my birthday parties was spent  at Ashridge, my parents would pack up a picnic and we would fill the car with my brother and friends. (This was before the time of rear seatbelts and child seats!) When I was 16  my parents moved to Cornwall.  Two years ago my husband and I moved back to the area for him to take up the post of pastor at a local church. We now live the other side of Ashridge. We love to go there for walks, take our family and for the moment, Preston. Where we walk is a lovely gate, there is something special about gates, children love to climb them, it is lovely to visit them through the seasons and the spiritual aspect is great. I have added some photos of the gate that I have taken over the time we have been here.

I had a little break

Well, I have just had a little break from blogging....posting not reading...and below are the reasons why! My Mum came to stay for two weeks and has just gone home and Preston arrived for long term foster care! He belongs to our son and daughter inlaw but they decided that they had bitten off more than they could chew and so he has come to stay with us, infact he probably wont go back to them as their home and work hours just dont suit a lively puppy. The dogs that we had in the past have been small and not very lively, very easy to care for and not needing lots of walks and attention. Preston is different. But as we are not out of the house for long stretches of time, have a garden and lots of nice places to walk nearby, we agreed to have him for at least time for him to settle down. We will see how it goes...he is very sweet!

We have these munchkins staying at the moment, they were all supposed to be on route to USA to meet up with Daddy before they all travelled back to South Africa...however it looks like it will just be Mummy going because they haven't been able to get USA visas for the boys (they have SA passports at the moment) so they will stay here in the UK with Grandma & Grandpa!! Yeah!!

Baby Quilts

I decided to get on with the baby quilts that I am making for a couple in our church who are expecting twins any day. They dont know the sex of the babies and so I am planning on using a stencil to put hearts around the cream border and quilt them in either pink or blue after they are born. We started the day with a walk in te country followed by coffee and cake, with friends.

I had already cut out the squares so I began with jointing these up. I have a number of baby quilts to get done and so cose a simple pattern of 5x5 6" squares

I then added the cream border and mitred the corners by drawing a 45 degree line from the corner on one side of the border then on the other side

I then pinned the layers

stitched them together along the line and trimmed the fabric

The quilt tops are now ready to put together with wadding and backing and then quilted

Day Out

Tomorrow is my birthday and since my 50th birthday I have tried to extend the celebrations a little longer than the usual day...... so today we went out to Clivedon, a National Trust property in Buckinghamshire. The weather was a little dull and so the photo's dont do it justice, but we had a great time. The view from the house across the Thames and surrounding countryside was amazing. We took a picnic and enjoyed a long walk through the beautiful gardens. The first two photo's are for my grandaughters...Primrose and Magnolia (Maggie).