I am really rubbish when it comes to taking time off work (unless it involves lying in the sun somewhere warm, when I am very good at it).  I intended to spend the last week lounging around on the sofa reading books and eating Easter eggs, forgetting the world of e-mails and meetings.  Instead, it took three 3 days to work out where the off button was on the BlackBerry of Evil and then the discovery that I can only turn it off for an hour at a time without having to check that my inbox hasn’t overflowed.

The one job I had to do over the break was move my rockery and patio (reasons will become clear in a future post).  The Arctic weather on the first day stopped that though and lounging didn’t seem quite right that early in the break.  Instead, I found a pattern for some trousers and some material I’d put aside for the project.  The only clothes I’ve ever made before were a pair of shorts when I was 15 and at school.  They were inevitably terrible and were never worn (they also had a matching tasteful boob tube, but we’ll gloss over that for obvious reasons).

It turns out I can make clothes.  In fact I got a bit carried away and in the last week I’ve made four pairs of trousers, three long sleeved tops, one short sleeved top, two pairs of shorts and a skirt.  I had a small taste bypass with the material on a few of the items, but I’ll put that down to practice (and the fact that when only curtains are available, there is a possibility that the item will look like a curtain, whatever you do.  We’ll gloss over that too.)

trousers (ok, they have an elasticated waist band, but you have to start somewhere!) and top

short sleeved top – I’m hoping it’s one of those things that looks better off the hanger!

It also turns out that you can spend time in the garden in Arctic conditions as long as you have a mum, dad and Sister 2 helping out (Sister 1 is busy being heavily pregnant so was excused from landscaping duties).  Between us we moved the rockery back a foot and removed part of the side,  added some sleepers to hold it in, removed a fence panel and added a new one, took up most of the patio, re-edged all the flower beds and removed two tree stumps.  I have blistered lips, but much to my surprise, all of us still have the usual 10 fingers and lost none of them to frostbite.

before

after

By yesterday I’d had enough of the sewing machine and the garden, so I sat down to attempt some of that lounging.  It didn’t work though, so instead I spent five hours cleaning the car, my house and the windows (between the sewing, the gardening and numerous trips to the tip both needed a lot of TLC).  Then I rounded off the holiday by super gluing a pipe cleaner to my fingers.  As you do.

So there you go.  A week off work, Pog style.  :o)