I finally manage that jigsaw puzzle photo shoot after previous distractions...

Dear All
As you may well have gathered now....I rarely stop when it comes to St. Hils!  So you all may remember how I WAS in the throws of setting up a photo shoot with this lovely 1/12 scale wooden jigsaw puuzzle made by Jacqueline Crosby (and no.....she does not appear to have a website sadly for me to direct you to which is a shame as her work is amazing) which I bought at one of the previous Miniatura Shows at the NEC in Birmingham when I was distracted by Miss Enid!  The blog, as you remember, then took a completely different turn as so very often happens with St. Hils...

You can see above the best photo taken of my little scene...............

I am not sure WHY Magnifi-Cat decided to sit IN the lid to the puzzle.......perhaps he doesn't want them to put the puzzle away once they have finished doing it.......I really have NO idea!  He is being a bit naughty too as he has not alerted Priscilla Jane to the fact that one piece has fallen on the floor.

I have not quite worked out what I will use this photo for because a puzzle is not a "game" is it so I was unable to include it on my Games Afternoon but when I had seen it at the show I still wanted it as it looked so cute.  Andrew chose the picture as it had rabbits on it.  Andrew thought that children would naturally love a puzzle with rabbits on so that was the one I chose.  I have loved including my Mallard family....ie son, daughter in law and father in Ernest, Esme and Eric.  Esme and Ernest are very thoughtful holding the photo up for Priscilla Jane as she does the puzzle so that she won't forget what the picture looks like.  Eric is well..........doing what Eric does best.........ie standing by observing quietly all that goes in St. Hils during his stay.  I am sure that GP, Sepp, Snowy and Syd are giving Priscilla Jane helpful hints too.  I hope that Magnific-Cat lets on that he is guarding that jigsaw piece soon.............

I have to confess to having thoroughly enjoyed my trip into fantasy land again in the form of St. Hils......it surely beats a day in the office.  As I tell my work colleagues.......................being completely batty and insane at home is the ultimate secret which helps to maintain my ultimate sanity..................long may it continue......................

I am hopeful of another new page soon featuring Aunt Sal's Teas..........I have been commissioning things from my sister, Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven  (DO visit her as she has some new things for sale.............she is very busy restocking her site so it is well worth a visit) so please pop back to find out more....................................
Till the next time
PS Have included a sprited out part of the above photo below for you to see the beautiful puzzle picture better..........apologies on behalf of Syd who would insist on standing in FRONT of it so you can't quite see it all..................

Tom took those Valentine's Day card photos - how clever he is!

Hiya Everyone!

I have had quite a time this late afternoon trying to take ONE decent enough photo of Tom holding his camera and Prisiclla Jane holding the Valentine's Day card (available on ourDownloads page now!)  which has herself and Grace on holding their own design Valentine's Day cards.  What a nightmare it was despite my new camera (Canon Ixus 980) being a more up to date and "cleverer" model than our last one (Canon Ixus 750). 

WHY the focus has to go to the BACK of the scene even when the face recognition software highlights one of the dolls' faces as it did Tom's I have no idea.  Tom's face is identfied by the camera software but as soon as the button is pressed to actually take the picture the focus suddenly points to the back...arghhhhhhhhhh.

I am not sure you would all appreciate me including all the failed shots here........but you can understand my frustration when you get this below for your troubles......

Isn't this photo a wonderful clear photo of the back display units?.........well yes it is.........but that was NOT what I intended!  I took it with flash so you would seriously believe the camera SHOULD have "seen" that the obvious subject/s were in the foreground!
At least we can be thankful that our cameras are now digital and we no longer waste time AND money when it comes to the price we used to pay to have all those films developed. 

As if the camera and its annoying foibles were not bad enough I just had to contend with the ever present joy of my clumsy big fingers knocking things over too.  Let me explain.  You can see that there is a cat bowl in the background in the photo above.  Well whilst I had already posed both Tom with his camera and Priscilla Jane showing off the photo with herself and Gracie in with their own design Valentine's Day cards, I suddenly had a brainwave.  I could see Magnifi-Cat our church cat hiding behind the stairs whilst sitting in his basket so my immediate idea was pretty simple ie: move cat whilst sitting IN basket to the right so that he could then feature in the photo.  Ah........it may SOUND a simple manouvre..........................WRONG!
In the process you will be shocked and surprised to know that I not only managed to knock poor Tom over but also the guestbook and delicate and tiny quil pen and holder (made by Danny Shotton) went flying off our beautiful William and Mary period table (made for me, by the way, by the late Harold Cudsworth) at the back too!  So I had to move everything out of the way in order to see the tiny quill pen and ink pot which had fallen on to the floor.  You will be pleased to know though that I DID find it.  The next job was to scoop up the tiny skiny quil pen into my clumsy hand and deposit it at its jaunty angle in the pot!  Job done............eventually!

This above is a close up of both the guest book (Dateman Books) and quill pen and ink pot on the William and Mary table..
For you to have an idea HOW small this pen and ink pot are I have just asked Andrew to hold it in his hand whilst I photographed it......................

Now you can see how tiny it is you can imagine my horror at any idea of it falling into the pile of our carpet...............but so far nothing as catastrophic has happened fortunately and for that reason I like to keep it right next to the back wall of the church.......just in case........

I realise I detract from the theme of my blog........please forgive me but I do have a terrible habit of wandering...........

Where was I?  Oh yes.  I was meaning to tell you that Tom is, as you may know, the church photographer, and so he enjoys the use of his grandfather's SLR camera. (made for us by Dave Tayler)  He wanted me to let you know that HE took those two photos that appear on the Valentine's Day cards that you can all now download and send to anyone you feel would enjoy recieving one.

He is SUCH a show off as you can see above!  He is showing his camera off to Prisiclla Jane and explaining HOW he managed to take such a great photo of her and Grace.  I have to apologise for Magnifi-Cat......I haven't quite got him in the picture have I?  However he is quite happy in the background sitting quietly in his basket.........................as you can see.

I have been called for my fish and chip tea............................but before I go I just want to let you know that, as readers and followers of my blog, I am letting you all know you can download your very own 1/12 scale miniature St. Hilary's cards and 2010 calendar for the little people in YOUR dollshouse to enjoy..............HERE! (right click and "save target as" to save down to your computer or simply click and open it directly in your browser)
I WILL be putting this pdf file with the cards and calendar on to the main site soon........but just thought I would let you as my readers preview them for me.................any problems or ideas to improve them let me know in the comments box...
Till the next time
PS If you have visited our website you will have gathered that I have taken MORE photos of Priscilla Jane and Tom since writing this blog earlier and was also strangely more successful in including Magnifi-Cat as well.......alongside our dear Eric and GP too........because one of the photos is now on our Home page

Gracie insists on doing her bit for Haiti.............

Hiya Everyone
I am afraid I just HAD to write today because Grace is so keen to let you all know what she is doing herself to help raise funds for the Haiti appeal...................and guess what it is....................making and selling Gracie cakes of course!

I caught her a while ago (as you can see below - a result of me putting her back in the church after taking her out of the tearooms......a complete but beautiful accident which helped spawn this storyline idea!)  sitting quietly on a pew in church looking as if she was in a complete reverie.........clearly something was on her mind...................

I didn't have to wait long though.  You see most village churches have pubs next to them.........but NOT St. Hils.........oh no..................................St. Hils has a lovely teashop called "Aunt Sal's Teas". 

Gracie LOVES to make her "Gracie Cakes" of course but not just to give away to her new Sunday School friends but also to sell in aid of any favoured charities that she has a heart for.  Naturally she and her mother were completely devasted to hear about the earthquake in Haiti so her mother asked the person who owns "Aunt Sal's Teas" if they would mind selling "Gracie Cakes" in aid of the Haiti appeal.....................needless to say they gave her a really big YES!

Alice recently was offered a little Saturday job as a waitress in "Aunt Sal's Teas" so she made sure that she was in the shop when Grace arrived as you can see........................................  Whilst Gracie is putting her cakes out on the cake stand that Alice has found for her, Alice is staring at the very very old photo above the fireplace..............................it is actually the photo (in reaility a miniaturised photo of my great grandfather - ie my father's paternal grandfather who was a choir conductor in Wales) that Ambrose brought along during one Heritage Weekend.  His father allowed the proprietor of the teashop to have it in the tearooms which was really lovely of them................

Whoops....................another stray into fantasy land................however I have to confess that the idea that Gracie would want to sell her special secret recipe "Gracie Cakes" came to me suddenly yesterday afternoon and it just "felt right" to include this.  I had thought of putting this on the home page of St. Hils......................but instead I felt a blog more appropriate because we want to highlight the appeal.

For those who want to contribute Gracie has found you all a link...........ie http://www.dec.org.uk/ this takes you to a site which also includes other appeals too so you can choose to support which ever project or appeal touches your heart.........................

I expect you are all wondering WHY I decided to call my tearooms "Aunt Sal's Teas"?   I was named after a great aunt on my father's side and she was called......................"Sal" - hence "Aunt Sal's Teas". 

This teashop is actually the downstairs shop in an Anglesey Dollshouse we bought in a dollshouse shop in Stratford upon Avon some years ago now.

Andrew, my long suffering husband, decorated the house for me and we used some pink paint (we used those sample pots in Homebase!) and we mixed  with tetrion which gave a nice textured result........a bit like pebbledash which was the idea.  I had decided on pink for my house because some of the very typical Essex cottages are often rendered in pink outside and, as Andrew was an Essex boy and we initially lived in Essex when first married,  it seemed the obvious thing to do.  I have got a piccie of Andrew in the process of painting it too somewhere but it is is "pre-digital" so it would have to be scanned in for you all to see it.  
The name is actually taken from the person I was named after - a great aunt on my father's side.  Of course she was known as "Sal" so our tea rooms became....."Aunt Sal's Teas".

You can see the frontage of this, my original dollshouse, here and yes..........the name has been painted on by none other but myself!  It has NO proper windows so I guess, for the time being, it will have to be a fairweather tearooms and only open on a lovely warm Summer's day.................................  However you all may remember that I did mention this dollshouse on an earlier blog...................so to complete the picture so that you can see how the tearooms now look inside I am including a couple or so photos below....................

As you can see have an aga under the stairs but no old fashion copper kettle's to heat up on it as yet...............so that will be a "must" before our dear Miss Enid can bring any of the children along for a visit to show them some old fashioned table manners.................  You can also see some blu tack too which had dried to a hard mass which fell off in one hard lump when I removed it.......

I hadn't realised how faded hour wallpaper had become..............as you can see hear "Aunt Sal's Teas" is in need of quite a lot of refurbishment..........but money is tight at the moment............

Whoops - another fanstasy land trip........sorry about that one!  I could tell you more.........about my 1/12 scale silver cutlery and more because each of my Stokesay Ware cups and saucers sports a Mike Sparrow silver teaspoon too..........................but perhaps I will leave that till later.................

Till the next time.......

PS All these photos were taken using my Canon Ixus 980 - automatic setting with macro and automatic flash - hand held with image stabliser set - not bad ay?  Well I am pretty chuffed with them..................cos if you saw how hard it was to negotiate the clothes horse, ironing board etc in the bedroom where the dollshouse currently resides...........

And WHAT is Robert Alexander playing at here?

Hiya Everyone
It has been so cold in the UK the last couple or so weeks......the ground has been quite hard and icy. It is thankfully a bit better now and all the snow has virtually gone...........................perfect weather to play...............well.......FOOTBALL!

I was hunting in my "tub of bits" (in reality an old margarine tub minus the lid lost ages ago!)  alias the less precious St. Hils props when I came across a prop that has not been used for ages........in fact I can't remember WHEN it was employed.  Guess what it was............a football of course and it belongs to none other than......Robert Alexander!  He used to bring it to church quite a bit during the Winter months despite warnings from the vicar not to do so.  He never received the message that football is to played OUTSIDE!   However after his family acquired his pet dog, Georgie, he had all but forgotten about his football............until, of course, I reminded him!

So here he is under the bell tower complete with not just Georgie but also...........well Prince too.  I have a nasty feeling that Prince is going to pounce ANY moment here and nab that ball off poor Georgie before she manages to give it back to Robert Alexander.  Robert Alexander IS naughty though because we are sure the vicar will be none too impressed if he catches sight of this football after believing Robert Alexander had learnt his lesson...
We hope that someone comes along soon or there may be some irreparable damage in poor St. Hils!

Rita is still sitting upstairs as you can see..........but in view of what is going on here you can't blame her can you?

Oh dear - a stray into fantasy land again......sorry about that.  I was almost forgetting to tell you what I was hunting for in my "tub of bits".  I was wondering what Miss Enid would carry her bone china tea service to church in?  You see - she MUST have something serviceable mustn't she but what?  I had thought of a cardboard box  and yes - I do have one in miniature.  However she is too quaint and dainty to use such a bulky unsightly box to carry such a beautiful exquisite tea service.  Back to the drawing board on that one......................but I still have time to create my Valentine's Day which I plan to include.............a red rose....................bouquet of roses..................Valentine's Day cards...........................Valentine's Day heart shaped cakes.........................a pair of gloves and purse....................................shall I go on?  In fact I am planning to pull out my whole Valentine's Day arsenal in terms of props!

Anyway - just been called by my poor long suffering husband who has to put up with my obsession with St. Hils and all things miniature......my supper is now ready!
Till the next time..........

Miss Enid is missing something.....................and WHO has it?

Hiya again everyone!
As you all have probably gathered now I am ALWAYS busy doing something with St. Hils.  I HAD intended to do something with this wonderful miniature dollshouse size wooden puzzle I bought from Jacqueline Crosby's stall at the Miniatura Show held at the Birmingham NEC last March.  There I was posing my baby Clarissa and Priscilla Jane under the bell tower with said puzzle turned out and on the little wooden tray I bought a while back now.

Suddenly though I happened to look at Miss Enid as she was still posed for one of the last photos on our Patronal Festival and could immediately see her complete with bone china tea set..........after all she has such a "quaint look" as my husband, Andrew says of her, that one can see her drinking her tea out of a bone china cup complete with matching saucer, bone china teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl.
So the rest was easy......and why..........because years ago when I bought my first and only other dollshouse with a shop down below, I HAD to have the shop all set out as an old fashioned tea shop.  That inevitably left me with the matter of the tea service so where did I go?..............to Stokesay Ware of course and I homed in on the Sovereign Blue range straight away! 

You can see Miss Enid here as I have her on our Home page today...........complete with lid of said Blue Sovereign teapot..............but..................no pot!  However I am going to let you out of your misery here and tell you WHO has it........................

Ambrose of course!  You see..............Miss Enid never minds having her tea in one of the church's cups but she does also particularly enjoy a good cup of tea in a REAL bone china cup which has been poured from a REAL bone china teapot!  She says it never tastes quite the same in an ordinary mug or cup!  Ambrose offers to fill the teapot directly out of the urn which fortunately has just boiled!

I do have some real siliver cutlery from Mike Sparrow  who is an excellent miniature silversmith too so I will have to fetch a couple of teaspoons to go with the two cups and saucers set on the tray here.  I am not going to let on WHO the other cup is for....................but all will be revealed on my next new page.....................

I would love to show you a photo of my old dollshouse BEFORE it was ransacked to provide props and resources for St. Hils............because the tea shop downstairs looked really lovely with home made table cloths made by myself   (crochet cream edgings using ordinary sewing cotton around some green velvety material I found somewhere!) with a centre piece crochet doily and candlestick......oh yes......AND place mats with Mallard ducks on!   I am you sure can see that a theme was already emerging here which has taken even more shape as I have developed St. Hils!

Perhaps one day I will set it all up properly and have our "children" visit with Miss Enid as she wants to teach them some good old fashioned table manners?  However.........before that can happen we need some lights as my old dollshouse has none!  It is yet another job on my "to do" list...............sometime in the future as per usual!

Now if you will excuse me I am going to leave you for now because I have some important work to do putting my church back in order after taking those two photos...................................

As you can see...........it looks a terrible untidy mess.  I DO think though that our Miss Enid looks VERY dignified given what is going on around her.......wonder if she may give me a hand?

Till the next time!

St. Hils ventures into a Brave New World............

Hiya Everyone!
Just to confirm..........I HAVE bitten the bullet and added our new drop down menu to our site.  Comments were generally favourable so it feels the right way forward.  It is so easy to stick with the old and feel comfortable but it is also good to be able take on new ideas and this really does, in my opinion, work better than our old site. 
Thanks again to those of you who visited the trial pages..........

I have to tell you all though that the transition has been far from easy.  I confess that I uploaded the pages and as soon as I tested them "live" found bugs.......so I edited the bugs found and re-uploaded them........to find another bug or page missed off!  There are so many pages now it is easy to miss some out!  I have set three templates too so every time I found a fault in the one menu structure I had to go and correct it in the other two! 

If anyone DOES find any bugs do let me know.........................oh yes.......for ease of reference here is the home page ........http://www.miniaturechurch.co.uk/
Till the next time

Work in progress..............my new drop down menu trial for you all to test

Hiya Everyone
I have been quite busy again today.  As I have been saying I have been working on migrating St. Hils website into Expression Web which is the latest web design package from Microsoft.  I have had a great day today because it was a day off work to await the electricians come to replace our old duff storage units.  So what did I do to while away the time............work on my new drop down menu for St. Hils.
I have ONLY uploaded two pages - ie the home page and a new site map which I created because my stats suggest at least 60 of my last 500 page loads were made using the browser, Internet Explorer v6.  Unfortunately IE6 does not support this kind of drop down menu created using cascading style sheets so the site map link has been provided for those who still use that browser.

This is the home page with the new drop down menu: St. Hilary's trial home page - the new site map is the last in the drop down "Welcome" menu on the left.  The "Welcome" button takes you to the home page wherever you are and I have also added a home like to the banner image too so if you click that it takes you "home" too!
You can see a screen shot of the home page with the "welcome" drop down menu in operation here.

The "css sheet" or to give it's full name "cascading style sheet" was actually  not written by me at all by Stu Nicholls so it is a bit of a "cheat" really.  However I CAN assure you I completed a full drop down menu tutorial so know the full mechanics of their creation which is really quite simple when you work it all out.

Anyway folks - I am happy for any feedback on this one so if you have any other ideas let me know - and if I have apparently missed a page off too I would also love to know!
Til the next time
PS Electricians DID come early this morning and yes they DID fit said pair of storage heaters........but minus bricks.........so we are still awaiting their arrival which is still supposed to be today!  Guess the extremely cold weather has meant a real run on storage heaters and said bricks that go inside...............lol

Of BIG annoyances with little things.......or is the problem REALLY big clumsy fingers.......? oh yes and a bit of digital trickery to boot!

Hiya Everyone!
Well folks...........THE new page is finished and uploaded as well as perfect as it ever will be until someone finds a mistake or typo!  I am referring to our new Patronal Festival. 

My title sadly refers to a temporary loss of poor Gracie's tambourine in one of my mad moments whilst trying to arrange or rearrange my scene.  The result is reallly something like that domino game that I love to watch.............ie: you knock one domino over and hey presto.........within a short while the whole lot have fallen down as the ripple effect carries down the whole chain.  However with THAT game the intention is meant!  With mine..................it is certainly NOT! I do NOT intend to knock one poor doll down........who is standing close to another who promptly falls over on cue too............and so it goes on...............let alone having other props fall off furniture and grounded pets fall over................

There I was.....................my scene was set..................well ALMOST!  I had managed against all odds to set Rev Ken on a chair and have him hold the guitar without dropping it, Ben was holding his shut hymn book and Tom had his obediently open at the right page.........and Gracie had finally agreed to stand up straight after her knee and hip joints kept pinging back to a sitting position..............arghhhhhhhh   But WHERE was her tambourine?  I had it a minute ago.......it was sitting on one of the pews!  Ah...........suddenly realised that, in my scramble to clear enough space to enable my big fat clumsy fingers to operate such a delicate scene I had picked up the said pew and carelessly dumped it in the entrance/bell tower area.  I was due to have a cup of tea and Andrew was beckoning me to it.  However he quickly realised I was NEVER going to sit still to drink my tea until said tambourine was located so joined in my search.  Initially I checked the whole floor of the church.....nothing.  So I checked the carpet just beneath the bell tower where I had uncermoniously dumped the said pew having forgotten its' precious cargo.  Nothing again.  I nearly gave up when I decided to fish under the little chest of drawers next to my part of the three seater settee.........BINGO!  There it was!  Sitting just under the curved bottom bit.  I sighed such a big sigh of relief on locating it - think Andrew did too!  Not sure HOW it managed to travel so far though.........that is the problem with little things.  They are so tiny that they can travel quite a distance so you can never rule out anywhere when looking for them although within reason of course.
I thought I had nearly lost Sepp the rat too.  She had been left perched on one of the steps of the bell tower but yes........I had also knocked her on to the floor.  I had the usual photograph hassles too though with my fancy new camera still preferring to focus at the silliest place......ie.......the background.  Never mind the fact that there is a doll virtually filling the lcd screen on the camera!

I thought I would again like to show you a couple of photos that didn't reach my new page.  I particulalrly love them for their atmosphere but they may appear a bit too dark in some people's browsers in order to be included on the site.  I took them using natural light which was late afternoon here by the time I had my poses set up. 

This photo is the first one and it is of Rev Ken holding his baby daughter together with Miss Enid.....  As you can see there is a bit of a cast on it so I did use Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 to do an automatic colour correction and the difference can be seen below.............

I am not sure which I like better........but in any case the difference is not that marked.

 However I took this one again with Gracie and Miss Enid with natural light and long shutter speed together with a manual focus and the cast is more obvious..................

The correction as above achieved with Photoshop Elements 3 is also more marked too than with the previous photo.  I think it comes down to preference WHICH is the "better" photo in each case.  Thank goodness for photo editing software.
Incidentally have you noticed something else in this picture.........................Grace's dress and Miss Enid's blouse are both made out of the same material!  It is a lovely antique material used by Jane Davies who made both dolls.

I am not sure if you all will have noticed but on our Games Afternoon page there is a digitally altered photo.   Bet you can't guess WHICH one it is?  Don't worry because I WILL tell you!  It is the picture with Esther and Grace standing next to the altar.  The shadow cast on the altar rail with the natural bulb looked very obvious and off-putting.  You can see the orginal photo below!

See how bad that shadow of the altar rail is.  I rectified it in my trusty Image Composer which came with my Frontpage 2000 software!  I managed to rid the photo of that shadow by simply cloning part of the unaffected wall and spriting out part of Esther's skirt so there was no obvious join.  I have used a similar techique to "repair" the duck beaks if the "broken now repaired" beaks look too bad on a photo. 

If you check through my site you may spot some obvious digitally altered photos.............my last year's Palm Sunday has one example.........visit it and see if you can find it.

Well I best leave you all now because I am having "fun" with Expression Web 3 trying to migrate St. Hils from Frontpage 2000 into it.  My ultimate desire is...............drop down menus along the top of every page for ease of reference to our visitors but I am still not quite "there"........but bear with me...........I WILL get there........well........sometime in the future with the aid of tutorial books and online tutorials and lessons showing me how to make use of CCS style sheets and more..........it WILL be done be assured!
Till the next time.

Already I am moving on to my next page and it is to be a................?

Hiya Everyone!
I am back again..............and the answer to the title is.............."A Patronal Festival".  As I think I shared with you a few weeks ago, I had completely forgotten about the fact that I DID have a patronal festival back in 2004, not long after I set the site up.  The original idea for a patronal festival was something I ran past the now late Jan Craven, our dear and much missed friend.  She really enabled me to set it up because she sent me an appropriate collect as well as opening sentence and, I am sure, readings too.  I really HAD forgotten the readings until I found an archive copy of our website at that time when I rediscovered them.

You can see above a photo from the original page which has long been taken off the live site....it is of Tom reading one of the two lessons chosen.   Poor boy was too short and had to stand on a table which can be quite precarious knowing all these dolls are made of porcelain...

 I KNOW I showed you one from our old patronal festival page in a previous blog but couldnt' resist......  I actually took the picture from the outside - poking the camera lens through the gaps of the then open east window.  I loved the view.  However it is no longer possible now we have a proper stained glass window in it..........and some nice plain but attractive "glass" in all the other windows coutesy of Vic Newey.

The lectern has now been replaced by the brass eagle lectern made for us by John Cheal, a man of great talent who has also made us a processional cross, tea trolley, altar rail, paschal candle and pipe organ.  I think that is all...............so far!

 I am sure you all wonder WHY a tea trolley in a church?  Well there IS a story behind our tea trolley.  We used to attend Holy Trinity Church Coventry where Andrew was also the organist for nine years.  They had this most WONDERFUL tea trolley complete with urn and everything and it was wheeled out for refreshments when required at the end of services.  So it seemed the right and proper thing to do to have one in St. Hilary's too.  I hunted high and low for the "tea trolley of my dreams" and almost gave up my search.......you see the only one I could find was a very unrealistic wooden thing with handles and two wheels and NOT the genuine article at all.  It HAD to look like the one in Holy Trinity Coventry.  John Cheal came to my rescue and together we sat and designed it and then I left him to complete the job.

You all can see it here where we used it for the first time (I think - so don't hold me to that if you find a page that is plainly earlier!) to serve tea and coffees at the coffee morning the vicar arranged to raise funds for the new church extention.

Oh dear...I DO digress!  Before telling a little more of my current plans for the NEXT Patronal Festival I would love to share with you one more old photo from the first one......

I rather liked the idea of our two boys, Ben and Tom, singing a duet as above!  I can't quite remember WHAT duet they were singing though.  This is a slightly different view of course from the one included in the previous blog.

The first thing that always hits me when looking back at these old photos is........how poor they are...........the colour cast is ghastly too................................so in order to give you something a little more appealing to the eye.......as well as being a little bit of a tease.........I am including two photos taken only this evening using our daylight bulb.................these are to be included in our new Patronal Festival page........ DO click (right click  and open in new window if you don't want to lose this page)  on this photo below as it looks even better enlarged...........!

I won't give much away here but Robert Alexander is plainly having a conversation with baby Clarissa............wonder WHAT he is saying to her......and WHAT is she saying back?  I will give you a clue but it probably won't give you much idea really..........................it concerns Clarissa's lovely warm rug............Robert Alexander SO wants it.....but what for?  Notice that he has brought his pet dog, Georgie's dog bowl and food to church..............NOT sure that the vicar will be too happy when he sees that.........

Miss Enid has cause to call Ben over for a little chat too as you can see here.............wonder what she is saying to him? She is plainly just about to put her glasses on and Ben is holding a book....... Again.......you will all have to come back another time to find out......................  The actual day for St. Hilary of Poitiers patronal festival is 13th January..........as Jan told me those years ago.  I would LOVE to tell you what the readings are but if I do some of you who have been visiting the site regularly may work out why Robert Alexander is asking Clarissa for her rug........AND being rather naughty trying to tug it from under her.......poor baby!

Just as a matter of interest...................my photo shoot tonight involved taking THIRTYTHREE photos in order to have the two above that look reasonable. That doesn't account for those I deleted on the camera straight away when I knew immediately how bad they were.  HOW did we cope before digital photography?  Just to show you the results I more often have to put up with see this below............

I gave up with this one and even put my hand in the way....   In fact I virtually DID give up with the Robert Alexander ones.  EVERY time the camera would insist on blurring the foreground in favour of Miss End although even she is not really in much better focus..........arghhhhh  and THAT was with the face recognition feature activated.  Oh well.........guess that most digital cameras prefer full size real life faces so I am probably expecting a bit too much here but..........

 I do still have to say that the quality of my photos are so much better though than those taken with our old Kyocera which only had a max of 4 megapixels............whilst our latest one has 14!

Well that is all for now folks.............
Till lthe next time.....

The children always remember their manners...........

Hiya Everyone
Back again........and NO - I promise to avoid showing you any more of my bad house keeping and untidiness! I guess you have worked out that poor Rita really could NOT stand the ringing of the bells at midnight as it rang in the New Year of 2010 and she fled downstairs!  Sensible lady as she is. 

However Esther, the Sunday School teacher, has been reminding the children that they mustn't forget to write all of their thank you cards to those who were kind enough to give them Christmas presents.....including of course............................Father Christmas! 

Whoops - got a bit carried away there...........................but anyway I have been having fun recreating my "thank you" and other general cards in 1/12 miniature so that the "children" too can have their own cards to write and send to friends and relatives................and..........Father Christmas!

You can see above the children writing their thank you cards........and see how proud Tom is that the vicar agreed for him to pose for a "thank you" card complete with a bunch of flowers as he stood at the church door.  I guess he won't let the other children forget that by the looks of it.

I am so dying to put this photo on the home page........but will wait til next week as I don't want those less frequent visitors to miss out on the current one with our now famous "Gracie Cakes".  Before I forget - I don't think I have properly explained how the "Gracie Cakes" came into being.  You see........firstly I asked my sister Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven to make me some "fairy cakes" of the kind that were in her old Brownies book of years ago when she was a small Brownie!  She so LOVED making those cakes in our younger days and I do remember how lovely they tasted too.  We never found the recipe again.  Catherine then suggested that they be called "Gracie Cakes" and again......I readily agreed it was a GREAT idea.  Then a week or so later she emailed me asking me how I wanted them decorated on the top as she suggested she put icing  on them etc.  I had already had a brain wave.............and suggested to her........as they are CALLED "Gracie Cakes"......why not put a big "G" on the top of each and every one to tell everyone. 
Catherine too thought it a brill idea and went with it...........after all......it solved her biggest problem.  She then said that they looked more like "iced buns"............so on that one I could see another great storyline.................and again you may all see that I did touch on the issue of bullying but only in a very gentle and unthreatening way because, after all, the children in our church would NEVER knowingly bully ANY of their church friends.  To them it was only a little tease and a joke...........but as we all know in the real world.....such things can really get out of hand...

I must nearly leave you all now as we always enjoy a short trip somewhere on Saturday morning..................sadly it always involves shops......wonder why?  Before I go - I have been so thrilled with visitors' comments both via our guest book and via email...thank you all for your support.  It is great to hear how often you all enjoy "popping in" to see how things are going in St. Hils..........
I am particularly grateful to be made aware of a "hale of bay" on our Harvest page....................however in my editing of it I also realised I had removed our greetings card with Adele and the seagulls so was able to amend that link too.  I often can't keep up with my own alterations etc..................  I currently use Frontpage 2000 to edit and maintain St. Hils.......................but am trying to eventually use Expression Web 3 so I am in the process of rebuilding the site from "bottom up" via Expression Web 3 - for all those out there who are into web building........  Frontpage 2000 is great - but the shared borders is a nightmare and in the process of editing our havest page the borders  (to those less technically minded - the common top and bottom of each page including photo/banner and collect at the bottom/copyright info etc)  "fell off" on upload so I had to add them in manually.....
All is well again and borders have re-attached after a bit of a play about.........such is life.................
Best go.......am on the hunt for a simple and easy book on Expression Web 3 by Microsoft......wish me luck.....
Til the next time....