Not dropping Santa down the chimney!: 2025 Santa, Shoebox & Life Chit,Chat,Chunter! ALL welcome....

Katiehound

back from travels- pretty much incident free! Diversion at the entrance to Port of Dublin! all i need at almost 1 a m & then my favourite cross country road closed near to home- again all you need at the end of a 450 mile drive! Squeal/squeak developed on the car just 6 hours before I left so drove carefully!- garage say they can examine next week & it might be 'nothing'. Hope so.

Still unpacking & the plumber is here today with a long list of jobs. Just baking a carrot & courgette  cake in the Remoska. The courgette makes it very moist (oh, and it's yummy)

Congratulations Auti on the bag. it looks great.  What yarn have you used?

Ooops going to need new taps so have just ordered online.....but boiler serviced & dripping shower sorted (the part was £200!!) he's coming back next Friday to replace 6 taps....

Update- the flipping shower is still dripping .

Auti

Katiehound - I used Rico essentials cotton DK from Wool Warehouse. Used I ball of each with yarn left over from the 50g ball. Only small bag 12.5cm diameter and height - strap 62 cm. Thanks for comment

Happy_Kitties

Sometimes Katiehound you don’t have a lot of luck at all. The entrance to the port with the swerve off of the road to the left is not great in the first place, throw in a diversion, I would of cried.

Auti, your bag was on the front of the MSE page last week, very popular
Chanie I hope you are doing okay
Anglea I thought of you when I was reading about the discovery of the Knights Templar stones at a particular church yesterday and they allowed the historian to go into the crypt to look for further evidence

im always decluttering…badly. Bought another Halloween snowglobe yesterday. There was only one of this particular design, while I love it I think DD will also love it so when I do my usual birthday drop off of presents to Duncle, I might wrap it up for DD to open as an early Christmas present as he will see her earlier than me. Christmas presents are always basically a top up of things that DD already uses as she is difficult to buy for. 

The shoebox organiser is coming at the end of the month to pick up the items that I have collected. There might be many many more items than I thought but lots for the shoeboxes and care packages they do. Slowly pulling things out, boxing things up and labelling. So far 50 packs of ten pens (going extremely cheap in Tesc@) 10 glues, packed up the exercise books I had (I found the Bags of Education difficult to do where as the organiser just manages to mass produce and send them with ease), 15 handwashes, 19 lynx sets, 9 shampoos and 9 little bath salt baubles. 

As I have boxes slowly emptying, I am packing them up with goodies for the organiser. The method in my madness is the storage container all the items are in, as I’m slowly wrapping birthday and Christmas presents they can be put in the storage container freeing up a lot of space and just making things a lot tidier. I have the four shoeboxes ready so will leave up to them whether they will want to take them the end of the month or wait as I can take them at a later date as I’m hoping to get one or two volunteering stints in at the hub.

Paperwork continues well bits of it. Have taken two weeks off and watching A Touch of Frost from the beginning. They made 15 series in all. I remember the last episode, very big at the time. I decided two years ago to watch all the episodes from the start and they pulled them off when I was half way through. Determined that this is not going to happen this time!

Auti

Happy_Kitties , thank you for saying about my bag I am now in the process of making another one but a good twice the size and is making me think more! That is the bottom and I am just starting the side - it is 23cm diameter.

It is so nice to see the sunshine and my tomatoes are suddenly all ripening at once but they are very tasty so I don’t mind.

Soon it will be September and the start of thinking for Christmas gifts though I have got a couple already squirrelled away that I saw on offer/charity shop for the main people so I am pleased. I will have to think of things to make for others as they have the money to get what they want when they want which is nice for them but makes present getting hard - so I make as my time is what I give. 

Take care everyone and thank you for being here.

Katiehound

hi Auti
That looks great. Someone is going to get a very handsome bag. Congratulations

Anglea

Hi, thanks for the replies about using this account. I'll see if there is another device I can try this weekend if I don't get anywhere with it, I'll just update as usual on here as I've been to some nice places including yesterday which was my friend's birthday the one I do all in the interesting things with. 

It has been really hard to buy him anything as he always insists on going into all the shops with me but on a few occasions in the past week I left him outside on a bench with our various bags and told him not to follow me.

I sent three sympathy cards today (same family). I've got a baby card to send but I'm waiting until the family move house as it's chaotic at the moment and a card I'm going to add a letter, hopefully write it this weekend, a friend that's been unwell and isn't getting better at the moment. That is the friend I send the hand made gifts to so I've got to start thinking about what to make (or buy) for Christmas.

Anglea

Hi everyone.

Happy Kitties for August 1st Lammas Day we went to a hillfort and went to the top of the hill which had spectacular views of other distant hillforts and it also had a WW2 bunker or some kind of similar building, unfortunately all full of rubbish so we didn't got into it plus it was incredibly windy on the hill, it was right by a clifftop churchyard. What was really unexpected was chickens right next to the church.

Last Wednesday we went to a quirky garden centre that has all sorts of strange reclaimed type of statues and old fashioned equipment and new artistic metalwork, sculptured animals and birds. There are a  lot of representations of The Green Man, bats, dragons, gargoyles, birds. We had lunch there for the friend's birthday then went to buy a few things at a second garden centre that is at the foot of a hillfort then we had afternoon tea and cakes at a cafe that had ducks all over the grass with the cafe outdoor tables.

I've been buying a lot of cards this month for various occasions, 3 for a death unfortunately, 1 for a new baby but I'm not sending it until the couple move into a different house and 1 for a friend that hasn't been well and I want to write a letter to go into it as well.

I haven't done any crafts in a while, I've done some book abandonments but do plan on starting something again because I lost my crochet hooks for months and had to borrow some and finally I've found my hooks and scissors so can continue with art abandonment as well as thinking up new craft projects.

Is the pumpkins snowglobe for you? Did you meet the shoebox organiser?

How did the apple crumble turn out Auti and how many more bags have you made since you last posted?

Katiehound I wonder what adventures you've been having.

Chanie I hope you are ok

Auti

Angela  Hi. The crumble sort of went ok, child was not sure of texture when he was helping and think we needed to use a different recipe really. He tried a spoonful but not to his liking (sort of agree with him). I will pre cook the apples next time and use half the amount of crumble if I make it again. 

I have started a new bag that is twice the size! Have now started to work on the sides. Read that it can take up to 100 hours to make one this size - not sure what I have started! Really enjoying it though.

Katiehound

I tend to cook the fruit in a crumble beforehand- usually in the microwave, and if it is very juicy either remove some juice (to serve with it) or mix in cornflour.   I just make the crumble topping  by guess work! about half flour & half rolled oats & guess the fat content, oh and a bit of sugar. You always make it sweeter  after cooking- that's what happened with my rhubarb crumble last week. you can store crumble mixture in the fridge for a short while in a sealed container

@Auti your bag looks really good but I suspect I  would not have the patience!!

I have discovered that there's now just one area collector for Link to Hope in the whole of the county (second largest) so it looks like I am going to go right into the middle of the city - 50 mile round trip. The next place(s) double that distance. That will be the 4th collector for me, the others have retired.
Hoping to go to Norfolk next month & wondering if I can deliver there as there is a collector in a town that we always visit. Would need to pack all 8 boxes pdq  but think I have the contents sorted, apart from chocolate. However waiting for dates from  my friend......

Happy_Kitties

Auti that bag is going to look amazing once it is finished, it is already looking very impressive.

Katiehound not great about your collector for your shoeboxes. Norfolk could be a possibility? I remember the first year I dropped off my shoeboxes when I went to collect DD from Uni in Cardiff. It was really dark in the street, accessibility was a nightmare with the house down the steepest drive I have ever seen. I had to shout the neighbours for help, fair play they were good but it was challenge. The next collector moved and then fortunately I found out about the shoebox hub.

im meeting the organiser next week Anglea but I might hold back on handing over the shoeboxes I have done unless they want them. They are slowly setting up ready for the shoebox hub to open and have been packing boxes. I have been sorting out the bits I have collected for the shoeboxes, the Bags of Education and care packages that they do  (they do care packages for a dementia home, the homeless and domestic abuse charity……the organiser was saying last year that the requests they are now getting  from different organisations for help, they are having to be selective. I don’t know whether they have decided on different ones this year). I have a lot more than I realised. As I’m acquiring cardboard boxes I am filling them with items for the hub and they are currently all piled in the middle of my DDs  bedroom. It was my aim at the end of last year to really try and do something for charity this year and I know the organiser will use every single item so feel like I’ve done something worthwhile. 

As I’ve been emptying a storage container I have had some of the items in, I’ve been filling it with wrapped birthday and Christmas presents as it will soon be the annual birthday present drop off trip to Duncles which I think he secretly dislikes!!

Anglea you really do go to some amazing places and garden centres. I love a garden centre but we don’t have unusual ones like the ones you visit Anglea. I’ve asked one of my best friends where she would like to go for her birthday this year as we usually do a garden centre for food. This year she has decided somewhere different. It will still be nice but not the same

I will try and get a picture of the pumpkin snow globe. I’ve got one for me and I’ve decided I will give the other to DD

u can’t beat crumble and custard…..I love it….it’s my favourite pud