It feels wintery but not yet festive.
We were supposed to be in Durham today- arriving back this evening- but we cut our trip short to avoid all the bad weather in the North- and the Christmas traffic (No trains, loads of flooding and gales up to 90mph made us think our journey would take us much longer than the prescribed 4 hours).
We got back about midnight after a stop off at McDonalds somewhere north of Nottingham.
I highly recommend the cheesy bites and festive ketchup.
I do not, however recommend "I spy" on the M1A in the dark.
Not much to spy.
The perks of driving back last night- other than missing the traffic (Entirely!) and the awful weather - were that we got to see the harvest moon (Bright yellow and not quite full) And Venus.
I've been at a loss as to what to do with myself all day so far- I got the chocolate and coco powder for my cake icing tomorrow, Traff text and asked me to pick him up a video game in CEX so I have and I stopped off at the Samaritans charity shop for a jumper but ended up buying 5 PD James books instead.
That'll tide me over until I decode what to do with myself.
I'm meeting Michelle for Cake and Coffee later too.
:D
At Fancy.
Perhaps I can glean cake inspiration.
We drove to Abi's in Durham on Friday evening- I spent my drive home from work with the traffic report on listening to how awful the traffic and tailbacks were al over the UK and mentally damning the idea of going anywhere so close to Christmas.
I ate a whole M&S Pizza to myself in preparation for being stuck in traffic until the new year.
Ray and Kirstie arrived at 7, we set off, and the roads were pretty clear.
By the time we'd passed peterborough we were only seeing another car every few minutes.
We got as far as Melton Mowbray before I decided I needed to pee- It's a running joke with my family and close friends that as soon as I get in the car I seem to get a crazy need to pee- I think it's because I know I can't go for a set length of time.
Ray managed to direct us into the services- but once we'd parked up it was so windy we couldn't open the car doors- we had to wait for the wind to subside.
Super 70s services.
Burger king with hats.
All good.
We set off from the services following the satnav and it lead us a merry dance round rural england- we did see some very festively decorated houses though, so it wasn't all bad.
Ray eventually re-directed us to the A1 M and we arrived in Durham without any further detours.
On Saturday we went Glass blowing in Sunderland, we booked onto a workshop to make christmas tree baubles in October- without really any idea what to expect.
It was a really interesting and enjoyable experience- The staff at the glass centre were really calm and helpful- they demo'd the making of the bauble first and then we made our baubles one at a time- unfortunately infont of an audience but it took sooo much concentration I forgot they were there!
First you choose your colours- I did mine purple and green with little bits of white so it'll look frosted.
Then the glass centre staff get the molten glass from the kiln on the end of the pole, they hand you the pole- with warnings about where to toutch it- and you roll the molten glass on top of the coloured glass flecks.
That done, you carry the glass, on the pole, to another kiln to be heated so that it can expand easily when blown (At this point I decided I wanted my bauble to be stripey so you melt the glass and turn the pole at the same time! eeek!)
The next stage is to blow the air into the bauble to make the shape-the staff shape the glass to make it round with a paddle and they turn the pole as you blow into it.
It took like 4 goes to get the required size.
the staff then remove the blown glass from the pole (This is probably the riskiest part as if you do it wrong the whole thing will break) and then made a molten glass hook for the top of the bauble.
It then goes in the kiln for 3 days.
Ours will be posted tomorrow so will be here maybe before new year.
we drove back from Sunderland to Durham via the second biggest Tescos in the UK.
For Curry supplies and Peanut butter cup ben and Jerry's Ice cream!
This is my new favourite flavour.
We spent the evening watching Ru Paul's Drag race.
This is now possible my new favourite TV show.
On Sunday we went to Tynemouth.
Tynemouth has a massive flea market in the Metro station- They had some really sweet individual items, loads of vintage and some quirky clothes.
Abi was disappointed as last time she'f been there were more vintage and unusual items- but this being the run up to Christmas most stallholders had toned it down to attract christmas shoppers.
I was still impressed!
We went to the raspberry Bazaar and to the converted church- were we got retro sweets and I failed to recognise a nativity scene.
I tried to convince everyone they wanted to go on the beach, but it was genuinely freezing so I accepted the compromise of walking the harbour wall- but when we got there it was gated off with warnings about the expected weather.
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