It's my Birthday!

The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. Quote by Lucille Ball.

Happy New Year!!!

Heating Update

Thank you for the enquiries about our heating problems! The gas man came about 12 o'clock today and we are warm again. I hope that anyone else that has had heating problems gets them sorted out very soon.

Christmas is Over

Christmas was better than I thought it might be, we had my Mum with us this year on Christmas day, she's been suffering with depression for a few months now which isn't very pleasant. My Father in Law was with us too, we collected him on Christmas eve and he went home on the 27th. He and my Mum kept each other company on Christmas Day and apart from the fact that he insists on taking out his hearing aid every few minutes everything seemed to go off OK!

Rachel came home for James' birthday and is going home tomorrow after lunch, she has plans for the evening, tomorrow is her birthday she'll be 24! James and Becky are joining Rachel and her friends for the celebrations it's Becky's birthday tomorrow too!

Today we went to Bluewater shopping, thank goodness we went early, the parking was horrendous and the queues across the QE11 bridge to get in when we left there were stretching back to the M25. Dave and I only went to keep Rachel company, she had a couple of Birthday presents to buy. We needed to buy food for dinner tonight, Tuna, new potatoes and salad from John Lewis food hall, so Christmas is well and truly over!

Like Gina we are without central heating! Our boiler gave up on Sunday, could have been worse and gone off at Christmas, especially as Dave's Dad was with us. The gas board turned up and cant repair it until tomorrow, fingers crossed, this is not an unusual thing for us, it happened 3 years ago over a Christmas, we have a new boiler!!!!!!!!!!! As predicted in a previous post the tumble dryer has given up and a new one is on order.

Cant wait to get back to textile related things, I haven't managed to do much. I'd feel a bit mean sitting here under the quilt stitching, I have thought about it though! I've been knitting a scarf for myself using some of the wool I bought at the K&S this year. Usually when I feel stressed I knit socks, this year I've knitted quite a few pairs, here's a picture of just some of them!

Happy Christmas

Another Birthday celebrated yesterday, James is 28! 3 more birthday's left before the end of the year......

~~~~~~~~~~~~Have A Very Happy Christmas~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've Posted the cards!!!!!!!!

Well two birthdays down, my OH Dave's was last week, so I cooked a family dinner as it was mid week. Saturday 14 of us went out for a Chinese Meal to celebrate my nephews 21st birthday. It was a shame that James and Becky couldn't be there but as I've said in a previous post, James was playing with Gyratory System at the Brixton Academy!!!! James is playing the Bass Guitar!

Christmas is creeping up fast only one gift left to buy, all the cards posted, a Christmas cake to ice, but the tree is still in the loft waiting, so there is only a sad little snowman sitting lonely on the window ledge, waiting for the rest of the room to be decorated!!!!
As promised in the last post here is a photo of the quilt! Still unfinished but I'm stitching on....In the meantime lots of other things have been happening ERTF have been invited to take a stand at the Knitting and Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace in October 2010, we have also been invited to take part at Textiles in Focus February 2010, so I think that ERTF are in for a busy time in 2010!
Winter has arrived, I had to scrape the thick ice off the car windows this morning before I went to the gym! Then at lunch time it snowed, it hasn't settled but we are forecast more! Just in case it doesn't snow I copied the snow fall onto my blog from Sharne's thanks Sharne.

Counting Down To Christmas

Some Holly to get the Christmas Spirit started!

This is Birthday Season in our house, in our immediate family there are 5 birthdays this month, that's without my nephew who will be 21 this month and about 8 members of my extended family that's Aunt's Cousin's and their children have birthdays too! Expensive!!!!!!!! There are only 2 Christmas gifts left to get, but I've still got all the cards to send, every year I talk about giving money to Charity and not sending cards but don't have the courage. Would everyone realise that was what I was doing? Or would they think I'd taken a dislike to them, that I was dead or that I'd become very mean spirited! Instead I buy charity cards and hope that they get a fair share of the profits!

I've not posted for a while, Dave returned from Madrid with a gift, a cold which he kindly passed onto me! I think by the time I caught it, it had mutated into a mild case of the flu, so I was out of action for a week or so. This week I'm so much better, and lots to catch up on. A couple of weeks ago I was invited to join a quilting group, the group is fairly small and is going to concentrate mainly on Art Quilts. I'm really enjoying the work, it' still needs a lot of work as you can see, I'll keep you updated.




I've also finished my first piece of work for the Aqua Group, I'm not going to show that yet as we are hoping to have an exhibition, more news on that when it's arranged. I'm still hand stitching the quilt for our bed, I think that will be ready for the new year. I'll post an image when I next post.