No Cats Were Harmed

What a nice collection of presents! Thank you to everyone whether you've sent gifts, cards,emails, tweets or blog comments, or even just holiday vibes! It's been a nice year full of quilty crafty friends and family!

Here's a photo of a selection of the gifts ... a tasty stack of chocolate, namely some bars of Dairy Milk and a box of Thornton's mints, which I have tested and can confirm are very tasty, indulgent and definitely very more-ish! My spies tell me that my mum and dad got themselves a box too, to make sure they were good enough quality ... don't I have considerate parents?!

There's a bamboo bowl which comes collapsed in its stand, so you swivel the bowl and let it unfold and then the stand is a rooster! I know, that sounds a crazy description,and my first thought was "does it come with instructions" ... I mean, how hard can a wooden bowl be? lol

There's also a very cute wooden coaster set from Cyprus, well actually it's from mum and dad but they got it on one of their jaunts to Cyprus! The coasters are nice, but doubly so is the wooden teapot shaped stand they come in!

And the sharp eyed amongst you may notice a furry animal! Well I am informed it is synthetic (no cats were harmed in the making of this hat) ... it's a hunter's style hat with ear flaps and believe me you need that kind of headgear in these temperatures! I have a woolly hat with ear flaps already and vowed that I will never be photographed alive in it ... I feel pretty ... pretty silly wearing it that is, but can't escape the practical necessity! ... you are unlikely to get a photo of me in this furry one either, because you will spend the rest of the day, if not all next year, laughing at me!!

So here's a photo of the Christmas cake instead!it's always a race to see which comes first, the last crumbs or the New Year!

Power Up That Snowing Machine

According to the local radio, the chances of a white Christmas have diminished to pretty much zero. Bearing in mind that this comes from a radio host who has been known to make up her own forecast when the previous day's has transpired to be way different from the official forecast, this could be subject to change!

The temperature has however been a good dozen degrees higher than usual, though that's not saying a great deal ... hot it's not! In fact for the last couple of weeks I've been wearing my beloved warm winter coat. This was bought in Swansea, South Wales, many moons ago, but it was handmade somewhere in South America... Peru is most likely. I can always imagine myself as a shepherd in the Carpathian mountains of Romania, huddled in my coat in the middle of the night, watching for bears and wolves ... ok, with my eyes I don't think the sheep will be feeling too safe, but you get the idea!

So here's a picture of me in the coat! I've got the brown Levi's cord trousers on that I picked up in the recent post where I'd almost lost my phone ... and then my Perry Ellis patchwork style jumper - a combo I think that complements the coat well!

Talking of warm, here's a quilting idea from quilt club! I haven't been involved in these yet, but they make quite a lot of quilted covers for the local meals on wheels service deliveries! They're apparently very popular, and quick to make, and I have to say it sounds a superb idea of a useful charity project! ... Once I've tried making one I'll post instructions!

Well that's about all my news ... no snow in the forecast! I'm done with work for a few days and go back on the 27th ... I'm going to enjoy the time off, and maybe I'll make a dent in some of my planned quilting projects! ... Step one has got to be mastering the basics of this sewing machine ...

And as an extra note, I was getting very frustrated because my new free screen reader wouldn't insert images in Blogger using either IE8 or Mozilla. So I upgraded to IE9 and that still didn't work. Neither did anything work with my Jaws screen reader. So in desperation I tried Chrome, which to this point has been totally inaccessible to Jaws, but to my surprise seems to work perfectly with the free screen reader! So that's the way forward, at least when I need to write a blog post! Three cheers for Chrome, hip hip, hip hip, hipopotamus! And a merry snowy Christmas to you and yours if I don't speak to you before the big day!

Chocolate Pudding

I forgot to mention! ... if you're following my health progress which I sometimes mention .. I haven't done an update since I had minor surgery to bury a catheter just under the skin in my stomach, ready for when I need to start dialysis. (If you want to know more about this variety off dialysis, ask Wiki about peritoneal dialysis) .. when my kidneys have no useful function left the doc will make a small incision and pop out the catheter and I'll be good to go!

So I had my latest set of blood tests last week, and the kidney doc called yesterday and said that since I'm not experience any symptoms (which can include lethargy, nausea and excessive itching from high phosphate levels) then there's no need to rush into the dialysis yet.

My kidney function has slowed from 12 in September to 8 and now 6.5, so my simple linear regression suggests they'll stop working effectively in January or February next year! ... not complicated mathematics that one!

In the meantime the only noticeable side effect is that my feet swell a bit, which is making it tricky to put my shoes on ... but apart from maybe a bit of extra shoe shopping (and how bad is that?!) it's not a bad problem!

So there you have it. to be honest I'd rather get hooked up to the dialysis system and in to the new routine of being connected to the system overnight ... rather than wondering when I'm going to have to fit in the training sessions and whatever else is involved! ... but the doc said I can just increase my diuretic pill to reduce the swelling in my feet / ankles, and if that's the only symptom I won't complain!

It can be very odd feeling sometimes having the catheter under the skin ... some times it's barely noticeable and others you can feel it through a thick sweater! Magpie Mimisuggested it probably reflected how much chocolate pudding I had in my tummy, and I suspect she is very correct on that!