Christmas day plus two

Well, that’s Christmas over for another year. This year, for the first time ever (as far as I can remember) John and I spent most of Christmas day on our own. We were very civilised and sat down to a full blown Christmas dinner which we then slept off while we waited for David & Amanda to come around, with her Mum & brother, for tea. I don’t usually do much in way of tea at Christmas but this year I thought I ought to  make an effort – not surprisingly a lot of it went uneaten!

Yesterday morning we talked to Matt on Skype – the first time we’ve been able to since he left in September – he gave us a guided tour of the house he’s living in and introduced us to his housemates! I often wonder how families managed when their loved ones went overseas as recently as 20 years ago – it must have been awful not being able to make the instant contact we do now.

As I’m writing this I’m watching a trashy movie on Christmas 24, it’s all about a mail man and a lonely lady who meet up at Christmas – what a lovely idea , it has a slightly familiar ring to it…..

So what now? Well for the immediate I’m expecting Janet and her Mum for coffee at any time and I’m back to work tomorrow. I think I’ll make the most of the rest of my time off and do some hexie piecing because I can! Relatively pain free now, but just need to be sensible as I don’t want to undo the good that’s been done before my holiday next week – yep, I hear you ‘another one’. Doesn’t seem real at the moment what with Christmas and everything but I think after the New Year I’ll start to get excited about it!

I’ve only gone and done it!!

Now that caught your eye didn’t it! What have I done? I’ve listed some of my bags on Etsy – you can find me here at Handmade by Heather. I’m not sure if they will sell but if I don’t try I will never know will I? The pricing looks a little strange ‘cos you have to put the price in US dollars and I suppose depending which exchange rate the site uses the rate will vary. I really struggled to come up with a price that reflects my expenses and that will appeal to the buyer, I’ve had a good look around Etsy and at the various craft fairs I’ve been to and the prices vary widely - £10 - £45 for very similar items. I thought if I offered free UK post and packing it might seem a good deal.

Now just have to sit back and see what happens – gulp!!

In other news, we head towards Christmas wondering where the year has disappeared to. Matt seems to be settled in Brisbane now for a couple of months at least. He has a job working for a meat supplier – he works nights loading orders for supermarkets. Working nights should suit him as he has always been a nit of a night owl anyway and the money is good. It’s going to be very strange mot having him around at Christmas this year although we will talk on the phone.

And that’s probably all I can think of – oh, nearly forgot – the shoulder business. It’s getting better I think and I’ve finished the acupuncture – can’t say it’s made any difference really but it was worth a try, I’m still taking the medication because when I don’t take it the symptoms all come right back! But the good news is that the Physio suggested I try some hand stitching or crochet – almost like getting back on the bike when you’ve fallen off I suppose. I tried some on Thursday to no ill effect so hope that I can carry on. I’ve packed up the sewing machine as I don’t think I’ll have any time leading up to Christmas but a spot of hand stitching might just fill the gap!

A-ma-zing!!

Sorry if this is becoming boring but…Strictly was blooming fantastic. I’ve set this to post after tonight’s results show because the audience were sworn to secrecy about the result!

We arrived at Wembley about 4.30 and queued for a short time before taking our seats which, although not fantastic, gave us a good enough view. We were fortunate enough to have a screen that we could see the dancers on, although we had to watch the group dances on the floor as we missed stuff otherwise! I was sceptical about the Saturday show being transmitted live but it is! The fill in bits for Sunday are filmed before and after the Saturday show is transmitted and the opening group dance was filmed in advance of the live show – which is obvious when you think about it as they would never be able to do the costume changes in time. On the live show when you see the training segments the crew are busy clearing after the last act and getting ready for the next dancers – it is so slick!

And then there’s Bruce! He is so much better without the stupid scripted autocue gags, he came on before filming started and did a few gags completely of the cuff – let me tell you, doddery he is not! He sang and danced as well which was a Brucie bonus, I take my hat off to him!

Anyway, I think most of you know that Sunday is filmed on Saturday night, so we got to see who was voted off and now you know as well! Russell was so humble in losing, the final dance actually lasted two or three minutes which you don’t get to see on the TV and all of the dancers really support each other all the way through.

I’m not a great fan of Il Divo but they were fantastic as well – what you saw on the TV tonight was what we saw – just one take and the same for James Morrison & Jessie J! I sort of hoped that Robbie Williams might have turned up to see his pal Robbie Savage but it wasn’t to be

Who do I think will win the whole thing? I think young Chelsee might just nick it from Harry – she was amazing last night!

Oh nearly forgot  - the judges! We were all told to boo and cheer as necessary, but Craig got by far the biggest cheer when he was introduced, he seemed quite shocked!! Craig and Bruno were hilarious together camping it up – I don’t know if you saw them dancing at the end of the show – if not then you missed a treat!

So would I go again – hell yes!! It was fantastic entertainment, my hands hurt from clapping so much and, apart from the fact that we chose to stay overnight, it was excellent value for money at £20 per ticket which, apart from the VAT, all goes to Children In Need.

Needles & Pins

Ah, I see you all thinking this is going to be a crafty post, well you’d be wrong! It’s been almost five weeks now since I’ve been able to do any hand sewing or crochet – that simple holding action between thumb and for finger seems to have been the trigger for the dreadful pain I was having in my shoulder, arm & hand. However I have now had two acupuncture sessions as part of my physiotherapy and I think I can feel an improvement – I’m desperate to be able to do something of an evening, but am resisting the temptation to try.

I have made a few of the purses that I have shown you before and have decided to try to build up a stock and sell them, so I’ve decided not to post pictures at the moment. I’ve really appreciated the comments that people have left about the ones I’ve already shown and I think that’s sort of given me the courage to try to sell some.

In other news, John and I are off to see Strictly Come Dancing at Wembley tonight – excited doesn’t begin to describe how I’m feeling! Dress code is glamorous which makes it even more exciting! I’ve been driving my work mates made with my countdown to the big day and yesterday one of them said to me ‘do me a favour and call my phone, there’s something wrong with my display’. When I rang him he’d changed his ringtone to the Strictly theme tune! His deadpan delivery took me right in – there was of course nothing wrong at all with his phone!

I’m equally as excited at the prospect of going to IKEA tomorrow on the way home – sadly we don’t have one close to us so we have to take advantage when we travelling that way. I plan to stock up on candles and tea lights and who knows what else takes my fancy – last time we went we came back with more stuff than we knew what to do with!!

Lucky me!!

Something a little different this week. When it was announced that London had won the 2012 Olympics, John & Matt volunteered to help with whatever was needed, they heard nothing so assumed they wouldn’t be wanted but, when we got back from holiday, John had an email inviting him for an interview for ‘transportation’. I jokingly said that he would be driving one of those electric carts that you see at such events while he was convinced he’d be driving a coach!! (totally unrealistic of course). Anyway, the interview was Thursday at the Excel Centre, close to the Olympic village.

We both took the day off and drove down to London and all was well until we got right up close to Excel and found it was nigh on impossible to work out how to get in! Eventually we found a kind security guard who we followed to the car park and he showed us where to go.

Before we left home we had a debate over what John should wear. We knew it was to be a one-and-a-half hour interview and he said he ought to wear a suit – who am I to argue? Well, the interview turned out to be a short film which was viewed with about 30 other people, then a chat in small groups afterwards. He found out that they 10,000 drivers!! 10,000. They were needed to ferry VIPs and dignitaries from three points in London to the games and they’ll have a fleet of 3 series BMWs!! So now we wait to hear, apparently people who were interviewed in March are only just being told!

As a special treat, John let me go to the new Westfield Shopping Centre at Stratford – I don’t normally like big centres like that but this one is different, some lovely shops and really open and airy. There weren’t to many people there on Thursday afternoon but I’d imagine it will be heaving at weekends. We started to make our way home about 4 o’clock to beat the worst of the traffic, but boy were we in for a surprise! The promised rain fell and the drive home was a nightmare. Standing water in places on the A12 with more rain falling, I’m just glad it wasn’t me driving!

We’re getting to the reason for the title now! When we got home I checked my emails and there was one from Ticket Master headed ‘Your Strictly Come Dancing Application. I’d forgotten that I’d applied for tickets for the Wembley show which is a special for Children in Need, I knew it was a draw but I’d been successful, as it’s for charity we have paid to go but I’m really looking forward to it – I just hope we will be able to have a good view!

We spoke to Matt today as well, normally we phone him at 9am our time which is early evening for him, but he sent a text saying that he would call us at about 11pm his time – we thought he’d probably be out for the evening and when another text came through saying change of plan, I’ll you about 2am we thought he’d had a really good night out!! But we were wrong! He’d been at work! He’s had a couple of random days work this week and this one was dismantling an exhibition and clearing the space for another, if he’s to stay for much longer he will need more work as he’s running out of money, trouble is he has to pay 30% tax which he’ll get back when he leaves but it makes a deep dent in what he earns.

Only one bag made this weekend, the neck/arm/hand combo is still causing me grief but I’m going to have acupuncture on Wednesday – oh how I hope it works. Three weeks of agony and discomfort is enough I think and I’m really missing sewing of an evening, more than I ever thought I would.

Decision made

OK – time to put the past few weeks to bed I think. I’ve decided to ride out whatever storms arise at work, thanks to this strange positivity that’s arrived over the past couple of weeks I now feel a lot more positive and optimistic about the future – just hope I can keep it up!

Moving on to other things of a more domestic nature. Matt seems to have settled in Brisbane, he’s been there for about a month now and has his ‘white card’ to enable him to work in the ‘construction’ industry, which seems to be a generic term for odd-jobbing here and there. Apparently there’s a large music festival in Brisbane in a couple of weeks and they need people to work on the site and stuff. We have a regular weekly phone call with him and he seems to really be enjoying himself – which is a huge relief after the first few days.

Yesterday, I had a select ladies who sew day, not intentionally select but only a few people could come – bad me took not a single photo! The reveal of the day was that Isabel has lovely hand sewing skills! She was rummaging through my purse frames and picked one with greeny coloured bobbles for the clasp, the challenge then was to find some fabric to go with it and here is her photo of her bounty!

It’s the small purse from issue three of ‘Molly Makes’

I made another frame purse yesterday, I’ve decided to just make a few so I have some to hand for that impromptu last minute gift so set out several matching fabrics – they only take about a quarter yard of each fabric which helps to mitigate the cost of the frames!

Finally, here’s some of the bags I’ve made lately and haven’t got around to sharing yet…

I’ve moved away from my safety net of plain lining for this one!

I’m off then, time for a quick shower before I phone Matt!

Positive Mental Attitude

Yes - that's what I've got now! Still need to decide about work but that will come, I know. The positive mental attitude (PMA) has come about from a weight loss programme I'm trying and I will let you know more about that in good time.

I haven't got much to tell you this week apart from the problem with my shoulder which is slightly marring my PMA. For  a few months now I've suffered from intense sporadic pain in my left shoulder. I put it down to repetitive strain injury from crochet because that seemed to be the trigger, however last weekend I noticed the pain from that gripping position when I sew the hexies. So I stopped sewing for a few days. Unfortunately the pain didn't go so I referred my self to physio at work (about the only perk we have) and she told me that it's not my shoulder - it's my neck :( after I'd finished the session I could barely move my head and all she had done was to assess me, no treatment! The physio suggested a visit to the GP for proper pain releif and she'll see me again in a couple of weeks when they've started to work. Meanwhile I am to avoid anything that makes the pain worse whilst doing some simple excercises to help loosen things up. I feel totally bereft that I can't do anything (confession - I worked on a bag with minimal hand sewing today 'cos I wanted to get it finished - no reveal just yet though!)

So here's to another week of who knows what - all I can say is bring it on!!!