I wonder where I get it from...

Grandma recently moved into a care home. She absolutely hated being on her own after Grandad died earlier this year. She didn't need or want any of her possessions with her and so sent us all round to give everything good homes.

Not only was there a beautiful old oak chest of drawers for our bedroom, but I laid claim to some of Grandma's threads.

My sister caught site of the boxes and immediately we recognised where we both get our sewing and storing addictions from.

Unfortunately because she is as addicted as I am (even if not as productive - she has a 'proper' job) I did agree to split the collection...

...I did manage to procure the yellows and greys however ;-)

It's my favourite time of year, but at the same time not.

I love summer and I love long lazy days when we don't have to rush from activity to activity, endless hours of deadlines.

But juggling this with working is no fun.

I think a lot of us are the same.

Working from home means many interrupted weeks of trying to keep on top of work whilst not really having the proper time to do so.

My kids are getting older, which does mean they can be abandoned to keep themselves occupied. But guilt, coupled with knowing that means hanging out in front of the electrics for hours, soon gets me attending to them rather than getting on with the piling up work.

Tomorrow we are going out for the day.

No work, no neglecting children, just summer fun.

The day after we'll be back to neglect...

Rather than bore you all senseless by posting each aspect of our trip to Israel separately, I'm doing one intense whistle stop tour of a few of the special moments that we had.

Then it's over.

Back to real life.

As I told you last time, we spent a good deal of time on the beach. This was mainly spent on our local beach (top pic) but we did venture a little bit further up the coast one day to Caesarea. Caesarea is an ancient port city with an equally ancient aqueduct that runs along the beach.

Our beach visits also included pizza delivery directly to the beach when we went to visit family a bit further up the coast.

You would be forgiven in thinking this was just a beach holiday, but, despite the incredible heat, we did fit in quite a bit of sight-seeing. The highlight of which was our mini road trip down to The Dead Sea in the desert.

The drive down alone was incredible, with the vast desert scenery, along with camels roaming around.

One of the main reasons for heading down to this area was to climb Masada. Masada is an ancient ruin where the Jews took refuge from the Romans and was the site of the monumental suicide rather than falling at the hands of the enemy.

The ruins themselves at the top are incredible (and I'm not generally a history nerd) and well worth the climb to visit.

It's traditional to climb early to get to the top to see the sunrise. So we set our alarm for 4am, having to be at the base for 4.50am at the latest. The kids were absolutely brilliant and rose to the challenge of the experience.

In normal conditions it's not really a difficult climb, a mere 2km snake path to reach a 500m height, but when you are doing it at over 30 degree heat, that's where the challenge comes in! Coupled with knowing you've a timetable to keep to...no point going to all that effort if you miss the sunrise!

(Having said that, you have missed it because I've forgotten to post a pic of it...will do as an amendment after!)

Needless to say, Ruby and I took it slower than the boys, as depicted by the pic above...they literally ran up the whole thing!

Fortunately we got up in time to see the spectacular sunrise and it was more than worth the effort. This was definitely one of life's incredible experiences.

Whilst this area is all desert, there are several wonderful springs and pools and we were rewarded later that day going for a mini hike to bath in them. Absolute bliss!

Masada is down by the Dead Sea and we went for our customary float. It is such a weird and wonderful experience being in this viscous sea.

Yad Vashem is the world's living centre for Holocaust research and the Jewish People's Living Memorial to the Holocaust. It is a must culturally and educationally to listen and learn that this never happens again.

I couldn't post a trip to Israel and omit a reference to Yad Vashem.

Jerusalem is a beautiful beautiful city, full of evocative sights and smells, from the Arab Shuk, to the Western Wall and everything in between.

We were obviously there at an extremely hot time (temperatures rising to 40 degrees) and sight-seeing is definitely not the easiest thing to be doing, but it would have been beyond rude to not show the children, even a little, around Jerusalem.

Ruby had her birthday in Israel. Being an August baby she's very lucky, at the tender age of 10, to have celebrated her birthday in various locations around the world. This one, arriving into double figures, was incredibly memorable.

(More on my baby turning double figures and the effect on my psyche another time...)

And so we near the end...back to Tel Aviv and in particular the beautiful old port of Jaffa, beloved to be the oldest in the world (mind-blowing), we as a family have lots to consider.

Whilst it figured as a beach holiday, it was oh so much more and hopefully provided us with many wonderful memories and experiences that we will treasure for a long time.

We are back!

We had the most incredible 2 weeks in Israel, visiting family, friends, unbelievable places and doing a lot of this...

...reading on the beach.

Israel is a vibrant, hectic, colourful, noisy, sensory-overload of a country and they sure know how to enjoy life.

This is the more peaceful end of the life we enjoyed while we were there. I'll be back soon with more...

It's turning out to be a really lovely summer with lots of little vacations.

We were at my cousins' last weekend. They have just moved back into their newly built place in the middle of the countryside. It was stunning and such a treat to be hanging out there...swimming pool 'n' all!

Then this weekend we stayed in this stunning hotel, courtesy of my parents - we all went to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. I'm not sure I have been so pampered in all my life. If you have an excuse to do something special, I highly recommend it.

And no sooner are we back than we are getting ready for a vacation to Israel. I am very very excited to be going. We are visiting family, friends and generally looking forward to hanging out in the sunshine for a couple of weeks.

I have presents at the ready (including this), been making pretty, lightweight skirts for Ruby, a dress half way made for me, and then fresh, pretty bags for our smalls...

I think we are ready for take off.

Ode to Kate...

Sometimes very special people cross our paths in this world of blogging (not that all of you aren't special to me, oh lovely readers). Every now and then we meet someone who we click with, even if they happen to be thousands of miles away and we have never actually met over a real cup of coffee or glass of wine.

I've introduced you before to my kind and clever pal, Kylie and I think I have introduced you to another Aussie friend of mine, Kate.

Well, Kate and I were chatting, as you do - for that hour cross over in time difference, one of us was up with our kids, the other was trying to put them to bed - about Flickr group swaps and the like and before we knew it we decided to have our own little swap.

By the fact of what is coming to me and what I am sending to Kate is true testament to the fact that you don't have to physically see people to know people. Kate has got it absolutely spot on with what she knows I will love and I'm pretty sure I've got it right with her too. When Kate posted the cushion pics last night (obv I didn't see them til this morning), I gasped at the sight of them...that was even before the realisation sank in that the cushion was for me.

The hoop at the top, by the way, is something I did for Kate a couple of years ago now, in a Flickr Group Swap we were in. Apparently it takes pride of place in her kitchen. I'm pretty sure this cushion will be taking pride of place in my home when it arrives.

Fabric has taken on a whole new meaning since I have been screen printing.

I'm trying to steer away from all the beautiful patterns that once sucked me in and spat my bank cards out. I'm obviously working towards using mostly my fabrics. There is however always a need for all sorts of fabrics, so I'm in little doubt that my shopping days are over...just possibly curbed at the moment.

One thing I am in need of is good base fabrics...good textured, varying coloured fabrics that will work well in taking the ink, as well as being the right weight for different projects.

I have quite a thing for organic fabrics too, so when Rachel announced arrival of all her different organic fabrics, i was pretty sure I'd find some that would work for screen printing.

It's obviously hard to tell by just looking at them. How they take the ink is one of the important factors. So armed with my swatches today, I spray mounted them onto paper and set out to print.

It's quite interesting to see how the different fabrics take the ink and the different colours too. I used a dark ink because if they work well with this then they are going to work well with any.

As well as the coloured fabrics, I tried a good range of white ones. I'm going to need a real good look at these to narrow down my choices, but I was really pleased how they worked out and am pretty sure I have found some good dependable base fabrics for screen printing.

And organic too...