Everyone Has Been So Generous

As you may have noticed my blog has been somewhat neglected over the last month but it is for a good reason. After Husband and I attended the sales and marketing course we decided to go for a new image and complete relaunch for his company. Over the last few weeks I have been been doing a lot of research and writing to helping him redesign the website. We have also designed a new logo to go with the new look and just sent the final design for the new flyers off to the printers. The next job is a new company brochure but that will have to wait for a little while.

We launched the new website earlier today so at long last I can catch up with my blog. I might even get time to do some sewing as well, or maybe that's just me getting carried away!!

Well I might have disappeared from the world of blogging for most of this month but I certainly haven't been forgotten. Over the last few weeks so many nice things gave happened to me but before I tell you all about them I must say a massive thank you to everyone involved and apologise for appearing to ignore you.

The first nice thing to happen was when Karen has given me not one, but two awards. Thank you so much Karen for thinking about me and I'm so sorry it has taken me a month to acknowledge them via my blog.


The first award which was given to me on the 26th February says. "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers. When you pass the award along please include these guidelines. I am to choose eight friends to share this with."


The second award which she gave me on the 4th March asks you to list your top 10 blogs. Now I have to be honest I don't have a top 10 set of blogs as I like all the blogs I read equally, some of which are on my blog list and some of which aren't. Each blog appeals to me for different reasons and picking my 10 favourites is a bit like trying to say I like one child more than another, which obviously I don't. Now this isn't a habit I intend to get into but on this occasion as I know if you have commented on my blog or registered as a 'follower' of my blog I visit your blog on a regular basis please consider yourself as one of my favourite blogs.

Next Helen let me know that I'm going to be running the bank in her village that she stitching for the Me Myself and I Round Robin blog. Apparently I got the job because I was the first to apply but I thought it might have been because I promised to lend money to small businesses and not take a big bonus!!

The next treat was when Sally sent me this wonderful biscornu she stitched as a PIF for me.




She knew that I'm developing a passion for Shepherd's Bush designs and so she stitched me Woolpack Sheep and I absolutely love it. It's my first biscornu and my first Shepherd's Bush design. Thank you so much Sally.

When we had finished quizzing on Thursday the landlord of the pub gave me a heather for my garden.


Only the day before I had been thinking that it would be nice to have some more heathers in the front garden and then one appears out of the blue. It will be planted in the front garden next week.

Then yesterday morning the postman knocked on the door with a parcel for me to sign for. I hadn't ordered anything so I had no idea what to expect. It was a free copy of the OFC's Photographic Annual.


Apparently Peter who set up the OFC and a few other OFC members had decided I should have a copy. Now I'm not sure what I did to deserve a free copy, when everyone else had to pay for their copy, but it really made my day. I don't know who the 'others' are and as I only know of one OFC member who reads my blog I'm hoping Peter got my email saying thank you and has passed my thanks on to the relevant people.

So as you can see I have been completely and utterly spoilt over the last month or so and I don't know what I did to deserve it but thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone involved.

One other thing that was shared with me was my father-in-laws cold. We invited him to dinner last week and he had an appalling cold and cough which he has very generously passed onto me. That I'm not so happy about LOL!!

Now I know I've said this before and nothing has happened, but if I whisper it may be it will:

'I'm off to do some sewing'

Don't tell anyone.

We Won

I guess the heading says it all.

Last night with a perfect score of 10/10 we won the Beer League. We were playing away from home but rang up a team member who wasn't at the game and they joined us back at our home venue for a celebratory drink or two. Well everyone else had a drink, I couldn't as I was driving. Our home venue is on the opposite side of town from our house and Son, who normally picks us up, wasn't available as he was out with his friends.

Husband and I also attended a sales and marketing course earlier in the day and it was certainly worthwhile as we have come away with plenty to think about and do.

Right housework and Sainsburys beckon, then maybe at long last I'll get some sewing done.

I'm Still Here

The time just seems to be disappearing on me at the moment although I was busy last week sorting out Husband's accounts and writing up a walk for a magazine.

I still haven't found any time to pick up my needle and I've managed one walk and to read one book since my last post. The walk, last Monday, was a 9 miler across Longstone Moor, through Cressbrook Dale and back to Longstone Edge via Monsal Head.

St Peter's Stone, Creesbrook Dale

Monsal Viaduct from Monsal Head

Having worked all weekend Husband joined me on it and we were tempted into the Stable Bar for a drink after the steep climb up from the viaduct to Monsal Head. It's ages since we have sat alone in a bar together chatting over a pint, so it made a real change.

Tuesday to Thursday was then spent either doing the accounts or writing up the Crich Stand walk. Friday was a catch-up on the housework and shopping day. Saturday was meant to be spent, with Husband, on a Sales and Marketing training day. Having got up early and driven the 30 miles to Buxton we arrived at the hotel to find out there was no course running there that day. When we got back home we discovered we'd been sent the wrong details and should have been in the university buildings. Anyway we are now doing it on Thursday in Chesterfield. We're both looking forward to it as we know we will come away with a marketing strategy and hopefully a good collection of ideas for promoting the business.

Thursday is hopefully going to be an exciting day for us as it's also the last day of the Quiz League and we are top of the Beer League. With the exception of the previous two weeks we have been top all season. Having regained the top spot last week we are determined to hang on to it this week so we have been truly sad spending the evenings looking up Double Troubles . To explain, the Beer League runs after the main quiz and is one round of fun questions with the losers buying their opposite numbers in the winning team a pint. Now John and I have argued that we have had to win it out of necessity this year as if we are both playing and lose it's goodbye to £10.00. The question setter gets to choose the format of the Beer League and this year he has done 10 Double Troubles in alphabetical order. A double trouble is a question with a two worded answer where both words start with the same letter, e.g Q: Where do Derby County play their home games? A: Pride Park. As we are weak on Reality TV, soaps and as I'm not playing there will be nobody with any knowledge of Harry Potter, Husband is now mugging up on all the possible answers/questions these topics could throw up. We need to get 8 points to win and as it will be our first title for a good few years we're taking it quite seriously. As I'm the Results Secretary if we get less than 8 points I will know before anyone else if we have won it or not.

The only book I have finished was Escape to London by Mary Jane Staples and set in Vienna just after Germany has invaded Austria. Sadly I can't really say that it was a great read. Whilst it was easy reading it wasn't really believable, so that ruined it for me.

In my opinion it was bit like reading a Mills and Boon whereby you always knew the girl would get the bloke in the end and for a war-time story this one was just too nice. I've since started the Book Thief and that is far more to my taste.

What a Roller Coaster!

Firstly a big thank you to everyone who sent me hugs etc, I didn't actually feel that bad about the events I described in my last post. The last few days however have been a roller coaster of emotions.

On Friday morning Husband's car wouldn't start, after jump starting it later with Son's assistance we thought maybe it would be OK but no, the next day the same thing, so there goes £50 on a new car battery. Not too happy about that but put it down to just being one of those things.

Thanks to Husband's assistance the weekend saw me catch up with the dreaded housework and washing so yesterday it was out to write-up the route for one of the walks I have published in a local magazine. Now it's close to the deadline and it turned out that I couldn't actually walk much of the route but after an initial panic the walk was done and the relevant notes were made. Husband had spent the morning meeting with a client, who is also an old friend, and secured some more business and was about to go into another meeting with a potential new client. Another successful meeting and another website secured, so we are both on a high.

The high lasted all of 10 minutes, when I discovered that I'd lost my camera case whilst out on the walk. Now whilst it didn't have my camera in it, it did have the spare memory card, spare battery and two lens caps, so there goes another £100+. As I knew there were only two possible places it could have been lost we dived straight into the car and headed up there to see if it was still at either of them. The answer was no. Upon returning home Husband starts dinner only to find out that the oven has blown up again, just like it did three days before Christmas.

This morning after very little sleep I start ringing around police stations to see if anyone has handed in my camera case but no-one has. After knocking up a few posters we head up to the village where I lost it and armed with our staple gun but a variety of posters up around the village with our phone number on them. This afternoon the pone has rung and somebody has it and I'm collecting it later tonight. Then life gets even better, Husband gets another lead on a website from a flyer he posted out last week. Now if Husband's cousin would just come round and fix the oven again I could make the wonderful person who found my camera case some muffins as a thank you. Mind I think she will also be getting something stitched as a thank you later in the week.

You know the best think about all of this, is that when I lost my camera case, I just kept telling myself most people are honest and I'm so pleased I was proved correct.

A Week Late

It has been one of those weeks. I have struggled to get to the computer, failed to keep up with the blogs I usually visit on a daily basis and not even had time to dream about picking up a needle. The main cause of this chaos has been the fact that Husband's partner has decided to leave the business. This has meant I have had to sort their accounts out and take a more active role in promoting the business. None of which I mind, but it does leave me short on time for doing other things. It also doesn't help that yesterday was the 19th anniversary of the day my first husband was killed and the week between Valentines Day and yesterday is never a good one. Anyway, hopefully the chaos is calming down and a more normal routine will start to develop over the next few weeks.

Last Sunday I was meant to announce the winners of my PIF, as only two people entered they are both winners and I shall pick someone else at random to receive something stitched by myself. The two winners are:

Rachael and Kath

Congratulations ladies please can you send me your snail mail addresses you can email me at angela at hillwalker84 dot fsnet dot co dot uk Please delete the gaps and fill in the dots and at as you would expect.

With everything that has been going on this week I have also been struggling to sleep so it will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I have been reading late into the night and finished another book.

The latest book 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini is set in Kabul and is a stunningly good read.

Through the eyes of the two main characters, Mariam and Laila, you see so many different sides to Afghanistan and watch how it is destroys and then starts to rebuild itself. The story grips you throughout and has twists and turns in it that you simply don't expect. The author, who is probably better known for his book 'The Kite Runner', was new to me and so I wasn't at all sure if I'd like the book or not, but it is a great story that has you living every moment with the two main characters.

Green Shoots, Brownies and Valentines.

A funny week, with a lot happening, that has nothing to do with the blog but stopped me doing any real sewing or blogging.

Last week I had a go at making Chocolate Brownies, it's a good few years since I've made them and having tasted them I now know why.

To say they are rich and sweet is an understatement, even Son commented on how much chocolate there was in them. I hadn't actually put in the recommended amount and had to mix dark and milk chocolate just to make up the amount I did put in. I think they would have been untouched if I'd used the recommended amount of dark chocolate.

After nearly 3 weeks of checking on them everyday my sweet peas are starting to have green shoots.

I lost all of the geraniums, which wasn't really a surprise, now I just have to avoid killing the sweet peas. As the snow is going and the weather is maybe going to start to warm up I shall turn my attention to sewing some more seeds.

The only stitching I have done this week is the Valentines' Day card I made Husband.

Broken Fairy

Be Mine

18 count White Aida

DMC threads

It's based on a design Rachael did, although I changed the lettering to some I found in one of my cross stitch books. I received a card from Husband and a bunch of flowers which he gave me on Thursday. Tonight we are treating ourselves to a take-away and a bottle of wine, a real treat these days as the last time we did this was the night before he lost his job.

Humble Pie

Quite unexpectedly I found myself spending yesterday evening reading Gordon Ramsay's autobiography 'Humble Pie'.

I had absolutely no plans to read this book, in fact, when it was released a couple of years ago I had absolutely no interest in it at all. Yesterday however I visited our local library and took out a few books, of which this is one. I only went looking for an autobiography because the selection of novels was so pathetic. To be fair to the library it is far too small for a town the size of which I live in and is trying to move to bigger accommodation. I guess if I want to read a particular book I'd better reserve it on line first.

Yesterday evening a change of plans meant Husband was cooking dinner and as it was tea in the cricket I picked the book up just to look at it. It was such a good read that, accept for when I did the washing up, it wasn't put down again until I finished it about 6 hours later. The cricket wasn't that exciting anyway so I didn't miss much there!!

Now you might not like Gordon Ramsay as a chef, you might well find his swearing offensive, but read this book and despite that you will be full of admiration for the bloke. Whenever I read an autobiography I'm always a little sceptical about how different events are portrayed, because, obviously, your only getting one side of the story, but this book can't fail to leave you full of admiration for the author. His childhood wasn't great, he worked damn hard to get where he is today and he wasn't afraid to make sacrifices. If he's well off now, make no mistake about it, he deserves it.

As you might have guessed with my nose stuck in books I've not done any stitching this week. I'm really fed up of being stuck in the house and want to get out walking but first of all with my back and now with the snow it's just not happening. However today my exchange arrived from Thread Bear so I now have the Cirque Des Triangles chart, which I will hopefully start later this year when I've finished Love Songs.

I don't want to have too many big projects on the go at once so I shall try to be good and not start it until then. That's quite easy to do at the moment as I need to get the linen and threads first. Under our present financial circumstances they will probably end up being birthday presents which isn't until the end of June. I guess that gives me an incentive for finishing Love Songs by then.

Just in case you've missed the post earlier this week I'm running a PIF, for more details click here.