A bit of falling over and some creativity

This past week hasn’t been great – I awoke on Sunday with terrible vertigo, which persisted all day. I spent the time either asleep or sitting with my eyes closed. On Monday Mr FD supported me to the doctor’s, as I couldn’t have managed to walk there unaided without falling over. I suspect I just looked very drunk!

The doctor saw me immediately – even though I didn’t have an appointment – and after checking me out, did a very odd manouvre where he flung me from side to side. Apparently I have something called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) , described by NHS Direct thus:

This is one of the most common causes of vertigo. It can occur during specific head movements, while standing up or bending over, crossing the road, or turning in bed.BPPV involves short, intense, recurrent attacks of vertigo (usually lasting a few seconds to a few minutes). It is often accompanied by nausea, although vomiting is rare. You may also experience your eyes briefly moving uncontrollably (nystagmus). Lightheadedness and a loss of balance can last for several minutes or hours after the attack.

BPPV is thought to be caused by small fragments of debris (calcium carbonate crystals), which break off from the lining of the channels in your inner ear. The fragments don’t usually cause a problem, unless they get into one of the ear’s fluid-filled canals.When your head is still, the fragments sit at the bottom of the canal. However, certain head movements cause them to be swept along the fluid-filled canal, which sends confusing messages to your brain.

The doctor’s flinging me sideways (and incidentally whacking my head against the wall!) was an attempt to move these fragments to somewhere where they wouldn’t cause problems for me. It didn’t really help, but I found some other, slightly less violent, exercises on t’internet to carry out. I also slept two nights sitting up in an armchair, to help encourage these floaty bits to settle.

These slowly helped me to improve, to the stage where yesterday I was able to teach. Mr FD drove me to Roanne (that wasn’t great – everything was whizzing past my eyes too quickly!) where I had a lesson. But I think it was too much too soon (especially as I slept lying down too) as today I am slightly woozy again.

Anyway, over the past couple of weeks I’ve been making some cards, so I thought I’d show them off to you:

This one – and the next – were both made with pictures that were free in a cardmaking magazine. I followed the instructions as well as I could, substituting what I had in my stash for what the instructions suggested. I think they worked well.

The magazine also had more “girlie” pictures included. Again I followed basic instructions to produce these three, but had to use less “fancy” embellishments than those suggested, as I don’t have them in my stash….

I gave the last one to a friend’s daughter for her 10th birthday – she apparently loved it, and wanted to know if I’d drawn the picture. I wish!

I also made a couple of little cards with some off cuts:

I’ve had to make a couple of cards quite quickly too – one for a birthday, and one for condolences. My friend Claire is a district nurse, and when one of their patients dies, the nurses in her practice always give a card. It means I end up having to make quite a few. This one was a bit special as Monique was a well-liked patient, and a member of the cycle-club. I had recently bought a couple of scrapbooking kits from Noz, with paper, die-cuts, and various embellishments at a fairly bargain price – I’d say about 30% of shop prices – and one of the papers had a bike (well, a trike really!) on which seemed vaguely appropriate:

I did the writing, but everything else was taken from the kits.

On a more cheerful note, on Sunday we have a “Welcome Back” picnic at church – this is a barbecue at Rob the Rector’s home – with a Silent Auction. I am very happy to offer lots of lots in this: because both Mr FD & my work is not regular it is tricky to be able to pledge a lot of money on a regular basis, as sometimes we don’t have that much. However, on an occasion like this, I can offer lots of things which – I hope – will raise a fair bit of money for church.

So I have offered:

1. A piece of original calligraphy – someone’s favourite Bible verse/ poem (short!)/ quotation written out and framed.
2. An original piece of Zentangle inspired art – a design of the purchaser’s choice.
3. A set of 10 handmade cards – either designed for particular occasions that is requested (girl’s birthday/graduation/thanksgiving etc) or just a general selection.
4. A white-chocolate-and-ginger cheesecake
5. Two “Boxes of Surprises” – a box full of at least 10 little gifts & presents. Some handmade, some thrifted, some new.
6. A present a month for a year – a little gift for the purchaser sent by post
7. Another piece of zentangle inspired art – this one is already done.

Here’s the ZIA:

And the Boxes of Surprises were fun to create. I covered shoeboxes in paper & designed a pretty lid. Then I looked through my “present stash” – mostly things bought in Noz – as well as through my jewellery drawers/ bookshelves etc to find things I could put in the boxes.  Here’s one:

So divided between the two boxes we have…chocolate, honey sweets, lollipops, packs of handmade cards, a scarf, a pair of earrings and matching bracelet, a necklace, soap, handcream, notebooks, books, a little wallet, a Paris/London themed shopping bag, a Paris themed teatowel, a scented candle, a mug, a pottery pot. (I think that’s all) There are 11 or 12 little gifts in each box, plus the pretty box itself.

I hope that these lots, plus those offered by others, will be popular. I think it’s a good way of raising money for the church. Last year I really wanted the landscaping-your-garden lot, but the  people with more spare money than I soon bid more than I could afford!!!