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

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

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

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

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

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

What to do, what to do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is intelligent... honest.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EEEeeeeeee!

I'm picking it up tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

Passport - yep
Tickets -yep
Suitcase - yep

Absolutly conviction that I've forgotten something - Yep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Had a busy day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've also been busy crafting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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