Double Celebration

This was supposed to be yesterday's post but I never got around to it. There are a lot of things I haven't gotten around to this week. I've been meaning to blog about Fibre Fest too. Will save that for next time.

Yesterday was my birthday but it was also Vanessa's GCSE result day. (For non-English readers, GCSE is the exams the English take when they leave school at 16 years old. It's the end of compulsory education). Vanessa did very, very well. She got an A* in History (she got 100% on her last history exam - clever girl), B in Additional Science (she's already got an A in Science), C in French and A in everything else including Maths, Media, Humanities, English Lit & English language and I'm sure there were some other subjects she did which I've forgotten about. She's staying on at school to attend their Sixth Form College and is planning to do English Lit, Maths and History and possibly either Psychology or Ethics & Philosophy.

As I mentioned yesterday was also my birthday. We celebrated my birthday on Wednesday with a meal out and cinema. We saw 'One Day' which is an amazing movie. I highly recommend it. Apparently it's based on a book.

I had some lovely presents for my birthday too. Simon bought me Ysolda's new book, 'Little Red In The City' at Fibre Fest

 and a handbag (actually I chose and bought the handbag and pointed out the book and told him I wanted it). I haven't got a pic of the handbag but I love it but I did buy another bag in Padstow today:

Isn't it gorgeous. sorry for poor pic. Its taken with my mobile phone.

Emily gave me a little, pretty heart and book mark (both were bought at the craft stall at church a few weeks ago).

Vanessa got me a pretty necklace.

I got this very pretty handmade tea light holder from my in-laws. They bought it this summer in Scotland. Sorry I forgot to take pic.

From my parents, inlaws and sister in law and her family I got money which will be put towards buying a new camera.

My lovely knitter & friend, Pixie, gave me these beautiful stitch markers and stitch saver from Fripperies n Bibelots. Just looked at their website. Gorgeous stuff!

this is a cool little tool to use when you drop a stitch. I love it.

My friend, Marianne, who I met for lunch on Wednesday, gave me a beautiful pearl necklace but unfortunately it was too tight for my fat neck so she's going to try to change it. It was so pretty though.

This week I've mainly been trying to recover from Fibre Fest. Monday and Tuesday I was completely out of it. Horrendous headaches and neck/back/shoulder pain, which has eased a bit but has still been coming back at times this week. I had to go to bed last night because I was in too much pain.

My knitting has been a bit unfocused this week. I've been swatching and charting for some new projects, been working on some new magazine submissions. I did cast on for 2 new projects yesterday. One is the mystery shawl I've been thinking about for months.

 I'm now hoping it'll go ahead in October. The other is a shawl which may be a sample for my book proposal which i'm determined to finally finish & submit somewhere. Been talking about that for far too long now. I'm just not sure about how many projects to knit up and how many to swatch and how many of the proposed final projects I need to finalise at all. Or if its best to not finalise too much so I can be more flexible.

I'm also about to cast on for a couple of deadline projects which need to be done this weekend, they're small ones though so should be quick.

Next post will be some very cute animals from Fibre Fest and maybe some knitting.