This Is Me

Howdy?

Man alive but this week has been a scorcher!! I was fooled into thinking we were in for a mild summer but apparently not so.

Anyhows, no matter what the weather, we still have our scrapping to look forward to. I’m pretty sure you thought I’d forgotten about the page about YOU but alas no, that’s exactly what next week’s page is. “This Is Me”. I’ll forgive you if you choose to do it on one of your kids or another family member but I do encourage you to give it a go. It sure will be a lot of fun to look back on a page like this in the years to come.
The pictures you need are:
2 jumbo landscape
4 (4 up) portrait.
Have a peek at the attachment. I haven’t filled in the info as yet but I’ll get onto in right away.
(I rather liked the paper for this page – very different)

Valentine’s Day is drawing near (I’m a bit anti all this bleeding commercialism but thought I’d best toe the line). So why not come along and do a noo noo little love book to give to your significant other? It really is a fun project. I’ll give you more details closer to the time but you’ll need 14 (4 up) pics. It will come in kit form – price to follow. Some of you did this as a Christmas project but loads of you missed it so here’s another opportunity.
Tombo glue finally arriving early next week along with some other goodies.

Can’t say I’ve heard of too much fun and exciting stuff happening in the world of scrapping. Hope things hot up as we ease into the year. Until then, scrap on!
Kind regards
Alison

This has got absolutely diddly squat to do with scrap booking but I thought some of you might find it interesting. Did any of you see Invictus? I did and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I usually go to these movies with Americans trying to do the South African accent prepared to cringe but I have to say Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon did a really credible job. Anyway, the point is that it did make me realize what an incredible man Mabida is – humble, intelligent, forgiving and how incredibly blessed this country was to have a man like him take over the helm of the New South Africa. We could have just as easily landed up with a megalomaniac like Mugabe.
I was intrigued to find out more about the poem Invictus so I googled it and this is what I found:

"Invictus" is a short poem by the English poet William Erners Henley (1849–1903). It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888 in Henley's Book of Verses, where it was the fourth in a series of poems entitled Life and Death (Echoes). It originally bore no title: early printings contained only the dedication To R. T. H. B.—a reference to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (1846–1899), a successful Scottish flour merchant and baker who was also a literary patron. The familiar title "Invictus" (Latin for "unconquered") was added by Arthus Quiller-Couch when he included the poem in The Oxofrd Book of English Verse (1900)

At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone (och!!). A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. In 1875 he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until the age of 53.
Apparently Mandela had this poem with him on Robben Island. I can quite see how and why it inspired him:

Invictus (Latin for unconquered)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.