Off to Sunny Spain

Well actually we're going to Ireland not Spain. We're really looking forward to it - apart from the 5am start. We have to be in Stranraer by 9am for the ferry at 10am. Then once we've landed in Belfast it's going to take us about six hours to drive down to County Waterford, where we've rented a cottage for the week. Dene and Kate are staying home to dog-sit so just me and Craig are going.

I'll be taking lots of photos - you know me - and will be posting lots of them on here when I get back. Something for you all to look forward to. For now I'm off to finish packing then I'm off to bed. Be good and see you in a week.

Baby Bump @ 22 weeks!

Had to go out and buy Kate some new clothes cos her jeans are getting too tight and I hate seeing baby bellies hanging out of tops.

50th Anniversary

On the evening of their 50th anniversary, a reminiscing wife found the negligee she wore on her wedding night and put it on. She went to her husband, a retired Marine, and said: 'Honey, do you remember this?'

He looked up from his newspaper and said: 'Yes dear, I do. You wore that same negligee the night we were married.'

She said, 'Yes, that's right. Do you remember what you said to me that night?'

He nodded and said, 'Yes dear, I still remember.'

'Well, what was it?' she asked.

He was not much in the mood for this, but he sighed and responded, 'Well, honey, as I remember, I said, 'Darling', I'm going to suck the life out of those beautiful breasts and screw your brains out.' '

She giggled and said, 'Yes dear, that's it. That's exactly what you said. So now it's fifty years later, and I'm in the same negligee. What do you have to say tonight?'

He looked her up and down and replied, 'Mission accomplished.'

Scan piccies

Kate had her scan this afternoon. These are the three best pictures that we got. The top one is the baby facing front, the middle one it has its hand up to its face as if it was sucking its thumb, and the bottom one it's lying face down. Everything was fine, the heart was beating and all the chambers were ok, spine and head were ok, liver and kidneys were ok, face was fine, had 2 arms and legs and hands. The only thing the sonographer couldn't see was whether it was a boy or a girl, so Kate has to go back for another scan in 6 weeks time so hopefully we'll find out then. Oh, and she's further on than we thought. We originally thought she was about 17 weeks pregnant, but she's actually 22 weeks. Baby is due on 27th August.

Heather - Kate's ex knows about the baby. He told her she had to get rid of it or he was going to come up and kick the shit out of her and the baby. What a charmer eh?

Thank You Jacky! OH WOW!

Kate got a beautiful bundle in the mail this morning from Jacky, crammed full of baby stuff - two gorgeous crocheted blankets, a fleece blanket, three cute little hats, a couple of babygros and three body suits. Once Craig's had a look at them they'll be put away in the case under the bed till they're needed. Thanks again Jacky, you're a star!

More Baby...LOL

You lot are going to be soooo sick of hearing about this. PMSL. But I don't care.

Kate had her booking-in appointment at the health centre this afternoon. The midwife still doesn't know how far on she is, but she felt Kate's stomach and used the little machine to listen for the heart beat. She did find it eventually and we all heard it. It beats the old days when they used one of those little plastic ear trumpet things and put one end against your belly and listened with their ear at the other end.

The midwife arranged for Kate to have a scan tomorrow. She couldn't get an appointment at the hospital in Blyth, so we have to go to the Wansbeck up in Ashington. It's not a problem with the car, and I'd rather it was done tomorrow than have to wait till we get back from Ireland. Hopefully we'll get a photo and I'll scan it in when we get back. Unfortunately it won't be till early evening as her appointment isn't till 4.20pm. Sigh.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Stage Version

Last night Craig and I went to see CCBB and it was absolutely BRILLIANT!!! I loved every minute of it. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I got a ticket for Christmas (and Craig got one too so I didn't look a total saddo going on my own - LOL) and I've had to wait four months to go and see it. The film version is one of my all time favourites and I'll watch it over and over again, if only to annoy everyone else in the house.

We left home just after 5pm last night, hoping to get something to eat in Sunderland, but all the places in the vicinity of the theatre had stopped doing food before we got there. By this time the doors were opening so we just went to the theatre bar and had a drink before we went to our seats. We were in the stalls, quite near the back, but in the middle, and we had quite a good view of the stage.

Matt Baker (a local lad who used to be a Blue Peter presenter) played Caractacus Potts; Tony Adams who played Adam Chance in Crossroads played Grandpa Potts and Rachel Stanley (who I've never heard of but she's done lots of theatre) played Truly Scrumptious. And the dancer Wayne Sleep played the child catcher. Of course the star of the show was the car itself. As far as I know it's one of the original cars that they used in the film.

Yesterday Kate and I went to Sure Start here in Blyth to the Early Pregnancy session with a midwife. Because she's so far along we stayed behind after the one hour session so that the midwife could sort her out with a booking in appointment, which is this afternoon. She came home with another stack of books and leaflets.

Today she'll have blood taken for loads of different tests (half of which they didn't do 20 years ago when I was having kids). She's never had blood taken before - apart from her heel prick when she was born - so that could be interesting. She'll be booked in to the hospital of her choice and with any luck they're going to try and arrange her first scan for tomorrow. Apparently she should have been taking folic acid in the first few weeks, but since she didn't find out till last Wednesday that she was pregnant that wasn't possible. And Kate has felt the baby moving so she may be more pregnant than we originally thought. Hence the need for a scan ASAP.

A Few Finishes

Thought I'd show you a few things I've finished recently. First off, three biscornus. These are very quick to stitch, it's the making up that's a pain in the bum cos they're so fiddly, especially when they're quite small, as these are.

And I've also done some knitting for my imminent grandchild. We bought a car seat yesterday and as the weeks go by we'll get a few more things. I've borrowed some knitting patterns from a neighbour, but whether I get to do anything bigger than mitts and bottees remains to be seen. LUCKILY...one of my gorgeous blog readers, Jacky, is going to knit some things, as are Kathy and Marilyn.

Happy Event???

My daughter Kate has just found out that she's pregnant! Now this is great, apart from the fact that she split up from "the pillock" at New Year cos he was shagging about with other people and she hasn't seen him since. This means that she's at least 16 weeks pregnant - we think - and the baby will be due in September. I don't think it's really sunk in with her yet.

She has to go to Sure Start on Monday morning to get sorted out with a midwife etc and with any luck they'll arrange a scan for her and we'll find out for definite how far on she is. She is already on the housing list but she'll probably have to fill in another form and hopefully she'll get something sooner than she would normally. Now we have to start stocking up on baby things, 5 months isn't long! And oh god...I'll have to KNIT! I hate knitting. I CAN knit, but I get bored with it and try to avoid it if possible.

Things are going to be tight for a while as none of us are working, and baby things are so expensive, but if we get something every couple of weeks she should be ok for starting out.

Now don't anyone dare call me Nana, cos I hate that name.

Love my brother

Last night we went to my brother's for tea. He had an ulterior motive, he wanted Craig to fix his PC. However, while we were there he said he had a bag of material for me, old curtains and such that I might be able to use for my patchwork etc. From what he could see it's all stuff that came from our Gran and there were a couple of table runners. The photo above is one end of one of them (they're both embroidered with the same design) and I just love it. I just need something to incorporate it into now.

This morning I taught myself (again) how to crochet. I used to be able to do this years ago, just squares like the one above but I'd forgotten how to start it off. So, using the wonders of the internet I found a site that teaches you how to do it and this is the result. It's actually a very pretty lemony colour (#12 that I bought in Spain in February), it looks a bit washed out on here. I'm going to try and incorporate some crocheted squares into my patchwork. Needs thinking out some more first though.

Bookmark progress

The two photos above are from An Alphabet Of Stitches. As you can see I've done the hardanger section, just need to wrap the bars and do the filling stitches. The second photo is a close up of the speciality stitches.
This photo is my progress so far of the bookmark I started. I know exactly who I'm going to give it to when it's finished.

I've been busy making thread sacks today. All the material was cut out ready, so I've been sewing everything up with the machine. Kate fills the sandbags for me (I told her to bash the bags on the table to make the sand more compact so she could get more in - she pretends it's her ex-boyfriend's head!) and I do all the machine and hand sewing. Now there are 13 more thread sacks to go on the web site. I've taken photos of them all but will wait till tomorrow to put them on the site, as I'm too tired at the moment.

I had an email from an editorial assistant from the World Of Cross Stitch magazine yesterday. She said she was interested in featuring one of the products from my web site in the Best Buy pages of the mag. I rang her up to find out which one it was and apparently it's the biscornu. I sent her a photo, but I have no idea which issue it's going to be in or anything. Maybe I'll have to buy the next few issues so I can find out! Hope she wasn't flanelling me. LOL.

New Start

I've decided to do some bookmarks and things for C'mas pressies. And future exchanges etc. I made a start on this one today, it's a HAED called Automne by Christophe Vacher. This is what it should look like when it's finished. I'll post progress pics as I go.

Bent Creek Finish

The photo's not that good cos I've got nowhere to lay it out flat, but this is Summer Arches by Bent Creek. My first finish for April, LOL. I have Winter Arches already done (it was done as a RR last year or the year before) and now I just need to get the charts for Spring and Autumn to have the full set.

I haven't heard anything from the place I had an interview at on Friday, so obviously I didn't get that job. Ah well, their loss. I got another one of my books yesterday from Amazon and I'm hoping the other five come tomorrow. There's a fair few things in the one I got yesterday that I quite fancy making...watch this space.

I'm at the job centre again tomorrow morning. No doubt I'll come back with another big pile of vacancies to apply for. I had a phone call from Ian half an hour ago, asking me if I would go and pick him and Mick up from the pub and take them home cos it's snowing. It's a 15 mile drive (or thereabouts) to get to the pub, and they only live about a mile downhill from there, so I told them to sod off and walk. Lazy gits. I know I've got MUG tattooed on my forehead but I'm not THAT much of a mug. Cheeky little bugger!

And not so good...

Bloody hell!!! I was woken up at 7.30am this morning by my mobile phone ringing...or rather laughing. It was someone from one of the jobs I applied for last week, asking me to attend an interview either later on today or tomorrow. I told her that tomorrow would be better, so I have to go in for 9am. I don't DO mornings and I'm going to have to be up at about 7am then contend with rush hour traffic to get to North Shields. The vacancy is for an office junior. Can you have 42 year old office juniors? I daresay we'll find out soon.

Then not long after I got up I had a text message from Lynn from Shropshire, who I was supposed to be meeting up with today. She's up here visiting her Mam who is ill, and she texted me to say that she wouldn't be able to make it today as her Mam had a bad night last night and she didn't want to leave her, which is fair enough. Mothers take precedence over friends.

I had some things on eBay that I've been trying to sell, but people just don't seem to be interested. I've relisted half a dozen things but if they don't sell this time round I'll just stick them back in the attic, or try giving them away on Freecycle.

Good things...

First off I collected two pieces of needlework from the framers - after taking out a second mortgage to pay for them!!! - but I can only show you one as I've entered the other one in a competition and it has to be voted on. If I show it on here people will know who did it, so you'll have to wait till later in the year.

Secondly, I've been after this book on Amazon for yonks, but they've always been out of stock. Today I decided to ring Borders and see if they had it...AND THEY DID! WOOHOO! So after I'd been to the framers I tootled over to Silver Link and got it. I've also ordered a few other books from Amazon that were on my wish list, but they won't be here till next week.