Poor little blog, its been a bit neglected of late. And since loads of folk are now following and DOING Shimmelle's blog prompt class, all the blogs but mine are full of fun and exciting blog posts whilst mine languishes in loneliness.

Soory blog, I promise to visit you more often with news, and visions of wonderful craftiness.

So what has bloggie missed...

We finally managed to book tickets to the ballet. I have always wanted to go to see The Nutcracker as I love the music, but have never plucked up the courage to persuade Martin to come along with me. This year though, as part of the Canterbury Festival, a special production was being shown locally. I tentively asked if we could go, and surprisingly he said OK. Mind he had to check he was on the right shift and by the time I remembered to ask if he had done that, all the tickets had sold out. I was really dissappointed. So I spent a quiet (and sulky) afternoon searching the big wide web until I found that there were a few other local theatres also showing it this year. The only problem is that the nearest venue (Herne Bay Kings Hall) is not a proper theatre but was the nearest and most sensible option (with the best dates). The King's Hall is one of those old fashioned seaside town halls, you know, like the ones you used to find on the end of beach piers, where there is a small stage but no fixed seats. The seating arrangements will depend on the number of tickets sold. If it is a full house then the chairs will be arranged theatre style (although not banked obviously) if not they will be around the edge of the hall and will come with their own table. It should therefore be quite an interesting night.

Mum went in and had a small biopsy. She seems to have come through the general anaesthetic ok and the quack reckons all is ok.

And yesterday it was MY BIRTHDAY!!!

I had to work but it was at the really nice tiny village school where all the staff are so friendly so I made up a batch of fairy cakes which went down a treat with everyone, and had a fun day with the children playing with autogiros (paper spinners).

When I got home Martin, who had been up since three as he had to go in to work early for a petrol forecourt cleaning, was really tired. Kelly was coming to visit later for tea, and we had already had some debate about what to feed her. I asked him why we had been trying to decide between chops and sausages when, since it was my birthday we should be having the traditional steak and chips supper? In that case he replied, lets just cross the road and have it in the Hungry Horse. Before I knew it we were sitting at a pub table with not only Kelly but Laura and Wayne too. The food had improved immensly since our last visit and we were very stuffed when we finally got home, and climbed into the hot tub.

I had heaps and heaps of birthday well wishes from my web mates and my rl mates, a good bit of money which is going to buy a new external hard drive for backup and storage, and a new gardening journal all ready for me to start gardening again in January. Oh and two large bags of skittles from the cat.

Thank you guys for a lovely day.

SU! Blog Candy Prize

There was a bit of a problem in that my original prize from SU! didnt turn up. Lousette emailed the wonderful Jo who was organising it, and she has sent me goodies out of her own supplies as replacement!!!

She apparently added a little something extra as she felt bad about my prize taking so long. She is one wonderful lady. My packet arrived today and I am totally blown away by how genourous she has been. This is what she sent...ove £100 of wonderful SU goodies!!!

Abandoned blog?

No, its not been abandoned, I just havent had much to blog about. I havent been doing much crafting as I am slowly getting sucked into cross stitching - and I havent finished anything yet ready to show on here.

However I do need to update so here are all the things that have been happening to me and mine:-

• Kelly and Ollie finished doing up their house, put it on the market on a wednesday, sold it on a saturday and put an offer on another house on the Monday. They are hoping to be in their new house in New Allington by christmas
  
• Our real hot tub arrived and is fantastic, we have enjoyed being in it every day. The weather is still very mild so we havnt worried about getting out of it into the cold yet.
• Laura and Wayne's new build is fast approaching second fitting stage so they also hope to be in by christmas.
• We were invited to tea with Martin's two brothers and their respective other halves. Martin's dad has been discovered to have a heart murmer and has to go for ongoing tests. He is going to be 90 next January so the meet up was to discuss plans for a celebration. Dad however only wants a very small affair - dinner at Chris's for just the 8 of us, no grandchildren no friends or extended family.
• We went up to town to see Calander Girls at the Noel Coward theatre. Our cheapo 3rd balconly tickets were upgraded to third row circle for free, Martin was one of only about 5 men in the audience and it was so funny we both litterally cried with laughter.
  

Winning streak

I must be on a bit of a roll at the moment because as well as winning the Sketch challenge for last month on the Pad, and the SU! blog candy, I found out last night I have also won another Sketch challenge over on Pickleberry Crafts blog. !!!!!!

OMG!!! I won

I am still a bit stunned but after blogging about it and encouraging everyone to go to Suzanne's , Lousette's and Jenny's blog to see all the wonderful new SU! goodies, my name was actually picked on Lousettes sit and I won the blog candy!!!

My prize should be here by the end of the week and I will be able to share what I get.

Wow!!

Ok in other news. It has been super quiet work wise with only 2 days supply in the 4 weeks the children have been back at school. Out of bordom I decided to sand down the table in my craftroom and re-stain it in a much lighter colour. It is actually the dinning room table we bought back in 1985, a treat to us both after spending 3 years waiting for something to be done about the house we were living in, which was subsiding. When we finally moved we lashed out on a rather expensive dining room suite, a solid wood table and 6 solid wood chairs. Trouble is back in the 80's dark stained wood was all the rage but now it is just too dark for the small room. We bought a pine and glass replacement table a few years ago and the old table was placed in the craft room where it has slowly become covered in ink and pain and glue.

Sanding it down has been a horrible job, with dust everywhere - its going to be fun cleaning up all my craft stuff afterwards, I had to do it in situ as the weather has been too wet to take it outside. I have managed to finish the top surface though and now need Martin to take it apart so I can do the legs.

On Saturday I got a call from mum ..... dad had been knocked over by the dog while they were playing ball together, and had ended up in the pond. He was a bit shaken up, but managed to get to two parties that evening so I think he was ok in the end.

I also went over to help Kelly clear up her house after all the decorating in order for the carpet man to come lay the carpets. Their house is looking really good now it is nearly finished. Ollie came over on Sunday and collected the spare bed so that they can now present it as a proper 3 bedroom house.

Oh and in final news, we have booked tickets to go and see Calendar Girls in London next week.

New SU! catty launch

The new Stamping Up! Catalogue was launched yesterday, and alongside lots of the previous catty's stamps and goodies there are a whole heap of new toys for stampers, cardmakers and scrappers to play with.

Suzanne, Lousette, and Jenny were chosen to help the launch, they had to make some cards, layouts or altered projects to showcase on their blogs at the stroke of midnight, all from a surprise package of products sent to their homes yesterday. A very tight timescale. The girls have come up with some amazing stuff and the eyecandy alone is worth visiting their blogs, but there is also a few SU! goodies up for grabs in a prize draw if you go make some comments.

As always the three girl's work is amazing, and well worth taking a look at.

A bit of crafting

A card for the wedding we went to.




This was from a sketch but I cant remember where from. I did it about a month ago and it has been sitting on my camera eversince.