"Bed Rest"

There are a couple of new additions to the white dresser - the little picture frame front left (I will put a picture of my mum in it) and the green-jacketed mouse.  Isn't he CUTE?  I have a very small collection of these Christmas meeces, and when I was in TKMaax yesterday I spotted this one and just couldn't resist him.  He is even a sort of match for the greens of the things on my white dresser.  I needed something to cheer me up as I had had a bit of a testing weekend . . .

The asthma medication I am on has a side-effect of heart arrhythmias.  These are quite scary as they only happen in the night and my heart either suddenly doubles in speed or else skips beats.  Anyway, I had got wound up over doing two VERY cold Fairs back to back last weekend, and when you are stressed, your body reacts in some surprising ways.  Your mind might THINK it is coping but your body says otherwise, and I started to get chest pains and it felt like I was having a heart attack.  I phoned 111 and to cut a long story short, spent Saturday day and night in A&E and then on a ward having various tests done which showed I wasn't at death's door, but anxiety-ridden and the pains I had didn't show up at all on the ECG.  Phew.  SO GLAD to get out on Sunday morning though, before I starved to death as all I had to eat on Saturday was a yoghurt and two slices of toast - I really DID NOT fancy the meal choices I had inherited from the previous occupant of my room, who must have been an old Welsh farmer because they were a bit strong on the mash and mushy peas or mash and boiled swede!  YUK.

Anyway, we had to miss the Saturday Fair (which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as folk were keeping their hands in their pockets and buying nothing except food . . . Keith did the Sunday Fair on his own and that also dive-bombed.  We have made an executive decision not to do any more winter fairs in unheated halls/outside and cancelled the Christmas Fair we were due to do.  Not too much of a hardship as this one has been going downhill for the last 18 mths and folk just aren't buying.  All the stall holders are complaining.

I have taken a couple of nice things which haven't sold, out of stock and I'm keeping them.

One is this lovely old German spoon rack, beautifully decorated.  I have put some dried Hydrangeas along it and moved the blue Hydrangeas in one of my late friend Annie's hand-made (by her) baskets over on the pine dresser:

Then there is this absolutely stunning enamelled and hand-painted stand.  It is ceramic beneath the enamelling, and has chip on the base (which you can't see unless you turn it upside-down).  This has put folk off buying it, but I am looking at the pattern, not the base, so it is now housing a wonderfully-scented Christmas candle on the sideboard in the living room.

I needed the stone coloured fabric for a cushion I am making, and somehow the other bits just took my fancy too!  For the Christmassy ones and the gold piece, we are going to have a one-day session at patchwork class to make a Christmas runner or something, and I was short on greens.

The cushion is coming from this book, which is one of the sort you want to make EVERYTHING in it!

I was sent "Where the Poppies Grow" by my good friend in Hampshire, who knows my tastes well.  The bottom two I found in a Church Bazaar in town yesterday, 20p each.  First though I have to finish reading:

I'm at the sad part, so it is slightly sidelined until I am feeling a bit more cheerful, and I have started re-reading one of Phil Rickman's excellent novels "The Fabric of Sin".

Right, this won't do.  I need to go and get the paper and top up the bird feeders, which are emptying fast this weather.