Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Pictures!

I finally managed to get some pics uploaded so here they are:

This is what I've done so far on my Somebunny To Love.


This is the second of my 4 poppy costers I am doing for a friend.


Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Weekly update

Well the train stitching is going well. I finished my SS gift and one of my poppy coasters in the last 2 weeks. Yay! Only another 2 coasters to stitch now to complete the set. I've been getting some good stitching time in at home this week too and have made a very good start to my next SS gift. I treated myself to the World of Cross stitching magazine on the weekend and found the perfect project to do for my SS. Miraclously, I had all the threads and material I needed! A good bonus especially since I still haven't found a LNS here. Apparently there are 2 in Cardiff and I will make it my mission to find them!! I also spent ages doing research on my new SS this week and stash shopping for her. My biggest news is of course I have now finished my Project Challenge as my SS gift and coaster makes the last 3 of my 10 to do!! Brilliant! Now I'm going to think up my next challenge so watch this space!

Friday, June 15, 2007

Happy days!

Good news today - DH got a job! He's gonna be working in a food and drink manufacturing company. He'll be doing weekly rotating shifts (6am-2pm or 2pm-10pm) and gets 2 litres of free fruit juice every week which is definately good because I love apple juice! Though we haven't quite worked out how he's getting there yet as it's about 15 mins away in car and neither of us drive.

As for me, I'm just glad the weekend is upon us. It's been a hard slog at work this week, it's really dragged and I've done something to my shoulder joint so it's been quite painful. I learnt something interesting today actually. On enquiring at the Post Office whether I could send certain goods to the USA, I found out it's prohibited to send cotton seeds oh, and radioactive viruses LOL! I'm sure the clerk said anything derived from cotton also but I must be hearing things because that would mean I couldn't send any cross stitch stuff to the USA.

My biggest discovery today though was a pottery shop in the indoor market in Cardiff city centre. Sounds boring but there's a story behind it. An old friend of mine has this cup and saucer in her house and it's really pretty and I love it. A few years back I found a plate of this exact pattern in a charity shop and noted the maker so I could look it up. I eventually found out it was a pattern called Rosebud once manufactured by Royal Duchess. (Quite a small company compared to the likes of Royal Worcester and Royal Doulton.) I looked high and low for somewhere that sold this china and didn't find anywhere. I wanted to get it as a wedding present. Anyway it don't take no genius to work out what I found in this pottery shop...the exact china! Only problem I have now is that my mum and dad bought us an entire fancy dinner set just last December for special occasions. So I have to convince DH that we really do need 2 dinner sets because the one I love is just too pretty not to have!!! :) Look SO pretty......

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Still homeless

Well as you can tell I'm still homeless. The house we applied for fell through. The landlord pulled it off the market and rented it to someone he knew instead. We were totally gutted. So back on the house hunt again. We applied for another house yesterday. Craig is going to view it tomorrow while I'm at work but we've peeked in through the windows and it looks really nice from what we can see. It's not where I would choose to live but it's getting to the point where I really don't care anymore as long as I get a house! One where I can do whatever I please in, at whatever ridiculous time I want to do it.

Still no sign of a job for DH, though he has an interview on Friday. I've been doing lots of over time at work so I leave at half 7am and get home 7pm. :( And the social decided that we are only entitled to £1.12 a week in the way of support. Great stuff! Obviously the government thinks we can live on my rubbish wage quite comfortably. Guess I can't grumble really - at least I have a roof over my head and I'm being fed every day.

That's my grumble for today over with, now I'm getting off the PC cos my mum really needs it.

Friday, June 08, 2007

The things customers do...

I work at Primark as you all know. For the non-UK readers Primark is a high street chain store retailing in clothes, mainly for people in their 20's/30's. They sell the current fashion trends but at a fraction of the cost of most other stores. I would say it's probably the cheapest clothes store in the UK but don't quote me on that. They also sell menswear, childrenswear and homeware in some stores, dependant on the size of the store.

I usually work on the tills but I've done most other jobs in the store as well and it always amazes me what customers will do. These are my top 3 unforgivable crimes to commit in Primark:

No 3: Customers who insist on unpacking everything
This may be a petty point but I have good reason. The space to work with in between each till isn't large and we are expected to neatly pack all the customers goods into bags working in this space. Thus, when a customer comes to you with a basket full of goods and then insists on taking every item out and putting it on the counter in front of you it's neither helpful or conducive to me being able to serve you any quicker. All the customer has done is fill up my entire working space so I have nowhere to fold and pack. It's not the worst offence by far but it's a point I want to make. My job is to unpack your basket of goods, fold them neatly (with or without hangers) and pack them into bags. Please let me do my job?!

No 2: Customers trying clothes on, on the shop floor
Now I have no problem generally with customers who do this, as the queue for the fitting rooms is quite atrocious at times. However, I do find it very rude when certain customers, sometimes blatantly in front of me, proceed afterwards to leave the clothes they've tried on, off the hangers, inside out, on the floor, strewn all over the place or in any other manner of disarray apart from where they got it from. Would it take these customers 5 mins to put them back where they got them from? I don't think so. Simple respect and courtesy is all that's needed here.

No 1: Customers talking on mobile phones whilst being served
I don't know about anyone else but I find it extremely rude and ignorant when I am trying to serve someone and all they are interested in is the conversation they are having on the phone. I'm usually made to resort to sign language and pointing to communicate such things as, 'Would you like your hangers?' or, 'Please put your card in the machine.' Again it's a simple matter of showing some manners. The same way that simple manners refrain me from loudly telling the customer in question that I find it very rude and ignorant.

To all offenders - you know who you are - don't do it again! It's not nice and it's not good manners!

Train stitching

This stitching on the train lark isn't going too badly. I'm sticking to smaller projects at the moment. I've been stitching my SS gift, I also did one day on my Somebunny WIP before deciding it was too big for the train. At the moment I'm working on a set of poppy coasters. I've done one ages ago - it's in my finishes album. I'm now on my second. I'm hoping to do 4 all together. I don't have no pics yet as I'm not on my PC to get my pics uploaded. Not much to tell really...very boring without pics. :(