It's been a busy couple of weekends.  On Saturday, we had a long planned family get together.  We had bought Rita a ticket for Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker for her birthday (in early December) and both I and Claire (Andrew's sister) went along too.  With all us being in Cardiff, we asked Claire to bring Basil and the boys, Rita to bring Roger and we had a big family lunch first which was great.  One of the things I love about our dining room is being able to comfortably sit 9 round the table.  The table is big anyway, but we can extend it and bring in a few extra folding chairs from the garage.  And hey presto, lunch for 9! We did baked jacket potatoes, Boston baked beans, and lots of sides to go with the spuds, so things like cheese, sour cream and chives, coleslaw etc.  Big pile of chocolate cake afterwards (good old Mary Berry recipe).  

Then it was off down to the WMC for a wonderful matinee performance.  We had excellent seats with a great view and the performance was superb.  Glorious, witty costumes and sets, amazing dancing and choreography.  It flew by.  Andrew picked us all up afterwards and then we headed home for a cup of tea, and more cake and for Thomas to open his birthday presents.  All too soon, time for everyone to go home. 

On the previous weekend, I did a course at Busy Bees.  This was to make a peg bag, oven glove and tea cosy with several variations being shown on the tea cosy, including pieced patchwork and an applique variation.  We completed the peg bag and the oven glove on the day, and I decided to do the applique tea cosy.  Did some of the cutting and prep, but had to finish some of the hand embroidery blanket stitch during the week before making it up.  It's now complete and I'll post some pics soon. 

In the evening, we went out for a meal to Bully's - a joint celebration of Andrew's birthday and our anniversary.  I'm very sorry to say we were disappointed.  As on previous occasions, the food was superb, no problem there, and we had a delightful wine (their wine list is great).  But - there's a fine line between agreeable informality in service and sloppiness and sadly we were very disappointed with the service.  Things seemed to take a long time to come, empty glasses stayed on the table for ages, the table had an annoying wobble that didn't get fixed, and even when we asked for the bill it didn't come and this kept our taxi driver waiting. I could probably forgive all this if it was a neighbourhood bistro with cheap and cheerful prices, but Bullys isn't cheap, and bluntly, at that end of the market, I expect better.  Now that Le Gallois has closed, Bully's has been handed a great opportunity to be the leading restaurant in Cardiff.  It was packed the night we were there, but it's important it learns the lessons from why Le G went bust (which was never because of the food) - good service really, really matters.   To be honest, I'd now be hesitant about returning there.  It's simply too expensive to take that kind of risk, particularly when for us we have to factor in a lengthy taxi ride right across Cardiff to get there.  Another pet hate, was that one of the waiters kept nipping outside for a smoke.  Not professional when the restaurant is busy, and it leaves an unpleasant smell of smoke which was noticeable when he came past our table. 

During the weeks, I've been busy with making Christmas cards.  Progress is good with a very attractive design being replicated using the lovely Tilda Christmas House paper I got at the craft show back in October.  Busy Bees has recently started stocking some Tilda fat quarters and a few of her project kits - I love her fabric designs, pretty bright colours with a strong Scandi feel. 

I'm also sewing some Christmas place mats and a table runner.  This was a request from Andrew (to my surprise).  I'm using a Moda charm pack and some lovely plain red fabric. Again, more pics to follow.  The basic design is to use a 9 patch block with five charms and four plain reds, then do the slice into quarters and spin (always forget what this block is called). One block for each placemat and then a row of four blocks for the table runner, probably with a bordering piece on the runner.   

There's an interesting new smell in the house - tack.  On Tuesday I went over to Helen's and we had a fabulous day.  Smudge, the fourth horsekitten of the apocalypse is doing brilliantly and has grown so much in just a week since I'd seen her previously.  She's now bossing the other cats around and having a whale of a time - there's a huge personality inside a very tiny kitten.  Helen has used her rescue contacts and found Smudge a perfect forever home.  She'll have other cats to play with, an enormous garden, and owners who work from home.  As Helen knows them, it will also be possible to get updates on how she does - which is lovely. 

After we'd had a coffee and coo-ed over Smudge, we headed across the farm, first up to the lane and the fields near the barn, with the farm dogs in tow.  These are all rescues too, and once again, it's difficult to put into words how lovely it is to see dogs who've gone through unimaginable cruelty (I won't even begin to describe what one of them had suffered) having a wonderful time in the sunshine, running, playing, jumping in puddles, and generally having a perfect doggy time.

Our first stop was Helen's Lusitano mare, out in the field with Bryn, the Friesian.  Bryn looks like a gorgeous cob, big, black and with a crest, a long mane, and feathers.  As Helen's pregnant, she's not riding at the moment, so the horses are enjoying being out at grass.  However, after the birth the plan is for riding to re-commence with me joining in on either Bryn or his fellow Friesian Eeyore.  Helen's mare is lovely and came over for cuddles and did that nice horse thing of tickling you all over with her lips and amiably chewing your head. It was unbelievably fabulous to be just messing around with the horses, I hadn't realised how much I missed it. After a while we left them and carried on up past the barns and set out on a trek across the land to another field.  It was  a gorgeous day, though slow going through the mud in places. On the way, Helen was pointing out different crops, a wood they own, we had a look at the cows and all the way, the dogs were a constant joyful presence. 

Eeyore, the other Friesian had been moved to live with another horse, a very young Lusitano colt who's a bit scatty still and needs a fatherly guiding hand around.  Both Eeyore and the colt were boxed, though the colt actually had a large, almost school size area and it was immediately clear he had stunning paces and real star quality.  When he matures he will be a very special horse. We got some hay for the horses and checked their water and stood and had a chat and a neck scratch.  Horses are surprisingly sociable and enjoy human companionship (if its someone they know well)and are always very interested in what's going on.  Eeyore and Bryn are semi-retired but the sort of light hacking they'll be doing next year, with perhaps the occasional Veteran class will be something they can enjoy as a change of scene and an opportunity to socialise with other horses etc very much as we do with Boola when we go to events. 

We slowly strolled back and just as we were returning to the farm buildings met Matt the gamekeeper, driving a wonderful 1948 vintage tractor laden with some feed for the cows.  We stopped for a chat, then picked up Eeyore and Bryn's tack.  When they arrived with Helen, it coincided with the a busy time for her, so the tack needed a good bit of TLC.  I've offered to bring it home and go over it - I like cleaning tack, and I love the smell of it - a very pleasant mix of horse, leather, saddle soap and neatsfoot oil.  I keep saddle soap and neatsfoot oil here anyway as we use it regularly on the dogs' muzzle straps which are leather. 

Coming home was a bit of a faff as for the past few days we've had the BBC in the street filming Casualty.  The story is that a gas main will explode while some workmen are digging so they've dug an enormous crater, and each morning the street fills with millions of extras all wearing very convincing makeup to show their injuries.  As well as these, there are masses of security folk, ambulances, fire engines, cherry pickers for high shots, lighting rigs, lots of people with down jackets and clipboards running around, and a huge quantity of ironing boards. All day, fake drifts of smoke keep coming across the garden, and all we can hear is the loudhailer organising the shoot, and counting down to "Action!".  As part of the effects of the explosion, they've actually put false fronts on some of the houses, very cleverly, to mimic broken windows and other similar damage.  It's not a programme I've watched for years, but it will be interesting to see this episode.