Second Opinion

In an uncharateristic show of doubt in her own infallibility, last weekend Kate had me fly to Spain to confirm that she had made the right choice for our next home in the house in Villegarcia.

So it was that I left a rainy Bristol Fiday morning, to be deposited in an even rainier Malaga that lunchtime.

The drive north through often torrential rain and occasional fog was punctuated by the kamikaze antics of Spanish drivers who had obviously never had to contend with driving in heavy rain, hence their apparently insatiable desire to take non-existent short cuts cross country.

Regardless, 5 hours later I took a detour to pass the village of Villegarcia and could see why Kate had fallen for the area.

The following day I got my first look at the house and was pleased to find that Kate was once more correct in her choice - the last time being 3rd August 2002. There's huge potential in the property and the outbuildings are even larger than I had expected.

There are exciting times ahead and we'll (well possibly more often Kate) be detailing future events in a new blog in the near future. As soon as we've decided on a new blog name and address we'll post them here.

Bob, mystery shopping and snow

Woke up this morning to find a layer of snow outside. We didn't expect that and as I looked at the clothes that we have kept with us, I did wonder about the wisdom of keeping out my pink summer trousers, and why we have sent all of our winter clothes to Spain.

The latest on our move is that it is going to be January - however our furniture is going over before Xmas. We will now be aiming for the start of January, perhaps the first week.

Bob is now on special food. This is supposed to stop the build up of crystals in his urine which is what is supposed to be causing the bleeding in his bladder. He has been scratching at himself again, and we think this is probably stress related. he is wearing his lampshade and a jacket, and we think he looks rather smart.

I've been mystery shopping, and have been quite busy this week, but nothing booked for after next Monday. Wonder if they stop before Christmas.

I've been knitting tea cosies (Pic attached). I am going to offer these as free patterns which I will put on my Make Break website.

Another week....

Well, we've had a good few days. Ian has had some freelance work from 4-Sq, and a couple of weeks ago met his old boss half way up the motor way and picked up his old work Apple Mac, so he has been able to do a few things. These ahve mainly been for Carlisle Brass who make 'door furniture' hence no end of jokes about knobs and knockers.

I have been mysterious in more shops. This week it has stepped up a bit and rather than just looking at cash machines, I have also visited 3 banks and 2 Job Centres. Next week is quite busy too with a visit and this time visiting some food outlets - unfortunately I am buying coffee and not checking the temperature of champagne - but fingers crossed for the next one! I'm not supposed to talk about my 'assignments' with anyone - but they didn't mention anything about posting on the worldwideweb....

Poor Bob has had more tests. He had a ultrasound (?) scan which showed up 'something' in hsi bladder. The 'something' was probably not stones, but wasn't definately a growth, but could have been. They would know better with x-rays. So poor little Bob was off again to the vets, this time a general anisthetic. The good news is that what ever had been showing is not now. Perhaps, the vet wondered, it was a blood clot that has now dispersed. We were delighted, and equally delighted that Bob is insured so (hopefully) the insurance company will pick up the £600 bill. Nope, that is not a typo.

The day after Bob got the all clear, Ian treated him to a sausage for breakfast, and it was cut into a smiley shape. I think that Bob appreciated it.

We were very worried about Bob, and whilst of course we don't have favorities, Bob was no 1 dog and I fully hold Bob responsible for meeting Ian and all that followed. Responsible in a good way that is.

When I was being mysterious in the Bank on Thursday I popped into er, somewhere, looking for a particular thing for a certain wedding which I can't expand on in case the bride in question happens to be reading this (on the offchance of finding something interesting to read about for a change!). Anyway, I got diverted and found a folder full of very old knitting patterns. I was delighted as this was precisely what I was looking for. One of the knitting books was published in 1920 and had patterns for lots of different things (including mens briefs - oh lucky, lucky Ian). One particular pattern in the hat page was for a 'cloud', I have no idea what a cloud is, I guess I could knit it up and see, but it would be good if I knew what I was aiming for. Unfortunately my google searches keep showing up weather sites. I am looking out for old knitting / crochet patterns and books - I have an idea germinating....

Today, with Viv we went to Warminster and had a really pleasent day. One end of the town is charity shops and the other end is antique shops. Warminster is not a big town, but there was certainly enough to browse around for a day out.

We have started planning again. Ian has decided that the Volvo is beyond repair and as such we know we need to plan accordingly. So we are going to look for a cheap van - less than £300 which will take us to Spain. It doesn't matter if this is as far as it goes as it is the same as what we think it would cost to hire a van, so it is money which is 'written off' anyway. We've drawn up a time line, showing what we need to have done by when if we are hoping to move first week in December, and this will move if our move date moves. But we really hope that we will be on our way early December otherwise I have a vision of it all getting terribly confusing.

Tomorrow is the Grand First Firing of the Kiln. We are going to Swanage and going to try hard not to burn the garage down....

This time last week we were thinking about halloween parties. Jim and Viv were planning a party for the younger members of the family - and everyone was invited to bring some food for the meal. We made green slime sandwhiches, eyeballs, ghost crispies etc, however strangely none of the children ate anything green at all, and it was left to a couple of brave adults to eat the green slime sandwhiches. I have a horrible feeling that Basil might have been fed something - or helped himself, as there were some pretty evil smells coming from his rear end later that night.

The halloween games included apple bobbing, pin the nose on the witch, fining things in a bowl of cold green spagetti and decorating a witch biscuit competition which Ian had to judge. At the sight of a number of expectant faces looking at him with their works of art in front of them was too much for Ian and he was about to hyperventilate and throw himself on the floor feigning a heart attack, when Viv took pitty on him and judged them all as winners.

The mystery shopping has continued to go well, I have looked at my quota of three cash machines, signed up to mystery shop a electrical superstore (I have to stand by a washing machine and see how long it takes for an assistant to come up to me), I have an assignment at a bank asking about current accounts and of course there is the O2 thing, which is now tomorrow. I won't get rich but it is quite interesting and an easy way to make some money to keep the dogs in chews. I had some feedback on the cash machine audit. 2000 machines had been checked in phase one and 25% were non compliant. I thought this sounded high, but perhaps it was machines that charge not showing the fee structure properly, the machines I went to were non-fee charging. The other thing it could have been is that the operator of the mchine should be shown - so for instance Bristol and West Link machines are operated by Bank of Ireland and this should be shown, and perhaps this always isn't the case. Anyway, quite a high figure.

I've done some dyeing of small wool samples for my website (to illustrate the 'dye your own wool' course) and have been pleased by the outcome. I have also scanned the wool rather than photograph it and this has been effective giving a much better and clearer picture. I'll do this all the time in future for this sort of thing.

Lastly, I have been quite excited as I have been commissioned by GMC Publications http://www.thegmcgroup.com (Guild of Master Craftsmen - not General Medical Council) to write a book on crocheted jewellery. So far I have submitted a full outline which was presented at a commissioning meeting and had a brief corresepondence with their managing editor saying they wish to proceed, but have to wait another couple of weeks for details. So I don't know whether they want to go with my brief or whether they want a different focus. My outline was for a book which was part inspiration and part instruction, with 15 projects and which would appeal to jewellers, beaders, knitters/crocheters, not to one particular discipline, so it will be interesting to see. In my outline I also suggested a gallery section, and I am looking forward to putting this together (assuming that this would be my reasponsibility).

Oh - and one last thing, I have made some hand knitted undies which I am selling on Ebay. Amanzingly they have not sold yet, but I do have 6 people 'watching my underwear', so to speak. I don't think I will be making my million from hand knitted underwear - but you never know, Mr Marks and Mr Spencer had to start somewhere....

A belated update

We’ve been a bit shoddy on the BLOG front just recently. This is mainly because Ian promised he would write the next one and is reluctant to do so unless he has something interesting or funny to write about. Now when did that ever stop me! It could be a long wait....

We were in Swanage last weekend, Sunday we had a family lunch and Monday we were taking Dad into hospital as he was being admitted for his radio therapy & Mum was magistrating. The latest, however is that Dad has been discharged and will be travelling in as an outpatient. It is impossible to say how Dad is going to find the RT so if he needs to be readmitted then the hospital will arrange this. It was great to see Dad on such good form and we have to believe that this will put him in good stead to face the coming weeks.

Basil has been very naughty over the last couple of weeks, he ‘liberated’ our sausage casserole from the work surface, and then tried to pin this on poor Davy, by also knocking his feed dish on the floor and thus confusing the issue. This gave him stomach ache which entailed him wimpering in the night. Basil also had a night away at Jim and Vivs when we were in Swanage and woke up the household at 4.00 when he wanted to go out, but on the plus side at least he let it be known. It would have been better though if he had kept his legs crossed. Today, when it was extremely wet outside, he pulled me over in the woods, and I ended up doing some sort of comedy dive, being dragged by Basil, Tinkerbelle (but not Bob who was busy sniffing a leaf) face down in the mud. I must hand it to Ian though, he didn’t laugh – or even smile, as I was spreadeagled looking down at a puddle of mud, instead helped me up – dusted me off, and then collapsed in a heap of laughter.

Bob has to go back to the vets as he is still passing blood. He is happy & well and there is no infection so it could be bladder stones, but the vet says that this is unusual without pain. I do wonder what would have happened days before insurance, as if an animal is not in pain etc, it is sensible to do these expensive procedures? We think that Bob could be in shock as he heard on the news that in Italy they were making walking of dogs compulsory, we did note Bob shudder when he heard this and he had to have a lie down to recover from his lucky escape. At least in Spain walking is not yet law, and he is looking forward to siestas. He has to go to the vet on Tuesday, so we’ll know more then.

I’ve also had some ‘mystery shopping’. We dressed up in false noses and moustaches and looked very mysterious for our first assignment – however as it appeared that I only had to look at an HSBC cash machine and assess whether the LINK sign was showing, looking quite so mysterious was probably unnecessary. We probaly also drew attention to ourselves as we were arguing about the precise meaning of the one question that I had to answer. I’ll probably do the other visits on my own!! You are only allowed to do three of these, the pay was £4.50 per cash machine, so if I could have done all theLINK machines locally that would have been quite good, but as it is - we can probably only look forward to a fish and chip supper without the fish. However I also have a project going into some shops in Bath asking for a demonstration on the latest email/ web enabled mobile phones. Ian is shuddering at the thought of me getting demos on supreme gadgets without buying anything. I have assured him that those days are past, and it is only rare now that I get the urge to buy something extremely necessary like night vision glasses. The mobile phone mystery shops are paid at £7.00 each, so they add up, and are quite interesting to do.

We’ve also been sorting out mortgages. How is it, that you hear all the time about evil lenders lending irresponsibly to lendees? Well, a simple thing like no income seems to be causing us all sorts of problems and that we certainly have not experienced people trying to coerce us into borrowing irresponsible amounts of money. I suppose that the people who get these loans with no or low income must lie. We have a mortgage found though with a division of General Motors, and Ian is hoping they may though in a car. As our potential move is now start of December we have a few weeks to sort it.

Talking of cars, Ian has the volvo working – sort of. It is working well enough that we have to make a decision about what car we take, whether we get a trailor etc. We need to do this by Tuesday.

Ian has been working on my website, the new venture is called ‘Make Breaks’ and I will be offering a range of courses that will range from weekends to longer duration, and that will cover hand dyeing yarns, knitting, feltmaking etc. The website isn’t up yet, but it looks good and I hope will present a good image.

I have high hopes for the hand dyeing course. There is a lot of interest for hand made and unusual wools at the moment. A good example is Colinette wools (www.colinette.com - look at 'yarns') and these can be quite easily created using undyed wools and dyes. I have also been planning a knit or crochet with beads course and have used http://www.beadwrangler.com/workshop.htm#Crochet as a good reference site. However I need to adapt this rather as they use a tiny crochet hook and I don't want our guests to go home cross eyed!

Hopefully we'll have some more information about the date we take on the house this week so we can do some proper planning. It is getting quite close to Christmas now, and the last 'long' ferry is mid December and then doesn't run again before March. But we' are trying to get into the Manana spirit and not to worry unduely.

Rain and things

Well, last night it rained in volumes like we hadn't seen in a long time. It was just as the dogs were due to be walked - of course, so we waited a bit and then we all forlornly headed out into the deluge. Whilst we were walking up the road, a car stopped and commented on how we must really love our dogs to take them out in 'this weather'. At this point we all just looked at him glumly, as the dogs were up to their knees in running water (not basil), and we were feeling decidely damp. I'm not sure that the dogs felt particulary loved!

On Monday I went to Swanage - not Poole as Dad is now home. Mum was magistrating so I was due to go to the hospital as usual, but on Friday Dad was discharged and is home, certainly for a couple of weeks until he is starting his radiotherapy. Dad has come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of weeks, and was very happy and comfortable in the house, and went up and down stairs with no problems at all.

Sunday we went to Kingsbury Episcopi to see Uncle Roy and Auntie Annie - and U Keith A Pat, A Ann, U Don, Cousin Andrew, Karin, Cousin Nicolas and Susan and Andy. Quite a house full! AP and UK were here for a short visit and had seen Dad last Tuesday. They were delighted to see how well he was and I think were enjoying their visit. A few of us went to the pub in Kingsbury - and UK said it was up for sale. Luckily we had only one glass of Black Burrow cider, as I think we two we could by now be joint owners of a family pub!

A few weeks ago, you may remember that Alston hit the headlines with the news that there were 10 men to every woman and a campaign was underway to 'regenerate' villages like this (which annoyed many people as Alston is a 'town'!). Anyway, this campaign was started by a lad called Vince, and he has become a bit of a celeb. The website in question is http://www.villagesincrisis.tk/ and if you go to it (it starts off somewhere else but wait for a bit and it will get to the right page) and then go to 'diary of the V Man' on the left hand menu bar. It is worth reading, it is like Aidrian Mole of the north. Of course, I am not taking the mickey - I know that people in glass houses etc etc and that people could well be passing our blog round saying 'you'll never guess what they've said now'...

We've had a bit of an Ebay week. We sold the caravan and the Happy Monday tickets that Ian bought me for my birthday. The Happy Monday tickets were bought on the basis that if we had not moved then it would be a treat, if we'd be happy not to go. We didn't have a contingency plan for half moving! Anyway, we felt that Newcastle was too far to go to see the H.m's so we put the tickets on to Ebay and unusually for us have made our money back. Blimey.

Ian keeps coming to look over my shoulder at a recipe he has found on the internet for Bhindi Bhaji, which will be going with the mushroom rogan josh that he is making. The smells coming from the kitchen are quite delightful.

...and slugs

There are also a lot more slugs than we remember seeing in Cumbria. That must be the chickens, and perhaps wrong sort of terrain for slugs. But there have been some big juicey ones slurping their way across the path in the morning.

Bob has had an infection and has been taking antibiotics. He is very good at not taking his pill and spitting it out when we are not looking. but he has taken enough to cure his infection and ws given the all clear today. This entailed us taking a urine sample from him, hence Ian was following Bob around this morning with a little phial, whilst Bob steadfastly refused to go. No wonder Bob was refusing to go, I think it was a bit off putting for him. Not sure what the residents of Saltford thought of Ian eccentric behaviour.

Basil had to go back to the vets today as he has two microchips and as such might bleep twice when he is scanned at the ferry port, so they had to write a note in his passport. I think that Basil is going to be sad to leave here as he feels that at last he is getting the recognition he deserves. Most days he get a comment or two when we are out. But he gets a little annoyed when he is accused of being a mother dog out with 'her' puppies.

Yesterday Ian, Viv and myself went to Lacock to have a wander around Watlings (the jeweller www.watlings.co.uk). We were looking for inspiration (which is completely different from looking for ideas to pinch!). Both Viv and I like Jane Watlings work and there was plenty of designs there. Probably just as well that my tools etc are in storage! They also had some exceptional glass beads made into necklaces - they were almost like small paperweights, well the techinique looked the same. We had lunch in Lacock and headed back. Basil spent the lunchtime with Jim and Vivs dogs.

No news on the move front, but we've not been pushing as we're still getting our mortgage sorted. Hopefully we'll be in a position to get things going the start of November as it would be nice to be settled by Christmas.

We've been doing some planning and have a solid business plan - ish for the coming year or two. This is largely based around courses and I have been planning some craft based courses and Ian is still thinking about his build-your-own-website courses which sounds good. My courses are probably better described as workshops and will cover the following;

Hand dying Wools and Yarns
Feltmaking
Crocheted Jewellery
Crocheting / Knitting with beads
Make your own ceramic beads

I'm also thinking about a 'learn to knit or crochet' course as knitting and crochet are really popular at the moment and this might lend itself to a good weekend course. Scarfs are the lastest 'big thing' and people could quite easily learn to knit or crochet and make a scarf in a weekend.

My other idea is to run 'Hen craft courses' for brides and their friends to come along and make things! They could make jewellery, head dresses, table adornments, wedding presents etc over a glass of vinho or two. I think with a bit of imagination we could put something quite good together and a bit different. Ian is very supportive of this one - nothing to do with having a house full of hen party participants he assures me!

We are finding it difficult to come up with the right name for our courses and B&B. Dont think the house has a name (yet), and trying to sum up the right 'image' in a name is difficult. We got it right with Mrs Scrub and Munch, and the more we think about it the harder it gets!