This is what we woke up to this morning.
(Click for bigger images.)

I umm'd and ahh'd, but as the sky was blue I decided we'd risk the drive over the hill, just make sure we headed back before dark, and it started freezing. So I phoned Mum to say when we'd be over, took some pictures, made the bed and came downstairs, looked out of the front window, and phoned mum back to say actually we'd better stay put.

They were taken at about 11:30, then the second 5 minutes later. It's been snowing on and off all day. Sometimes light, sometimes very heavy, then occasionally we've had glorious sunshine. Everywhere is white over, except the roads which have been gritted, and the cars which had collected enough snow for the kids to have some great snow ball fights.

Luckily we'd got food in for a Christmas Meal just in case, there was no time for us to defrost the duck though, so Porl had a chicken breast instead. So it turned out okay, yet another year I've missed being with my parents on Christmas Day, but it is nice to spend our first Christmas in our little house. I'm torn now though. I really want to go and see people in Ormskirk tomorrow, but I really want lots of snow now, while I'm off work, so we can go and play in it. I've had quite a lot of White Christmas's, but this is Porl's first since he was about 9, so it'd be nice to make the most of it.

While I had the camera out I realized I've never taken any pictures of the house. So here is a our tree, fireplace, and the lovely red wall I painted a few weeks ago.

Finally, before I go and sit on the sofa reading my new books, and digesting my food, here's a picture of the necklace I spent last night making.

Merry Snowy Christmas from Stalybridge.

I'd like to wish everyone who reads this a Merry Christmas/Seasons Greetings/Enjoyable Couple of Days Bank Holiday.

I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family tomorrow, seeing lots of friends over the following few days, and being general happy about not being at work, and there being lots of good people, and good food around.

Big Christmas hugs to all the Manchester lot for a great night on Wednesday. I think I'm still recovering, but it was a much needed blow out. It seemed like ages since I'd seen everyone.
More Christmas hugs to the Ormskirk lot, I'll see you all Boxing Day (assuming the weather gets no worse, we've had rain, hail, wind, and thunder, but no snow yet.)
Lastly very big Christmas hugs to Robin who's enjoying the sunshine in Oz.

Hope everyone has a good one

The infrequent blogging is due to my new job. Working 9-5 again has been a bit of a shock to the system. Add to that the 3 hours of travel each day, and the fact that I have a tendency to hibernate when the clocks go back. It all means that when I come home from work all I seem to want to do is stare at the idiot box watching mind numbing programmes.

But my brain is finally coming round to the fact that the 9-5 job, or more accurately, the money I get from the 9-5 job will be a good thing for a little while.

Unfortunatly, all this work is distracting me from my crafty pursuits, so a plan has formed. My work location is in a fantastic location for views, but a bit rubbish for interesting things to do at dinnertime, except for wander around and around the outlet mall. So today, I brought my beads in. I'm sat at my desk making beaded snowflakes, and I think I'll spend most dinnertimes doing this from now on. (Maybe not snowflakes all year though.) This way I can still earn nice 9-5 type wages, but when I get home I can feel like I've accomplished something for myself during the day. Then if I am knackered and useless for everything but gazing at the idiot box, then I won't feel quite so guilty about wasting my life away.

I'm not sure whether the blog posts will become anymore frequent though, we'll see.

Still here, I promise. But sitting infront of a computer all day at work means the last thing I want to do is sit infront of a computer when I get home.

I've just found this idea for wallets made with paint samples. I've got loads of these at home. I knew there must be something I could make with them.

Since moving to this house I've not had much luck with computers.
First it took me 3 weeks to get the internet, then Porl's keyboard died, so I went keyboardless, then finally last week the switch on the pooter died. It wouldn't turn on at all, so I bought a new case.

Unfortunatly my techie wizard lives in Ormskirk, and I don't anymore. So I had 3 options.

• Wait a fortnight for techie wizard to come up and build it for me.
• Pay the computer shop to build it for me.
• Figure out how to build it myself (and possibly blow the computer/house/me up in the process.)

Being the impatient person that I am, I went with the doing it myself.

And it works!
Nothing blew up, no electric shocks, a few cuts on my hands, but that seems to be compulsary. My pooter is purring away happily beside me now, and it's much quieter as the fan got a thorough clean too.

I might have a new hobby, or career change ahead of me.

Internet access at work may be a dangerous thing.

Hello

Back again

Things have been a bit busy recently. However, we're in our lovely new house, there's still boxes everywhere, and will be until we get storage organised with the help of my wonderful Dad. We moved on Friday the 10th, we managed to get the living room looking almost straight by the Sunday, so it was starting to feel like a home. On the Monday we went into town to find a pub, we found the Q Inn, and there was an acoustic night going on, we've met some lovely people here, and the Q has beome our local, even though it's the furthest pub away from us. We managed to get Jimmy a bed sorted by Friday, and that's when it really started to feel like home for me.

unfortunately even though the net was working for Porl, the firewall continued to block my computers' existence. A couple of days ago Porl again tried to get it working (upstairs tweak something, come downstairs, check it, still no luck... repeat) after 2 hours of this I lost patience with the clattering up and down stairs so I had a look. Five minutes later tick box found, problem solved. So I'm back online, and I even waded though all the masses of emails (about 700 of them, must remember to unsubscribe from things before I next move house.) I'm quite surprised and touched by how many emails and other comments I've had from people who missed me, or at little noticed my absence.

Other happenings in no particular order include

• ITC gig - 'twas very good.
• Matt visiting - 'twas alcohol fuelled, involved another trip to the Q, late night ramblings, and rants at Presidential candidate debates.
• More trips to the Q and some fantastic acoustic nights, plus more friends made here.
• House warming party, with everyone visiting, lovely to see everyone. Some people loved our hills, others weren't so enamoured. I wish so many people weren't allergic to the cats.
• I handed in my notice. I'll miss my job a lot, and the clients even more, but the commute just couldn't be done.
• I got a new job (the cats have been giving me lessons on landing on my feet.)

The new job seems good, today was my first day, I think I'm going to like it. It seems sufficiently complicated to keep me interested, but a relaxed enough atmosphere to keep me from premature greying. Plus I do like being able to tell Sales Reps, sorry, Account Managers how to do their jobs. Working with Lucy is going to be fun. I made her go to the gym. I refused to be used as an excuse for not going. Now I've just got to try to find a way to help her quit smoking.
The only down side of the job is the travelling. I left work at 7:45 this morning, 20 minutes walk to the station, got the right train into Manchester, then stood on the Metro platform for 20+ minutes waiting for a tram. So I was about 20 minutes late on my first day in work. Not good. The bosses do know that the Metro is tempremental, but apparently they're going to clamp down on poor time keeping anyway. I'll try getting the same train tomorrow, but if it still goes wrong then I'll have to start getting an earlier train to compensate. Grrrr. Tonight I got in at 6:30, and I'm exhausted.

I'm sure I've missed loads of things out, but I'm tired and longing for a lie down. I promise to update again before the month is out.

Stalybridge is the 'slaef léah brycg', the 'bridge by the wood whence the staves are procured'.

The 'bridge' bit was added at a later date, so it's basically 'The wood where you get the sticks'.
Now last time I checked most woods had a surplus of sticks. The Stalybridge sticks must be pretty special for the place to be named after them.
Luckily the cats love sticks. They're their favourite toys. So the cats should be happy in their new home.

3 days to go.
Much packing has been done. Loads more left to do still.

Roll on Friday when it will all be over.
Except for the unpacking.

Two pieces of great news!

First, Sunset Beach is returning to Channel 5. Only repeats, but even so, Hurrah!

Second, we have a completion date! Friday the 10th, and hopefully we'll be moving out the same day. Which means I best get on with the packing.

But first I think I must procrastinate a little more.

Today has been extremely productive.

I've phoned and sorted out gas, electricity, phone and internet connections for the new house, filled in multiple change of address forms, paid all the bills which need paying before the move, and filed away all the paperwork which accumulates on my desk.Downstairs has been tidied and hoovered, and I'm going to do upstairs before I relax for the night.

I'm doing anything to avoid packing.

This is especially for Fiona, who left a message asking where I was. I felt loved.

I'm still here, and ever so busy. So here's a quick rundown of the main things.

Apart from all the overtime I'm doing at work, we're also up to eyeballs with house things. The house buying and selling is going through well, we're hoping to be moving in to our lovely new house overlooking the moors in about 3 weeks. So lots of packing and planning is going on. Phone calls with solicitors, estate agents, mortgage advisors, insurance advisors and what feels like a billion and one other people too. It's tiring and confusing and scary. I'll be so glad when it's over.

I've also had a birthday, combined with a holiday. Porl, Jimmy and I went camping in Derbyshire. We walked, we ate, we played cards and we watched lots of cricket in the picturesque village of Ashford-in-the-Water. Picture limestone grey tudor houses, village cricket green, balmy days, hot air balls overhead. The boundary line of the cricket pitch was the fence which kept the sheep next door in their field and off the pitch. It was lovely, and a much needed break with a couple of ace lads.

Of course in between all this I've been de-stressing with crafty pursuits. There's lots of new jewellery dangling off the corner of my shelves. I've also tried making beaded flowers and I have some cute bunches of pansies. I've had my first go at book binding, it turned out well, but there's a few things I'll do differently next time. Finally, the Spinning. I've been persevering with the drop spindle. It's going slowly, but I will get there.

So that's a rundown on the basics. Plenty of other stuff has happened, like Lynskey gigs for example. But it's far too hot to think about them, or type about them, so I'll leave it there. I'll try to write more often, but don't keep your hopes up. My new catchphrase seems to be "I'll do it after the move".

I bought the spinning wheel a few days ago. It cost £15. Happy Birthday to Me!

I visited the Wingham Wool Work shop for advice and supplies, and they were great.
The bad news is, that the spinning wheel isn't very good, and I'd probably never be able to spin well on it.
The good news is that if I take it to an antique shop they should pay around £150 for it. Which is almost enough to buy a lovely new spinning wheel.
Until I get that organised (i.e. after we move) point I am armed with a drop spindle and some roving
I also had a quick lesson at the shop, but I currently seem to only be good at producing lumpy strands that break and untwist a lot. I Will Persist!

House things appear to be going well. The survey has come back, this time round it's fine. Next week I have to organise the searches. I'm still trying to not get excited. Thankfully remembering that I have to start clearing out the glory-holes soon is calming me down.

For the past couple of months I seem to have had something planned everyday, work, house hunting, visiting places, etc. Over the next fortnight I actually had a few days with nothing to do. So silly me has volunteered to help on the Summer Playscheme for local kids aged 8-18 who have Learning Disabilities.
It's always great fun, and I absolutely love it. I haven't done it over the past couple of years though because of a falling out with some other people who volunteer. I've really missed it, and the people involved.
Without the playscheme I would never be in the job I am now so in a way I feel I owe it. I'll probably not be able to do it again because of moving, so I've decided to bite the bullet, and sign myself up. I'm fed up of missing out on something I enjoy just to avoid an argument. I'll do my best to steer clear of trouble and just get on with having fun with the kids. I'm hoping the other people will do the same.

I've been a bit busy recently.

Been to Sheffield too. Got a few odd looks for making bracelets on the train.

As well as a spinning wheel for my birthday, this would be nice too.
Steve Currey's Expedition Company - Voyage to Our Hollow Earth

"Cost: $18,950 US"

I really really want to learn to spin.
I have done for a long time, since I was a kid and got to do a bit of spinning at school.
I have half promised myself that when we get the new house I will get myself one

On the way home from work today I walked past the antique shop (Browzaround, just up from the library.) It was closed, but I spotted through the window a spinning wheel.
Tomorrow I'm going to nip in and see if it works, and how much it is.
Just for curiosities sake. I'm not going to buy it of course.

Totally unrelated note, but it's my birthday in 20 days time.

"Eeeeeeeee". Yup I'm happy again.

The weekend so far has been ace, and it feels like far longer than 3 days. Thankyou to everyone who's made it great

Friday Porl, and I were going to Stalybridge house hunting again. Jimmy and Robin decided (and were cajoled) into coming too. We were late getting there, and missed the first viewing (as usual.) Saw 3 houses, nothing special, had a nice meal at Wetherspoons and a browse around Stalybridge, then we went to Manchester for Amy.

Amy. Was. Ace.
Sweets, decorations, bands, lipgloss, dancing, shoe theft, champagne, more dancing, and friends. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves, but I think we were all sad, and wondering what we'd do the 2nd Friday of the month.
I have pictures galore. I'll post a few later (the nice ones only, I promise,) but I've also got a zip file of the lot if any attendees would like to see them all.

After Amy exhaustion hit and we all got to bed pretty quickly. Saturday started with copious amounts of coffee and a Trof breakfast. Then Porl, Robin and I headed home. Whilst everyone else went to The Pixies, Porl and I went to OrmFest. Bought a CD, arranged a gig, saw some people, got rained on, came home.

In house news, things are looking up again. Monday, my last post here said we'd found a house we really really wanted, but then lost it as another offer had been put on it. Tuesday the Estate Agents phoned back to say that offer looked like falling through and we still had a chance, if we sold ours in time. Today it looks like we might have a buyer.
I'm trying to not get excited. But can everyone please cross their fingers, toes, eyes and everything else for us. Thankyou

Lastly, I've been on another crafty spree. Beadie necklaces, bracelets and insects, duct tape flowers, and in the past hour, a Beadie Man.

Yes, I know his hands are huge, but it's my first attempt okay!

Ahhh... loads going on, and I rarely have the time, or inclination to write about it, but here goes.

Found an ace house, lost same ace house, bugger. But at least we've finally found a town were we want to live. Stalybridge, it's like Ormskirk but with hills, canals and no Scousers (hurrah!)

What else? EP launch. It was lots of fun. The Lynskey band are looking and sounding better every time I see them. Maybe one day Jimmy will learn to play, and smile at the same time, or at least not frown. It was great to finally see Cartwheel play. I was hoping for good things, and they far exceeded my expectations.

We've had a couple of viewings on the house, even with the complete incompetence of Estate Agents (they took a photo of the wrong house!) fingers crossed it will sell soon, so we'll have more hope of getting offers we place accepted.

My Mum and Dad come back from Spain soon. Hurrah! I normally speak to my Mum for about an hour or so everyday, sometimes several times a day. While they're in Spain I'm limited to 15 minute conversations every couple of days while they use their free minutes. Maybe the money I've saved on phone calls over the past month will be enough to cover the cost of a flight over there in August. Hmmm plan.....

While my Mum is sunning herself and nursing insect bites, Porl's mum is having a rough time of it as she was rushed into hospital on Saturday. She's okay, but she gave us all a bit of a fright. Fingers crossed she'll be discharged tomorrow.

In other news... I've been making lots of jewellery, and I bought new pliers, (not the kind I wanted, but they're still nice pliers,) and painted plant pots pink, (or maybe they're purple or mauve, I haven't decided yet, but they're definitely not red, the shop didn't have red paint) and I've bought a new bag, (I meant to buy a new outfit for Friday, but failed miserably,) and I'm really really really looking forward to Friday.

I've been missing my books a lot recently, they're all packed up in boxes at the MIL's house while this place is up for sale. I'm having to beg, borrow, and buy new books to read.
This afternoon I was reading about Britains most cherished contemporary novels. I was quite pleased that I've read 14 of the 50 on the list. A meme found on Yarn Utopia, and I'm not quite as pleased, at least I've got some inspiration about what I can read next though.

Copy the list, highlight which one's you've read

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontè, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Brontè, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales (bits of it anyway)
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

I knew I'd forget something!

I have a Gmail account. This gave me the ability to spend a fun few days winding up my techie mates who really wanted one. But then I got invites and I made some techies very happy people (although my dire financial straight did make me consider selling them on ebay.)

I'll probably get some more invites at some point, so if you too want to gloat about getting the exact username you want then leave a comment and I'll know who to give the next lot of invites to.

I read something about blogging being what you do when there's nothing happening in life. This seems to be the case at the moment.

Since the last update, we've had several long tiring days in Manchester visiting estate agents and viewing houses. We know certain parts of South Manchester really well now, we can quote grid references from the A-Z.
We've seen about 15 houses, I'm losing count as they're blurring into one. Most have been horrid, some have been horrid to the extent that they became funny, a small few have been nice.
We've tried to place 3 offers, all have been refused, one as it wasn't enough, the second because a first time buyer got there first, even though we offered more money, and a third because when we phoned to place the offer we were told it already had an offer accepted on it. So what exactly were we doing viewing a house on a Saturday morning after 4 hours sleep when the house wasn't available?
I really really hate house hunting.
Friday we'll be doing it all over again.

In between all this house hunting there have been gigs galore. Porl has been involved in all of them, and as usual I'm the roadie, (not that can carry anything, but I'm the only one who drives.)
Lynskey is gigging to promote the upcoming EP Launch, the main bit of this will be at The Font Bar in Manchester on 25th June. If anyone's in the area come down, it'll be fun, and it's free!
Shirokuma played in a record label showcase in possibly the hottest venue in Manchester, The Night and Day Cafe, which really should learn about this thing called air conditioning.
Needless to say all the gigs have been great, and if I went into anymore details I'd be here all day.

Some other events of the past month, include trips to the vets after Duke developed a limp, he's fine now, Gonzo has his usual fat lip that he develops every summer, I'm sure the stupid creature eats nettles.
The blitzing of this house continues, we have new carpets everywhere, the smell of paint has finally gone, although I need to do some more touching up. I've been spending a lot of time gardening, the obvious signs of years of neglect are slowly disappearing, I hope the new buyers, whoever they may be, will appreciate our efforts.

I'm sure I've missed out plenty of things, but this month has become a complete blur fuelled by stress, excitement and disapointment. I'll try to write in shorter bursts from now on, it may be easier than trying to remember everything.