The good news is that from today my secondment becomes a permanent post.
The bad news is that I lose my Tuesday mornings off.
The good news is that I won't have to go back to the contact centre.
The bad news is that I will have to take a 1 hour unpaid lunch break.
The good news is that I can use it as knitting time! Yay!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Alpaca love
Last weekend I discovered Appledene Alpacas was having the last open day of the year, and it isn't too far away from me - well as the crow flies anyway, but my SatNav has a very funny idea of shortest and fastest routes, I can tell you. Anyway, after a bit of a scenic drive in which I got mixed up with a large number of bikes doing an 80K cycle ride and had an unwelcome passenger in the form of a bewildered wasp who had been flying along minding his own business when he got scooped in by my open sunroof, I arrived in one piece (and unstung) to find these gorgeous ladies
waiting patiently in a pen, and I was delighted to find I had arrived just as they were about to be scanned - and we were treated to a view on the ultra sound monitor of the little cria that they were carrying.
I do think they have the most beautiful and intelligent faces
And don't you just love the hairstyle?
There were lots more Alpaca in the fields
but no-one wanted to come up and say 'hello' apart from this chap, who quite clearly knows he is handsome.
I shall definitely be going back next year to see the cria when they are born.
Knitting wise, I had a little loss of mojo for a week or two after the show, then suddenly I had the urge when this came up on my knitting calendar and knit it all in one day (then had achy hands for a few days - serves me right)
Wasp Nest Hat
(rather appropriate given my stowaway on the trip to see the alpacas!)
waiting patiently in a pen, and I was delighted to find I had arrived just as they were about to be scanned - and we were treated to a view on the ultra sound monitor of the little cria that they were carrying.
I do think they have the most beautiful and intelligent faces
And don't you just love the hairstyle?
There were lots more Alpaca in the fields
but no-one wanted to come up and say 'hello' apart from this chap, who quite clearly knows he is handsome.
I shall definitely be going back next year to see the cria when they are born.
Knitting wise, I had a little loss of mojo for a week or two after the show, then suddenly I had the urge when this came up on my knitting calendar and knit it all in one day (then had achy hands for a few days - serves me right)
(rather appropriate given my stowaway on the trip to see the alpacas!)
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Too tired to knit
Would you believe I was away all last (bank holiday) weekend and I didn't do a single stitch of knitting! I know, I was amazed myself, but I was SO tired.
I may have mentioned before that DH is deputy editor of a Model Aircraft magazine (BIL is editor) so we had a working weekend.
The British National Model Flying Championships
We were at Barkston Heath RAF base near Grantham, Lincs where literally thousands of model flyers of every discipline attend to compete, watch, camp, socialise, and shop.
(That is only a small part of the traders village in the photo above, and some lovely clouds!). Now the menfolk need to network, photograph and cover the events so this is where DD and I were all weekend
Our 'shop'
It was more of a publicity tent than shop really, though we were selling current and back issues of the magazine and subscriptions plus a few accessories - each day we had to unpack the van and set up the stand, then pack it all away again at the end of the day, then drive off to the Premier Inn nearby where we were staying for a decent shower and a meal- I've camped at the Nats before, twice, and believe me that was two times too many. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for miles to stop the wind, in fact this year only one tent was blown down, but last year there were several!
DD in the corner at the till
We had a prize draw which was very popular and planes made from the free plans in the magazine on display too
We met some lovely people and had some very nice chats, we met some weird people - like the man who had bought a plan for a model plane 20 years ago from the previous company and insisted on showing us every line on it that was even a milimetre out! and we met some strange people too - like the lady who wanted to know why we hadn't bought any Cross Stitch magazines to sell ....um a) this is a model flying event with 95% of the attendees being male, b) we were there for the specific model magazine not the publishing company and c) rather more importantly, the company don't publish one - not that she would believe us!
All in all it was a very enjoyable, though very tiring, weekend.
However the only downside was the facilities - think a handful of portaloos, a warm weekend and thousands of men, some of whom had absolutely no idea of hygiene or aim and must live in a pigsty and you will realise why DD and I decided that it wasn't only the model helicopters that needed to hover!
I may have mentioned before that DH is deputy editor of a Model Aircraft magazine (BIL is editor) so we had a working weekend.
We were at Barkston Heath RAF base near Grantham, Lincs where literally thousands of model flyers of every discipline attend to compete, watch, camp, socialise, and shop.
(That is only a small part of the traders village in the photo above, and some lovely clouds!). Now the menfolk need to network, photograph and cover the events so this is where DD and I were all weekend
It was more of a publicity tent than shop really, though we were selling current and back issues of the magazine and subscriptions plus a few accessories - each day we had to unpack the van and set up the stand, then pack it all away again at the end of the day, then drive off to the Premier Inn nearby where we were staying for a decent shower and a meal- I've camped at the Nats before, twice, and believe me that was two times too many. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for miles to stop the wind, in fact this year only one tent was blown down, but last year there were several!
We had a prize draw which was very popular and planes made from the free plans in the magazine on display too
We met some lovely people and had some very nice chats, we met some weird people - like the man who had bought a plan for a model plane 20 years ago from the previous company and insisted on showing us every line on it that was even a milimetre out! and we met some strange people too - like the lady who wanted to know why we hadn't bought any Cross Stitch magazines to sell ....um a) this is a model flying event with 95% of the attendees being male, b) we were there for the specific model magazine not the publishing company and c) rather more importantly, the company don't publish one - not that she would believe us!
All in all it was a very enjoyable, though very tiring, weekend.
However the only downside was the facilities - think a handful of portaloos, a warm weekend and thousands of men, some of whom had absolutely no idea of hygiene or aim and must live in a pigsty and you will realise why DD and I decided that it wasn't only the model helicopters that needed to hover!
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