At home

I loved our trip to Spain, it was so wonderful. A different sort of trip - not a holiday but still a holiday.  I'm always glad to get home to my little house and my routine and my familiar things though. The trip home was not too bad, despite the fact that the airport was so crowded we thought we would miss our flight.  We stood for ages waiting for the passport control and would definitely have missed the flight if they hadn't decided to open another booth - we ran for it and were the last to board!  Ben managed to get a seat with the captain on our Airbus 320

And Max took advantage of some in-flight snacks (no one said you have to eat Pringles one at a time)

Unfortunately we got a call at Malaga Airport to say the server at work had gone offline so John headed there as soon as we landed at Newcastle. We dropped the cases off and went back to meet him. A power surge had damaged the hard drive and after a few hours he still couldn't get it working. He took it to an expert the following day and thankfully it is all restored to the night before the power cut.  Steph and I have our work cut out transferring the missing information from Claire's handwritten notes. Monday mornings - who'd have 'em?

The garden hadn't suffered too badly considering how warm it had been at home and the animals were pleased to see us. The rabbit was a bit stressed though.

My birthday present from John and Steph was a bit heavy to take abroad so I got that when we came back!

It'll have to wait to be assembled - I think I might paint it first.  The crochet chair backs will be ready fairly soon as I worked on them in the quiet moments in Spain and today while watching the Grand Prix

Some new yarn arrived while I was away

and I made up some squares.

There are still a couple more colours to come and I will have plenty to do other projects. The yarn is called Coton Fifty from Bergere de France. Not too easy to get hold of but it works together with the Svarta Faret Tilda Yarn I had.

I love this stage

Lots of lovely circles waiting to be squared off.  Some patchwork cushions are on the cards too.

Alex and Will against the sunset in Spain - you can't see but there is a 100 foot drop directly behind that fence. The villa was perched on the side of a mountain - very beautiful but quite hard work on the old legs!

I didn't eat too much whilst away but I'm going to be careful and try to lose a bit more weight. I don't have a very good body image anyway but felt quite (very) self conscious amongst the others - quite out of my comfort zone.  There but for me go I, as my father used to say.  Do I finish my birthday chocolates or ration them, or even give them away?  Get a grip girl. Get a grip.

I got around to sending some button designs to be laser-cut and hope to have them back soon to paint.

I have lots of stitching designs pending or swimming around in my head that need a particular button and I'm excited to see how they turn out. I've missed painting and want to get back to that but it always seems to be hard to fit things in. Am I slowing down so much I ask myself? Lethargy kicks in a lot nowadays.

Anyhoo -  I'm going to get my footspa out and have a final pamper before I get into work mode.  The chocs are going into the freezer and will be divided into 100 calorie snack portions. My next few days  meals are mapped out ready, so there are no excuses about being too tired to cook when I get home.

I am at peace with the world (I think)........