Thursday 12 April 2012

In family news ...

Ben at Castle Rising
Ben and I spent an enjoyable hour at Castle Rising Castle, just outside Kings Lynn in Norfolk last week.  We were in the area and had dropped Paul off to do a chore and Katie off to go shopping so a quick visit to the castle seemed a good way to spend some time.  It's a 12th Century castle, one of the most famous in England with the remains of a Norman church within the grounds.  Good for exploring, and lovely to witness the views from the top rooms.  Some of the stone carvings were beautiful, as were the remaining gargoles.
Castle Rising

Stone carvings at Castle Rising

It seems we have had no end of problematic situations since Autumn last year with many things breaking and needing replacing or mending.  There's been the laptop, a serious virus on one of the PCs, our external hard drive failing (just managed to salvage music and photos (3 years worth) in time), numerous and continuous car problems (on both cars), potential boiler break-downs needing new parts, a fridge seriously on the blink (and as yet not replaced), health issues and also Jay becoming lame about a month ago (and on box rest for about 12 weeks).  This is just the major stuff, there have been a lot of other little things too, enough for us to wonder exactly when it'll all come to an end, especially as the elastic on the purse strings is more-or-less at full stretching point now. 

We took our family run-around in for an injector replacement earlier this week and it remains in the garage, unable to actually start.  Much scratching of heads from the mechanics until they realised one of the on-board computers had died and needed re-setting.  We have a courtesy car, a very nippy Merc A series which is lovely, but it would be good to know when we'll get our car back.  Our Landrover (the spare car) needs a new piston which, I'm guessing, will cost a pretty penny.  Not sure if it's actually worth repairing or throwing the towel in and starting again.  It is a little gas guzzler and as we haven't really used the horse trailer very much, have been wondering whether to sell that too, to boost our deminishing funds.

Jay seems to be coping quite well on box rest and is coming to the end of 4 weeks as of tomorrow.  He has a treat ball to keep him busy during the day - pushing it around with his nose and retrieving feed pelllets as a result of this.  We've also been stuffing carrots into his haynet as an added interesting bonus!  He'll be getting a visit from the vet on Monday for a trot up to see if his lameness has improved at all - fingers crossed it has of course.  If things progress well, he may be able to go out into a small paddock after another 4 weeks rather than stay couped up indoors.  I know he'd much prefer this, as long as he doesn't decide to go berserk and undo all the healing of course!  I was over-the-moon to find my blog on Hay-net had been picked as blog of the month with Jay winning a lovely new purple haynet for his morning nibble - keeps him happy.
Jay's new haynet

Anyway, on to some better news.  I put together my first Etsy Treasury the other day.  It was great fun finding 16 beautiful items to represent my chosen theme "Sun and blue sky".  I've got the bug now to do many others and will do, when I have a spare hour or two!  Pop over and take a look, and perhaps while you are there have a browse at some others.  It's a great way to find a perfect gift to buy.  Also on the Etsy front, I was chuffed to sell two of my three Easter items - the two little silver charm rabbit brooches shown in my previous post - this brings my Etsy selling total to 3 now!

I have been trying very hard to finish a new Patchy Pockets fabric wallet, and am aiming to get it ready and listed early next week.  It is the final finishing touches that take me the longest but I know it'll be worth it in the end.  I still haven't ventured into adding a zipped area (haven't even sourced a zip yet) as I know it'll take me such a long time to work out the best and neatest way to do it.  Perhaps for my next one.

I volunteered Tilly, our kitten, to take part in a blog interview for Mog's Togs (fabulous collars for cats)!  Sounds a bit strange but it was a laugh typing up Tilly's "answers" to the questions.  You can have a read of it here.  It made me realise how well I know my cats' personalities and was such fun to do that Katie and Ben decided to write interviews for Pepper and Kan - perfectly capturing their personalities as well.
Tilly, Feb 2012

I think that's it for now.  I hope all my readers had or are having a nice Easter break.  Weather's been a bit pants here overall, but the sun has made an appearance once in a while.  Really need to get going with my veggie seed sowing - perhaps next week!

2 comments:

FourHappyBunnies said...

I'm so pleased to have discovered your blog. Although my children are in secondary school and I teach in a primary school, I am so in favour of home schooling. I really wish I had explored this route for my son.
So sorry to hear that you have experienced so many problems, I hope things improve for your family soon.
I look forward to keeping in touch.
Lorraine x

Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

Thanks for dropping by Lorraine. I feel quite guilty that the Home Ed section of my blog is yet to be updated! We have been HEing for about 7 years and the children are getting to the stage where they actually educate themselves, which means there is less for me to chat about in my blog! Lovely to come across a teacher in favour of it. Took me a long time to pluck up the courage to take my children out of primary school, and it's not always an easy path teaching them myself, but I'm pleased with how things have worked out.

Elaine x