260 skeins of thread

Whilst looking on Ebay for something else the other day I came across (as you do) something else, 260 skeins of Anchor thread for a very bargain price, I did the maths, including postage it was 11p a skein, compared to my ever increasing it’s prices normal supplier of 80p a skein, I couldn’t resist, both economically and because I’ve always fantasised about buying a very large amount of embroidery floss all at once (you can tell that’s the real reason can’t you?).

It came today, I’m immediately took photos and admired its beauty.

And tried to ignore the fact that the bottom paper label was a bit different to the bottom paper label on the Anchor I normally buy (the label on the floss I normally buy is longer with a barcode on and the colour number printed on instead of stamped on).

To touch though it ‘feels’ ok, I am fussy about my embroidery thread having bought cheap unbranded embroidery thread in the past but this doesn’t feel like the cheap stuff, so I’m pretty happy with my buy!

A shopping trip

I was lucky enough to get a lot of money for my birthday from my very generous, possibly ever so slightly guilty feeling dad (he’d just bought my sister a ticket to Korea), the money has been going on a few things but the bulk of the money was going to go on a new iPad (when the new one gets released, presumably sometime in the spring) BUT my laptop, which to be honest has never been that particularly good (it had a design flaw with the fan that meant it sounded like it was about to take off and in the last few months it has been overheating so badly that it keeps crashing and the multiple crashes has corrupted the operating system to such an extent that everything is now extremely slow, my outlook doesn’t work and I can now no longer download and listen to audiobooks – amongst other random things). So it desperately needed to be chucked out of the window in a fit of pique (honestly, I didn’t really), so I couldn’t in good knowledge go and buy an iPad knowing that at some point, possibly very soon, my laptop would crash (again) and this time despite all the coaxing in the world, never boot up again. Despite the fact that I think if I did have an iPad it would pretty much take over a lot of the functions I use a laptop for, it wouldn’t take over all of them, so I would have still needed to replace my laptop whether I’d just spent a lot of money on an iPad or not. So after another day of not being able to boot up my laptop first thing in the morning, I decided the next day (today) that I was going to give up on the iPad and buy a new laptop, which to be honest is to me about as exciting as buying a new washer-dryer, in fact buying a new washer-dryer would be more exciting, as there would be new functions to play with and presumably when you took the clothes out after it’s finished drying, the clothes would actually be dry (guess which other piece of household electrical equipment I’d also like to replace). So after spending all week (apart from a brief coffee shop visit on the Monday) successfully not going into town, I went into town.

First up was M&S to buy myself some more socks, honestly I am bad, I’m constantly nagging the kids about loosing their socks, but I’m just the same! Then as a consolation to having to buy a (slightly cheaper) laptop instead of an iPad, I treated myself to some old fashioned iPads, i.e. some books, I’ve replenished my to-read pile a bit recently but am still reading so slowly that my newly to-read pile should at this rate last me till summer. I also went to buy a new frying pan, a decent one that had been reduced down from £50 to £12.50, I really do think buying decent cookware (if you can afford it) pays off, we’re still using the saucepan set which we bought when we got married (and was an expensive luxury) and they’re good pans which I could easily see us still using when we’re grandparents, so over the course of time that extra expense has more than paid itself off, but we’ve always bought cheap frying pans and they only last a few years, well hopefully not any more now, unless there was a reason why it was reduced so low.

Not having been in town since Monday, it was my first visit to the shopping centre since a tragic event last Monday when someone killed themselves (I wasn’t there at the time, but my sister and aunt were in the department store (buying frying pans) that joins onto the centre). I of course feel desperately sorry for the person who died and their family but seeing the very obvious extra security there now (and the security was already pretty good) and being reminded that she landed just outside the fast food restaurant which me and Boy Lacer had been sitting outside just the day before, *shudder*. I guess if you’re desperate enough to do something like that you’re not thinking of anyone else and she wouldn’t of thought about the kids outside the restaurant or to be brutally honest the financial consequences of her actions, the (normally very busy) shopping centre had to close for the rest of the day and the now extra security is presumably going to increase commercial rents in the centre in a town where the commercial rents are already amongst the highest in the country, possibly providing that last straw to close businesses as they can’t afford the rent increases and of course I know you could say they’re ‘only’ businesses but businesses are made of people and they’re effected to. But I ‘know’ of course that all that would have been the last thing she was thinking of, very sad.

On a brighter note I then went and bought the laptop, trying very hard not to glance wistfully at the MacBook Airs on the table opposite the laptops, which all looked like bricks in comparison. I think my new laptop (which I actually haven’t even got out the box yet, I pathetically don’t know our wi-fi passcodes and a laptop without internet is pretty useless) is my fourth laptop, each one lasting the typical three years before something goes wrong with it and after a while they all begin to look the same, whereas an iPad or a MacBook, sorry but I wouldn’t be sat here now blogging, I’d be stroking my new toy lovingly (yes I appear to have turned into a die hard Apple geek and I still can’t find my iPhone). Anyway for the record I bought a new HP, despite vowing I was never going to buy an HP again (the laptop with the fan problem was an HP, the fan problem was sent off to be repaired by the way and the fault re-occured after a month) but it was the closest thing to having the specs I wanted for my budget, so lets hope HP have been working on their fan design over the last three years.

A small trip

I am now a term and two days into the life of a stay at home mum where both kids are at school but it feels with these last two days that that life is only just beginning as Christmas term was so taken up with birthdays (the joys of having two Autumn born babies) closely followed by Christmas and all that entailed, as well as a dance show on top, so things weren’t exactly normal. Now things are quieter, my tuition work is picking up (peak period for me is January to May and considering we’re only just out of the holidays things are beginning to look really good on that front, specially if I continue to pick up clients) and I’m thinking about designs I can work on for the very bare and almost empty shop, I also have some other work I am very behind on and that’s not even including the fact that I’ve only just barely started Girl Lacer’s hand made Christmas present *ahem*. And don’t think I have forgotten about the writing (says she who hasn’t written since July), I still have that piece that I had almost finished editing and even though I haven’t even opened it since July I am having a bit of a crisis of confidence about it at the moment but that will get faced, it’s just that there’s only so much me and right now I have to concentrate on the work where I will either definitely get paid (the tuition work) or might get paid (the embroidery work), I know I might get paid for the writing to but I know which is the most likely at the moment. Still, I may not be writing right now but at least after an awful reading dry spell I’m getting back into books in a big way and the first step of being a writer is of course reading lots and I’ve got a couple new plots bubbling away in my head to, although that can be a problem with me as I find I have too many plots and absolutely no idea which one really is the best one (which is probably behind my crisis of confidence with my work-in-progress I should be editing, as I have come so far with it, it is nearly ready and actually I think the plot may be, well, ummm, well put it this way, it’s a plot I thought up around six years ago (as it took me that long to write the thing) and I think I might six years later be far better at thinking up more decent plots now, oh well).

Anyway I’m going majorly off topic, as I wrote above it only feels like now life with both kids at school is getting more like it should be with no Christmas looming (*shudder*), so I feel more confident that I can do some of the things I would have liked to have done last term but never got the time to do and one of those things was taking the occasional trip into central London, which is what I did today, I can’t believe I didn’t do that at all last term. I had some birthday money I’d set aside for fabric and having exhausted my local John Lewis I decided to go to the fabric equivalent of a sweet shop, The Cloth House (which is on Berwick Street, which is just off Oxford Street). I had planned on buying some fabric for clothes (whereas in the old days I would have just of bought the clothes straight off with birthday money), so I was quite surprised that as lovely as The Cloth House is, I didn’t see any fabric I fancied for clothes except for a lovely white cotton linen blend which I’d used before and I’d remembered at the time I was using it (for a much smaller project), thinking how lovely it would be for a tunic top, so I took the roll of that up to the cutting table, along with five other rolls of printed cotton khadi, some of which I’d also purchased before. Unfortunately the white cotton linen blend had a couple of small stains on it, so I didn’t get that in the end, but I did get the cotton khadi and on complete impulse (with the money I would have spent on the cotton linen blend) I bought a wicker basket which The Cloth House was also selling. I could just see it out of the corner of my eye from the cutting table and I knew it was just what I was after (I had been thinking I was going to need a trug or something similar to transport veg back from the allotment – I am getting so ahead of myself, I haven’t even planted it yet – but I thought a basket instead would be perfect and could be used for other things in the way a trug could not). So drum roll, here’s the cotton khadi and the basket.

They didn’t have a bag big enough for the basket so I had to carry that around as is for the rest of the day and what a pleasure it was, the handle is smooth to hold and the whole thing has a nice reassuring weight which made me find myself swinging it ever so slightly in a jaunty way, as if I were Little Red Riding Hood off to meet the wolf. Why on earth did we all stop using baskets? Well I suppose it’s not exactly something you could put your wallet and phone in!

I’d bought the khadi after being slightly stumped at not finding any fabrics I wanted to make clothes out of, with the rough idea I’d use the khadi for some patchwork cushions (with big large pieces to show off the gorgeous designs) but it occurred to me later on the tube back home that the fabric was just perfect for another project I had been planning for this year, this project also happens to be patchwork but is on a much bigger scale (but the khadi I’ve just bought should be enough), so I can’t wait to start now, which is good as since Christmas I’ve been in an embroidery lull (yes this new big project involves embroidery) and I’ve been actually spending my evenings knitting!

After The Cloth House there was really no point in me going home yet, so as I was sort of walking past I did pop into Liberty to see their haberdashery department which I had heard was new and improved, well I thought it looked pretty much the same as it did when I saw it last time. I then, as I had my camera with me, I had planned on taking some pictures by the Thames but it was raining too much, hopped onto the tube and went to the V&A instead. Not for long mind you but with plenty of time to visit the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, which I have a very soft spot for. I’ve visited those particular galleries so often now that some of their pieces almost feel like old friends, such as the fresco where if you stand at just the right distance from it you feel as if you’re about to enter a medieval jousting scene or there’s the bust that looks a little like Captain Picard and then there’s always the joy of finding new things which I’d missed before like The Gloucester Candlestick (am I wrong in thinking that candlestick is mentioned quite a lot in The Children’s Book?) and a blood thirsty tapestry complete with one soldier completely slicing though another soldier’s head, whilst on the other side of the tapestry it looks like there are two soldiers passing the time of day. Anyway I didn’t take that many photos (some of the stuff I had already taken photos of and others I knew a photo would just not be the same) but I did take some, more to practice my composition skills if anything.

I can’t resist the courtyard garden even when it’s raining, but at the point I took this photo it was too wet to photo the current key feature . . .

I bizarrely love this fountain head and have attempted to photograph is before but not to much success, so I was very pleased with how my new camera handled it.

Window shutters from Germany.

The chandelier above the main entrance foyer.

Then luckily it had stopped raining, so quickly back into the courtyard to photograph the Magic Lantern (which was a light with moths fluttering around).

Finally, my new camera!

Ok, it’s not strictly speaking my birthday yet but I had almost gathered together enough money by Christmas Day for my new camera, so I ordered it anyway. It’s a Fujifilm FinePix S1800 (and actually going into Amazon just now to get the link and the photo I see it’s gone up a bit in price since I ordered it, so I’m doubly glad I didn’t wait till my birthday now!).

My last camera, which I lost on the way home from Legoland in October (*sob*) was a ‘good’ point and shoot Cybershot and it did take some nice photos but it was getting on a bit, the white balance was getting a bit flaky and it was developing some intermittent problems with the focus, so although I was gutted (and blinking annoyed with myself) about loosing my camera (there had been some really nice photos of the kids I’d taken at Legoland for a start that obviously I never had a chance to take off the camera), the level of being gutted was slightly tempered with the sneaking knowledge that I was probably approaching the time of needing a new camera anyway, it’s just the having to beg and borrow other people’s cameras for the few months between October and now wasn’t good.

Anyway as good as my old Cybershot was (and I was a big fan of Cybershots, this one had been my third), my new camera seems so much more ‘grown up’, it’s much bigger and heavier for a start and the zoom is amazing! The macro function (which is the most important function for me on a camera, not just for embroidery photos but because I love taking macros of stuff when out and about) is amazing to. Anyway, the camera arrived yesterday and we had planned a family walk in the park today so that I could take some photos and have a play but Boy Lacer is currently on the tail end of another round of de-compaction and the sounds his stomach was making, we did not want to have to take him out of the house unnecessarily! So instead as I needed to go to the supermarket anyway I walked the slightly long way round (only a few minutes longer really) and took my camera with me. I now present the highlights of my journey to the supermarket (in order of taking the photos).

The first photo I took outside (I told you I liked macros) and this happens to be my favourite, I happen to be very fond of this fence (I may be wrong but from what I’ve heard I think this fence may be listed) and I walk past it everyday and I love the flakiness of the paint against the bright yellow-green of the lichens (someone is going to tell me now that’s not lichen). The fence also gets some fantastic spider webs on it in the autumn.

Another macro, so nice to see flowers budding in December.

I like how some of the boats jut out at you from the photo.

I had to include a photo of the actual river, although it can be hard to find new ways of taking photos of a stretch of river I’ve photographed so many times before. This photo makes the Thames look a lot narrower than it actually is, the ‘bank’ on the left hand side of the photo is actually a tiny island in the middle of the river. Needless to say I can’t wait for some bright light to take photos in, but I don’t think the camera did too badly.

Experimenting with the zoom now (no way would I get too close to those things, yuck!), I think I like the reflection on the water behind them more than the geese themselves.

Another zoom shot, I like how this time the river looks almost white behind the seagull.

A shot I’ve taken a lot of times before but it is one of my favourite views, I always think there’s something almost Narnia-ish about having a bandstand amongst the trees.

Hopefully from now on photos of my crafting and my cooking will look a little better!

Christmas 2010

I hope everyone is having / has had a lovely holiday day. Our Christmas has been very quiet, the kids woke at the relatively late time of 5.55am and after yelling at the top of their voices, demanding to know what time it was, as we had drilled them no opening presents till 6am but although they can both, to their own degrees tell the time, unfortunately since changing their night light they can’t actually see the clock in their room. Anyway, they both bought their stockings into our bedroom and opened their stocking presents from Santa. Santa had to be quite practical this year and poor Boy Lacer, the first few presents he drew out were all clothes related (pyjamas, a cardigan etc), he was beginning to look quite worried, but there were books and drawing stuff to, as well as a few silly things. Boy Lacer had been telling Santa at every opportunity that he wanted a toy Gruffalo, so he definitely looked a bit crestfallen when the last present he pulled out of the stocking was Gruffalo related, but was only a tiny notepad, no ‘proper’ Gruffalo at all. So when we went into the living room to open the tree presents, when he opened a much larger package that turned out to be an actual (cuddly) Gruffalo the look of pleasure and relief on his face was priceless.

Both kids got a lot of toys from Santa and everyone else, but what did they do after they finished opening all their presents? Boy Lacer went on the computer to play his beloved Rollercoaster Tycoon (which he’s been playing non-stop for over a month now) and Girl Lacer played The Sims on her daddy’s iPhone. Toys I think they particularly liked though were for Boy Lacer (apart from the Gruffalo) a moon sand construction kit and the Elefun game (a game where you have to catch butterflies blown out of an elephant’s trunk) and Girl Lacer liked her Jolina Ballerina doll and the Dance on Broadway wii game (which both me and Boy Lacer also love, I think it’s great fun). Boy Lacer also had a wii game, the game based on Total Wipeout, which used to be Boy Lacer’s absolute obsession, but isn’t so much now, but that game was a little disappointing, as despite having a rating of 3+ we found some of the actions required were a little too tough.

As usual with one of the hazards of being a grown-up I didn’t get many Christmas presents, although my dad gave me some lovely netted grow tunnels for the allotment (which will be great to protect my salads etc) and Girl Lacer made me a lovely brooch, with only a little help from her dad.

and she had wrapped it up in lovely, beautifully coloured in wrapping paper that she had made herself. Most of my other Christmas presents were money and that combined with some birthday money and I’ve already ordered my new camera, which should come next week, I can’t wait! Unfortunately only after  ordered the camera (from Amazon) did I check my e-mail to discover that Amazon only an hour earlier had sent me a voucher and despite trying I couldn’t go back into my order and amend payment to include the voucher, so a slap forehead moment for not checking my e-mail first, but I’ve been so desperate for that camera (it’s a lot nicer model than the one I lost). Anyway, with an Amazon voucher metaphorically burning a hole in my e-mail account, I of course went straight back in and ordered something else to; the two Nigel Slater Tender books (Tender II is on at a bargain price at the moment) and you know what, if I had put that voucher on my camera purchase, meaning I had £25 spare, chances are I would have spent that money on books anyway and I have been desperate for the Tender books for a long time but their price has always put me off. So two reasons to eagerly await the postie next week!

Christmas dinner was extremely low key, the big dish for me, the one that is always worth doing properly and taking my time over was the roast potatoes, absolutely no short cuts there, I love roast potatoes and normally following Nigella’s recipe works a treat, but the big highlight, I burnt them, they weren’t roast potatoes, they were lumps of coal! I only make them once a year to! No idea what went wrong, I’ve made the same recipe so many times before with no problem, I can only assume that maybe the thermostat on my very old oven is going. The only other thing I made that showed even the slightest bit of not taking it straight out of a packet, was the Christmas pudding, which was, wait for it, jelly. I used individual moulds and inspired by Kirstie and Phil added a few pick and mix type sweets and inspired by my mum (jelly was her speciality) made it two tone, but the moulds which where absolutely not meant to stick, stuck, so they were slightly misshapen jellies, quite liked the added chew of the sweets though!

 

Decent photos will hopefully return to this blog (if they were ever here) next week

Tonight is of course cold meat, warm bread, pickles, beer, Doctor Who, Poirot and if we can fit the time in more episodes of Lost (the whole of the last series was broadcast on Sky Christmas Eve – Christmas Day) so we have them on our DVR, we already watched about 4 of them last night. Will just be glad to put my feet up.

In praise of 0C, ‘quick’ shopping with the kids and Neil Gaiman’s grumpy cat

I’m just back from a quick emergency run to the supermarket for nappies (and the ingredients to make Nigella’s cranberry studded mincemeat and some fresh food, because we’ve been kind of missing that around here recently), it was cold (I walk everywhere as I don’t drive) but to paraphrase Neil Gaiman badly, ‘when it’s very cold you start to look forward to 0C as being positively balmy’. He didn’t say that exactly, but I got the gist of it I think, of course it’s not as cold here in London as it is where ever Neil Gaiman lives over in the States, but the temperatures have been extreme (for London) recently, so to go out, at night, even with snow still on the ground and not feel ice bitten to the core, is rather nice. So I have a new found appreciation for 0C.

The Christmas holidays have started here, yesterday me and the kids went shopping, it was meant to be a quick trip, just the bank to pay in a cheque, McDs and the supermarket (where I forgot the nappies, hence the trip out tonight) but I forgot after just a term of being able to go out shopping whenever I want to (in school hours) and to be able to put on my coat, pick up my bag and just go and even better, if I want to, be back within an hour, that trying to get my kids to go shopping is like extracting teeth and trying to get my kids to go home again is even worse. So we went to the bank, went to McDs, went to see the Christmas bears (that move and sing) and then for the first ever Christmas Girl Lacer’s reading was good enough to be able to read the sign that is there every year with the Christmas bears ‘Visit Santa on the Third Floor’ (I had, ahem, neglected to tell the kids about this opportunity in previous years as they always visit Santa at the school fair and I think one visit to Santa a year is enough) but now Girl Lacer could read the sign, of course she wanted to go, so we went, with me in Super Scrooge mode “I’m not paying for a present, you can just go and say hello and if there’s a queue, we’re not queuing”. We get to the third floor, Santa’s domain is set down a corridor, that looks remarkably free of queue, so we enter through the doorway, turn a corner and of course, there’s the long queue, but we queue up anyway (because I’m soft really and not that Scrooge like) and we queue for a long time. Once we got to see Santa it was quite good, the school certainly doesn’t have animatronic deer (there is only so much you can do with Swedish tank camouflage netting, as good as it is, which is what the school uses for its grotto). Boy Lacer reiterated that he wanted (and he was quite specific about the toy bit as opposed to a real one) a toy Gruffalo, I think Santa’s organised enough for that one.

So after all that today was a pyjama day and I’ve been hand-quilting a quilt for Boy Lacer, so if I have to do running stitch in green embroidery thread around another patchwork square again I will scream, oh dear I have four more squares to do. I should however finish it tonight and good daylight permitting be able to blog about it tomorrow. It’s a Christmas present from me (as opposed to Santa) to Boy Lacer (Boy Lacer was banned from the bedroom whilst I was quilting, not that that particularly bothered him as he’s been glued to Rollercoaster Tycoon all day), but I can blog about it as Boy Lacer doesn’t read this blog. He is however quite a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s blog, as he likes Neil Gaiman’s pet pictures, he was looking at pictures of Neil Gaiman’s cats the other day and pointed to one and I explained (from what I had just read) that the particular cat Boy Lacer was looking at was a very grumpy cat, to which Boy Lacer leapt straight up and ran to his collection of books, as Boy Lacer also has a book about a grumpy cat. I think Boy Lacer thinks there is an answer to every problem you can think of, in a book, somewhere and he may well be right, in the case of Boy Lacer’s book about a grumpy cat, the grumpy cat is followed around by a pesky kitten who he then has to rescue and they become friends and the grumpy cat isn’t so grumpy any more. Boy Lacer then looked from book back to the computer screen and the picture of Neil Gaiman’s grumpy cat and mumbled something about the grumpy cat on the computer needed to go and find a kitten. Which leads me to the final thing I’m going to ramble on about tonight and it was actually something retweeted by Neil Gaiman today*, you see I am pretty sure Boy Lacer’s grumpy cat book was a Booktrust book, it’s one of both kids’ favourite stories and even if I’m wrong and the grumpy cat book wasn’t a Booktrust book (although I am 95% sure it was), the kids have a number of other Booktrust books I know for sure were Booktrust books, in particular ‘You Choose’ and ‘Shark in a Park’ that they adore just as much. You Choose, I have to admit, I hate that book because I’ve had to read it so often but it has the fairly unique format of asking the child on each page questions like ‘what house would you live in?’ or ‘what would you eat?’ and the reader gets to chose from a page crammed full of Nick Sharratt illustrations and Boy Lacer and Girl Lacer love it and from the number of well worn copies I’ve seen grasped eagerly in the mitts of other people’s children, any small child loves that book. Just as I defy any small child not to love another Nick Sharratt illustrated book, the Shark in a Park, I’d swear both my kids could recite that book off my heart and it was such a popular book the children even performed it at nursery when Boy Lacer was there, complete with hand painted scenery to match the book, painted by one of the mums. So there’s an example of two, very probably three well loved books, books loved not just by my children but I think any children who get’s their hands on them and all thanks to Booktrust for distributing them to children for free. So I was very sad to see the retweet from Neil Gaiman this morning from Booktrust saying that the Government had cut funding to Booktrust by 100% in England, once again it feels like nothing is safe or sacred. Ok, with my kids they drown in books to be honest, they have literal book avalanches in their room, so the Booktrust Bookstart scheme is not particularly aimed at them (and they’re now both too old for it anyway). We are not made of money (far from it), but I had a very bookish childhood and it was instinctive for me to prioritise books for my children but what about all the children where the Booktrust books were very possibly some of the very few books they were getting that they could call their own (as opposed to books from schools and libraries and hey the government is closing down libraries to), what about them? Fair enough, I realise money is tight but instead of cutting all the money just like that, what about a reduction so that Booktrust are still able to target the families that really need those books? Books are, I’m not even sure I can put down in words how important books are, specially in the hands of small children that are just getting introduced to the wonderful, useful, mind expanding world that is books, books are just vital. It may start with how to make a grumpy cat less grumpy but it’s a journey that once started and started well, goes on and on and on and thanks to the government’s actions, that may just be for some children a journey that is cut short (and then how much money is the government going to have to spend later trying to boost attainment in the now older child? It doesn’t make sense, like a lot of what the government does).

*Disclaimer – I do not cyberstalk Neil Gaiman.

Be ‘careful’ who you name your children after

When I was pregnant with Girl Lacer finding a name for her was proving quite difficult, I didn’t have any issues with thinking up names (and I was particularly fond of the name Kate) but every time I suggested a name to Mr. Lacer he’d go “No” and was he thinking up any names himself? Of course not. At the same time we were just getting into a new favourite TV series, where the main character, a girl, was rather good at defending herself with a swift kick and as Girl Lacer was already proving to have a swift kick in the womb and as the heroine’s name was unusual (in this country, it’s use as a girl’s name is more common in the US) and to us sounded as no nonsense as the daughter we wanted our baby to grow up to be, when I suggested that name, it was the one name where Mr. Lacer said yes. As Girl Lacer has gone from baby to girl, she’s shown that she has shared certain characteristics with her namesake, she’s feisty and no nonsense (just like the TV heroine we enjoyed watching), which is exactly what we wished for, but things took a decidedly this is getting a little too familiar turn today as Girl Lacer donned the final bit of her costume for her dress rehearsal, you see in one of the early episodes of the TV series we liked so much we named our daughter after the main character, the heroine, who has just realised the organisation she works for isn’t really the CIA, is on the run and she’s in disguise in a bright pink wig. Today Girl Lacer may not have just discovered she’s been working for a dodgy secret organisation and she’s not on the run, but she is dressed up (including the wig) as this person.

Like a say, the pink wig thing, a little too uncanny.

~

In other news I may have got just a tiny bit into the Christmas spirit today and I blame it all on two men wearing nothing but swimming trunks and sun block and a mulled wine truffle. After I had left Girl Lacer to her pink wig wearing I went into town to do a final bit of Christmas shopping; Boy Lacer had luckily told me what he had written in his letter to Father Christmas at school (which is good because from experience this letter to Father Christmas normally comes home in January, which resulted in one year a slightly puzzled Girl Lacer wondering why she hadn’t got the Barbie she’d asked Father Christmas for). Boy Lacer had told me he had asked for a Gruffalo, to which I replied “What? A real one?”, to which he told me not to be silly. So although I had actually already bought all his Christmas presents, I couldn’t resist, as he was convinced he was going to get one, I was going to get just a small one but the big ones were so cuddly and as Boy Lacer adores all things Gruffalo, I couldn’t resist (the teachers at school have been bribing him with goes on the Gruffalo board game if he goes to the toilet). On the way up the escalator to the shop that sold the Gruffalos (a double height escalator that goes straight from the ground floor to the second floor), something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, the shop back on the ground floor that had been behind boards for weeks seemed to be finally open, well as open as loud music blaring out from it and two rather handsome young men wearing nothing but swim shorts and sun block on their noses suggested. I think pretty much every woman on the escalator had noticed these young men because there was quite a lot of giggling, drool might have been involved to. Of course loud music and young scantily clad men outside tells anyone familiar with the brand that the shop opening was an Abercrombie and Fitch spin off. After I had bought the Gruffalo and the shop assistant had wrestled it into a bag for me, I of course had to go downstairs again to see if the new shop was actually open, around the shop were little groups of, yes women, egging each other on to go and see if this strange shop (it looks literally like someone’s house) was actually open, as it looked pretty dark and there was lots of polite giggling when the two handsome young men told everyone it would be open on Thursday, hmmm I wonder what I’m doing on Thursday?

Anyway after all that it left me with just enough time to go and check out another new sweet shop that I had noticed had just opened in town when I had been in town with Mr. Lacer earlier that week (if I had been on my own I would have of course made a bee line straight for it but as I’d been with Mr. Lacer at the time I restrained myself). Two new sweet shops have opened in town recently (along with the Abercrombie and Fitch spin off), so shops may be closing left, right and centre but retailers are obviously still banking we need sugar and nice shop assistants to look at. This new sweet shop was a Hotel Chocolat, where they let me try a very delicious mulled wine truffle and then told me it was out of stock, ah the cruelty!