Unbirthday Party

It was lovely today - my brother Adrian, sis-in-law Marion and niece Lucy came over from Norfolk for the day. In the next two weeks, both Bob and Adrian have birthdays, so after lunch we had some present-opening, then we ventured into Leicester so they could visit the Highcross Centre.

Adrian is a Deacon at their church and Marion is in the Worship Group - so we find it really hard to get together as we are all so busy. Family days like this are very special and precious.

Adrian had brought a faulty PC with him, and whilst he and Bob got that fixed, Marion and I shortened her skirt.

It is a full-length Per Una skirt - she has had it a while, but always felt it was a little too long. The design on the fabric is lovely. However it's one of those crinkly affairs - and to shorten the skirt and the lining means sewing nearly 5 metres of hem!

But we picked up some cones of thread in John Lewis, and it was a matter of minutes to re-do the hem on my trusty Toyota Overlocker.

It is really satisfying to be able to do a job like this for someone, and make a garment useful and wearable.

The finished skirt looked good, and Marion was pleased with it.

Yesterday I did a bit of baking, and used my new mini-morsel baking tin [purchased at Lakeland in Windermere last week] to make some chocolate tarts for dessert, and some salmon and chive mini-quiches for tea.

They looked remarkably impressive [almost good enough to be from M&S!] but I think I shall need to tweak the recipe a bit to get the quantities right. I forgot to take pictures of my creations before we ate them,so here is the picture from the Lakeland website.

Despite the awful rain, the family got home safely and in good time.  I don't think we will be able to meet up again now until we go over to Norfolk on New Year's Eve.