Tuesday: #InternationalWomensDay

On this International Women’s Day I’ve been making a birthday card for a lady I call “my other Big Sister”. 
My “2 Big Sisters“ were work colleagues who had supported each other in a predominantly male environment. When I joined that department they gradually started supporting me too, we’ve been friends for over 30 years.
I have to quickly add that the majority of the men in the department were also very professional and supportive of the women, I learnt so much and loved all aspects of the work ... including "manning" the "Help Desk" ...!!
I’ve always worked in jobs which were traditionally thought of as “Men’s Jobs” but my upbringing had been “gender neutral”. My brothers and I, from an early age helped at our family garage and around our home and garden. We helped our Dad fix various machines, our Mum was a very capable fixer too :-)
Our garage was on an “A” road but in the 1950s & 60s there was no mains electricity (generator in the shed) and the water we used in our home was rain water collected on the roof and diverted into an underground tank, every day one of us had to use the hand pump to fill the water tank in the house!
Our home was newly built and modern in many ways, we grew much of our own food and were surrounded by farmland. We knew all our neighbours, we called them all "aunties and uncles" but looking back we worked very hard and it couldn't have been easy for our parents who were recovering from World War 2 and trying to care for their young family.
Back to the Birthday Card - haven't shown the finished version, that's just for the Birthday Girl ...
Very early this morning MrD took his motorbike to Manchester to have something fixed - the wind was in his face on his outward journey and by lunchtime had turned westerly so was in his face on the return journey too, but all was well.
Stay safe & healthy & happy everyone :-)
Nos da pawb / goodnight all xx