We went to the Supreme Cat Show at the NEC in Birmingham on Saturday. Luke had a fabulous time. He met the artist who draws Simon's Cat and got a book with his name and an original sketch in it from the artist. Luke was delighted and has laughed and laughed over this book.


We saw lots of different types of cats, as you'd expect. Some were more laid back than others:



some had definate signs of breeding (don't want to write in breeding in case the cat police come after me .... oops!):



and some just wanted to play (this was my favourite little cat):



Luke tried out the human sized scratching post:


and then we were well catted out. We all thought that Sparky was much more show cat than any we saw there.

I've almost finished the alphabet on Bent Creeks Blackbird Sampler. Then I get to do the 'good' bits of blackbird, house and pumpkin!

I've actually finished some cross stitch. This is 'Softly Spring' from Shepherd's Bush. I got the chart ages ago in a stack of old charts off ebay and thats the first I'd heard of Shepherd's Bush. Now I adore them. Obviously someone had used the threads etc that came with this kit so I made a DMC conversion using variations for shading. Its brighter than ones I've seen online but I adore it. I dyed the linen with coffee and its lovely and old looking.




I've also purchased some other Shepherd's Hill kits on ebay - Shepherd's Hill for me and Shepherd's Earth for Mum for Xmas. I adore the little sheep on top of Shepherd's Hill!



I'm currently stitching Blackbird Sampler by Bent Creek. I'm using the DMC threads but have mixed some (1 strand each of 2 different colours) to make the colour more like the original. You can see my progress so far below. I'm enjoying the speciality stitches. Rice stitch is just so dense though, isn't it?

And here below are the threads I've bought to do Blackbird Designs Awake the Dawning Day (chart on order from USA as we speak) and Bittersweet Moon (chart on order from UK as we speak). I'll use DMC for the colours I didn't buy.

I've been working 2 x 4 hour days per week for past 2 weeks and really struggling. The pain and exhaustion the day after my shift has been really disabling. I finally got to see a Dr at the Chronic Fatigue clinic yesterday though and he said I should cut down to 2 x 3 hour shifts twice a week with a half hour break for at least 3 weeks before increasing by an hour. I'm hoping my manager will be patient enough to stick with it. It makes me feel really despondant seeing how disabled I am compared to the other nurses. Part of me thinks that this improvement in my health won't last anyhow and it all seems a bit pointless struggling along to work but I love it when I am there and need to just keep plugging along.

I have had a 6 day reprieve from migraines which was wonderful but paid for it overnight with an absolute corker of a headache. So not much stitching got done today.

We're off to the National Cat Show on Saturday in Birmingham. We're taking Luke and his cousins. Can't wait to see all the p'ed off Ragdolls. Mike and I went years ago. Never seen anything like it. There are some real cat fanatics there with their babies. The kids are going to love it.

I made it back to work yesterday. I am just so pleased to be well enough to go back.
We had a wonderful couple of days in York. I loved it and really want to go back but without the non-shopping male part of the family.

The Merchant Adventurer's Hall

a real hornbook (they also had a horn window)

unfortunately they didn't sell these in the gift shop

rats ahoy!

I've made a little scissor fob as I kept losing my scissors and it was driving me nuts. Its based on a Bent Creek halloween design Pumpkin on the Hill - I never got round to stitching it for this year so put the Blackbird on a green Shepherds Bush inspired hill instead. Its stuffed with some wool roving so I can use it as a needle park too:



Molly has finally decided to live downstairs after 5 yrs of self imposed isolation upstairs. She is not afraid of the dog at all and spends most of her time asleep on the window sill. The living room looks like a knackers yard now though with all these pets lying round unconscious:



Luke came home from school delighted yesterday as he has been put into the top group in his class for literacy. This is such a big improvement for him and he is so pleased with himself.