Organising Chaos

 It has been quite a week! I started out by taking my dad to the dentist then a care home for a week’s respite visit, then my sister and I took my Mum home from hospital. She is finding it difficult to rest and recuperate as she usually runs around after my Dad. She had become quite stressed and overwhelmed, which I am sure led to the mini-stroke (TIA). I have tried to find ways of simplifying daily life here. I don’t know whether it is because their house is spacious and has lots of cupboards but there seemed to be “stuff” stashed in multiple places. I find that organising things reduces stress so I rounded up all of the meds and first aid supplies, putting them into labelled boxes in one sideboard. I will probably find that everything gets returned to its original place when I leave;)

Although I brought my laptop to try and do some work, my role as a temporary carer takes  an astonishing amount of time, patience and brain-space. I admire anyone who deals with it full time and I feel that people who work with Old People deserve far better wages!

I did go into Norwich one late afternoon for a mooch and met Nella for dinner which was nice. Nessie has been a very good dog and loves sitting on the back of the sofa to watch out for visitors.

The coming week will be interesting as I will be the carer for both parents. My sister and I are trying to persuade my Mum to accept more help and once that is in place I should be able to head home. I think my Dad would like me to hang around as long as possible but I definitely want to be back for Fergus’ birthday in mid December at the latest.

This was Not part of The Plan…

 

Things were ticking along nicely in my workshop - I had to do a couple of customer quilts with binding and I planned to keep working through the Art and Stitch manual. On the side I was posting junk for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

Everything changed mid-week when my sister called to say that it looked like my Mother was having a stroke! I threw some stuff into a bag, booked a one way train ticket and headed to Norfolk with Nessie.

Things were up in the air for a while until we knew how serious the episode had been. It was what is described as a TIA with some other medical issues caused by the strain of being a round-the-clock carer for my dad. My sister and I have been poking our noses in for a while, trying to suggest how to make life easier but this has been a huge wake-up call and some changes will have to be made so my Mum can cope better and stay healthy.

I am a bit scared that I will be “told off” for clearing out the fridge and not rescuing the marmalade under a thick covering of green mould. My sister keeps reminding me that I am not actually 15 any more and am allowed to make some executive decisions. 

Quilting Workout

 

At the start of the year I declared that I would like to be fitter but I confess that I have done nothing about it. However, this week I had quite the quilting workout. Liz and Frances were here with an impressive collection of quilts. We had both machines going doing freehand and computerised quilting, using up more than a full roll of wadding. The results were super:)

The other thing that had me dashing about was having a bit of a clearout - I had some success selling a few things on Facebook Marketplace and Vinted which has spurred me on to get rid of some things that I have been hanging onto. This week I will advertise my vintage sweet-shop scales and the Raeburn cooker which has sat dormant in the garage for years. As a self-confessed junk shop addict, my house, yurt, summerhouse and workshop are all bursting at the seams. 

Sadly, I have to report that Pepper aka Blue Cat has died at the grand old age of almost 20. She was a bit of a weirdo really but a lovable character and we will miss her as we had her for 14 of those years. 

Freya came for the weekend with her boyfriend, George and his border x bearded collie pup, Poppy. Nessie was not too impressed with the visitor who was a bit bumptious for her liking. She is good at putting cats in their place (she thinks) but she preferred the new dog to be outside. The Christmas hols are going to be interesting…

Fireworks and Fluff

Unless I have a list to cross off, I feel as though I have achieved nothing in Life. That list can include walk / brush dog just so I feel I have earned the right to exist in the world. Of course, the Universe could not give a toss whether I make my bed, water my plants or brush my hair…

I completed the experimental non-slip sofa cover which does a pretty good job. The red is nowhere near the shade of the original sofa which needs a really deep treatment of leather cream. Now, I should really make another one for the other sofa but it really was not a thrilling task. The worst thing was the amount of red, fuzzy fluff that got absolutely everywhere.

Despite my Q-matic system occasionally going on strike because I have not yet fitted the new cables, I managed to get 2 customer quilts done. 

The other major task I have set myself without deviating into any other projects is to become an expert on all of the ins and outs of “Art and Stitch”. I have been carefully working my way through the manual, getting more familiar with it all. I still don’t understand why things don’t always work out how the instructions explain it and I freely admit that I find drawing with Beziers (nodes and vectors) bamboozling! With perseverance, I hope to get there in the end.

I can’t believe we are in November already. Freya came for a visit and we went to the popular fireworks display in Banchory. It was muddy and crowded but we got a place right at the front and enjoyed the 30 minute spectacle and large bonfire. Instead of queueing for food there we had hot-dogs and soup at home which was far more civilised.

Spooky and Soggy

Freya and I celebrated Nella’s 20th Birthday with her in Norfolk. As a child, Nella always used to request a different birthday cake every year and this year it was meant to be a pink angel cake (vegan). Like a Bakeoff contestant, I should have practised at home because using egg replacement, an unfamiliar oven with a dodgy thermostat and oddly shallow tins was all a bit much and I ended up having 3 attempts until I had an edible result. The first batch rose, dropped bits all over the oven then when I thought I had switched it off, I had actually turned on the grill so I burnt it!

I wore a frock to take Nella out for dinner but my Dad commented that it was a bit jazzy and was I dressed up as a Vegan?

Freya was busy working remotely most of the week but she had a day off mid-week and we went to a pumpkin farm. 

I had originally planned to drive home in one trip but with more heavy rain forecast, I stayed with Freya overnight in Glasgow. She lives right next to the Botanic Gardens where there is a seasonal event called “Glas-Glow”. Nessie always enjoys a walk around there as she thinks she might catch squirrels. There was a super display of pumpkins there by local school children. I drove the rest of the way home on Sunday but it took ages due to the weather, roadworks and detours. 

I decided to leave my unpacking until Monday morning and after that I had to reorganise my workshop. Even though I had shifted some furniture in case of a flood, Storm Babet caused more water seepage than the last time we had a bad storm. Such events used to be rare but now they seem to be at least an annual event. Fortunately, it had all been mopped up by the time I got home and I just had to have a bit of a tidy-up. 

I have loaded an experimental project onto my quilt frame. I am hoping to make non-slip sofa covers to replace the hideous stretchy nylon ones. I have 2 lovely red leather vintage sofas but keep them covered up so pets can sit on them too;) The “quilt” is red fluffy fabric and rubbery stuff to stop rugs from slipping (no wadding) so it will be interesting to see if that works. 

Storm Chasing

 

I am making myself study Art & Stitch so I know it inside out! Sometimes I find that it is not as co-operative as I would like in that things you think you have done before and learned, don’t always seem to work the same again. 

I planned to make my way to Norfolk on Thursday but there was a storm warning so I decided to set off on Wednesday to try and beat it south. I was not able to leave until after lunch so I only went as far as Glasgow and stayed with Freya. As the weather warnings got more serious, I decided that if I woke up during the night I would just get going. I left Glasgow at 2.00am, not really considering that it would be dark until 7.30am. It was very wet in the north but the roads were pretty empty. I stayed on the west of the UK which took me 2 hours longer than normal but I made it without any difficulties. 

By Friday the storm had spread to parts of England and it was even wet in Norfolk. Freya had booked a train after work as she also wanted to come down for Nella’s birthday week but the train kept stopping for long periods and did not go beyond Peterborough. She had the foresight to book a hotel overnight and continued her journey by bus the next morning. 

Back home in Aberdeenshire the storm kept raging for 3 days straight with a Red, danger of life warning. Roads flooded, trees came down, the power went off, the sea turned foamy. I dread to think how soggy my workshop might be - apparently water is seeping up from under the floor!

Hopefully, the weather will settle down on Sunday and I will take the girls and Nessie to the seaside. I am not sure what else we will get up to this week as Nella has managed to change her Uni course to Textiles and will have a far fuller timetable:) 

A Lot of Stitches

 

After a weekend of torrential rain, the sun finally came back out on Monday and started drying everything out. Luckily, no water flooded into my workshop this time. The river was incredibly high when Nessie and I went for a walk. Instead of being a once in 20 years occurrence, it seems to happen annually now. 

I set myself ups for a busy week, knowing that I am going to Norfolk later this week. I did some online teaching, in person teaching and a couple of customer quilts. 

In a phone conversation with a Bernina Q-matic owner, she mentioned that her 1 year old machine had done 2 million stitches after 16 quilts which I thought sounded pretty high. Out of interest I checked my stitch counter, bearing in mind that I know it has been zeroed in the past and that I actually have another machine. I have had this machine since 2015, when it launched in the UK and it has done more than 51 million stitches! It is probably due for a spa experience;)

I don’t seem to go anywhere interesting most weeks but I did have an “outing” to Asda. I hate Asda because it is so big but it does have a really good “exotic” section of spices and foods from around the world. I stocked up on spices because I wanted to recreate the Art Masala mix that Nadia Hussain made on her latest BBC cooking programme. I made her jalfrezi recipe and it was was superb - almost as good as the fudge doughnuts that a client brought from St Andrews;)

Abandon Ship!

Despite my Q-matic system being a bit temperamental since it needs a new cable, I managed to keep it going and completed some customer quilts. I had to watch it more closely than usual so I was not able to go away and work on anything else, although I did manage to put a few stitches onto the quilted coat back. I have 2 front pieces still to go, depending on how much embellishment I feel it needs.

I decided to take my caravan on a Last Hurrah for the year to head north to Moray for a Scottie Dog meet up. The weather was not forecast to be great but there were signs that it would improve. I am fine with towing but not happy about stopping. I stupidly missed my turn and ended up making a huge detour via Fraserburgh and lots of coastal villages in some scary high winds. As I approached the camping field where I had booked to stay the road was closed so I went on another mystery tour, finally arriving hours after I had planned. It was raining heavily, rained hard all night and was still raining the next morning. 

By now there was an Amber rain warning and water was starting to run off the fields onto the roads. Nessie and I had a walk on the beach at Nairn where we saw intrepid paddle-boarders and we got soaked. 

The Scottie Dog event was cancelled and the weather was worsening so I decided we might as well head home. The caravan had sunk into the field so I was not able to hitch up and I phoned the farmer in a bit of a panic to be told that everyone was too busy to come to my rescue. Eventually, I realised that I could crank the legs up a bit more to raise the tow hitch and we were able to make our escape! The journey home was uneventful and I am glad that we got out when we did because it just continued to lash with rain. There was quite a lot of flooding in Scotland and at home we had to dig a trench outside my workshop to divert the water running off the field. Nessie has decided that she won’t be going out until it dries up a bit which suits me fine as I will enjoy a cosy, lazy Sunday at home:)