Hello!

Sorry for the apparent disappearance from the face of the earth, especially after all the lovely comments everyone left. I seem to have spent the past few weeks either working, sleeping, or in the den I've created on my sofa with a warm blanket, a good novel, (or baby related info), rubbish TV, occasionally some beads, and sometimes a cat or two.

So far I'm thinking myself quite lucky that I've not really had morning sickness. Tea-time and middle of the night queasiness, but nothing in the morning. I've also discovered that lashings of ginger ale and the odd ginger biscuit work wonders too. Although I've managed to keep the sickness at bay so far, I haven't managed to do the same with all the bugs going round. I seem to have had a constant cold for the past 4 weeks, it came to a head this week when it finally kicked off my asthma so I've had to have a couple of days off work. I'm feeling mostly better, still exhausted, and most of the time my brain feels like it's been replaced by mushy peas, but I'm back in work tomorrow, and just trying to focus on the fact I have 3.5 more shifts before I get a week off. It'll be a hectic week though as I've done absolutely nothing Christmas related, so they'll be shopping, decorating, visiting, and maybe some baking to do too... or maybe not.

I did have other things I wanted to say, but unfortunately my brain has wandered again, and the mushy peas are back, the rest will have to wait, though hopefully not as long.

I quickly want to say how grateful I am about how generous people are being, from particular friends who keep finding un-needed baby things for us. To how my parents are doing wonderful refurbishment jobs on 35 year old baby things which were used not only for me and my older brother, but also the numerous children my Mum looked after when she was a child minder. I always thought they were a bit nuts not getting rid of things like our cot and high chair, as well as all the toys we had, but now I think they were very savvy.

Shall I do the Good News or the Bad News first?

I'll get the bad news out of the way.

My neighbour died last Friday morning. I'm relieved for her families sake that it was relatively quick, when my Grandparents were ill it dragged on for months/years and it took its toll on even the toughest members of the family. It's still hard to deal with though. There are quite a lot of questions about her care that need answering, I hope things are sorted out quickly so that her family can move forward with their lives.

Now for the Good News.

The circle of life continues.
I'm pregnant!
I've never really kept track of my dates, but as we have been trying for a couple of months I've been good and written them down. Of course once I'd written them down I instantly forgot them.
I've been feeling a little queasy, but I've been upset, and I do tend to feel queasy when I'm stressed or upset. I've also had a sore stomach and boobs, but that's normal PMT for me.
On Saturday night I had a tough night at work. I didn't get much sleep, but did have a lot of time to think. I was getting cheesed off with these ongoing period pains, then something clicked in my brain. I did a bit of googling, and realised that instead of PMT it could be a sign of pregnancy. When I got home Sunday morning I dug out my bit of paper and realised I was 11 days late. *gulp*
Porl was still asleep when I got home, and I'd had no sleep so I went straight to bed. I woke up at about midday, told Porl my suspicions, then dissapeared off to Sheffield for the night as it was my Dads birthday, leaving Porl to pace the house and drink lots of rum. I broke the news to my family later in the afternoon, then on Monday I did a pregnancy test which my sister-in-law had which confirmed everything.

So that's the good news. I've been to see the doctor today, he didn't even bother doing another test, but gave me lots more information to read, and worked out that "Blob" (which is what is currently looks like) should be due about 11th July.

Apologies for the "Woe is Me" post, but things aren't so great around here. My neighbour who was in hospital the other week is seriously ill. She's back home now, with all her family around her and she's not expected to live much longer. We were told last week she had about 6 months to live, but the next day we were told it was actually a matter of days.

I think it's rare now to be so close to your neighbours, especially for someone of my generation, even more so as she's nearly 50 years older than me. But when we moved here 2 years ago we knew no one and very little about the area. I've got to know her well, chatting over the garden fence, she's become a great friend. She's taught me about the local area, treated me with plants for my garden, and left-over pasties from the cafe where she worked. In return I did some of the tougher jobs in her garden, sorted out her bins for her every week (the slope down from our house is dangerous even on a dry day) and gave her some company. Her family keep thanking me for everything I've done for her, but I think she's been a far better friend to me really.

I didn't see any of my Grandparents in the last couple of weeks before they died. Partly because I lived so far away and it was hard to get time off work, but also because as I'm the youngest of all the Grandchildren I was kept sheltered from it all (even though I was in my 20's when 3 of them died.) Seeing my neighbour as ill as she is has been harder to deal with than I realised, especially as we were chatting over the fence as normal 3 weeks ago.

I keep finding jobs to do round the back of the house in the hope one of her relatives will be outside because if I'm honest I'm too scared to go round and find out the latest.

I'm fed up with hearing bad news.
I thought I'd cried enough over the past few months.
I want the bad things to stop. Now.

Can I have the happy things back please?

A rare meme which took my fancy, from Craftapalooza


1. Flip to page 18, paragraph 4 in the book closest to you right now, what does it say?

If you are incapable of resuming work: see Incapacity Benefit.

The only book on my desk at the moment is "Directory for Disabled People" which I bought for work (for 10p) but brought home when I suspected my boss was about to bin it.

2. If you stretch out your left arm - as far as possible, what are you touching?
A small version of my parents Wedding Album. It was my Nan-nans copy. Mum brought it round for me today.

3. What's the last program you watched on tv?
News 24 this morning before putting the radio on.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is.
5pm, not bad, 4:54pm

5. Except the computer, what can you hear right now?
Music from my PC, Pulp-A little Soul

6. When was the last time you were outside and what did you do?
About an hour ago doing the gardening (hopefully last grass cutting until spring)

7. What are you wearing?
Jeans which have paint on and holes in, a purple vest top, a blue fleecey jumper, a black zip up jumper (it was really cold outside, I had a coat on too) and orange, yellow and grey stripey socks.

8. Did you dream last night? If you did, what about?
Nope, I've slept really deeply for the past few nights, a pleasant change.

9. When was the last time you laughed?
Today when my parents were saying goodbye.

10. What's on the walls, in the room you're in right now?
My framed Mil-looney-um Tazos, a Da Vinci sketch and a 3D picture of a country kitchen. Very mish mash.

11. Have you seen anything strange lately?
A surprising amount of ghosts and ghoulies when I drove home the other night.

12. What do you think about this meme?
It's good.

13. What's the last film you saw?
Haven't the foggiest, I think I watched "About a Boy" on TV about 3 weeks ago.

14. If you became a multimillionaire, what would you do with the money?
Pay of quite a lot of mortgages for people, and buy myself a lovely big house in the middle of nowhere... maybe on some remote island, but with a helicopter for getting back to see family & friends.

15. Tell us something about yourself that most people don't know.
I think how I am in work and how I am around my friends and at home is very very different. At home and with friends I'm very laid back and disorganised. I think my normal friends would be quite surprised if they spent a day with me in work, and that applied to all the jobs I've done in the past few years, not just my current job.

16. If you could change ONE THING in this world, without regarding politics or bad guilt - what would it be?
I'd make people realise that if they want a decent world to live on in a few years time we've got to sort out our environmental issues.

17. Do you like dancing?
Ooh yes.

18. George Bush?
Please God No!

19. What do you want your children’s names to be, girl/boy?
At the moment, Matilda (but she would be called Tilly-Mint) and Seth

20. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yes, depending on the country, there's a lot of countries I would hate to live in. I'm really happy living in this country though, I just want to move to one of our many little islands :)

21. What do you want God to tell you, when you come to heaven?
Too many assumptions there.

22. Who should do this meme?
Anyone who cares to.

Believe it or not there are actually some occasions when I make things. Quite a lot of things actually. The problem is I forget to take pictures, or they're sent off to another part of the world and by the time they get to their eventual destination the sense of achievement I felt about making them has been dulled by the fact the post office has taken 4 times longer to deliver them than they should have done, so I never get around to blogging about them.
So I will now do a bit of a catch up post.

Ages ago I took part in the Craftster "Foreign Exchange Swap". My parcel took the scenic 3 week route to Joanna in Germany, but at least it got there eventually.

Here's the group shot:

I would have been gutted had it got lost, not only because the crafted things marked a turning point in the relationship between my sewing machine and I, (we made friends while making those coasters.) But also because I had sent one of my precious bottles of Hendersons Relish which I have to import from Sheffield to Stalybridge.

As well as the Hendersons I sent some Yorkshire Tea, a CD of British music, a load of papers, tourist leaflets, takeout menu's. The crafted things were the little flower badge, also this fabric recipe box.

The recipes are all traditional and regional dishes, like Scouse, Black Pudding, Haggis, Eccles Cakes, Yorkshire Pudding (I did point out that unless she'd got some Yorkshire blood she's struggle with these), and also details on how to do a English Breakfast and a Sunday Lunch. I did a few cards on traditions like bonfire night too, with some Bonfire Night themed recipes, and a bit of information too on accents and dialects, as well as some other things.

Lastly I made these Union flag coasters which I have to admit I love! I was tempted to keep a couple and only send 4, but I was good and sent them all. I had to borrow a photo off Joanna, because I'm daft and forgot to take a photo of the reverse. I used blue fabric and different width ribbons for the flag, the reverse is some red, white and blue flowery fabric which in a previous life was a summer dress of mine. I only wore it briefly when I was 17 when for a few short weeks it was too hot to be a Goth, so I'm glad it's finally being used.

As usual this post has taken an age to write because I'm so easily distracted. I could use the extra hour I'll gain this evening by staying up late, but instead I'm going to use it by getting a much needed extra hour in bed. If I can avoid distractions I'll carry on catching up on Monday.

So this is one of the things which went wrong today.
The oven had been on for about 45 minutes 180C, there was a *pop*, not even a loud one, and the glass on the outside of the oven door had shattered.
It looks very pretty though, and I liked the crackling sound it made as it cooled and shattered more, it sounded a bit like Rice Crispies. It’s not very practical for an oven. There go any plans for nice biscuits for Porl’s birthday party, ad it’s a good job his Mum is buying a cake.
What confuses me most is that the glass inside is fine, it’s just the outside which is broken.

Other not-so-great news received today is that my Dad has an appointment at the hospital on Thursday. We knew this was coming as he has to have an operation on his heart soon so he’s going in for tests are in preparation. He'll be having a tube down his throat so they can put a camera down, it’s supposed to be routine, a 15 minute procedure. However last time he had it done it took an hour and a half, 4 nurses to hold him down, 2 consultants to get the tube in, and they even asked my Mum in, in the hope her voice would calm him. He fought them all the way, and this is all while he was sedated. He remembers none of it, Dad is as gentle as a pussy cat usually, he just really doesn’t like hospitals.
Hopefully Thursday will be better. I was going over to take them to the hospital, but the weather is due to be lousy and they've told me not to go.

After that news my neighbour phoned and asked if I’d go round. She's been sent to hospital tonight for some tests too, she's an old lady who I get on with really well, they're not sure what's wrong so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed. While she's in I'm looking after her psycho cat Frankie. This cat is unlike any I've ever met, certainly not the afore mentioned gentle pussy cat. He attacks anything & anyone, everyone leaves there covered in scratches and bite marks. When she first got him as a kitten I thought it would calm down but he hasn't. Even the vets refer to him as “Frankie the kitten from hell”.
My neighbour takes him out on a lead, with his temperament she daren’t let him out alone. Duke tries to befriend him, but Frankie just attacks him, Gonzo makes no pretence of friendship. I suspect a good thrashing from another cat would do Frankie good, but if I brought him round here I’m not sure who’d survive the fight.
I’ll be wearing my thick jumpers and gardening gloves when I go to feed him.

The last thing that happened today to cause problems occurred after an unsuccessful shopping trip to get Porl a birthday present. Somehow as I was getting back into the car I managed to thump the back of my head. I hit it so hard I actually felt my brain hit the front of my head and I wasn’t sure whether the front of back hurt most.
I spent a good couple of minutes sat in the car laughing/crying as the world span.
Several hours later and I’ve a lump on the back of my head, I’ve still got a headache, and my neck and back are really stiff.

So today hasn’t been the most successful day ever. I did manage to finish knitting a scarf though, I’ll take some photos of it tomorrow in daylight.
Right now I’m going to bed, there's not much of the day left, but I've had enough of this one anyway.

The bathroom has been painted... again.

I tried living with the colour for a week, I even put the cupboards back up, and put all the decorative things back, hoping that it might just be the bareness of the room that was putting me off the colour.

But no, it was the colour putting me off the colour.

I learnt my lesson and bought some tester pots on the way home last night, so the bathroom is now the pale bluey-grey colour that I had first imagined. Mum & Dad have been up for the day, so while Dad put some shelves up in our bedroom, Mum and I got the painting done, thankfully it only needed one coat. After dinner Dad "rested his eyes" for a couple of hours while we got the glossing done. I still need to do some touching up, and another coat of gloss, but I can now go in the bathroom without getting a horrible restless feeling.

Next weekend we paint the hall/stairs/landing.
It is going to be white.

We're quite proud of our Sunday Lunches at this house. We don't have them every Sunday as I'm often working, but they're certainly a treat to look forward to. We also know they're good because Porl's parents ask to come round to eat them.
One of the best things about a Sunday Lunch for us, is that it will also feed us for Monday teatime, and as I'm vegetarian Porl get's a whole chicken to himself, which means chicken butties until Wednesday. The cats also get the odd treat too. I like meals that last for a few days.

Our standard Sunday Lunch consists of; a roast chicken for Porl, roast potatoes, roast sweet potaotes, roast parsnips - which have been coated in parmesan, sprouts, 'special' mash - made up of normal potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and plenty of butter, stuffing, and Yorkshire puddings with sage and onion in. Also can't forget the gravy, I have Bisto onion gravy, Porl has his made with all the juices from the chicken. I also have mint sauce, the joy of being a veggie is you don't have to follow rules like mint with lamb etc etc.

It's a lot, but we don't have breakfast, we just eat this somewhere better 3 and 6 in the afternoon, then sometimes about 9pm we might be able to manage dessert.

We will always make a large saucepan full of 'special' mash, so that on Monday we can eat the leftovers. We often fry up the mash add some slices of fried aubergine and haloumi, then fry some red onion, baby tomatoes add lots of balsamic vinegar and serve with some salad. Porl will also have some of the chicken.
Another way of using the mash is to put it around some goats cheese before frying it up.
Whatever we do it's always delicious.

Yesterday however Porl cooked lamb.
Lamb is nicer for Sunday Lunch, but it isn't so good in sandwiches, and it's very expensive, so it's a treat he doesn't often have.
So he cooked the lamb and it was delicious (apparently).

I went to bed very early last night, as I was starting with a migraine, I woke at about 3am, couldn't get back to sleep, so laid there thinking of nice things to do with the lamb. I was still feeling ill, and craving comfort food, so I decided in the morning I would turn the rest of the lamb into a stew, I'd have a veggie stew and we could have dumplings.
Yum yum yum, fell back to sleep thinking happy thoughts.

This morning I woke up, came downstairs and noticed Porl had forgotten to put the lamb in the fridge. Now he might not have a Food Hygiene qualification, but experience of living with 2 cats has taught him to cover food that he wants to save. Our normally extremely well behaved cats know that the kitchen work surfaces are STRICTLY out of bounds. But the temptation of a juicey chicken, or joint of lamb has been known to tempt them so we ALWAYS cover the meat as soon as it comes out of the oven.

After making a brew and opening the door to let the cats out I went back upstairs to have a shower. I told Porl about my idea for stew which he thought was great, and we came downstairs to start making it.

I bet you can guess what we found...
The carefully covered piece of meat was no longer covered, in fact it was no longer there. Also mysteriously absent was Gonzo.
I couldn't help but laugh.
He had resisted the temptation all night until the door was opened and he was able to smuggle the meat out of the house. He returned several hours later without the meat, but looking as innocent as ever.

We still had stew and dumplings, but we had to go shopping for some more meat. Tomorrow we'll be having the remains of the stew in pancakes.

Both cats are being punished for Gonzo's behaviour, as we forgot to buy their tinned food when we were out. They're on rations of dry food and water.

I'm feeling very 'meh' tonight.
I've had a busy few days, and I'm back in work tomorrow. I don't want to go, I just want to relax. So 'meh'.

On Tuesday my parents came up and we got the last bit of the decking and garden done. For over a year my parents have been coming up and putting in hours of hard graft building the deck, putting on the railing, clearing the grass off the garden, cutting down the privet, and putting in a lot of plants. I've been there doing it too, but I have to admit my parents have worked far harder than I have. I don't know how many days it's taken in total, but it was a lot. It's been worth it though.

(This isn't the finished one, it's just to give you an idea, it's too dark to take pictures now. I'll update with a proper picture soon. I sometime wish that this picture was a true representation... there are 2 of me.)

Wednesday I decided to paint the bathroom. It was quite a dark blue colour, I loved the colour, but the window is so small, and the neighbours privet is really tall (look at the picture above) meaning we needed a light colour to brighten it up. It's also a problem because we have no windows on the landing and it's really dingy.

I got back from buying the paint to find that the Law of Sod had kicked in, and the neighbours were busy in the garden cutting the privet down. It was about 14ft tall, it's now down to ground level and our house is so much lighter. If only it was still summer, I'd have a sunny garden all day instead of just 1 hour in the morning and 2 at tea time. *sigh*
But I'd bought the paint so decided to carry on.
Except for the glossing, which will have to wait till Sunday, it's all finished...The only problem is, I'm not sure I like the colour. It's a pale blue, but not pale enough, I was wanting something a bit greyer, it's a bit icey. Porl thought I was joking when I told him... I wish I was.

So lesson learnt ALWAYS get tester pots. I'll either learn to live with it, or I'll be buying some tester pots in the next few weeks.

The other thing which happened on Tuesday is that my Dad gave me his camera (for the record, I do know I'm spoilt rotten.) He'd left it here accidentally a few weeks ago, so I'd played with it until the batteries died. It's far better than mine for many reasons, but the most important one for me is that it takes a lithium battery which stayed charged for ages, weeks if you don't use it. My old one took standard AA batteries which didn't last very long when you were using it, and still drained the power when it was turned off. Every time I wanted to take a photo of anything I'd have to go hunting for new batteries. Too much hassle for me, and the reason that most of these blog entries are dull and pictureless. Hopefully things will change now.

Lastly, thanks to my new camera, I have finally got around to taking photos of my charity shop finds from the past couple of weeks. I wish I'd taken part in the $99 thrift challenge
My first lot was from my new favourite shop Emmaus. This was my second visit there, to pick up the things I found on my first trip but could pay for because of a power cut. I skipped the furniture this time (well maybe a brief look) and spent over an hour going through all the books and bric-a-brac.
I got these books,

From the top down "Pope: Poems & Prose", "The Origin of Species", "The Divine Comedy", "The Faerie Queen", "An Inspector Calls", "Little Women" & "Course in General Linguistics".
What I love most is that a lot of these books are quite old editions. I hate new hardback books which are over sized, but I love old hardbacks which are easy to hold, and often have titbits of information about their previous owners.

I also got these great embroidery folders. It looks like a monthly subscription thing. 1 file has all the techniques and a lot of patterns for every time of embroidery you could imagine. The other file is transfers. Lots of transfers. There are 24 parts, each one made up of 2 A2 sheets of paper. I've been getting ideas for embroidery for a while but my drawing skills aren't what they were and new transfers are cheap. I'm a happy bunny.

I picked up some silver leaf shaped decorating transfers too. I won't be decorating with them, they're good for making cards.

All this lot, books, embroidery stuff, and transfers cost me the grand sum of £3.50! I love Emmaus.

Then on Thursday I was on a course in Hyde so during my lunch hour I found these materials.

Total price £2.00

I love the bumble bee fabric. Infact I bought some a few weeks ago in a different colourway which had been made up into covers for patio chairs.

Not very useful as they are, originally I thought of cutting them into patches. Now I have a big piece too I'll have to get my brain working.

The embarrassing mess from my last post is gone... sort of.
I spent that evening putting everything away, dusting, hoovering, and I even defrosted the freezer.
The next morning I came downstairs and decided to paint the rest of my storage drawers, and revamp my pin board. The tidy desk got destroyed, and for the past 2 days the living room floor has been covered in boxes and drawers which are newly painted and drying.
Tomorrow hopefully I'll be able to put everything back and take some pretty pictures of a nice neat desk.

It's days like these that I'm glad we've got no kids. I promise when we do have kids I'll be tidier... I'll have to be. I think getting all these messy jobs now is classed as nesting... I seem to always be nesting...

It's not a good state of affairs when you realise the only way you're going to get the house tidy is by embarrassing yourself into doing it.
I posted these to Craftster thread Share your Mess... Then let's clean it up

That's what happens after a month of illness, 2 weeks of annual leave, and a lot of crafting. Not that it's been like that for a month, it's just been gradually getting worse for a fortnight. I've been saying for 3 days that I'm going to put it all away, but it's not been happening. This isn't even a room I can just shut the door on, it's the craft/dining room end of our kitchen/diner.
Sometimes I wonder if letting Porl have the little bedroom as a music room was a good idea, or whether I'd have been better in there... I'm not allowing myself to start using the spare bedroom as a craft room, that way lies madness...

The embarrasment worked. The dining table is now clear, the bead drawers are organised again, and my desk is clear, I can use the mouse again, and I found my car keys!
I've still got some things I want to sort out, but they involve making a mess again, so I'll let the room be tidy for a night before I start making a mess again.
In the middle of this cleaning frenzy I did also defrost the freezer... that wouldn't have waited till tomorrow :/

I was supposed to be going on an NVQ course tomorrow, the second towards my NVQ II in Care, I've decided not to go though because I'm still on Annual Leave, and not bored enough of being at home yet to crave the real world. Also my bodyclock is totally out of sync, it's 3:19am, and I'm not tired.

My list of things still to do:

• Decoupage Horrid plastic index card box where I keep my family history stuff.
  
• Cover pinboard in some nice material.
  
• Paint rest of drawers white, and put the smarties fronts on.
  
• Finish decoupage on stamp box.
  
• Make filing cabinet less Grey.
  
  
• Build cupboard in corner to hide electric meter, mops ironing board etc, put proper work bench in, put shelves up, paint....
  
• Talk Dad into helping with the last lot :/
  

I'm hoping tomorrow someone will have received some post, so I'll be able to show some pictures of at least some of the things I've been making, if not then I might get around to posting pictures of my Charity Shop haul from a week ago.

Oh and thankyou to everyone who's wished me a speedy recovery from "the cold that will not be beaten". I did go to the doctors, it seems this lingering cold is doing the rounds, I didn't need antibiotics so I've just been on paracetamols and my asthma inhalers. After a month of having a cold I think it might have finally gone (I hope). Now I just have to wait for my irritating asthma cough to go... by which time knowing my luck it'll probably be winter, or flu season...

I'm getting beyond cheesed off now.
I started with a cold about 2 1/2 weeks ago, I was bad for a couple of days, then it seemed to clear up, I had a couple of days of feeling mostly okay, then I started with a stomach bug, then the cold returned with a vengence. I slept a lot and thankfully it seemed to disappear in time for Porl's brother wedding on Saturday.

We had a lovely day, Ste & Karen are a great couple. Karen's family were really friendly, and as they're Scottish there was plenty of whisky being swigged from the early part of the day. It was good to meet some more members of Porl's family too, I'm sure I've met them before, but this time seemed less daunting as there were fewer of them, and I also know Porl's Aunty really well as she used to be my boss.

Porl looked ever so smart in his Usher's outfit, and at some point I'll have a look at the photos and see whether they've turned out. It was 5am by the time we got to bed, thanks to a residents bar in the hotel, Porl having his guitar, and lots of Scottish relatives singing folk songs.

We got back home in the early afternoon on Sunday, we had a quick play with the cats, then went back to bed for a couple of hours. When I woke up the dreaded cold had returned, and this time sleep isn't shifting it.

My sinuses are blocked which means I can't breathe, and I'm getting headaches, it's also slipping onto my chest, so I'm getting out of breathe all the time. This afternon I decided if I pretended to be fine it might go away, so I did weeded and hoed all the back garden (there's a lot of it to do now we've dug up all the grass). The garden looks great now, but I had to keep sitting down while the dizziness passed. I think I can safely say that pretending I was fine didn't work.

I'm on holiday for 2 weeks (well 1 1/2 now) I'm not meant to be ill.
If I'm not feeling significantly better by Friday then I'm going to the doctors.

Post No. 2 of the day. Is this a record?

As I said in the earlier post I woke up yesterday feeling restless and needing air. I decided to follow some advice from Kirsty and I went to find a new charity shop in the hope of finding a TV table. The one we had was a horrible nasty Argos thing which we've had for years. A few weeks after getting it a friend fell over and broke it, but we still lived with it for about 6 years.

The place was huge! I wandered around but couldn't find anything, then realized there was an upstairs. As soon as I got up there I spotted this cabinet.

The front pattern matches the pattern on our welsh dresser, and the coal skuttle/shoe holder which are both in the living room. Quite lucky really considering the dresser is a proper antique, the coal skuttle was made by my Grandad, and this TV cabinet is made from chipboard and plywood. Also lucky because I couldn't have cut a hole in the back of an antique to push wires for the DVD player and video through.

I hurried downstairs to find out how much it was, £25, bargain! I carried on looking round, they have books! At cheaper than charity shop prices! I picked a couple up, then it all went dark, I carried on looking round in the gloom, they have bric-a-brac, clothes, yarn, patterns, a Celeste Heaven basically. Someone found out the whole village was without power as a substation had blown so they were closing the shop.
My disappointment at not being able to look around properly was soon put aside when they told me they couldn't access the tills. I had no change so I got the TV table for £20 instead.

I got home excited by my find, but my earlier restlessness had turned into illness. I felt rotten in ways I won't describe but I had to call in sick for my shift today, apparently I'm not the only one to have got this bug though.

I've spent today sleeping, lounging, and rigging up the TV... so many cables... It's all done now, and looks fantastic, I've even been able to unpack a box of videos which have been sat under the telly for 2 years since we moved here.

One day this house will be sorted.

On Thursday we went up to Liverpool for a tribute gig at the Everyman for Chris our friend who died a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I found it a lot harder to deal with than I expected. Ever since I found out about his death he's not been far from my thoughts which I've found quite hard to deal with in itself.

Chris was Porl's friend, they were at school together, they were in bands together, infact Porl was the one who first got Chris recording music and persuaded him to get a bass. Porl kept telling Chris he should be doing his own music, which is eventually what he did. When they left school they met new people and didn't see so much of each other. I probably only saw Chris a couple of times a year, usually we'd spend 2-3 days together doing things as a group, then not see each other again for another 6 months. We always did memorable things though, (like my first trip to Bugged Out, or setting off at 3am to walk to someones house 6 miles away, and many other things which a blog isn't the place to mention.)

The first time I met Chris he came up to my halls at uni, he made me laugh so much I ended up hiding under my duvet try to regain my composure so I could at least breathe!
Although Porl has told me he could have very dark periods, I can't think of a time that I met him when he was anything but happy, funny, and the centre of attention.
I think that's why I've found the idea of him committing suicide so hard to deal with.

At the tribute gig there were handout booklets of his Slak Fox cartoons, a donation got you CD's of some of the Monkey music. Also the walls were covered with posters from gigs, reviews up of the band, interviews from fanzines, and lots and lots of photos (especially those with John Peel.)
I was doing okay keeping myself together, but then at the end of the night I was sat next to one of the photo boards, deep breaths were keeping me calm until Porl commented on one of the pictures as being exactly how he remembered Chris, deeper breaths, they started playing a Monkey track and Porl fell apart, then I did.

We didn't get home until about 2am, but neither of us felt like sleep, so we sat up and watched a film together, a very rare occurrence for us, but our emotions were too charged to be able to sleep.

I woke up stupidly early yesterday considering my late night, but couldn't get back to sleep. I felt restless and in need of fresh air, I had a drive round and got a great charity shop find (which I'll do a separate post about). Then I went to a garden centre and bought some yellow Chrysanthemums for the garden. Whenever I picture Chris he's wearing a yellow t-shirt, lots of people at the funeral were wearing yellow, as well as all the flowers being yellow, so I'm pretty sure it was his favourite colour. Also the woman at the garden centre said yellow is for Friendship (I had to explain why I was crying while buying plants.)
I bought Chrysanthemums because the 2nd song Porl and Chris wrote together was called Chrysanthemum. The first was Christina. Apparently Chris hadn't realized the egocentricity of this until Porl suggested the next song should be "Chris is Great, Chris is Great, All Bow Down and Worship Chris."
But he was Great.
Yesterday would have been his 30th birthday.

Still here... sometimes anyway. I've been working a lot of overtime these past few weeks, it's usually 1 extra shift a week, but my shifts are either 11 or 24 hours long. My pay check will be happy, but I'm spending my life in a permanent daze. I keep having to ask people what day it is because I honestly can't remember anymore. Thankfully I've got 1 more 24 hour shift, then I get a whole 2.5 days off! Then I'll start the countdown to my fortnight off.

So not much time off, and not much news to share... I'm sure there is loads, but I can't remember any of it.

We did go to the wedding of our friends Gareth and Nareda, had lots of fun, caught up with lots of friends, got compliments about my ruby slippers (they've been the hit of the summer), then on the way home Porl and I planned our own wedding. We even picked a month!

Never fear people, we woke up in the morning and realized it was completely and utterly impractical. We're going to continue living in sin for now. Who needs a marriage certificate? We've got a joint mortgage!

Earlier in the night we'd been discussing with another friend Jay how we'd be coming back to Gareths 50th anniversary party and still asking each other "so are you guys thinking of getting married?" That seems like a good plan to me.

On the crafting front I've been relatively busy, making some fun swap stuff for Banga off Craftster, I can't show it though or it'll spoil the surprise, but I will show what she sent me (she's far more organized than I am.)
It was a Foreign Exchange swap, so I've been doing lots of things about the UK, and Banga has sent me a guide to Rhode Island.



First I have this fantastic Rhode Island Recipe book. Rhode Island is known as the Ocean state, so there's plenty of fish and shellfish things for Porl to try, plus lots which I want to try like Spinach Pie and Wandis. Banga also made me the cute lobster keyring, and some sea inspired bracelets. The bottle is Coffee Syrup which apparently Rhode Islanders crave, and no-one outside of Rhode Island has heard of... sounds like a certain Relish I can't live without. Banga also sent me loads of newpapers and magazines which I've been reading, as well as some handy magnetics for food places. I wonder if they deliver to Stalybridge?

I've also had a great Freecycle donation. Two bin bags full of material. It's actually for the craft club, but there's So Much good stuff. The craft club is closed for the summer, and they're short of space there, so while the material is living at mine I'll make some things from it, then make some more for things for the club to sell, then pass on whatever's left.
I did take pictures of the neatly organised piles of colour co-ordinated fabric, but I seem to have deleted them during one of my stupid moments.

Lastly, my "it's a small world moment". I've been reading Vintage Pleasure for a couple of months, enviously eyeing up all her charity shop finds, wishing that I had the space or style to make them look at home in my house, but mostly wishing I could find anything nice in the charity shops round here.
Then this week I realised she lives about a mile away from me.
I'm obviously just looking in the wrong shops... with my eyes closed... or maybe I just don't have her talent.
She's been very kind though and pointed me in the direction of some places I haven't heard of before, so I'll be visiting some of them next week with my hard earned wages.

Must.Not.Buy.Craft.Supplies.Or.Boxes...
but I really would like to find an old dark wood TV table/video cabinet.

Unsurprisingly my birthday was a quiet one. I had a lazy lie-in and some breakfast, then the postman brought me some fantastic presents from the CrAftermath girls. We have a birthday swap on there, but I haven't been on much recently so wasn't expecting anything.

This lot is from Samsara:

Then these from PhizzyChick:

And last but certainly not least, these plant markers from teraspawn who is the swap organiser. Thanks to her I had parcels to open on my birthday :)

These were probably the highlight of my day, and certainly cheered me up first thing in the morning. Thankyou Girls!

At dinnertime Porl and I went to Quarry Bank Mill, which is an old cotton mill near here. I've wanted to go for ages, but talking Porl into these things isn't easy, so I took advantage of the fact it was my day to do what I wanted. My dinner wasn't too great, I hate chilled quiche, but it was interesting seeing all the machines, a shame that a lot of them weren't running. The demonstration of cotton spinning made it look SOOOO easy, but I know it's not.

We came home from there, Porl made me some nice veg and haloumi kebabs, then we had the fun task of trying to get in touch with people and tell them the news.
I share my birthday with 2 of Porl's other school friends, and we'd been asked to let them know about Chris' death. We got in touch with one friend and he decided to spend last night in the pub with us, the other friend is celebrating his 30th this year and we think he's gone away for the week. Either way we've not been able to get in touch with him.

Tomorrow is the funeral, so we'll be up very early to fight the rush hour traffic and get back to Ormskirk.
I've done a birth, a marriage and a death in 8 days.

I've just spent a lovely afternoon meeting my beautiful, 5 day old niece Evie, then to my parents for tea and a failed attempted at repairing their computer.

Came home got annoyed with Porl, very rare, but probably justified.

Phoned a friend following an unexpected email and found out that one of Porl's oldest friends commited suicide a few days ago.

It's my birthday tomorrow.

Duke is outside on the patio torturing a mouse as a present for me.

I had an adventure today, I went along to the North Cheshire Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers. It's near Warrington, which is about 45 minutes from me, but it's the nearest one. I've been promising myself I'd go, but kept chickening out, then I realized that Ali, whose blog I've been reading for a while, is a member. I love how blogs give you enough information about people to think of them as friends even without meeting them, so that, added to the fact her photos of meetings showed young people gave me the extra courage I needed to go.

My plans were nearly thwarted by a colleague spraining her ankle, meaning I had to stay on at work and do the night shift, but thankfully the guys slept pretty well which meant I did too. I was still shattered, but I made it through the day without falling asleep (until I got home) I was just a lot quieter than normal.
We had a class on Rainbow Dyeing, which was good fun, I dyed some sample yarns which I'm sure I can turn into something, then I at the last minute I threw some merino fleece into the pot. I didn't soak it for very long, and wasn't expecting it to work very well but it seems to be a success.

I keep telling myself that next time I'll try muted colours, or shades of the same colour, but I always end up with rainbows. Oh well :)

Of course Gonzo had to get in on the action, and he got a slap for getting his claws stuck in the fleece.

Now I'm going to bed because I'm exhausted, and I have another sleep-in tomorrow. 3 more shifts till my next week off... and my birthday :)

Speaking of my birthday. We're thinking of having a barbecue on the Sunday beforehand, (if the weather is okay) it's the 30th July. Open invite to anyone who wants to attend. I'll probably get in touch with people a couple of days before though. I realize not everyone leaves things till the last minute like I do, so I'm trying to give people advance notice.

The fires are still burning across the road, they keep dying down in parts, then suddenly getting loads worse again. Shell took some pictures of them earlier today from higher up the valley. The area on her photos has got worse this evening, we can see flames there again now instead of just smoke. The helicopters were dropping water on them again early.

If we don't get enough rain by Sunday to put them out we could forget the barbecue and just go across the road to cook everything.

Sorry for apparently dropping off the radar recently. After coming back from Cornwall I had a week off, where I was busy doing house and garden things, then since being back at work I can't get back into the swing of it. I still love it, but I want another holiday. Quite handy then that it's my birthday in a fortnight so I've got another week off.

So what's brought me out of my lurkdom?
Dramatic Pictures!

There may be someone out there who hasn't heard that it's Really Bloody Hot in the UK at the moment. For that person... believe me, it is... Really Hot.

I've been at work today, lounging around, trying to keep cool, trying to keep clients calm and entertained on a day when they can't go out. I've spent most of the day on the phone, trying to get a new fridge before the one at work dies completely. That was pretty much solved when we had drama!
There is an area of the garden overgrown with trees which we never venture into, we were sat relaxing in the lounge when there was a huge *CRACK* as a large branch fell off one of the trees. It didn't fall to the floor but stayed suspended high up in the air, just about supported by the other trees. There was no breeze at that time, so it can only be the heat that caused it. We spent a little time trying to figure out which tree had fallen and whether it was likely to bring anything else down, but the ongoing creaks and groans convinced us it wasn't safe (it felt like an episode from "Lost") so we retreated to safety and I spent the afternoon trying to phone people to find out who could look at it for us.

But, that drama wasn't what I have pictures of.

This was the view out of my window a couple of hours ago. The moors opposite have been burning since about midday today. The fire was apparently moving away from us, towards Derbyshire, and the smoke was blowing over towards Stalybridge town centre so missing us.

Here's the BBC news article about it. I think the picture must have been taken from the end of the road.

The fire was not near any property, and was thought to be about one mile away from the nearest road.

Yes, that would be our road, and I reckon it's a lot less than a mile.

Since taking this the wind has picked up a lot and changed direction, the view is now one big smokey blur blowing over our house.
Not only is it Really Bloody Hot, but it's Really Bloody Hot And We Can't Have The Windows Open! Even with them all shut it's making my eyes sore, getting to my throat, and bringing my asthma on. I can't see the source of the fire anymore so don't know if it's getting closer to us or not. I doubt we're in much danger either way... but I'm glad I'm not on the other side of the road.

One plus side is that icecreams are really good for helping to cool you down whilst also soothing on smoke inhaled sore throats (made worse by having to go cat hunting in it because we were getting worried about them.)

I've been busy making things, and tking pictures of them. I've also got pictures of the deck which now has a railing, so is safe to explore, also the grass has gone so at some point it will be full of lovely plants, at the moment it's mostly bare dust dry soil.

Finally, today is the day I'm due to become an Aunty for the first time, but baby obviously isn't ready yet. I'm not sure what seems worse, being 9 months pregnant in this heat... or being in labour in this heat. I guess hospitals are air conditioned though.
Mental note, don't get pregnant in September/October/November.