A long hiatus

Yes, it's been longer than I can even think about since I last blogged. My life has taken another turn of events and I apologise now that this post may be a little long, a little rambly and there may even be a healthy smattering of photos!

I left my old job at the end of January and much as I was sad to say goodbye to the people, I wasn't sad to leave the company - it was definitely time to move on. I started my new job at the hospital on the first day that the UK was covered by its worst snow in 20 years! I think it took me nearly 2hrs to get to work for my induction and they were very kind to us and let us go by about 2.30 in the afternoon. I've been there for 5 weeks now and am working with a great team - the other HR Advisors are all very experienced and have much knowledge between them. I'm sure I'm going to learn lots from working alongside them. I've been involved with a few of their cases and eventually I will have casework of my own. I think I'm going to like it :o)

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, my sister, who works as an administrator in our church office, emailed me at work to tell me about some accommodation that was going to be advertised in the weekly church bulletin and that she thought it might be suitable for me. It was a little further from work than I had wanted, but looked nice from the photos my sister sent and she arranged for us to go and see it that evening. It's an unusual setup, to say the least. The owner, Mary and her husband, spend most of the year out in Madagascar, working for a Christian organisation and are abroad for 4-6 months at a time. They own a big cottage in the Sussex countryside, in a very quiet and peaceful village. Mary's husband (a builder) has extensively renovated the cottage in the 20yrs they have been there. Next to the cottage is a large building, which was originally some outhouses and a few years ago, they totally renovated them into a studio house for their daughter to live in, who subsequently went off to uni 200 miles away and decided she didn't want to live in it. They then began letting it to help pay the bills whilst they were out in Madagascar. The deal is that all bills are included in the very reasonable rent and the tenant also feeds their elderly cat - Joy. Joy is 18, going blind and deaf and is very sweet. The tenant also needs to make the main cottage look lived in - turning lights on & off etc. I went to view it and fell in love with the place, so just a few days ago, I moved in and here I am!

This (l) is the studio (the taller part at the front is a garage) and the strange black stuff on the ground is covering vegetable patches. There are many fruit trees in the garden (which I also get to use) and I can help myself to as many fruit and vegetables as I like!

(r) An inside main view. There's also a separate bathroom and LOTS of storage areas, even for all my stitching stash! The pink and blue throw on the chair is made by the villagers Mary teaches crafts to in Madagascar.

So at long last, I have a beautiful little home of my own. It's early days yet and I'm still settling in, but I'm looking forward to being here all through the lovely summer days coming up.

There has been a smidgeon of stitching going on, but hopefully when I'm more settled, there will be much more! I finished another page on Snow Princess & the Polar Bear:

and there's even been a tiny bit of progress on Midnight Hunting (I finished off the lower part of his wing):

That's it for the moment I think! I will attempt to catch up with blogs over the next few days and my apologies if I haven't visited yours in a while. Have a great weekend folks!

Happy new year!

Happy new year everyone! Hope you all had a great Christmas and wish you all the very best for 2009. I've not updated my blog for a while, as I've had lots of things going on...

I haven't got the new year off to a very good start. Yesterday I crashed my car into the back of another. I was driving reasonably fast at the time - there was a truck on the side of the road, obscuring a short traffic queue in front of it, caused by someone who had stopped to let horses cross the road. As I came past the truck I only had a few seconds to try and stop the car but still went into the back of the other car with some force. Somehow, miraculously, I walked away from the accident with nothing more than shock, a small cut on my knee and lots of bruises. I'm still pretty sore, but had it not been for my airbag, I think it could have been so much worse. Unfortunately my car was so badly damaged at the front that it's been written off :o( The other car was a Volvo and hardly had a scratch and the 2 passengers were absolutely fine. It's really strange - I can't remember the actual impact, but can remember the few seconds before very clearly. It is starting to feel a bit surreal now, as if it were a dream, but my bruises are very real!

I had a quiet but nice Christmas. Lots of time spent with various members of my family and we also all went out on the 27th Dec to celebrate Dad's 76th birthday. Somehow the restaurant managed to pull enough tables together to sit all 18 of us and Dad had a really enjoyable day.

I mentioned my impending redundancy in my last post. Well, the good news is that I have been offered a new job at a local hospital as Assistant HR Advisor with much better salary than I had hoped for! It's a conditional offer though and it can't be confirmed until my references, health clearance and CRB check have all come back, so in the meantime I'm working part-time in my old job, probably until the end of January. The job sounds very suited to my skills and my new manager seems lovely. I can't wait to get started and wish the paperwork would be sorted out sooner!

Snow Princess has been back on the Q-Snaps during the last few weeks and this is my most recent progress:

A little close-up too of the area I've been working on. I've nearly finished page 12 now and am looking forward to starting page 11 which has some of the princess's robe on. I've been stitching this for so many years now - I'd love to get a nice substantial chunk completed this year. My stitching resolutions for this year? Stitch long and prosper sums it up for me I think ;o)

A quick update

Life is very hectic right now, mainly due to work. I found out earlier this week that I'm going to be made redundant as the HR teams in all the stores across the company are being restructured. There is going to be a tiny amount of HR admin hours in each store (13 in my main store), which I just can't survive on. Most duties are going to be covered by the managers and by head office. My kind employers have timed it well, if all goes to timescale, I will be made redundant the week before Christmas. Nevertheless, I am going to enjoy Christmas and look forward to a new job somewhere in the new year. As you may recall, I was looking for a new job not so long ago, so already have my CV prepared and am registered with a couple of agencies, I just need to look in earnest now.

A little more progress on The Guardian to share also:

He's coming along slowly, but I'm still really enjoying stitching this one! Have a great week everyone :o)

Birthday girl!

Yes, it's that time of year when there is cake, lots of cards and maybe a gift or two.... Eeek! I'm feeling old. I'm not celebrating a BIG birthday, I've got a couple of years to go until the next big birthday, but the realisation of just how much time has elapsed and how things have changed in the last ten years or so has really sunk in lately. I've got a few nice days planned though (I could never let my birthday celebrations be concentrated into just one day after all!!)... I went out to lunch with my Dad yesterday to a lovely little pub - The Castle at Rowlands Castle in Hampshire. Today I'm off to my SILs and we're going to do some more family tree research before her, my DB and my nephews take me out for dinner this evening. Tomorrow Andy is coming over to pick me up and whisk me away to Wiltshire. We're staying overnight at Warminster before visiting Longleat Safari Park on Saturday. Then finally on Sunday, my dear niece Ellie, who is a cake decorator extraordinaire, is making me a special birthday cake and we're having a family tea at my DS's house with lots of family. The weather forecast is really good for the next few days, so let the celebrations begin! My boss gave me a special little cake when I was at work on Tuesday:

It arrived in its own little box as you can see! I shared it with my Dad when I went to see him yesterday. I loved the glittery icing!! Whilst I'm on the subject of work..... I have some good news to share. I have had a promotion, albeit a temporary one. The HR Manager at our Horsham branch has gone onto adoption leave for a year and I am going to be covering there for 2 days a week as a 'Relief HR Manager'! I will still be doing 3 days in my current branch in my existing role, so I'm sure it's going to be quite an exciting time. I was handed over to last week and it's my first day in Horsham on Monday, so I'm getting a little nervous now. Keep everything crossed for me please!!

Last but not least, a little more progress on The Guardian:

I'm working on the trees behind his head at the moment. It's all half stitch, some with 5 strands of thread which feels a little strange to stitch with. Thanks for everyones lovely comments on my progress updates so far - it seems like you love this project! Happy stitching everyone :o)

Davis Cup

We had a lovely trip today up to Wimbledon, to see the Davis Cup tennis. Great Britain was playing against Austria, and although we won the first of the 2 matches today, we lost the second meaning we lost overal. We had an excellent day though and of course, I managed to get a few photos....

The first is of me and my nephew David - we all received these free inflatable sticks that you could bang together to make a really loud noise! Moi? Making a really loud noise? Surely not!!! The second is from the end of the first match which featured Andy Murray for Team GB, but I'm afraid I can't recall the name of the Austrian player. Being a nosey sort of person, we decided to have a wander after the tennis had finished to see if we could see some areas of the Wimbledon site that were cordoned off, so we tried peeking through the netting to get a glimpse of all the construction work from the installation of the Centre Court roof. There seemed to be lots of very large roof sections about the site. I can't wait to see the roof in action next year! :o)

Hoorah! Strictly Come Dancing is back!! What an autumnal tv treat :o) I wonder who will be voted out first.... aha, it's Phil Daniels! I thought Austin Healey was particularly good last night when he danced a waltz. I wonder how he'll fare with the Latin dances.

There's been a little stitching this week, but not a great deal. I will try to remember to take a photo of my progress on The Guardian to share with you as I now have my camera back!

There may be some good news on the job front, but I'm not going to mention details until it comes to fruition, so watch this space! Have a good week folks :o)

Phew!

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief today as I submitted my main, huge college assignment yesterday which has been about 6 months in the making! I'm keeping absolutely everything crossed that it passes and doesn't get referred.

Both my college commitments and work are very stressful right now, so my apologies if I haven't had time to visit many blogs recently. I only have a few more weeks of college left now & am looking forward to getting a bit of my life back!! I have a practical training assignment next Friday, the following week we have to submit all our final paperwork and then we have 3 more weeks of classes. Work will probably get a little easier around the time that college finishes too, so I will be back on an even keel then I guess :o) It'll be nice not to feel guilty about doing a bit of stitching instead of doing college work......

Just popping in!

I just thought I'd pop in to say hello :o) Work is extremely busy at the moment & I'm also supporting another store who has no HR assistant at the moment - it's very important that I ensure that these poor people are paid at the end of the month! So, I'm pretty bushed by the time I get in & just want to relax, occasionally even pick up a needle. So sorry if I haven't gotten around everyone's blogs in the last couple of weeks - I will catch up eventually.

A couple of piccies to share with you. First of all a bit of progress on This Heart of Mine, which I'm stitching during my lunch breaks at work (when I get one!!). I took a few photos and this one is the most accurate for the colour of the thread (Polstitches, African Sunset), but the fabric is way off. It's more green with touches of lilac. I get to stitch on this one possibly 2-3 times a week, for around 40 mins each time, so I'm quite pleased with my progress so far. The thread is such a beautiful array of colours - cerise, orange, pale pink, peach. I may stitch this again sometime in the future in a different shade, if I can find one as lovely as this!

This is a photo I captured early one morning at the end of the garden. I am absolutely petrified of spiders and it is around this time of year that I give up going into the garden until about November as it's spider season! I think their webs are beautiful though - they're stitchers of sorts I guess. So I crept as near as I dared and captured this one glinting in the early morning sunlight.

I'm going over to Arundel this afternoon to meet a good friend of mine from where I used to live. We go back quite a long way, from when we used to work at a well-known supermarket chain together on the staff reception desk. Arundel is about halfway between us, so we're going to visit the wonderful 'Belindas' tearooms and enjoy tea and cake together. I haven't had a good natter with her in a long time. It will be great to see her - we've got loads to catch up on! Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone. :o)

Busy little bee

I've been back at work for a week now and my 2 weeks off seem like a dim, distant memory :o( I've been very busy this week and have hardly managed to get a stitch in. I did take 'This Heart of Mine' to work with me to stitch during my lunchbreaks as I haven't quite got my official new lunchbreak project ready yet (I MUST sort my fabric out!), so I managed to get a bit of that done a couple of days last week. I really don't like it when I don't get much stitching time, so will have to try harder this week.

I had my meeting at college about my CPP course on Monday, which went well, and I found out by Thursday that I've been accepted onto the course and it will start on 13th September! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!! It is going to be alot of hard work, lots of coursework, but I keep reminding myself that it is only for a year and I will have really achieved something by getting through it at the end of the course.

Work has been really busy this week too and I had to work an extra day to fit everything in. I ran a new staff induction yesterday for 8 people and they were the best bunch of starters I've had in ages. A couple of people were really friendly and chatty so this had a very positive effect on the rest of the group. All in all, it was a very good induction!

Last night we went out for my BIL's birthday. We went to his favourite curry house, the Jahflong, which has great food and the best onion bhajis I've ever tasted! He is going to be 60 next week - I can't believe it!! But then, all my siblings are much older than me, my eldest sister is 20 years older than me, but doesn't behave like it, infact none of my siblings do - we're all a bit eccentric when we get together. My eldest sister had bought a party box of different types of balloons. One was a 'whizzer' which was a very long, thin balloon & when you blew it up & released it, it would make this very strange whizzing noise & dive up to the ceiling like it was trying to burrow into it! By that time, there was only us and one other table of people left in the restaurant. The staff found our balloons very funny, but the other party of people didn't! Unfortunately one of the whizzers went off in their direction (hee hee!) and whizzed around this girl, making her shreik! Whoops ;o)

Hopefully we're going to see Harry Potter later on today. I can't wait to see it & also can't wait for the book next weekend. I wonder what's going to happen......

Well, Blogger has decided not to let me give this post a title. Poxy Blogger! It would have been 'Yippeeeeee! The camera is back.' I've now managed to get my hands on a memory card reader and can upload my piccies that way! So first of all, here is a brand new photo of Snow Princess:



I'm about a third of the way through the 6th page now.

Next my only photo from Wimbledon on Wednesday, showing the huge black clouds approaching Court 13 when we had a 2hr rain delay! We had a great day and apart from watching a few of the great doubles matches we also saw the Duke of Kent and Daley Thompson (Olympic Decathlete) wandering about!

Here are a few other photos that I've taken recently, first of all a piccie of Andy with my Bagpuss hot water bottle!

Awwwwwwwwwwwww! I snuggle up with Bagpuss during the cold winter months but sometimes Andy 'borrows' him!

And last but not least, a couple of photos of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth when we visited just before my birthday in October last year:

It truly is an imposing structure! I haven't been to the top yet, but plan to one of these days.

It's the Men's finals today at Wimbledon. I can't believe how quickly my 2 weeks holiday has gone! Back to work tomorrow :o( I've also got an informal meeting at college tomorrow evening for my CPP course that starts in September. Work are paying for me to do this course, which lasts a year and will give me a recognised HR/Personnel qualification afterwards. It sounds like a lot of hard work though.... I only hope there'll still be a bit of time for stitching! ;o)

Howdy folks!

Yes, things are still busy and hectic and up and down and....

Dad had a nasty fall a couple of days ago. Thankfully he's not seriously hurt apart from a few bruises, but he was very shaken indeed. He had day surgery 2 weeks ago for his fistula in preparation for dialysis. He has one in his wrist. Dad can't feel it, as he has damage to his nerve endings in his fingers, but if you put your finger gently on his wrist... instead of a pulse you can feel something that I can only describe as like little cogs turning in a wristwatch! Well, not the actual cogs, but like their gentle vibration!! Luckily his fall doesn't seem to have damaged the fistula. If everything goes well & the doctors are pleased with how the fistula is, he should start dialysis 6-8 weeks after the day surgery which should be the middle of December fingers crossed. He's so poorly but by all accounts, once he's been on dialysis, even for a few weeks, he should feel much better.

I had a little trip to Bournemouth for 3 days last week on company business. It was the first (and hopefully to be annual) HR Assistants & Officers conference. I also had an extra day before the conference at a course my boss was running on 'Investing in Investigations' which was fascinating. The conference was great - lovely to meet all the other HR staff from the different stores that I'd not met before. Those of us that had travelled some distance stayed at the same accommodation - the lovely Anglo Swiss Hotel. I had a wonderful room which had an enormous bed, plus french doors to a veranda, which if you have a look on the website, is on the main shot of the front of the hotel to the right of the entrance and on the first floor you can see my veranda! I stayed an extra night due to going to the course as well & the next day told all the other HR staff about the wonderful veranda, walk in wardrobe, french doors etc... and then, rather embarassingly, none of the others had these facilities! Lol!! They all wanted a peek at my veranda just to prove I wasn't pulling their leg!!! One of the points of the conference was to decide between us just what we should put into the pack we give to new starters & then make it consistent between all the stores (you wouldn't think it would be that difficult considering there are only 12 stores in the chain!). Well, we had a whole afternoon for this & it was nowhere near enough time and as a result there is going to be a working party to work on it further and I've been nominated! I'm the only HR Assistant involved, so its quite a privilege. We're getting together next month as, whilst December is busy for everyone else in retail, its pretty quiet for HR ;o)

I've managed a bit of stitching, but still no photos as Andy (naughty boy) still hasn't got my camera fixed for me! I keep threatening to get the scanner out, if I can get it to work!! I've put down Forest Goddess for a while as I'm so burned out on her. I've picked up my Dracolair Midnight Hunting again. I've just got the final moon panel to finish in the bottom right corner and then I can get back to stitching on my Duncan draggie! It seems like a very long time since I started on him & I'd love to see him finished more than any of my other WIPs right now.

I've been tagged!

Thanks to Gill for tagging me...

The rules; List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether or not they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

Mine are:

1 London Calling by The Clash

2 Hey Bulldog by The Beatles

3 Secret Oktober by Duran Duran

4 Freedom by Wham

5 Living on the Ceiling by Blancmange

6 Old Red Eyes is Back by Beautiful South

7 Connection by Elastica

Hmmm... who shall I tag? How about:

Heather, Lorna, Nicola, Kim, Claire, Kathy & Harsha. Over to you ladies :o)

Unfortunately the Ray Davies concert was cancelled due to illness :o( They gave us a refund but I was still disappointed. Hopefully he will feel better and tour again soon.

Work has been very busy this week - I've attended 2 different training sessions, done an induction, taken notes at an appeal hearing and then today had payroll training at another store! Phew! I've not picked up my needle at all this week. I've got the weekend off and I'm going to see Dad on Saturday, so hopefully I'll have time to stitch on Sunday.

It's my birthday!

Oh my goodness - how did that happen?!!! Yes folks, today is my birthday. I've had some lovely gifts, including the Mirabilia White Christmas chart, some SMF fabbie and silks from Gill, a little cuddly Eeyore, a diary, some Thornton choccies, tickets to see Ray Davies of The Kinks next week, 'Yellow Submarine' Beatles CD and the promise to get my digi camera fixed from Andy, a gorgeous pink spangly leather make-up bag & lippie from my boss, a nodding Captain Jack Sparrow figure from Sharon and some money from my Dad. I don't feel my age at all. I'm still about 24 in my head I think!

I'm in the middle of a few days off from work at the mo, which I think I really needed. Work is truly exhausting right now! We've just started taking on all our Christmas casuals & I've got lots of inductions coming up over the next few weeks. I've also got a couple of little business trips - I'm going to the Horsham store one day next week for a training day and then on the 31st I'm down to Bournemouth for 3 days for a conference and more training. I really do love my job, though I'm looking forward to it quieting down substantially in mid-November once all the new staff are on board.

My camera is still unco-operative. Andy has promised to get it fixed for me though, so hopefully I'll be able to share photos very soon. I've managed to get quite a bit of stitching on my Forest Goddess in over the last few days, although I'm really getting HAED pangs right now & want to get back into my Polar Bear blues once more!! I want to finish FG though before I move on, so that I can have at least one more finish this year.

Not much progress with Dad's health. He is due to have day surgery on the 26th for his 'fistula', in prep for his starting dialysis. I'm hoping that once he starts dialysis, he will feel better in himself. He's pretty down with all the things that are happening to him. Sadly, his elderly friend across the road from him died on Friday. He was in his 90s & had been housebound for many years. He cared for his wife who was also housebound & had severe demensia. It seems he had a nasty fall when he got up in the night to help his wife. It's so sad. She will now have to go into a home to be looked after properly & she probably won't even realise that he's gone.

I had a nice few days up in Yorkshire at Sharon's last month. Although we didn't go anywhere as she was pretty poorly with morning sickness due to her expecting once again. She also asked me if I would be baby no.2's Godmum & I was delighted to say yes!! I will have to get stitching something special for the new little one who is due in May.

Stressed out.....

I'm feeling quite down & stressed at the moment. Firstly, Dad went for his appointment at the TIA clinic this week to check out about his funny turns that he had last month and they've told him that he has at some point, without realising it, had a stroke. He feels fine right now, its just another thing to add to his medical list of problems - he's had such a hard time of it physically over the last couple of years. I wish there was more I could do for him really, and that he'd move out of his house where he struggles with the stairs to somewhere much closer to the rest of the family, perhaps warden assisted. He's very stubborn & set in his ways though and I know he really doesn't want to move. I went to visit him yesterday & he seems ok. Thankfully he's managed to find himself a cleaner through the local church, which as well as keeping the house clean & tidy, gives him another visitor to look forward to.

On top of that I have had the most stressful day at work this week. Monday I was at Horsham new store inducting around 22 staff for their opening in a few weeks time. Everything that could go wrong did - the digital projector wouldn't connect to the laptop which had the induction presentation on, the air con stopped working and the whole thing hadn't been prepped very well! I was there with my boss, who thought I'd been on the vallium as I was so calm and laid back!! I knew there was nothing I could do about the situation, so just went with the flow & really enjoyed it. Then on Tuesday I went to another store at Winchester for a course on 'Dealing with difficult situations' - quite alot of that in my job! It was great & the trainer was the Sunday manager from our store who I've communicated with lots but hadn't met until then & we got on famously. On Wednesday I went back to my store & just had lots & lots of stress to do with pay. Briefly, one manager in particular hadn't put some payments through for his staff before the deadline for payroll in July & then had gone on holiday. It seems that he has told his staff that this is down to me & had told my boss the same thing in my absence on Tuesday! I have a great memory for detail so was able to tell my boss exactly what happened & she was going to give him a tongue lashing yesterday when they were both in. I am so angry with this particular manager!!! I'm off to Horsham again tomorrow to do more inducting, so I shall just remember to go with the flow once more... ;o)

With all this work I haven't done a single stitch this week - I so could have done with stitching this week to calm me down! When I have got home I've just been too tired. I've got absolutely nothing planned today though, so am going to put my feet up & stitch, stitch, stitch! :o)

Forest Goddess update

Here's my latest piccie. She's coming along slowly but surely. I'm trying to make sure I get a little bit of time on her most days, even if I only get a dozen or so stitches in!

Work is really hectic at the moment. Yesterday was pretty intense. I did an induction for 6 new members of staff. Our training room at work is right up the top in an attic room & as you know, heat rises. There is also a severe lack of air conditioning apart from on the shop floor area, and despite having all the windows open and a large fan on full blast in the training room, it was still stifling in there. One poor girl felt very nauseous and dizzy so went home half way through, and then once my colleague had taken over to do the 2nd part of the induction another girl was actually sick (thankfully not in the room!) so the induction was stopped & hopefully we will catch them up at a later date when its a bit cooler. Our office is also exceedingly hot, despite having 2 fans on all the time, the window wide open and the blind down to try & keep cool. I'm not really a summer person - I hate all this heat. I can cope with being cold: at least you can wrap up warm & have a hot drink!

Clumsy Clot :o(

I really could kick myself sometimes you know! I've managed to damage the USB port on my digi camera so now I am unable to upload my pics to the PC. I think I may have wrenched the lead out too harshly last time I was using it & the piece inside with the contacts in seems to have been pushed over to one side. I just hope I can get it fixed without too much expense :o/ I am a little heavy handed at times which I guess is a little unusual for a stitcher! Somehow I can manage to do these dainty little stitches with my clumsy hands ok, but with other things I sometimes seem to be a one-woman trail of destruction! Whoops.

Thanks everyone for your really lovely comments about my photo :o) Does wonders for a girl's esteem! Gill, lol I really giggled at your comment about Pete saying I looked like you :o) And Faith Ann, your comment was very sweet, thank you.

I had planned to share piccies of what we got up to last weekend when Andy's mum came to stay. I guess I'll have to share them once I get my camera fixed. We had a lovely time at Weald & Downland Open Air Museum on a beautiful spring day. There's lots of historic buildings that have been dismantled from their original sites which were due to be destroyed for redevelopment. They are then re-erected at the museum for future generations to explore. Andy's taking his class there on a school trip soon so wanted to explore before the big day. I'd been there several times many years ago, though my last visit was in 1990. Despite that, I remembered my way around pretty well. Andy managed to pick up lots of useful info for the trip & we had a delicious lunch too! Homemade soup with rolls baked using flour from the mill on-site. There are also lots of farm type animals around the museum. It's lambing season, so we saw lots of sweet baby lambs who were basking in the sun! They also have shire horses and having been obsessed by horses ever since I was small, so I made a beeline for them :o) They are gentle giants indeed. One of them even gave my hand a kiss!! Awwwww.

I've had a busy week. As it's the Easter holidays I only needed to work 3 days this week & one of those I spent at Tonbridge store (in Kent) helping with HR files. I work 4 days a week & my predecessor works the other 1 day plus she is a newly promoted HR Manager at Tonbridge store. She needed some help with the filing system so asked if I would assist her. It was very interesting to see another store. It's around a third the size of mine & all on one floor. I don't envy her commute every day though, around the M25. I'm much happier on my little bus which trundles along by the sea :o)

I've just finished making some chocolate cornflake Easter nests. Anyone want one? ;o) Yummmmmmm! Needless to say I made a bit of a mess & had to lick out the bowl I melted the choccie in afterwards. Guess I'd better go check on them before the Easter bunny finds them... Happy Easter everyone!

Stitching Goals for April

I've seen this on many other blogs & thought it might be a good way to inspire me to work on a few of my WIPs!
Titania:
To finish hair/flowers in hair & continue with her dress.
Midnight Hunting:
To start & complete one of the 2 remaining corner moon panels.
Egyptian Sampler:
To finish stitching gold coloured part of border/frame.
I don't seem to get a great deal of stitching time right now so even those 3 goals will be a challenge for me, though achievable if I set my mind to it!

Well, I really couldn't resist the new Passione Ricamo design 'The Night' - it is totally utterly breathtakingly gorgeous! Once I can afford a little splurge on a larger piece of hand dyed fabric, I will definitely be starting this amazing design. Laura's designs seem to be getting better & better so I can't wait to see what she has coming up in the future.

I've been working today & things were really busy. I ran my first company induction, although I had assistance as there were 11 new people starting, whereas normally there's around 2 or 3. I used to run huge inductions when I worked in HR before, although that was around 4 years ago so I felt a little nervous first thing. It's awful when I'm nervous as I start to get my words all mixed up! It went ok though & I'm sure that with a bit of practise it will be fine & I'll feel much more comfortable with it. I had so much to do though today & was mainly on my own, so only managed a 10min teabreak early on! I had been planning to leave early, but there was just too much to do. Inductions always generate a great deal of paperwork plus I had lots of other things to keep me busy. Thankfully Andy was off today so had been busy at home & cooked me a lovely dinner for when I got in. :o) I've got a lovely relaxing day of doing nothing tomorrow, so am planning to get to work on my stitching goals!

Bear Necessities

The school that Andy is teaching at is having a book week this week & today several of the teachers (including him) have been asked to dress up as literary characters. So Andy, being a bit of a Jungle Book fan decided to hire a Baloo the bear costume from the fancy dress shop last night! I made him put the head on for me which creased me up... I really should have taken a photo!!! The rest of the outfit incorporated a large tummy which you could stuff with cushions or padding to give just the right amount of paunch. Lol! Someone should be taking photos today, so I'll have to try & get one of Andy dressed up to share with you. :o)

I have a bit of a rant to share - just need to get it off my chest & then I'll feel better! I commute to work by bus each day. There is absolutely nowhere free to park in Worthing & the car park prices are astronomical. The bus is usually convenient - the stop is around a ten minute walk from home & stops right outside work. They run every 15 minutes, so even if I miss one I don't have to wait very long. Well, not until this morning. I'm usually at the stop a couple of minutes before the bus is due which is usually fine except this morning the bus was around 5 mins early (I found out later). The next bus didn't turn up, so eventually half an hour later (of waiting in the freezing cold at a bus stop on the shadey side of the road) 2 of them turn up. I ended up being late for work & stressed about the whole thing. Thankfully work was fine - several other staff members get the same bus so I had lots of witnesses!

Talking of work, which I haven't done very much of since I started my new job in Jan, things are going well. I did go through a bit of an 'I'm not sure if I really want to do this' phase a few weeks ago, but now I'm feeling alot more settled and am getting my teeth into a few projects. I work in HR in a large department store which is much different to food retail that I worked in before. We have lots of concessions within the store who rent space from us. One of those is Villeroy & Boch who make the most gorgeous crockery. I love their New Wave line: http://http://eshop.villeroy-boch.com/uk/shopping/show_102484 The cups are gorgeous & really comfy to hold. They're used in our Cafe & I said that when I got my staff discount card I would treat myself to one. The manager is really sweet & gets the same bus as me. We got chatting about the cups last week & I told him how much I loved them and he said that he'd been given a few extras to give out & had one left which he gave to me! So now I have a beautiful New Wave cappuccino cup which I have my hot choccie in at night!!! :o)