I've a billion things I want/should be doing... most of them crafting for swaps... but it all feels a bit too much like homework... so procrastination it is then.

A meme pinched from Kat's Paws

Accent: Sorry, English Language student, my pet subject, forgive my rambling on this bit. My accent changes depending on who I'm talking to, or what I'm talking about. I pick accents up pretty easily (but wierdly I'm rubbish at imitating them.)
I've got a definite Northern accent, but beyond that it's a little confused.
It's definitely not Sheffield, (I don't sound like Jarvis Cocker or the Arctic Monkeys) even though I lived there for 18 years, but it does get broader when I spend any time there. Some words come out with a strong Scouse twang thanks to the 9 years in Ormskirk, sometime a Lancashire accent creeps in. Since moving to Stalybridge I've realized I speak quickly, a little quicker than the Mancs and Stockport people I work with , and about 10 x faster than the Tamesiders, I often get bewildered looks off people who haven't caught a word I've said, I'm slowing down though.
My Mum once told me that since going to Ormskirk my accent had turned "sing-song" which I quite like. Basically quick and the tone going all over the place. In my head my voice is far deeper than it is in real life. I always wonder who the squeaky person is when I hear recordings.

Booze: Not much anymore (except for all the cider I've drank since coming back from Cornwall.) The pubs withing easy walking distance are rubbish so if we do go out I usually drive. I'm too forgetful to drink much in the house. As for what I like, proper ciders if I can find them, good strong lagers like Staropramen, San Miguel and Stalla Artois, I occasionally like real ales too. If I'm not in the mood for lager then I'll have a Vodka & Lemonade (no ice), if I'm at home and determind to get drunk it's usually Gin & Bitter Lemon which I love but can't afford in pubs. I don't like red wine, it gives me chronic hangovers and makes me thirsty, I will drink a nice medium or sweet white though.

Chore I hate: All of them? unless I'm in the right mood. I always hate hoovering the stairs though

Dogs/cats: Two cats, Duke & Gonzo, love 'em to bits.

Essential electronics: Computer. Unlike almost everyone else in the world I don't care about my mobile phone. In fact workmates curse me because it regularly runs out of batteries and I don't realize.

Favorite perfume: Pass, I rarely wear it, I've got a few bottles that people bought as presents but I don't know what there are (one might be Calvin Klein, haven't a clue about the other 2.) I did find one called Celeste, or Angel though which I was quite tempted by, but it was a bit sweet smelling.

Gold/silver: Silver, but most of my decent jewellery is gold because it's all inherited.

Hometown: I still think of Sheffield as home because that's where I was born and grew up and my family are there. This house feels like home.. because it is, and it's mine, but Stalybridge as a town doesn't yet, even though I love it and the area. Plus Ormskirk will always have a special place in my heart because I had so many good years there and my friends are there.

Insomnia: Only at the end of the month :) I find it realy hard to go to bed before midnight though, even when I have to get up for work at 6 the next morning.

Job title: Support Worker (which is so undescriptive) so I generally say NHS Support Worker for Adults with Learning Disabilities

Kids: Nope... ask again this time next year. ;)

Living arrangements: Me, Blokey, 2 cats. He's my "Domestic Partner" oh how I hate that phrase.

Most admired trait: The ability to smile, laugh and stay calm, even when everything is going to shit.
My years in Customer Services, dealing with complaining customers 8 hours a day made me realize that shouting at people gets you nowhere. If you keep your temper and keep smiling people will go out of their way to help you, if you lose it you'll get put to the bottom of the pile (I know I've done it to angry people so many times myself.)
Now if only customers would realize this, then Customer Services might be a bearable job.

Number of sexual partners: :P Not a chance.

Overnight hospital stays: None, unless I was kept in when I was born, I'll have to ask.

Phobia: Spiders, getting water in my ears.

Quote: I've had a quote tumbling round the back of my head for months, but can't find it anywhere, these 2 give the general gist though:

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it."

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "As You Like It", Act 5 scene 1

I've just found this too which I quite like:

"Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked."

Lord Chesterfield (1694 - 1773)

Religion: Technically a Christian, I was Christened, but only went to church at Christmas or Remembrance Day, sometimes Easter and Harvest Festival, mainly only when my brother was playing the trumpet or with Scouts & Guides. I was never taught about Christianity so know scarily little, maybe one day I'll read the bible, just for the story, and because I suppose I should know some things for pub quizzes.
I was once told my beliefs were Pagan, I believe in looking after the planet, treating everyone equally, and as Bill & Ted say "Be excellent to each other."

Siblings: A big brother Sam, he's 4 1/2 years older than me, and in about 3 weeks will be a Dad ! Scary!

Time I usually wake up: If I'm working then I have to get up at 6:30. If I'm rested and able to wake up naturally then it's usually about 10am. I don't go to bed till at least 1am if I don't have to get up though, often much later, so I'm not that lazy really... I just have an unsocible body clock.

Unusual talent: I honestly can't think of any. If any friends can think of any let me know, I feel so boring and dull right now.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Peas & sweetcorn, if the odd one slips into a mix of something I will eat it, but if possible I'll pick it out. Also cauliflower and beans (the big long green ones). Pretty much anything else I'll eat, but some things, like cabbage I'll have to eat with potatoes. I know I sound fussy, especially for a vegetarian, but believe me, I'm far far less fussy than I used to be.

Worst habit: Procrastination. Messiness. Buying books and craft things. Pack-rat.

X-rays: Only Dentist ones.

Yummy foods I make: My Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies & Broccolli Mush (not together) are most popular, but I'm quite proud of my veggie stews and veggie lasagnes (the meat ones are apparently quite good too, but I've never tried them.) Basically I'm quite good at really hearty, comfort for type meals.

Zodiac sign: Leo. Star signs fascinate me, I've had my chart done and can see a lot of truth in the results, but then I think of my friend who is 8 hours 10 minutes older than me, yet so completely different to me it's unbelievable.

There, several hours wasted. Bed time now, crafting tomorrow.
Ni-ni

I think I've found my spiritual home.
Cornwall has the wide open spaces and hills I love of the Peak District, plus the sea, plus little craft spots, (I passed so many wool shops and even managed to go in a couple) plus Cider, plus cream teas, plus ice cream (I ate soooo much!). They also seem to be making a genuine effort to do something about climate change, seeing Wind Turbines everywhere makes me so happy. And for any people who say "Hmph fine so long as they're not in my backyard".... well personally I'd be delighted if the vew from my living room was peppered with Wind Turbines.

To top it all, my hayfever was managable with a couple of tablets a day, and my excema seemed to clear up too. Unfortunatly both have come back with a vengence since I got home.

My nerves about my fellow staff mamber were unfounded, we got on really well and I'd be happy to go with her again. My client was also wonderful. At home he wakes somewhere between 6:30 and 7, then goes to bed about 8:30. We were told he was the same on holiday, but we got him to sleep in till 9 most days (10 on one day) and he was going to bed at about 9:30, though he stayed up till 11 one night, we couldn't believe it, we kept asking him if he wanted to go to bed but all we got was "no, not yet". We had to take a picture of him with the clock becuase we knew no one would believe us.

We visited The Maritime Museum at Falmouth (but it rained so didn't see much of the town), St Austell, which wasn't too nice, but it's going through a regeneration project at the moment so I'll let it off. Plymouth I loved, even though pushing the wheelchair up the hills was hard it was worth it. We went on a boat ride, then sat on Plymouth Hoe eating ice-creams that were melting quicker than we could eat them, I found loads of little junk/crafty shops and would have happily spent a few days there on my own. I got sunburnt too, but that's nothing new. I loved the Eden Project, annoyingly the other staff member wasn't interested so we only go a couple of hours to look around. We had ice creams at Widemouth Bay, then cream teas at Crackington Haven, then felt ill. A gentle stroll around the shops at Boscastle soon set us right though. We went to Bude beach a couple of times, but chickened out of pushing the wheelchair around the shops there, far too steep. On the second trip to the beach we swapped the wheelchair for a Sand Buggy which meant we could actually get on the beach, and even take our client for a "paddle", the weather was gorgeous, so we had a couple of hours sunbathing.

I missed Porl loads though, he must have thought I was gloating, I kept phoning him from places with spectacular views, or when I was eating ice creams, but I was just wishing he was there with me.

I've got 2 weeks off in September, so I think we'll have to go back there together.

So tired, I want to sleep for a week. No time unfortunatly. Tomorrow is my 3rd sleep-in in a row (24 hours in work, 24 at home, 24 in work, etc etc). Wednesday I'm doing a 10 hour shift, Thursday I have off, technically, but Friday I'm going to Bude in Cornwall for a week on another client holiday.

I've never been to Cornwall before, well except for a brief look around Penzance before getting the ferry across to the Scilly Isles. I'm sort of looking forward to a nice week touring around, but I know I'm going to miss Porl like mad. EuroDisney was only 4 days, and we were so busy I didn't get much chance to miss him, but 4 days was enough. A week is a long time, plus this holiday will be a much slower paced one, my client is 85 so we're planning on alternating long days out (Plymouth & The Eden Project are definitely on the list) with quieter days closer to home so he can have a rest in the afternoons. Quieter days mean I'll have more time to miss Porl. I'm going wih a different staff member this time too and I'm nervous about how well we'll all get on. She's young, and can be headstrong, the client is old and can be head strong, and I'm going to be stuck in the middle negotiating. Luckily the accomodation has a pool, so on the quieter days I plan on escaping for a swim, or sending her off for a swim while I escape into a good book.

So far I've done absolutely nothing towards getting myself organised, except for buying some suncream (I'm hopeful). I'd best pack on Tuesday, so I can spend Thursday running round buying things I need.

There are just 2 things about this holiday which I'm really looking forward to:

1 - Spending time with the client, he's got some great stories, but at 85 he needs to be relaxed enough and have the right stimulation to remember them. It's not often at work that we get the time to sit and listen to him.

2 - Coming home and having a week off work! I'm planning a couple of days camping for Porl and I. The seaside is calling me. I'm torn between our old favourite, Anglesey, or taking Porl somewhere new, probably Filey, so we can visit Scarborough and Whitby too. The paddling opportunities are better on Anglesey, but I've not been to the East coast for years.

What to do, what to do?

I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on...
The foul mood wasn't even shifted by the fun post that arrived today.
I got the 3rd mailorder, which has a little needlework project book to make, and a recipe for Lemon Ginger Cake... Oh how I love Lemon Ginger Cake! Now I can make my own instead of buying Mr Kiplings Exceedingly Expensive stuff.

The 2nd fab thing was even better. A copy of Super Crafty which I got for being winner of Craft Idol. Lots of fun stuff to make, but where do I buy those socks for making sock monkeys?

Lastly, I've finally worked out how to reinstate my atom feed which I deleted in a fit of peak a while ago when people on Livejournal were annoying me.
So if you want to add it to your bloglines, or what ever then feel free to do so.
The address for it is http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~daymaker/atom.xml. Or if you're like me you'll have a trendy like widget on your toolbar which should be lit up now and you can just click it to subscribe.
If none of this makes sense then I apologise, unfortunatly I don't really understand it either, you can ask questions but I doubt I'll be able to help.

Now I really am going to water the plants.... grumble grumble grumble.

I've been restless and in a foul mood all day. I'm stressed about something (I know this because the insides of my cheeks are chewed to shreds) but I don't know what.

Maybe it's the weather. It's been overcast and threatening like rain all day but it's stayed dry. Which means I still have to go out and water the plantpots. I love plants in pots and baskets, but I hate watering them. I need to get the outside tap fixed so I can use a hosepipe (no bans round here) the watering can is too heavy to lift for the baskets and I always end up drenched.
Why then if I hate watering them am I considering going and planting up a few more to climb up the spiral staircase my neighbour gave me?

Today I was planning on spring cleaning. I cleaned the bathroom and fixed the hose to the tumble dryer, but by that point my mood was 10x worse, so decided that for Porl's sake I'd best stop before I turned green and nasty.
When we were little my brother and I (and mum too) always said Mum was like the Incredible Hulk, she rarely lost her temper, but when she did she went green and nasty. It seems I'm the same.

I have spent a good hour of so spinning though, well trying. I'm getting there slowly. I've found 3 problems, and 2 I've solved.

Problem 1 - can't get the wheel to keep turning, it was losing momentum before doing a full turn.
Solution - I realized it was doing a little jerk when I first treadled, so I had a little jiggle of things and realized there's a nut holding the top of the footman to the wheel, and it was loose, so the plasticy bit at the top of the footman was slipping. I've tightened it up, and hey presto, no jerk, and I can treadle properly again now.

Problem 2 - my yarn kept breaking.
Solution - stop being so adventurous (not that I was doing it on purpose) just stick to spinning bulky weight yarns. Once I can do a spindle full of nice thick, even yarn I can try spinning thinner, even yarn.

Problem 3 - Too much twist.... waaaay too much.
Sort of solved - I know this is to do with my tension, and not drafting quickly enough. I get the theory of it, I'll just have to keep practicing on the practical side. I think I need to try moving my hands further apart too.

I'm also better at drafting in new pieces of fibre now, I'm using some nice creamy white merino, and mixing it with some of the same stuff that I dyed pink with KoolAid a while ago. It's lovely and soft, and the bright colours are keeping me interested. Far better than the grey I started with last time. Too dull and I couldn't see what I'd done.

Anyhow now I'm going to see if I can find some black yarn to try and make a "fat bottomed bag" from The Happy Hooker book, then I'll sit watching Firefly and hopefully I'll have crocheted my bad mood away before bedtime....
Actually best go water those plants first.... grumble, grumble, grumble.

Today I've been trying to get caught up with my life. I'm only about a week behind now.

I did manage to get to the post office and send off my part of the "Colours of Europe" swap, it's late, but at least it's gone now, and thankfully the person I was sending to does the same job as me, so she was very understanding. She knows what it's like to work bizarre shifts then on days off only be fit for sleeping. I'll post pictures of what I sent made her once she's received it.

I got a wonderful parcel off my partner Spicey for the same swap. The brief was to send 10 things, 3 of which we'd made in our partners favourite colours. My favourite colours are blue, red and orange. She sent me all this;

A HUGE bag which will be going to Cornwall with me. Babelfish tells me it means "A summer with the sun" which I hope it will be.
3 type of yarn, all are lovely and soft thanks to the mohair in them
2 parkly gel pens
Carrot and flower seeds, I'll be planting these next year.
Beads, I can never have enough.
A purse, I love the colours of this
Handbag shaped cards toppers
Sweeties, which I refused to eat until I'd take a picture, so they've been sat on my desk tempting me for a week.
Blue material, trying to decide what to turn this into.
Handmade lip balm and Caramel Apple scented body spray. The body spray smells delicious, my skin is so dodgy at the moment that I daren't use it as a body spray, instead I've been using it as a room spray. It's making me hungry though!
Lastly 2 lovely necklaces which are just my style, nice and simple.

The last few days have been hot... really hot, which I thought was wonderful except for the day I had to go to work. Thankfully my boss gave us strict instructions to take it very easy, and we took him at his word.
I hate being cold, I love summer. I love winter too, but only when it snows, the rest of the time it's rubbish. I spend my time wrapped in a blanket next to the radiator, I really miss being able to curl up in front of the coal fire. This evening it rained and cooled down a bit so I'm back in my cardigan and thick cord trousers.

Unfortunatly Porl is the complete opposite. He hates the hot weather, trying to get him outside in the sunshine is nigh on impossible. He's spent the last 2 days pottering around the house in my big baggy cotton pyjama bottoms (pale blue with flowers embroidered on the bottom.) Thankfully he got changed before leaving the house, we don't live in Skem* I'm going to have to make him some of his own in a more manly colour.

Porl spent 2 days moaning about the heat, before we had the following conversation.
Me: You know how you're really hot.
Porl: Yeees.
Me: And you know how you keep complaining.
Porl: Yeees.
Me: And you know how you've got a fan under your desk...

He is intelligent... honest.


* Skem = Skemlersdale, a few years ago I was at the supermarket there when I saw a young teenage Mum pushing a pram, she was wearing a pair of pink flowery pyjama bottoms. I felt sorry for her, thinking she was a young stressed Mum. I mentioned it to my collegue, who told me that no, pyjama bottoms were the current fashion "with the kids".

Oh the luxury of a Sunday off. Shifts are supposed to be shared out equally among staff, especially weekend shifts which pay more, but there are a few staff members who can't work Sundays and others who don't want to work them, so I think this has been my 2nd Sunday off in 3 months. It's a shame, I like Sundays off, but I'm not complaining too much, at least I've had a few months of healthy wages.

I took the opportunity to go to Ashton Market as they have a table top sale on a Sunday which sounded interesting and I've never been. It was okay, I arrived quite late so probably missed the best things but I did pick up some cheap jewellery which I can dismantle, and some material for a swap.

I also had a wander around the shops, I was in a good mood so decided to brave shoe shopping. I hate shoe shopping. My feet are huge (size 7) except they aren't. One foot is a 7 one a 7.5, so usually 7's are too small, and 8's (if they have any) are too big. I can also only wear flat shoes because any heel would make me taller than Porl, which feels odd. I'm desperatly in need of some new trainers though, I bought my current trainers just before the last world cup. I love them, they're so comfy, and velcro, which is good for me because laces refuse to stay fastened on my feet, but they have holes in the front now and I keep getting wet feet. I really want a pair of converse style boots in lilac, but I'll settle for a bright blue, I'm cheap though and don't want to pay £35 for trainers.

Anyhow I failed with the trainers. I found some great ones for £7, but the 7's were too small, and they had no 8's. So I bought these instead:

I've wanted some ruby slippers for years, but finding flat ruby slippers which fit me without making my feet look like barges isn't easy. At last I've managed it though, and for just £12. God knows when I'll wear them, but they look good with jeans so I might just have to use them as every day shoes :)
Oh they do work as teleporters too. When I got how I clicked my heels together 3 times, said "there's no place like home" and hey presto I was at home. Porl pointed out the flaws in this, I pointed out he was boring.

Anyhow, going shopping late did mean that I was at the supermarket just before it closed, so I've been eating nice fresh baguettes, which were even nicer knowing they only cost 20p. I also treated myself to a couple of bunches of flowers at 25p each. I love fresh flowers, but they're an indulgence I can't usually afford.

I've spent this evening playing with the wheel. I've still not spun anything. Instead I've been reading all my books and learning what things are called, where I have to oil, how to string it (they don't tell you what to use though...I've used crochet cotton becuase it doesn't stretch) how to check the wheel isn't warped (it isn't thankfully) etc etc. I've also been trying to rub all the metal bits down with wire wool and WD40 as there are a few patches of rust. Most of the pieces are okay now, the only bits which worry me are the cup hooks and the orifice as the fibre might snag on them. I can buy more cup hooks easily but I think I'll have to use my jewellery files on the orifice smooth.

I'm also down to just 1 bobbin. There was some yarn on it which broke away when I was cleaning it up. My first thought was moths, but when I got to the centre I found the wood had been gnawed at too, then I spotted the woodworm holes. It's banished to the greenhouse until it proves to me that the woodworm is no more. It's a good job Dad is a woodturner and can make me some spare bobbins.

I can't find a makers name anywhere on the wheel, but the drum carder is made by a Canadian company Patrick Green Carders, and I think it's a Deb's Delicate Deluxe. It needs a new drive band as that has perished, but I've been looking and they are relatively cheap to replace. I'm not likely to use it for several months/years though while I'm learning so I've offered it to someone who would be able to use it on a possibly permanent loan. I'd prefer it was being used rather than sitting in my loft waiting for a day when I may get a raw fleece.

Carol, if you lived closer to me than you might have found me sat on your doorstep this weekend going "help meeee!" I'm muddling with my books at the moment so I can tell you it's a double drive wheel (I learnt the difference between double drive and scotch tension tonight). I'll take some better pictures of it when I get chance next week and you can tell me all the things I've done wrong in getting it set up :)

Now I should go to bed. Tomorrow is the first of 2 sleep-ins this week. Do you think they'd mind if I took my new toy to work?

Isn't she pretty. She needs a name, everytime I look at her I see Clara, which then makes me think of Heidi, or Long Distance Clara. I'm trying to make myself see her as an Emily instead.
Excuse the mess in the background, it's tidier than it was, but the blue box is my rain bucket for colloect water for my plants.

I picked her up this morning, apparently she's about 25 years old, was used a lot but hasn't been for a few years. As well as the wheel I've got a drum carder, a couple of hand carders (on the bench) a lazy kate, 2 bobbins, a bobbin of green silk, and some magazines and spinning books. The lady said she'd call me if she finds anything else.
I gave her a box of chocolates and a very good bottle of wine, and lots and lots of thankyous.

Today has been spent gardening. We were going to go to Ormy, but the sun was shining, the garden needed doing, and I wanted to play with my new toy.
I resisted cleaning the wheel up (she was very dusty) until I'd planted all the plants I've bought recently. I now have 2 belfast sinks potted up, some hanging baskets, and a load of flowers in the front garden too. I also have a very achey body and sunburn.

The belfast sinks look really good now they've got their new coverings and plants in them. It's a good job they look good too, because there's no way we'd be able to shift them now, they're so heavy!

A bit boring now, but the should look great in a couple of weeks.

[manchesterfreecycle] OFFERED: spinning wheel & carding machine - M21 Chorlton
Dark brown wood, small spinning wheel in working condition, not used
for quite a long time. Also carding machine & a few mags/books about
spinning.

Guess who just got their name picked out of the hat.

EEEeeeeeee!

I'm picking it up tomorrow.

If Sezer gets booted out of Big Brother tonight then today will have been a truely perfect day.

Hello, I'm back.
Disneyland was FANTASTIC! But I pity all those parents who took all those children. Their bank balances must be feeling very poorly now. The place is sooo expensive. £35 for a main meal and a soft drink for 3 people, and that was the cheapest restaurant we went to. If you then add in all the merchandise which is thrust at you from all sides you'd need to re-mortgage if you took a child, or have your child screaming constantly because you're not buying them things that they Need.
There were so many things there that I needed to buy, but I was very good and restricted myself to a couple of books about how to draw cartoons, and a limited edition Dopey Model Sheet Picture which I fell in love with on the first day. I waited till the fourth day incase I saw something else, but nothing matched it so it's now adorning the living room wall.

Unfortunatly since I got back I've been feeling rotten, a mixture of hayfever, and a few particularly unpleasant ailments which I think have been brought on my the stress of the whole holiday. Not that it was particularly stressful, but being on duty for 4 days straight, takes it out of you. We also had a few hassles on the first day, like arriving at 11am, but not being able to get into our room till 3pm. I nearly cried when we found out, I'd been up since 2:30am and had only had 3 hours sleep anyway. When we did manage to get into our room we had other hassles to sort out too. Thankfully from the next morning everything went smoothly, but my body is currently hating me for the trauma and sleep deprivation it went through, so a trip to the doctors is on the cards for this afternoon.

In other news, Porl missed me, the cats missed me, and in 4 weeks time I do it all again, but this time for a week in Cornwall with a different staff memeber and a not quite so easy client.
*Sigh*

Passport - yep
Tickets -yep
Suitcase - yep

Absolutly conviction that I've forgotten something - Yep

EuroDisney here I come - well soon, I'm getting picked up at the horrible time of 2:30am. Best try to get some sleep.

That epic post down there looks so daunting, so I'm shoving it down the page with a nice short (I hope) post.

Today has been an odd lazy day, I got up early, had a fantastic appointment at the doctors (more on that in a sec) then when I came home I fell asleep, I've spent the rest of the day feeling vaguely confused and hungover. Very Odd.

The doctors was great though. It's taken us 18 months to get around to registering with a doctors here. We went for our new patient health check a couple of weeks ago with the nurse, and the subject of my excema came up. The nurse told me to go and see a particular doctor in the practice because skin was her speciality.

Anyone who's met me will probably know about my excema, I get it on my hands and on my scalp and it drives me nuts! The stuff on my scalp is also embarrassing because it looks like really bad dandruff, but no dandruff shampoo will shift it.
My job means I have to wash my hands a lot, and if I'm honest I'm a little obsessive about washing them anyway. After a normal day at work my hands are very dry, they crack and bleed and I keep scratching at them anyway. Actually I rarely scratch, I rub them on the edge of my jeans pockets or the creases which is just as bad as scratching.
My hands tend to heal up when I'm at home because I'm lazier :) I don't clean as frantically as at work, and we have a dishwasher. But as soon as I go back to work and they're sore again.

So I saw the nice doctor, she was lovely and very helpful. She asked all about my allergies and family history. She gave me a proper explanation about what excema was with diagrams and everything! No-one has ever done that before, so I now have a better idea of what to avoid, why to avoid them, and how best to treat it.

I came away with a bag full of goodies, which cost a fortune, but if they work I don't care, but even better than that I came away with the feeling that for the first time I'd found a doctor who actually cared and hadn't just fobbed me off with another steriod cream. In fact she's given me an Emulsifying Emolient which I can use to wash my hands with instead of soap and it'll work as a barrier cream. It seems to be working, my hands are much soften than normal and haven't itched... too much... all day. What's even better though is I don't need a prescription for it and it'll work out far cheaper than all the pots of hand cream I get through in a month.

While I was in the chemists and asking about the Emolient I was approached by another customer. She's just set up an online shop called Summer Naturals selling natural holistic products for both household cleaning and personal hygiene. A lot of the things she sells are things I've been looking into using anyway, I hate using so many chemicals for cleaning, but it's not very easy to find things like soda crystals, borax and citric acid. This shop sells them all though, and lots else besides. I like her ethics too, she uses all recycled packing most of which she gets from the shop across the road, but she also put a post on Freecycle today asking extra packaging.
I think I'll be buying some soap nuts for my washing, and maybe some ingredients for making my own soaps too.

Well my excuse for being gone so long is that the sunshine has been tempting me outside. I'm making the most of whatever sunny days I can get out there, it won't be long before the air is completely pollen laden, and I become a Sneezy, Grumpy soul. Actually hayfever also makes me quite Sleepy and Dopey too... more Dopey than normal. I doubt it'll ever make me Bashful or Happy though, and Doc, well I've never quite understood what Doc was all about.

Anyhow what have I been up to?
Well the garden has a few more plants in it, a lot less weeds, and hopefully less ants. There's an ants nest somewhere under my front garden so I went a little berserk with the ant powder. I know ants aren't the worst bug out there, and they do no harm to the garden, but my first trip abroad when I was a child left me with a hatred of them, seeing them crawling everywhere, even out of plug sockets will do that to a young mind.

I've also been making mudpies and playing with ModPodge.
The mud pies were for my Belfast Sinks shown in the earlier post. I got the sinks last year off Freecycle to use as plant pots, but even after I cleaned them up they still looked messy, so Dad found a recipe, 2x sand, 2x peat, 1x cement. Mix it up, cover the pots, then moss and interesting things should start growing on them quite quickly. I've only covered 1 so far, I wasn't certain whether the mixture would stick, but it seems to have so next week I'll put some plants in it and make more mudpies to cover the other 2 sinks.

The adventures in ModPodge were even messier than the mudpies. Mainly because I was sensible with the mud and wore gloves, but ModPodge is only PVA so getting covered is half the fun. Porl commented on it being like "Fun Excema". I've not finished that project, but I'm halfway through covering a box with postage stamps. I'll be getting merrily messy again next week.

The big news of the day (other than Liverpool winning the FA Cup) is... I won Craft Idol!

The final theme was "My Hero". Well my heroes are my parents, for being generally ace people, being great crafts people, passing their love of crafts onto me, and lastly for generally spoiling me rotten.
I was going to try to make a doll, but I wasn't happy with it, and I'd set myself a personal challenge of doing a different craft in each round, so I made a necklace instead.

My parents initials are "R" and "S". So the chain is made up of lots of "S"'s and the pendant is 2 "R"'s. The beads are from a necklace of my Grandma's. She left me lots of costume jewellery. She asked that we not sell it, but she knew I made jewellery so I hope she doesn't mind that I've been dismantling it.

Porl got more into this competition than I did, he's much more competitive, he's been asking every day whether I've won yet, so when I told him the results he was dancing around the kitchen. On the other hand I always feel slightly guilty about winning things and feel other people deserve it more. I was really pleased with my last entry, but I know I only scraped through on some earlier rounds, the work people have put in has been great, and the different takes on the themes and the range of crafts has been amazing.

I've also been busy having a bit of a re-organisation. 1 trip to Ikea, 2 evenings with the glue and hammer, and 9 episodes of Buffy S7 produced a lot of boxes.

It took a couple more days and my Craft Idol entry to get the remainder of the series finished. It was very good, not as funny as earlier series' and it left me with a vague feeling of confusion. I'd watched them so quickly that I didn't realize I was on the last episode. Also the little bits I've heard about the ended were wrong, I was expecting different people to die, so when my favourite character died I kept expecting him to come back. I guess I'll just have to watch them again to see if the confused feeling goes away. :)

Update on the mouse. It seems to have defeated the cats. I made sure they were inside for at least some of last night. This morning we have no "presents" on the doorstep, and the mouse is no longer under the sink. I'm not going to start worrying about where he might be instead, there are plenty of hidey holes outside, and if he found some way into the house the cats have proved they would soon sniff him out and set up a vigil to draw my attention to him.

Our garden has turned into a haven of wildlife this past week. We've had a hedgehog scurrying around the patio at 4am. Then this afternoon a squirrel came running down the steps, right up to the patio window. It stood there with his front paws against the glass peering in. Then scampered off down the side of the house before I could turn my camera on. Gonzo slept through it all.
In the 18 months I've been here I've never seen anything more interesting than a Great Tit, we get Blackbirds, Magpies by the dozen, a lot of Chaffinches, Wood Pigeons (Although these would count as "Flocks" which is what my Mum calls particlularly fat Wood Pigeons. Far too fat to be counted as just 1 bird.) Then very occasionally a Robin or Great Tit, so Hedgehogs and Squirrels are something to get excited about.

We've also had some new kittens hanging around. (Anyone not remotely interested in cat/kitten escapades stop reading here.)
The most frequent visitor is Ollie. He's a jet black kitten who is impossible to photograph, partly because he's jet black and absorbs all light, and partly because he's a kitten and doesn't keep still. Every photo I've taken is a blurred black smudge, occasionally I'll get a picture of a black blob which has glowing eyes and a red name disk. We first saw Ollie a few months ago, but these past few weeks he's been practically living in our garden.
As I write Ollie is sat by the patio doors waiting for Duke to come out to play, and Duke is sat the other side waiting for me to let him out.
He's very timid of us so he hasn't been in, not that we'd tempt him of course, he obviously has owners, he has a name tag, we just want to play with him!
He loves Duke though, I think it's because Duke usually tolerates being randomly attacked in a playful kitten manner. Gonzo on the other hand doesn't, ever, and fights back in earnest. Ollie has quickly learnt to avoid this kind of play with Gonzo.

Our other kitten friend is more restrained, literally. Our road is too busy for a kitten to be near so my neighbour is taking him out in the garden for walks on a leash, (which he keeps escaping from). He's called Frankie and if he keeps still for long enough you can tell he is the double of Gonzo. In the 6 weeks he's been at my neighbours he's trashed several of her ornaments, all her plants are now outside because he knocks them over and eats them, she's covered in cuts and bites, I'm covered in cuts and bites, and the other kitten she got as company for him has had to go to another home because he attacked it constantly and it never fought back. He's now restricted to the kitchen. Duke has tried making friends with him, but Frankie keeps attacking him, (Duke is easily 3x taller than Frankie and probably 6 or 8 times heavier) thanks to the leash Frankie has been kept off Duke, and Duke is too soft properly to attack Frankie, he just play fights. However, whenever Gonzo sees Frankie there's full scale hissing and growling, which is quite funny to watch when Frankie is locked the other side of the kitchen window, or straining at the leash :)

Next week Frankie is going to the vets to have his bits chopped off. Hopefully being neutered will calm him down enough to enable him to join cat society without starting WWIII.

Sorry, still here, even have a post half written, but we have more pressing concerns right now that need our undivided attention.

Don't worry, nothing dramtic, just the non-internet parts of life like, sunshine, friends, work, friends getting engaged (Congratulations to both pairs), gardening, DIY, and getting thoroughly covered in ModPodge (PVA Glue to UK people).

I'll get around to finishing the post and filling in the gaps once the sun goes in, which might be surprisingly soon.

Mouse is looking for a house.
Mouse wants a house that is:
Not too big,
Not too small,
Not too hot,
Not too cold,
Not too wet,
And not too FULL OF CATS!

I love that the simpliest things can make you so happy.
Today has been full of simple pleasures.

We have hot water and heating again. The man came round at lunchtime and repaired the boiler, the second bonus was the price he told me the other day was for everything not just the part, which made giving him £200 just that bit easier.

My parents came up today which means the Spring/Summer season has officially begun. My brother lives near my parents, so he gets their help during Autumn/Winter when the weather is bad. When the longer days arrive, and the drive over the hill isn't likely to be bad they come over here. If they want to do anything to their own house it has to be planned weeks in advance.

We got lots of little jobs done today which will make life much better.
Dad drilled a hole through the wall for the tumble dryer. I can now dry clothes without having to have the patio door open. The luxury of warmth. We may also save a fortune on cat food as the neighbouring cats won't be able to get in and have a feast.
We also put shelves up in the hut. It feels like a proper little hut now. I might start spending more time up there. I'm pondering putting some curtains up, getting a comfy chair... and taking up pipe smoking.
Mum did a great job clearing rubbish out of the back of the garden in the bit of land the council have given us. So many bricks and pieces of metal (and the Thompson Twins single "Hold Me Now".) Our old fence has gone to the tip, and the land is all dug over ready for me put plants in... when I get some.

Now to browse the Ikea catalogue and decide what I might buy tomorrow.

A picturey post, because I've been uploading things to Flickr, but not mentioning them here.

First we have pictures of what I got in my first ever Craftster swap, which was a US<->UK swap.

My partner was Raindrops and she sent me some great stuff. I can't remember everything I asked for because I forgot to save the email, but I can't think of anything that she missed. Roughly clockwise from the left we have:
- Local college newpapers
- Darth Vader Chupa Chup thing who raises his sword in vengence
- Beeeeads
- A box with a metal butterfly in the top... she asked if I collected anything :)
- Stripey fabric with flowers
- Stripey fabric that everything is stood on
- A ball of orange yarn
- Peeps (I finally know what they are, marshmallows coated in sugar, but I daren't eat them)
- Mod Podge (It is just watered down PVA)
- A grow your own farm sponge kit
- Hershey Kisses
- 12 packets of Kool-Aid (I'm going to have a dyeing frenzy and make the house smell sickly sweet)
- Knitting Notelets
- A Light up American Flag
- Sharpies I deinitely asked for these, they're great, I've used them loads already, and I'm hiding them from Porl.
- A Crafty Girl tin of mints (which is so cool)

Here's some close up's of the fabric, and the "Crafty Girl" Tin.

Hopefully Raindrops should receive her parcel in the next couple of days, and I can post pictures of what I sent. I had great fun buying all the stuff, I think it might actually be more fun shopping for someone else than for me.

The grow your own farm kit seems to have grown me a Gonzo. Either that, or he's decided he wants to join in this swapping lark. I'll try to explain to him about planes, quarentine and customs, and I suspect he might change his mind.

Next pictures of my entry for round 3 of Craft Idol. I decided that as I'd done 2 different crafts for the first 2 rounds I'd try to do a different craft for each round. The theme was "Party Time" and you had to tie it in to a decade in the last century. I chose 1920's and did a lino cutting of Noel Coward.

I was quite please with the lino cut (even though it confuses the scanner and indents the raised areas), but I ended up rushing to do the finished card and I'm not happy with it. It's not 1920's in the slightest. I wanted to do a nice Art Nouveau border, and I should have done it in black and white, far more 1920's than blue.
Oh well, serves me right for leaving everything till the last minute.

We haven't heard from our little man today, he said he'd call as soon as he had the part for the boiler, but I'll be phoning him tomorrow to check he is coming back.
I'm so cold! The house is so exposed, and gets very little sunlight, so this morning when it was raining and I was shivering under my blanket I decided that the gas fire had to be lit.
Even during winter it has to be an exceptionally cold day before I resort to lighting the gas fire, but 4 days with no heating meant I needed to take the chill off the house.
Now I'm going to bed. It's warm there.

Still cold, but at least I have managed to get a lovely man to come out and look at our not so lovely boiler.

Not good news. The circuit board has gone, not the fan, so I'm currently looking for a nice surgeon to cut off my arm and leg. We haven't got a definite price yet, but we have been warned. *edit - a circuit board costs about £190. Gulp*

I was desperate for a shower this morning after having a particularly "shitty" shift. So at least something good has come out of this (I'm an eternal optimist.) I have finally got around to going swimming. Now I just have to keep going on all my days off. The pool is only open for 1.5 hours during the day, but there were only about 5 people in so it was quite nice. Tomorrow I could be really good and go to Aquaerobics if I get up early enough.... hmm we'll see.

In other news, we have another friend in Stalybridge. Daymaker may yet reform, as our drummer Danny has finally moved into his flat.
I think it's about a year since he first agreed to buy it, but it's taken forever. We went down there for a few drinks on Saturday, gave him a housewarming gift of shelves, and admired the echo. I might have to make him some cushions or curtains. Unfortunatly it was too dark to see the view, he can see our hill too, but he has other town centre type things to look at too, and in the opposite direction a wonderful scene of Cosmo Bingo's roof.

I now have 3 wonderful days off. Hopefully tomorrow the boiler will be fixed. I think Wednesday will be a gardening day as Mum & Dad are offering to come up. Then Thursday (payday) I might take a trip up to IKEA for some wooden drawers. I'm getting ready for the kitchen revamp Dad and I have planned, so I want to get my craft things organised in preparation.

We're spending this weekend reliving our student days in Chapel Street.

Our boiler has died, leaving us with no heating and no hot water, in fact it's worse than our student days because at least we could have hot showers then. At the moment the soonest it looks like we'll get it fixed is Tuesday, and that was off someone who charges £52 an hour! I'm in the wrong job. Tomorrow I'm on a sleep-in, so at least I'll be warm. I'll not be able to have my usual shower when I get in from work on Monday mornng though, it's essential to wash away the feelings and odours of work. I might have to go to Ashton baths on the way home.

Several of the people I've phoned have told me to phone the gas supplies shop in town to see if they can find someone with a couple of spare hours to help me. So far no luck, but I'll try again Monday.

At least the day has warmed up, it's relatively spring-like outside. I'm going to keep myself busy and warm cleaning up the mess I've created over the past few days.

Had a busy day.

I got a fantastic swap package from America... so much cool stuff! I'll post pictures when my camera batteries have charged up.

I finally went to Manchester shopping. (Armed with a very handy map.)

I went to Primark, could get out of there quick enough... so many people! But I bought a pair of jeans (£6) and a t-shirt (£2). Saw some nice t-towels and bedding too. I'll have to go back when I'm in a better frame of mind. Or the kids are back in school.

Then I went to Fred Aldous. My jaw did literally drop. I was very restrained, bought some googley eyes which were on sale, a tatting bobbin because Mum won't lend me hers, and something for my swap partner (not saying what just incase she reads this.) Then asked the lady who served me if I could come and live in the shop.

After that I went to Abakhans. I have been there before but didn't realize, I didn't realize there was an upstairs to it either. I stuck to the bargain bins, I love the idea of buying fabric by weight. I've bought some lovely stuff, and I now just have to decide what I'm keeping and what I can bear to part with.

I then got completely lost trying to find the Tourist Information (you'd think of all places that would be easy to find.) I couldn't find Afflecks either. Hunger and annoyance at people/traffic/cities (especially Manchester) eventually got the better of me so I made a hasty retreat.

All in all it was quite an adventure though, and one I will make again. I'll go earlier next time though and give myself more time to wander, or de-stress in a cafe. I'll definitely keep my map for next time too it was great, even if I did look a complete tourist.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some easier shopping in Ashton, I might even go to Hyde too.

So much for spring.
The last few days we've had almost constant showers, hail and thunder storms. This photo was taken at about 7pm tonight. The thunder was rumbling in the distance, Porl was trying to decide whether to unplug the PC's or whether the storm would miss us.

We did manage to get out into the garden for an hour yesterday and tried to dismantle the fence at the back. We've cleared a lot of rubbish, thankfully it's mostly garden rubbish, we did find a rotten carpet there and I was expecting limbs to fall out of it as I put it in the bin bag. Behind the neighbours garden there's a metal bed base, and a scary doll, I daren't look any further the limbs may have been dumped there. The fence is half down, but it's base is buried and the hail drove us back inside before we could finish digging it up.
My poor little daffodils are trying to flower, but keep getting beaten into submission by the weather.
Maybe tomorrow the weather will hold off for long enough to plant up my seeds... or at least long enough for me to take everything up to the shed and I'll plant them up in there.

It's been so long since I posted that I'd best update on what I've been up to.
The Euro Disney holiday is pretty much sorted, and hopefully be this time next week I'll be able to relax knowing that everything is also sorted for the other client holiday I'm organizing. We should be having a lovely week in Cornwall. If we can get all the flights, car etc sorted. I'm the only driver, and I've flat out refused to drive all that way myself. I'm hoping that the extra pay will cover a proper relaxing holiday for Porl and I, rather than a working holiday.

I've also been busy crafting.

This is my Easter Bilby for round 2 of the CrAftermath Craft Idol competition. I'm through to round 3. I'd never heard of a bilby before, but I was stuck for ideas and googled the theme "Easter Creatures" and he came up. He's an endangered Australian creature, about the size of a rabbit, but rabbits are bad in Australia, so the Easter Bilby delivers the eggs instead. My nickname on all the forums I haunt is "bilblio" so I couldn't resist making him. He's my first amigurumi creature too, I'm quite chuffed with him.
In this house the Easter Bilby leaves beads not eggs.

I've spent today crocheting myself a string bag. The space beside the fridge is getting full of plastic bags, we don't even use them to line the bin anymore, so I just store them until I get fed up, then they all go in the recycling bin. It's wasteful, environmentally bad, and it annoys me, so I'm going to try to change our habits... but first I've got to finish crocheting a load of bags.
I tried knitting a bag at first, but the pattern expected me to use crochet thread with 13mm needles. Not easy. So I gave up and went back to trusty crochet and winging it without a pattern.
Maybe if I come up with the perfect design (and stop ripping out what I've already done) I'll write it up as my contribution to saving the planet.

I'm going to meet Minnie Mouse!!! Weeeee! Excited!!!!

Going with work, client holiday, client will benefit loads, very hard work for me, 4 days on permanent duty, very tiring etc etc.

But still... I'm going to meet Minnie Mouse!!!
I was never bothered about Mickey Mouse as a child, but someone brought me back a Minnie Mouse toy from Disneyland and I loved her, from her red polka dot bow to her yellow plastic shoes.
Hopefully I'll see Dopey too, but I think all my other favourite cartoon characters are Warner Brothers. Where's EuroWarner?

This migraine is give me a few bizarre side effects to accompany the more normal memory loss, confusion and lack of balance.

First I have a weird taste in my mouth, the only thing I can describe it as is similar to the taste you get after you lick the end of a battery. (Don't try that at home kids.) But it's at the back of my mouth instead of on the tip of my tongue. This could be related to the non-drowsy decongestants I'm taking which are pumped so full of caffeine that they recommend not taking them after 6pm.

The other side effect is the ridiculously irritating earworm I've been suffering from all day. My brain is inflicting me with "Greatest ever Sing-a-longs for Kids" This morning it was "Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West", at the Craft Club I was inflicting myself with "There Once was an Ugly Duckling", and now I'm being irritated by "Gobollino the Witch's Cat", which is actually less irritating than the first two.

I'd consider going to sleep to rid myself of this torture, but I forgot to take the decongestant until 9:30 so sleep isn't likely to be happening anytime soon.

The last few days have been odd, I feel like I've been walking around in a daze, doubting things that I've done, dropping things and at work on Sunday I did the bare minimum of housework and just spent the day watching TV and keeping the clients happy. That isn't like me when I'm in the house alone at work I don't usually stop, I tend to go berserk cleaning everywhere... unlike here.

Yesterday when I got home I went back to bed then woke up with the most horrendous migraine, so spent the day laid on the sofa telly on, volume low, lights off trying to make my sore head stop and the sick feeling go away.

Thankfully today the pain is gone and I've eaten, but I still feel like I'm in a bubble, at least I can account for my behaviour and I know I'm not cracking up.

Tonight I'm off to Craft Club for the first time in months, I'm a bit nervous, I hate going back to things when I've missed a while. I've got to go tonight because I'm teaching there again next week so I need to find out about supplies and quiz people on what they want to do. Should I let them get on with what they want to do and just wander around helping them? Or should I try to teach them something new? Last time I tried to teach them something new I ended up with 2 people doing that task and everyone else doing there own thing but calling me over for help. Meaning the poor people who were trying to do the new thing kept getting abandoned. I always print out instructions for the tasks, but there aren't many who are able to read them.
Hmmm to much thinking for my achey brain.

I remembered to brave the cold today (it's trying to snow again) and take some better pictures of the Parrot (who I keep refering to as either a Crow or Frog! obviously he's neither). Big Piccies so you can see his eye which I'm very proud of :)

I'm quite surprised at all the piratey type props I keep finding around the house, although this particularly item is used as an unusual garden ornament. We did consider burying it in the garden of the old house before we left, but I'm quite pleased we packed it instead.

Also a quick piccie of my latest Freecycling. 3 boxes of Prima, Burda, and a few other craft magazines which I picked up the other day. They're all from the early-80's to mid-90's so a lot of the clothes are only suitable for fancydress, but there are some great basics clothes as well as all the ideas for around the house. So far all the ones I've looked through are complete with pattern templates and guidelines, and I've been sticking post-it notes on all the things which I like. The magazines all belonged to the late wife of the man on Freecycle. I wrote to thank him and told him about all my crafty friends, Mum, and the Craft Club who would get to use them too. He wrote back to tell me he's glad they've gone to a good home and he's got quite a bit of fabric around too so when he starts sorting that out he'll let me know!

I've spent today pretending The Lurg isn't returning, and making my entry for the CrAftermath Craft Idol competition. This weeks theme is Pirates.

What's under the patch?

"So that's why they call you One-Eyed Willie"
Actually he doesn't have a name yet, suggestions welcome.

The embroidered eye was Porl's idea. He also suggested I cut out a Skull & Cross-Bones to put on his hat. I told him if he could cut one out that small then I'd sew it on. I think I might try embroidering one onto the hat later.

Now though I'm off to bed. I'm due in work in 8 1/2 hours for a wonderful 24 hour shift. I don't mind the sleep-in shifts, except on days like tomorrow when I've got to spend 13 hours on duty with the one member of staff I don't really like. I can think of better ways to spend Sundays.

I know I've spoken about my family history research a little on here, but I try not to talk about it too much. The main reason is that I have a very unusual name, and I'm scared of internet stalkers. I also don't want random friends and colleagues finding my blog by googling my name, so I don't think I've ever mentioned my surname on here, and I avoid my first name too. If people want to find me for family research purposes then they can search the relevant websites, but they shouldn't stumble upon this place instead.

This week has been eventful on the research front though, the skeletons have come tumbling out of the closet and I need to get it out of my system. They aren't my skeletons either, so I can't reveal all. You'll just have to excuse the lack of names and specifics. I hope you can keep track.

My Grandad always had a fascination with our surname, and where we were from, when I was little I used to quiz him on the family, and he'd tell me the odd story. I remember whenever we went on holiday in the UK he would always remind us to look in the phone books to see if there were people with our surname living in the area. I don't think we ever found any. He always encouraged me to research the name, but he always stressed, "look up the name, but don't try to contact people". He never said why, and I never really thought to question it. Genealogy at the time meant trawling through archives at Family History Centres, and I was only a child, so this wasn't going to happen.

Grandad died when I was 14, long before I had any real chance of finding anything out. All I really knew was that Grandad had 2 brothers, both had died before I was born, we had contact with the family of one of his brothers, however the youngest brother had spent time in jail, and then had been in an institution because he was epileptic. He had been married, and had 3 children, but we had lost touch with them.

A few years after Grandad died Grandma let slip a few details about the youngest brother and why he had been in jail, but it was a slip of the tongue and she wouldn't tell us anymore, we didn't even know if it was true. (I suspect she'd had a couple of sherries at the time.)

In 2002 my Grandma died. When Mum and Dad were emptying their house they found a lot of old papers which Grandad had saved. I had a brief look through them, but it wasn't until the 2003 after both my Grandparents from my Mums side died within 10 weeks of each other that I really started wanting to know more about my family. I discovered GenesConnected, and within a few months had traced my surname back to 1600. Having an unusual surname makes life lots easier.

I couldn't keep my promise to Grandad not to contact people though. It's hard to research your family tree without making some contacts, and I'd still be struggling to get past the 1800's if it wasn't for finding distant relatives who'd done all the work before me. Mostly though my new found relations have been 7th cousins twice removed, or something similar.

That is until this past week.

The papers we found at Grandads had made it very clear that the 3 children of my Grandads youngest brother wanted nothing to do with us, but they still gave us no idea why. What they didn't tell us though was that there was a 4th child who had been adopted when she was a baby.

This child had known from a young age that she was adopted, when she was old enough she had found out details of her adoption, her parents names, and that she had siblings, but then lack of funds meant she couldn't continue. She found my details last week and emailed me. Since then she's been able to confirm what Grandma let slip, as well as tell me a whole lot more. In return I've been able to provide her with documents which may help her find her siblings, and show her for the first time photos of her father and 2 of her siblings.

I'm finding it hard to get my head around the fact my Dad has a cousin who no-one knew existed, never mind getting to grips with the information she has revealed about the family. I can't even begin to understand how she is feeling.

I had a play at dyeing this evening. The lovely Tangerine over at Craftermath sent me some Kool-Aid to play with, so play I did.

I didn't want to risk felting all my rovings, so I started out with something safer. A cream bag which I love, but never use because pale things and me don't mix.

I just used 2 packets of cherry first, but it was very pink, and I'm not really a pink fan, so a Grape one went in too.
20 minutes later, I decided the bag was as dark as it was going to get, so took the pot off the heat and rinsed the bag under cold water. While I was doing that I very gently placed some of my cream roving into the pot. I didn't stir it at all, I just left it soaking for 10 minutes, then careful took it out which trying to keep it nicely spread out. I rinsed this under luke warm water, then cold water, and left it to drip dry.

It seems to have worked. I love how the bag is so many different colours, but it's pink. I hoped cherry would be red, not pink. I think I should have gone with blue berry instead... maybe it'll go back in the pot another day. The roving has dyed brilliantly, and doesn't seem to have felted at all, but we'll see what it's like when I try to spin with it.

Then I got silly. The water in the pot was still very dark, so much potential, so I went hunting for things to dye. Normally it would be off colour undies, but I've just had a clear out, so a silk vest which I never wear got put in the pot.

I went and ate my tea at this point, so the vest ended up slightly tie-dyed. Or as Porl pointed out "like a Global Hyper-Colour t-shirt that's lost it power"

Porl saw the gleam in my eye at this point and ran for fear I'd put him in the pot. He was lucky... this time. The stained tea towels got dyed instead.

So that was my fun evening. Now I've got the confidence to dye rovings without ruining them I'm going to do some more, I've still got, berry blue, strawberry, orange and 1 grape left to play with... maybe I'll turn Porl a nice shade of blue in the process... he'll co-ordinate nicely with my slightly pink fingers.

The lurg didn't go away.
I made it into work on Sunday and as my shift went on I got gradually worse. I couldn't go home early as the lurg had hit the house, meaning the girl I was meant to be working with had called in sick and I was on with Bank Staff.
6 o'clock was hometime, my temperature had gone through the roof so I phoned on call to let them know I wouldn't be fit for my Sleep-in the next day.
I've been off all week but I've said I'll be back for my Sleep-In on Saturday when the new client is staying over.

I know I'm properly ill because I've been watching daytime TV, going to bed at reasonable hours, getting up early, and worst of all I've been able to sit watching TV without having the need to do something with my hands. I knew I was over the worst on Tuesday night when I started doing some colouring-in.

I'm trying to decide whether to bid on a spinning wheel. I've been persevering with mine, but it's definitly an ornament. I managed to get a little done, not wonderfully successfully, it kept snapping as the bobbin wasn't slipping the way it's supposed to, and the fibre was being wound onto the bobbin without any twist being added.

The wheel I've seen is on ebay. It's an Ashford traditional, it has a lazy Kate, 4 bobbins and some carders. At the moment it's still only £60 + £20 shipping with 30 minutes to go. It is a bargain.
This is about the 3rd wheel I've bid on, I keep missing out due to being at work when the auctions end. There was another I saw last night which I had a part missing, but parts can be bought. I changed my mind on that one at the last minute.
However, Mum has put me in a conundrum. She phoned this morning asking if I'd won the bid, I told her I'd changed my mind and was going for a different one instead. Her and Dad have been talking. If I wait till my birthday in August, they will buy me a brand new wheel. They're concerned something off ebay might not work.

So do I wait till August and get a brand new wheel which will cost my parents about £200?
Or do I bid on this wheel which has lots of extras, but costs me money instead? (I could only afford about £120).
Answers on a postcard, to me, to arrive in the next 24 minutes please.

*edited to add* I missed out. By 10 seconds! grrrrr really really annoyed now.

Tomorrow is my one day off this week (so much for only working 3 days a week... it all goes wrong when people take annual leave.)
So one day off, and what do I plan on doing... well probably lying in bed sniffling and feeling rotten. I've got the lurg.

I was going to post something interesting, but I seem to have sneezed it out of my brain and the thought is lost.

So anyway, some random words... like snow, great, except when driving home in it... spinning fun, but making ankles hurt... overtwist issues will be resolved... going to have fun with dyeing (pretty colours, not from cold).. nice person sent me lots of Koolaid for free.. like nice person... daring Porl to drink Koolaid... would rather eat whole lemons... have lots of lemons from pancake day... might eat them all to cure cold... been at work too much, causes all conversations to be cyclicle... is that a word? is it spelt like that? if I've made it up, then I mean to go round in a circle...

Think I'd best go to bed now.

Ni-night

I found bargains today;

Claires Accessories are having a sale. This little lot cost me the grand sum of £5, full price they would have been £64.50!

I also got this.

Celestite. It's quite rare, I've only ever seen it once before when I was in Durham, and it was very very expensive. Thankfully this lump wasn't.
I've been reading up on the spiritual side of it, and apparently

Celestite relates to communication and creativity. Its special attributes are its ability to enhance peacefulness and mental clarity...Celestite helps us to quiet the circular and repetitive worries that so often fill our mind

Also;

It is an excellent tool to use in the pursuit of the finer arts - painting, music, sculpture, jewelry, designing, etc. One of the finest qualities of Celestite is its ability to bring one into a state of bliss.

Mmm... bliss... Personally I think it's pretty and a girl called Celeste shouldn't be without a lump of Celestite.

As I was in the photo taking mood this afternoon (I'd found some batteries that worked). I thought I'd show off my bargains from Tescos.

These boxes cost just 97p, somewhere like Hobbycraft would sell them for about £4.99. (They also had some twice the size.) I bought 4, and spent a happy night filling them up.
Why is arranging beads so much more fun than making jewellery?
I went back 2 days later to buy some more, and they'd run out. *curses*
Does that mean there's more crafters in Stalybridge? I bet if there are they only do cardmaking.
Please let Tesco stock these regularly. I hope they weren't just a one off.

Tomorrow is MOT day. I'm hoping that thanks to the crash in September my car won't need any work doing to it. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other mundane news it looks like the council have given up about 3 foot of added length to our garden.
Over the past year they have been putting fences up around the front and back gardens of the council owned properties on the estate. The house behind ours is being worked on at the moment so my neighbour and I are rejoicing. The garden was stupidly overgrown and had a variety of household appliances dumped in it. My neighbour has been complaining to the estate committee for years because she was getting worried about rats.
Anyway it's being sorted now, for an idea of how overgrown it was, I'll tell you that it took 3 days to chop back the bushes and trees, and 2 to put up the fence. Their garden is HUGE, it's a corner plot which starts in line with my neighbours boundary, and goes all the way across the back of 4 gardens. How come people who don't want to garden end up with so much land?

This is what it was like, this was taken last year when we were just starting the deck, but it's the best one I can find of the mess at the back of the garden.

This is it now;

It still looks overgrown, but that's just the stuff they cut down waiting to be moved/burnt.
The fence posts have been put in about 3 foot beyond our fence, so we have gained a nicely pruned tree, and 2 clumps of privet which are the only thing holding our fence up. We were going to be putting up a trellis in place of our fence to keep all the rubbish from their garden out of ours, but we won't need to now, we'll just take advantage of our gift and plant it up with some nice tall shrubs (I bought a Mock Orange and Forsythia today from Poundland of all places), the privet will be going asap, I hate the stuff. We can hide the compost bin behind the hut, and all the random bulbs I keep digging up from the other parts of the garden (I should mark where I put things) can be put under the tree. So long as we don't build anything there no one can complain about us stealing their garden, we're just keeping it tidy. The council own the land, and the council chose where to put the fence, we just got lucky!

I avoided ebay for such a long time because I was afraid of getting carried away and spending too much money. It wasn't until I got my old sewing machine that I plucked up the courage to make my first bid because I couldn't have bought the antique shuttles I needed in any shop. Then I bought a few other things, mostly craft related because the shops around here aren't great and I can get better quality items from ebay for the same price.

But then I started looking for things that I don't need but would love like a Spinning Wheel.
I know, I know, I already have one, but using it is a bit like driving a 1980's Ford Fiesta. It sort of works, but not wonderfully. Unlike a fiesta though it looks lovely. So I've been looking for another one (with the idea of sending mine off to an auction house where it should fetch far more than the £15 I paid for it.) I don't want the Ferrari of Spinning Wheels, the Ashford Elizabeth, I know I can't justify spending nearly £300. But on ebay there was a Haldane which had loads of accessories with it. It was at £35.50, 1 bid, and 12 hours to go. The auction was due to close at 10:05am when I would be at work, Porl placed the bid at 3am, and I kept my fingers crossed. At 10:02am someone else beat my bid.
I'm gutted.
One day I will find a wheel which I can afford and I'll be at home when the auction is due to finish.

I think I'm getting used to doing sleep-ins. I managed to get a half decent nights sleep last night, even though I was still woken at 4am. I got home and actually managed to do productive things like open post, do some washing, book my car in for an MOT, look at the snow, and speak to my Mum for an hour. It was her 60th yesterday (Happy Birthday Mum) but what with being at work I didn't get chance to phone her till the evening when it was quiet... and they'd left the phone off the hook, so I missed wishing her Happy Birthday on her birthday. 3 phone calls today have made up for that.
I was still awake at 12 o'clock and thought I might manage to make it through the day. I went upstairs to get some more washing, gave Porl a hug and next thing it was 3pm and I'd just woken up... oh well better than previous sleep-ins.
Next week should be interesting, I'm doing a sleep-in Tuesday, finishing at 8:30 Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon I'm on a course, Thursday I do another sleep-in. I can't wait till April when everyone is back off holidays.

This 3 sleep-ins a week lark is killing me, everything aches, I'm exhausted, and I've still got one sleep-in to go.

Today I plan on doing very very little.
Last night I started knitting my version of a Booga bag. Noro is far too expensive for my tastes, so I raided my charity shop stash and found some mohair in purple, cerise and pink. I'm knitting it up with some cream aran yarn, on 10mm needles. I'm going to try some yarn painting when it comes to the colour change, but that idea may be scrapped if it changes the tension too much.

Tesco's offered me the perfect way to keep myself doubly occupied whilst knitting, as they are having a sale on CD's and DVD's. DVD's start at 97p... unfortunatly the cheap ones were all cartoons, but I couldn't resist 2 of my favourite films. "Bugsy Malone" for £2.84, and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" for £4.96.

My day is planned.

Shell if I do find some surplus energy, I'll pop down to your mums with the wool winder.

How can I twist my ankle in my sleep?
Last night I was on a sleep-in at work. I went to bed fine, woke up this morning and my ankle is killing me. I can walk, but I'm limping so it's wrapped up... and I'm trying not to do my usual trick of sitting on it when I'm using the PC.

Today has been spent mostly sleeping, as I expect will be happening most of this week. I was on a sleep-in at work yesterday, working 8:30am-8:30am, I've got 2 more this week, plus a few hours overtime on Saturday. The money will be good, but I'll look like a zombie by Sunday. My boss came in this morning and admitted he hates coming in when I'm finishing a sleep-in, not because he has any problems with me, but because when I'm tired I get really bad black eyes and I look like I've been beaten up. It makes him feel guilty for putting me on the shifts.

In between the sleeping today I've been rearranging my bookshelves.

Ever since Dad built these shelves I've been looking for some lamps, not easy as the lamps had to be shorter than the height of a book. Yesterday I found these in BHS which are perfect and I love them.

I actually saw them months ago but had no money on me at the time, and the shop is out of my way. I was passing yesterday and nipped in, just in case, and was amazed that they still had loads left. I bought 3, they were £10 each. Annoyingly due to my tiredness I managed to smash one as I came through the front door this morning. Thankfully it has glued together and the damage shouldn't be noticed. I think I'm going to buy 2 more so that all the lamps in the lounge are the same.
Then I just need Dad to build me 2 more shelves to fill in the gaps so I can fit the rest of my books on there properly instead of having them stacked 2 deep.

My olympic challenge has failed at the first hurdle. I thought the yarn would be a bit garish when it was knitted up, so I was going to stick to small things like bags and socks, but I've decided I really like it, so I'm now on a hunt for a nice cardigan pattern, I'm eyeing up the chicknits ribby, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough. Suggestions welcome.

I've found a photo editing program on my PC, so pictures as promised.

This is the patchwork blanket I mentioned.

It's not the best thought out patchwork, but it's full of memories. Clicking on the picture will take you to flickr where you can see all the notes showing where many of the patches are from.

I also love that the blanket is far from perfect. When I started making this aged 7 I was only just learning how to sew, so the stitches are visible and very uneven. I'd obviously just learnt how to do blanket stitch at one point so decided to use that to sew some patches together.

I'm having to go over a lot of these old seams as they are falling apart, but I'm trying to stitch them in a way that still shows some of my original immature efforts. Thankfully by the time I reached my teens I started going back over all seams as I sewed them, but there is still about half of the blanket which needs re-enforcing.

Last night I also had a productive night playing with my wool winder.
From this:

To this:

In just over an hour. It would have been quicker if Gonzo hadn't decided to "help" on the 7th ball resulting in a giant tangle.
When they were all wound Porl and I had a quick game of Curling in honour of the Winter Olympics.

We had a timely delivery today, just ready for the start of the Olympics, when the telly will be showing 24 hour sport, our new DVD player arrived. We've tested it, and it's successfully managed to play every CD & DVD, in every format we've thrown at it. I can catch up on all the films I've missed, and I might even get to watch S7 of Buffy. If nothing is on telly tonight I can stick a film on, and cast on my first sock using the yarn above.

I took pictures to try to make this post more interesting, but photos need a photo editing program, which I haven't re-installed yet. So I tried re-installing Photoshop, but it's not working, and my brain is too tired to work out why right now. I'll try again tomorrow.

Instead here are 2 places I've been reading a lot recently.
CrAftermath hurrah for UK crafters. Especially ones who have a forum (tomorrow I might get around to posting in there too.)
Also Whip Up, which is oozing with inspiration... a link from there even managed to inspire me to tidy out my material chest this evening!

Must also mention The AntiCraft which I've been checking every few days for updates... I sort of wish I hadn't.

Every crafty blog seems to be talking about the Knitting Olympics. I wasn't going to bother, however, the spirit of The AntiCrafts Team Angstylvania has caught me, it seems to sum up my feelings at the moment.
In the true spirit of the team I haven't a clue when the Olympics are, and can't be bothered finding out. I can't decide what to work on at the moment, but I bought a nice bamboo circular needle off ebay which arrived today, so I'll probably try making a sock out of the multicoloured yarn I bought from the G-Mex months ago.
I'll be chuffed if I manage to finish one though, I never finish anything...

We all know computers can be really annoying at times... but sometimes they can be ace.
Winamp Random play came up with the Chris Morris "Bushwacked" speech... basically a cut up speech by George W.Bush, saying about how he's going to bomb Britain, Canada, France, Australia etc, and fund the Muslims... very fun, but dark... followed by the nice cheery sound of "Here Come's your Man" by Teenage Fanclub. I giggled a lot.

Computers also let me use Freecycle. Last night a Tanglewood Left Hand Semi-Acoustic guitar was offered. Porl's semi-acoustic is snapped and beyond repair due to the makers, Washburn going out of business. We've been saying for ages we'll save up to get him a new one, but there's always something else more important to buy. I replied late last night to the offer, (actually 3am), we've had our fingers, toes and eyes crossed all day, but no response, so I think we're out of luck. Porl now knows the true feeling of Freecycle disappointment. The guy offering it hasn't posted a TAKEN message yet though so I'm not uncrossing anything yet.

I did try to weight kama in our direction though by posting about the spare lawnmower and strimmer that I wanted to get rid off. They were picked up this evening, so I have space in the shed again... and sod's law, the girl who picked them up also was on the look out for a shed, I told her she was 2 weeks too late.

Anyway, now back to watching Shameless... Those silly Manc's make me laugh...
I also like trying to spot the places when we looked at houses.

The PC is alive again. It was the Windows Update I did which killed the machine. I was still running Win2k as my machine was wonderfully stable and I'd never had a reason to upgrade it. But the latest Windows Update didn't like my brand of hard drive (Maxtor) so it wasn't recognising it. So we gave up on trying to fix the problem, and instead plugged the drive into Porl's machine, backed everything up, and installed XP. It's been relatively painless... so far.

It's amazing how much rubbish you can accumulate on a PC in 4 years. I thought I was relatively tidy with my files, but my machine is in the kitchen so it gets used by everyone, Porl, random friends, I suspect even the cats have a play on it at night. There are wierd files and images saved everywhere.

Why have I got 2 karaoke versions of "Lady is a Tramp" by Billy Holliday
Why have I got a folder full of McDonalds Recipes?
Why have I got a whole bunch of text files with random sentences on them?
"lacuna a blank space or missing part"
Who in Emmerdale said "I've got more bling bling than J'Lo" and why did it warrant saving as a text file?

I also need to learn to be a bit more descriptive with my file titles. Names like "Stuff", "Document" and "hgnbvadgs", really aren't helpful.

I really should delete all this junk, especially some of the rubbish in the "Received Files" my friends send me some very odd things over MSN, but there are too many things that make me giggle and remind me of stuff, so I guess I'll be stuck with a computer full of odd files and images... I'll just sort them out into tidier folders instead.

I'm using Porl's PC, if you don't press the "R" key in ust the right way then it won't work. I expect I'll soon tire of going back to delete the errors.
My blog I'll do as I wish.

**Update PC is fixed, and the lack of "R"'s was annoying me so it's been corrected... also why didn't I think of using spell check to correct it?**

Why am I using Porl's PC? Well last night I booted up my PC and was faced with that wonderful "Blue Screen of Death" or a similar Win2k version. Porl tried searching the net for a solution, based on the wierd error message it gave us, but we failed. So I'm now stuck with a week off work, and no PC to amuse myself with. I blame either The Sims, which I had just got back into, or the Windows update I remembered to perform having realized I'd not done it for seveal weeks.

I predict I'll do a lot of crafting this week, the house will be spotless, I'll also be very irritated at the fact I really wanted to get lots of scanning done this week and now can't.

But it's also a reason for Porl and I to get out of the house and have some fun days. The reason for my week off work (other than that I had to use the holidays up before the end of March) is that Thusday is the 10th Anniversary of Porl and I getting our act together and start going out. It hasn't been smooth all the time, we choose to ignore the odd weeks of insanity when we split up, only to realize that splitting up with a boyfiend/girlfiend is one thing, but it's not so easy to split up with your best friend at the same time. Who are you meant to turn to for the hugs and compassion you need at a time like that? When you still live with you girlfriend/boyfriend/best friend, the answer is obvious.
So 10 years... a bit scary really.
So we're planning a nice day out to Monsal Dale for a slap up meal in the Monsal Head Pub. Depending on how hungry we are when we get there will decide on whether we take a walk down the valley first. If we're hungry when we arrive then we'll end up eating first, then realizing that walking down then back up that hill on a full stomach would be foolish.
We'll just enjoy the view instead.
Well, I will, Porl is too scared of heights to get too close to the edge.

I've been inspired by all the lovely patchwork I keep seeing around, and I need a throw to wrap myself up in when I'm on the settee, so I've decided to try to finish the patchwok object I've been working on since I was 7.
I say object because it started as a cushion cover, then grew to single bed size, and is now almost double bed sized. I love it because it's made up of scraps of material mostly salvaged fom old clothes and bedding of my family. I can spot the material used in the wrap-around skirt Mum made me (and I hated), there's a few pieces from duvet covers, several skirts of my Mum's, some of Dad's shirts, and the shirt my brother wore on holiday when he was posing in his glasses, thinking he was Tom Cruise. It's not as stylish and colour co-ordinated as some of the others around, but it's full of memories for me.

... and I cant post any pictures of it until my PC woks again...

Grrrrr why am I so reliant on something that can be so tempremental?

The break off work is over, but I'm still feeling lethargic and groggy. I did manage to accomplish some things though. Sunday I managed to get rid of the horrid plastic shed/bunker in my garden to someone on freecycle who was in need of one. The decking looks much bigger now, and it spurred me on to spend an hour in the garden planting some bulbs (which should have been planted in December.)
While planting the bulbs I dug up some others that Mum and I planted last year and I'd forgotten about, and as soon as this lot were in the ground I promptly forgot which bulbs I'd planted where. However, as I've also forgotten the names of the bulbs it makes no difference anyway. Spring will probably bring a riotous clash of colour to the garden.

I've also been busy scanning in all my Genealogical stuff, which meant another inevitable hunt online to see if I can find anymore ancestors. I think I've found some, but there will always be some tantalising mysteries.

I love researchng my family tree because of these mysteries. For example, I have this photo.

This is my Great Great Grandmother Annie Eliza Longden. I know this because it's been written on the back by either my Grandma or my Great Aunt Doris who would have known her.
Apparently the Longden's were quite well off, they donated Wadsley Scout group the large hut they held their meetings in. I spent a lot of my childhood playing in it too, but unfortunatly after a hundred years or so of use it was burnt down a few years ago by some bored teenagers who weren't interested in Scouts.
Annie's parents weren't very happy about her marrying my GGGranfather John Charles Machin, as he was wasn't well off, so we think she was dis-owned.
The problem is that I haven't sent off for a marriage certificate yet, so I don't know what Annie's parents were called, or how they got their money (if they had any.)

However thanks again to helpful relatives writing on the backs of photos I do know though that this is Annie Eliza's mother.

I find it fascinating that I can have a picture of someone, know what relation they are to me, but not know their name, (or what made them so miserable).

On a side note, because of this photo and the fact that I had an old Gypsy dressing up outfit from this side of the family, I thought that we were decended from Gypsies until I was well into my teens when someone put me straight.
Only then did I realize that the Gypsy outfit was fancy dress, not real... not many Gypsies had black velvet shorts and waistcoats, and pink silk shirts and head scarves.

What's even more frustrating though is that I also have these 2 photos.

The only writing on the back of these pictures is "This must not be taken as a specimen of Wright Bros. Work, as it is a Copy of an Old Photo". No helpful names for me, but there is definatly a family likeness between these 2 and Annie Eliza. I'm not an expert of dress styles but these are from a much earlier period (you can't see it very well on the scan but the woman has a frilled white cap on.) It could be that this woman is a younger version of Misery Guts, or they could even be Misery Guts' parents, and so my 4xGreat Grandparents. I doubt I'll ever know for certain who exactly they are, but it's things like this that keep me hunting for ancestors.

I'm having a short period of hibernation at the moment. Normal service should be resumed soon... I hope.

Hibernation has been caused by having spent a lot of days in work (for me anyway) which earns me a nice break of a few days. Unfortunatly the first few hours of the break were spent in hospital with a client. Thankfully everything is fine, but it did make me realize how attached I've got to them already.

I'm also hoping hibernation will help me kick the bad cold which I got just after new year. The sneezing has gone, but it's settled on my chest making breaking a chore, and I'm exhausted all the time.

I've got so many things I want/need to do, but I don't seem to have the time... actually that a lie. I have the time, just not the energy. I need some dynamite. Tomorrow I'm off to see Mum and Dad to pick up some old photos of ancestors which I can scan in with my new scanner (which is ace!).

There are other things I need to do (go to Stockport shopping, meet up with Shell, do some gardening) but all I want to do is sleep. Hopefully I'll get some energy if I sleep well tonight.