Around the Houses

Now that the snow has finally buggered off from underfoot I managed to make it to my very 1st Wednesday Club at the village parish hall. I recognised several faces from the WI and yet again I was the youngest there by a long shot. Some ladies just turn up for a cuppa and a chat but the majority of us had crafts on the go. It was a hoot. The lady making the tea and coffee was a very sprightly 90! and I was filled in on the local gossip most of which I had the general gist of from the local 5 Parishes Newsletter but it's always good to get the 'man on the street' opinion on such matters. Life was never this interesting living in bloomin Nuneaton I can tell you. My rainbow blanket - which is nearing completion and heading to Brighton on Sunday, received a lot of admiration. I've decided that the next hooky project should be for me (despite the ever growing pile of UFO's that I should really finish off), so I bombed off to my fave wool shop and parted with the remainder of my Xmas money and got this lot

Do I know what I'm doing with it? No not really though I have a vague idea which could change as fast as the weather to be honest. Wool is my drug and it soothes me just having bags of the stuff in the house. A friend of a friend sent me a rather barmy You Tube  link via Facebook of a very young (but still miserable looking) Eric Clapton back in the 70's wearing a very fetching granny square cardigan! Now that is something I will have to make for myself and I've already done a bit of googling for patterns. I am the child who had a knitting/sewing/crocheting mad mother so I was raised wearing this stuff and now for once it's actually trendy so watch this space.

Sunny Side Up

The snow is finally disappearing after what seems to have been a very long week of snow, freezing temperatures and more snow. Today the sky is blue, the sun is out and it's beautiful. Our lane and most of the pathways are terribly icy so I very gingerly walked the dogs around the village - they are the Torvill and Dean of the dog world, I'm more like a hippo in a tutu.

All I could think about was that if I did slip over I mustn't put out my right hand to save myself as that's my crocheting hand and I have a rainbow to complete for next Sunday. Thankfully I didn't go arse over tit though I had a few near misses. Hmm I wonder if I could insure my hand and wrist for millions like these sports people do??

It's crochet Jim but not as we know it

I'm quite disappointed that the blanket isn't finished yet but it's been a particularly bad week with one thing and another going on. Being creative may be a cure for being down in the dumps but finding the motivation is bloody tough. I did zoom off up to Manchester on Tuesday to see my idol - Paul Banks, do a solo gig at a very compact and bijou venue. We were right at the front...my undies may never recover.

*Wibble*

On Thursday I had an interview - get the flags out - but what a complete and utter farce and a waste of time. I turned up to be told they didn't know who I was or why was I there. Did I have my CV with me? No. There followed a very hurried 5 minute interview with some reprobate who tried to convince me that in return for doing all of the admin work and wages I would get a measly £10,000 a year. I've never heard so much bulls**t in such a short space of time so I hope he got the hint that he could shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Meanwhile it's back to crafting and being productive - not that it gets me anywhere but it's keeping my brain active in its impending old age. At this rate the entire village and its inhabitants will end up covered in one of my creations.

On The Buses

Living in a small 'remote' village you do see some strange sights but as a lot of them are part and parcel of the community so you just brush it off as one of those things. Today we're getting our 2nd blast of snow and plenty of it so again it looked like my plans to rev up the manky Fiesta and head over to collect some stuff from the van would be scuppered (I've sold motorhome stuff on ebay and stupidly don't want to let people down with late postage). I took one very, very eager Yorkie out for a bit of a slip and a slide in the white stuff only to be slightly shocked and a wee bit surprised on our return to see a bloody great big double decker bus turning into and sliding down our lane - heading straight for my car!!! Now I tend to think I have a fair bit of common sense and it peeves me greatly that other people can't be arsed to possess any so I'm not sure who I was the most pissed off at - the idiots who owned the 'playbus' or the silly bloody 'Yummy Mummy' who lives opposite who had insisted they turn up for her offspring's birthday. You can imagine my delight when the cheeky cow asked me to move my car so the bus could park up (these people never speak) - despite my protests that it had a flat tyre and didn't start it ended up parked on their drive for the duration. I must be getting soft in my old age. It was laughable watching some dumb blonde woman shrieking that she had no control of the bus while the organiser yelled back that the back wheels were moving fine - he should have had our vantage point cos we could see the front wheels were locked up and sliding everywhere. I guess some people will do anything for money these days. The best bit is that the damn thing is now stuck at the other end of the lane as it can't get enough grip to get out and up to the nearest thing we have to a main road. These people are our future - we're all doomed.

P.S. I did get to the van and back and the roads were dodgy enough in a small car

This is our lane and that is my car...

..so would you try to drive one of these down it if you were of a pathetic disposition?

Ice Station Yorkshire Terrier

Every now and again I do something sensible, these moments are rare but I'm usually grateful that my brain cells kicked in for once. With the 'severe weather' warnings being rammed down our throats I re-arranged Timmy's Vet appointment from 4pm to 9.20 which proved to be a sensible decision as by the time me and Grumpy Pants returned home at 10am (flippin Vet insisted on examining him and nearly lost fingers in the process) the roads into the village were about an inch deep in snow. I don't expect to see tarmac for a week as we get very little through traffic and the council gritters don't appear to think we exist. Timmy has to lose 0.9kg to take the pressure off his joints so we're both going on a diet. Of course that was before I made a tray of flapjacks and a vat of soup in case we get snowed in.
In a fit of lunacy I decided to take a walk around the village in the 'blizzard' so I could take some photos - people in Florida rely on me you know to prove that the seasons do still exist. Several people spoke to me in passing - obviously a woman dressed in 6 layers, walking against the snow brandishing a camera is an every day occurrence! I love village life. You can be batty as a fruit cake and no one gives a toss. Marvellous.

Thank gawd for Barbour wellies

There's a road under that lot somewhere

Will you get inside you arthritic old fart!

I have no excuse now not to tackle my ever growing pile of crochet. Better get cracking.

Up Above the Streets and Houses

There are no rainbows flying high here today. The sky is white as is most of the village. I don't mind a scattering of snow as long it doesn't stop us getting in and out of the village - gritter lorries are rarer than rocking horse shit when you live in the 'boonies'.

The only splash of colour is my current project....the rainbow granny blanket

I've sort of broken one of my resolutions by consigning another blanket to the UFO pile so that I can get cracking with this one but I do have good reason. I've managed to persuade my OH that I need a day trip to Brighton to see my friend and to save my rapidly disappearing sanity so we're heading down for a day in early Feb. The rainbow blanket is to be a gift for my friends youngest daughter - hence the urgency (any excuse will do).
I attended my first Women's Institute meeting on Thursday as a guest of the village group President!! I'm not sure it was what I expected, but the ladies (all of a certain age) were very nice and made me most welcome. I may join next month as I do need something in the way of a social life having no liked minded 'friends' within a 20+ mile radius which is a bit crap. The Parish Hall also holds a 'drop in' centre on a Wednesday morning where you can do your own thing or learn new crafts etc. Not bad for a quid which also gets you a cuppa and some cake so I will be trundling off there this week with my blanket in hand. 3 of the old dears at the WI practically begged me to go so I can't let them down can I.

Tally Bloody Ho!

Oh dear. The realisation that this village may not be as perfect as I first thought sort of hit me this morning as I took the dog for his morning jaunt. I could hear horses on the road - nothing unusual there, and there seemed to be a lot of chelsea tractors parked down our otherwise quiet lane and a lot of fat, ruddy faced blokes in flat caps and wellies. As I got to the farm on the corner I realised why.......a bloody fox hunt - oh joy (not). Apparently we live bang smack in the middle of 'upper class bastards' country and these pompous arseholes do this every week from Dec to March, after that they just go out and club fox cubs and badgers!! Did I mention that this week my overwhelming desire to head down south has returned? Well now it's back in spades. I met a rather nice lady delivering the local free mag who filled me in on 'village life'. It amused me greatly that every time some fat, red coated t**t went by on their horse they spoke to us - I ignored them and she just said "shame on you" before she hurried home to lock up her pets. I met the secretary for the WI - she was heading to the hunt. My trial run at tomorrow nights meeting could prove to be very interesting - I may need to bite my lip quite a bit. Meanwhile it's a beautiful cold sunny day and I need to attack my crochet with great gusto as I have a huge pile of unfinished projects to tackle. Onwards and upwards. If there's any karma in this world the only injuries from the mornings hunt will be to the riders and not any wildlife.

Out With the Old.....

Happy New Year. After an evening on the wine, half watching Batman and playing 'chubby bunny' with a bag of marshmallows which the dogs thought was highly entertaining, I'm nursing a bit of a headache but it hasn't put me off taking the tree down and packing everything away for the next time. We've already managed to plan the 1st of many day trips to London - Greenwich to be exact as I desperately want to see the Ansel Adams exhibition at the Maritime Museum. I'm going to bake some biscuits to use up my remaining lemons and then I need to get motivated into sorting out all of these boxes that came out of storage as I'm a bit peed off with them being stuck up a corner and taking up much needed space. Some of my mohair bears have been attacked by dreaded moths so I need to hit google for ideas on how to clean them up without using some foul smelling moth repellant! Other than that I feel a crocheting marathon looming as I have promised blankets to a few select people and I need an excuse to go wool shopping which no doubt will see me wandering around the shop with a glazed expression and half soaked grin on my face - just think Gollum and that'll be me. Here's to a creativity fuelled 2013.