Zippety-Doo-Dah

I hate sewing zips. I really do. Buttons, press-studs, hooks&eyes, velcro, toggles, drawstrings and other fastenings are fine. But zips are something I avoid like the plague. So I know I can never apply for a place on the Great British Sewing Bee. However, my niece's fiancé was given an Alpinestars jacket, brand new but with a broken zip. Lucy texted me, to ask if I could fix it. I love that sort of challenge. The jacket would have cost around £170 - and a new zip was about 1% of that from Fabricland. 
So I spent much of yesterday working on the project. It took hours to remove the broken zip. The jacket was beautifully made, and has linings, and windflaps, and velcro bits which needed to be worked round. I took out the old zip and carefully positioned., pinned, then tacked the new one. The layers were pretty thick, so I used a leather needle on the machine, along with the zipper foot. Satisfactory result - zip in place, and the logo across the front matches up.

While I worked, I caught up with recorded TV.
Howard's End - don't recall reading any EMForster, but know that this is the book with the line "Only Connect" [favourite TV Quiz show]. Beautiful Edwardian costumes and houses. But the characters were so miserable. I am not sure I'm inspired to read any other EMF 

Then I watched some Kirstie Allsopp Christmas Crafting. Why does none of her stuff ever feature the Nativity Story? The nearest she gets is the occasional star. 
Finally I watched some of James Martin's new Saturday programme. I never watched the original Saturday Kitchen, but my brother said this series is good. I agree, it was good fun, and his guest was Rachel Allen on this Christmas Edition. She made Brandy Snaps. James made Beef Wellington. He stressed that the key thing is taking time to prepare properly and then it was all come together easily and correctly. A bit like putting in open-ended zips!