Camp Sparkle

The knife saga is over, sadly, not with help by Amazon. In the end, yesterday, we just drove to the outlet mall again and bought the equivalent quality knives from the kitchen shop there. It did cost a little more than the Amazon prices, but both knives also come guaranteed for 25 years and at least they're bought as it was getting a little close to Christmas for comfort.

We did our usual thing of going an hour early, planning to go for a Costa while waiting for the shops to open at 10. Only to find out the Sunday hours are different, and you couldn't even get to any of the shops, including the food ones, as the gates to the actual mall were all shut. But, you could go into the McDonalds at the end, so I had a McMuffin and coffee and watched the craft and food stalls set up.

There were so many tempting stalls, including one selling bath stuff. I'm a sucker for soap, whipped soaps etc, so after checking out the smells I gave James a big hint such stuff would be nice to receive, and he sent me on my way as he made a surprise purchase. Which he then left next to the Christmas tree at home in an open paper bag.

We may also have come home with some cakes, which were enjoyed last night, with more left for tea later.

Saturday it was the delivery day for the pieces James has been working on. Thankfully, the man who'd commissioned the pieces loved them. James had also created a freebie for him, a raccoon on a live piece of wood. I think that's the technical term anyway, it's wood which still has bark attached at the sides. The man sat stroking that piece -- the other two are a bit big to hold onto -- and it was obvious he was genuinely happy with everything, which was such a relief.

After delivering those, we drove up to Seahouses, taking the coastal route and stopping off in some small villages to have a mooch and hot coffees. It was so nice to do that, normally those places are packed in the summer, but in winter it was easy to look around and actually see stuff, including a red phone box that had been turned into a Christmas decorated tiny library.

In Seahouses itself, we got to pose with a giant plastic polar bear, and a lovely lady offered to take a photo of both of us together You can also see photos of the pieces James delivered if you're interested, just click the arrows to see all the photos. No photo of the raccoon piece, though, I had to take a screengrab from a video from that, so that's behind the cut. With bonus standing in front of our Christmas tree too, as I know turlough likes to laugh at it every year *g* ( behind here )

I have mail! Thank you dine for the card, and turlough and pensnest for the parcels. You're all fabulous ♥

Class broke up early for Christmas on Wednesday, as Rosie is off on a belated honeymoon. We ended with a talk about staying on track over the festive season, which basically came down to, don't go mad, but don't restrict yourself either, if you want that tasty food/chocolate etc, eat it, but always try for that balance. Which seems fair enough to me.

Then yesterday, James had a hospital appointment. As usual, to ensure we get a parking spot, we went early before heading down to the hospital restaurant for breakfast. Only to miss, by seconds, being filmed live by the BBC cameras as they were reporting on the flu outbreak that meant compulsory mask wearing in the hospital. We were warned that filming was about to start as we walked inside, and I don't think I've ever hurried off so fast.

The appointment itself went okay, I'll cut for talk about bones and a potential op for James ( here )

Tuesday night, the meal with Pauline and my brother and his family went well. The food was tasty and the company good, but the restaurant had lost our menu choices, though the deputy manager remembered us taking them in, so we had to recreate those. Then, they tried to charge us full price without the deposit taken off the bill, so organisation wasn't their strong point that night.

Tomorrow, James is delivering two commissions he's done for a man who lives about an hour north of us. They're big pieces, two foot square for each, and James has worked so incredibly hard on them so I hope the man likes them. The guy is paying petrol for delivery as posting would have been a huge amount, and has also paid quite a lot for the work on top, so this is a big exchange. I really hope it goes well.