Prompted by Ali Edwards challenge to record a day in my life, I thought I’d record the events on Wednesday this week.  Though the visit from OFSTED means this is a far from ordinary week in that I’m working more than usual, I couldn’t really say what a “normal” week looks like around here and this Wednesday was about as normal as it gets.

Except I forgot!

Half way through the morning, it dawned on me that I ought to have had my camera by my side from the get go and of course, I hadn’t even taken one photo.  So, a quick reschedule to Thursday, yesterday, the 9th February.  I dutifully took photos all day, made a few hasty notes on a timetable and thought I’d put the results together at some point in a very simple fashion.

Today, we got a snow day!

My simple ideas flew out of the window as I found myself constructing a concertina book from the photos and a bit of narrative alongside. With time to spend on it, I did it from scratch and didn’t resort to purchased digital templates or overlays.  But it took time.

Still, the end result is rather lovely and I’m pleased I made the effort to do something with it all.  All too often I take photos, collect the stories and then leave them lurking on my computer somewhere with just the good intentions in place.

This time, I’ve made a real book, completely finished and rather satisfying to read.

It’s bigger, longer than I envisaged, though it’s hard to imagine how it could have been smaller.  There are 24 pages in total.

I used Picasa to create some collage pages which I then imported into Photoshop to make the page.  I tried to include as many aspects of our everyday life as I could – the red photos above are of two cashmere sweaters I darned yesterday morning.  One got thrown in the bin before darning, when I saw the scope of work needed, the other went to the same destiny when I’d darned two holes and thought I’d finished – before going on to find another three.  I’m hoping our new wardrobe set up will have no moth problem!

Of course yesterday was a day spent waiting for snow, so there is an element of uncertainty.

The snow did come in the end, whilst I sat in a village hall two valleys away,  listening to the most inspiring woman and mother of an autistic son – linking nicely back to Ali and the stories she records.  Having spotted the white stuff outside, I dashed home and made it back in time, thank goodness.