Happy mail - but not wool

So I've been doing a little bit of cross stitch recently and I had in mind to do some small 'one day' designs from a magazine and then I could be rid of the magazine. This has been a vague idea for  awhile and is the reason that I took advantage of an offer of a linen taster pack; five 8 x 8 " pieces in different colours. And  then I added a magnetic needle minder for good measure because however much you tell yourself you're not going to leave a needle to go rusty in your fabric and in the design area in a piece of work you then neglect for months or even years - it does happen. You can imagine how I know.  Plus it was cute. 

Voila!

The grey one second from the left has a sparkly thread in it so I don't know that I'll be using that any time soon; but the others are very nice. I'm pleased with them. And the mouse. 

A Sunny Stroll

I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that I have been feeling a bit down recently, mainly due to the difficulties of dealing with the insurance company with the underpowered server which has in turn brought back all the horror and shock of the loss of the holiday. I was very unhappy yesterday and although we had thought about going out, since the weather was good I couldn't face it. We postponed until today. 

Last night I had a nightmare in which our insurance claim was knocked back in its entirety on the grounds that the person here who had referred it to head office was known to be an alcoholic. I have absolutely NO idea where that came from. No surprise then that when I finally lifted my weary not-very-well-refreshed head from my pillow this morning - somewhat later than might be considered desirable - I really didn't feel like dragging myself out today either. 

I made myself do it though. The sun was shining, and it was time to have a bit of a stern word and do something other than moon about the house. Consequently we got in the car and drove right over to the other side of Orkney to the cliffs of Yesnaby. Normally when we get to Yesnaby we get out of the car and turn left to walk along the cliff but today, skittish types that we are (ha,ha), we opted to turn right. This led to a fearsome stile - 

seriously? 3 storeys? and took us towards the Brough of Borwick. We didn't go all the way to the Brough which involves fording a small stream and rather more up and down than I was happy to do given that it's not a proper path, I wasn't wearing walking boots and  the Brough isn't all that interesting when you get there. I have been to it once - and once was enough. In the days when the OH was a Volunteer Heritage Ranger he used to litter pick at Borwick, but that's a long time ago now. 

The views aren't really as interesting when you turn left as when you turn right as the coastline isn't quite so dramatically eroded and in any case you're rather further from the cliff edge so it's more difficult to see. But I did take  a couple of nice photos. 

As you can see it's a really beautiful day. We dropped into Stromness on the way back hoping to have coffee and cake at Julia's Shed, but all that was left was Malteser tray bake and date flapjack, neither of which floats our boats, so we came home. We stopped at Celina Rupp's, again in hope of coffee and cake, but it was the same story; cheese scones, flapjack, gluten free muffins and some lemon curd swiss roll. On another day I might have forced down the swiss roll, but it's not my favourite, it's always rather too sharp there for my taste and really what is the point of paying almost £4 for a slice of cake that you know before it arrives you are not going to enjoy? 

We're home now and after a late lunch I baked a cake which is even now in the oven. This is partly because our boy is arriving tomorrow night for a week's holiday from Glasgow and if your boy is coming home there has to be cake. The OH is out in the garden building a bridge; for which read playing with his new chain saw, but I think that's clearing the ground ready for the bridge building. It's to make easy access into our wood, all part of the pre-marketing house and garden spruce up. 

So after a fairly busy day, which has at least cheered me up a little bit, I'm off to do something relaxing. 

I need something soothing

 since I have discovered this morning that all the carefully collected information that it took so long to amass and then send to the insurance company yesterday did not arrive 'probably because our server could not cope with all of the attachments'. Since you are obliged to pursue your claim by sending a lot of documents and since they have to be attached to an e-mail this was not music to my ears. If they won't let you deal with your local branch and you can't send them the paper through the post the least they could do in my opinion is ensure that their s*dding server can cope with all the bumph it gets sent. 

I have now sent them three more e-mails with fewer attachments on each but since their server has only auto-acknowledged one I have a feeling it has only accepted one and the other two are still languishing somewhere in the ether. This fills me with neither joy not confidence. 

I am totally frazzled, I cannot settle to anything (not even knitting!) I tell myself all the things like 'the ball is in  their court' and 'you have done as much as you can' and  'park it until you hear back' etc etc but none of these helps.  Nor does it help reflecting that none of this is my fault - not the original cancellation of the holiday, nor the limited capacity of the insurer's server, and yet I am the one with shredded nerves wandering round unable to function. I know all the stuff about how life isn't fair and you shouldn't expect it to be but in this instance I do feel other people could be making more of an effort to make it slightly less unfair than it is. 

I was going to post some beautiful photos of a Japanese garden that we visited the day before our ill-fated flight to London but somehow I can't being myself to do it today. Maybe tomorrow if the insurance people have stepped up to the plate. 

Phew!

I just spent quite a long time this morning getting all the ducks in a row for the insurance claim re the lost holiday. All now done and sent off, so just have to wait now  and see how much we get. It is scary how much extra cost is involved because we live in Orkney; I know everyone has to get to the airport or train statin for their holidays but not many have to travel as far as we do. 

Getting a replacement passport for the OH proved a bit of a nightmare too. I'm sure we were promised computers were going to make our lives easier, but I'm not sure I'm convinced. 

Possibly another and much more interesting post later in the day; for now I feel like the proverbial wrung out rag. 

You Decide

unforgiveable falling off of wagon or understandable consolation?

These arrived yesterday

Three skeins of Monet inspired yarn from the yarn artist. Well, after all, I wasn't going to be seeing the real thing so this was in the nature of an appropriate comfort gift to myself. I ordered three skeins of undyed from her as well and I know what I'm going to make with them , although I'm not sure when I'll get it cast on. Soon enough for the yarn not to skew my stash numbers for too long I hope. 

So what do you think? No reason why I shouldn't look for some consolation where I could find it? Or just a case of any old excuse to buy more wool? 

A Lovely Surprise

I was expecting a parcel yesterday from the  the Glasgow Soap Company which duly arrived and yes, do click the link, their stuff is gorgeous and they're very quick to deliver. No surprise then that their parcel arrived when they said it would, but very surprised to be also handed a very long thin box from postie marked Bloom and Wild. Which, when I opened it, contained a lovely selection of flowers, as above, and a consolatory card from my sister because of my lost holiday. 

It was a lovely thought and the flowers are gorgeous. I photographed them in the usual place on the front hall window sill but then moved them into the living room because in there I can find somewhere that's not in direct sunlight, so helping them to last longer.

I was half expecting another parcel which didn't come yesterday but did arrive today. More on that tomorrow...

 

Happy Valley

We were supposed to be going to Happy Valley yesterday but the weather wasn't very nice so we put it off until today. For once, procrastination was rewarded because, although there was quite a thick haar in places today, Happy Valley wasn't one of them. 

We tend to go two or three times a year and always try to catch the bluebells. It's so beautiful there and I always take loads of photographs. Here a few from today.

It was a lovely gentle morning walk.