This is the fragment of the day One. The day Two will follow tomorrow.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
A splash of paint
This is the fragment of the day One. The day Two will follow tomorrow.
Saturday, 28 March 2015
Murder, she wrote...
As I suspected, shit had hit the fan. After our not-so-romantic failure of a
homesitter, my dear husband and child
went to France, leaving me behind to look after our dogs and cats. Missing
holidays in France was a hard blow, but something I can survive. But!
They also went ... house hunting! Without me!!! For me it qualifies as plain domestic
abuse. And as I suspected, the worse possible
scenario has happened. They bought a house in Southwest. A farmette in
Charente. A man and a 12 yo child bought
a home. Without me!
All I have is few pictures taken by our 12
yo who is blissfully happy about the choice because our next door neighbours will
be the riding stables. Good for horses and maybe... for gardening. And extremely happy husband who called right
now to tell that he already has done all the measurements and has made all the
design plans for our house....
I’m sitting here steaming. Totally and
utterly pissed off. Murder, she wrote...
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
'No good deed goes unpunished
the biggest complaints married women have about their husbands?
Lack of romance is a big one (among others, of course). When you look at a grumpy man carrying over half a century on his shoulders already, you do not expect much space for romantic behaviour.Not my case.
Dear husband decided that this is the right time of the year to do something good. And he did. Invited in our home a homeless man. Lets call him John.
Sounds completely crazy, but actually this one was one of his best thought ideas. We knew John for over 3 years - nice, but mentally restricted, barely writes or read, but we never saw him drank or behaving badly so he seemed a real candidate to get a chance in life.
Husband, after his nasty burns, would do with an extra pair of even not so skilled hands for a help then and there. It would give John a chance to get off the streets, get back into same strenght and work schedule, and when he would be ready, my husband was planning to give him recomendations to get back into a proper job and start independent life off the streets.
We knew that John has epilepsy, so there were numerous limitations but we did our research and were ready for that hurdle. He also had no documents so my husband started to sort out all that right from the beginning.
So John came in and right into shower, his clothers were washed and sorted out, husband bought him new boots and some needed clothes, and good deed started. It was planned that we will be leaving for France past Wednesday, leaving him house sitting and doing some gardening when he feels like that.
At the beginning seemed that all goes well - John was keen to do things, but some problems also arised. He needs to go to local pharmacy twice a day to collect his daily meds, and every time he dissapeared for several hours. The pharmacy is just 5 min walk from our house so it was weird. But ok, John had been on streets for over 7 years, so maybe he is missing his street life?
Then on one of his walks he had a fit and was taken to hospital. Husband rushed there to find John smoking outside already. Well, that's the thing with epilepsy - fits come and go easily. Next day he needed to be collected from the hospital again - seemed that he had been hit by a car - John had bruised leg. But he still tried to convince us that he wants to do the work and that he can do it.
Next day husband went through his wallet and scratched his head - some notes seemed to be missing but again - as we were preparing for France, a lot of last minute shoppings were done in a hurry, so maybe he just forget something he spent the money on.
The next day we discovered the 20 pound note missing from the money jar, and this time it was absolutely clear that money is gone and only one person to be blamed for it. It was Tuesday afternoon, and we had ferry booked on Wednesday already. What to do?
Husband tried to find a last minute replacement (to look after house and after John) but all our unatached friends already had made some plans. Finding a professional home sitter on such a short notice and weird circumstances seemed mission impossible but husband still kept trying. I carried on packing...
And then I discovered that my photo camera also has gone. On Sunday night after Crufts I uploded pictures, and left camera on its usual place - on Tuesday night camera was gone.
That was the last straw for the big romantic deed. On Wednesday morning after the breakfast John was politely asked to pack; husband took him to shop to get him a new tent and back on streets he went. Seems like John forget to tell us one minute detail about himself - drug addiction.
So, ladies, next time when you complain about you husband being not romantic, please remember, that sometimes romantic ideas can be a disaster. This one not only cost me my camera, but also my long planned holidays in France. And might have even more long lasting effects on my life but that's for the next post.
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
School bags and horses
Last week was long awaited midterm holidays,
so Charlie sat down and played with treadle for the first time.
After I played
a bit with sewing machine embroidery last month, Charlie was itching to try it
herself.
Design ideas were no problem for Charlie as everything needs to be
about horses. She made several drawings, copied it roughly on the black fabric
and off she went.
She had wanted to make a bag for herself
for a while, and week-long holidays were just perfect for such a project.
The densely quilted bag was a very good
project to get treadle motions under the belt. It took several broken threads
until she learned the smooth forward motion, but in two hours she was able to
put the needle exactly where she wanted at exactly the speed she wanted.
The bag also has several rather advanced
inside pockets, densely quilted (the only black fabric I had at hand was very
soft, so dense quilting was needed to make the bag hold the shape and the
weight expected from a hard working school bag.
In some places there are 18
layers of fabric and the batting – thank God for the durability of an old
Singer!
What
impressed me – she just kept working, hour after hour, and in three days her bag
was ready – exactly the right size, right design and all that. For a 12 yo it is rather impressive.
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Blaming English breakfast
Past few weeks I had been very busy,
stressed and tired, so I have done nothing. At least nothing good – I messed up
the design colours on my February quilt. And decided
not to bother about it. Instead I decided that the faulty bits will be a lifetime reminder of THAT English breakfast.
It all started two weeks ago when DH rushed
the breakfast. The full Monty. Bacon and eggs, hash browns and black pudding,
sausages and mushrooms... (See - he is still very nice, not yet out of the honeymoon mode). The killer was the black pudding – it slipped and disappeared in the depths of the fridge. DH bent down to find the bugger, caught the lead of the deep fat fryer and spilled the smoking hot oil all over himself.
Good job that DH is rather hairy and wears
glasses thus face got only few freshly fried patches, not even worth mentioning. The right shoulder, hand
and knee weren’t so lucky. I burned my hand just by pulling his clothes off (and
it was at least 10 seconds later!).
So he ended up with 6% body burns, some 2nd,
some 3rd degree which means hospital and surgery, skin grafts and
all other fun. He was bad enough not to be admitted at our local hospital but
was sent to Burns unit at Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Birmingham.
DH being a rather typical man decided that lying
in hospital is not exactly his kind of sport, so he insisted on being
released... Do you see where I’m heading?
Yes, he has been home since!!! Without functioning
right arm... On Sunday I even needed to change
the advanced burns dressings (believe me, it’s not a light experience, for both of us, especially
after our nosey cat decided to join the fun in the middle of the procedure!)
Codeine is my blessing as it throws a bit of
a nice, fuzzy cloud over his extremely bored brains but anyway – as a result of
all this fun I messed up with my design colours. Trust me, it’s so not me. My stitches
aren’t perfect but keeping track of patterns in my head never had been a
problem. So I blame English Breakfast (you can’t blame your own husband,
right?)
What your husbands do when they are
extremely bored and restless? Mine picked some shopping therapy (believe me, he
is a man!). So...
Last week he bought:
1)
a new car (Volvo),
2)
a caravan (with aircon and all
that),
3)
a new laptop,
4)
a satnav for the new car,
5)
a new TV,
6)
10 tickets for Eurotunnel,
7)
2 Crufts tickets for me.
Actually I’m very happy
about the Crufts tickets. Well, as a dog person, going to Crufts is some kind
of a lifetime event itself. But the best for me is – it ends on the 8th
of March. So DH is planning to drive us to France (for nice holidays!) only on the 9th of
March, not this coming weekend as he was planning before ticket purchase. It
doesn’t matter that he can’t walk, sit down or stand up properly right now, and
his right hand (according to doctors) is at least a monthaway from
any driving... He is planning to start light driving this week already (like a light trip to York and another one to Wales). No, he is not suicidal, and he is trying to
convince me that codeine is not guilty either, so I can only blame that English
breakfast again). It’s such a shame that we married just last year – otherwise
I would consider taking really drastic steps to calm him down :D
Thursday, 12 February 2015
February quilt
This month quilt is just starting to take shape. I had been thinking about this pattern for a while and curious to see the final design. It's still a lot to do but you can see where I'm trying to go.
So far so good, but one thing I learned. The colours. With complicated pattern like this my main two fabrics are too similar in colur.
Saturday, 31 January 2015
Learning new things
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)