Almost Productive!

I haven't been around this week as I've had a migraine, so been laid up in bed for most of the time. I had a text from Nicky on Monday telling me that she was leaving hospital on Tuesday for definite, so she should be home now and hopefully much more comfortable. As I've been poorly, not yet had a chance to talk to her, but I will be doing so next week.

As you can see above I've been productive again and produced yet another LO, from another of the many hundreds of photos from Chelsea Flower Show 2006. This is for the latest digital sketch challenge on UKS. They really are inspiring me, although they appear to be inspiring me to scrap in pink only - my next LO really must be in different colours. I need to check out the digidreamer kit for this month's challenge and see if I can come up with something different.

Of course, scrapping is all very well but that doesn't help me to get Aiden's stuff sorted. I still need to make a christening card and birthday card, but have no inspiration at the moment. As I have run out of time to get presents, and as Andrea and Nigel said they didn't want traditional gifts, I have paid for a gift from gifts4life. I will of course get something else when I get time.

Earlier this week I sent a letter to the Managing Director of Spirit Group expressing my feelings about the way the pub is being run. I found out today that another original member of staff has quit, I am now the only one left who feels the need to complain about things. I assume that the brewery will have discussed the letter with Iain by now so I expect to get the cold shoulder big time tomorrow. I'm not really bothered as I only need to get through 4 hours and then I'm away to watch the England match, and then off on Sunday for Aiden's christening and birthday party.

More Bad News

I've just heard that Cotswald Keepsakes are closing down. This is the 3rd or 4th big shop to do so in the last few months. You may remember back on 5th June I had a bit of a rant on my thoughts about the decline of the 'better' scrapbooking stores when Canny Crafts annouced their closure.

I am particularly upset about CK as they were just down the road from Jo and I was intending to visit them the next time I was staying with her (honest Jo I will arrange something soon, I promise!)

I just hope we won't be losing too many more of our decent suppliers!

Dizzy

Well I'm taking a quick break to check in here. I've been so busy for the last few weeks that I've been out every night for the last 18 days or so. Working tonight at the pub then have a couple of evenings at home to recharge my batteries in time for the weekend, with the next England game (just hope they play it better than they have done so far!) and Aiden's christening and 1st birthday party. Can't believe he is going to be 1 already, it seems like no time since he was newborn .. time certainly does fly once you get old.

So where have I been and what have I been doing? Amongst other things, had a wedding reception last Saturday - Rob & Sue, customers from the pub got married at Fort Amherst. It was a lovely evening, with Sue's daughter singing an excellent version of Leann Rimes 'How Do I Live?' without any backing. Sue looked beautiful in burgundy satin with gold decoration. I went for a nice meal with friends from the coach on Friday night, have visited the cinema, and just generally been in the pub or at friends celebrating one thing or another.

All this partying is taking it's toll though, as Friday proved when shattered from a very late night, and completely stuffed up with hayfever (which seems the worst it's ever been this year) I ended up wearing odd shoes to work. In fact I didn't even notice until I was in work. Fortunately, it was my birkenstocks and I was wearing very long jeans which just about covered them up. So on the left foot was the fetching and very bright nepalese print and on the right pale pink with pale blue flowers *LOL* . I went out at lunchtime to see if I could find a cheap pair of shoes as I was going out straight from work in the evening, but couldn't find any suitable. However, I did manage to find a fab pair of cream satin beaded mules which will go perfectly with my outfit for Aiden's christening so it wasn't a complete bust.

Now all I need is to get a new ironing board so I can do a bit of ironing and I'll be set!

Finally Some Good News!

Just received this e-mail from Nicky's husband:

Dear All,

At last some good news and plenty of it. After a rather bad (understatement!!!) few days last week things are on the change. The unpleasant side effects were, after all, not related to the antibiotics she was on but yet another problem, this however has been resolved with a course steroids with amazing results. After four weeks of not eating she has at last began to eat solid food and more importantly, keep it in!

The lung problem is on the mend, they fitted a chest drain on Monday for 24hrs and drained off over two litres of fluid, no wonder she had trouble breathing! However we still do not know the cause.

The intravenous drugs are reducing and she is now having them as tablets in preparation for coming home. This may be as early as next week (touch wood).

I will keep you posted.

So with any luck she'll be home soon and I can go and visit her.

Gearing up for battle

I said last week that I would hand in my notice at the pub if Iain didn't give me some help on Sundays. I have since found out that this is exactly what he wants me to do. He can't just get rid of me as I have been there for too long, and he can't sack me as I do my job properly and don't make mistakes. Therefore in order to get me to leave he has to make me quit. The easiest way to do this is to annoy me so much that I get fed up and leave.

Of course, now I've found this out it has had the completely opposite effect. Under NO circumstances will I be handing in my notice. Iain will be leaving the pub before I do!

I have, of course, told everyone in the pub about him trying to get me to quit, and I have produced slips with the brewery address, phone no, fax no & email address, which I and my friends are giving to customers so they can complain, and boy it seems they have a lot to complain about ...

Today I was working alone again as Stacey had phoned in sick but it didn't matter. Not sure whether it was me talking to the customers, or the fact that they are fed up with having to wait to be served and not being able to get food, but we had very few customers. At one point there were no more than about 30 people, and that was in the the middle of one of the football games! At this rate there'll be no customers soon so it won't matter if I'm working alone.

Happy Father's Day!

Today is father's day so I want to wish my dad a very happy day (bit late but better late than never!)

I made him a digital mini-album which you can see here. It was made using Shabby Princess' Blues Skies and Mud Pies album kit.

Worrying News

I had another message from Nicky's husband tonight:

Nicky has been in hospital for nine weeks now and this time last week we thought we were over the worst of it, the doctors were even talking about a going home date. However a very minor lung problem last week that we thought would clear with a few breathing exercises has, after two CT scans to confirm, turned into a lung infection. This is one of the worst things that can happen as it can very quickly turn into pneumonia, that means a trip to intensive care. She is receiving intravenous antibiotics which have had some very unpleasant side effects, so I am afraid visiting is off the cards for the time being at Nicky's request.

I really hope she feels better soon and it isn't too long before she's back out of intensive care and ready to accept visitors.

Can you believe that I've done another layout? the digital sketch challenges being run by Jess on UKS are inspiring me to scrap! OK so I was actually supposed to be doing something for Dad as I didn't have a chance to make him a card due to work and other commitments (sorry Dad), but I got sidetracked by Kiefer pictures while I was browsing my photo albums and this just came together so easily.

On a high after the earlier England victory, and having not gone out to watch it, it is nice to have had a little spare time for some crafting. Now I just need to get on and make Dad's present ...

Almost the final straw!

So I get into work yesterday, where the temperature behind the bar must be about 100 degrees only to find that once again I am working on my own (with the doubtful help of Iain). At least this week he didn't open the kitchen, and because he's run the pub into the ground it wasn't anywhere near as busy as it should have been. I am already NOT in a good mood because of being so hot in there, plus it's a full moon AND that time of the month. Having completely failed to help me for an hour or so because he was too busy chatting to Paul, he proceeded to annoy me more by asking if I was leaving straight after work or could I help him out and do an extra couple of hours. Tbh was still knackered from working the England game and 4 hours of working on my own in sweltering temperatures is more than sufficient for 1 day. So he was less than happy when at 4pm I went and sat in the garden with my friends and had a drink, but I really don't care any more. If he hasn't got more staff working with me next Sunday I will be handing in my notice, as I don't see why I should be expected to cope with working alone all the time.

Come on England!

At the pub Iain did a u-turn on staff not wearing England shirts for the football - in fact all signs of the pepsi shirts appear to be gone as no-one was wearing them last night either. Tbh I had already decided I was going to wear mine anyway - I mean, what is the worst he could do? sack me? unlikely when we are so short staffed - and if he had I don't really care. I am sure his days there are numbered, so just hanging on to see what happens next. It was very busy for the game (well I was very busy), although NOT as busy as I would have expected, quite a few of the regulars were missing, and it was very hot behind the bar with no fan still and i'm not looking forward to another hot day tomorrow.

Have to say I was rather underwhelmed by England's performance today. Not sure if they were caught out by the early goal, but they just didn't seem to be the same team that played so well last week. We can only hope that an early victory leads to bigger and better things in the weeks to come.

After work I went to a BBQ party at Phil & Chris' place, but didn't stay too long as I was so tired from working. I came home, had a long hot bath and then settled down to watch 'The Libertine', a film that I had been meaning to watch for ages but hadn't got round to. I thought it was excellent. And of course another fantastic performance by Johnny Depp.

R.I.P. Billy

I just heard that Keili's BIL Billy died this morning. My heart and thoughts go out to all his family and friends, I know he will be sadly missed and fondly remembered.

R.I.P. Billy - the pain is gone now.

Latest Nicky News

Had another e-mail from Nicky's husband last night:

Dear All,
Firstly I must apologise for the lack of news recently, this is because there has been no good news to pass on, it has all been bad or worrying. As most of you read this at work I did not want to spoil your morning coffee and sticky bun!
The last three weeks have not been good for Nicky at all. When they said at work up day that she will suffer ten times as worse as last time they were not wrong. Her new cells started to grow last week and she came out of isolation on Sunday, however she is still unable to eat and hasn't now for two weeks, although they did line feed her for a week. She is on a morphine pump 24/7 and is a rather fetching shade of yellow, ideal summer colour, due to liver problems. Her voice and breathing are now more or less back to normal and she has had a whole day today without being sick. If the "sick bowl relay" was an Olympic sport I would be world champion!
Nick is now up to having visitors, so if anyone would like to go let me know.

I am sad that she has been so ill, even though it was expected. Just hope she's now on her way to recovery and that it doesn't take too long before she's fully fit. I shall be arranging to visit her soon.

My Latest LO

I finally got round to doing another layout - digital of course. To be honest I was originally looking to complete the digidreamer kit challenge in order to get the free add-on kit, but try as I might I just couldn't find a suitable subject for the kit, nor was I really inspired to use it. Instead I found this lovely bright kit (the May daily download) from 3scrapateers which went absolutely perfectly with the picture of the orchid and was done using a sketch provided in the UKS Digital Forum sketch challenge. I am absolutely determined to scrap more of my Chelsea Flower Show pictures this year, having taken so many, but am also hoping to scrap some of the previous years photos too at some point.

Keili asked if i was going to do some real life scrapping, actually using some of my carefully hoarded stash. Have to say I am thinking about, no, really I am ... just need to get past the thinking stage and onto the doing stage. Well, maybe one day ...

Monday Musings

Nice to see a bit of sun for a change. Just hope it lasts for a while as I much prefer wearing Summer clothes to Winter ones. Even makes having to shave my legs bearable.

Went out for a nice meal at the Tiger Moth with Andrea, Tina and Wendy on Saturday. It was a lovely evening but unfortunately I seem to have been paying for it ever since. I started getting bad stomach cramps on Sunday morning just before work (particularly bad as I had to work on my own because Vicky didn’t turn up again) but weren’t too bad as I had nothing to eat and drink until after my shift. But once I had something to eat and drink Oh Boy! did I start suffering. I ended up having an early night, and a day off as I felt even worse this morning. Strangely, Wendy tells me that she has been feeling unwell too, but both Andrea and Tina are right as rain. Even more strange is that we all shared starters and all had the same main courses. So maybe it wasn’t anything to do with the meal at all, but just some bug I happened to pick up. Whatever – I just hope I feel better soon as I REALLY HATE being ill.

Had some sad news Canny Crafts have announced that they are closed as from today. In a touching message on UKS they outlined their reasons for closing, one apparently being that they were being bullied by other suppliers and distributors to raise their prices and stop doing their special offers and sales. My personal view is that scrapbooking and to a lesser extent cardmaking supplies are already far too expensive and more should be done to bring down the price, rather than increasing it. Apparently there is a downturn in the UK craft market. At a time when crafting appears to be more popular than ever I can only assume that it is a mixture of the proliferation of new craft stores and high prices, that are causing the problem. Maybe lower prices would help to refloat the market. It is a shame that with every Tom, Dick and Harriet opening a store that the more established, cheaper and generally better places are closing, in favour of the places with high prices that don’t give such good service.

It's June!

Blimey, June already! Where has the year gone? I know time goes quicker as you get older but this is ridiculous.

Unfortunately the weather is still like Winter rather than Summer - today should have been nice weather, and for most of the country apparently was, but for our neck of the woods it was dull, gray and overcast ... and worse still pretty cold too.

With only a week till the World Cup and then Wimbledon a few weeks later, surely we should be getting some nice weather soon?