Crochet is a no but bathroom is a yes

The bathroom is finally finished. I have spent the whole weekend cleaning up after the builders so no crochet started this weekend. I did manage to finish off the knitted baby hats but am a bit dubious as my friend arrived and asked me what they were! I hope you can see from the photo that they are an upside down daisy hat and a cherry hat (from the Itty Bitty Hat Book by Susan B Anderson).

My bathroom just needs the finishing touches and a really good clean once the grout and the silicone has dried completely and is able to get wet. I need to paint the bathroom door before the towel rail can be fitted. I am looking forward to my first shower in there later today. It's just a basic fully tiled bathroom but it's clean and fresh and that is the main thing. I could have spent a ridiculous amount of money on a luxury suite,fittings and tiles but as a pensioner I settled for the cheaper options as I didn't feel like going into debt just to keep clean!

I am going to Ramsbottom Craft shop later this week to get some nice white 4ply for the great grand daughters crochet christening boleros. My niece will thankfully be taking me as my car decided that it didn't like the supermarket fuel that I filled up with last week and keeps cutting out and stopping dead on me at very inconvenient moments. My son seems to think there is some dirt in the fuel tank. What amazes me is the inability of other drivers to understand that my hazard lights flashing signal that I have a problem and am not just stopped in the middle of the road on a whim. I had to push the car back into a side street on Saturday and that basically knackered my back for the weekend and so hampered my cleaning up efforts in the house. I will get there slowly but surely.

I had also planned to re-pot a lot of my embryo vegetables but the slugs saved me the trouble with the peppers. I closed the grow house on a tray full of 2" high peppers and opened it again the following morning to find only 4 left! I get a little disheartened sometimes. I am trying to be organic but am rapidly thinking I will have to resort to slug pellets if I want anything to eat at all. I have 3 tiny plants and 2 packs of flower seeds to plant courtesy of the Sunday Mirror. They arrived on Saturday and need re-potting immediately as they look rather dry from the journey.

I have a mountain of ironing to do but am determined to find some time this evening to do some knitting or crochet.

The rain has just stopped now after I have already got soaked to the skin taking the dog for a walk. I waited for hours and decided to brave it and now the rain has stopped. The story of my life or what

No crochet and no bathroom

There has been no blogging for the last few days due to the fact I am having a new bathroom fitted. I am sure anyone who has ever had a re-fit will share my pain! In the midst of all of this I am having a bad back pain week (anyone who knows me knows how much I suffer when I get one) and would have loved a soak in the bath but as the old one is reclining in the driveway and the new one is in my back bedroom (unconnected) there was not much chance of that happening. Oh for the good old days when I could have popped around to my parents to use their facilities.

The last couple of days it has been like stepping back in time to the old days with the all over wash in a bowl front of the fire. It's not quite the same washing in front of a radiator. Hasn't got the same magic as the open coal fire and tin bath of my youth. Washing my hair with jugs and bowls in the kitchen sink now seems somewhat unhygienic and yet when I was a kid the kitchen sink was the hub of the family hygiene until we had a bathroom installed. Strange to consider that we were considered to be "posh" as we were the only ones on our row of houses to have one. It was only 50yrs ago and now I doubt if there are many homes in the UK without indoor plumbing but back then it was the norm. The local swimming pool had "slipper baths" ( where does that name come from?) and every week people would go there for a bath. What doesn't bear thinking about in this day and age is that some older people only had a bath once a year when they were going away on holiday at "Oldham Wakes"!

With both of these things happening in my life there has been no time for crochet or knitting. I did manage to finish off my mohair cardigan so that is just waiting for buttons to be sewn on. I have a few projects in mind but can't concentrate with all the upheaval in the house.

Yesterday I was stitching the cover of one of the Goodman grow houses as the plastic had torn away from the zipper. I finished it and manoeuvred it back into place and then the other side tore. Aarrgghhh! I am not being picky but they are really a bit shoddy as I am very careful with it when zipping it every day as I had read the reports on Amazon saying that was a problem with them. I know they are only cheap but they still should be fit for the purpose. I just wish I could afford a proper glass greenhouse but £300 is a bit out of my league now as I have to pay for the bathroom re-fit. I keep looking out for any people wanting to re-vamp their garden and get rid of an old greenhouse. The woman down the road said I could have hers but nothing more has been said lately. I think she is waiting for her sons to help her with her garden re-fit. I hate to keep mentioning it to her so I will just wait and hope maybe someday soon I will get it. I hope I get it in time for the winter crops. I am doing very well with lettuce, radish, spring onions and broad beans etc but will need a proper greenhouse to grow things in the winter.

The dog is sulking today as he hasn't had his morning walk due to the back pain.I had gone to the doctors yesterday for my pain killer prescription and was in so much pain on the walk back down I was so grateful and thankful when a neighbour stopped in his car to enquire if I was OK and offered me a lift home. What a knight in shining armour. I was beginning to think it would take me hours to walk the short distance as I had to keep stopping to sit on garden walls to try to ease the pain. I am now linked to my "Tens" machine and hope that I will get some relief soon as the drugs don't work as they say in the song. Maybe this afternoon the dog will get his walk and stop giving me the sad eyed look.

The builder has said my bath could be linked up this afternoon so I should be able to get a hot bath tonight. Yeah! Another knight in shining armour. Fingers crossed all will be well.

I will get out my patterns and have a browse through them and choose a couple of patterns for the yarn I bought at the Black Sheep Sale. I still have to buy some yarn to crochet my step great grand daughter's bolero but her sister's christening is not until July so I have got time to search for something nice in 4ply white.

Just time for a coffee before I watch "Loose Women" on the TV. Maybe I will get to lie on the sofa for a while if I can oust the dog from it.

Rain, rain and more rain

Well I don't live in the rainy city for nothing. We had the good weather to tempt us and now a week of rain. Not much done in the garden at all but I have managed to finish off the black silk shawl (apart from the long fringing and that is my niece's part) and the unseamly sweater from the Happy Hooker book for my niece (would be far nicer with the lace V stitch on the sleeves as they look too heavy in the double crochet). I am on the last sleeve of my mohair cardigan, so after that I will have just 2 projects on the hook. Not for long though as I have been shown a photo of am openwork crochet bolero and asked if I can make something similar for my step great grand daughter for her sister's christening in July. I rooted through my stash and guess what - no white 4ply. I will have to go back on my promise to myself not to buy any more yarn until I have whittled the stash down. I thought I was bad but then I came across this blog (http://enchantingjuno.typepad.com/knit/2007/05/the_closet.html ) where the lady had actually got a yarn cupboard with everything all neatly stashed away. I am quite envious as mine is just piled into a cupboard all higgeldy piggeldy although I did make an inventory of what I possess so I don't have to keep dragging it all out everytime I need something specific i.e. the white 4ply.

I am bathroom suite hunting at the weekend as the builder is hopefully coming on Monday to start the work. I have my fingers crossed that I will be able to get everything I want from B&Q and not do the "drive around Manchester looking for things". I not a typical woman in the fact that I hate shopping. If I can't find what I want in the first shop I get really fed up and tend to give up and go home. I am not a fussy shopper to me one bathroom suite looks very much like another! As long as it works does it really matter who designed it? I have friends who spend weeks agonising over the right shade of tiles, carpet and curtains. How many shades of a colour are there?

As for clothes shopping Argh! I can't stand all that trying clothes on business. Going from shop to shop taking my clothes off in cramped changing rooms is not my idea of fun, and don't get me started on the communal changing rooms - they are only for the very young without fat and cellulite! Nothing I try on ever quite fits me - do women not have any waists any more? I try on my size of trouser and the waistband is several sizes too large. I am the old fashioned hour glass shape. I just wish I could buy a pair of trousers without resorting to the ugly looking elastic waistband or having to get the sewing machine out to tailor the waist to fit.

Moan over for the day except I did try to get some nice 4ply white in one shop locally today without success. Oh how I miss my shop. Searching for anything other than 100% acrylic is a nightmare. I would order online but the cost of postage is so prohibitive. I keep thinking that I could buy an extra few balls of yarn with the money they want for postage. If I had known I could have bought some nice yarn last time I was in Ramsbottom - maybe bamboo or something silky as it's for a christening. Ah well - perhaps my niece is planning another visit up there soon and I can tag along for the ride.

The power of negotiation

Yesterday I received a phone call from the C.I.S regarding my bathroom claim ( see previous blog) and they have now decided to give me an ex gratia payment which is roughly 3 times the amount first offered. Just shows folks it pays to be firm and ask for what you think is a fair amount. I am now awaiting a quote for a new bathroom and all being well I will be able to have the bathroom back to normal soon.(Well hopefully better than normal as I want a few extras in the new one)

The crocheting and knitting has taken rather a back seat lately but the dog is settling down into some kind of a routine and although I have far less time than before at least the day flies by and I am no longer as bored as I have been of late. Plus the fact that the exercise is hopefully helping to strengthen my back muscles. I can't improve the spine, only my eventual surgery can hopefully do that, but maybe if the muscles get stronger I won't be in such intense daily pain. At the moment some days I can cope with the pain (with the help of the painkillers) but some days I have to drag myself to walk the dog wincing at every step. But hey no pain no gain. I have had the dog for 2 weeks now and I think the good days outweigh the bad.

The knitting and crocheting in progress is doll clothes at the moment as I am awaiting a set of 4 needles to be delivered so I can start one of the baby hats from the Itty Bitty Hat Book, There is one particular hat that is like an upturned flower and I really want to make one each for my 2 step great grand daughters. I have been knitting and crocheting small garments in the hope of dwindling my stash of yarn but of course usually the things I want to make I have all the wrong colours for so I finish up buying yet more yarn!

I am hopefully buying a new pc shortly as this one is rather geriatric. I might have broadband but it's more like a rubber band with this one. By the time the web site has opened I have forgotten what I was looking at it for! It would help if I got some ink for the printer as well. I am a bit technophobic really. I never did master how to programme the video and as for DVD well I just haven't bothered with one of those! It takes me all my time to set the alarm clock to the right time. Technology passes me by.