Day 150 - flutterings with real style.

Thursday 30th May

I simply adore the human spirit when it gives.  Today was a very giving day with my 'A team' round for tea and cake and butterfly making.  Liz, Bev, Angie and Molly gave up their afternoon to make tulle butterflies that are the centre of our fundraising campaign for the Butterfly Tree charity. 

Thank you so much girls and I owe you all a large glass of wine.  The butterflies are not easy to make but once you get into the zone it can become addictive.  For any local readers you can purchase the butterfly in Bev's shop, Bay News, in Whiting Bay.  They cost just a pound and all of that money goes to the charity.  For less local readers we can now open the order book again.  You can order as many as you like and each one comes with a little thank you label from the butterfly tree.  We even pay postage! 


I am blessed with some really lovely friends who all seem to get bound up in my charity work but I couldn't do it without them.  So, it has been a real butterfly couple of days with my nieces making flags for the school room yesterday.  George baked the cake for us today so a big thank you to him as well. 

Now I have a full butterfly tree once more I need to concentrate on the next event which is the plant sale weekend on 8th/9th June.  The boys are now on a weeks holiday while Molly is here so we can make the most of her.  We don't really do the 6 week break in the summer as I am not convinced that is good for their learning.  We take weeks that reflect our family so, for example, we don't have school the second week of Wimbledon so we can all watch the tennis.  We will then push on again until the Athletics world championship in August when we will have another break.  As a family we go on holiday in September once all the schools have gone back and this year we are off to Herefordshire for a week. 

It has been the most glorious day on the island with lots of beautiful sunshine glinting off the sea.  The island is busy with families for half term and has a real buzz about it.  The season is getting underway at last and I do hope island businesses have a good summer.  As a family we are gearing up for the weekly craft market that runs through July and August.  The boys make jewellery to sell and I have my crafts to sell and it keeps us out of trouble.  We also do one off events dotted throughout the summer so there is no real let up now until the autumn.  Come the autumn the island goes quiet once more and we get our beaches back for long solitary walks.  I love seasonal living and use the winters to recharge and plan for the next year.  I will be quite interested to see where my thinking is over the next winter because so much is changing this year already. 

I have already decided that my new site One soul many hearts will be my focus and I will use the winter months to finally put my ebooks and web courses together.  I want to consolidate but I am not very good at that.  My mother tells me to 'stop thinking' on a regular basis.  This was the year I wasn't going to run a charity campaign to just take a break and look what has happened! 

When my boys made prayer flags they wouldn't let me take photos of them so I just took some shots of their hands working.  That has led to a micro project for the campaign.  I am now taking photos of all the hands that are making this project so special.  I have wanted to have a go at a slide show on youtube for ages and now I have the perfect excuse.  I will somehow work out how to do this and hope that the slideshow reveals the many hands blended with photos of the island.  I won't, of course, share the link if I fail at this!  It can't be rocket science can it?

Speaking of rocket science if any of you out there have any experience with making podcasts I need a little hand holding please.  Thanks. 

I have so got to dash to water in the tunnel and then the world and its wife are coming or supper.  Never a dull moment in Fionaland.

Until tomorrow. xx