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.