Little House Neighbourhood

While the Whitsun Bank Holiday Monday was a washout the sun was shining on my finishing and i managed to get the last stitches into my Little House Neighbourhood

I've had this chart for quite a while, and i don't know why it took me so long to get around to it because i love it and enjoyed every stitch

The blue house was my favourite while i was stitching although blue is not my favourite colour, strange that!

Now that I've finished the red house is getting my vote,

although in this photo it looks bendy it's just the way the fabric is lying

I used the recommended DMC threads and the only changes i made was to use the English spelling for neighbour and to put the little heart at the end of the saying to balance it up

 Until next time, 

Have a fabulous weekend xx

Tour of Venice

Venice

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 After the plane comes the water taxi

For someone who does not "do" water i managed the 45 minute trip quite well, clinging to my seat - what an experience!

Luckily there were more pleasant things once we arrived.

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We didn't take a gondola ride (they were too expensive at €80 for 40 minutes in my opinion) but lovely to see all the same, although in parts it was a little funny to see several gondolas all navigating the same path and trying to avoid collision!

Some very pretty less crowded places

The building below is the hospital, i bet there are not many places that can boast that their hospital is housed in such a beautiful building.  I wonder if they have a five hour waiting in A&E, lol

I was not prepared for how busy it would be, just to give you an idea, cruise ships drop off their passengers at St Marks Square, and some days we were told that three ships will drop off  and there could be around five thousand people in and around the square - mad!
We saw one cruise ship pass at St Marks Square, how strange does this look? it filled the view to the square, quite a sight, if you can click on the photo you will see all the people standing looking to the square....crazy!

The Rialto Bridge - see the crowds?



This was just one side, the other side was just as bad, all the time.

To tell the truth, i was a little disappointed with the Rialto Bridge, apart from the very large banner announcing the popes visit (surely they could have sited this somewhere else?)

See the boards to the rear of the shops on the photo below? they all have graffiti on. Now call me picky if you like, but this is the most famous bridge in Venice, and is in effect where it all started, the centre,  so you would think that there would be a little more pride at keeping it clean and tidy - Just my opinion.

You can see how busy the Grant Canal is, this is the best photo i could get of the bridge.



This is looking under the Rialto

I have another little gripe.

The Bridge of Sighs.  Everyone who visits Venice wants to see the Bridge of Sighs, this is what greets you

They have covered the sides of the Doge's Palace (on the left) and the prison (on the right)  with this horrendous cloud/sky boarding.  There is restoration work going on and i know that these building have to be maintained, but come on, surely the advertisers who are paying for the restoration could have come up with something better than this??  And who agreed to such an eyesore? Most disappointing.

See the small bridge in the middle of the photo, the one groaning under the weight of all those people? That is facing the Bridge of Sighs, when prisoners were lead across into the prison their families would stand on that bridge and be able to wave farewell to their loved ones.

OK, you are probably thinking by now that i didn't enjoy Venice, i did enjoy it and there were some lovely things to see.

St Marks Church being one of them

Some pretty views

And to end with the obligatory night photo, this was a bridge quite close to our hotel

I have put a couple of photos here and i will add more there over the next few days if anyone wants to take a look.

Normal service of stitchy updates will follow soon :-)

Little Square Houses

I hope you are all enjoying this glorious weather we are having, isn't it great to be able to have the doors and windows open and hang the washing on the line, lol

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Just a quick update from me tonight to share the progress on my Sampler Game board, the SAL Judy and I are stitching together.

We are stitching on Fridays or over the weekend when we can and are on week 3.

And the other way up so that you can see the upside down squares

And this is the whole thing so far

Judy started at the bottom whereas i have started at the top left so you will be able to follow our progress from both ends :-)

Although this looks like a huge project, i think it's going to stitch up fairly quickly as those little house grow pretty fast :-)

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No stitching for me this weekend though, me and DD#1 are going on one of our city breaks, we will be jetting off to Venice on Friday morning, back on Monday evening.  I have holiday from work until May 3rd so i plan on going down to Weymouth to visit Mark for a few days before his job finishes.  If the weather holds out it should be really nice.

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I'll be back with updates and tales of Venice as soon as i can.  

 Until then, have fun and enjoy our extended Bank Holidays :-)

Happy Days!

Phew, some sunshine at last!  after the winter we had it's lovely to see the big round yellow ball in the sky!

Those in the UK will know that we have to make the most of it because it changes so fast, lol.

I want to thank all you lovely people who stopped by and left get well messages for me and my foot, and my mother too!   Mum is OK, on medication, for life now to thin her blood, but is being monitored at the hospital, she has to have a 24 hour ECG monitor on the 20th and go about her normal daily activities so they can get a more accurate reading.  I think she was really frightened on that Sunday though.
Oh, someone asked the question, how we managed to get locked in mums house, well there is a deadlock on the door and my sister turned the key all the way round and apparently that puts the deadlock on and when we shut the door it wouldn't open again.   I know mad, and how mum has managed to never do it i don't know, something we will really have to get changed.

My cast came off and they decided that the break wasn't as bad as first thought, it was near my big toe, so no need for a cast, just keep my foot elevated as much as possible.  The swelling went down after a few days and i was able to get a shoe back on again.  I went back to work on Tuesday (I'm only sitting at a desk anyway)  I did learn a few things whilst in plaster with my foot up -

1. getting around on crutches or with the aid of a stick is much more difficult than it looks!! 

2.  Some people i work with who i considered as friends are only work colleagues, (with the exception of one), not one of them phoned me to see how i was or what I'd done.

3. My off spring are capable of doing household chores and cooking, and if left to get on with it make a very good job of it:-)

4. DH on the other hand is completely hopeless at either of the things in #3,  he is however good at supplying endless cups of tea :-)

5. When the cast is off and everyone can see that you are mobile again no one puts their hands up for chores!

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Last Friday was the start of my Sampler Game Board SAL with Judy and seeing i had plenty of time to sit on my butt and stitch i made good progress

Don't panic Judy, i don't always stitch this fast, I'm sure you will overtake me before long :-)

I put quite a lot of stitches into Little House Neighbourhood too, but you will have to take my word for it because i didn't take a photo.

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I was going to end with a couple of photos of my feline babies enjoying the sun, but now I've uploaded one photo, blogger won't let me do any more (why?? , do i now have to upload all the photos I want to share in one go???)

There are a couple on my photo blog (of Molly) if you want to look...go on, no one has been to visit me there in a while :-(

(There is a link in the side bar)

Until next time, have a good weekend x

Getting Plastered!

You really couldn't make this up!

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It turned out to be a day and a half yesterday.   I started the day by falling down the stairs, top to bottom, wrenched both arms backwards trying to stop myself and banged my foot.  It did knock me for six but i carried on...as you do, with the weekly ironing. 

Then i get a text from my eldest sister to say they have taken mum to the hospital because she was having palpitations and trouble breathing, she'd been given a ECG and was waiting to see the doctor.  So off i go to the hospital, my foot was hurting but not too bad, i could walk. 

We waited 5 hours in A&E, yes you read right, they gave an 82 year old woman an ECG then left her in the A&E waiting room for 5 hours, i did go and ask how much longer, a couple of times, but you know A&E, makes no difference.  When she was eventually seen by a doctor he did a thorough examination and he was very nice with her, they checked her blood, that was OK but the doc didn't like the look of her ECG so she had to stay in over night.  My eldest sister stayed with her while me and my younger sister went to her home to collect overnight things.  By then my foot was starting to hurt more.  Took mums things back to hospital, i was having trouble walking then but got on with it.  Another couple of hours with mum in the Emergency Assessment Unit waiting for yet another doctor to come and check her over and confirm that she was to stay in, yes, she had to stay in and have another ECG in the morning then they would compare them.

We had to ask 3 times for a blanket and pillow for mum, she had had nothing to eat or drink since about 2 o'clock that afternoon, a nurse said they would bring a plate of sandwiches and a cup of tea, which never arrived and the shop had nothing left except some muffins!  We asked again and she was bought a packet of sandwiches with a choice of ham or salmon, nothing to drink, so off again in search of a vending machine!

So by this time my foot is really killing and by the time we left at 12 o'clock i was having real trouble walking at all, but i was the one driving.  We went back to mums to feed her cat and turn off lights etc.  Went to open the door to go, it wouldn't budge, we were locked in the house!.  Julie, my younger sister said, I'll climb out of the window and unlock the door, no can do, the windows are locked and we didn't know where the key was.  We then had to call my BIL to come up and let us out!!  He had to help me to the car and off home i went, Joanne took one look at my foot and said, mum i think you should go back to the hospital (my foot was a funny colour and swollen by this time)  So off we go again, Joanne drops me and Stevie by A&E and goes to park the car, but i can't walk at all and am trying to hop across the car park, Stevie trying to hold me up without laughing to much!  There was a guy stood outside the door who came to our rescue with a wheelchair, bless him, i don't know how we would have got to the door if he hadn't come to rescue us.

This time, thankfully, we didn't wait too long before i was seen, but while i was waiting for my xray the doctor who had seen mum earlier walked past and did a double take and came back and asked what I'd done and went away shaking his head, lol.  After xray i was wheeled back and the same doctor came past again and asked if i had been seen yet, (no i hadn't) he said he had finished his shift but would get the Doctor to have a look at me and my xray.  The doctor on duty didn't come, but he did and looked at the xrays himself and examined my foot coming back with the news that it was indeed broken!!

So now i look like this..

I have an appointment at the fracture clinic on Wednesday afternoon to have this plaster off and another xray and then they will decide whether to put another cast on.~~~

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On the upside i will have plenty of stitching time over the next couple of weeks (insert big grin here!) 

I put a lot of time into LHN last week, i love this one :-)

 And the whole thing so far.

Mary Glover had an outing at the weekend. How pants is stitching over one!!  I think i stared at it for ten minutes before attempting a stitch, then when i did manage some stitching i ripped them out again.  Finally i think i got it sorted, i still have the alphabet underneath the words to do and i will grit my teeth and get around to that this week.

Saturday was a better day than yesterday with the Hobbycraft and Sewing for Pleasure, i had a lovey day out and gsome goodies which i will share with you another time.  For now I'm going to catch forty winks as i didn't sleep very well last night.

Take care

I'm happy to say that the rain eventually cleared on Saturday and the sun came out long enough for us to have a brisk walk by the sea.  Photos to show later, but first i must show you what Elaine sent me as a belated birthday gift.

First a lovely stitched and finished pin keep - so cute :-)

A great chart, some needles and a pair of scissors, she also included some coloured pins but they must be on the very edge of the photo

Thank you Elaine, i love everything :-)

I made a start on Littlehouse Neighbourhood back at the beginning of February (wow, where did that month go!!)  As you can see not a lot of progress, but i enjoyed putting in what stitches are there.

I have Siobhan to thank for my next new start because i first came across it on her blog, you must have seen it on endless blog posts by now but here is my start on Mary Glover anyway.

So lovely to work on.  I'm almost caught up the first three parts now, just the verse over one to stitch, should be interesting, i have trouble counting at the best of times and to go from over two to over one might tax my little grey cells.

So, back to the weekend in Weymouth, i didn't get any shopping done in the end, we opted just to walk and look around, i did drag Mark into a tea shop to partake of a cream tea, not really the thing that builder blokes go for but he knows i can never pass up on the opportunity for a warm scone with jam and clotted cream, in fact i can very rarely pass on the opportunity of cake of any description:-)

See how the wind wipped up the clouds, aren't they great, i love big fluffy clouds, lol

 Here's some more over the Harbour

 I've only been to  Weymouth once before, when the girls were smaller, but i remember the clock, when i mentioned it to Mark he said he couldn't remember seeing a clock although he has been there since January and must have driven passed it several times, i swear he goes around with his eyes shut, lol, i mean, how could you miss something like that!

The Jubilee Clock - built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

 I would have loved a photo of the whole thing but there are some major road works going on and they chose the base of the clock to store that horrible orange netting and barriers.

Here is another fantastic building on the sea front

This church is just at the back of the holiday park Mark is working at, a really lovely place, and the grounds are kept very neat.  Don't you just love that entrance!

 I cropped the next photo down and it does look a little squashed but i liked it because it shows the horse on the hill in the background, can you see it?

I was told, rightly or wrongly(someone may be able to confirm or dispute this perhaps?) that the horse was put there because George III used to ride his own house up and down that hill.

And on that note i will leave you, i have to get into my own chariot now and collect my daughter from work

I will share a few more pictures on my photo blog over the next couple of days.

Blasted British Weather

DH is working on building a new swimming pool on a holiday site in Weymouth, so yesterday i came down to spend the weekend with him.  He said there is a pretty village just up the road complete with a village green and a duck pond, I'm still sitting here waiting for the rain to stop so i can go and have a look!!  I had planned on some retail therapy today too, Weymouth has some lovely shops, so I'm hoping this blasted rain will stop before lunch time. 

I have been very neglectful of my photo blog too, if the rain clears enough i might be able to get something good enough to update it after the weekend.  After a 3 hour drive to get here i don't intend to go home without seeing the sea!

Hope the weather is better wherever you are :-)