PhotoFUNshop became PhotoNotFunshop enter Windows Live Gallery

Morocco

When I bought a new camera a Panasonic TZ10 I uploaded Photofunshop 5.1which although I was never enamoured with it I got by and up until a few days ago it did most of what I wanted to do crop, adjust etc. Then it started to give me grief i.e. not responding, locking up and no matter what I tried I could not get it to play nicely. I uploaded or should I say tried to upload the latest version with no avail. Ok, enough so I went back on line and looked around and found Windows Live Photo Gallery and within in minutes it was up and running and so easy to use, cleaned up all my files and then I had a look at options and came across Auto Collage and have this morning uploaded a 30 day trial version and within minutes created a few, and I think they are really fun. I also wanted a new time cover for my facebook page and my Fan page and  here it is. What do you think?

Rings

My family

Poppy

 If you want to try this out here is the link to get started  http://plugins.live.com/photo-gallery/detail/autocollage

Happiness is................

Two full days with Poppy and we had a great time, baking a cake for her brother's birthday to her trying on just about everything she could lay her hands on  in a store  when we went shopping.

Well there are more but............. now I must get my holiday pics on to let you see, soon I promise.

GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE DANGEROUS...

Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.
A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.
It turned out that a little green garden grass ske was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.


She let out a very loud scream.
The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.
He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.


His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.
The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.


About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.


The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch.. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.


But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.


The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.
The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.


The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.


By now, the police had arrived.


Breathe here...


They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake!
The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.


Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.
The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.


Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).


Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.
A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.




And that's when he shot her.

All is now ohhh "K"

You know when you get an idea in your head and then you just have to go for it. Well yesterday was just one of  these days. It all started when I received a custom order for monogrammed sachets for 3 bridesmaids. All was going well I did an "E" and then the "B" and the last one was a "K". Well it was to big so I started again and then it was to small, beginning to panic as I only had enough embroidery thread  of that particular colour for one more try. I decided to buy a set of transfer paper and copy a monogram out of my book, reduce the size, iron on the transfer and then embroider it, easy peasy.! NOT.   First off I have a laser printer and when I got home it just happened to notice that you need an ink jet printer. DH to the rescue and as he had to go into town anyway said he would buy a new cartridge for it and would scan the monogram and then I can get my order done and dusted. Ha if only, 2 hours later and DH was still trying to scale & transfer and well I got fed up so I  decided to go for freehand again, this time I got it right and was just finishing it off when DH who had meanwhile been persevering with the technical side handed me the transfer but full size.
I did not have the heart to tell him that I had redrawn the monogram and had almost completed it. To show my appreciation for all of his patience and efforts I decided to try the transfer on a bit of linen  it worked a treat and nowI have a cushion cover that I never knew I wanted !!!!  Well here it is and have to say I love it looks  quite vintagy don't you think?

I also never fully realised that it would leave an opaque plastic coating which renders it useless for embroidery so it never would have worked. Apart from that I have learnt something new and when the kids next come over I will get them to take a picture of whatever they fancy and transfer it on to a t-shirt for them. In fact Poppy is coming over Sat so will have a go then and let you see what picture she takes.Still on the subject of monograms  a few weeks ago on Pinterest I saw some embroidery loops, some with buttons which were very cute and  for nurseries animals and  balloons, as I just happened to have several embroidery hoops spare decided to try one with this lemon Monogram.

Cuff Love

Since coming back from holiday I have been trying to get back into the swing of things and finding it hard. This really made my day when I opened my mail and received these pictures from Amber who purchased a pair of vintage lace and silk cuffs to wear for her wedding day in May.  Her dress and hair piece looks fabulous and  the cuffs looks great (even if I say so myself)  Just the tonic I needed to help me get a wiggle on. Thankyou Amber. xx

 

A Slight Detour Took me back to the 13th Century

 I decided to visit a friend in lisle-sur-Tarn and she told me the normal route is closed for major repairs and so I had to take a detour and passed this amazing chateau and just had to stop to take a few shots to show you this .

It's a small hamlet close to Rabistans,turning of the main road and drive no more than 200mts  you come across this small  magical woodland on your right with  a large tear drop lake you would almost expect and not be surprised if you saw fairies flitting around, and at this time of year all the rich shades of greens, moss, topiaries and ivy and apart from the birds and frogs both trying to outdo each other there is a wonderful peaceful silence. Look left and you will see this small building that is now just a shell. Perhaps it was a toll house.

Drive another 100mts (Yes,I could have walked but remember I am on my way to visit) and there she is, "Chateau de Gery" not a brillaint picture but big black clouds were loitering with intent

Directly  opposite these gates are two massive trees with the most beautiful old, looks  like a hay cart but check out the girth on the tree to the left  and I don't know what kind of trees they are, something else to find out one day.

OK I am still on my way to see my girlfiend  and have now passed the end of the wall to the chateau and to my left I see what has to be the smallest church I have ever seen just a few metres into the field.

 

And the big black clouds  did not dissapoint my car had the best wash it's ever had and it was free:) A little more info on the Chateau can be found here if your interested.

http://www.lislesurtarn.info/200 9/05/30/chateau-de-saint-gery-ouverture-au-public/

Wild Boars and an Air Balloon

Normally when the little ones come over we usually play in the garden or do some other activities with them but yesterday there was no need as a few wild boars and a hot air balloon did that for us:). The kids went into the garden to pick some strawberries and my neighbour called to them and asked them if they would like to see the sangliers  (Wild boar) feeding as they have recently finished building a compound to rear them. They have one male and two females and  8 marcassins (babies) now 3 months old. These little ones will be killed at 6 months and roasted on a spit.  C'est la vie!

 
They are fenced in obviously and the male top picture did not like it one bit that we were watching them and was grunting and pawing the ground I was glad to be on this side of the fence.
We were then invited into the house for a glass of something and I wish you could have seen the kid faces when the saw these on the wall.

These are the upper and lower tusks of the boars that her son has collected over the years and on the back of each one there is the date, sex and weight of the unfortunate boar.

I see many of these beautiful creatures crossing the fields in front of our house and for me I prefer to see them alive and not stuffed, the one above is or rather was a female deer (une biche). 

This has to be the ugliest boar I have ever seen just check out these tusks it weighed in at a mere 230kg, can't imagine sitting in this room and feeling relaxed somehow with that staring at me.

The entire room has no less than 14 heads along with a wall of tusks and various guns dotted all round the room and I think the kids thought it was a museum, which  in a sense it is. The boar is probably the most hunted mammal in France 10s of thousands are killed each year. I have eaten wild boar once and was delicious, it tasted like beef and pork  and is marinated for up to three days and cooked very slowly with lots of red wine.

Well time to get stuck into our strawberries and were again entertained watching the balloon rise and fall and we really thought it was going to crash, you could hear the roar of the hot air as they were trying to gain height and finally they did and drifted off down the valley. I have no doubt that the views they got must have been fabulous but for me I think I will just keep both feet on the ground.