Friendly Flamingo

It's been a little while since my last post, I'm afraid. I haven't really felt I had much of interest to blog about - not that I haven't been busy... Oh, deary me - no. Quite the opposite, in fact.

For example, I am fast developing a square arse due to the number of hours I'm putting into the cross stitch. There's a big, me-shaped dent on the sofa under the lamp.

I hadn't really thought how long it would take me to stitch this pattern. I was so excited at having the shiny new software, that I launched straight into making a humungous pattern from the first photo I could lay my hands on. It seems it might take me a long time. Not much has been done on it since I went back to work after the Christmas break - but happily I have another 2 weeks off work now (I'm using up my annual leave from the old job before starting the new job).

There are many exciting things due to happen in the next fortnight, including my first Japanese lesson, a long weekend in Malaga, and preparing the house for the damp-proofing man to come and make my house watertight. I suspect there may also be some time for cross stitch during this time, so I hope to show you some progress by February.

In a recent post I lamented the fact that I can't allow myself to get any other little projects started until I finish the cross stitch beast.

Well, "Pish!", say I. I can't be excpected to plod through a mammoth project like that without some little fripperies to keep me amused and entertained!

So, I covered my diary. It was a miserable, black leatherette diary with "Unison" emblazoned across the cover. It was an ugly diary. The sight of it made me sad and un-inclined to go to any of the appointmets within its miserable plastic covers. (I don't know whether un-inclined is a real and valid word, but I'm using it anyway.)

Here is my new, pretty diary. It's covered in red and cream floral cotton, and is tied up with a purple embroidered pink ribbon, which attaches around a button and an embroidered white felt flower. I replaced the dreary grey ribbon bookmark with a cheery pink one to match the cover. If I had easy access to my entire fabric-and-bits stash, it would probably have looked very different, but I like it very well as it is. And it didn't involve any cross stitch!

Modelling it for me are Jini (in a hat which I knitted for a friend's baby 3 years ago, but I got the tension all wrong resulting in a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty little hat, so Jini got to keep it. There's a lesson in there, somewhere), and these little monsters that I knitted some time ago. They're good little monsters, and posed very well for me in photomarathon 2006 .

I do have more I want to say... I want to show off the lovely gifts I got when leaving my old job, and I still want to show off the exciting stuff I got from my parents house at Christmas, but I haven't photographed them yet.

And I need to go now to shower and head into town to do some shopping.

(And yes, I do know that it's gone half past ten on a Monday morning, but I'm on holiday and perfectly entitled to play on the computer in my pyjamas if I want to. So I refuse to feel any guilt whatsever.)