Hi my name is Nora, and I live on the Costa Banca in Spain, in the small village of El Campello which is situated between Alicante and Benidorm.

I was born in Manchester where I met my husband Ian and we have 2 children Ian and Lorraine and 2 grandchildren Jay and Danniel who are 16 and 17 respectively. We moved to the Isle of Wight in 1969 and spent many happy years there. in 1995 when my husband retired because of his health we decided to move to Spain, where we'd had a holiday home for over 10 years. So with our 2 dogs Bobby a Labrador and Taber a German Shepherd we packed our little red handkerchiefs and came to Spain. This opened a whole new life for me, after working full time I had to find something to fill the time.  In England besides working and being with the grandchildren my main hobby was gardening but the house we have in Spain has only a very small patio [the 2nd patio  is now my work room} Not to be beaten  I took up growing bonsai.

I had always done a lot of handicrafts knitting, crochet, macramé, flower arranging, cake decorating. I wanted to try something new so I went to classes at the local art shop for oil painting but couldn't stand the smell of turpentine plus the fact we had now acquired another dog Trudy a Lurcher type dog and 2 cats, Mamma who decided to adopt us and brought with her 8 kittens 3 of her own and 5 she had adopted when they  were dumped in the square in front of our house.

The next to arrive was Smokey who is part Burmese she is partially sighted and deaf, she lived down the ravine at the rear of our house and only came out at evening time and early in the mornings but with patience I managed to get her to come to me and she has never left the house since and spends most of her time in my work room and preferably on my knee which made painting difficult. I tried water colours but it wasn't my forte, then one day in the art shop they were showing a video of Parchment crafting and I joined the class they were running. A lady had been to England and had attended some lessons bought tools, books and a video. She was willing to show us what she had learned.

Have you ever had the feeling "this is for me", after my first lesson that is how I felt, out the window went my Spanish lessons. I was totally hooked, I joined the UK Parchment Craft Guild, subscribed to the Parchment Express magazine and never looked back, I am now a Graduate of the Guild and am working on the final exam to become a Fellow of the Guild. I teach a group of ladies on a Monday afternoon here at my house, and a group on Thursday morning at the art shop in El Campello.

A couple of years after starting parchment crafting I was teaching a group of ladies further up the coast at Javea and one of their new members said she used to decorate eggs when she lived in England and said she would show the ladies how to cut and decorate an egg as she still had a few egg and braids left.  They kindly let me join the group and I cut and decorated my first egg and was again completely hooked. I was really glad that I had found another hobby as I had hurt my elbow in a fall and had been told by the doctor that it would not heal unless I gave it complete rest for  6 months possibly more and doing parchment crafting was only making it worse. The egg decorating was perfect, I could rest my elbow and concentrate on my new hobby, I cut and made eggs day and night, I got friends and family to bring supplies over from England, I joined the UK Egg Crafters Guild and spent many hours trying out different styles of eggs. I now have a small group of ladies who I have taught and we meet at my house on a  Wednesday and have  enjoyable afternoons egging.

Two years ago I was asked to put on a demonstration  at an exhibition to promote things of interest  that are happening in and around El Campello. A lot of interest was shown so who knows, maybe an egg club in Madrid.( I will have to brush up on my Spanish). I have also  have been ask and have exhibited eggs at the pensionisters annual craft fair. Through an advert in the local paper a couple of years ago, I met a lady who had moved to Torrevieja, south of Alicante who started egg classes down there and we met up and have had many happy hours talking eggs and swapping tips and ideas. Both hobbies have given me the opportunity to meet some lovely people and make some great friends.

Meanwhile back at the Casa. Sadly both Taber and Bobby with age have passed on, Trudy is still with us and now is 11 years old, we have a lovely greyhound Tara who was found wandering on the main road and is about the same age as Trudy and totally devoted to the sofa, where she lies all day and all night and has to be cajoled into getting off it. We have a little dog Crimbo who is like a large chiowowa (sorry can't spell that)  he was living under a bridge in El Campello, and he finally was coaxed by my husband to come to him on Christmas day 2004 hence the name Crimbo, he was about 9months old a dear little chap totally devoted to my husband. In September last year a little puppy was left by 2 boys at the animal charity shop, he was brought to our house for him to be taken to the vet, he was 4 weeks old and not a tooth in his little head. he is some sort of Jack Russell terrier cross needless to say he never got to the vets. I called him Tick Tock as he was just like the clockwork toys you see on the markets, and what a little character he has turned out to be. we have also acquired over the years 2 more cats, a huge male Sooty who is like Smokey a crossed Burmese. His mother came of the street into our house and gave birth to 6 kittens, sadly his mother had to put to sleep as she had cat aids. We found homes for the other 5 kittens . Sooty is very aloof but not adverse to a little cuddle now and then when he and I are on our own, then last but not least little Tina, who like Mamma is a tortoishell and white and is very loving. She arrived at our house one morning a very tiny kitten fighting all the big cats for the food my husband put out for the local strays, and being the soft touch he my husband brought her in to join the paws gang. Last summer I raised 5 kittens by bottle feeding them, one Marco was only about 2 days old when he was brought to our house.

My husband is secretary to the local animal charity, who do a wonderful job of finding homes for as many of the stray dogs and cats they can and running a program to spay and neuter as many of the stay cats they can catch. They hold charity dinners and car boot sales, and they have a charity shop in the village run by volunteers and I try to do my bit by making and selling Christmas tree eggs with all my bits in my 'mul box' (maybe useful later) and all the moneys I make go to the charity. I have included a couple of pictures in the Gallery of some of the Christmas egg I have made.

People say to me what do you do with yourselves all day don't you get bored now you are retired? I honestly have to answer that I wish there were 36 hours in a day and 500 days in a year I have never been so busy, fortunately we live on an urbanisation (estate) that has a beautiful swimming pool and our house is a 3 storey town house and doesn't need a lot of maintaining, but I am afraid you can write your name in the dust sometimes when I get a new Idea in my head for an egg or I start on my parchment craft exams.

 

I hope you enjoy viewing my eggs in the Gallery and maybe would like to show some of your eggs, I also look forward to talking with you on our forum, as like myself many eggers do not have access to many like minded people, and so if they have a problem maybe you hold the key to the answer. 

The Gallery has had to be temporarily withdrawn due to the sick advertising in the comments section!

 

Nora - Creative Lady