Betwixtmas 2014

Apparently we call the period between Christmas and New Year, Betwixtmas. I heard it on Radio 1 the other day and I liked it. I can be down with the kids.

Betwixtmas for me started off with some fairly major snow late on Boxing Day night. Not a big deal in itself, and quite exciting for most people, but a bit nervewracking for me as the next day I had to drive to Hull. I haven't driven in the snow/ice before and I would also have with me my Mum aka the World's Worst Passenger.

But we made it to Hull which was good because we had to break these two people out of cat prison aka the cattery.

Betwixtmas is a time for many a Fred and Lily photo to be taken. Pay special attention to the top right photo - Lily was nicely asleep on my knee for ages and when Fred saw this he immediately had to come and sit even closer to me because he is a big fat jealous ginger boy.

Betwixtmas was a time for catching up with friends. Catching up with them from 2pm until gone midnight to be precise. Messy. Although the next morning I discovered that I'd had a very productive shopping trip at Sainsburys. Oh and I took the funniest selfie with Lily ever - why does she look so horrified? Because I chased her all around the kitchen grabbing at her to take that photo...

Betwixtmas is also a time for me to dogsit for a day. Which just involves lying on the sofa watching TV with this pair of idiots. I don't know why they always look so sad in photos, I swear to god they're really happy dogs normally.

Betwixtmas is a time for crocheting things that have no purpose and are for you and you alone. I got Kerry Lord's book for Christmas along with some lovely fancy Tofts Alpaca wool (which is eye wateringly expensive when you're used to buying Stylecraft)

Betwixtmas is a time for sitting on your behind, drinking hot chocolate and reading massive 900 page tomes.

Betwixtmas is a time for starting to get organised and fill your fridge up after you have eaten it bare. Before I went shopping I swear to god all I had in my fridge was a bottle of cider, gherkins, Flora and an out of date yoghurt. I love a bit of batch cooking although it drives me mental that I don't have more space in my freezer. Jamie Oliver's basic stew recipe is a winner every time.

Betwixtmas is a time for surprise presents out of the blue from Apple. I have been the proud owner of a first generation iPod Nano for the last 9 years or so. You might not remember first generation iPods, I think they stopped making them a bazillion years ago.

Anyway the battery on mine gradually just got rubbish and wouldn't retain charge. I put out a random tweet saying I felt sad that my iPod's time had come, and a stranger replied pointing me in the direction of Apple's First Generation iPod Replacement Program. I was absolutely convinced it was a scam that was going to steal everything from me but it turns out it was actually true.

I sent my iPod Nano off and Betwixtmas delivered a brand new, latest, 16BG, iPod Nano. I could not believe it. Finally being cheap and not buying the latest model of anything pays off...



Christmas 2014 could suck it but Betwixtmas 2014 I could get on board with.

The Christmas Spirit

Christmas spirit was lacking around these here parts for a long time. At first I thought that it was because I'd been so ill in Marrakech (I was off work for the week after returning home because I was still a super sick person) so I forced myself out once I was feeling steady on my legs and went to buy a tree.

I would love a real tree but I'm also short on space, as well as cash, so I parted with £15 of my hard earned cash and handed it over to Tesco in exchange for a rather lovely specimen.

I dutifully decorated it and plugged in the fairy lights. I lit the Christmas scented candle. I brought out my Christmas mugs. I sent out cards. I wrapped presents. I even put tinsel around the gerbilarium.

But it wouldn't materialise for me.

(I even joined in Char's Blogger Secret Santa in the hope that I would soon start to feel that Christmassy tingle all the way to my fingers and my toes. I packaged everything up (inadvertently being very trendy with my brown paper and baker's twine) and sent it off before I went to Marrakech so I hit Char's posting deadline of 8th December.

The package I sent off is pictured below. My parcel is still MIA at the time of writing.)

Eventually I realised that it wasn't ever going to make an appearance.

I was just too sad.

I have mostly been fine since the break-up and have done a pretty good job at holding my shit together. But sometimes everything falls apart and then I run through the usual cycle - getting mad at myself for feeling sad, telling myself to get over it, telling myself that there are people with real problems, etc etc before eventually reaching a place where I say to myself, "You know what? It's only been 3 months. You're allowed to still feel a little bit shitty, especially at Christmas."

Christmas is a funny one really. There is so much pressure for it to be perfect and happy. There's no room for feeling a bit off. You have to spend it with people and you have to love every single second of it and isn't it brilliant and marvellous?

The closer Christmas got and the more shrill people got asking me if I was feeling festive, the more I started a slowly slide into complete panic mode. I'm not truly, deep down, happy at the moment. I absolutely have moments of awesomeness and brilliance, but in my core, I am so sad and so lonely and that just started to get magnified.

I reverted back to the weeks after the break-up when I would come in from a day of being completely normal at work and just sit and cry for no reason. I had another near meltdown in Tesco. I left drinks with work friends early because I kept having to go to the toilet because I was convinced I was going to break down in tears.

I could not keep my shit together any longer.

I didn't want to spend Christmas with anyone, I didn't want to see anyone. I just really really really wanted to be on my own.

But at Christmas you can't say that to anyone so I plastered a smile on my face, took a deep breath and plunged headfirst into a day of festiveness and happiness with family.

I opened presents. Awesome presents actually. Maybe it was just because I felt so crappy about the day that I was so overjoyed with anything that happened that was vaguely nice? Maybe it was because my family felt a little bit sorry for me this Christmas? Maybe Father Christmas took pity on me and figured I deserved a break.

I'm not one for 'haul' posts *cringes* but the above photo shows just how well my family know me. (How jealous are you of my Famous Five Annual? VERY.) I feel like the Tetris light is a sign that I need to pull my finger out and get on with the Tetris blanket though...

I ate food, I drank champagne, I toasted Christmas, I watched TV, I played family games, I laughed around the table. I did all the Christmas things and I got through the past couple of days, even though my body did what it tends to do when confronted with a difficult emotional time and want to sleep. All the time. Luckily that's socially acceptable at Christmas.

Less socially acceptable was my decision to come back to my flat on Boxing Day late afternoon to spend an evening alone. That decision did not go down well with either sister or mother but given that I'm about to take Mum to Hull and won't return until Monday I decided I was allowed some time to myself.

It's not about sitting at home and moping and feeling sorry for myself you know. It's not as if I'm sat here crying to myself about how my life got completely annihilated a few months ago. It's just that when I'm on my own I can sit here and feel relaxed because I don't have to pretend that I'm fine when I'm not. And I feel pretty sure that there were quite a few of us out there who felt like that this Christmas so high five to us for getting through it.

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And because I don't want to be whiny you may now enjoy some pictures of the animals at Christmas...

Note Blinky "joining in" at Christmas a.k.a. sitting as far away from everyone as possible and with her back to the room. 

Photo an Hour l 14th December

Pitifully late with this month's Photo an Hour post. After being ill in Marrakech and then off work for a week, I've been having problems getting my act together and actually caring about doing anything. To be honest I'm giving myself a gold star for actually taking these photos.

This was Sunday 14th December...

10am - Late start for me, still in recovery mode after the kidney infection. Felt bad that the gerbils hadn't had a lot of exercise with me being away and being sick so I set up a mega cage extension into their playpen so they could come and play as they chose. They absolutely loved it and ended up being in there until about 2pm.

11am - Got around to finishing a book. This guy is a bit of a Marmite author, people seem to really like him or have a very visceral reaction to his books. I like him - his books are silly and easy to read and sometimes that is what you need. I wonder about his shelf life though, this book was very similar to his last one...

12pm - My guilty pleasure is absolutely, totally crap made-for-TV Christmas films. I'm not talking Elf, Polar Express, The Holiday, Love Actually here. I'm talking the kind of films you have never heard of, featuring actors you have never heard of with plotlines which are inconceivably easy to work out. I can't get enough of them.

1pm - Finally getting around to blogging, something which I have been completely remiss at lately.

2pm - In previous years I've been pretty good at making most of my Christmas cards. Not this year. I've been low on festive cheer but I gave myself a kick up the bum to make some cute crocheted Christmas tree cards to be given to the people I really like.

3pm - Round at my sister's so I got to see this little squishy face.

4pm - The downside of your sister being the boss? You get to spend a couple of hours of your Sunday sorting out vouchers to give people for a Christmas bonus. Yaaaaaaaay.

5pm - You can't tell from this picture but Rowan was literally sat on me, pushing me right against the arm of the sofa. She has absolutely no sense of personal space and I wouldn't have it any other way.

6pm - I stayed on at my sister's after dinner to help her with the Christmas tree. Having two teenage sons means that decorating the tree is kind of a lonely business for her. I on the other hand will leap at the opportunity to decorate a tree. Any tree.

7pm - And we didn't do too badly if I say so myself. Good bauble placement - I can't be doing with a sparsely decorated tree. And good distribution of lights. The more lights the merrier I say.

8pm - Back home where the washing up from the past *cough* days was awaiting me. It's pretty easy to let the washing up pile up when you're living on your own - you just keep taking plates out of the drawers until there aren't any left, or until there is no more workspace left to stack the dirty dishes. I know. I'm a terrible person.

9pm - In bed with a cup of tea and getting the last of my Christmas shopping done.

10pm - Ever late to a bandwagon. About 4 billion years ago, American Girl and Boy bought me Series 1 & 2 of 30 Rock. I loved it but just never got around to buying any more series. Over the past couple of weeks I rediscovered the box sets I did have and had to immediately buy Series 3 which is oh my goodness even funnier than the first two series. I've already order Series 4. Tune in next week for me discovering shows that everyone raved about 10 years previously...

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I feel like I can't thank Jane enough for hosting this year's Photo an Hour series. It's been surprisingly good fun and has got me blogging when I couldn't find anything else to blog about.

Louisa is taking up the Photo an Hour mantle for 2015 and has chosen the first date - Saturday 17 January - so get her blog bookmarked, get the date in your diary and get joining in. I love having a good old nosy at what people do during their weekends.

Photo an Hour l 8th November

I am loving these Photo an Hour posts you know. It means I have a guaranteed topic to post about once a month - anything to save me from the horror of working out what I'm supposed to write about.

I was initially quite excited about the choice of the 8th November as I knew I was going to be away visiting my Dad in Somerset - a change of scenery is usually a good omen from some more interesting photos than when you're just twatting about at home - but unfortunately the heavens poured down upon us most of the day so you can expect a fairly crochet-laden post coming up.

Pop over to Is That You Darling to see others' posts and to find out the date of the next Photo an Hour day which will be in December. And remember you can also join in on Twitter and Instagram using #photoanhour

This was Saturday 8th November...

10am - A late start to the day with a little read in bed. Mrs Dalloway is November's Classic as part of my Not Really Resolutions - I purposely picked quite a thin one as I have been running a bit behind schedule lately!

11am - Ablutions time. Anyone else remember a day when just getting ready was a case of splashing your face with some water and being good to go? I'm not even a girly girl and I'm astonished at the amount of paraphernalia I seem to cart about with me, although that's mostly due to the fact that I don't empty anything out and just add more to the pile...

12.10pm - Rubbish weather? Can only mean one thing - time for crochet. But what on earth could it be that I'm making?

1.10pm - Lunchtime and a continuation of the absolutely god-awful weather

2.10pm - What am I making? A Father Christmas of course! Since swearing that I was going to make a job lot of them and sell them at Christmas I made three and then promptly made no more. It is time to get my bum in gear because these guys really don't take that long to work up. In fact this would have been completed much earlier if it wasn't for the fact that I had a complete brain malfunction and forgot to change back to red wool and merrily crocheted along for 6 rows of 42-odd stitches. Yaaaaaay.

3.15pm - Finished! I had no idea these guys worked up this quickly. Thank goodness for Photo an Hour, I would never have known that it takes roughly an hour to work up the bobble for Father Christmas' hat, his hat trim, his face, beard and moustache, attach all the above and sew on a little face. Good to know these things.

4.30pm - This is how I know I'm in the country. You go somewhere to buy dog food and outside they have what can only be described as a fuckton of carrots. It's an official measurement. For a second I thought that people in Somerset really liked their rabbits, before twigging that they're probably for horses.

5.25pm - You see this is why Photo an Hour is brilliant. There I was idly browsing through #photoanhour tweets when I came across Louisa who was talking about editing some Carnival photos. I couldn't believe it as I was on my way to the North Petherton Carnival, something I had never ever heard about until Dad piped up that it would be where we would be spending our evening. How very cool is that?! (Check out Louisa's post from last year which explains what exactly it is I'm talking about). Anyway. 5.25pm we were stuck in some immense carnival traffic trying to get off the M5 and into North Petherton before the road closed for the Carnival.

6.20pm - Officially trapped in North Petherton with time to kill before the Carnival started at 7pm there was nothing for it but to hunker down in the bowling club house with a hot dog and pint of cider.

7.35pm - One of my least favourite things is standing still in the cold. Be warned that going to a Carnival involves a lot of standing still in the cold. I was just thankful it wasn't wet as well. To keep warm I jumped about like an idiot in to the road to see if I could see the start of it. We had a long wait on our hands...

8.30pm - The first float! Hurrah. After an hour and a half of standing in the cold staring at a hedge this was a welcome sight. Little did I know what I was about to witness. It was absolutely mind boggling.

9.25pm - Honestly. When someone says you're going to see an illuminated float parade you don't really know what's in store for you. This was insane and will clearly have a post of its own once I've gone through the 4,000 pictures that I took and begun to compose my thoughts about it.

10.30pm - Back in the car and on the way home down the back roads

11.30pm - Back home feeling cold to our very bones and glad to be in the warmth. Max was also happy to see us but mostly sad that he had been abandoned for the evening.

Unstoppable hooking

I really am terrible for going back on my word.

After being absolutely adamant that I wasn't going to make any more amigurumi stuff for people I ended up with an ask to make not one, but 4 things.

It's mainly because I'm not good at saying "No" and I wasn't so much asked if I could make them, but rather told "I have some orders for you"

Something for me to work on.

Anyway I got down to business and rather than resenting the work that I had on I went on it like a crazy woman and before I knew it, in a relatively short space of time, I had one zebra, one dinosaur, one pony and one cow.

But things didn't stop there.

I just started crocheting for not particular reason at all.

I had no home for these things. I had no need to do them. I just wanted to do them and I simply couldn't stop.

Before I knew it I had a little girl...

And for some reason when everyone picks her up the first thing they do is look under her dress. And no she doesn't have knickers on. That makes you the perv for checking, not her for not having them.

I made a dinosaur for absolutely no reason...

And if you call it Barney I will punch you in the face. She is very definitely a hot pink colour and not purple. And also Barney was a T-Rex and this is clearly a Triceratops. Know. Your. Dinosaurs.

And then my thoughts turned to Christmas. I worried that I would get requests to make things for Christmas and would get myself in a little stress so decided that I would head people off at the pass and very firmly say "No."

Given my track record for saying "No"  I decided that I might try and head people off at the pass and say "Hey, look, I have these things for sale for Christmas, would you like to buy one?" and with that in mind dug through my file for a suitable pattern, deciding that these Father Christmases would be perfect.

I figured I'll make as many as I make and when there are no more, there are no more.

I also got overly excited about the latest issue of Simply Crochet which has a Christmas decoration pattern book in it and immediately started hooking with wild abandon.

The below snowflake took about 30 minutes to stitch up and with a little steam blocking and a spray of starch looks fantastic. It is big for a Christmas decoration (I made it with DK yarn and a 4mm hook) so I'm thinking I might make a few and make a garland of some description, or dig out some lighter weight yarn and experiment with some different hook sizes.

I don't like the snowflake on the left. Sorry mate, you suck and now are in the bin. Goodbye.

But the little candy sweets I can't get enough of. Lucy pointed out that they reminded her of Campinos - I can't believe I hadn't thought of that before! They are deliciously quick to make up and I now have quite a few hanging about - I'm currently experimenting with turning them into a garland as well.

And the pipe cleaners are on order to make the candy canes also featured in Simply Crochet...

I feel as if I might have a busy few months ahead of me...

Happy Christmas

I was supposed to write a lovely blog post showing off all my terribly tacky Christmas decorations.

(For me, more is more at Christmas.)

But I never quite got around to it.

So instead, I shall leave you with this...

I'll see you in the New Year!

A very old Christmas Wish List

I have seen many of the Christmas wish lists posts floating about on many blogs over this past festive month and I wondered if I would join in.

But then I realised that I don't really know how to do one of those collage posts (and I should really because Bonjour Blogger totally has a post on how to do collages, helpful blog that it is), nor is there anything really post-worthy that I would want. Books. Any books. Just get me some books, yeah?

As fortune would have it, I don't need to write a wish list. I can just show you this one;

When down visiting my Dad and his wife at the end of November, he presented me with a letter which he had found.

It was a letter I had written to Father Christmas. It has no date on it, although I could probably take a stab looking at the items on there. All Dad could tell me was that he knew I definitely didn't get anything that I'd put on this list for Christmas that year.

I did eventually end up with a couple of things on there, I think they were birthday presents, so goodness knows what happened this particular year. But luckily for me it is still here to share today.

For those who find it difficult to read my pencil scrawl, this is the letter in its entirety:

Dear Father Christmas,

This is what you may be able to bring me at Christmas [so polite and yet to the point!]

A pair of slippers 

[starting sensibly you see, you don't go in with the big demands first]

The Penny swimming pool

Dream Dance Barbie

or, three wishes Sindy,

Paint me a picture Sindy

some boots, shoes, roller boots for Barbie,

and some clothes for Barbie,

Spirograph

A girls world head,

a shell suit,

a teenage mutant hero turtle t-shirt

a teenage mutant hero turtle glove puppet,

I have a feeling that this was a draft letter that I wrote out before writing a neat version to send off to Father Christmas.

There was one thing that I wanted more than anything on this list and I know a request was made on more than one Christmas list and birthday list over the years.

A Girl's World Head.

Oh how I dreamed that I would have that frankly weird head that I could slather make up on and backcomb it's horrible hair. I had a friend who always had the coolest toys - she had one of those Mr Frosty machines and she had a Sega Megadrive - and I would go round to her house and not so secretly covet it, but it was never meant to be.

Nor sadly was my request for a shell suit which was another long-standing wish list attendee. It does mean I have no hideous photos of me in the 90s wearing one though...

I did eventually end up with a Spirograph so, you know, don't feel too sorry for me.

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Also, remember when they were called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles instead of Ninja because they thought if they called it that we'd all turn violent from watching it? Fun times.

Crazy Cat Lady Part 21: The Fred & Lily at Christmas Edition

As I mentioned in my last post, a lot of Christmas travelling has taken place over the last 15 years or so. This has meant that poor Fred and Lily haven't spent a Christmas at home and have instead been farmed out to spend a festive few days at the cattery.

Now some might say they are cats and this doesn't matter to them because they have literally no idea what Christmas is but that kind of logic holds no sway with a Crazy Cat Lady and one of the things I was most looking forward to this year was having not just Christmas with the Mumsie but with Fred and Lily.

Mum has a Crazy Cat Lady friend - who would very much fit the image in your head right now of a CCL - who is lovely and looks after Fred and Lily when Mum goes away. She got Mum/the cats a Christmas present in the form of a Cat DVD. As in a DVD that you put on when you leave the house to keep the cats company - featuring tweeting birds and mice and ducks and other cats and various sound effects.

How's that for a CCL present?

We were sceptical but thought we'd put it on and were amazed when it actually worked - Fred was captivated...

Lily was watching as well, but from a more sensible distance and Fred actually got so excited about what was happening on the screen that he needed to take a closer look and eventually ended up behind the TV at one point, in an attempt to find the ducklings that had wandered off-screen.

We also buy our pets toys. Christmas is for cats too you know. And the presents are even wrapped. This year I got them an educational toy - a ball that you can put treats in and then when they hit the ball the treats will eventually come out.

Unfortunately it would appear that Fred and Lily are dim cats. They didn't figure it out at all, despite my efforts to show them and instead chose to sit and stare at the ball, in the hopes it would magically dispel treats.

Fred was obviously tired after his DVD watching and ball-staring and went upstairs and slept for most of the afternoon. Lily however seemed pretty keen to be involved in all aspects of Christmas - including Christmas dinner...

It was amazing to be back at home with these guys. I have missed them more than I can say. It's tough being a Crazy Cat Lady without an actual cat in your life. Given my crappy salary I've not been able to get home as much as I would have liked to, the train fare has been out of my reach, and it's been rubbish not being able to spend time with them.

They are just so good at being relaxed. Take this picture below of Lily on my legs on Boxing Day...

Look at how relaxed she is - look at that leg draped over mine.

What you can't see, is that at exactly the same time as Lily was relaxed to the max on my legs, Fred was relaxed to the max on my lap and chest...

And finally. It would be a post about Fred and Lily if there wasn't a picture of Lily looking totally demented. I don't know how she does it but seriously, look at her face..

Mother and Me

What I really like about Christmas is listening to other people talking about their traditions. I find it so amazing that just one week or so can result in so many different ways of doing things. From when people put their trees up, to their rituals on Christmas Eve, everyone has just a slightly different way of doing things, meaning that their Christmas is special to them.

After my Dad left when I was 16, Mum and I have only spent 2 Christmases at home. We've always ended up going to my sister's or brother's houses. Whilst this has been lovely, it has more than it's fair share of stresses and means that although it's lovely to be with family, it's never felt like my Christmas because when you're in someone else's house you're living their Christmas instead of your own.

The past 6 years or so have seen Mum and I travelling on Christmas Day down the motorways to wherever we were spending the holiday period, after years of the stress of travelling of Christmas Eve made Mum too nervy to drive when the roads were so busy. Nothing quite takes the shine out of Christmas to have to get up ridiculously early, not to open presents, but to load up the car and shoot off down the motorway (and let's not talk about Christmas 2010 when the weather was so horrific we had to stop because we couldn't see and I had a stress nosebleed all over my new Christmas oufit).

After last year's Christmas at my brother's which saw us being starved by my sister-in-law (Christmas Day is surely the one day of the year where you're not allowed to be hungry?!) Mum and I decided enough was enough - Christmas 2012 would be spent at Mum's house, just the two of us - not because we hate everyone, but because there's no room for everyone at Mum's shoebox.

There was huffing and puffing from both sister and brother but we stuck to our guns and this Christmas saw me genuinely excited for the first time in a long time for the big day. There would be no having to go to church, we would be able to open our presents when we wanted, we could get dressed or not get dressed, watch whatever we liked and eat as much as we could, when we wanted.

Christmas Eve saw me perform my own Christmas ritual - a Lush bath (Dragon's Egg - I can recommend, although it should come with a glitter warning) before slipping into new pyjamas and having a cup of tea with a mince pie.

Christmas Day passed wonderfully - presents were opened, new outfits were put on, some TV was watched, there was no stressing over the cooking of the dinner and most importantly everything was done at our own pace.

Don't get me wrong, it is nice at times to spend the day with family, especially with the wee ones, but this was one of my best Christmases in a long time. Life in general is stressful and it seems to me that at this time of year you should take some time out and really do what you want to do.

To be honest I needed it this year - as much as I look forward to Christmas, the fact that my life is going to be thrown up in the air again so soon has been looming on my horizon and has made it difficult to concentrate lately. I needed just this one day to enjoy and not have to think and worry about the rather uncertain period that's coming for me. I needed to just savour the certainty that Christmas with just Mum and me would be lovely.

And the best news? A bottle of champagne goes much further when there's only 2 of you sharing it...

Things that have been happening round here.

A whole lot of nothing and everything really.

- I have awesome friends and they came to see me in Preston for a night out on the town. I'm not normally one for doing the girly stuff and spending ages getting ready just to go out and get pissed and sweaty but having 3 other people around made it kind of fun. There was much waving about of curling tongs, straighteners and crimpers* and the smell of nail polish in the air whilst we got ready. Spare a thought for The Person who had 4 girls squished into his tiny flat, relegating him to the sofa for the night.

- *Yeah. You read right. Crimpers. I've had them for a looooooong time (obviously) and have never used them but just lately I've been getting the urge and this Saturday was the night to crack them out. I started with a plan to just do a few sections here and there, you know, staying classy. But in the end I did my whole freaking hair. Best. Decision. I. Ever. Made. Big hair is the way forward people I'm telling you.

- I also tried out some nail stickers. These have most likely been out for a long time but I tend to be very slow on the uptake with these things. Models Own had a 50% online sale a while ago and I chucked some in the basket as an afterthought. They're actually pretty good - once I'd figured out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Get your own here if you fancy it. Unfortunately I haven't got a good photo of them on so a bad one will have to suffice instead.

- I am feeling awesome about having handed my notice in to work. That was a good day let me tell you. I would like to say that I've now stuck two fingers up at them and am slacking off but unfortunately I have a pretty decent work ethic and given that our productivity is measured this means that I've still been working like a dog.

- And no. I'm not getting on better with my colleagues. Although at least some of them are now talking to me which is a bonus.

- Having your productivity measured can be a blessing and a curse. But when it's good it means that you feel great - the other day I got 131% - I am beating time people!

- I just did some overtime at work - working an 8am-8pm shift. Someone asked me if I get time and a half for overtime. After I'd picked myself up laughing from the floor I explained that no I do not. This company doesn't pay you sick pay, of course it doesn't pay you extra for working more hours.

- I have mostly been spending my time watching the Spice Kittens. A friend passed me the link and it's been on my laptop ever since. For those not in the know - this is a livestream of 4 kittens in a pen who live in Seattle. I kind of feel like I don't need to say anymore...

- ...but I will. I especially love them because there are some Fred and Lily lookalikes in the pen. It leaves me confused - on the one hand I am excited because I get to watch kittens all the time and pretend they're mine. On the other hand I then remember that I don't have cats. Sad face.

- I'm getting excited about the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate. I am going to be there on Saturday helping out Mr X Stitch who has a stall there. For those not in the know, Mr X Stitch is the man bringing you the latest stuff from the world of contemporary cross stitch and needlecraft - pretty pictures of flowers this ain't - awesomeness it is. Come and say hello if you're there on Saturday!

- The Person has been signed off sick at the moment because of a bout of RSI in his shoulder as a result of using his computer too much. He now understands what it was like for me all the time that I was unemployed and why I would be so excited when he came home from work and paw at him like a spider monkey. Being off work is dullsville.

- I'm trying to ignore the fact that Christmas is soon and I haven't bought any presents. Nor do I have any money. Or any time to actually make anything. If I think hard enough about it I can just pretend it's not happening.

Christmas Bullet Points

Yeah so I don't really know what happened. One minute it was the beginning of December and Christmas seemed like it was an age away and the next minute it's the 20th December and I haven't posted really all month and I'm starting to wonder if I've just lost my blogging mojo a little bit.

Anyway, I can't be thinking about that now. I have actually had loads of posts lined up about things this month but time has got away from me so I'm forced to condense it all in to one lovely bullet  pointed Christmas list.

• Christmas has come to my little house. The Scot and I really wanted a Christmas tree so took a trip to Asda and found this tiny little beauty for the princely sum of £15. It's weird though, it doesn't smell like a Christmas tree which has perturbed us a little.

I was left to my own devices to decorate it which excited me greatly. As it's only a small one there was only really room for all my Christmas ornaments, rather than normal baubles but I kind of liked that.

I wouldn't normally have tinsel  on my tree but The Scot couldn't imagine one without it so we compromised. Actually I guess it doesn't look too bad.

• I do have someone to look up to when it comes to Christmas decorating though. My Mum....

This is her tree and mantlepiece. I learned everything I know from her. Actually when I was little I wasn't really allowed to decorate the tree because it was in the front window and was very classy and beautiful and I didn't understand the ways of bauble placement, but I absorbed it all in and now I think I'm pretty good at it.

(Just in case you think my Mum is terrible she wouldn't really not let me decorate it, she would let me do it and then move whatever I'd put on the tree. And then I was allowed a tree in the back of the house that I was allowed to cover in tat however I so chose.)

• I was lucky enough to win Hazel's giveaway and the most beautiful pair of earrings I've ever had the pleasure of sticking in my lobes. They are my official Christmas earrings and have already been on a couple of nights out where they have been complimented accordingly. I really wanted to do a whole post about these but time went away from me and I couldn't take pictures of my own ears so please go and see this post on Hazel's blog to see the earrings.
• I held the Annual Stitchette Christmas Party at Mum's house. This consists of cheese based party food, Secret Santa presents and fun cupcakes.

Normally Secret Santa fills me with dread but these ladies have broken the bad run of Secret Santa experiences that I had and my presents each year are amazing. We also played the post-it note game, you know the one - you  write a celebrity's name on a post-it and stick it to someone else's forehead and they have to guess who it is? It's not often that you attend a party with Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Pippa Middleton, Winnie the Pooh, Colonel Gadaffi, Pat Butcher, Matt Cardle and Prince Phillip.

• My work's Christmas party was this Friday. This is a rather infamous affair because the drinks are available for £1. All drinks. All £1. Bottle of Bulmers? £1. Glass of wine? £1. It tends to be messy and hilarious in equal measure. Last year was rather horrific for me and I had a terrible time because I suffered a rather major black out which has actually changed the way in which I drink since then.

This year however was very different. People were asked to volunteer to work shifts behind the bar and I put my name down for the 7-8pm shift. It was actually really good fun. But then people unfortuantely took advantage of my good nature and I was roped in to working behind the bar 10-11.30pm. And then I was a complete mug and ended up going behind the bar about 9.30pm. I don't know. Some people are just selfish. But I have to say that given that I only had an hour and a half to enjoy myself I still had a pretty good time. But next year my good nature will not be making an appearance. Some other mug can do it thank you very much. (And if you wanted to read about what happened last time then please don't judge me.)

• I have finally finished all my Christmas making and crafting. I was officially bored of doing it by the end and I don't think that I'll do as much next year to be honest because it was too stressful. Plus I think that the people who I know would really appreciate hand-made stuff I have now showered with gifts and they might be a little sick of it. But that's something to think about in 2012.

In the meantime I have begun making a little something for myself. I really wanted it to be finished by Christmas but isn't going to be. Booooooo. But it is nice to do a selfish make.

• I'm leaving to go to Preston this afternoon to see The Person. We will be spending Wednesday and Thursday in Manchester for a little Christmas celebration of our own. Doing a bit of Christmas market shopping, mooching round the shops and being festive little creatures. I'm coming back in time for Friday and the last day of work. I was going to take that off as well but we usually get sent home at lunchtime so I decided I wasn't going to waste a day's holiday when I'll get most of it off for free!

So I think that's me done for now. I won't be blogging until the New Year because I'm going to be a busy little bee over the Christmas period.

Thanks for reading this year. I promise to be a better blogger next year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Wreaths

So I mentioned a bit ago that I had made a couple of Christmas wreaths like the one I'd made last year and I thought that in the spirit of sharing I would show you guys how to go about it.

Please be aware that there is no way that I could come up with this idea on my own, I am in no way vaguely creative enough to have these kinds of ideas by myself. This is all the work of one of The Stitchettes, who showed us how to do this last year and sat with me, telling me what to do.

So first of all you need some wreaths like so;

This guy has a diameter of about 20cm/8ins. You can find them online at gardening websites and the like. They can sometimes be kind of pricey - the good thing about having fellow Stitchettes is that you can buy in bulk, which makes it cheaper, and then split the cost. Hurrah.

You also need fabric. Christmassy fabric, if that floats your boat. But any kind of fabric will do.

I've been getting mine from Doughty's which is a brilliant website. You can get fabric by the fat quarter, which is useful if you're trying to save pennies, and they are very quick at getting your fabric sent out to you and if there's something you've ordered that they don't have, they'll call you right away with other suggestions or refund you your money straight away.

You then need to cut your fabric into strips. The beauty about this is that you don't have to be super precise with your cutting, everything's cool, everything's all a bit rough and ready.

For a ring that size I used 4 fat quarters. Those of you who are maths whizzes will have astutely observed that that is 1m of fabric. These guys are approximately 3cm/1in by 15.5cm/6in.

(And speaking of Doughty's they sell Christmas themed fat quarter packs which include 8 fat quarters for £10.99)

And then you just start tying them to the wreath. Fold each strip lengthways in half and then knot it. Easy peasy right?

Now. Beware. When you start this endeavour, you will go through a period where you want to cry and you will sit there going "It looks rubbish! It's no good, it's not working!" Believe me I went through it and had to be cajoled and encouraged by my Stitchettes to stick with it and eventually it would reveal itself to be awesome.

And they're right, you have to keep going and most importantly, keep bunching your strips up together. Now you might think that everything is good and everything is placed nicely but trust me those strips are minxy. You will think that you've filled one section of your ring and then you squish them up and suddenly you realise that actually you've only filled half of one section of your ring.

So you keep going and you keep going and you keep squishing and you fluff and primp and preen it as you go along and you will end up with a fluffy side, with the other side of it much flatter and you will keep going and going and then suddenly, 2.5 hours later*, you will have one finished wreath. (And I actually had a few strips spare.)

Then you just need to get some ribbon to tie round it and you're done. (I still need to buy some ribbon so you'll just have to use your imagination.)

These are the easiest gifts ever to make and work out not too expensive as long as you get a good deal on your fabric and your wreaths. These wreaths work out at about £5/6 each. Obviously not taking your labour into account - because when do you ever when you make home-made gifts?

And what I love is that each wreath is different. No 2 will ever be the same and just a slight change in fabric will make the wreath look totally different. This guy is much lighter, thanks to the cream fabric, but the last wreath I made was much more traditional looking thanks to the golden tones in some of the fabrics which made the overall effect much darker.

So I guess you'd better get making. Go on. Less blog reading, more wreath making.



*I kind of timed it and this was how long it took to make from cutting up the fabric to finishing the fluffing and taking photos. Don't blame me if you're a slow coach.