Happiness in a pencil case

I love this pencil case.  It is my own creation.  It was conceived in my minds eye, and brought into being with my hands.

Getting started

First part completed, very pleased

Pencil cases are useful things.  When I started to photograph my finished work, I wanted to show how useful it is.  I collected different items of stationery from my ‘study’ aka ‘my ‘studio’ and other rooms in my house.  In went small cellotape with a dispenser, pencils, pens, markers, a small hole puncher, mini stapler, highlighters.  You are wondering, who carries hole punchers and mini staplers with them, lawyers!  But that is another story.  Nowadays, what do I carry in my pencil case? Pens, ( like biro, my lovely Cross ink pen stays in my bag, in case I lose my pencil case), colouring pencils, usbs, highlighters, cloth swatches, magazine and newspaper clips,  no staplers and no hole punchers.

A Pencil Case truly worth the name

When I finished my photos, I took everything out of the pencil case,  and returned everything to their rightful places.  A while later, I had to take some information down over the phone, I was in my living room downstairs, on the shelf was an old cup full of pens and pencils.  I reached for a pen to take down the note, it did not work, I reached for the next one, it did not work, and the next and the next, 5 in all.  The last one, the sixth one worked.  I kept the only one that worked in my freshly made pencil case and threw the others in the bin.

Things that don't work

And that is when it struck me: this is what life is like. We keep all the redundant things, bad experiences, memories of bad relationships, bad friends, disappointments, grudges,  all the things that do not work in our pencil case of life.  Let us only put things that work in our pencil case of life, happy memories, that lovely smile from the shop attendant, the thank you from your neighbour you hardly see, the joy of seeing family members at Xmas and the ‘I love you’ kiss from your daughter, the ‘Wishing you Merry Xmas’ card from friends and family we have not heard from or seen for the past 12 months (not she only sends this cheap card at Xmas thoughts we harbour every year).

I therefore name this pencil case ‘Happiness in a pencil case’.

Let us only keep happiness in our pencil case.

Happiness in a pencil case

Where is my nose? and my mouth and my eyes …

Today, no nose, no mouth no eyes, and then a rethink, a definite redesign and hopefully tomorrow a pencil case!

WFG

This evening, after my return from dinner with my daughter, I got the inspiration to make my  world’s finest, and I mean world’s finest in the true sense of the phrase, granola, hereinafter referred to as ‘WFG’ (world’s finest granola)’.  Anyone who has tasted my granola, swears by it and  never eats any other cereal.   My WFG is known in the four corners of London.   So each time I make my WFG, I make increasingly larger quantities, what is a girl to do when she is the creator of  WFG.

It is not just the taste that gives me so much pleasure, the taste is to live for. What is amazing about my WFG   is that a very warm, dark treacle like, brandy/calvados kind of aroma lingers on in my house several hours after my WFG has been taken out of the oven.  The aroma conjures up all lovely wonderful feelings of comfort, of love.  When I make my WFG, I fall in love with everything around me,  I look  upon all the things around me with so much love.  If there is a human being around, they get a lot of smiles, touching of cheeks and kisses too. If there is no human thing around, then all the inanimate objects get extra caresses,  and the kitchen looks not so messy but more like a theatre, I mean all is well when I make my WFG.