Handmade Monday & A Weekend Off (Almost!)

Good morning everyone - another week crossed off the calendar and therefore another chance to visit Handmade Monday and see what everyone has been busying themselves with this past week.   Do make sure you go and check the links on Wendy's Blog.


As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was a rare thing - a whole weekend without fairs.   This only happens a couple of times a year apart from the 'down' time just after Christmas and the early part of the year before the fairs season starts.


Saturday was Hubby's birthday and we decided to let the train take the strain and head up to London with family and partake in one of the fabulous burgers at the original Hard Rock Cafe (celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year).   Arriving at Charing Cross station, we walked to Covent Garden and had a stroll around the market stalls there (I was one of those annoying customers who didn't buy anything!!), enjoyed one of the famous street performers and then walked the 'short' (ha ha!) distance to the restaurant.   Amazing how places are much further than you think and I think it is safe to say that we were all very hot and very knackered by the time we finally caught glimpse of that famous logo and sign outside the restaurant looking as welcome as an oasis in the middle of a desert!

A welcome sight at the end of
one hell of a long walk!

Then came the big test - a one and a half hour wait for a table was ahead of us!  Do we wait?  We were all getting pretty hungry and desperately needed to sit down.   Fortunately a check with the nice lady on the door about the range of their 'pagers' (these are really amazing and flash and vibrate to tell you when your table is ready!) told us that the pub around the corner was within range and therefore a stool and a pint was in order to wait it out.


A party of guys arrived celebrating a birthday complete with their colourful floral lei garlands around their necks and hats (lots of fun was ahead I am sure as the day/night progressed!)  unfortunately, I never did get chance to find out why two of them arrived with a fresh crusty loaf of bread which ended up being torn in half and taken with them to their next stop...


Our pager eventually flashed and vibrated to tell us that our table was ready and we sat surrounded by the memorabilia and sounds of the wonderful musical talents of today and yesterday.  If you haven't been, it is well worth a visit - the prices are a little high but more than made up for in quantity (I couldn't finish mine!) and thanks to my letting slip that it was hubby's birthday, the whole restaurant was encouraged to join in a chorus of 'Happy Birthday' as he was given an ice cream dessert complete with a single candle to blow out and make a wish.


The one down side of this restaurant (if you can call it a downside) is that the food is so good you tend to overeat and we all suffered, I can tell you, from 'mega-fullitis' that feeling that you are about to explode at any moment.   Just the thought of food was enough to make us all cringe and we all ended up going to bed pretty early to try to sleep it off!

Ghost with Pumpkin - Available now

You will be pleased to know that this week hasn't all been about over indulgence - some crafting has been taking place too.   I have a couple of orders to complete so these have taken precedence but fortunately are almost ready to be posted out.   I have also been looking at the 'Glow in the Dark' range that I have and decided that these paints definitely lend themselves to ghosts and ghoulies ready for Halloween so have a couple of new designs in progress of ghosts, witches, bats and general spooky things with glow in the dark elements to them  (no photos of the new designs yet - sorry, but here is an existing one of a ghost and pumpkin to keep you going until I have them!)     Hopefully these will prove to be popular although the glow properties are pretty much impossible to show at a fair as you need almost complete darkness to see properly.


I have also outlined a few of my most popular Christmas designs to try to get ahead for the festive season (which if the beginning of the year is anything to go by will be upon us waaay too soon!)


Hope you have had a good week and able to enjoy some sunny weather in the next few days, especially if you now have the kids at home for the holidays.  I haven't had the whole weekend off and today was back at work trying to create lots of new stock both of new designs or existing, popular ones to build up my stock ready for some big shows coming up in the next month & hope to show you the ghosts and ghoulies in my next post...