Back in the land of the living - well kinda!

We're back from our lovely jaunt to Thailand feeling refreshed, sunkissed, and... around 7 pounds heavier (not bad considering my record is 12 pounds in a two week holiday!).

It was as near perfect as it could have possibly been as it's a beautiful country, the people are so friendly, the hotel was wonderful and the room we had was pure luxury. I had been fairly frazzled leading up to it but it didn't take long to wind down and get into the groove of laying around like a vegetable!

Most days were gloriously uneventful - breakfast, morning walks along the beach to look at the shells and other bits and pieces washed up overnight, afternoons laid on the day bed reading, afternoon shade overlooking the sea with crochet/sewing/a book and lazy evenings of yummy Thai food.

We spent the afternoon of our wedding anniversary in the Spa.
3 blissful hours of salt scrubs, full body massages and facials. For the evening of our anniversary we had grand plans for having a private gourmet BBQ either on the terrace of our villa or on the beach, but we really wanted pizza and ice cream on the squashy sofas in the bar overlooking the sea, with the British Grand Prix on the telly. So, that's exactly what we did and it was perfect.

The highlights of the holiday were (in no particular order):

The welcome...



The private garden and pool...

The beautiful restaurants...



The beach...



Saving an octopus that had been washed up on the beach...



Batik painting...



Seafood dinners in Hua Hin night market...



The Spa...



Shoe shopping....



And spending 2 glorious weeks with my sweetie!!!!!



Suprisingly not much crafting got done even though i had taken my crochet blanket and hexagon pinwheel quilt. I love reading but it generally plays second fiddle to crafting, so laying around and reading to my hearts content was just bliss.

I haven't been motivated to get much done this week since we got back but it's been very warm here, and am stubbornly refusing to get out of holiday mode!!!!

I am looking forward to spending some time with my sewing machine this weekend though, as i've missed her.

Jolly holidays!

Not much crafty stuff has been going on this week apart from i have managed to get the next block done for The Around The World Quilting Bee.


The thing i am loving the most about doing this is the challenge of making blocks of different styles and colours to blocks i would usually make, and i can try something out without having to commit to a whole quilt. I loved making this one (although in fairness i think I've said that about all of them).









Tomorrow I AM GOING ON HOLIDAY (not that I am excited or anything…) We are going to Thailand for 2 weeks and while we are away we celebrate out 7th wedding anniversary.


We met on the Internet in the summer of 2000 and I was in the UK and Curly Boy was in Chicago. We had our first proper date in the summer 2001 in Chicago. He arrived in the UK for good on 1st April 2002 and we married in June of the same year. Neither of us can quite believe just how quick the last 7 years have whizzed by!


We are spending our anniversary in Thailand at the hotel where we stayed for our 1st anniversary (the sister hotel of the hotel we spent our honeymoon at).
The hotel is in the style that Thais do so well - rustic and understated elegance. This time we have splurged and are staying in one of the pool villas.


I have a couple of craft projects packed so looking forward to 2 weeks of eating, sleeping, sunbathing and sewing - all in rotation!


I may drop in and say hello while I'm there but it depends whether i can peel myself off the sun lounger, or whether i can moderate my pina colada consumption enough to be able to type a coherent post. If neither of those things are possible, I'll see you when i get back!!

This week has been mad, mad, mad. Good, but mad!

The week did get off to a really mad start though...

I was settling down on the sofa and Curly Boy was going upstairs to doing a bit of car chasing through the streets of San Francisco on his computer (or whatever else he does up there!) and he called me upstairs to the spare bedroom. We could hear cheeping.

Birds up (or should I say down) the sodding chimney!!!

Our house is 110 years old and we have 6 fireplaces. Luckily this was the only fireplace that was not sealed up with wood at the bottom and the old occupants had just put old carpet in the bottom of the chimney to stop the draught.
I rang my dad (as I always do if I have no idea what else to do!) and then Curly Boy set to and started pulling down lumps of carpet.

To cut a very long story short (one that involves a long stick!), Curly Boy got birdie number 1 out. I was supposed to be catching the thing but I am a bit of a wuss, and failed in my duties so it flew around a bit and bashed against the window a couple of times before Curly Boy caught it. The second birdie took a bit more poking out but he was young and a bit weaker so he just rolled out of the chimney and we bundled him up in towels.



We let the big bird go first and then the baby. Baby looked to be having a bit of trouble flying and flew into the wall a couple of time before settling on the house across the road.

A couple of minutes later the baby was joined by birdie 1 and another bigger bird (probably Mummy and Daddy) and they all flew away together. A mixture of adrenalin and us having saved the 2 birdies lives, I was all overcome.

Thankfully order is now restored, and I have a mental note to get the roofers to come and cap our 6 chimneys off.





My niece and 2 year old great-niece came to visit on Wednesday. Leah loves Curly Boy and is usually found parked about an inch away from him.


I guess it's been a mad week for everyone!

Well... another weekend has whizzed by!!

Not much crafting this weekend apart from the next block for the Around the world quilting bee. I thought I'd do a 'grown up' block and i definitely needed some practice doing half square triangles. I'm usually a bit heavy handed with the iron and they end up really out of shape - but not this time!! *big smile*





...and to see Take That in Sunderland. A group of girlies tripped up there on Friday and it was lovely to have a change of scenery, a giggle.....and see those handsome fellas strutting their stuff!

Look who's come to live at my house!

It's Liberty!!

She's only been in the house 5 minutes and she's already trying to nick my fabric!

At the moment she's still missing her old Mummy but she thinks she'll be happy here.

She's just not so sure about her pet mousy...

Yum!

My new fabric is all washed and ironed....aaaahhhhhhh.

I wasn't planning on buying more but I couldn't help myself, especially when i saw the fabric with the little trees on!

As i have to get it from the US i just HAD to make it worth my while (well i did didn't i?) so at the same time i bought a couple of other bits and pieces.