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.