Stones

It’s still very warm in between occasional downpours. I was at my Cambuslang book club last night and we had a lively evening; the book was Emilie Pine’s “Notes to Self” which generated a lot of discussion.
Earlier yesterday I had invited Susan T and her children round for lunch and crafts because we had all enjoyed our craft day in July. I decided against repeating our paper marbling activity and instead decided that we would paint designs on stones with acrylic paint and then make them permanent with sealant. I had obtained the paint and the sealant but about an hour before my guests were due to arrive I realised that I had not collected any stones! And to think that I could easily have got some at Prestwick last week.
A quick look around the garden revealed only rough, jaggy stones instead of the smooth type suitable for painting. Oh dear. So I looked over the fence and saw numerous excellent, round smooth stones in our lovely next-door neighbours’ garden. Armed with a plastic bag I nipped round and rang their doorbell, and unfortunately woke their teenage daughter Tina (who is our fabulous cat sitter when we’re away for a weekend). She sleepily but good-naturedly gave me the go ahead and I hurriedly gathered some large pebbles from their front garden.
Susan and her beautiful children arrived shortly afterwards and we were eating lunch when the doorbell rang. It was Christine from next door with a bag of perfect large stones from her back garden, much better than the pebbles I had gathered. She had arrived home from a class to hear my tale of woe from Tina. She is such a great neighbour!
We invited her in for a coffee and had a chat before we got down to painting our stones. Susan and her children are all extremely artistic and produced some amazing designs. I painted a wee penguin and a ladybird, of which I was inordinately proud. It was quite rainy on and off but the children were able to have a few runs around the garden and a go on the swings between showers. It was a really fun afternoon.