Nicest day for ages

Hello, I'm back!  Sorry to be so quiet for so long.  I was on hols for nearly three weeks and just haven't felt up to blogging since I got back.

But today I have had a lovely day.  I flew over to Cuckoo's nest and as well as having a good ole chinwag, she taught me to crochet properly.  I have tried it before and made some little granny squares but had never really got to grips with it, but now I really feel I can get going.  Here's what I did this morning:

I am calling it the banana.  It is yellow because I used yellow wool, but we don't know why it is bendy.  Perhaps I added extra stitches in my enthusiasm.  I've decided to add it to a t-shirt as a collar in a Victorian stylee (I AM joking before you think I am a crazy person).

I haven't had such a nice day since I got back from holiday.  We had an amazing time (post to follow) but since we've been back there has been so much to do.  The plasterer came whilst we were away to do the dreaded music room and the downstairs bathroom, so amongst other stuff,  I've had lots of painting to do.  I've managed to get all the emulsion done, and it is looking pretty good so far:

Don't worry if you are thinking, "pretty good?! What is she on?!"  I know it's still all building-sitey (and the piano is in the middle of the room) but it's so much better than it has ever looked, so it looks good to me!  When we moved in every single room in the house was covered in horrible blown-vinyl textured wallpaper and this room was very very damp and had a corridor down the right-hand-side, so just having smooth walls seems amazing to me!

This weekend Mr D is hopefully going to put in some architrave and skirting so that we can get carpet fitted by Christmas.  The plan is for it to be a music-slash-dining room (the slash is pronounced as per Graham Norton on Radio 2) and I would like to have dinner in there over Christmas - we are going to my mum's on the day but I am thinking of a lovely festive dinner a deux.

In other exciting news, the chimney sweep has been today so I am writing this next to a lovely blazing fire.  A bit extravagant as Mr D is out at a Nanowrimo write-in this evening but you have to have a bit of extravagance sometimes.

When we moved in the wooden mantlepiece/surround was visible but the rest was covered up with a nasty nasty gas fire in front of it.  We had the gas fire removed and were left with a piece of board with a letter-box shaped hole in it - I shone a torch through the hole and saw the lovely cast-iron bit - I was SO happy.  We have the original tiled hearth too - it's a bit cracked but I can't bring myself to replace it, just keep telling myself it's "shabby chic"!  My sister recently moved to a house without an open fire so I have inherited her lovely log baskets and firelighter tin (as well as two ENORMOUS bags of kindling) - lucky me!

Right I must be off - there is crochet to be done!  I have good intentions of blogging more often, fingers crossed!  Lots of love to you all.  xxxx

Sneaky update: Seeing as I am so good at making bendy crochet I gave rippling a try:

Sorry about the dreadful photography but you get the general idea.  Not bad for a first attempt! xx