Back To School

This morning my bag was packed with a brand new funky cow notebook and new biro's and my alarm was set for 5.40am.  No normal person gets up at that ungodly hour but I had a new job to start at 7am - yes you read that right - a job, a proper job too and not a 'we're going to piss you about' agency job either. I'm only a common old Administrator doing 25 hours a week but it's a small staff of 8 and I have a boss who makes the tea. Perfect. I may have had to give up my beloved craft club but I get to have conversation on a daily basis and get paid for it. Add to that I get to wash my car with the company jet was if I do so wish!! Wahay who needs bonuses and overtime.

It's been 2 and a half weeks of hell as I had to give up my stomach medication so the Doctor could do some blood and other tests on me (ever felt like a guinea pig?) After a severe cock up on their behalf I had to bring the 'puff test' home to do and as it is now winging its way to Glasgow to be tested I can now launch myself at my tablets like a jittering junkie. And why the hell not. It's been 19 days of not eating properly and feeling like crap so tonight the long suffering BF took me out for my 1st proper meal in an age. All in all a good start to the week.

I received half a dozen eggs and a thank you card for my poster making efforts for the craft fair and jazz concert - it's really nice to be appreciated. My creative stash to sell at the fair now consists of 1 granny blanket, 7 hanging birds, 1 penguin and 6 owls....

Twit-twoo

...and I'm baking cakes Saturday morning to sell and helping out as well just to prove that not everyone under 65 in this village is a Mercedes driving, child breeding stuck up ignorant cow.

Diabetic Dog's latest round of tests for Cushing's disease has come back as negative! He has every symptom going yet he falls into the 10% that show as negative and possibly require a 2nd blood test - oh joy at around £100 a pop. The alternative is to monitor his symptoms or possibly have his blood glucose levels tested a 2nd time - again around £100 a time. Why does everything at the moment require shed loads of cash? I'm fed up of saying 'If I sell the van' as half the population of the UK appears to be watching it on ebay and a small group of knobheads keep making offensive and low offers. I must bite my tongue and bide my time I guess.

Happy Campers

I'm attempting to crack on and finish some of my crafty UFO's. As I now have an overwhelming longing for one of these.....

(it could be a long wait as my motorhome is still up for sale). Any spare moments are spent scouring ebay (bad idea) looking at the good, the bad and the downright ugly. After poring over hundreds I know what I don't want which is a good start. I've even been thinking about names!!! Anyone would think I was knocked up such is my obsession. It will definitely be kitted out with crochet - blankets, cushions and gawd knows what which is why I'm currently working on my odd square blanket.....

I'm also trying to knock out as many Owls. penguins and birds as I can for the village craft fair in a few weeks

and now I've offered to do the posters and bake cakes for the event too!! No wonder my craft class cohorts think I'm such an asset to the village! I've lived here 4 months and in that time I've joined the craft club and the WI, taken on the delivery of the parish news once a month (think of it as a paper round for the over 40's) and rendered the President of the WI speechless (the appearance of my knitted hat). Village life is never dull - well it is a lot of the time but I've come to the conclusion that re-opening the village shop would soon sort out that problem and I'm also up for that challenge. 

Crowning Glory

Yay I finally finished my tea cosy pattern hat yesterday and I love it. This is it (and yes I was dead lazy and used the wool ends as decoration instead of sewing them in).....

This is me wearing it......I can cram all of my pink sheep hair into it and it keeps my ears warm against the arctic blasts.....

But.......

...the dog wears it better than I do  :)

Time For A Brew

As if I don't have enough unfinished craft projects lying around I decided yesterday to knit myself a hat seeing as the winter seems so reluctant to bog off. It's a tea cosy pattern (takes me back to tea at my Nan's) and I'm doing it in a host of rainbow colours cos I'm past caring how much of a tit I look 

I'm hoping to get it finished by tomorrow so at least I get to try it out in the arctic conditions when I'm out with the dogs. It's inspired me to recreate the stripey jumper I first knitted way back in the late 80's. It was perfect festival and 'alternative' lifestyle attire. You can just about see it in this rather awful picture 

That's me aged 19 at the 1988 Reading Festival. Ahh those were the days. Drinking cider, living on Pot Noodles and arriving home unwashed after 4 days in a field full of hippies.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

It's been a manic few weeks and far too long since I put sarcasm to 'paper' and blogged about something inconsequential. Diabetic Dog has now turned into DD who also has Cushing's and to add to that the poor old git has had a serious bout of Pancreatitis which saw him spending 48 hours at the Vet's on a drip. After a rough 10 days he's now recovering and I'm planning a bank heist so I'm ready for the next lot of horrendous Vet bills. 

Naff all has been happening on the job front so I'm now being true to myself and applying for slightly more bizarre jobs such as Mother's Helper and Support Worker which a lot of people seem to think would be the last thing I'd want to do for a living but I'm getting more good feedback from these than I am from the zillions of boring Office jobs I'm wasting my time chasing after. We don't all aspire to wear suits, work 9 to 5 and earn 5 or 6 figure salaries so watch this space.

This chap left me this week for his new home and it was a painful parting...

He is a gift for someones adult Goth son. I really hope he likes him and hopefully I get some more orders . There are currently 2 more in the making - 1 for me as a stock piece and 1 for a friend as an advert for my skills - dare I say that? Anyway, the dolls are available to order - several styles to choose  - from £20.

I've also been busy crocheting these little fellas...

Owls seem to be the current trend and I tweaked the pattern to produce penguins as they seem to have quite a fan base too thanks to recent BBC programmes. I'm also making these to order though at the moment I'm trying to make a dozen for the village craft fair! I can't take credit for the pattern, that has to go to this lady whose blog I follow and whose tutorial I used 

http://bunnymummy-jacquie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/easy-crochet-owl-tutorial.html

The village is once again buried in snow - it's late March for crying out loud! I did my bit and wielded the snow shovel this morning to clear most of it from the paths and drive. The dogs enjoyed a mad plough across the field - it was up to their chins. I didn't enjoy having to remove tennis ball sized clumps from their feet when we got back. I felt really sorry for the lambs who didn't seem to know what had hit them as they tried desperately to shelter from the drifting snow and freezing cold winds. I wonder if the BF would notice me sneaking a few into the house to keep them warm? Not a lot else has been going here out here in the sticks. My car passed its MOT - phew. My motorhome is still up for sale and I just wish it would go now as it's a bit of a burden. I still religiously attend craft class every Wednesday though we seem to do more chatting than crafting. These village elders as I shall call them are all mad as a box of frogs and have more interesting tales to tell than most people would give them credit for. It is my weekly dose of happy. I've been asked to help host the May WI meeting - bit taken aback at that honour. Marches meeting sparked a lot of ladies interest as we had a very nice young man come to talk to us about wilderness survival skills and native awareness. He then attempted to make fire on the Parish Hall carpet! I'm also going to be delivering the Parish News every month. This means that me, the Athiest blasphemer will have to set foot inside the village church. I'm sure I'll survive.

Bela Lugosi's Not Dead

He is alive - in the knitted sense of the word, and sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me to grow a pair of balls and embroider his face.

Here he is looking a bit bald and scary with a Jimmy Hill chin going on and freaking my BF out ! What a wimp.

That's 25" from the top of his head to the tip of his Gothy black painted toenails (only joking)

Now he has hair he reminds me of Pete Burns before he changed gender and got a trout pout. Seeing as I was very reluctant to take on this project I'm actually very pleased with him but I do still have to sew on his ears and embroider his facial features (Yikes!!) The person I've done him for is chuffed to bits with him so maybe this is my saving grace. I can crochet without looking but knitting requires a bit more concentration so I don't get to think about the all of the trash that's stressing me out at the moment (no job, endless applications, diabetic dog, car, van, blah, blah, blah). Knitting as Therapy Rocks. More Goth dolls are in the pipeline and I may even stick them on a well known handmade website. I do believe I've knitted my ideal man, maybe I can create somebody elses :)

And All Because The Lady Loves Risotto

I think it must be an age thing but I've suddenly started to loath supermarket shopping unless there's only me and 3 other people in there, sadly it's usually me and several 100 Midlands Chav's and their screaming offspring. This is why I've taken to nipping to the local Aldi (which I love) for bits and bobs and only treading the boards of the multi-nationals when I need my gluten free crap and odd stuff like that. I'd made up my mind that this weekend was going to be one long creative splurge as I got busy crocheting owls but by Saturday afternoon boredom had set in. Having no great amount of cash, no friends less than an hours drive away to go plonk myself on for a cuppa and a chat and a BF who works nights and sleeps most of the day I was at a loss with what to do to brighten up my cold and murky Saturday afternoon. Thankfully I can be lured away by something as simple as a special offer so I bombed off up the M6 to stock up on Risotto rice, chicken for the pooches and a few veggies from my fave German supermarket. 

It's all your bloody fault

On the way back the signs above the motorway were warning people to slow down to 50 as there were 'animals in the road'. I expected this to be a few loose sheep where I got off at the dreaded Catthorpe interchange but how wrong can you be. As I getting in lane to join the A14 I could something small and black running down the grass verge on the hard shoulder and I nearly had a heart attack and bought the car to a screeching halt when I realised it was a small black dog. Anyone who knows me will know that when it comes to animals all sense and reasoning goes out the window so I didn't give a thought to my safety as I got out the car to try and coax it towards me with a bit of smelly processed meat. The poor thing was so terrified he just backed away and sat there barking his head off. I did the only thing I could think of and rang 999 assuming that they would already be in the process of doing something to get him off the road. Sadly my faith in people and the Great British system took a nose dive as I was told by the woman on the end of the line that no the Police wouldn't get involved as they wouldn't accept the responsibility of the dog causing an accident and would I please get in my car and go home. Now I've done my rebellious bit since I was 14 and every now and again I will stick to my guns and stick 2 fingers up at society and it's narrow minded expectations. I never expected that I would stand at the side of the M6 with a packet of chicken pressed to one ear and my phone to the other with traffic roaring by, tears rolling down my face as I told this person in good old plain English mixed with a few choice words that I didn't give a shit about people and stupid health and safety shite, I was not going home, I had a conscience that wouldn't allow me to be that bloody heartless and  I was not leaving this poor scared dog so I suggested she sent someone out to help me or else I was going to stay there all day. Amazingly she gave in, told me she could see me on camera, could I park my car a little better and someone would come out. Me and the dog stood there a good 10 minutes - me freezing and him barking, and finally the keystone cops turned up (Traffic cops) and with a few nifty moves they caught him. They didn't know what to do with him so I guess it was a good job I'd already decided to take him home and find a rescue or someone to take him on. My ever suffering BF opened to the door to a tearful me clutching a poo and pee encrusted Chihuahua and didn't bat an eyelid. I cleaned the poor little bugger up (dog not the BF) and left him to settle in with my 2. Saturday obviously isn't a good day to get hold of the authorities as I rang 3 councils, was passed on to or told to ring various dog wardens none of which would accept the dog as their responsibility due to where I'd found him. The RSPCA and several other rescues don't take strays from the public and the few others I left messages for never got back to me. All in all people aren't scoring very well in my book at the moment. I named him Jorge (George), he had some dinner and settled down as well as any dog can that's been scared out of its wits by traffic. By Sunday I managed to talk to a Dog warden who pretended she hadn't heard where I'd picked him up and they came to take him to the kennels for 7 days to see if he'd be claimed - I won't hold my breath. I made her promise that they'd rehome him if not and they'd let me know as by now I was very very attached to him and it was breaking my heart to let him go. It's weighed on my mind ever since that I could have done more but maybe that's just me. I'm finding it hard enough financially to deal with 2 dogs at the moment without adding a 3rd to the mix. Someone will snap him up as he 's an absolute sweetie, that's the good thing. I was meant to grow bored and go out to buy rice, that's the other good thing, and thanks to being bolshie and stubborn and bloody minded I was meant to drive down the M6 instead of going the lanes way home cos sadly we seem to live in a society where not many people care about distressed animals, It's always somebody elses responsibility or problem. Not in my book it isn't. I'd have stopped if it had been a chicken running up and down the verge. Maybe I am stupid and I have little regard for my safety but I know my limits and at least I sleep well at night knowing that I didn't turn a blind eye and leave it up to someone else.

Makes it all worthwhile

I never did get my bloody Risotto for tea nor did I have my planned creative splurge and I spent most of Sunday after he'd gone bawling my eyes out but who cares. I think I earned my wings - but can I have black or purple as I don't do white and fluffy