Have a Greyt Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone and have a peaceful New Year
from Sara, Tillie & Raven

Artwork by my talented husband Nigel

Friday’s Fiver No 4

This weeks fiver goes to Hamlin Fistula UK a UK trust partner for Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia.

From the website:

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was founded by Dr Catherine Hamlin AC and her late husband, Dr Reg Hamlin OBE, and is dedicated to the treatment and care of women who suffer horrendous childbirth injuries, known as obstetric fistula.

Obstetric fistula is caused by prolonged obstructed labour when a woman will spend days in labour without any medical help or pain relief. If she survives this ordeal she will give birth to a still born child and her internal injuries will cause her to be incontinent of urine and sometimes bowel contents as well.

She will spend the rest of her life a destitute outcast unless she can get to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital or one of its outreach centres.

The surgical technique developed by the Hamlins successfully cures 93% of obstetric fistula cases. The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has established a purpose–built village called Desta Mender ("Village of Joy") to provide long term care for women whose childbirth injuries are so severe that they cannot return to live a normal Ethiopian village life. At Desta Mender the women are trained in new skills so that eventually they can re–enter Ethiopian society as "citizens of the world" once again.

I first became aware of the plight of these poor, unfortunate, often shunned women through a forum I am member of on Ravelry called Stitches for Sisters. 

Stitches for Sisters is an online community of women based in Australia and NZ, but with members from across the globe. Our aim is to make beautiful handmade creations for women and children in developing nations. We’re passionate about making each item unique and special and we put a lot of care and love into our work.

Our first project as a new group was to make either crochet or knit squares and post them off to the coordinator, who then assembled them into blankets/wraps for the women visiting the hospital in Addis Ababa.  Following surgery which in many cases completely cures the patient, the women are given a new dress and a blanket which they use as a shawl. These blankets are always very colourful and the women do not feel properly dressed without one.

It would be lovely to think that a young Ethiopian woman maybe wearing a blanket with one of my donated squares in.

I would welcome suggestions from anyone, of some future Friday’s Fiver beneficiaries.  Just drop me a message.

The year of the blanket

This year saw me being obsessed with creating blankets of one design or another. They are all crochet as I do not have the patience to knit such large projects and anyway I find crochet easier on my hands. I hope you don’t mind me doing a little show and tell.

No 1 - Autumn Log Cabin Throw

No 2 - This design is called the Groovyghan Blanket

No 3 - Blanket is the Babette Blanket

No 4 - Blanket is just a simple Ripple Stitch Blanket

No 5 - A Scrapghan Blanket

No 6 - Winter Skies Blanket

No 7 - Granny’s Zinnias – made for my sister Jane’s 50th birthday

No 8 - Purple Passion

Just realised this is my 100th post!

Seaside Sunday

Saturday saw us put the inside Christmas decorations up.  The boring bit was trying all the lights out and yes, there were loads that didn’t work.  I can never understand why they decide to not work after sitting in a box all year doing absolutely nothing.  Getting them to work entailed pulling all the bulbs out one by one and finding the ones that were dud, and then trying to locate the box with the spare bulbs in.  After this boring task was completed, the fun bit – decorating the tree.  We have 2 trees, both artificial – in the past we have tried real trees but I found that the resin from the tree spoilt a lot of my decorations, so we have now opted for artificial. 

We have one tree in the kitchen

And one in the living room

I get the chance to display this lovely knitted nativity purchased last year from a Save the Children charity shop for £18.  The work in it is amazing and so under priced.

Sunday we took a trip to the coast again, this time Cromer.  The tide was well in and very foamy which was flying about the beach which intrigued the dogs.

We walked along the beach then up some cliff steps and back along the cliff tops back towards the the pier and town, passing these intriguing thorny bushes with bright orange squidgy berries on, not sure what they are, maybe juniper bushes?

I have been lucky enough to be given a blogging award, nominated twice in fact.  Thank you to Angela from Home is where the hounds are and to Hiking Hounds for nominating me for the Liebster Award.

"Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award

3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.

4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs"

I now pass on the award to five of my favourite blogs:

Jill at Pixie Peg Crafts – Crafts and greyhounds from Northumberland in the UK

Janet at Basset Momma – Fred & Gloria Basset Hound from Ontario, Canada

Urban hounds 5 urban hounds

Sandy from New Mexico Where my heart lives – horses, dogs and a donkey, beautiful photos

Michelle & Mitch with four retired greyhounds at Loving life with hounds

Friday’s Fiver No 3

This week’ Friday’s Fiver goes to a campaign group called The League Against Cruel Sports.  Among the many campaigns they have running are:

Fighting Dogs

Hunting

Bull Fighting

Greyhound Racing

Blakeney

Woke up today to our first real frost of the winter.  We decided to drive about ¾ of an hour out towards the North Norfolk Coast for a nice walk towards the salt marshes at Blakeney.  After stopping off at Holt for a few bits & pieces for an al fresco lunch we were soon at Wiverton where the dogs roared about getting rid of some excess energy after the car journey.

The sun was very low in the sky but very bright.  It was very crisp but the only thing cold on me were my fingers even though I had gloves on.  We walked past some lovely gorse bushes in flower and were surprised to see some blackberries still on the bushes, left over from the very mild weather we have been experiencing. 

The footpath takes up towards a farm where they were loading sugar beet on to a lorry for transportation to the British Sugar processing factory at Cantley.

There is usually a flock of guinea fowl skittering about this farm and sure enough they appeared, wary of the dogs, but no worres, they were both safely on their leads.  As there were no leaves on the trees, we could see some old vacated birds nests from the summer.

Once we reached the salt marshes, Nigel spied through his scope many birds feeding in the salty pools – egrets, curlew, teal, shoveler ducks, wigeon, red shank and a lone marsh harrier.  Also we speid right over on the horizon towards the distant sea, what looked liked a passenger ship, which is very unusual on the coast here, as that close to the shore it is mainly sand banks.  We were not sure if it had run into some trouble or was just closely following the coast line round.

Blakeney used to be a small busy port before it silted up in the middle 1800’s and is now used mainly for leisure boating.  It is a very ‘twee’ village, mostly inhabited by second homers – put it another way, property is very expensive here.

The walk back took us out of the village along a quiet lane, where the sun dipped slowly away.  We reached the car, eager to get home to a nice fire, coffee and a mince pie.  According to our gps thingy, it was approx 4.7 miles and took us ages, as we stopped alot to look at the various bird life through the scope.

One thing – Does anyone know what these weird, nest like things are that we sometimes see in various trees, mainly in silver birch trees?

Friday’s Fiver No 2

Today’s fiver goes to - Baas Galgo Association

This is an organisation set up by Sandra Baas, a Dutch woman living in Spain, who helps rescue and rehabilitates unwanted Spanish hunting greyhounds commonly known as galgos.

From the website:

Every year in Spain, thousands of Greyhounds are abandoned.  Many await a cruel death and others just wander around streets and highways.  Five years ago, Sandra Baas founded the BaasGalgo Association in order to protect these dogs and create public awareness of their problem. Every year in Spain, more than 40,000 Greyhounds are abandoned.  They hang them, beat them, kill them by a lethal injection of bleach, and starve them.  In BassGalgo, we rescue these dogs, we cure them, we give them affection and a second opportunity with their foster families in Holland, Belgium, and France.  It is essential that government commitment be in not only providing new animal shelters but also providing more education in the schools, and tougher laws respecting animal protection.  There is a need to increase public awareness! 

Friday’s Fiver No. 1

Personally I have been very fortunate in my life but I am well aware that this is not the case for everyone and have long felt the need to ‘pay it forward’ as such. I have been thinking of making regular monthly donations to some worthwhile charities & groups and whilst I do give throughout the year, I have never made a regular commitment.  I also use my limited crafting skills to sell things I make to raise money for greyhound charities that are dear to my heart, as well as volunteer for some other fund raising activities.  I have also sent crocheted squares, hats, toys etc to various charities that ask for them.

Recently whilst lying in bed trying to get to sleep one night, I came up with an idea that would make it easier to commit to a regular donation by making a weekly post on my blog.  I am going to call it “Friday’s Fiver”.  Each week I will donate £5 to a worthwhile cause and at the same time showcase the worthy cause on my blog, on, of course, a Friday.  I know £5 is not very much but to quote one of the UK’s leading supermarket’s favourite saying “Every little helps”.

So without further ado, this week, the very first Friday’s Fiver goes to Little Hen Rescue.

This non for profit group saves battery, barn and free range hens from slaughter and then rehomes them.  These birds are normally only kept for one laying season before being declared uneconomical as they don’t lay enough eggs.

From their website:

About Little Hen Rescue

Little Hen Rescue is a not-for-profit organisation that rescues thousands of battery hens from farms all round the UK. We not only catch, collect, rehabilitate the hens we rehome them on the good homes in which they can live there life to a natural end with kindness and care. Every hen is important to us, we spend hundreds on fixing those that need medical attention and we find those special homes. We try to educate youngsters and adults alike, via talks and visits to schools. clubs and groups.

Our aims are to give farmers another option to slaughter, as we and lots of you know these hens have so much more to give and many more years.   We rehome the hens on to people like yourselves with a good pet home for life.

We regularly save battery, barn and freerange laying hens, and have set dates to collect from our regular farmers.

I adopted 6 hens from Little Hen Rescue earlier in the year see this post and they now enjoy a safe, free range life away from the horrors of factory farming and are able to live out their natural span of life.