Another week, another parcel!!

Well another week has just whizzed by! Busy at work resulting in tired at home !

No big crafty reveals this week, I haven’t even touched the crochet since last Sunday evening, when I unpicked my previous attempt and started a ripple instead – bizarrely that wouldn’t work for me either – perhaps that’s why I haven’t picked it up since!

I’ve actually had a busy few days at home as well, thinking back. Son 1 and FDIL came for dinner on Thursday evening – this is going to sound really awful – and I cooked a real dinner! Even Son 2 comments that when they come round we eat properly! By a real dinner I mean a chicken casserole which isn’t really difficult and I don’t know why I don’t do stuff like that more often. I think most nights when I get in I just want to sit and veg out and tend to throw a meal together which just goes into the oven!

On Friday, the friend that I call Julie sent me a text early in the morning  to say that she and her daughter, my lovely goddaughter were coming to Ipswich shopping and would we be around, so they popped into see us – originally just for a cup of tea but when I said we were going to get fish & chips, lovely goddaughter’s eyes lit up so they stayed for dinner as well, I know how to treat my guests (more of that to follow)! Son 2 arrived home and declined my choice of culinary delight and, as he had a very late night, promptly fell asleep on the sofa still wearing his suit! He woke up to have some toast – his choice – change his clothes and went back to sleep! I shooed him off of the sofa about 8 o’clock and he went to bed – in his clothes – where he stayed until Saturday morning!

Saturday morning saw us drinking tea at 4 o’clock! We were both wide awake but still tired and I do find that a cup of tea helps to go back to sleep – which it did, the next thing I knew was the doorbell ringing at 7.30! I scrambled out of bed to find the postman with a parcel, which I had arranged to be redelivered – just didn’t expect it quite so early! I’ll tell you about the parcel a little later – just to keep you reading!!

I needed to go to Quilter’s Haven to get the backing and binding for the current project and John decided he’d come too – I told him I’d only be about an hour but still he wanted to come! Back home and off to town for lunch before football and I know you’ll all be pleased to hear that we won 2-0 which always makes me feel better, I get so heavy hearted when it’s not going well!

And then in the evening, more guests for dinner! This time Linda & John to discuss our upcoming holiday arrangements and today’s meal of choice – a Chinese takeaway!! Followed by indigestion at 3 o’clock (which would have been 4 o’clock yesterday) more tea and back to sleep until about 7.30 which in reality isn’t too bad!

Best part of the day so far has to be Son 2 getting up for work without putting his clock back! We waited until he’d got in the shower to tell him, bad parents that we are!!

Anyway, back to the postman. He bought this month’s secret blog swap which this month was sent by Miss Cherry Red with many apologies as she had been let down in her original purchase and was consequently late in sending, without further ado here is the content of the parcel – I think you’ll agree well worth waiting for!

 

A lovely sewing box which, when opened, revealed

 

Not only all this lovely yarn but also…

 

A really cute little kit to make bags!

And that’s about it for now – we’re off on holiday on Friday, leaving Son 2 in charge of himself and the house, I don’t care what he gets up to while I’m away – as long as it’s clean and tidy when I get home!

May Secret Post Club

 

Remember I left you last week with a tease about what was  in that gorgeous pink jiffy bag that the postman bought me?

Well, I can reveal that it contained…

… a tube of Heathcote & Ivory Lavender and Lemongrass hand cream and a bottle of L’Occitaine’s Paeonia Eau de Toilette, which I have to say I had not heard of but that I now absolutely adore!!

This came courtesy of the lovely Victoria aka Mummy Bear!

Thank you, Victoria, for taking the trouble to read through my blog and choosing something so appropriate!!

More information about the Secret Post Club can be found here!

This ‘n’ that

Oooh – it’s been  an age since I did a waffly, nothing in particular post! (Just spell checked waffly and it came up wifely!!) So here we go a bit of this and a bit of that and not a lot of anything in particular.

OK first up – secret blog post. A few weeks ago I happened across, and I can’t remember for the life of me where, somebody who had just received their gift from the secret blog post. I thought that seemed like a nice idea, exchange a gift with somebody from somewhere each month – no great expense involved – so took a hop over to Notes from Lapland to see what it was all about. The blogger is a Brit living in Lapland whose name is Heather – the Secret Post Club is just a small part of her blog. Anyway – I signed up to join in and eagerly awaited my instructions. On 1 April I received the details of who was the intended recipient of my secret post and duly set about thinking what I was going to send. I decided on a book that I had recently read (A Thousand Splendid Suns – if you haven’t already done so you must read it – even if it is not the sort of book you would normally find yourself reading), a souvenir kitchen towel from the latest holiday and a bar of chocolate. The recommended maximum is £10 ($15 – ish) but it can be absolutely anything.

Poor Heather seems to have created a monster, she has a lot of people taking part now and not everybody was posting when they should so she designed a spreadsheet to add the dates that you sent and received your gift. The idea is to send mid-month at the latest – but hey, we are all adults so why should she have to chase and worry people into posting, simple rules so let’s abide by them!

Anyway – I’m digressing again. I sent my parcel and started to feel guilty/worried when it didn’t show as being received – being the type of person I am(!) I emailed my recipient to say that I had sent it and apologise for it not arriving, cursing our wonderful UK postal system. She emailed immediately to say  that a neighbour had taken it and just delivered it to her – phew.

I eagerly checked the spreadsheet to see if mine had been sent and there was nothing against my name but for some reason I went to the bottom of the sheet and my name had been added again way down there – and my gift had been dispatched – with a little note apologising for the delay. Hey presto, next day I had a package – shall I show you what was in it? Shall I? Do you want to see it? Are you sure? (OK enough – I’ll stop now)

 

 

A lovely smell of lavender wafted from the envelope as I opened it – which came from the cute little heart, there was a cute little leather notebook and a broach – interestingly when I took the photo the ‘facefinder’ thing found the owl’s face!

The package came from Sara over at The Heart of Our Tribe – if you hop over you can see that she had far more important things on her mind than sending my parcel.

 

Moving swiftly on, our good friends Linda & John recently became grand parents for the fourth time – but this time they have a grandson, we always joke that their family just doesn’t do boys but it seems they do now. He was born shortly before our holiday and we didn’t get a chance to see him before we went away but fully intended to when we got home. Not wanting to intrude on those precious early days, we waited to make contact but wondered why we couldn’t contact Linda when we tried. And then she phoned us. Son 2 answered the phone and went from being his normal humorous self to a very serious young man. His face went grey, his eyes lost their sparkle – my heart sank. He handed me the phone. Their much loved grandson had been rushed back to hospital at five days old as the midwife noticed he didn’t look ‘quite right’. It turned out that he has a narrowing of his pulmonary artery and will probably have to have surgery to open it up. The good news is that they didn’t have to do the surgery straight away and there’s no rush to do it now – that was a relief.

On Sunday we met the young man for the first time – he is gorgeous and he has two very proud parents. And I was pleased to be able to put some of my hooky wooliness to good use. I decided I need something small to take on holiday to crochet in my spare time and this is the result!

A cot blanket – I bought the yarn before he was born but the colours turned out just right – it’s a marbled yarn so not too many ends to sew in!

Phew – I’ve just previewed this and seen how long it is so I’ll waffle no more … for now!