top (and bottom) of the heap

I'm afraid there's not been much quilting going on ... ok, there hasn't been any quilting going on, though I have been thinking about quilting! ... For the last month I've been tethered to my phone, because I'm top of the transplant waiting list so as soon as the call comes I'll be heading in for a new pancreas and kidney! To be technically correct I'm actually top and bottom of the waiting list, since there's only me in the whole UK with my blood group waiting for the kidney pancreas combo .... of course the upside of a short waiting list has a downside that organs come up a lot less often!

I did actually think I'd be in by Easter, but nope, not even a false alarm call yet! At this very moment though I'm holding my breath hoping not to get a call for the next 10 days ... because I entered a Yorkshire Tea competition to win tickets on the Orient Express .... all you had to do was say in 30 words or less why you love Yorkshire Tea ... and I won!

So now I'm fiendishly planning what to wear .... dress code is smart, but whether to go modern smart or Hercule Poirot 1930s Murder On The Orient Express smart ... I'm tending towards the latter and perusing cravats! ... So far I've found a pair of Mr Messy cufflinks in the clearance items, but trying to convince myself I don't need them!

But back to the organs ... once I'm in I'll be recovering for 3 to 4 weeks, and I am intending to finish the top for my rainy days quilt! I've got more fabrics with rain and clouds and umbrellas and ducks (especially yellow ducks) than I need so there's no excuse! I'm about halfway through the top but it's been languishing since I came back to Wales (kind of ironic given how much rain we've had!)

I'm still doing the writing class, though we had to fight for this week's to not be the last .... I thought we'd have to turn up with signs proclaiming The Writers United Will Never Be Defeated, but it didn't come to that; we didn't have to riot or anything ... we sent our hard-woman Lowri to do battle with the nicely-scarved boss, and after backup from the tutor arrived and words were exchanged with the big boss, we got an extension until half-term ... after that the class is no more .... oven the 10-strong morning class will be finished and they cover all their classroom hire costs between them with no funding or discounts! ... all very crazy, but if they think that empty classrooms will bring in more money than writing classes whether with 3 or 10 people, then I think they need some basic maths classes!

Anyway, we'll see out the rest of this half term and then think about hot-footing it over to Torfaen where the tutor runs the same class for the neighbouring county. In other writing news my booklet didn't make it to round 2 (a shortlist of 4) in the Poetry Business competition, but I've 3 poems entered in the Cardiff Internation and am about to enter Poetry London's competition ... so keep your fingers crossed for me please :)

Only other news is that Tai Chi is going well. It's another small group (2 of us plus an insjtructor and assistant) so that's great for helping the blind guy fingure out the new moves! We've just reached the quarter-way point ... i.e. we're halfway through the first half and then I think it all repeats in reverse for the second half! It's surprising how much the slow Tai Chi movements do give you a work out!

Finally it's Mr Bix's 17th birthday at the end of the month (I thik it's April 29 though I will have to dig out his birth certificate to check!) ... he's still in fine fettle, in fact he's here curled up by the keyboard purring while I write this!

Hopefully I'll have some photos from the Orient Express for you before I head into hospital, but if I don't get to update Touch And Sew before I go in then you can always check with nix_cool on Twitter and I'll fire off a quick tweet before I vanish! :)