I blame Shimelle

I hope that at some stage this weekend everyone's experienced some fab weather. We have, three days in a row, despite the forecast for today being thundery and showery it hasn't happened yet and that's a bonus for sure. We have no garden furniture. Haven't had any for years, and for years it was OK because we weren't in a position to use it; the last two years the patio and garden were a building site, and as always with these jobs, the reclamation has changed our minds about what we want the garden to be for us, and so we have no garden furniture this year in case it doesn't 'work' with the future project. (And it won't 'work'; when you redecorate, or renovate something, the old stuff, however new, always looks out of place, huh?). So as you can see from my massively over exposed photo, this afternoon, I dragged an old table and an even older chair out into the garden. Last year, October I think, the Slipper Lady, Willowy Blonde and I went to a workshop in Portsmouth, conducted by Shimelle - 'Everyone Has a Story'. An excellent day and the start of a really well guided project. Really, Shimelle's talent for journalling prompts is unrivalled in my opinion; I'm very jealous. We three have managed to stick to the Midway Manifesto and have met once a month to put together LOs for our albums, using kit and caboodle gained on the day and sketches and prompts that appear magically by email from the great gal herself. And the connection is...garden furniture. At our monthly cropettes, I can cheerfully make up a LO or two, but I can't do the journalling; I take time before doing the LO to think about what will go into it, and then at the cropette am too busy talking to get journalling right! So today, I decided that instead of gardening, I would sit in the sun. Out came the chair, and the latest book. For about 5 minutes. The glare was so bad it made my eyes water, and I wasn't going to sit in the shade to read of Barack Obama's vision for my future, no Sir. Cast around a bit, try not to make a fuss about the strength of the sun and hit on the next plan. Pull out the table. Mr Dunnit made it when we were newlywed and bloody poor. Can't get rid of it, but rarely use it. I was going to make some notes about ideas I've had for upcoming crops and workshops, help Miss Dunnit do some revision, you know - worthy things that would not lead to guilt over sitting around in the sun. Except it all involves my reading glasses and white printed papers! Not to mention the reluctant and pouting Miss Dunnit who was perfectly settled in the shade watching Manga cartoons on her laptop. Hmm, thwarted. And then my lightbulb moment. Last Thursday evening at our cropette, it was quite clear that my album is er, not as full as the other two, even though we've received the same number of prompts and sketches. Hmm. Great idea then, to take the quiet time and catch up on the journalling, thus finishing LOs which then become pages in the album. Double result dear interweb, because mostly these pages are on coloured stock and the lack of glare made it the perfect job to do whilst doing nothing in the sun. Given that we are promised a sunny and warm summer, I can happily forsee many more such quiet moments to fill languid days off. But I think that probably means that we (I) would be using garden furniture properly at last, and we (I) therefore need some, this summer. And that's not my fault at all. I blame Shimelle!