Tag: hobbies

blog, hobby

Little Worm

Dub Mouse

From an early age we are all taught to read, it all starts from being a child when your parent will sit with you at bed time and read a story. You’ll end up following the story on the pages as your parent reads and slowly you will end up attempting to read (with guidance) along with them. Of course you process onto school where your reading improves, you’ll be picked by the teacher to read a few pages of the current book being read during English lessons and not forgetting the reading homework.


Bring on adulthood where you will either read on holiday, curl up on a winter’s evening with a nice book, read a very boring (yawning at the thought) “celebrity gossip” magazine whilst in your Doctor’s surgery waiting room – really? Who reads those shit things? I couldn’t give two hoots as to which overpaid football star, film star or these so called tv stars from those crappy “reality shows” (if you can call it reality) are marrying, divorcing, shagging or what toilet roll they’ve just brought.


I’ve recently had a big clear out of books and gave a load to charity, I’ve kept my favourite books and opted to start buying any on iBooks (apple app – as if the i part didn’t give it away). I tried the kindle app for a while but have found that the books sold are more expensive when compared to iBooks. Electronic books free up so much space in the house, are so much more lighter to carry and of course fit quite nicely into a bag. The only bad thing about using a electronic device for books is that when on holiday, the last thing you want is to take it to the beach and leave it unattended whilst you fancy a dip in the sea.


Everyone has their favourite books they would recommend to people. Here’s mine, in no particular order:


1) Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.There’s no need to explain this one, everyone knows who Holmes is and if you don’t – where have you been?


2) The Blitzcat by Robert Westall.Seen from a cat’s point of view as she travels through England during the Blitz in World War 2 trying to find her owner who serves in the R.A.F


3) The P.C Grant Novels by Ben Aaronovitch.This is a series which is about the adventures of Peter Grant, a young officer in the Metropolitan Police. After his unexpected encounter with a ghost, he is recruited into the small branch of the Met that deals with magic and the supernatural.


4) The Mudbug series by Jana DeLoren.About a ghost who comes back to haunt her ex-daughter inlaw. She only becomes visible to people who are about to experience near death.


5) The Worst Witch series by Jill Murphy.If you have a young daughter, I would recommend this for her. This books are from my childhood and I still love them.They are about Mildred Hubble who is the worst student at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches.


6) James Herriot – All Creatures Great and Small series.These are semi-autobiographical books set in Yorkshire, United Kingdom about the authors experience as a country Veterinary Surgeon.


7) Police series by Mike Pannett.Very much like the James Herriot series except these are autobiographical and are about the Author. Based in Yorkshire during Mike’s time as a rural Bobby. Would recommend these books and if you’re on twitter, give him a follow. Mike is quite a nice chap: @MikePannett


I wanted to make my list have 10 books but to be honest I couldn’t think of 10. The ones above are my favourite books and would recommend you give them a try. What’s your favourite book that you’d recommend?

blog, hobby

Old Lady Confession

Dub Mouse

Cross-stitch! WTF are you on about woman, I hear you cry. Yep cross-stitch, that thing where you makes crosses on fabric using needle and thread to make patterns, something that is normally associated with little old ladies sat in a club nattering away.

It happened when I stayed round my one of my nans, during a half-term or weekend. Cant remember age, maybe 13? Maybe 14? Or was it 15? (Is that the old lady memory loss kicking in?). I was helping nan as she was having a mini clear-out and we came across an embroidery set complete with threads, those wooden hoops things and fabric. (Her nan’s she said – though suspect it was hers). Sod the clearing-out, this looked far more interesting. The entire afternoon was spent with nan showing me how to do embroidery, and I went home armed with a bag full of threads and those hoop things.

Roll on a few years and I decide to pick it up and move onto cross-stitch as a way of keeping myself entertained. I subscribed to a couple of magazines, brought some cards, fabric and threads off eBay, then self-taught myself the art of cross-stitch. I started off by making birthday, Xmas and thank you cards.

Once I mastered those I thought would try a bit bigger and stitched something for cousins first born, then a hedgehog with sunflowers. I even managed to merge a design and create a little something for the bathroom.

A friend was diagnosed with cancer and I had found a quote for her (oddly enough from Star Trek original series) which was very apt advice, not just for her but it could apply to anyone – those afraid of make a chance or take a risk for something etc. she likes Japanese things and has even done cross-stitch herself, she’s done some lovely Japanese figures and framed them. Hudders asked me to do a design for her with a Japanese theme incorporating the quote, even went out, picked the colours, brought the threads and fabric for me. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Trying to find something Japanese to symbolise strength etc so I opted for symbol meanings, created a hand-drawn version then drew onto fabric so it was easier to stitch rather than creating a chart to work from. Hudders couldn’t of picked more difficult threads. Had to keep wetting them to make them workable. A large amount of swearing sessions occurred whilst creating that masterpiece. I had to get a frame especially made for the design because silly me didn’t think to make a design to fit within the bog standard frames. I never do things the easy way (is there one?), the completed piece now hangs on a wall in hudders bedroom as it was designed to fit in with her bedroom colour theme. Sadly Emma passed away on the evening of 13th December 2013.

My latest project was for the kitchen. It fits in well with my ideal colour & retro theme (for my ideal home – provided I ever afford one). I had started it months ago but then put it down for a while, cross-stitch is one of those things you have to be in the right frame of mind to do. The “bug” can hit and leave just as quickly (not much dissimilar to a held in fart allowed to escape. Those come out fast and quickly go). Its now finished after oh must be about three months now i think and hangs proudly underneath my retro style cream clock (why you need to know its a cream retro style clock I don’t know but hey now you do).

And roll forward to 2018, I no longer do cross stitch. Why? Because our rescue dog has decided he is far more worthy of attention than my hobby and every time I tried to sit down and get started, he would run off with the threads.