I wasn’t expectIng that our Crafty Group this afternoon would be a pampering session. I do, of course, love a bit of pampering though, to be honest, it doesn’t happen too much, my life being what it is.
I was indebted to my friend Joy for giving me a lift to the Lovely Linda’s house, venue for our fortnightly craft group. Yesterday was Cribbage (I won all my three
games - Mr B said, predictably when I reported back that I had had a good teacher), Friday morning is our Singing for Pleasure choir, today was craft - it is all part of Getting Back to Normal. I am fortunate in that, so far, there has been no shortage of
people willing to get me where I need to be, given that I don’t feel able to trust myself behind a steering wheel just at the moment.
I wasn’t at all
sure that my Recovering Shoulder would allow me to fulfil the requirements of crafting - but the Lovely Linda suggested that, even if I couldn’t actually manage to make anything Craft Related, it would be worth me going for the coffee and the chat. Which
made a great deal of sense.
On arrival at Crafty Group, my eyes were immediately drawn to the exciting materials set out on Linda’s dining room table. Circles
of cardboard at each place; at one end of the table, a box full of strips of coloured net, scissors and spools of silky thread; at the other end a fascinating assembly of packets of white powder, phials of sweet smelling liquid, jars of coconut oil and bottles
of olive oil. You could say that one end of the table resembled a haberdashery shop, while the opposite end of the table looked like a laboratory.
We started in
the haberdashery department, making what I think are colloquially known as “scrunchies,” used in the shower to soap yourself all over. It was the Youngest of the Darling Daughters who introduced me to them, advising me that they would “change
my life.” The Y of the DD often shows me products which she says will change my life, many of them kitchen utensils. Almost always I find them extremely useful though I must confess none of them have changed my life to the extent of, say, childbirth....
As usual, I went over the top in my choice of the strips of net for my scrunchie. It wasn’t completely my fault; I distinctly remember someone saying something about
the colours of the rainbow. Possibly I should have stuck to a classic two-tone pale blue and white? Still, my rainbow-coloured scrunchie would go well in anybody’s shower, whatever their colour scheme.
We then moved in to the “laboratory” where we watched a demonstration on the manufacture of bath bombs, using citric acid crystals, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, olive oil / coconut oil, scent and colouring.
Oh, what fun! It reminded me of Messy Play at the Twins’ playgroup. I think I may still be a toddler at heart. Some of us put too much oil in our mixture, some not enough - but once we had wrapped them up in cling film and tied a ribbon on the top you’d
never know. Well, not until you unwrapped your precious Pamper Related packet and your bath bomb crumbled in your fingers before you could get it into the bath water...
So there we all were, at the end of the session, with our scrunchies and bath bombs - all ready for a trip to the spa. Pampered, that’s what we were.
Then,
on my way out, I looked back at poor Linda’s dining room - the table, the floor - everything covered in a thin coating of powder, decorated with scraps of net and trails of gooey stuff.
Honestly, it looked as if a (bath) bomb had hit it...