How time flies

The past month has certainly flown by!

Not least of the events to occupy my time has been the return of the mouse. It managed to access the linen supply so I've been doing a lot of laundry. I imagine our neighbours must be thinking that we've gone 10 rounds with Norovirus... However, the mouse has been dealt with once and for all, and there are no signs of any 'family' or 'friends' so, I'm hoping that that particular pantomime can now be put to rest.

A more worrying event though was the disappearance of a pattern that I posted to a customer at the end of December. To date, it has still not arrived so my faith in the postal system has been thoroughly shaken. Surely there must be a contingency plan for snow, Christmas rush and wild cat strikes? Other countries around the world cope with such events so I really don't understand how it all went so terribly wrong in the UK. At the end of January, I was still receiving post that was dated from the middle of November so I'm not convinced that it is safe yet to send anything else through the post.

I feel as though my business is being held to ransom because the only financially reasonable options offered by Royal Mail do not guarantee on time delivery. Even recorded signed for delivery gives no guarantee. Special delivery gives a guarantee but is priced well beyond what most people would be willing to pay. Are there any other viable solutions out there? If you think so, please e-mail me so I can check them out!

Another event of note has been the recent down time of our ISP service. Gales in the region, over the last several days, played havoc with local exchanges. We were off-line from Friday afternoon until yesterday afternoon - the longest time ever with this particular ISP. There has been the odd occasion when our service has vanished into the ether for several hours, usually attributable to scheduled maintenance, but it has never been down for this long. The timing was absolutely classic... my husband was finishing off his dissertation over the weekend and needed the internet for literature searches. I have aged about 20 years as a result!

My exhibition at Gibside has now finished so I am looking for other venues at which to show my work. My income tax return has been submitted so I can now concentrate on getting ready for the Pins and Needles show at the end of March. I will be attending the Morpeth Gathering as well at the end of April so there is much to be done. Must crack on here but I will post again as newsworthy events take place.

Pantomime season

Happy New Year everyone! I do hope the Christmas holiday season has been a good one for you. Hopefully, 2011 will have plenty of joy to bring as well.

We had an ongoing pantomime with a mouse that decided it didn't think very much of the British winter in this part of the country. It had moved in lock, stock and barrel by Christmas day, and led us on a merry old chase throughout the holiday season. I did everything I could think of to eliminate food and water supplies in hopes of forcing it to pack its bags and leave under its own steam. They are not supposed to like mint so I even applied peppermint oil to all the radiators and along the bottom of a door that it had tried to chew. The chewing stopped, but it was busy making nesting material out of some minted cotton balls I had left in a strategic place last evening so I'm not as convinced now. That was the final straw for me so I spent most of last night lying in wait for it. In the end, I successfully convinced it to enter a shoe box long enough for me to slam the lid shut. My Hubby wasn't keen to drive it at least a mile away at 3:30 a.m., so we released it on the grass expanse across the street. A car came past as we were deciding how best to lift the lid without scaring the mouse up one of our legs. My Hubby reckons the driver probably thought we were up to no good, but driver, if you are reading this, we were simply letting the mouse go. Honest! Last we saw, the mouse was speeding off down the hill so with any luck, it won't be putting in a reappearance. I'm now busy disinfecting the places it accessed, and stuffing lots of steel wool into potential entry points. We are also remaining vigilant in case it invited some friends along for company but the amount of mess it left behind suggests that it was a one off. And, no, I won't be making a cross stitch pattern to commemorate the event!

Speaking of patterns, I have designed a bookmark pattern that I will be using to facilitate the blackwork workshops I will be conducting at the Pins & Needles 2011 show at the end of March. These tutorial sessions are only one hour in length so I'm keeping it pretty basic. I'm preparing instructions to accompany it for finishing at home as most visitors will want to spend more time checking out the show than stitching.

My exhibition at Saltwell Towers has now ended so I'm setting my sights next on the Pins & Needles show. I also have something in mind for the Morpeth Gathering, and there is still the Hoopoe to complete. So, it looks as though I'm going to have a reasonably busy start to the New Year. I would like to go back to Seaton Delaval Hall through the summer but that has yet to be arranged. I'll keep you posted of events as usual here.

Must go for now as I need to complete the steel wool task before night sets in. But I'll be back in the not too distant future.

Winding down for Christmas

I am taking a small break from Christmas preparations to thank all of you for your support this year. I do hope you have a good holiday. I know I'm looking forward to mine which is really kicking into gear today.

My exhibition is definitely up at Saltwell Towers and will be there until the New Year. After that, I will have some more developments to share with you. Meanwhile, I wish you all the best and look forward to meeting up with some of you again in 2011.