In the words of Victor Meldrew - "I don't believe it!"

I went to slimming world last night and stepped on the scales.  In the days gone past I would weigh myself every morning so would know what to expect but have gotten myself out of the habit - however we all have an idea of how things will go - right?   In terms of "naughties" I had that nice Costa lunch last Friday, two sausage rolls and a slice of Ev's cake on Sunday, that steak pie lunch on Tuesday and a sausage roll for lunch on Wednesday - so I was fully expecting to put weight on - stay the same at best.  You could have knocked me down with a feather - the scales said 7 pounds down!! Half a stone in a week with what I have eaten - how is that possible?  Don't get me wrong - I will accept that -it makes 32 pounds in total and I am on track to reach midway by Christmas - BUT?????  Consequently I won slimmer of the week and then won the raffle - I left feeling pretty darn good!


Today, you may recall, the new mattress arrived.  I had to stay in between 8am and 6pm (although, as usual, it arrived around 2pm) so it was a good opportunity to get the bedroom finished and, of course, move the bed.  You may wish to look away at the horrors that were revealed but this is what I found!  There was also another cake pan - I am really not sure how they have ended up there but, like the others, they are now washed and put away properly.  The amount of dust and dog hairs was shocking but more so when you see what the handheld dyson picked up AFTER I had hoovered completely.  The shoes have now found a new home at the bottom of the wardrobe and my plan is to keep the space under the bed completely empty.

So - what about the rest of the day you ask.  Well, apart from pushing the hoover around the house, the first priority was to cut out and prepare the pieces for tomorrow's West Ashby Patchwork class - two different blocks so there's a large number of pieces to organise.  Next on the agenda was to complete four tree decorations - the hand sewing takes the time yet these four have been sitting on the side waiting for completion all week.  Then I thought that I ought to complete one of my homework squares.  The pencil marks that I made were differing sized circles so I did different numbers of threads sewn in French knots but used some negative spaces for the larger circles.  Finally I cut out the different rows of my advent project - this Gail Pan wall hanging for my hall.  You may recall that my plan is complete a row a day - starting with the stitchery to give me more time - during December as a countdown to Christmas. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I can't wait to get started now!

However the big news is that I chose today to switch from Sky to Freesat.  You may recall that it had taken ages to get them to release me and I am on a month's notice which finishes in the next few days.  Although the free sat box promised that I would be set up in a jiffy I figured that if I tried to install it today then I have got time to get any missing cables etc - there are always problems aren't there?  Well it appears not!  From opening the box to throwing the empty container away - having checked that everything was working - and including setting some series link recordings - 20 minutes!  Like the title says - I don't believe it!  The Now TV box came with free movies for a month so I got that up and running as well.  The next step is to get used to this change in viewing but I can certainly get used to not paying £50 every month for Sky!

You see - enforced house arrest waiting for a delivery can achieve many things!  Hey - I even had time to book seats for Trisha, Julia and I to watch Spectre next week!  The dogs were walked, the fire lit, pea and ham soup was made for lunch and now I am going to settle down to "practise" watching tv whilst doing some hand sewing.  Life sure is good!