Crafting

On the right - 5 cross stitched cards for my 5 Penny Pincher penfriends are almost finished - ready for Christmas. Just need to sew on the snowflake charm. The charms are a bit big really but I only had 1 snowflake brad the right size and all I could find anywhere was these bigger ones. I got them done so I can start the tapestry - on the left.  It's the one I bought myself from the charity shop for Christmas and then my Brother in law gave me the money for it.  He wants to do all his Christmas shopping like that next year!
We had a friend in the Suffolk Smallholders Society who used to frame things for me mates rates, but he's moved to Yorkshire, so I'm going to have to pay proper price, find a frame to fit or turn it into a cushion........a long thin cushion!

Mrs F at the cottage is leaving a desk in what will be my craft room so with the table I've got I should have more room for crafting than I've had for a year. Maybe I'll be able to unpack and learn how to use my new sewing machine at last.

We are still being held up with the house purchase due to a 'wrongly' worded answer by Mrs F to one of the ambiguous questions on the Law Society Form. If a question says "has any additional land been sold or purchased?" and the person answers " Yes half an acre". Which do YOU think?
Yes - sold or Yes - purchased?
We know it's yes-purchased, Mrs F knows it's yes- purchased but the solicitors.....ours or hers....... have assumed SOLD. Oh dear.......... Confusion reigns and we all get wet!
The problem isn't helped by everything being done by phone or email. If you are told to sign something that's been highlighted in yellow and you can't find anything highlighted in yellow(because it's been highlighted in green) what hope is there?!

We are waiting.
And packing boxes.

Back in a day or two
Sue

Seeing Spots and Sorting Out

 I mentioned a red with white spots kettle that would be good to replace our old one, I'd spotted them in Asda a few weeks ago when our kettle first went wrong, of course when I went to get one they had all gone - Duh, no idea when/if they will be in again she said.
 So went on line and there they were, with free delivery to the store and now collected.
Writing this made me smile because when you buy anything on line now there is always a bit that says "Look What I Bought -Tell A Friend Now". I've never pressed the Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter/Other Social networking button..... thinking  "How Stupid". But now I'm doing exactly the same thing!


The kettle we've been using since the other one went bang - the one that won't switch off -  will get packed in a box and kept for emergencies again.

While at Asda I printed out Wedding, Jacob and Florence photos. Actually worked the machine without any hiccups.They've only had these photo-printing machines in Asda since November and a lady walking by said "Oh didn't know they had that here, is it easy to use?" I said "If I can use it anyone can!". Then another lady came to  use the other machine and  said to granddaughter with her that she seemed to be getting on OK which was a surprise. I said I was quite chuffed to be able to master this new technology! We sounded like a couple of old technophobes 😊 .

Now I have to sort all the photos out, some for the photo album, some for the scrapbook and some to share round the family. So far with my new scrapbook hobby, I've only done one page - but we cleared the puzzle away yesterday so I've got the table back again and I can do a Wedding page and a Florence page. I want to get card making again too but maybe that will wait 'til I get a craft room again.
I've also spent a while sorting all last years paperwork, quite a lot is now irrelevant and not personal so gets chucked into the recycling. Then the rest used to get burned but without a fire here I've torn it into tiny bits and soaked in water to make a messy paper maché before adding to the compost heap.

Christmas decorations are down and cards will be sorted out to make note-cards for shopping lists or gift tags. Christmas is now packed back in the box and sealed up ready for moving. I'm very pleased that the people over the road have taken down their flashing blue star from their front window..........we kept thinking  there was a police car outside!

It's been a very slow start to the reading year and 47 people have looked at my blank 'Books Read 2017' page! But I've now finished Dot May Dunn's small book of memories - Christmas around the Village Green. Memories of family life in a Derbyshire village during the war years when she was just a small girl. I could have sworn I'd read one of her other books about her nursing career but it's not down in My Book of Books so maybe I'd borrowed it, skimmed through and decided against for some reason. I shall make a note to read them later this year. I've now started 'Island on The Edge' about life on Soay - a tiny island in the Inner Hebrides, as usual with books like this it makes me want to dash off and live on an Island! Which reminds me - I must write to my penfriend W who does live on a Scottish island although a bit bigger and windier than Soay.

 Suzanne at Life at Number 38 had an interesting looking puzzle/game on her last post and I asked what it was called. She said she got it from The Works so I looked there with no luck. Now I've been searching on Amazon and eBay and no luck there either. So if anyone has any other ideas for a game called '4 in a box'. I'd love to know.

Many thanks for all your comments last time, I'm pleased to say that Col is eating well again and feeling better apart from being as weak as a kitten.
And what a weird co-incidence that two other people reading the blog also have that jigsaw puzzle.

Back Very Soon
Sue

Le weekend (or is it La weekend)

Le or La ? I failed French O level way back in 1971 and have since forgotten most of what I did learn.

On Friday we popped over to see our perfect granddaughter - 3 and a half weeks old now. She's always perfect when we see her but daughter A says she's being a right pain at night!
We went via the house that sells apples, we've been detouring that way because they've got bags of Cox's for 50p and they are just delicious, got a bag for A too. Did a small shop at Co-op in Leiston while we were there as I had a £2 off £10 voucher. Our local Co-op near Aldi has been turned into a McColls convenience store and a Subway and they have sent Co-op members in the area 2 x £2 off £10 vouchers to make up for the inconvenience. There are 3 other Co-ops on the edges of this estate so I'm not surprised that the one in competition with Aldi has been forced to close.
Friday afternoon was wet and nasty so I sorted out another box of books for Ziffit. Whoop whoop now raised just over £100 and cleared about 50 books!

Saturday morning by request of Col we went to the Needham Market carboot  (though I didn't take any persuading!) It was blinkin' freezing then it started to drizzle so we weren't there long. Me being on Low spend November I just bought some pears for £1 and this new bag, £1, plus a half started tapestry kit, 50p, for making a glasses case. I love rescuing half done craft kits and will finish this for a Christmas present. The bag will also be a present for a friend as they have a Sherlock Holmes game which they often play at Christmas. I'll put her other present inside it.

I was able to resist all books as I didn't see a single one I wanted! And Col just bought some washers.

Next job was Cranberry Chutney for the hampers............... should be simple but after searching  Morrisons and Aldi  for frozen cranberries with no luck I looked on My Supermarket and found Asda didn't have them either. Only Tesco, so called at Tesco in Saxmundham on the way to daughters but no, none there  which only left going to the big Tesco on the edge of Ipswich where you have to walk half a mile to find what you want and at last found them.
So, how to mix and match two recipes from different books.

On the left is a recipe from The Good Housekeeping Book of Preserves, on the right it's the WI book I used the other day. I had 400g of cranberries and decided the GH book didn't have a big enough proportion of  vinegar or sugar to fruit (and I didn't want to use sultanas or raisins) but I didn't like the idea of cooking the onions and apples in butter or using brown sugar as per the WI recipe.
So my recipe was (and apologies for mixing metric and imperial but that's how my mind works!)
 400g cranberries
Approx 12 oz prepared cooking apples ( peeled,cored,chopped)
Approx 10oz red onions peeled and chopped ( red was what I had but ordinary would do)
¾ lb white sugar
15fl oz distilled white vinegar
2 tsp mixed spice.

I put the apples and onions in the preserving pan covered with a bare minimum of water and cooked them for about 10 minutes until they were starting to soften. Then strained and put  them back in the pan.
Then I added the vinegar and sugar on a gentle heat stirring until the sugar had dissolved, added the frozen cranberries and left on gentle heat until they defrosted (Should have defrosted first I guess). Then I mashed up the cranberries, brought the pan to the boil stirring then reduced heat to a simmer for about half an hour stirring frequently. After that time the mix had thickened up nicely and was looking good. I gave it another 10 minutes just to be sure all excess liquid had been boiled away and then the wooden spoon dragged across the bottom of the pan allowed me to see the bottom for a second  and I potted up into hot sterilised jars and screwed up tight.

 This made 4 and a bit medium jars, I've taken the photo with one lid off so you can see the consistency. It tasted like a fruity sweet and sour mix of jam and chutney. Should be good with turkey or chicken.

Our son came over Saturday afternoon so his Dad could give him a hand with a car repair. Nice to see  Col back in overalls again. He just has to be very careful not to cut himself because the low platelets would mean blood might not clot.



I'd temporarily run out of library books so read this from my shelves. I'd previously read a book by her called "And then there were nuns; adventures in a cloistered life". Both were good.

Saturday evening, our first ever November 5th on a housing estate. Blimey it was like living in a war zone! (but without the fear). How many pounds worth of fireworks went up in smoke I wonder? I love fireworks, would happily stand and watch all of them anywhere but wouldn't dream of buying any! I noticed the £49.99 one from Aldi lasted  all of 115 seconds.........

Sunday
We walked to the library again and they had 4 British library Crime Classics in for me. I'd suggested them on the website and they bought them all. LOVE Suffolk Libraries. Also the new Ann Cleeves - "Cold Earth".
I've started the rescue of the tapestry glasses case. It's half cross stitch but someone had done bits one way and other bits the other diagonal.Then they had done some cross stitch which was all lumpy! I took out the cross stitch bit but there was too much to undo all the wrong tent stitch so I carried on the best I could. It looks OK as long as you don't look too closely. Not sure if it will be good enough to make a Christmas present.



Apples, milk, veg, eggs, frozen cranberries, Dreamies for the cat and a couple of other bits £11.63p.
Car boot sale pears £1 and Xmas gift bits £1.50

Total in the Low/No Spend November challenge £299ish

Back Soon
Sue

Sunday to Thursday

Thank you for so many comments about our move back to the country. We can't wait.
 I've done the maths several times to check we can afford it and yes ...........just. Things will be pretty tight until we sell the bungalow. Unfortunately there are several properties for sale in Ipswich for much the same price at the moment and if it doesn't sell quickly we will be living on Fresh Air until Col can get his County Council pension in March. (Someone asked if we could rent it out instead of selling but I think the rental income would only be about £650 - £700 a month, then agency fees to come off so not really enough to live on).
I'm looking on it as a challenge to live on a very low budget for the rest of the year, although Christmas may have to be postponed until we sell!


 On Sunday we popped over to visit our new granddaughter, 5 days old - still haven't seen her awake.

 Florence refused to breast feed once they got home so A is expressing. She's determined to try and avoid the high cost of formula milk. She was also planning to use the re-usable nappies but Florence is too tiny for them so it was lucky I found a few more newborn disposables  at a car boot sale.

Monday - Our son reached the grand old age of 35 today. Doesn't seem five minutes since he was Florence's size, although come to think of it he was never as small and grew into the 6 foot something he is now by the time he was 15.
We went down to the beach hut as the weather promised a decent day with an offshore wind, but they were wrong and by 2pm it was really chilly and started to rain. It was very quiet down there, only dog walkers and joggers. Col sat behind our windbreak while I kept inside out of the wind. I've now brought home the things that will get damp over winter

 We treated ourselves to a whippy ice cream - with flake of course - the last of the season before the kiosk closes.
 Over the weekend I sorted through more books and delivered another box full to be collected to go off to Ziffit.com - another £24 worth. Most of my books they don't want and some of the ones they will accept are ones I want to keep so I haven't emptied many boxes so far.

Tuesday - More book sorting, it's getting quite addictive. I found £27 worth and boxed up. That's a total of nearly £80 of income which is handy amount. Will I regret selling some of them later - probably but not many and anyway we really need the cash.

I did 10 minutes more garden clearing but my back started complaining so I soon stopped, I'm just so out of condition.

Wednesday -
Made the Baby Jacob page in my new scrapbook. I didn't look on-line to get ideas, nor did I rush out to buy any more bits and pieces, just used what I had, this is how it ended up

After lunch we had to take our ID and filled in forms into town for our solicitor.


 Thursday - I went with Col to hospital for his regular weekly blood test and Great Joy his platelets are starting to climb, from very, very, very,VERY low to just very, very,very low. Perhaps that's the start of an improvement. He also had to have a monthly lung thing where they give him an antibiotic by inhalation. He hopes they'll stop it soon as it gives him terrible indigestion.
The weather was cold and miserable today so I decided it was time to start making soup for daily lunches. First soup of the Autumn was Leek and Potato as leeks are one of the Aldi cheap vegetables at the moment. We have salad and something for lunch through spring and summer so by soup season I've always forgotten how delicious and warming it is.
After lunch off to the Estate Agents to take ID  and to find out one or two more details about the cottage.

I have the dentists tomorrow for a filling ..............

Back Soon
Sue

Right, I have the scrapbook, now what?

A few weeks ago I picked up a huge bag of  Craft paper at a car boot sale and among them were lots of 12 x 12 scrapbook papers, a shame to cut them up for card making so I decided that after nearly 50 years I would go back to a hobby that I loved as a child.............cutting out and sticking in.
So all round Ipswich I trailed looking for a 12 x 12 scrapbook .........nothing except a kit with book and a few bits for £14.99...............but only 10 pages in the book, very expensive pages.

So good old eBay to the rescue and spotted Hobbycraft (oh if only we had a Hobbycraft here in Suffolk) had a nice scrapbook  lots of pages for £6.......a much better price.

It's arrived

I think I shall title it " My favourite things"

Shall I start with a Jacob page?

Or shall I start with the cover?

Oh this is exciting. :-)

I'm so easily excited...........




(Apologies for that last post where I accidentally lost about 8 of your comments when I was trying to add a picture of Jacob, got confused and deleted the wrong page. I'm so easily confused............)

Back Soon
Sue
PS More excitement ...........Colin is home again, picked him up at 6pm.

Hobbies

Second puzzle of the summer finished and no bits missing - phew, the only problem with charity shop jigsaws is you can never be absolutely certain it's all there until the end.

So I've mended the box, stuck on a label saying 'Complete'  and it's off to the charity shop.

I'm not starting a new puzzle straight away as I want to use the table for a bit of papercraft card making, speaking of which.........look what I found at yesterday's boot sale............a carrier bag full of crafting bits and bobs for £3. I had no idea what was in it for sure until I got home and unpacked although I'd spotted two books and a Framecraft Mirror  to put cross stitch in. There are always some on eBay selling for £8 each but luckily I've found several for much less over the years. I stitched 2 for Sister and Sister in Law last Christmas..... or was it the Christmas before?

When I sorted everything out I found quite a lot of useful stuff including 3 gluesticks, craft papers, a big bundle of silver tissue paper, some silk ribbon, foam glue dots, all sorts of bits that were free on the front of a cardmaking magazine and the mag was there too with ideas for using them. A good £3 worth that's for sure. One of the books and the cup-cake boxes will go to the charity shop. Perhaps someone running a Macmillan Coffee Morning later in the month will find them.
The only other thing I got  yesterday was a new pack of 16 fat wax crayons for small children for just 20p.

 The other day Sue in Wales asked if I had unpacked all our books .......I wish........... but this bungalow is Small and I mean SMALL. We only bought  the bungalow because it was detached, in a quiet part of Ipswich, with room for the caravan and didn't need anything doing to it. Space for over 1,000 books wasn't a priority. Back in January and February 2015 I took photos of all the bookshelves we had at Fareacre, they are HERE  if you want to see them..........13 separate posts!  We had room for all the books on shelves in the hall and under the stairs. I got rid of several books before we moved but there are 22 boxes still packed away. Here there is just room for one bookcase with 5 shelves and a lot of the books on the shelves are Col's that he thought he might want to re-read while he's recovering during the winter.

  The only books of mine that I've already read  are just a few that I couldn't bear to be without. (Hovel in the Hills for instance) Most of those piled up at the front have been acquired by me since we arrived here......whoops!  Annieb asked if we were going to move to somewhere bigger just for the books - yes as using a kindle instead would be far too simple!.............and we need room for the grandchildren! :-)
Now here's a funny thing ........... the other day I said I was reading my first ever Barbara Pym - A Glass of Blessings" so I go to write it down in my book-of-books and lo and behold I've already read "An Excellent Woman". When? Where? I don't remember it at all. Shall have to borrow it and re-read. I do sometimes worry that I read so fast that I don't remember a thing about what I've read. Should I  read everything twice? Although as I don't have to answer exam questions on content perhaps it doesn't matter.

Not a good weekend for the poorly man, a nose bleed lasting 16 hours because his platelets are so low meant a night without sleep. More test results due today perhaps the doctors will find out why various blood counts are not recovering as quickly as they ought to be. Because of rain, being worried enough to visit him 3 times on Saturday and being tired Sunday I didn't get to any of the Heritage Open events that I'd planned on seeing. I wanted to visit Ipswich cemetery and the old Broomhill swimming pool...............next year perhaps.

The weather forecast for here for the next few days is HOT, much  hotter than it should be for mid September. I'm looking forward to going to the beach hut at least one day .......haven't been for a couple of weeks and with children all back at school it will be nice and quiet again...........makes me sound like a grumpy old woman.......Oh yes...........I am!

Back ASAP
Sue

Make Do and Mend

What's your sewing box like?


Mine is a very old Mothercare baby box, found in a charity shop many, many years ago.

I had a small wooden cantilever sewing box before this, but it soon got full and untidy, so this is a much better idea.

 I've never made many clothes from scratch but I've always mended.
Several weeks ago someone mentioned their button-box, mine is a very old tin, bought from a scout jumble sale a long time ago, then some buttons were added from my late mum's button tin and some have been cut off old clothes that we've had. It's very full and rarely opened, buttons don't seem to feature much in the clothes we wear nowadays.
 I've got so many different colours of sewing thread and very few bought new, most have been found in car boot sales along with other odds and ends like the Woolworths Garter Elastic in the zip lock bag!
I've used the darning mushroom for darning socks too, back in the days when Col wore thick woolly  socks for work in winter.

Now the old hand-made quilt has been repaired, it needs a wash, but it's too big for a normal washing machine, I shall have to track down a launderette in Ipswich somewhere.

Many Thanks for comments on the last few posts

Back in a day or two
Sue

Fiddling the Accounts

 I keep track of spending in my diary - which is just an A4  writing pad. Each month I write down all the things we spend on. Car, Household, Electric/Gas, Clothes, Phone,  Food, Water etc etc. There is a new column for Grandchildren and then there is the column called Sue. In my column  are books and craft stuff (that's all I buy for myself on the whole) and  it's very obvious I'm spending too much every month, especially as Col's column is empty! So I've decided  that books and other bits bought from charity shops should be listed under CHARITY ......................There, that looks much better!

 Here's a surprise ..............I went to a car boot sale and didn't buy any books!

It was the first-Saturday-in-the-month boot sale at Melton near Woodbridge and I headed out of town just after 7am.

Mostly just the same old car-boots there but I found  some Grandchildren stuff; Baby bath and big pack of first size Pampers nappies  total £4 and wooden breakdown crane truck for £1. Other than that just a mini clay chimenea which could be used for planting  also for £1.

(As you can see I still haven't got around to hiring a skip to get rid of the awful crazy paving patio! Mainly because it then means buying in some topsoil to fill the huge low bit that will be left and also not having anything dry to stand on when hanging out the washing)

On Friday I biked to a recently opened charity shop that I've just found out about. It's run by Emmaus, the charity that helps homeless people get back into accommodation and employment. I knew it was somewhere in the road on the other side of the railway line from us which gave me a choice of biking all  down hill to the path under the railway or up, then down and then level to the road bridge over the railway. I choose down hill, only to find the shop was right at the top of the road so that I had to walk all the way up...... it would have been much easier to have gone the other way! Oh well, it's all good exercise.
 I found these cross stitch bits for £2 (which has been entered in the Charity column of course!)

And with regard to cross stitch, this part-started picture of a standard fuchsia

has been staring at me every time I've looked through my box-file of charts and kits to decide what to do next. I don't remember when I started it but I do know it must have been several years ago and I know why I stopped - it was too difficult - too many shades of pinks and greens. Now I'm better at sorting out how to work this type of chart I'm determined to finish it.

On the left  is the chart I'm following. On the right is one of the mini kits from the charity shop - but it has no chart so if any cross-stitchers out there have this very old copy of Cross Stitch Collection Magazine with the Gardeners Notebook kit I'd love a photocopy of the chart ......please, or any other chart with a flower that will look OK using the flower pot button.

Looking out of the kitchen window at dusk on Saturday I spotted a hedgehog snuffling about under the bird table. Lovely to see one in town as we rarely spotted them out in the country. I rushed for the camera but then couldn't remember how to get the flash to work, clicked quickly so all I got was this and then he/she snuffled off under the shrubs.

 .












Another couple of library books finished, both historical crime fiction. First Robin Blake - Skin and Bones, these are set in Preston in the mid 18th century. The 4th in a series - featuring a lawyer and coroner and his doctor friend.
Secondly the latest Anne Perry - Revenge in a Cold River.  An extremely prolific author as there are 32 books in her Inspector Pitt series and 22 in her Thomas Monk series, plus she also write Christmas Novellas featuring both these characters or other people from the series and other novels too. Both Pitt and Monk books are set in Victorian London and quite compelling. If you've not come across these then it's best to start from the beginning although the earlier books were written in the 1980's and 90's so not so easy to find.

Well Done to our future daughter-in-law who did the 5K Cancer Research Race  for Life. She had planned to do it at the organised event in Bury St Edmunds a couple of weeks back, which was cancelled due to flooding. She couldn't do the new arranged date so opted to do it on her own and has raised around £400  for Cancer Research - Brilliant.

Many Thanks for comments on the last post and welcome to The 3 Year Challenge- a new blog. This lady is in France but luckily her blog is in English. 

Back in a day or 3
Sue

I Like to Keep Busy but.....................

.I really need to finish..................


...................... this cross stitch which needs making into a card ( better iron it first!)
 

.......................and this one I'm still stitching

.................... the small cotton bags need to be cut and stitched to hold the lavender for the sachets

......................... and this big pile of library books need reading

..................plus the jigsaw needs completing

.............and I really should write letters to penfriends and tie up some rain-flattened plants in the garden.

There's probably some housework that needs doing too - if only I could make time for it!


Many thanks for all the cuddly baby comments and to Barbara M for her first ever comment on the blog. AlisonB43 - I hope your tiny  little poorly granddaughter keeps fighting and gets well very soon. Suzanne asked if we will be able to visit our new grandson when Col is better and yes, they are in Surrey but we have the caravan and they'll have trouble keeping us away!( just need to get Colin through the stem cell treatment and the long recovery needed) although by then we will have another grandchild much nearer too - lovely.

And last but not least welcome to new followers Kitty and Debbie.

Back Soon
Sue

What to do while waiting............

Visiting -
 Col had a temperature which means another infection, so he is stuck in hospital until Tuesday at least, which is why I'm waiting for him to come home again. He's feeling very rough after this round of chemo but hopefully will pick up again soon. The ward sister goes by the nick name of Alf! A very nice nurse.

 Cross Stitching -
 Two more lavender sachets ready for Christmas

Watching -

The French Open Tennis on TV. So far so good for Andy Murray, they could really do with a roof as rain has stopped play several times

Puzzling - 

 with the new Sudoku book I found in the charity shop, they are rather easy.......at the moment, I hope they get a bit more difficult as I progress through them.

Reading -
 more library books. Quite a variety......... in the last 10 days I've read Nell Dunn's 'Up the Junction', first read when I was about 16, seeing it mentioned in the bibliography of The Button Box made me decide to re-read. 'Song of the Skylark' by Erica James which is a bit of a light tear-jerker and Anthony Trollope's collection of Christmas stories first published in the 1860's to 1880's. I've not read any Trollope before, this was a tester, probably won't bother again!

Enjoying -
 the scent of these lovely roses from the garden

And Baking-
A few scones and some cheese straws to take in to Col

Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments about our beautiful new grandson. We are so looking forward to  Col  being well enough for us to go down to Surrey to see him.

Welcome to Alison Collins a new follower in the google pictures. Every time the numbers go up to 354 they then go down again a few days later!

It's a really grey bank Holiday Monday here in Suffolk, cold and windy too. I shall stay in except for hospital visiting.

Back Soon
Sue

Winter hobbies

It's been a really nasty day here today - with a lot of heavy rain. I've been in the craft room putting together some of the 3D decoupage cards that I cut out the other evening. I love having so many hobbies to do.Today I could choose from knitting dishcloths, cross stitch, paper craft cards, reading, Sudoku, writing a letter and of course doing a blog post. The best thing about all these winter hobbies is that none of them cost a lot of money. I also think having plenty to do is one of the ways to get through winter depression, which can creep up on me sometimes if I'm feeling aimless.

 A first here yesterday ( only about 15 years behind everyone else!) ................. An online supermarket shop. Because Sainsburys sent us some £6 off £30 shop vouchers and we didn't want to go to Ipswich until next month. So I went through my shopping list on My Supermarket comparison site, finding all the things that were cheaper at Sainsburys because they were on offer and ordered several of each. That should see us through until next time they are on offer somewhere. I picked a £1 delivery slot  and saved myself around £18 in total.
The delivery driver was a bit gushy  "Thank you so much for choosing us for you first order etc", I didn't tell him it will be a very rare occurrence and may well never happen again!

Isn't it strange how some things that you send for arrive next day, yet other companies take an age. I'm still waiting for the rubber ring washer thingy for my Kenwood chef liquidiser, ordered nearly a week ago and bulk buys  from the Eco Green Store ordered at the same time, yet the rat bait Col ordered on Tuesday was delivered today.

Thank you to lots and lots of people for comments yesterday. It's reassuring to know I'm not the only person with a list about next Christmas. Thank you to Phyllis Weaving who mentioned that there will be another series of Call The Midwife next year too.

Back Tomorrow
Sue