Stitchlinks

The washing machine man came today and the news is bad - bad enough to warrant a discussion about whether we buy a new machine or not! The electronic board has 'gone'  - this is expensive to buy, but it wouldn't be too bad if my washing machine man would be allowed to fit it. Now here comes the FRUSTRATING part - the boards come uncoded and need to be coded into the specific model of machine and (wait for it) for the majority of makes only the maker's own engineers hold the codes!!!!!!! So in essence they hold the monopoly and can charge what they like!! Is this legal I ask? If it is it shouldn't be!

Apart from hanging around for the washing machine man I've also written an article which will go onto the website in the next week or so and I've become addicted to our new Wii. My youngest son and I spent lunchtime battling it out over table tennis, swimming and hurdling with great hilarity! It's a brilliant way of 'getting active' and having lots of fun as a family. Much of the source of hilarity at the moment is watching me react a millisecond too late everytime!!

Must off for another game whilst supper is cooking!

xxx

Well the Glastonbury mud has claimed my washing machine which ground to a halt this morning and is now as dead as a dodo! Steve   checked the fuses and electrical points, with no luck, so we eventually and very reluctantly called the engineer. Sod's Law obviously made sure that the machine was just out of its warranty time! So I was left with a load of soaking clothes in a puddle of muddy water! Do washing machines have filters I wonder? That will teach me not to soak muddy clothes first!

It's been a hot start to July here in Bath with the inevitable heavy thundery showers this evening. July marks the start of an extremely busy few weeks with lots of important meetings and decisions to make and not very much room for anything else! I'm trying to get some important decisions made before everything slows down for August.

We had our group at the hospital this afternoon and we were able to announce that we'd made £310 at the hospital fete. Buoyed up by this success we spent the afternoon (the hottest so far this year) talking about Christmas! Planning our next sale of Christmas gifts and stocking fillers!! We're also planning on decorating the waiting area with knitted Christmas decorations!

Tomorrow will be spent waiting for washing machine man to arrive!

xxx

It's been a great weekend - the monster ivy is finally gone from our lives, but I do feel very stiff today having worked very hard in the garden yesterday! Steve had to cover up and help me transport the monster to the skip - the garden company doing next door's fence had chopped it off at the base for us but the branches were so intertwined and tangled that it just fell as one solid mass into the garden. So it had to be balanced on a wheelbarrow and taken to their skip like that!

Saturday stayed fine for our stand at the hospital fete - the knitting group made £310 pounds so we're very excited about buying new wool for our next projects - probably a Christmas sale of knitted gifts and other items. I was exhausted when I got home so we enjoyed a take away and film in our child free house!

Today has been productive too - the July Stitchlinks Newsletter will be delivered to your inboxes this evening and there are new articles to enjoy on the website - see the News page for details. I've also booked my train tickets and hotels for my various trips to London in July, which is exciting. July is looking ultra manic, plus I have a couple of weekends away and our family holiday in the last week to get ready for.

Off to my art class now - just two sessions to go.

xxx

OK, so where did the last week go to? I've been busy writing the next newsletter which is due out next week, writing the next couple of columns for Cross Stitch Collection (one is due out when I'm on holiday so needs to be done in advance), liaising between the parties interested in the research, getting our group at the hospital ready for the hospital fete on Saturday, crocheting bunting for the fete (now done, but ends need sowing in), packing two sons off to Glastonbury, one son off to Gran Canaria, looking after everything whilst Steve is in Denmark, groaning at the MESS in our garden (next door have replaced the fence, gardeners ripped down the monster ivy, but left our side in our garden despite having a skip on their side!), planning a trip to London in July etc etc etc!

I'm looking forward to the fete as we have so many wonderful hand knitted baby stuff and gifts to sell. There are even Liquorice Allsort noughts and crosses sets, finger puppets and 100% cotton face cloths - and of course my first real attempt at crochet with the bunting, which is looking colourful. Tomorrow I need to rummage in the garden shed for the old parasols and bases to take so we have something to attach the bunting too! Let's hope the sun shines, although with Glastonbury and Wimbledon on I'm not holding out much hope of that!

Not looking forward to Sunday much as I will have to tackle the MONSTER ivy - bag it all up! Steve has been told never to touch it again after his severe allergic reaction last time, so I will mask myself up and get rid of it once and for all. AND we'll have a child free weekend as daughter goes back to Bournemouth for the weekend, so why do I ask myself am I spending it bagging ivy. I guess I was just as frustrated with the gardening company replacing the fence for their bad timing as I am about them dumping the offending plant in our garden!!

Oh err we are going to the musical 'Dancing in the Streets' at the Theatre Royal in Bath tomorrow night - it's a celebration of the best of Motown so I'm looking forward to a good bop in the aisles!

Anyway off to tie up some bunting threads!

xxx

Despite not feeling 100% it's been quite a productive day today. I've replied to lots of emails and posted a new article on the Your Health Matters page of the Stitchlinks website. It's an introduction to the latest research on pain so I hope you enjoy it!

I'm undecided whether my hay fever is really bad today or I've got a cold - not feeling quite on top form. It could be just tiredness as I went to a fantastic lecture on Tuesday evening by Lorimer Moseley. He's a pain researcher at Oxford University. It was really enjoyable and I arrived home quite late with my head buzzing with information.  I stayed up until my thoughts settled down enough to sleep, so I'm probably suffering a kick back from that too.

Anyway the sun is shining, although it is very windy and I have the house to myself, so I'm planning on crocheting some more bunting before an early night. Bunting is coming along really well - I was able to do lots on the 4hour journey to Yorkshire and back over the weekend so now have a respectable number of pennants. It's interesting isn't it how I can crochet and knit in the car yet the second I try to read I feel nauseous - maybe I need to look into that a bit more!

xxx

I'm feeling a right 'ol Mrs Angry tonight. A parcel was sent to our PO Box address yesterday and the sender paid for next day delivery. Our PO Box letters get delivered to our home, but no parcel arrived, so I drove down to the sorting office to collect it as we thought it might have arrived there after our postman had left this morning. Having waited 20 minutes in the queue and despite having my PO Box card with me I was told 'We can't give you any details about that parcel unless you have the tracking number, the sorting office staff go home at 2pm so you'll have to wait until your postman delivers it tomorrow.' ' BUT' I said I need the parcel for an important meeting at 10.30am tomorrow and our postman doesn't normally arrive until midday AND the sender paid for next day delivery. Do you at least have the parcel here, so I know whether to hang around for it or not.' To which she replied, 'I can't give you that information unless you have a tracking number.' Hhhrrrrmph! AND I can't ask them to hold the parcel for me early tomorrow without the tracking number, so I'm just going to have to hang around hoping my postman will come earlier tomorrow!' VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

Anyway enough of my moans - I've been crocheting!! Only had a go at it twice before, but I'm making some bunting for our group's stand at the hospital fete. We have a stand full of the most beautiful hand knitted baby cardigans, face cloths and gifts which we are going to sell so we can buy some more wool!! Four pennants done, LOTS to go, but I have got 2 weeks, so fingers crossed I can get enough done to drape across the stand.

We're of up to Yorkshire for Saturday and Sunday so I'm taking my bunting with me and looking forward to getting lots done.

Have a good evening
xxx

It's been a more 'normal' day for me today. I've spent it catching up on emails and gathering together my thoughts and feelings on all the happenings of the last week. AND it's Friday again.

Tomorrow we have a Stitchlinks online coffee mornite (so named because for some of us it's morning and for others it's evening) so I'm looking forward to a good chat with friends online in the morning. Then we're actually going away for the rest of the weekend to stay with friends so I'm really looking forward to long chats, good food and chilling out as the next few weeks or so are full and potentially very exciting!

Have a good weekend!

xxx

I forgot to set my alarm clock this morning and was woken by the phone ringing at 8.30am - I was in such a deep peaceful sleep, so the loud ring tones woke me with a jar and I've felt weary all day! I obviously needed the extra sleep - Tuesday and Wednesday were grim and exciting. In fact Tuesday was as grim as it gets - my daughter and I attended the funeral of a friend of hers and the son of an old work colleague of mine. He was only 23 and was stabbed on a Sunday evening just off one of the busiest roads in the city. We were just two of about 300 people standing outside the church. Mercifully the continuous rain stopped in time. It did give me a bit of hope to see such a wide cross section of Bath's youth all gathered together and strong in their grief, so hopefully some good will grow out of such a tragedy.  Thoughts of the day echoed around my mind throughout that night so I had rather a fitful sleep.

Wednesday by contrast was an exciting day. Dr Ulrich von Hecker a psychologist from Cardiff who was one of the first people to listen to my ideas on knitting and stitching came up to Bath for the day and we met up with some of the other interested parties. And I have to say it's all looking very positive as it looks as if we have some big names on board. I've also had a very exciting offer which I need to weigh up over the next couple of months as it will change my life in a big way!

On Wednesday evening Steve and our daughter had a balloon flight booked so we drove to Bath's Victoria Park in preparation. There was a group of others waiting for the balloons to arrive and amongst them was a old work colleague who had also been at the funeral the day before - I hadn't seen her for 23 years and yet there she was waiting for the same balloon flight and parked right behind us! How spooky is that? We had to wait a couple of hours for the wind to die down so we had plenty of time for a good catch up and natter which was great. Unfortunately the balloon flight had to be postponed because of the wind, so it's scheduled for sometime next week now!

Today has been a bit of a 'nothing' day. I haven't really been able to focus my mind enough to get much done, so will do some catching up tomorrow!

xxx

Is it possible to out wit an intelligent cat I ask? I have to put antibiotic cream in Tigger's eyes twice a day and the vet did it with such ease yesterday. He's a very friendly amiable cat, but it still takes two of us - one to pin him down and the other to administer the cream! And he's learned to jam his eyes tightly shut so they have to be prised open as he wriggles for freedom. When we first started this course of treatment last night he came instantly and obediently when we called him and I must say I felt mildly guilty when I rewarded his obedience with an eye full of cream. But now he's sussed that when I call him, his reward is unpleasant so he rockets off in the opposite direction whenever I call his name. Clever cat or wot - too clever for his own good! Part of me respects his intelligence, but the other part curses as I know I'm going to have to tease him out of the darkest furthest corner under the lowest bed we have and he waits for me to get near before making a dash for freedom, leaving me banging my head as I try to catch him whizzing by!! Oh well only 8 more days of treatment to go - that's 16 in total! Hmmmm!

We're in the middle of a thunder storm here in Bath so just as I thought we'd get through a whole day without rain, it's pouring stair rods again and the thunder and lightning is rolling around the surrounding hills!

Have a good evening
xx

It's been quite a productive 'catch up' day today despite two visits to the vet - one with a cat who has conjunctivitis and the other with a tiny little baby blue tit who survived the jaws (somewhat gentle as it turns out) of our other cat! Poor thing was in shock so I put it in a box and rang the vet. They'll keep it overnight and if it survives will hand it over to a local wildlife trust tomorrow, so I feel quite good about that.

Well it's been dark, very wet and cold here in Bath and I gather from Stitchlinks members it's been much the same across the UK - we've put our heating back on! Let's hope this is just a blip in the spring/summer weather as we've just booked a week away in July in Devon. It's an activity holiday, so there'll be lots to do even if it's raining, but it's so much better when the weather's good and I do need a bit of sunshine!!

Nothing more to report this evening so I'm off to knit a bit more of my stole/throw which has me totally addicted - the colours are just wonderful!

xxx

The Mind and the Brain just fascinate me so much. I've spent today getting together an article on NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming). It was written for Stitchlinks by Master NLP Practitioner Philip Titheridge and it makes really interesting reading. You can read a copy on the Your Health Matters page of the Stitchlinks website. The second article I've been getting together is one on Emotional Intelligence and the two are kind of linked. I'll let you know when it gets posted on the Personal Development page of the website.

My mum rang tonight and she was very excited to see a double page picture of me in Simply Knitting!! I've had several emails from people who have enjoyed the article on posture but I haven't managed to get to see it yet. I suspect it might be quite a shock to the system to see myself in profile! Mum said I have dad's nose, but quickly modified the remark with 'but a much smaller version of course' !! Enough said!

I'm having my hair cut tomorrow so will buy SK on my way to the hairdressers and read it all there. The girl who cuts my hair is good but she does insist on pulling it straight whilst blowdrying, and I don't really like my hair flat and straight - I kinda like the natural wave, but ask as I might she doesn't appear to grasp the concept of 'please leave it natural'. So I usually come straight home and stick my head under the shower to rough it up a bit! Steve thinks I'm mad to do that after paying to have my hair done and I supposed seen from the male point of view it is a bit daft, but she cuts it well and it's the cut I pay for. Tomorrow evening though I have a potentially very important (exciting) meeting which will give my mind yet another reason to wake me up at 4.30am!! This roller coaster of excitement is really eating into my beauty sleep big time! And when you get to my age you need as much as you can get!

xxx

It's been a catch up and Newsletter writing week for me this week. The Newsletter's done - I've just got to add some articles to the website and create hyperlinks in the Newsletter to these. Hopefully that will get done tomorrow - that's the plan anyway.

It's yet another Bank Holiday weekend coming up here in the UK - don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining but it does just seem like yesterday when we were enjoying the BH at the beginning of May! For those with children it's also half term - and many of you, like us, will be experiencing the joys of exams. We're in the middle of AS and A Levels - the boys are completely laid back about them and as a parent I'm not sure which is more stressful - to have a child who is working hard and stressed or to have one who is laid back and seemingly doing little work, although they tell me they're working hard! There comes a stage when they must take responsibility and you have to trust them, but it's hard not to nag!!

There's yet more football on the box tonight, so I shall be enjoying a chat with other Stitchlinks members on our online coffee mornite - named thus because our Australian members are nine or so hours ahead, so at tonight's online chat they will be already in tomorrow - still find that a bit weird!

Hopefully the weather will warm up for the weekend as it's been a bit chilly here in Bath these last few days - having rummaged in the loft for my summer skirts last weekend I'm now back to wearing jeans!

Off for some supper before the coffee mornite - chat to you there!

xxx

There have been lots of interesting developments over the last week or so, and as a result I woke at 4.30 this morning with my mind buzzing with ideas. I resisted the temptation of getting up and writing them down, but I wish I had because do you think I can remember those nocturnal flashes of brilliance, Nah!! Despite them keeping me awake until it was time to wake up. At six I thought 'Right I'll get up and go to the gym early and get a whole lot of things done, but I couldn't make myself leave my nice warm bed, so I lingered and half snoozed - you know that strange floaty state where you're sort of dreaming but have control and are aware at the same time!

As a result I've been totally whacked all day today, so it hasn't been a productive one workwise. I have done some cooking though, as the boys have an FA Cup Final party tomorrow so we'll be besieged by about 20 teenage boys from 11am through to about 6pm. It's been one of our family traditions - they play a big football game in the park and then come back to enjoy the match. 'Tradition' has it that I make lots of flapjacks so they're normally at the peak of their sugar highs by the penalty shoot offs!! The same boys have been coming along since our youngest was three - 14 years - and it's been great to see them grow up. All are taller than me so the house will be very full and noisy tomorrow afternoon.

I'm normally sensible and take myself away for the day, but tomorrow I'm gong to stay in as I have lots I want to do this weekend - I've got my ear plugs at the ready though and I've given up worrying about Coke bottles spilling on the lounge carpet and flapjacks squashed into the pile - the deal is they can have the party if the house is returned to me in the state I leave it and so far they've kept to their side of that bargain.

AS Levels began today and A levels start next week, so we're into that final few weeks of six form - how time flies!!

xxx

I really enjoyed giving my talk to the Bath Fibromyalgia support group last night - they're a lovely group of people. I had planned taking a day off today to 'shop'! But listening to the forecast of torrential downpours last night I decided that my day would be better spent catching up with a mountain of emails and chipping away at my looooong 'to do' list. I was ready to go this morning, clicked on my internet and there was zero, zilch - no connection found. So I pottered around and tried again and pottered and tried again. Three hours later still no internet! I had plenty of things I could have done off the internet, but I wanted to get this done so wasn't able to settle to any other work especially as there were some pretty urgent emails I needed to get done.

It was at this stage I discovered that our second telephone line - the one linked to our internet - wasn't working either. Ha! I had the solution as the same happened last week with our home phoneline. Engineers are working on the junction at the bottom of our road and the fault was with them last week, so it stood to reason that the same had happened  to our other line. So I toddled off the chat to the men - very pleasant chat, but basically 'can't help you I'm afraid, you need to report it through the normal channels'. So off I strode, teeth clenched to report the fault via the BT automated service! After 15 minutes of listening to an automated voice it eventually got around to telling me they could confirm there was a fault on the line (Duh isn't that what I was ringing you for!) Then she/it continued by saying we'll get an engineer to you by tomorrow evening. TOMORROW EVENING! I shouted in the hope a human voice would hear my plea! It was at this point I found myself talking to an automated message - BUT there are three BT vans parked 100 yards down my road with three BT men standing around  watching one man working!

Anyway four hours later there was a knock on the door. BT man - who incidentally was one of the men standing around at the bottom of our road four hours previously - arrived to check our line. He plugged in his machine and said - oh there's a fault about 100yards away. Well who would have thought!!

So after a whole day of phaffing around - it's fixed and I still have a mound of emails to trawl through, so I'd better get going!

xxx

It's been glorious again today - more like high summer. I was able to spend some time in the garden over the weekend, although stayed well clear of the dangerous ivy! Steve was still suffering the after effects of last weekend's battle with the beast, so he was confined indoors for the duration - just as well there was lots of rugby and football on the box otherwise he might have been driven to knit!!!

Anyway news on the rash is that out of desperation he tried Udder Cream last night - we sell it in the Stitchlinks shop as a hand cream. As the name suggests it was originally (and probably still is ) used on cow udders, but round the world yachtsmen found it was brilliant for chapped hands, wind burn and as a barrier cream. It's used by stitchers as a hand cream because it doesn't leave a greasy mark on your material.

To cut a long story short, Steve slept peacefully last night and woke up this morning significantly better. So power to the udder cream!!!

Today I've been preparing a talk I'm giving to Fybromyalgia UK's Bath branch on Wednesday evening - I'm looking forward to it. This evening I'm off to the second of my art classes - we're 'doing' drawing tonight! So must off to cook supper for the hungry hoards before I go.

Have a good evening.
xxx

I don't often buy the local newspaper but I did tonight and when I opened it up I felt as if I'd been hit by a brick wall.
A few days ago I wrote of a young boy of 23 who had been murdered in Bath - my eldest two children knew him in their outer circle of friends and as a mother of four teenagers, I was greatly saddened by the story. However I hadn't put two and two together at this stage - it was only when I opened the paper tonight that I realised who Ben really was. Twenty one years ago I worked closely with his mother and remember when she was pregnant with him and how she brought him in to meet us for the first time - she was so proud!  Over the years we've lost contact  so I can't explain the sick feeling of shock I felt at this realisation tonight........

xxx

The day started with the disappointing news that we weren't successful with the funding bid we put in last week - we always new it was a long shot because of the short time frame, but it was an opportunity that suddenly presented itself out of the blue. So it's back to our original plan where we'll apply for funding down the conventional route! It's not a set back but disappointing nevertheless!

I've spent the day writing a Guide to Stitchlinks - I'm 11 pages into the 20 page document. It looks good, but still needs several days' work.

It's been a beautiful day here in Bath - although I haven't set foot outside the house apart from to hang up some washing. It's always a temptation when working from home to sit out in the garden and knit or contemplate life and the universe. I've tried to work out there with a laptop but when it's sunny I can't see the screen and I don't really want to sit out there when it's dull and cloudy! Also I've found when I put sunglasses on they make the screen even more difficult to read. I think it must be something to do with the antiglare properties sunglasses have these days. So I can either sit in the sun squinting nurturing some really DEEP wrinkles or I can sit in my office and think wistfully about being outside under a lovely tree in the grass with my laptop on my knees - you know like the ads would have it! Doesn't really work like that, though!

Have a good evening.

xxx

Steve and I set aside some time this weekend to tackle our back garden - it's more of a city courtyard than a garden. The winds of winter had brought down our fence so we needed to rescue/prune some of the plants that are still hanging on before the fence is replaced. Part of this task was to cut down a large ivy bush that has invaded our garden from next door. It completely covers the area of the fence closest to the house and was beginning to latch onto the house itself. As the job needed a STRONG man with a saw and step ladder, Steve was delegated the task. He did a great job hacking away and by the end of Saturday the garden was looking a little more acceptable. However that evening we noticed a red angry rash on Steve's forearms.

In the middle of the night I was woken up by Steve scratching his arms in his sleep and when he woke in the morning his hands and arms were swollen and red. He took an antihistamine in the hope that would calm things, but they continued to swell. This morning his arms and hands were covered in blisters, looking very angry and swollen. Worryingly one eyelid and his face were developing a rash too. Of course we had the usual male/femail, husband/wife disagreement about whether to call the doctor especially as it was a bank holiday here in the UK. Me saying tentatively - I think we should ask for advice given that it's getting worse. Macho man saying 'but it's only a rash woman!'

Anyway I sneaked a phone call to NHS Direct who recommended (as always) that he saw the out of hours doctor on call and made us an appointment. So I drove him down and when the doctor saw his hands, arms and face he said - Wow! that's quite dramatic I'm impressed. So the result is Steve is on a hefty dose of steroids for a week and will probably be off work for a few days. We left the surgery with the doctor warning Steve that if he comes into contact with ivy again, then the reaction could be much more severe, so in future to leave cutting the ivy to someone else. Now said ivy still needs a lot of hacking to get rid of it completely. I wonder where that leaves me?? Anyone got a wetsuit and goggles to spare or better still one of those suits they wear for chemical spillages?

xxx

Any problems I might have were paled into insignificance this week. Bath's youngsters mourned the death on a young lad who as stabbed on a Sunday evening at 6pm just off one of the busiest roads in the city. My eldest son and daughter knew him as did many of their age group in Bath. He has been described as a gentle, boy who would go out of his way to help others.

It was his birthday yesterday so my daughter and her friends baked a huge cake and about 400 friends and youngsters from bath met up yesterday afternoon to remember him.

My thoughts go out to his parents and family and I'm just thankful for how lucky I am.

xxx

It's been a day of emails today - catching up with people, replying to the backlog - still a lot to do but the pile is going down slowly. My plan is to devote a day a week to emails, but it kind of gets pushed aside as more exciting or pressing issues take over.

I'm planning an early night tonight as I woke at about 4am this morning feeling cold - didn't want to wake Steve as he had to be up very early to travel to Birmingham, so I didn't snuggled up to him as I probably should have done! As a result I'm feeling a bit tired tonight, so plan on having a long hot bath before an early bed.

We have a long weekend here in the UK, so I'm hoping the weather will be kind to enable me to do something with our back garden - actually it's a more of a  large city courtyard than a garden - no grass just nice paving. Well it will be nice when I've cleaned winter's muck and dirt from the surface. Also the recent gales blew down our fence so I need to rescue the plants that are still hanging on to it for dear life before our neighbours replace it with a new one. On yes there's also a large ivy bush that is threatening to overwhelm the back wall so that has to be pruned drastically too. I'm not really into pruning properly - I just tend to cut and hope for the best!

This time last year we had lovely bright green luscious moss in the cracks between the paving stones - it looked really pretty. This year however some over zealous blackbird decided it would be prime material for building its nest and attacked the moss with great enthusiasm - not a pretty sight! So all in all a good tidy up is needed!

The sun is out for the first time today, so let's hope that bodes well for the long weekend.

xxx