Still Here...

and still knitting. 

Yes, I am knitting both ends at once. It's a long story - and a long glove.   

 Not much else has been happening. I've  had a series of what Babybel calls 'wrong days' - nothing major going wrong, fortunately, but not much going right. For example, the curtains were finished and hung - and, true to form, I've managed not to get the linings in straight, so the centre of each lining is slightly longer than the curtain. Harrumph.    

 Fortunately the VHC is very happy with them, and I got a special 'thank you' from him at his birthday party, despite competition from (more) Brio type trains and (more) Lego. He didn't get many other presents apart from Brio and Lego but was not in the least disappointed: in fact he was so preoccupied with building a truly amazing train track that he didn't eat his birthday cake. This is unprecedented: he is rather fond of cake.

Those are the VHC and his daddy's knees. I'll let you work out which is which.   

 (I made the cake. I will spare you the saga of making the cake. Let's just say it was similar to the saga of making the curtains, only stickier...)   

 The highlight of the week was a trip down to Walford to the 'Abode' exhibition, which foolishly I had thought would be furniture, but turned out to be mostly textiles/mixed media. Some names I knew (Caren Garfon, Debbie Smyth, Caroline Parrott, Betty Pepper), some were new to me (Hannah Sawtell, Ruth Allen). All good, and a bit of a fifties vibe in some things which I really liked.   

Despite the excellent work by these ladies, what both Wensleydale and I fell in love with was some plates. And bowls, jugs, cups etc. So much so that we came home and ordered some egg cups. We didn't need any egg cups, we were just in love. The range is called 'Eclectic Avenue' by a company called 'People Will Always Need Plates'.  Yes, They do. I really need plates like this.

So wee are trying to justify buying some. Like a dinner service's worth. Unfortunately we have rather a lot of china already: my grandmother's tea service, my aunt's tea service, my mother-in-law's tea service, and two complete(ish) dinner services of our own, best and every day, of which we only ever use the latter. But if we give the dinner services to the sons, and sell the older stuff (which we'd been planning on doing anyway) - we'd need some replacements, wouldn't we? And we'd have some money to spend on it, with any luck. (The inherited stuff is not immensely valuable, but tracking similar stuff down on Google suggests we might get something for it.)   

 So, when we've got rid of the 20 something bags of books, which someone from a charity which I won't name was supposed to contact me about and hasn't, and accumulated enough boxes and newspapers to pack it all, and got my MIL's stuff down from the loft - I'll take a sample to the recommended sale room's valuation day and keep my fingers crossed!