Sad but expected

Sheila's Mum finally passed away on Sunday morning, just under a month after being diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. If you have to die of cancer, it isn't a bad way to go. She had very little pain until the very end, and just slipped away after losing consciousness the day before. At 86 she was full of years, but it's still a blow, of course.

Must pay tribute to the care she received in Macclesfield General. Despite all the moans and worries about the NHS, it's still staffed by excellent people who really care.

We're in that strange limbo, now, planning for the funeral next Monday and dealing with all the detail of winding up a life, but still quite numb. Everyone here at Braidbar have continued to support us brilliantly.

Trying to think on to the future, we're going to ask for some more things to be done to Sanity - details later once we've agreed just what's to be done. Then we're going to the Save Our Waterways event at Macclesfield marina on 3 March. A fortnight after that Bosley locks will reopen, and we'll be off on our travels again.

On the lighter side, an example of Sheila's crochet has been posted on the web by Vena Cava, makers of synthetic whalebone. Pardon? I hear you say. Porthole doilies are the crocheted spiders web type things that lots of us put behind the glass. The problem is how to make them stay there. Until now we'd used curtain wire, the kind you use for net curtains, cut to a length to fit inside the porthole in a circle and threaded through the outside loops of the doily. Trouble is, it means the doily leans against the glass and gets wet with condensation at this time of year. The doily gets stained with mildew, and the inside of the plastic coated wire rusts.

Vena Cava make a stuff called Tripleflex, which is indeed an alternative to whalebone. A length of that threaded through gives a flat rim that grips the wooden porthole liner and keeps the doily off the glass. It can be seen at
http://www.venacavadesign.co.uk/Gallery/Other_uses_for_Vena_Cava_Corsetry_Materials.html