Three weeks and five hours later

Our central heating broke down again.........   The very helpful plumber arrived out of hours to fix it but guess what - he didn't have the part that had gone haywire.   He's coming back again today hopefully with the correct bit to fix it.  If not it looks like a new boiler.   In the meantime we are wearing several layers of clothing and staying close.

Having said that I have, trumpet sound..... done some sewing, yeh...  My friend Jenny bought a wall hanging pattern while she was in Canada last year but changed her mind about making it and loaned me the pattern.   Its by Ursula Riegel of www.designstoshare.com and is called "In the Mist".  Well, being me I liked it but didn't want to make it in shades of black and white.  So I changed it to greens. Then I thought I don't want snow, or a stone and left them out.  Then I decided I wanted leaves on the ground and a few left on the tree, after all the colours I had looked very autumnal.  So here it is.

 

It probably could have done with a few more leaves on the floor but I'm happy enough with it at the moment, especially as its the first thing I've done for a while.  Its about 18" x 20".

 

I'm off to a room with a heater now as I am very definitely beginning to feel the cold.

Weekend in Seahouses

Wow the sea was rough!! Our holiday weekend cottage was a stone's throw away from the harbour and we could see the sea from our windows. We arrived Friday teatime just in time to have a quick look round the harbour before the light went then picked up fish and chips for supper.  I still like my fish and chips wrapped in newspaper but they aren't allowed to do that any more.  Sometimes though I think the smell of the salt and vinegar is more tempting than the actual meal but not this time, it was delicious and Keith really enjoyed his.

All the boats had remained in the harbour only the big oil tankers were seen on the horizon.

On Saturday we had a look round Berwick but it was quite cold and Keith was looking a little tired so we spent quite a bit of time in coffee shops.

On the way back we called in at Bamburgh where the Grace Darling Museum is situated, think every child in the UK was taught about the heroic Grace Darling who rescued seamen from a wreck in a storm.  The Museum was cold by the time we got there, in fact lots of places were closed if we'd been going this weekend they would have been open but hey that's life.

 

The best views of Bamburgh Castle are from the sea but no one was willing to paddle out to get me a good photo.  Again Blogger won't let me make the photos any bigger, looks like threes the limit.

 

Back to Seahouses where we stopped off at the Swallow Fisheries for smoked prawns.  The shop has been open since 1843 (well it did close sometimes, usually on a Sunday).  I'm not keen on smoked food but the others enjoyed them dipped in mayonnaise.  More photos of waves before we went to the local hotel for dinner.

 

 

I made this scrapbook page for Marc and Alix as a reminder of our lovely weekend.  

 

 



Knitting

I've been trying to spend as much time with Keith as I can, especially since he can no longer work in his shed for the cold.   So I've taken up knitting again as its something I can do while I sit with him at night.  What have I made, not a lot, I'm not a fast knitter but here goes......

One moebius scarf which is supposed to have only one loop (I managed to get three!!).  It was the first time I'd tried knitting from both sides of the cast-on stitches.  I bit tricky at first but easy once you get going. 

 

Two cushion covers, one got pulled out as it was too big for the cushion but the other one is okay.

Three matinee coats for my goddaughter's baby which is due officially in March but will definitely be delivered early.  Julie has problems bringing babies to term due to her high blood pressure and kidney problems, pre-eclampsia has meant early deliveries for her other children.  It was her and her twin sister's 40th birthday at the beginning of the month and she wanted to announce the sex of her baby at their birthday party.  The hospital she had her scan done at made her a cake which showed the sex when it was cut into.  Her cake had blue icing in the middle - so guess she is having a boy. 

 

 

You can see the cushion behind the matinee coats.  I have made three the missing one is identical to the multi-coloured coat but in plain white.  Not sure she will want the multi-coloured one but it can always be donated to the premature baby ward.

 

I have received a few postcards, I won the postcard lottery so will post these later.

 

We are off to Seahouses on Friday for the weekend.  Marc and Alix have booked a cottage for themselves and as there are two bedrooms are taking us with them.  Not quite sure how Keith will cope as he is exhausted most of the time now but so far not a lot of pain.  He's keen to go though and I'm sure we'll all enjoy the time away.



Happy New Year

We had a family buffet yesterday and Flynn never stopped eating for almost the whole two hours he was with us.  He entertained everyone with kisses and hugs.  He's at the stage now where he parrots everything you say which had us laughing.   It was good to laugh again and Keith had a lovely time even if he was exhausted this morning the company cheered him up no end.

Julie hasn't been too well either recently and we are waiting for the neurosurgeon's report on the tumour on her neck.  We know its benign but she is rarely free from headaches so the family gathering was a distraction for her too.

Marc was very reluctant to have his photo taken.

Why is it that everyone congregates in the kitchen?

 

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year.  We thoroughly enjoyed our family breakfast, lunch and Matthew's 21st birthday dinner.  New Year was very quiet but that is what we wanted, a rest after all the entertaining over the previous few days.   We had Buster staying with us overnight as his parents were off to a party.  Ten minute before the old year ended we realised that Buster's lead was is the car, the car was in the garage and neither of us wanted to go and get it.  Result - Keith left the house with a large dog on a bright yellow ribbon lead.   There were fireworks going off all over the place and Buster kept heading for the bushes.  Keith thought he fireworks were frightening him but no, he just wanted to let out some of the water he had drunk.  

 

Happy New Year everyone and I hope its is a happy, healthy, creative one.