my favourite Vegas place to close

I have just seen that the MGM Grand is to close the wonderful Lions Habitat at the end of January 2012.
I have had many an hour watching these beautiful animals

albeit in a false surroundings, however this was the only way I could get a real close up of them.

Wishing any staff that may lose their jobs all the best.

back from a break

We are now back from our break, Las Vegas called again

In the photo above just how many heads does this lit up lady have.

She is part of the new Winter in Venice at the Venetian, really wonderful.

We managed to see some shows including the outstanding Andrea Boceli with the amazing Heather Headley, Cirque's Michael Jacksons Immortal world tour, and of course Phantom again. We love the rodeo and all the cowboys were so friendly, their xmas fair was excellent.

Had a great time although for some reason both of us were never feeling the best of health.

However we managed to get up very early to see the eclipse of the moon, we were practally the only people walking the strip at the early hour.

It is back to work again now, and Keith is trying to get on top of the emails we had whilst we were away, please bear with him.

last gardening question of this year, promise

I promise this is the last , what is it, from the garden this year. LOL
We have had this fern like plant with a thick reddish main stem, it now appears to have flower buds appearing.
We think it must have come out of a packet of annuals that were sown early this year, there was no list of contents on the packet, so we are again having problems saying which plant it is.

Bearst wishes

Maureen and Keith

new view of back garden, tree gone

Hi

Here is the new vista of our back garden, the tree that has been causing damage to our property has now been removed.

The great news is that the birds are still coming into the garden for their food.

Balmy temperatures

Firstly thank you to everyone who email and solved our flower problem, we now know what it is.

We are currently having very unseasonal temperatures, on the 1st Oct it was 29C, and we are supposed to be in autumn.

As the photo shows even the goldfinches are getting confused, thinking a house is a tree and attaching themselves to the wall.

I have had to suspend making creations until the weather gets cooler, it is impossible to handle fabric with very sweaty hands, thankfully this very hot spell is due to end in a couple of days.

do you know what this flower is.

We brought some annual seeds, shaked and raked, and this lovley flower came up,
Keith has tried to find out what it is, without any luck.

If you know what it is please email me, we will be really grateful.

I have just added a new creation to the web site, hope you like her

Hugglets, London 11th Sept 2011

Thank you to everyone who came and adopted my creations and said hello at Hugglets yesterday.

Your very kind words and gestures really made my day, and are very much appreciated.

Keith has just put some new creations onto the website, I hope you like them.

Thank you again
Bearst wishes

Maureen

a great day out

As a break from getting ready for Hugglets I had a great day out at the Bucks County Show, the fine beast above really was trying his best to get all the focus on him.
I love this show and well done to eveyone who showed their great animals.
Keith said I should have won Best in Show, not sure if that is a compliment or not, LOL.

busy getting ready for Hugglets

Hi

I am very busy at the moment getting some new creations ready for Hugglets show in Kensington, London on Sunday Sept.11th

Keith has put a new page on the webiste with a few more photos.
Thank you for all your lovely emails with such kind comments about the Hugglets creations.

We have put this frame around the photos because our garden has become a haven for ladybirds, bees and many other insects that seem to be attracted to some flowers we planted from seed this year.

What a bargain they were, £1 a box, loads of my favourites, poppies, which I have been trying to grow for many years, and a flower called malope.
The flowers have been a great distraction, whilst we still wait for answers regarding the tree roots.
Thanks for your patience on the webiste as I work on the show creations, it is really appreciated.
Bearst wishes

Maureen and the old boy, Keith

tree roots - what a weekend

What a weekend, we just had intentions of a relaxing time, both Keith and myself instead found out we had a major problem with tree roots in our beloved garden, and as the photos show we spent some time digging them up and trying to contact the relevant people to try and get this sorted.
By the way the tree causing us problems is in the lower photo, a silver birch.
Now we have to wait and see if anyone we have contacted is willing to help us, and hopefully then we will be able to get our garden back the way it should look, without any roots coming close to our house.
If you want to see some more photos there is a web page on
www.mawspaws.com/rootsjuly11/

Bearst wishes
Maureen

Hampton Court Flower Show

Alice in Wonderland was one of the themes for our first visit to the Hampton Court Flower Show. We were in wonderland, quite overpowering, all the fantastic flowers in one place, too much to take in just one visit, however we have come home with some new ideas for our little garden. It was interesting to see and compare the gardens and stands with what they looked like on TV, they certainly look bigger on TV.

The first rose we saw was called Silver Wedding, how apt, myself and Keith have just celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary, it is a wonderful white rose, and not the photo above.

Our one big regret was not being able to meet up with friends for a cup of tea and a chat, so sorry to the Greene's.

All in all, a very interesting few hours, planty to think about and now in the process of working out what we can order for next year.

Plenty of photos to sort out today

Thriller Live - what a show

Hi

Last night myself and Keith had the great pleasure of seeing Thriller live, at our local theatre.

2hours 20 minutes of Micheal Jacksons music performed by a variety of some excellent singers and performers.

A clever concept where different singers take a number of songs each and join up to perform some of the Jackson Five and Micheal Jacksons great music.

The young boy who represented Micheal in his youth stole the show.

A really great night, and they even managed to get Keith standing up and bopping, well done to all the cast and the musicians.

Bearst wishes

Maureen

my cards now on website

Hi

I have just put onto my website a selection of my handmade cards that I make when it is to dark to work on my mawspaws creations.

Hope you like them.

Bearst wishes

Maureen

busy times

Hi
What a couple of weeks I have had, although I am not that green fingered, I love my garden.
Everything seems so early this year, so myself and Keith have been trying to get our garden sorted out, we also help our elderly neighbour by doing her garden, so it has been sore backs and standing, looking and admiring our handy work.
It is wonderful when you see the rewards of the hard work.
We also had some not so good news, Horace our friendly hedgehog has passed away, but there is some good news, the next day we had a new hedgehog has taken to visiting us at night, and eating up the food we leave out for him, or her, very hard to tell, LOL
We have heard that a couple of our collectors are not very well, myself and Keith are passing on our prayers and very bearst wishes.

100,000 thank yous

Myself and Keith wish to say a very big , no, 100,000 thank yous. We cant believe we have just hit this magic number of hits on the website, something we really could not see this happening when we started out so many years ago I have changed the front of the web site with a litle fun page, hope you like it. Thank you again, we really appreciate your friendship and support. bearst wishes Keith and Maureen http://www.mawspaws.com

back with you

We are so pleased to be able to say that we are now back online, can you believe the big black box that it took to mend just a small wire, LOL

Sorry for any delays with emails , but Keith has now managed to update the web site.

Have a great weekend.

Bearst wishes

Maureen

Please bear with us

Please bear with us whilst we wait for our telephone and broadband line to be reconnected.The white wires in the picture are supposed be be joined, that was until our builder decided to cut through it. Being fair to him, the wire was not very deep under the path.
So sorry for any delay in either answering emails or updating the web site.
Bearst wishes from a very quiet house.

Maureen and very unhappy Keith

underneath the arches

Hi
Here is what we have been up to this weekend, replacing a single rose arch with 2 new ones, watched by Sid the squirrel, who wa smore interested in being able to get to the peanuts put out for the birds. I can't wait until our new climbing roses start to grow and then flower, fingers crossed because neither Keith or I have green fingers.

Bearst wishes
Maureen

busy weekend

what a busy weekend, I have just put my latest creation, pictured above, onto my web site, been shopping for most of Saturday, I need some retail therapy for a break from bear making, that is my excuse, not sure Keith understands, LOL.

Also been counting the birds in our back garden for a survey by the RSPB, had the pleasure of seeing many waxwings last week, it appears they were travelling through Aylesbury on their way to warmer climates, a very pretty and sensible bird.

Now I am cheering on my football team, West Ham, in the FA Cup.

Bearst wishes

Bearst wishes for 2011