Good Luck Rocky!

Yesterday saw us say goodbye to foster greyhound Rocky.  We drove him to his new home on the beautiful Sandringham Estate.  Sandringham is HRH The Queen’s Norfolk Country Residence.  Rocky will be going to live in a cottage with one of the estate’s employees.  We loaded the car with him, Tillie and his belongings and drove over to the other side of the county and met his new perspective owners on neutral ground to start with as they already have two terriers, Bradley and Dudley.  The meeting with his two new chums went well so we went to his new home where eventually he will also get used to the two resident cats.  In the kitchen next to a wood burning stove was a sofa ready and waiting.  Incidentally the cottage where Rocky is now living was originally built in  the grounds of Sandringham House as a summer house for Edward VII and his wife Alexandra but was allegedly used for ‘entertaining’ Edward’s many ‘lady’ friends!!  After the handover I reluctantly said goodbye to Rocky after promising that we would have him to stay when his new owners go on holiday.  I am sure he will settle in there well and have a glorious time with his new friends.  I shall miss having him around after looking after him for the last 4 months. Good Luck Rocky!

Sunday

As discussed in my previous post I am trying to up my exercise – not doing too badly once I can motivate myself.  Since last posting I have done some cycling (on a stationary bike), 30 mins of walk, run, walk (knackering) and this morning we took the mutleys out for a 4 mile walk…….now if only I could resist that carrot cake I foolishly bought yesterday – but I am restricting myself to one slice a day.

After decluttering a bottom drawer the other night I came across this card someone sent me and had to chuckle.

I have a few finished items to show you:

 

The greyhound pups are a really quick knit but take me ages to put together.  The fingerless mitts are super easy too, as usual Barbara has been helping with the knitting.

Some more Beatrix Potter characters sewn up by me for Barbara (but knitted by Barbara) – Jeremy Fisher and Tom Kitten.  Sorry for the photos but there hasn’t been any good light for days for photography.

The other day Julia - aka hooliaknits contacted me via Ravelry, offering me some unused acrylic yarn to help with the knitted and crocheted items we make for fundraising for greyhound charities.  I very gratefully accepted her generous offer and in the mail the other day came this huge pile. 

The houndies and I would like to say a HUGE thank you to Julia for your kind thought and generosity, we can make greyt use of this!

2010 goals

I have been reading lots of blogs lately where bloggers have published their goals for 2010, so not to be left out I have been thinking what my intentions for the New Year are going to be:

Number 1  Lose weight – I know this has got to be nearly everyone’s intentions and probably one of the hardest to keep, but I must lose my extra weight.  Ideally I would like to lose 2 stone (28lbs, 13kgs) by the middle of the year. 

Number 2  Exercise more – I mostly walk everywhere anyway  – to work, walking the dogs etc but this is what I normally do so can’t really be exercise as such.  I have a treadmill and exercise bike indoors which normally sits their unused and gathering dust but I am going to start using it again.  I have made a start – last week I cycled for 2 lots of 30 minutes and this week so far I have used the treadmill for 30 minutes although I am still feeling the effect of that one in my  biggeous gluteus maximus at the moment!

Number 3  Stop swearing so much! – This comes from the stress of running our own business along with my rapidly greying hair!

Number 4  Be more organised – some hope of that!

Number 5  Take more care with my appearance – I tend to just dress for comfort and practicality.  Most days at work especially this time of year (spring cleaning) I am cleaning something or other involving cleaners and chemicals etc so I tend to wear scruffy clothes.  I never ever wear makeup and my hair just needs some gel stuff rustled through it once a day.  Oh I nearly forgot, my beauty regime consists of slapping some moisturising face cream on once a day!  Hopefully this one will tie in with No 1 and No 2.

How do you think I will do?  Watch this space to find out!!!

Chilly Christmas Collections

The week leading up to Christmas saw Tillie, Rocky and myself help out Annie from Action for Greyhounds on a fundraising collection outside 2 big pet stores in Norwich. As everyone in the UK will know, that week was very cold due to the sudden cold snap we are currently still experiencing.  We were set to do 4 days in total including Christmas Eve.  One of the days I couldn’t manage as the night before coming back from one of the locations, my car was overheating and I had to call Nigel out to sort it out.  Annie however braved the cold for the full 4 days.  It was absolutely freezing standing out in the cold for 5-6 hours but well worth the effort as the good people of Norwich dug deep and donated approx £500 in total which was GREYT!  The hounds were well wrapped up in their coats and snoods and Annie had built a kind of grotto for them complete with beds and hidden gas fire!  Rocky did really well as this was his first meet & greet, he loved meeting all the new people, Tillie of course being an old hand at fund raising.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff people were buying for their pets, they were coming out of the store with armfuls of it.

The top 3 hounds are Tillie in the foreground with Rocky behind and the three legged Gemma (one of Annie’s 8 dogs).  The second picture is Tillie again with Zonda in the foreground (another of Annie’s dogs).  Tillie was being a right show off wearing her festive Chrimbo collar and tassel.

One sewn up, only another dozen to go!

You may remember towards the end of last year I posted about Bags of bits  which were knitted items from my friend Barbara who loves knitting but hats sewing up, well I have finally sewn up, stuffed and completed the first project – Tabitha Twitchet.  I am not satisfied with the head and face, I think she has slightly porcine rather than feline features – I think it maybe the muzzle & the ears aren’t quite right.  This toy is going back to Barbara as she wants to collect all the Beatrix Potter characters.  in between she is still knitting for me though.  I shall start putting together another one tonight, this time it is going to be Jeremy Fisher.

 

Talking of cats, I just thought I would post a pic of my own feline friend Ali.  He is not as good looking as he used to be especially as the years and probably numerous fights have taken there toll.  We estimate he must be at least 20 years old now as he turned up here at home as a stray in 1991 and he was fully grown then but not neutered.  He is a very friendly but vocal cat more so now that he is totally deaf.  He doesn’t go far now, just in the garden and sauntering down the drive to visit our neighbours but in his younger days he would follow me into the village and wait in various gardens until we returned and then jump out at us and then follow us home.  Here he is as close to the fire as he can get!

Mr Wonderful for my own Mr Wonderful

I made Jean Greenhowe’s Mr Wonderful for my son’s 21st birthday which was on 5th January.  I changed the colour of his jacket to purple as this seems to be a popular colour with him.  We celebrated by having a meal out with family.  Makes me feel old knowing I have a child that is a MAN now!

A Greyt Outing

Do I need more storage boxes?

The answer is yes when they look this good!

I just couldn’t resist them!

I was given some of that weird funky fur type yarn, so I combined it with some bog standard acrylic double knit and some very thin bobbly cotton type yarn and crocheted this bag up.  I am no good at lining anything so it will have to stay unlined.

Naughty me – as I have started yet another project before finishing off other things.  I am using up all my little tiny balls of yarn up on another throw/afghan, this time with crochet hexagons all bordered by a dark purple.  Saw the idea over at Attic24 but I have omitted the chain round and just done the last hexagon round straight into the last treble round and also I am not as posh as Lucy as I am only using cheap acrylic yarn, philistine that I am!