one good apple

My mum came up to Liverpool on Thursday and we went out and did some touristy things that I wouldn’t have done if she wasn’t there.  St Georges Hall,

and the Walker Art Gallery,

St George’s Hall was particularly good, the last time I went was for a Freshers Fair in my first year of uni and nothing will spoil the ambiance of a place more than obnoxious students. 

It’s kind of a sad story but the man who made the hall killed himself not long after it had been completed.  You see, what happened was, they built it the wrong way round.  On day one of construction someonehad the plan, looked at it, and placed the first stone.  Then the second and the third and well, you get the idea, without realising that it was facing the opposite direction to what it should be.  So what you have now is the most amazing building, a total testament to Liverpool as an economic and social force, that has it’s back to it’s own ornamental tiered gardens and instead chooses to face a busy main road. 

I’ve always had an ‘I can do that’ attitude to making things.  Rainy Saturday afternoons of my childhood would be spent with a piece of fabric, some thread and a picture in my head of what I wanted by the end of the day.  And now, when I see a top or dress I like I automatically look at how it’s made  up and try to figure out how I would do that myself.  Of course half the joy of doing this used to be that what I would make would end up being significantly cheaper than the top I saw in the shop.  You don’t really get that any more, not now we have places that sell blouses for five quid and dresses for ten.

So now the pleasure comes from the fact that what your making is pretty unique.  I mean, the combination of fabrics and the way the finished item actually looks, even with the same pattern you have endless possibilities.  My grandma taught dress making at college and I often wish I took more time on sewing than I already do.  Yesterday I made this,

from a Simplicity pattern.   I’m going to wear it today, John and I are planning on going to Port Sunlight if the weather cheers up a little bit.  I also embroidered a shopping bag during the week and finished it off yesterday while the machine was out,

See that leopard print strip at the bottom?  That’s where my wash out embroidery pencil didn’t wash out.  The ghosts of cavorting animals have been gobbled up by a big cat.

Of course the best thing about this week is the fact that I am now on my Easter holidays.  Two whole weeks of *almost* nothing to do.  I’ve not had too much school work to bring home owing to the fact that I’ve been running around like a headless chicken the last two weeks to give myself a chance to breathe.  Happy Easter x

I’ve been tagged by the lovely Jenn who was my first ever swap giftee though god knows why anyone would want to know the following things about me…

La rules,

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I love the smell that comes out of drains when you’re really close to the water level.  This is one of the reasons why I loved Berlin.  My mum and sister went out shopping the other day and caught a whiff of that sewage smell and my mum told Jane, ‘Emily would love that’ and Jane had to phone me up and ask because she didn’t believe it.

2. Having said that, when we used to go to the dump to drop stuff off we used to drive past the sewage works and I would have a panic attack that somehow I would fall in and smell forever like in The Labyrinth and the Bog of Eternal Stench.

3. I was a horrible teenager.  Think about your worst nightmare and double it.  I don’t know how my mum put up with me.  Sometimes when a kid is giving out to me at school I feel like telling them to give up, they’re talking to a professional.  I never swore at my mum though.

4. When we were little we used to have picnics in front of the fire on a Sunday afternoon where we’d toast bread and marshmallow and eat the left over Yorkshire puddings from dinner with golden syrup and watch The Box of Delights or Chronicles of Narnia on the telly.

5. I hate to drive because I can’t look at of the window at the scenery.  I can look at the car in front and the car behind and that’s it.  My drive to work takes forty minutes each way.  That was a smart choice.

6. Even though I’m nowhere near being a fan of Elton John, I can’t listen to Your Song without crying.  It has no association with another place or time or person whatsoever but I still start to well up the second it begins.

Good grief, I’m odder than I thought… I will now tag Mick, who makes scarves that make me jealous, Mandy, my first ever swap gifter, Fatema, my UK Swap giftee and Meg, who made me an amazing scarf for the Miss Marple Swap.  I know I’m meant to pick six.

My view of the Neil Young gig on Wednesday.  And he moved around.  A lot.  This is what I get for saying my mum was wrong about something.  But he was amazing (Mr Young not the baldy man in front).  I can’t believe I’ve been.  I can’t believe how much I’ve spoken about it, to John, his mate who went the night before, friends at work, kids in the classroom, everyone.   Take deep breaths.  Re-adjust.

Twenty eight today.  I remember my mum once telling me that as you get older, your birthday gets less important and less exciting.  I mean.  Telling that to a kid surrounded by presents who can only see endless gift filled birthdays in her future.  Meh.

Now there’s not many things that my mum has ever been wrong about, apart from banning us from watching Grange Hill and trying that whole reverse psychology thing on me when I took my Grade 2 Clarinet exam, but this is one of them. 

When I got into work today I was presented with a huge chocolate cake by one of my colleagues.  And other things, but most importantly, chocolate cake.  Pretty good going for a Tuesday morning. 

So we share it in the staffroom and I potter along to my next lesson where I am presented with a chocolate cake by some of the kids.  And other things, but most importantly, chocolate cake.  My second chocolate cake of the day.  In your face mum.  Your right/wrong tally is shifting, lady.  If you’re wrong about this, what else could you be wrong about?

And chocolate cake aside, the most exciting part of my birthday is who I’m seeing tomorrow night,

Even better than a chocolate cake hat trick.  On Thursday I’m going to be the annoying kid that tries to show you a video clip of the concert they went to last night but all you can see is the head of the person in front of them and some flashing lights a long way away.  Look!  Look!  There he is playing ‘Like a Hurricane’!  Can’t you see him?!

A whole separate post for this beauty - my UK Swap parcel arrived yesterday!

There was also a bar of After Eight dark chocolate there but it didn’t;t last long once it was out of the parcel.  Some gorgeous purple yarn as well as some undyed to dye as I see fit, a lovely crochet hook case, Body Shop bath goodies, including Coconut Body Butter which is just divine, some adorable buttons and some cards for my Gocco.  Thank you secret pal, you’ve made my Saturday!  Now I just need to figure out who you are so I can thank you in *blog* person!

When I was at Primary School we used to spend every Monday morning writing an entry in or exercise books under the title, ‘What I did this weekend’.  I can remember every week recounting the things I did in the last two days, making sure my handwriting was neat and I hadn’t made any spelling mistakes.  And if I finished early I got to draw a picture showing what I did at the bottom.  Of course, when you’re a kid, weekends stretch out ahead of you full of blank hours to fill and endless opportunities until your back in your school sweater waiting for the bus. 

I found my old exercise books a while ago and was pretty amazed by the stuff I used to cram into a weekend.  John teases me about my Famous Five childhood, and it was quite idyllic to be honest.  Into town on a Saturday morning to go to the library and get our 10p mix for the week then the weekend was pretty much ours.  Fishing in the stream behind our house, feeding the horses in the field there too, creating worlds in the woods and going for miles on our bikes with a warning to be back by tea.  And on the rare weekend that nothing really interesting happened I could recount what Gareth or Janet or Anna or Nigel had done at the weekend and not once did any of these activities involve watching tv or playing on a computer game on going on msm.

I feel quite privileged now that I had those experiences when I was a kid and I feel quite sad that my - eventual - kids won’t get those same experiences.  God knows what they would write in their exercise books under the same title.  Crikey, I feel old all of a sudden.

So twenty years later, here is ‘What I did this weekend’,

Embroidery galore to start with.  I seem to have  routine going where I embroider during the week then sew up a weekends.  I also made a dress, but the light is terrible at the moment so I can’t get a good photo of it.

I’ve been reading this book,

that John bought for me during the week.  It is amazing.  I have to keep telling myself this is not a story, the idea that people could, and would, treat each other this way so recently is just bizarre.  It also tells the story of how the Berlin Wall came down, without which we probably still wouldn’t know about the Stasi, and it’s just one of my favourite stories of all time.  The absurdity of how it happened just gets me.  The idea that it was all down to someone not reading a memo properly.  You’ve got to love it.

There were other things, of course, Father Ted on DVD and Sunday dinner at Jean’s an dlots of cups of tea, but I won’t go on.  And so the rest of the evening will be spent watching Lost and finishing the second sleeve of my stripey jumper because I have been knitting too you know, I’ve just been keeping it quiet x   

I always think this term is going to be easy.  The nights are getting lighter, the kids know by now who’s boss (erm, yep - me) and hell, it’s only four and a half weeks from half term to Easter this year.  But every year it catches me from behind and creeps up on me until I’m at the point where lists of things to do are swirling round my head at all times.  And there’s always something to do isn’t there?

On Friday evening we took about fifty kids to the theatre and afterwards, in celebration of nobody hurting themselves or showing us up, we went out for drinks and dancing.  It wasn’t until Saturday morning, when it felt like Jimmy Saville was chasing rats around my head, that I remembered why I tend not to drink a lot any more.  So that was Saturday wasted, watching stupid telly and moaning quietly to myelf all day.

Anyhoo, today being Mother’s Day I thought I’d show you what I made for Carole,

I used the Kurt Halsey patterns from Sublime Stiching to make this pillow for her newly decorated room.  She also got an embroidered badge,

and a couple of other little things.  I made more badges while I was making hers,

and also started work on what I think will be another little pillow with a free pattern from Bad Birds who gives away the sweetest free patterns once a month.

The reason I’ve been doing so much embroidery and so little knitting at the moment is that I told myself I wasn’t allowed to start any new projects until I’d finished the ones I’m working on.  I don’t work well with rules, even the ones I set myself so I’ve turned my back on knitting for the time being in a kind of self-imposed sulk.  Very mature.  I have made a scarflet for a swap I’m involved with at the moment but I’ll post pictures when it’s actually been received.

I’ve updated my etsy shoptoday with some of my embroidered hankies and some of my first Gocco postcards.  I need to get more involved with etsy really, get into some discussions and stuff, but I can find it a little overwhelming at times, there’s just so much there…  Ah well, when I have a bit more time I’ll go for it.

I’m off into town with John in bit for breakfast and to buy some presents for my birthday in two weeks time.  I’ll be 28.   I’m trying not to think about it too much.