Playing Catch-Up

On Tuesday, seeing as it was still really hot, we went to Bolam Lake which is near Belsay.

It's been years since I was last there, and Craig hadn't been at all. We took a picnic with us and ended up trecking all the way round the lake before we found somewhere to sit and eat our sandwiches. I was flipping knackered. But it was lovely to sit in the sun for an hour and just relax. On the way home we called in to the farm shop and got a few goodies.

On Friday we went to the Farmers Market in Alnwick, but didn't really buy much except for some Cumberland sausage and some strawberries. Oh and a couple of little goodies for certain people.

Today I've been to Jayne's Attic and spent a few hours working on my Saturday project, an Elizabeth Designs chart. Sorry, can't remember what it's called, but I'll try and post a picture before I go away. It's been too hot to do much stitching and I've been a bit put off since the photochart was ruined by spilt wax last weekend. However, I have been working on some more needlecases and am hoping to finish them off before Tuesday. Tonight I wrapped a few little goodies up and put into gift bags for my hostesses but they need a few more things I think. And I'm sure the ladies in question would agree with me. Even though they don't actually know what they're getting. LOL.

What kind of flower am I?

I am a Morning Glory What Flower Are You?

Dedicated is one word for you. You have a tendency to overwhelm other people occasionally with your enthusiasm for life.

Busy Bee

Although it was too hot to CROSS stitch tonight, that didn't put me off doing some sewing with the machine. I've been making some needle cases, something I've been wanting to do for a while now.

All I did was take some finished cross stitch projects from the 'ready to do something with' drawer, line them with quilting material and then sew some felt 'pages' in for the needles. I think they've turned out ok and I'm really rather chuffed with them. And it made a change from making ORT bags - 16 of those I made at the weekend. Kathy has already claimed hers!

Craig has finally got his car fixed. He had a leak - brake pipe fluid I think...or maybe it was oil. I'm so mechanically minded aren't I!? Anyway, it's fixed now. So at least he won't be leaving stains all over the car park out the front and going through gallons of oil or brake fluid (or whatever it was he was going through) per week.

I had to do a meals on wheels mercy dash this afternoon. Mam and Dad have been having their kitchen and bathroom done by the council (well contractors, like we did about 18 months ago) and the bloke was there doing the kitchen floor today. So, to save them having to reconnect their cooker I boiled them some eggs and spuds - they were having salad for tea - and took them over for them on my way to collect Kate from work. That was my good deed for the day.

Dene had a skivy day today. I think his hay fever is playing up at the moment and as he's not the best pill taker in the world it doesn't help. He does have some tablets for it, but whether he takes them or not is another matter entirely. He had a stonking headache this morning and an aching stomach from coughing all night, so he has spent most of today in bed sleeping. Hopefully he'll be ok tomorrow.

Ian and his dad Mick are off to Crete for two weeks tomorrow sometime. I can't remember what time their flight is. Personally I think they should stay here - it's been hotter in this country than most of the rest of Europe over the last few days. Today has seen record temperatures, but us being Brits...we're never happy. We moan when it rains all the time and we moan when it's hot! LOL.

Craig and I went to Druridge Bay Country Park yesterday. We took a picnic for our lunch, and our books, and spent a very pleasant few hours sitting at a picnic bench overlooking the lake. We could have walked down the beach, but it was too hot and I

couldn't be bothered. It was just nice where we were, and the view was gorgeous. We called in at the Attic on the way home and picked up a magazine that Jayne had put aside for me.

A Couple Of WIPs

On Tuesday I did some work on CA, inbetween a trip to the recently opened Hobbycraft at Team Valley and Dainty Supplies in Washington, which has just celebrated its 25th anniversary. More about those later. I'm quite enjoying sewing CA and it's stitching up quite quickly considering I'm only working on her one day a week.

Yesterday and today I did some more stitching on Sue's photochart and I've figured out a way I can post updates without revealing identities too much...I'll blur the faces in Photoshop (God I love that program!) and hopefully no one will be any wiser. I have managed to complete another two pages on this, only another 20 to go. Sigh! There is no way this will be finished before I go on my trip.

Anyway, on to my visit to Hobbycraft and Dainty Supplies. Obviously I've been to Hobbycraft stores before, there was a brilliant one in Nottingham that I could never walk past without having to have a shufty inside. To be honest I'm not all that keen on the shop but they do have some nice stuff. If I had the time to pursue other hobbies I could spend a small fortune in there - oh how I wish! In the end I spent about £28 on a couple of patchwork magazines, some beads, several pieces of felt and a couple of little things for certain people who shall remain nameless. Don't want to get them too excited. On to Dainty Supplies which is a brilliant place. They didn't have much for stitchers as such, it was more things for papercrafts and other stuff, but I did buy three 1 metre lengths of ribbon for my ORT bags, some more beads (the ones I couldn't get at Hobbycraft), and erm...and some Kreinik #4 braid for CA. Or maybe I got that from the first place, I've forgotten. Anyway, I spent £12 in there and came home a happy bunny with a bit more stash for my collection.

Viruses

I dunno what Craig did to my PC this afternoon but I don't appear to have the 400+ viruses on it anymore. YIPPEE! It's been peeing me off all week, having stupid pop-ups every 10 seconds or so telling my computer is infected, go here to download this amazing fix it, blah blah blah. I was all set to reformat, had burnt everything I needed to keep on to several CDs, and Craig came up after our trip out this morning to make a start on that, but he changed his mind and did something else instead and touch wood, it's fixed.

This morning I dragged Craig off to the new(ish) Hobbycraft store at Team Valley, our first visit there since it opened a couple of months ago. It is huge and filled with lots of goodies. And if I had the time for all those extra crafts I could have spent a small fortune in there. However, I don't have the time so I only spent about £28. I bought a couple of patchwork magazines, some beads, some Kreinik #4 braid that I need for Celtic Autumn (and might still need more!), and some little pressies for certain people. THEN we went to Dainty Supplies in Washington, another place I hadn't been to till today. It's another treasure trove but with lots of stuff for papercraft more than for stitching. They do quite a bit of fabric, a large range of normal sewing threads (you know, proper sewing LOL) and lots of dried and silk flowers and candles and crafty bits and pieces. In there I bought 3 lengths of ribbon for £1, more beads and I'm sure there was something else but I can'r remember what. My memory is getting worse.

We came home via the Plant Plus nursery at Blagdon to get some more mouse traps and the Cheese Farm where we had something to eat. I didn't think much of the cheese farm to be honest with you, they didn't have much of a selection and what they did have was expensive. I much preferred the farm shop we visited a couple of months ago, in the same locality, where they had a huge selection of yummy stuff. I'm hoping to make another trip to that farm shop before I go away.

We've been to bingo tonight and as usual I won zilch. Mind you, neither did Craig, which is a wonder cos he normally wins every time he goes, jammy git. I did get close a couple of times but obviously that's not good enough. LOL.

Stash Mountain

Got Craig to bring every item of my stash downstairs yesterday so I could have a good sort out before I go on my trip. This is everything, apart from the numerous CDs of charts that are still upstairs and the 400+ HAED charts that are still on the PC. I spent most of yesterday going through it all and virtually all of today too. Now all my DMC threads are in little poly bags again, there are 4 black bags of rubbish to go to the tip, all the material is in one place, speciality threads are sorted, charts and books all in one place...and I'm knackered.

But my hostesses will be pleased to know I have virtually a full crate of stash that I want rid of (I can see Kathy rubbing her hands with glee already!) and there may be more by the time I leave.

Dalton Charlton...

...that's the name of our burglar. Not only does he need locking up for being a thieving git, but his mother does too for giving him such a stupid bloody name! We thought he was just a young lad, but according to the oracles of our street, Molly & Val, (Molly lives next door, Val lives on the other side of her), he's in his 40's. So he should know better than to break into peoples' houses and steal their stuff. I suppose technically speaking he didn't break in cos he got in the open toilet window, but that's not the point is it?! We haven't heard from the police yet about what happened to him in court, whether or not he's on remand or been bailed till his court case, but I'm hoping we hear something next week. AND I WANT MY PHONE BACK! It's murder not being able to text anyone.

Rant over!

I've been doing quite a bit of stitching on Sue's photo chart today. Unfortunately I can't post a picture cos we have a face now but it's coming on quite nicely. Will hopefully finish the current page tomorrow and make a good start on the next one while the Wimbledon Men's final is being played on Sunday, closely followed by the World Cup final, France v Italy. I don't suppose there'll be much else to watch on the TV. Might watch the Ladies final tomorrow, but will have to turn the volume down cos I think it's Sharapova in the final and she don't half make some noise when she's hitting the ball.

Thanks to Heather...

...I have now got pics in the sidebar. What an achievement. It's been bugging me for days how to do it. It's all Heather's fault in the first place though as I saw on her Blog that she has pics in her sidebar and I wanted them too. LOL! Many thanks Heather for sending me the info on how to do it.

Too hot to stitch

But I have been doing some anyway. I've finished my squares on three RRs over the last few days. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of them (mainly cos the camera was upstairs and I couldn't be bothered to go and get it), I was just so glad to get them finished and out of the way. The one for the Nutty Stitchers was the last one for that particular group and I have sent it back to Kirsty. She still has a square left to sew on it, but all those teddies will look cute when it's finished. The next one I finished was Tina's cat and dog RR for Kathy's Krafters. That too has been posted, to Kathy. And finally, today, I did my three squares on the Alphabet RR for UK Robins. I did my initials on this, J, M and E and it was a nursery alphabet this time. It's all parcelled up ready to mail to Jackie B in the morning.

Tomorrow I'm going to work on Sue's photo chart. It's only 3 weeks on Saturday till I go on my trip so I should really get a move on with it. But it's TOO HOT! We could do with a really good thunderstorm with lots of lightning, preferably at night so the lightning shows up better. We had a little bit of rain this afternoon but nothing to write home about. The shower only lasted about 20 minutes and then it was fair again, red hot and steaming. It is so hot in this bedroom tonight that I think I'm going to have difficulty sleeping.

The lad that the police caught for our burglary was supposed to be in court today for a remand hearing. We haven't heard anything from the police about what happened, but hopefully he's safely locked up again. Apparently he's not long been out of prison from his last stint and was on probation. I hope they throw the book at him, but the way things go these days he'll get ten hours community service, a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.

Oooohhhh, when I finished my first HAED a few weeks ago, I got this!

I'm so proud! LOL!

Celtic Autumn Update

After stitching on CA for most of today I've made quite a bit of progress. You can see more of the sparkly bits on this photo - they didn't show up too well on the last one. Next week I'm going to do more of the metallic stitching and then start and work my way up the dress a bit more.

I'm really enjoying sewing on this and can't wait to do the other three seasons and the Noel one.

Over the weekend I did some sewing on some RR's and managed to get two finished and sent off to the next people. I still have the Alphabet one to do, but I think I still have a couple of weeks to do that in. Might do some of that tomorrow as CA has been put back in the drawer till next week, and then get back to the photo chart for Sue.

Burglary Update

Seems like it's been all go here today. Someone came from the shop where I was buying my mobile phone from to take some details - it's covered by insurance from there and I hopefully won't need to make any more payments for it. While he was here the man from SOCO came back again - with a very dishy mate - to take a cast of the footprint in the back garden. This is the same footprint that he was going to do on Saturday and didn't have any hairspray for. It appears that there have been some developments however so he decided to come back and try again. It's setting overnight and he'll be back again tomorrow to get the set mould.

Also, someone from the police station has been on the phone several times today, asking for more detailed descriptions about the stuff that was stolen, serial numbers etc, so that if anything is recovered they can be more easily identified and hopefully returned. Then later on, while I was out picking Dene up from work, the lady from the station rang again and asked Craig if we would be in tomorrow at 8.30am as someone is coming round with some stuff for us to try and identify. I sincerely hope it is our stuff, most especially Craig's laptop and maybe one of my mobile phones, if not both.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Need some help!

I'm trying to put some photos in the sidebar of this blog, like I've seen on some of the other blogs that I read, but I can't quite figure out how to do it. I have photos in photobucket and have tried copying and pasting the links but they don't seem to work. Can someone please help?

THIEVING GITS!

Some time last night, while we were all in bed, we were burgled. They got in through the toilet window (our toilet and bathroom are downstairs and the windows are tiny) which is left open all the time otherwise the smallest room starts to smell. And they got out of the back door. The key is left on the kitchen bench.
They took Craig's laptop, my purse containing all my bank and credit cards and about £40 in cash, both my mobile phones, my Sat Nav out my bag and my little palm computer thingy. They also took my rucksack type bag that I got from Craig for Christmas, which they must have used for carrying everything in, and which also contained our passports.
I was busy phoning the three credit card companies to cancel my credit cards when the police turned up. It's handy when they turn up before you even report a crime! Apparently someone had found my purse a couple of streets away and they'd phoned the police who came round here. I was gonna ring them after the credit card people anyway, they just beat me to it.
So now I am waiting for SOCO to arrive to fingerprint everywhere and take a cast of the lovely set of footprints that are in the back garden.