Cakes, crochet, laughter and big fat fibs

Remember me?!   I've been a rubbish blogger lately, I know.  Something that I have been worried about for a while has recently come to a head.  Now that the issue has been resolved and that particularly worrying time has passed, I find that I am exhausted.  Crazily bone tired.  My mind is finally relaxing, I suppose, and catching up on itself.

I've also decided that I'm going to crack on and do stuff.  Make things happen rather than just thinking about doing them and worrying about finding the time.  So I've been busy - really busy - and having a thoroughly lovely time.  I finally got round to making the salted caramel cupcakes in the July issue of Country Living:

They are a bit too sweet for me but the husband and J quite like them.  (I didn't let the caramel bubble for long enough, that's why they are quite pale.)

I've also been working on the scarf that I've taken from Emily's blog 'Unravelled'.  I loved the scarf that Emily made and fancied having a go myself.  I'm an absolute beginner at crochet and thought it would be a simple project for me to 'cut my teeth on'.  It really is!  Thank you, Emily, for uploading the pattern.  Here's a sneaky peek at my progress so far...

This is my favourite crochet project to date.  I love the yarn.  It's soft and warm, I love the muted colours and I ♥♥ love love love ♥♥ crocheting something as a whole, that drapes into my lap as it grows.  And this yarn drapes beautifully.  I have adapted the pattern slightly so there's more of the browny/grey colour  than pink (simply because I have three balls of it and only two balls of the pink).  I have also made the stripes marginally bigger because I enjoy not having to join a new colour in quite so often.  This is just mindless crochet with instant gratification for me and I am in ♥♥♥ crochet heaven! ♥♥♥  Ha! Emily, I'll be round at yours in a few days begging assistance with the edging if that's ok...! ;0)

On Monday I took the afternoon off to take my Mum to the hospital.  It was just a consultation but she looks after my niece on Mondays and needed a hand.  I had the best time.  My niece is now two and a half years old and changing all the time.  She is such a chatterbox and says the funniest things - she makes me roar with laughter.  I love this age; I love her.

So that's my week in a nutshell.  Oh, the Calor gas man arrived to replace the empty bottle for the oven [which stopped working pre-party].  Turns out that we hadn't run out of gas, the tap had just been turned right down.  Grrr.  Felt such an idiot - it didn't help that he turned up super early in the morning so I had mad lady hair, panda eyes and was wearing crocs and socks with my pyjamas: glam. Not.

We also had some furniture delivered. Lush furniture.  But it was one of those squirmily (word?!) embarrassing situations.  I'll tell you about it... A while ago we had a slight drama with the furniture company because I was returning a set of tables and when the man came to collect them he told me I hadn't packaged them up properly.  I didn't know I had to but I didn't want him to go away without my tables.  So I put on a cockney accent (I have no idea why) and pretended to be the cleaner (I don't have a cleaner).  Basically I said 'I dunno mate, I'm just the cleaner... the owners have gone away on holiday, you can't leave me here with her tables, she'll go mad..' blah blah blagging blah...

I could tell at the time he didn't believe me even though I was wearing rubber gloves (I, on the other hand, felt like a genius for creating such a plausible story at short notice - ha!).  Anyway, thankfully they took the tables and all was well.   Until the same man arrived with my delivery this week.  The very first thing he asked was whether I was the owner, to which I replied yes.  Then it dawned on me.... this was the man I'd lied to... [eek].  He laughingly told me that I'd told him 'porky pies' last time he saw me and asked if I'd got a cleaner...

Me: 'Yes!' [no]
Him: 'Oh, perhaps you weren't lying then.  Is she blonde?'
Me: 'Yes' [kill me now]
Him: 'Oh, I think you were on holiday when we picked your tables up...'
Me: 'Oh yes we were, she told me there was a problem with the tables.  Thanks for taking them.' [??]
Him: 'No problem, she looks a lot like you, your cleaner....'
Me: 'Well yes I suppose she does.  But she's a lot younger than me...' [what? I'm just elaborating for no reason now...]
Him:  'Well, er, yes, I wasn't going to say that...'... Cheeky devil!

I am never ever lying about anything like that again.  I laughed out loud, all by myself afterwards.  What a complete wally.  Why didn't I just giggle and tell him I was fibbing the first time, he wouldn't care?!

Nicki 

x

PS The dove has left our chimney and been replaced by a swarm of honey bees:  joy.  

We have had three fires blazing today to try and coax them out:  no joy.  

Pest control man is coming on Tuesday: boo.