What it's like at the moment

 I know many people are not mentioning Covid 19 on blogs, but I have decided that I am, and If you're not interested in reading this post, that's fine, i'm putting it here mainly for me to record what things are like here for us at the moment.   But if you do want to comment on what things are like where you are then I'm happy to read them.

This pandemic is like nothing we have ever seen before, we can't ignore it or what is happening around the world.  The closing of shops, offices, factories and schools will have repercussions for a long time to come, not to mention the effect it will have on our National Health Service, and to be honest what is happening is very very scary.  

I'm not normally one for watching the news but I find myself searching out news items and tuning in to hear what the latest Government Cobra meeting is announcing every afternoon, I don't want to get hung up on doom and gloom but I do want to know what's happening.  I have even been drawn into reading a couple of the conspiracy theory's out there, mainly on FB, until I thought, what a load of 💩, why are you even reading this, and click off it.  If you look hard enough I suppose you will find a conspiracy in anything.

Today Boris announced the closure of schools and nurseries from Friday 20th, until further notice, they will however still have to provide care for children who's parents are key workers, Police, Health Services or delivery drivers or for children who are vulnerable.

I have one daughter who is an Early Years nursery school worker, she does not know yet if she will be required to go into work after Friday, if she doesn't, she won't get paid, her boyfriend works at a car plant, there is talk of shutting that, again he won't get paid if they do.  My eldest daughter is a Police Officer, she will have to continue going into work, as her mother of course i'm worried about that.

I don't want to compare how we are doing things differently to other countries, each country deals with things in a way that is best for them, taking advice (we hope) and steps when necessary, and no one knows enough about this virus to know that one way is right and another way is wrong, we have to trust, to a certain extent, that we are being given the best advice and to take responsibility to keep ourselves as safe as we can.

This weekend I should have been going to the craft show at the NEC in Birmingham but of course that's now been cancelled, they will be honoring the tickets for the show at the end of June, all being well.  So many places are shutting their doors as this 'thing' escalates, I fear for smaller businesses surviving these tough times, and of course there are people who are being told to stay at home but wont get paid.  We are usually paid when off sick, not everyone is, but of course companies would not survive at all if they had to pay workers and at the same time were making no money, it's going to be tough on everybody, no doubt about it.

In the supermarket I have managed to get most of the things we need.   They still have a limit on the number of items people can buy, two packs of nappies or wipes, one pack of toilet roll and four of anything else.  Makes sense to me, if people only buy what they need there will be enough to go round, even so, there were no baked beans, nappies, tinned soup or tinned peas on the shelves on Wednesday and low stocks of other tinned food and biscuits.  I didn't look at the frozen section but fresh food seemed to be ok.  Some supermarkets are opening early just for pensioners to shop but there are queues outside waiting for them to open at 8am.  They are starting to close at 6pm.  From what I saw in Aldi people were still buying trolley loads of food though.

Everyone in our office has been given the option to work from home, except us on reception.  I've been a bit peed off about this if i'm honest, not because I would rather sit at home, but because we don't seem to have been considered at all.  An email was circulated saying people could work from home but they were going to keep the office open so that should anyone need to come in, for paperwork or conference calls they could.  As nothing was mentioned about reception we took it that we would be expected to carry on.  What I was not happy about was the fact that nothing was mentioned to us regarding deliveries coming in or the fact that we are the first point of call for anyone and we are the ones out of everyone that come into contact with the most people.

I had to send an email out myself to say please use the hand sanitiser as you come into reception and on returning at lunch time.  I've also put a notice on the door saying the same thing.  To be honest we haven't had that many deliveries the last few days but I'm going one step further now and asking them to leave them in the little porch we have rather than letting them in the building.  Again, this advice has not come from management.  We always joke we are the last ones to be thought about, but this just proves it.

I've just looked at the statistics for tonight, as of 9pm there were a total of 2,626 cases with 676 confirmed cases.  Our borough is showing at 10 cases.

Wherever you are, I hope you are keeping safe and well

-X-

There's a long way to go yet

This week I thought it was about time I started adding squares to my mitred square blanket.

I made a very small start on this before Christmas but I now have all those gorgeous minis from my Advent calendars to start adding.

It's got a lot of growing to do, If I can I'm going to try and fit in one square a day until the end of the month, although, once you get going it's very hard to stop at one square, I love dipping into my baskets and choosing the next colour. 

Like the rest of the world I've bee following the news on this coronavirus, It's very frightening how quickly and how far it has spread in such a short time. 

I think we must all do our bit to ensure we are keeping ourselves and our family as safe as we possible can and to try and minimise the spread.   

We have decided that unless it's absolutely necessary we won't be visiting my mum, if we are out shopping and work we can't be sure who we have been in contact with and would hate to think we have inadvertently taken something into her house.  We will drop shopping to her and leave it in the porch from now on.  Better safe than sorry!

I am not one of those people who has gone out and done enough shopping to fill a small bunker, I am just doing (or trying to do ) my normal shopping.  I have always shopped for cleaning supplies once a month, I know how much stuff we get though in a month and it gets replaced every four weeks, luckily had just done that at the end of last month, so we are ok for those things for a while yet, I will not be going out to buy more before I would normally shop again  Personally I think it's appalling how people have been selfishly loading their trolleys with all this stuff, I dislike unfairness.

My daughter could not get any baby formula last week and had to ring round every supermarket until she eventually found some, and they had only got four tins!.   This week there are no nappies or wipes to be had, (yes she knows there are alternatives for these things), but If people are going to clear the shelves then It's only right that supermarkets limit the amount you can buy.  

At the moment we are still going into work, although we have all been given the means to work from home if, or when the time comes.  Most of the the lads in the office are up and down the country to different sites and meetings etc throughout the week, it's really only a matter of time until someone has it.  I've decided that from tomorrow I'm not signing for any deliveries, I will ask the driver to sign my name for me, you don't know who's hands have touched that machine and I will be asking visitors to use the antibacterial gel as they enter and leave, just sensible precautions.

I hope that wherever you are you are keeping yourself and your family as safe as you can.

Take care

-X-

This weekend

 I'm a grass widow this weekend, Mark had to work so I was left to my own devices :-)

I was in the mood for a bit of Spring cleaning, I've washed all the cushion covers and throws, cleaned windows, sorted all the kitchen cupboards and drawers and sorted anther bag for the charity shop, amazing what you can get done when there are no interruptions (ha ha)

It's not very often I get to spend time in the house on my own now, I must say, I've enjoyed the quiet time.  I've not picked up any stitching during the week so yesterday I sat and put quite a lot of stitches into Autumn Dream.

There is more stitching in this piece than you imagine when first looking at it, it's not going to be finished anytime soon.

I took down my February decorations and put out some Spring ones

Do you like my little bunny vase?  He has a yellow pompom tail too :-) cute!!

The candle you can see behind the little pillow is a Hot Cross Bun one, it smells gorgeous!

 The stitched pillow is a Little House Needleworks, the cottage of the month series, although March is the only one of this series that I stitched.

There are signs of Spring in the garden at last, we have had more than our fair share of rain and wind over the last couple of months but today although it was windy the sun has been shinning beautifully.

  I really should have been out there enjoying the good weather and catching up on clearing some of the debris of sticks and twigs left in the garden but I haven't, I've been sitting with my feet up stitching on my new April Calendar Girl and binge watching Tourchwood for a second time.

I hope you have had a great weekend too and enjoyed whatever you got up too.

See you soon

-X-

Hello March Calendar Girl

I'm really enjoying stitching these calendar girls each month, they are quite quick and with only a couple of changes in thread colour between each one I've been able to kit the ones I've done so far out of stash.

 The backing fabric I've used for this one and the previous two finishes was from stash, as were the buttons.

My aim this year was to spend less, on everything in general, but on craft supplies in particular.  I've reached a stage when I want to use what I have rather than keep adding to it, there are only so many charts you can stitch in a year after all.

I've got April all ready to go, I had all the threads apart from one :-)

Have a lovely week

-X-

We'll count that as a fail then shall we

I finished knitting my Betwixmas shawl a couple of weeks ago, to be honest I made myself finish it because I wanted to start something else, and that's going to be my 'thing' this year.  

I didn't much like knitting with the yarn but I thought I'd like it when it was all done.

I washed and blocked it

The pattern came out good

But, it's not wearable, it is so small, I was really disappointed.  I posted it on the fb group and a lot o people commented that yes, theirs had turned out small too.  I know I could have ordered more yarn and carried on but I didn't eel inclined, I could have used bigger needles, but the stitches wouldn't have looked very nice.  Joanne has taken it back with her, no idea if she will be able to use it, I'll told her to put it in the charity bag if she can't.

I'll be triple checking measurements the next time I do anything!

I've been working a little bit on Autumn Dream over the last three weekends, still a lot o brown at the moment but once I start adding the colour it will look much better. 

The rain continues here.  The Midlands has had a lot of flooding in places, especially Bewdley and Ironbridge There are flood defences in Bewdley now on one side of the river at least, so not as bad as previous years.  It must be terrible when it happens all the same.

We have our own mini flood happening in the garden.  This has been the same for weeks and hardly has time to soak away before the next few days of rain.  

No chance of getting out and doing anything at the moment, everywhere you tread is like a bog!

I booked a day's holiday today so i'm having an indulgent day to myself :-)  I'm going to make myself a lovely cuppa and binge watch series one of  Last Tango in Halifax.  I've watched them all previously but I wanted to refresh my memory before watching the new series, (no spoilers on the new series please as I will get this on catch up) :-)

Hope you all have a great week and have something other than rain to look at though your window.

See you soon

-X-

Finished stitching.....

I finished February's Calendar Girl a few day's before the 1st of the month :-)

And I also finished Easter Parade by Blackbird Designs :-)

I have an idea of how I want to finish this one but I don't know if it will work out ok yet, if not it will just be framed.  I've got a few weeks to thing about it yet.

I managed to avoid all temptation of starting another stitching project until both of these were done, quite impressed with myself for doing that :-)

Next ones on the list are the Calendar Girl for March, which I'm making a start on this afternoon and Autumn Dream by Cottage Garden Samplings

 Here's my tiny start on this one from yesterday

We have some lovely indoor blooms to brighten these dull days, when is it going to stop raining!!

My Amaryllises is very small this year, the smallest ones I've grown!
It does have two flower buds though, these are the flowers from the first, the second one has yet to flower.  At first I was disappointed that it was so small, but now I quite like it :-)

That's it for me today, I'm off to make a cuppa and do some stitching, it's wet and wild outside so inside is the best place to be today :-)

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

See you soon
-X-

What do you do with yours?

I love taking photos and I love looking at photos too, doesn't matter whether they are mine or someone else's.  I used to have a film camera before everything went digital and I would always fill an album with photos from holidays and trips away.  Since I've had a digital camera I don't get many prints done.  

I took a couple of short photography courses a few years ago and really enjoyed it, we used to be given a topic and had to get photos printed to take in the next week, I remember the whole discussion of where to get your prints done and how the machines in the high street shops are just configured to print everyone's photos the same, whereas if you take them to a professional printer they will look at your photos and adjust the machine to get you the best print.

I tested this out once, getting two identical photos, one printed at a professional printers and one at a high street chain.   The difference was amazing, the colour on the high street shop photo was just awful, and the top of the photo had been cut off too.  The one from the professional place was exactly how it was on my screen.  I would have probably been happy with the shop one if I had not seen how it should have looked.  Just shows.

It made me wary of getting prints, so most of my photos are on my laptop

The difference in price is not that much more from a professional printer really and for special occasions I would still send my photos to them rather than a high street chain, but I have as many photos that have been taken with my phone as with my camera so at Christmas I downloaded an app called FreePrints.  

Every month you get 45 free 6x4 prints and only pay for postage.  I tried them out in January and was quite happy with the results so I thought I would tell you about it in case it's something you haven't heard of it.

I've had this album for about two years intending to get photos printed, it's similar to a Project Life album, a four ring binder basically.  The idea is that it's a scrapbook project without the need to buy all the scrapbooking paraphernalia but I just can't get on with it so at the weekend i'm off to buy a good old fashioned photo album, lol

There is also a FreePrints Photosbooks, app.  With this you get a free 8 x 6, twenty page photobook and again you only pay for postage.  You have the option to add more pages for a small extra charge and you can opt to buy a larger book if you wanted too.

I ordered one last Friday, I made it for Oliver of when we took him on holiday to Padstow in 2017 and it arrived in the post yesterday.

There are a good selection of covers to choose from
(sorry, bad glare on this photos!)

There's a choice of layout's and you can choose to have full page

You could add a photo on the back cover too, I added a photo of Padstow harbour

I'm really happy with how it came out :-)  A couple of the photos are a bit too warm but on the whole I'm very pleased, and Oliver has something to remember our holiday.  He was thrilled to bits when I gave it to him yesterday :-)

I'll definitely be doing another one in February :-)

I added more pages to my book but when I do another one I'll make better use of the layout options to get more photos in.

-X-