Thursday, June 30, 2005

Update June Goals

June's Goals

  • Heart Sampler - TOTALLY FINISHED AND AT THE FRAMERS
  • Marquoir SAL - GIVEN UP, DIDN'T REALLY LIKE IT
  • Alter Echo SAL - GIVEN UP, DIDN'T REALLY LIKE IT
  • Photo Chart 1 - STARTED AGAIN FROM SCRATCH...GOT ONE CORNER DONE
  • Photo Chart 2 - STARTED AGAIN FROM SCRATCH...SMALL AMOUNT DONE
  • Nutty Stitchers RR - DONE
  • New YeaRR - RECENTLY RECEIVED, NOT STARTED YET
  • Battling Beginners RR - IN PROGRESS, ALMOST FINISHED
  • Stashaholics Rule SAL - THINKING ABOUT STARTING, NEED TO FIND CHART

Bloomin' Kids

Just had a text message from Ian. He's still at Mick's as he's been helping Mick to move house this week. The text message was to the effect that Ian had left the keys in the flat and Mick had had to break the lock to get in. And I now owed Mick £50 for a new lock. Needless to say I told him where to go! Not MY fault if my youngest son is a plonker! He obviously gets it from his Dad's side of the family.

Not long now...

...till my theory driving test. I'm not saying when it is but if I pass I'll be posting on here to let you all know. I had a driving lesson this morning and I'm definitely getting better at using my mirrors, but getting worse at something else...planning and anticipation I think it was. Trevor has marked me down a point on his copy of how I'm getting on, but not on my progress card.

Kate has her first lesson with Trevor on Monday. I have to show him where she works as he's picking her up from there at 5pm when she finishes. So I'll do that during my lesson on Monday morning.

We're off out for a meal tonight, to Mr Lau's in Stowell St, Newcastle. We've never been there before, but have heard good reports about it so we're going to try for ourselves.

Gretna Green

We just came back from a couple of days in Gretna Green, staying in a B&B about 100 yards from the Old Blacksmith's Shop. Admittedly there's not a lot to do in Gretna, but it was lovely and peaceful, the kids weren't with us and it made a nice change to just relax.

We did pay a visit to the Blacksmith's Shop, bought a couple of little pressies in there, and on Monday night we went to the pub opposite, called the Hazeldene Hotel, and had a lovely meal. A bit expensive but lots of it.

Also on Monday we went to Lockerbie, well a bit out of the town, to a one horse place called Corrie, to visit Craig's one remaining aunt and uncle. He has a few cousins, three in Scotland and we think the others (he can't remember how many, 6 or 8) are down south somewhere. When we were visiting Winnie and John, we found out that Craig's Uncle Len died last year. Winnie had written to us, but she didn't have our new address so it was sent to Nottingham, and of course we didn't have our mail forwarded. I think Craig would have liked to have gone to the funeral if he'd known about it.

On Tuesday night we went to a diferent pub for our meal, in Gretna just down the road. It was a few quid cheaper, but it wasn't half as nice as the other place. A bit of a disappointment really.

We came home yesterday afternoon, via Carlisle and most of Hadrian's Wall. I picked up some leaflets for the husband of a friend, who is interested in such things, and posted them off to her today. Hope they're helpful to her hubby.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Good Driving Lesson

I had quite a good lesson today. I didn't get as much of a bollocking for not using my mirrors...been practising! Got four points signed off so I'm well on my way to my practical test. Yesterday I was out with Craig and he had me practising reversing round corners, straight reversing (which I'm naff at as I can't stay in a straight line), and turning in the road. Oh...and reverse parking in a totally empty car park. Saves me hitting something I suppose.

Quiet Weekend

Ian has gone to visit his Dad till Sunday, and tomorrow Kate is going to Nottingham till 3rd July to stay with her best friend Laura. Peace and quiet all weekend...bliss. Now if I could only get rid of Dene for the weekend. Hmmm.....

New Stash

Got some new stash this afternoon. Polstitches has some lovely Perle threads, just released, so I had to have some. I got Mummies Curse a couple of weeks ago to take part in the bookmark SAL that Jayne organised (it's a lovely Col's Creations design in hardanger), and today I got the rest of the colours - Rustic Rhubarb, Fairy Footprints, Hugs With Stitches, Dawn Chorus and Sky High. I can't wait to start sewing something with them. The threads can be seen here...
http://www.jaynesattic.co.uk/polstitched_designs_dragon_pearls_-_perle_.htm Not that I'm enabling or anything.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

TO MY "ANONYMOUS" RELATIVE!

I just want to apologise if you were offended by what I wrote about Mothers Day/Gran's birthday. You're obviously a cousin as you referred to our Gran, but I'm not sure which one. When us lot went to see her she DIDN'T have any other cards apart from the ones I mentioned and I didn't find out that anyone else had been till the following week. So please accept my apologies...whoever you are.

Getting lax

Been a while since my last post so time to catch up.

On the stitching front, I've decided to pack away the Marquoir and the Alter Echo samplers for the minute as I really want to concentrate on other stuff...and to be honest, I have no idea when or if I would ever get the other things framed! So I'm busy with two photo charts of my grandparents, a hardanger bookmark SAL, and the three round robins. I finished the Heart Sampler SAL and will post a photo soon when I get round to taking one.

The driving lessons are going ok, but I keep getting told off for not using my mirrors at the right times. I have booked my theory test for the beginning of July, must practice the hazard perception bit some more.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

First June Goal Fulfilled

Finished the June band on the Heart Sampler SAL the other day. Don't have a photo as yet, but will do one soon.

First HD for June

Last night I finished this Just Nan freebie called Italian Ice.

Yesterday we drove 180 miles down to Derbyshire just to go to Wye Needlecraft. What an amazing shop...I could have spent hours, and a small fortune, in there, but I managed to restrain myself and only spent £65, all on charts. I can't remember what they all are, Just Nans and a couple of Lizzie*Kate designs. Will post a list when I have the charts upstairs.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Lots of stash!

When we came home yesterday I had a huge pile of post to open. There was a parcel from the exchange with lots of goodies in it...I just have to try and decide which ones I want and what I'm going to put back in it. Then there was a parcel from Kate's Kloths with May's Klub things in it...a parcel from Sew and So with a snowflake charm in it for the Just Nan thing I'm in the middle of...and a parcel from Tammy with a couple of L*K charts in it and some material, that she sent me to say thanks for the storage stuff I sent her.
And today I'm going to make a start on June's goals:
Part 10 French Marquoir SAL
Parts 4, 5 & 6 Alter Echo SAL
June band Heart Sampler SAL
Stashaholic SAL
Photo Chart 1 (more work)
Photo Chart 2 (more work)
Battling Beginners RR
Nutty Stitchers RR
New YeaRR

There's a...

(very bad Scottish accent)...moose loose aboot this hoose! More specifically it's somewhere in our bedroom, and last night was under the bed. There's a roll of wrapping paper under there and it seemed to spend most of the night rustling it. Craig reckons it's been here for a few weeks, but last night was the first time I've heard it. And what a racket it made...it took me ages to get back to sleep as it was rustling just as I was dropping off again. Needless to say, Craig is going to be borrowing my Dad's mouse traps again today.

Weekend in Bridlington

We had a lovely long weekend break in Bridlington. When I say long weekend it was actually from Sunday to Tuesday (yesterday). On Sunday we packed the car up early, Craig, Kate and I, and went round to pick my brother Kevin up from his house before we had a steady drive down the east coast to Yorkshire. We stopped off in Guisborough for a pee break and arrived in Bridlington at about 11am. After booking into the hotel we removed the cool box from the boot of the car and walked over to the promenade, where we sat and ate our lunch. It was glorious sunshine and we just watched the world walk by. Then we went to the pub. Sat outside that pub for an hour then we were getting too hot so we went over the road to another one and spent the rest of the afternoon in there. Kate went back to the hotel for a lie down as she was knackered after her early morning. She came back to the pub at around 4.30pm. We stayed for another couple of hours before returning to the hotel for a wash and a brush up, and a couple of drinks in the hotel bar, then we went for something to eat. We were going to go to Poppies, a carvery restaurant that my Mam nearly got arrested in last August, but we changed our minds and went to a little Chinese restaurant just round the corner instead. The meal was lovely, and fairly cheap, and we really enjoyed it. We returned to the hotel bar and spent the rest of the night in there. They had a jazz group playing, in a space the size of your average small kitchen, and there were 9 of them! One played the piano, one guitarist, two banjo players, a trombonist, a drummer, saxophonist/clarinetist, a singer who also played the trumpet and a bloke on a tuba! To be honest we didn't really think much of them so we went up to our rooms at about 10pm. Apart from anything else we were all knackered. Craig and Kevin were sharing a room on the top floor so they came to our room for half an hour for a nightcap before finishing their climb.
On Bank Holiday Monday, we were downstairs for our breakfast at about 8.15am. The hotel must have been fully booked as all the tables were full, and some of them had to be reset for people who came down later. Breakfast was delicious - cereal, orange juice, full English cooked breakfast, followed by toast and marmalade or jam, all washed down with a pot of tea or coffee. YUM! Craig, Kate and I decided to have a walk along to the shops, while Kevin walked down to the promenade to wait for us...he doesn't do walking very much. As it was a Bank Holiday a lot of the shops weren't open at that time of the morning, but some of them were so we had a look in a few. At the harbour we turned around and walked back. I'd spotted some photo frames in a shop that were on offer for £1 each, so I snaffled five of them...they'll come in handy to frame some of my needlework. We found where Kevin was sitting and joined him for an hour, soaking up the sun. Actually, there wasn't that much sun when we sat down as it clouded over a bit, but it did get sunny again later on. Late morning we went back to the hotel and back into the bar to read the papers (and have a drink of course...got to replenish the liquid levels you know!) then Craig and I decided to go for a wander. Kate and Kevin didn't want to move so they stayed where they were. We ended up just going round the corner to one of the pubs we'd been in yesterday and had some lunch there, before having a walk back along to the shops as Kevin and Kate wanted us to get some rock for them. We sat at the harbour for a while, and sat a bit more further along the promenade on the way back to the hotel.
We spent the next couple of hours sitting outside the hotel pub, just chatting and watching the world go by, before freshening up and going over the road to the Italian restaurant, where the meal was quite nice, but expensive. We returned to the hotel bar and waited for the singer to turn up. He was a rock and roll singer, mostly singing Elvis stuff, and he kept embarrassing the hell out of Kate by singing to her. Her face was a picture. By 10am we were flagging again - too much sun I think - so we went to our room for a night cap before Craig and Kevin went up to their room.
Tuesday (yesterday) dawned nice and sunny yet again, and we were downstairs for breakfast just after 8am. Afterwards we finished packing our bags and loaded the car up again before leaving Bridlington at about 9.40am. We detoured through Scarborough as two of us needed the toilet, then headed north. About halfway we headed into Guisborough again and had our lunch in a pub before heading for home again. We finally arrived home at 3pm-ish, unloaded the car and just dropped! Craig had to take Kevin back home but he was soon back.
After a few hours rest we decided to go to bingo last night. Between us we won about £80, which we were quite pleased about, so we bought a Chinese meal on the way home, ate it when we got here then went to bed about an hour later.