Craft fair

I posted earlier about wanting to attend craft fair at Lacock, but that didn't happen as it was booked full! However, I did attend a craft fair in the beautiful Tetbury Market hall organised byDa-Xia at South west fairs on the 26th of June, and I sold 3 things! A purse for £6, a clutch bag for £12 and a dress for £16, so although not fantastic sales it covered the expenses at least!

Since then I have had great sales on etsy! I got asked to custom make a messenger bag. Here shown on picture: (hmm, I wish I knew how to post the pictures so that it comes after what I have written or at the relevant place in the script, but for some reason it shows up above what I have written. :-( )

Anyway, the lovely lady who ordered the bag from me was willing to pay £50 for me to make it, which I feel it was worth as I worked many long hours on it as it was a bit tricky to make. But I was pleased with the result and more importantly she was happy with it too: This is the feedback I got from her on etsy: 'Brilliant bag, well made, fantastic communications.:-)' and she even e-mailed me a few days later to say thank you again and that she loved the bag and would only use if for special occasions and not put chocolate in it or anything! :-D So I am happy to have a satisfied customer!

Since then I have sold 8 more bags through etsy and one more as late as 15 minutes ago to Amy's friend Fatima! So business is going well at the moment! Hope it continues, and on that note I better take those pictures of the bags and list them on etsy. :-)

Cumbria holiday

I am really looking forward to go up to Cumbria with Neil, Amy, David and James on Monday! I have never been to the Lake District and looking forward to explore the area. We also talked about driving across the border to Scotland, and take a look at Gretna Green. You never know, I might be able to trick Neil into marrying me while we are there. ;-) HE HE

Here is some pictures of the family, taken last Christmas. It's Neil and me, one of Neil's sons Nick, David and James plus Amy, and one of Neil's daughter Katie with her boyfriend Karl.

Whilst we are in Cumbria Neil's granddad is visiting from Australia where he lives, so will be nice to meet him too.

Bad back!

Bit of drama for me a couple of weeks back as ended up in hospital in Oxford for about 16 hours after my back caving in on Saturday night. I was visiting my boyfriend Neil in Witney, and we had been to the cinema to see the third instalment of the Twilights saga, the film Eclipse . My back had been niggling me for a few days beforehand, and after painting my toe nails on the Saturday, not only once, but twice as first colour didn't look right, I had pretty bad pains just before going to the cinema, and had to lie on the floor for a bit to calm it down. Getting in and out of the car was agony, and I was sceptical to how it would go sitting in the cinema for the duration of the film and even more sceptical about how it would go getting up again, but thought if worse came to worse I could always lay down on the floor when everyone had left the auditorium so that it would calm down enough for me to be able to walk to the car. I was in pretty bad pain during the film and couldn't relax my back muscles. When the film was over I managed to get up and walk to the car, but in much pain and with difficulty, and it went from bad to worse when getting into the car. My back just went into major spasms and I probably scarred the kids for life with my sobbing. At first they weren't sure if I was laughing or crying, which made me laugh amidst the pain which made the pain worse again, so well, bit of a drama.

Back at Neil's house I couldn't get out of the car due to the spasms and the pain, so it ended up being a 999 call and ambulance with blue lights coming to help me out. Creating such a fuss made me cry even more, so well, lets just say the tear ducts got a proper work out that night! An hour and half with gas and air, morphine and trying to get out, and finally I managed to get out and waddle into the ambulance where they wanted to check me over. The first aim was to get me into the house to lay down so that maybe the back would relax and the spasms stop, but with the pain I was in they ended up giving me even more morphine and as I had been given more, they had to take me into hospital anyway. Which was good, as I needed more pain relief than what we had in the house already. In the A&E I was checked over pretty quick which I was impressed by as had expected to be waiting for ages, which is what you normally hear about when people go to the A&E. Anyway, the diagnoses was just 'back failure'! No x-rays or scans done, but was advised to see GP when getting home and ask for an MRI scan then. Was given more and many different pain reliefs plus muscle relaxant, but wasn't enough for me to get up and walk without pain, so had to ask for more, which I finally got, and could finally be able to walk without howling and crying and got released from the hospital around 7pm Sunday evening.

Neil had wanted to follow me up to the hospital straight away when the ambulance took me there, but I was being my usual bossy self and asked (told) him to stay at home with the kids, as although they would have been able to look after themselves, I would have worried about them, and especially Amy as she was obviously concerned about seeing me in such a state. Besides, I am a cranky bitch when ill or in pain and I am better off without company.

Neil was lovely with Amy, as I knew he would be, reassured her and took her on Sunday late afternoon to Swindon to stay with her grandparents till I was able to get around easier. (I picked her up from school on Wednesday.) He then picked up my stuff and came together with James to see me and take me home.

Back home again I stayed in bed and mostly slept for the next 4 days. Friday I managed to get up and do a few things, but must admit I was glad I could take the time off work and have a proper chance to get better. Normally when I have a bad back I work anyway, as can't afford to take time off work, but never been as bad as this time, so had no choice really. The medicine I was given made me sleepy, so didn't even have time to get bored! :-)

Anyway, enough about my back, (I'm such a drama queen ;-) ), but one thing I REALLY enjoyed about the whole thing was the picture Amy drew for me and posted on her facebook. She doesn't often express love verbally, and it meant a lot to me to see the drawing and read the words. :-) So nothing as bad that it isn't good for something! :-)

Catch up!

Not that I have that many followers of my blog... ;-), but I have for many days now felt I should write something here as I feel much has happened, and well, kind of nice feeling to write it down. But where to start???

Think I will start with the present and work my way backwards.

What I should be doing right now instead of writing on my blog and putting off doing work is, and in no particular order: Taking pictures of the 4 messenger bags I made yesterday and list them on etsy. Amy is coming back today after having stayed at her friend Fatima since Wednesday, and as we are going to Cumbria on Monday to visit my lovely boyfriend Neil's aunt Trudy on Monday I need to wash, dry and iron plus obviously pack clothes etc to last us for a week. My ex father in law, or Amy's grandad has his birthday tomorrow, and we will pop in sometime today with cards and a cake I need to shop for ingredients for and bake for him.

Then the biggest job of all is that I have to pack up everything in the kitchen and preferably in the diningroom area as I'm getting a new kitchen fitted starting Monday! Yippie! :-) My landlady is paying, but she let me choose colours, and I have chosen white units with silver handle bars, walnut block worktop and red tiles for splashback. We haven't talked about painting, but I will offer to do that job, and I am thinking of choosing some kind of light brown paint, one of these maybe? http://www.dulux.co.uk/colours/ready_mixed/neutrals.jsp Also thinking of doing one of the walls in the dining room in the same colour and the others in cream, but not made a final desicion about paint yet. The land lady will also put new floor down, and I am hoping she again will let me choose as I'd like something in a brownie-red colour, linoleum most probably. Can't wait to be able to work in a new kitchen! The old one is ok, but bit of a mish-mash and not very practical as there is no worktop next to the cooker, but getting a built in cooker and oven now, so that will be fab! Pictures will follow of before and after when it is all done. :-)