Absence

Makes the heart grow fonder.... hmmm. Sometimes maybe.

Missed you lot, thats for sure.

My mum is very ill - I'll be away again this coming week, with her and my Dad. Not very much else is equally/more important at the moment.

But I was home for long enough to:

* catch up a bit on blogging

* water some of the plants in my garden (not all of them. Hose-pipe ban in London, don't you know?)

* go to weaving class and MAKE BUTTONS! yes really! (details/pics on my Niddy Noddy blog) (wonderful Mandy again) [I have a bit of a button fetish, so yes, it is exciting for me.]

* discover that No, M hadn't had enough time (in his 3 whole days) to pop out and buy the extra dye needed to dye an old sheet black for LG (more on this below)

* buy more gin

* do some washing


* fill the bird feeders

































* gloat over new shed which arrived before I got home (hehehe. Not yet assembled. Not yet ready for visitors. Soon.)

* nearly have beer with Trac.

* go into loft and pass down to M bits of handed-down carpet (as in handed down from someone else, rather than simply handed-down from the loft) [still with me?] which are destined for our stairs (something else he'd not been able to get around to) [ though he had phoned the carpet-laying man] {enough brackets yet?}.

Photo of shampooing machine loaned by parents: what a cracking design, eh? Bloody vintage or what?

* Shampoo various bits of carpet. Yes, it did actually function - though it worked its way through a few fuses in the process!!

* do a few bits of WORK. Aaaargh. (as in paid work). Enough of that already.

* catch up a bit more on blogging

* MSN friends I've missed.

* re-charge my phone


* turn dyed {only just in time} black sheet into Grim Reaper costume for LG.

excursus:
LG was "Death" from the Terry Pratchett discworld books, for book week fancy dress competition at school.

M had managed to make an excellent scythe. (Done in haste on Weds. afternoon, scant hours before my return. What happened to Monday and Tuesday, I want to know?) [No, I don't actually.]

LG and I spent Thursday evening (last minute as ever) constructing v. successful large hour-glass which, with cat, completed a great fancy-dress. She was very glad of the excuse for wearing black lipstick to school.

(For other Terry Pratchett readers: I wanted her to take a frying pan in as well - she wouldn't. Hahaha. For non-Terry Pratchett readers: your loss). {The hobbit feet - seen bottom left in this photo - were NOT part of the costume}

The prize went (in her class) to a friend dressed as a dictionary. A very good costume, though not exactly a book character. (but no less so, I suppose, than the numerous Batmans and Karate Kids, and much cleverer than those.) (LG won 2 years ago for a great "Dark Tan" (trap disposal rat) costume - Terry Pratchett again. See - you're really missing something good if you don't read Pratchett.)

LG had a good day, after the initial (and rapidly-rising) panic on the way to school when we didn't, for a while, see any other kids in costume. OH NO!!! What if I've got the wrong day? what if no one else is dressed up? I can't walk down the road, there are people! Somebody might see me! what would you do if I was the only one dressed up? .......

She was fine once we got to the playground and saw lots of other Year 6 children in great costumes. Until the hourglass started coming to bits and spilling cous cous all over the playground..... So, maye not so successful after all?
end of excursus

* go to B&Q with friend and buy paving slabs and painty-wood-preserving stuff for shed. (They didn't have exactly the duck-egg blue I wanted, but got lovely bluey-greeney colour). And lots of other bits and pieces which cost pennies each but mysteriously added up to a horrifying amount.

* go to Boot Fair.



Books and textiles-related stuff, as usual.
But also some shed-related things too. (RHS Veg. book for RW and her allotment).








* fill bird feeders again.

* do more washing.

* start to sort out spare room, ready for arrival of in-laws on 5th. (This, of course, involving still more washing) [and the 5th being the same day that the carpet man will be here oops!]

* take pics, write and post this blog.


Off again tomorrow. I will try to find time to keep up with blogging comments etc. - aged parents have computing technology, but no Broadband... not quite what I'm used to.

Back soon.