Friday 15 April 2016

The Grass is Greener ...

Spiral Tarot




You know how it is, you spend hours and hours trawling the interwebz on a quest to find the perfect eyelash yarn - yes, didn't you know there can be eyelash yarn that is not only wanted but needed ?!






 I know, it's not everyone who can link Meatloaf and knitting - you're welcome.

Anyway. I found some that looked just right for what I needed - something grass-like in color and texture, King Cole Moments in 'Lime':




What arrived illustrates perfectly the perils of shopping online:


ouch ! my eyes ! my eyes !

All in a tizz, I instantly emailed the eBay seller, habby-knitters, begging to return and exchange it, explaining that I had been anticipating something more in the way of Irish or even Surrey fields than those of Chernobyl. 

In response, I received an email telling me to keep the 'Lime' and they would send me something more truly grass-like. In fact, they sent me four more balls without any charge:






















I could make some witty comments about the dumping of nuclear waste, but actually I just wanted to give habby-knitters a shout out for excellent customer service, exceeding by far the minimum solution I'd been hoping for. It's always a (rare) pleasure to be able to really be surprised, touched and pleased by top notch service, and to want to tell others about it.



Monday 4 April 2016

Sunshine & Storms

Robin Wood Tarot





Titch took a day off to drive us to Norwich for a day out, as Mini Diva wanted to go to the RAF Careers Centre - our closest one. It was no sacrifice at all as we used to live in Norwich years ago, and it's one of our favorite cities: the size of a city but with a village feel, full of unique non-chain shops too. 

While we were there, she also blew most of her birthday money on posh sports clothes, so she was happy; I found 2 posh yarn shops: Norfolk Yarn which stocked Tibetan Yak yarn, and The Crafty Ewe which does late night opening once a week ! Plus a Hobbycraft, all of which made me happy - but (making Titch happy) from a stall on the huge market bought only a crochet hook and cute buttons for this:

Sirdar Tiny Tots DK 1561


The rest of the weekend was spent in clearing out our shed in order to put a 2nd-hand chest freezer there ready for storing supplies for the cricket season which starts next week - I am amazed, if not gobsmacked, that Titch volunteered to do the snack kitchen again this year; quite frankly I am really not looking forward to it: after an autumn and winter of merely showing up to watch the kids play rugby at a semi-civilized 10am, being out of bed every Sunday at 6:30am for an 8am start from now until August has NO appeal whatsoever.

Which brings me to the reason for the 3 of Swords. In clearing the shed, we found a box that we both thought had been stored in the house. Unfortunately it and its contents have been ruined by damp and mold:




This is Mini Diva's baby 'coming home' outfit, her first pairs of baby shoes, first lock of hair .... you get the idea. Every single one of the congratulations cards was ruined too. The tears ran down my face like Niagara.