Ruby Lee

Stay warm and cozy in the Macrae tartan.

Have to think of something for Harris too in this tartan too, it's his name afterall!

At a local craft fair I won this gigantic hamper at the raffle, completely took me by surprise! It was the biggest prize in terms of size!🎁

Usually a food hamper is full of seasonal 'goodies'. The organise felt that everyone is worrying about the rising cost of living, it might be a good idea to put together this big hamper of everyday staples and cupboard food in hope that it can help some families. So heart-warming and what a touching thing to do! (Isn't it true though, in a fancy hamper there's always something you don't like!!) We are lucky enough to be a position that we can put food on the table everyday so some of hamper items will be going to my local food bank and more than one family can benefit from this💜

Once I got home though .... all the biscuits and chocolates were picked out 😅 and I am not saying who!!!

🦕A few weeks ago I delivered a little talk on behalf of Jurassic Coast Trust - a local charity I support. It was quite a last-minute thing and I put together 3 pages of notes the night before. I also put on a little display of my own collection of rocks and fossils.

🐚 surprisingly, It took me about 2 hours to even decide what to talk about 🤯 I thought I had a topic but it's so broad and I needed to capture the audience's attention for 15-mins after a two-course lunch 😴

🌍 In the end, I did a '4D walk through' of 95miles of coastline over a timeline of 185 million years, in simple language, without pictures, add in a bit of 3D thinking, arms movements and no actual rock samples to show. 😂🙌🏻

🗺 I picked a few well-known local places representing different eras, described their palaeo-environments dropping modern day examples and then explained how we can tell from what we see today.

✅ The first two-third was quite fun and easy, I dropped a few jokes and let them laugh to buy time. But the moment I started to wing it I felt my tone going weak, losing interconnecting words and I had to look at my notes which I realised I had missed some bits. I was annoyed for wrapping up the talk sort of in a haste...

⛰ However, after I finished, people came up to say how they learnt more about this area in 15mins than living here for 50 years... They now understand why they see different colour cliffs along the coastline... One person even dropped the big words Plate Techtonic!! They liked how I incorporated a big topic into a short talk and made it simple - even I didn't have any resources to show them 💚 it is not easy to simplify a big idea! I loved that they all paid attention and used their own knowledge to make sense of it all 😁

📣 actually, one of my fav take-away was that I have been watching educational videos on speech and general speeches on Instagram. In this little talk I mimicked what I learnt - where to stop, how to incorporate a punch line. Did you know public speaking is one of people's top fears? I am blessed that I don't have that, I am just not very experienced yet! 💜

Another taste of freedom!

I am going to love these Saturday mornings. Took Harris to his first swimming lesson and we don't have to go in with him 🥳 poor bubba was a little sad at drop off (and I don't let my emotion overrule me) I know he will get used to it and love it next week 🙌🏻

It's a council sports centre but there's a nice-ish cafe upstairs with a viewing glass so we are lounging with our coffees ☕️ looking forward to next week already!

Unpopular opinion here: I don't understand pumpkin carving.

But you can totally expect me to turn half of my small pumpkin into golden soft, delicious and sweet pumpkin-filled, pumpkin-shaped pumpkin buns! (Yes the dough has pumpkin too!)

Ricky loves them, he doesn't eat everything that I make😂

However, Harris says I am not nice that I cut his pumpkin in half. To be fair he really is very fond of the pumpkin, he puts it in his tractor trailer and plays with it everyday. I guess I am a bit cruel, have to get him another one!

I am making more this week, who wants the recipe?

They say one of our hobbies should express our creativity and learn a skill.

Finished off these trousers last night 👖This little rascoe ruins every pair of trousers and joggers making holes on the knees 😓😓 so here is my attempt - made these with knee patches!

Absolutely love the rainbow patch 🌈

Did you start something over lockdown that you enjoyed and might have carried into something meaningful?