We're All Going On A .......

...Summer Holiday.....Yay! But before we do, there was a small celebration to be had, in the way of Daughter No.2's 21st Birthday!!
Now living in London (First Degree Honours Graduate, don't you know!!), said daughter could only travel down on Sunday, for a couple of days. South West Trains had other ideas though, and did their level best to cancel all trains going south from Waterloo. However, not without a little cunning, Daughter No.2 managed to get herself as far as Guildford, where, she was assured by Mr. South West, there would be buses ready (and indeed eager) to carry travellers further along southwards to their desired destination. Oh...Mr. South West.....were you never taught that it is unpleasant to lie???
Unfortunately for most, there were no such buses. Nor bikes. Not even a measly roller skate. Fortunately for one, her Auntie sped to the rescue, scooped up niece and brought her safely home. Hooray hooray!
And so celebrate we did. Obviously brought up with great taste, Daughter No.2's chosen method to celebrate (at least with her mother and grandmother present!) was Full Afternoon Tea in a beautiful country-house hotel nearby. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Many Happy Returns of The Day, Darling Girl. xx
And now it's time to pack up the car and make our way north. Five days camping in Harrogate, where I fully intend to divide my time equally between Betty's Tearooms and The Quilt Museum in York, followed by a few more days camping in Wells-Next-The-Sea. I'm so looking forward to it, and as you can see........

...I'm all packed and ready to go!
See you in a couple of weeks. Take care. xx

Wasn't Me, Guv...Honest, Guv.....

We've had An Incident. When I say "We", I really mean "The Husband", but I was implicated by default. Or by blatant lie. You decide....
The car, my Trusty Volvo, started playing up. Sort of hiccupping. The Husband was supposed to pick me up from work, and instead I had a phone call informing me that said car may have hicced it's last upp. Bother. In his infinite wisdom, The Husband had removed Homestart from our RAC policy (terrific) so a plan was formed. The Husband would drive the car to the next village, where there is a lovely tea shop, stop for a much needed cuppa, then phone nice Mr RAC Man and get him to tow the car the rest of the way to the garage.
However, The Trusty Volvo didn't want to play the game. It tried VERY hard not to start at all, but The Husband is a canny soul, and forced it into a coughing, hiccupping, spluttering start (of sorts) with the aid of Easy Start spray. Not sure if he'd even get to the end of the road, never mind the next village, The Husband "drove" off. I awaited news. This is what I got....
Husband and Car did make it to the village. The stop at the lovely tea shop did happen. Mr RAC Man was called, and dutifully arrived. All going exceedingly well so far. Now this is where the story gets interesting. Pay attention please.
Mr RAC Man asked a few questions about symptoms which The Husband knew the answers to. Mr RAC Man thought for a moment. Mr RAC Man opened the petrol cap and sniffed. He passed the cap to The Husband, who also sniffed. Cogs began to whirr in The Husbands head. The RAC Man went round to the engine, and repeated the whole sniffing experience, encouraging The Husband to participate fully. Lightbulbs and minor fireworks are now going off in The Husband's head, illuminating memories of his visit, the day before, to the petrol station. And there is the key word. Petrol. The Husband, darling man that he is, had put £40 of petrol into our DIESEL car.
Now, I wish it to be known, that generally, I'm quite a reasonable person, and that up until this point would have brushed the whole thing off as an unfortunate mistake. Until the moment that The Husband turned to Mr RAC Man and said "that would have been my wife....she said she'd put some fuel in yesterday"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND, not content to lie just the once, The Husband compounded it by informing the mechanic at the garage " the wife must have had her head elsewhere". There are not enough exclamation marks on my keyboard at this point.
£280 later and you'll be pleased to hear that the Volvo is Trusty once more. More trustworthy than The Husband, honest guv........
Thank goodness I've got some peaceful hand feathering to soothe me....and prevent me from looking for blunt instruments with which to bludgeon....

xx

Market Research.....

.....After rigorous testing, I can finally conclude that Crocs can NOT replace wellies. After having had to jump into a ditch this evening, in order to retrieve my Wayward And Very Disobedient Dog, who had pushed through a hedge and onto a road, I feel I am well placed to warn the World at Large, about the singular lack of wellie properties to be found in a pair of Crocs.
Photographic evidence will help illustrate my point (and I apologise now....there are reasons that I don't normally get my feet out in public.). The squeamish should look away now.

I rest my case.
See you soon, off for a shower now. xx

Breaking The Silence...

I'M HERE!!! LOOK....I'm back!! Did you notice how quiet things had been??
It feels like FOREVER since my last post, and Sad Muppet that I am, I've missed this little blog of mine. My "radio silence" was partly due to the fact that I had nothing new to show you. I was DESPERATELY trying to finish a commissioned quilt, and as I was quilting by hand, it was taking a long time. I could have worked on something else, quickly, to show you, but knowing me as well as I do, I knew that if I put down the commissioned work, before finishing, the 2 year old recipient would most likely be celebrating her 21st and getting keys to doors before seeing the quilt that had been meant for her all along.
The other AND MOST FRUSTRATING reason is that my phone had to go away, for a short stay in the Vodafone Hospital. I use my phone's camera to take the piccies for this blog, as it had always got on nicely with my laptop. The saying "absence makes the heart grow stronger" is not applicable for Bluetooth Devices. I know this for a fact. I finished aforementioned quilt (loud hoorays)waited patiently for my phone's recovery, took the much needed photos, tried to send them over to the laptop...and nothing. Nada. Rien. Even rien de rien, if Edith Piaf had anything to say on the matter. I sulked. I tried opening a few programmes. I tried looking knowledgeably at whatever gobble-de-gook the screen showed me. I shouted. I turned the laptop off. I turned the phone off. I sulked some more. All to no avail. Laptop and phone were no longer playing ball. "Connection failed" was all they could muster. Finally tonight I had a brainwave......perhaps I could divorce the duelling pair, remove all traces of one from the other's memory, then re-install my phone as a "New Device".....Long story short...it worked. HALELLUJAH! Just goes to show that a computer is only as intelligent as the idiot working it. Hmmm....
So without further ado, here is the finished quilt....

It has been safely delivered and all is well with the world.
In other news, I shop-sat for my friend on Saturday. My friend owns a fabric shop, www.timelessfabrics.co.uk . I didn't need asking twice. I LOVED IT! Five hours of sitting, surrounded by glorious fabric, meeting (and chatting to) like minded customers, cups of tea and needlework in the lulls....I was one happy bunny. I had these two blocks (hand pieced, hand appliqued) to show for my time....

I seriously considered barricading myself in, and claiming Squatter's Rights! Oh well....a girl can dream.
Right. That's me done now. Time for a cuppa and a quiet contemplation of my next project. See you soon. xx

To The Manor Born....

I have just returned from a lovely day at "Downton Abbey" aka Highclere Castle, near Newbury. The sun shone, we got there easily, The Husband entered into the spirit of things, The Son was being looked after by Grandma, The Dog had been parked in the shade. In a word.....bliss. If I'd thought about it, I should have taken some needlework, then I could have squatted a bench in the glorious grounds, and pretended I was one of the Ladies, while soaking up the atmosphere. As it was, I was so giddy about A Grown Up Day Out, that all I managed was a silly grin on my face!
As for other excitement this weekend, Friday evening saw me babysitting for a lovely local family. They have a cat. Whilst I'm not particularly a cat person, Tom is friendly enough, and so far there have been no problems. He even came and "helped" me quilt. I've seen other cat's on other blogs being photographed doing this, and had always thought the photos may have been staged, but no, Tom was more than happy to help.....

And then the fun began. There I sat, quilting quietly, minding my own business, as all good babysitters should. The cat came in. He left. He came in again. Then I noticed he was looking a little too intently at the rug which had also been sitting there all evening, minding it's own business. Curiosity got the better of me, and I too, had to have a look. And there looking back at me, was a present. Of the furry, four-legged, squeaking variety. I leapt up onto the sofa, and told the cat to stop messing around and finish his hunter duties. That was when I discovered that cats are not the most obedient of creatures. Now, you should know....I DON'T DO MICE..... But nor do I do standing on someone's sofa, indefinitely, waiting for the people of the house to return. Screwing up every last ounce of courage, I leapt from the sofa, and went in search of something to trap the Rather-Too-Lively-For-My-Liking mouse in. This, after more screwing up of courage, is what I came up with.....

And yes, before you ask, the mouse was safely contained under the saucepan, which in turn was kept FIRMLY in place, by a solid oak, upturned bar stool, weighted down by as many large books as I could squeeze in under the bars. One can never be certain that said mouse hadn't been to the gym recently. To top it all (and to finish me off completely) while I was dealing with the mouse, I was charged at, from another direction, by the mother of all spiders. Suffice to say, that I'm considering adding a Danger Money Clause to future babysitting evenings!
Finally....I've FINALLY managed to master this handy little gadget....

For the uninitiated, it's called an Aunt Becky, and my finger tips LOVE it!! Now when I quilt, it (and not my poor fingertips) takes the brunt of the needle coming through to the underside of the quilt, and helps me to "rock" the needle back to the right side of the quilt. It has made my stitches even smaller and more uniform in length, which is what it said it would do on the box! Yay!
I shall love you and leave you now, with a last backwards glance at a truly lovely day.....

xx

Inching Along......

I've had such a lovely Sunday. It started EARLY with a dog walk on the forest, with Belle The Madam, and a friend with her dogs. I say "The Madam" because usually, Belle is quite the floozy...."I'm here boys" (wiggle wiggle) "come and get me" (bowing and scraping) "have another sniff" (bottom presented)...you get the picture. So when a new friend asked if I'd like to join her, I happily accepted, confident that Belle would gamble playfully along, wiggling and flirting to her heart's content. Out of the car we got, two happy boys (of the four legged variety) bounded over to greet us, only to be met by a newly prim madam, who saw off the boys' advances, in no uncertain terms. "Here I am boys" had been converted to "how very dare you!!!" in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, nobody seemed to take much umbrage, and the walk was quite delightful. (Thank you Alison!)
Back home for a quick cuppa, before facing The Supermarket Trolley Dash. Never a highlight in my week, but it passed painlessly enough, and at least Mother Hubbard now has nourishment in her cupboards. The Offspring seemed suitably impressed, that they won't need to start any enforced hunger strikes this week at least . Bonus!
And then I got to spend a relaxing couple of hours, slowly (but very surely) inching along with my ongoing project.......

I seem to get about a dozen squares in the hoop, at any one time. Each of these hoops takes on average an hour (or so) to quilt, so I'm VERY lucky that The Recipient is allowing me my indulgence of quilting by hand. (Thank you Clare.)

The day finished with a cup of tea and a slice of cake, in true Aunt Sally style, celebrating another friend's upcoming birthday, before heading off into the woods, with the now Returned To Floozy Mode Belle. Typical.
Well, I'd better go now, so that I may inch along a little further. Thanks for popping by. xx

Behind Bars.....

...is where this innocent looking madam belongs! FORTY minutes she gave me the run around last night, chasing the Easter Bunny. Let me say it again....FORTY MINUTES! She knew where I was, but kept a good few hundred yards between us-not to mention some very thick gorse-at all times, completely unfazed by my mild (???) histrionics. I did have time to see a lovely sunset, between whistles and yells......

......and I have now read more about "prey drive" than I had previously thought possible. Looks like I've got some more training to do!!
To help settle my nerves, a little sewing was in order....with obviously a little something to keep the blood sugar levels up......

My blood sugars obviously behaved themselves, because I'm now two-thirds of my way through the latest project. Well, the top at least....I'm in denial as to how I'm actually going to quilt it-just too many conflicting ideas at the moment.....

I shall love you and leave you now, as I need to go and eat some more chocolate. See you soon. xx