With a special evening in sight, the members of the Skills Exchange have turned out to be real Gems!

Last Thursday I was invited to a wonderful event organised by the BBC and The Evening Post to celebrate local Hero's.

Clara could not wait to make me look more lady like. On the monday before, I went to see her at her house. Tea, cake and juice was awaiting me and before I knew it, my allotment hands were treated with a wonderful massage and my nails looked to out of this world. So much so that for the rest of the week I could not dig, weed, tinker with the bikes, scrub floors or do any manual work for fear that I would chip or damage any of Clara's art work!

Then on Wednesday, Loreen came and sorted out my hair. She cut and blow dried it into a bob (Just the way Mark likes it) and then used the hair straighteners to make it look all tidy and shiny. When Mark came home, he could hardly recognise me.

That evening we went out to see our eldest son make his first speech, he too was pleasantly surprised to see his down to earth mum, look so tidy. He claims that his friends wished to have nails like mine. Clara, it looks like there is loads of business for you at Tom's school!

The Thursday evening was fantastic, the people there were wonderful and I felt great. Many, many thanks to Clara and Loreen for my make over.