What a week. There have been ups and downs.

On Tuesday I went to the dentist to get a filling. The painful freaky bit was the numbing injection. That hurt. The dentist decided that he was going to do a white filling. When the numbing began he started drilling out the tooth and doing the bits that are needed for the filling. He then packed cottonwool round the tooth and said that my mouth needed to be dry while the filling was being done. Not too much of a problem when you have dry mouth. So he filled the tooth and started dying a light in my mouth. The filling needed uv light to set. That was interesting. After that he said he was going to polish my teeth with a fluoride polish. I thought that would help with the teeth.

So he started pasting this stuff around my teeth and then that was it. So my teeth were covered in this gloopy stuff. The dentist said I had to leave it for as long as I could. So it stayed on for the rest of the day. If you saw me you’d think that I didn’t know how to brush my teeth. My mouth looked minging and I kept getting creamy white stringy bits on my lips. So then nothing else happened Wednesday and Thursday.

On Friday I was going to Sanntangle HQ.

So you might or might not have seen my Facebook post from Friday but that’s a good place to start.

So on the way over to Scunthorpe we stopped at a service station to have a chill out. At that service station there was a WH Smith, and M&S food shop and an greggs.

Because I’d had a shower on Friday morning my hair was still wet when we set off so I hadn’t tied it up. Mum went to greggs to get us something to eat. I had a steak bake and when I bit into it the filling splurged out, across my face, coving my hands and because my hair was down it got there too.

So there I am sat in the car trying to clean it from my hands and face without putting it down. I was going to eat it come hell or high water, I was hungry after all. I also needed to get it out of my hair. As I normally have baby wipes in my bag I thought they’d help. Trying to get a baby wipe out of the packet and your bag one handed with out getting the spillage all over yourself and the bag isn’t easy.

I got the odd bit here and there but baby wipes work wonders when cleaning things. So cleaned up my hands and face finished the pasty and then moved on to cleaning it out of my frizzy mop. I’m sat in the car in full view of everyone (one disadvantage of a disabled parking space near the entrance) using a baby wipe on my hair. I’m not sure if anyone noticed or if they were doing the notice and not look at the disabled person doing something that could be classed as strange.

So with the help of some baby wipes and a hair brush I cleaned myself up. Then we continued our journey to Sanntangle HQ in Scunthorpe.

When we got to the industrial estate where HQ is we ended up driving round a couple of times trying to figure out which building we were looking for. All of a sudden I looked up at a window in one of the buildings and saw the Sanntangle sign and knew we had found the place we were looking for.

Sandra was supposed get her signs fitted a few days before but the people that were doing it didn’t turn up or something. So in we went, I was excited about what was going to happen but also really nervous (anxiety didn’t want to be left out) that people wouldn’t like me or that I wasn’t what people expected.

As we were there a bit early we went into the reception area and met Sandra, Lesley and Pauline. Yes that Pauline, the one I had the fan girl moment about a few weeks ago. It was great to meet Sandra after only ever speaking to her through Messenger, hearing her voice on the Facebook lives and seeing her on TV. With lesley I’ve only ever heard about her through the Facebook lives and Pauline only through TV. Anyway because we were there early we got a bit of a tour round the areas that aren’t normally open to the public. Behind the scenes look at Sanntangle HQ. It was very interesting.

In my head I had the idea a while ago that I wanted to see a stencil being made. I have the image of lasers cutting through some plastic sheeting and it being really dramatic and hypnotic. It probably isn’t but I’m tempted to ask Sandra to video it then I can see it.

Carrying on with the day I got to meet a lot of the people who have commented on pictures of my tiles and I’ve commented on theirs. To see real people and hear them speak was a completely different than interacting with a tiny photo especially if that pictures is a dog or something else.

When we picked where we were sitting we got to pick up the secret mission envelopes and the pencil cases and the workshop began:

So when we got going we started working on a larger piece. We were given stencils to use. And as usual with Sandra we didn’t see what we were working on. It’s great because if you don’t see the finished thing, you don’t get put off and start thinking you’ll never be able to do it and you won’t beat yourself up if you do something different. Anyway here is the piece I completed on Friday Afternoon:

Considering it was the first time mum had ever tangled anything she did an amazing job.

During the afternoon I got to know Richard and Lisa a bit more instead of that tiny photo. We finally had chance to talk when the 3 of us met up outside while having a cig (Electric). I even got to meet their dogs. They were great and one even came up to get a stroke.

At the end of the day the fun started.I was trying to put the hotel address in the sat nav. And it started worrying me as it was trying to take us somewhere else and not where I thought we were going. Anxiety started, mum asked Sandra how to get to the hotel. All the way there I was convinced I’d messed up somewhere.

We get to that hotel. Get out of the car and go to the reception. And try to check in. I was still stressing out at this point but the embarrassment of breaking down in public which makes the whole thing worse was keeping it away for a bit. We try to check in and I guess you’ve already seen it coming but it was the wrong hotel.

I messed up when doing the booking. Turns out there are 2 Lakeside Premier Inns in that area.

So while I’m there screaming inside mum spoke to the nice lady behind the desk trying to find out where we were supposed to be.

We get back into the car and started the journey to the hotel I booked. Then the breakdown could begin. I couldn’t stop, I kept saying I was sorry and feeling I was rubbish and messed up. I felt like I shouldn’t be trusted to do anything on my own again. There I am in the car crying, rocking back and forth generally feeling shit. With mum driving round looking for the hotel. The place I booked was about 30 minutes away. On the trip I eventually started to calm down in what felt like about 6 hours but it was only 20 minutes. I still felt like shit but calming down non the less.

We found the hotel and checked in. Because we were a lot further away than I thought if we wanted the breakfast we’d paid for we’d have to get up earlier than expected. Mum helped me to my room and went to get the rest of the bits and my wheelchair from the car.

My room was massive and the bathroom/wet room was huge too. As the room was warm I found the aircon controls and turned the temperature down as far as I could and got ready for bed. I got on the bed and felt like I sank into it. It was comfy though. Of too sleep to be up at 6.

Got up and ready the next morning. We loaded up the car the. Went for breakfast. That was really good. While having breakfast we met a really nice lady called Alison who helped us out by moving things round so I could get in with my wheelchair. We had a nice conversation with her about anything and everything.

After the unfortunate events of messing up, the hotel was great and so was the breakfast. So being nice I left a really nice review on trip adviser.

Back to HQ for the second day of tangling. On Saturday we worked on 2 projects. And this was broken up by some card making with Pauline running that bit. It was fun to see other ways of doing it with a kit rather than making it myself.

During the session we worked on 3 separate cards. Some needed cutting down, folding and scoring. I was fine with that big as I’d done it before. The problem was there wasn’t much equipment to use to do the cutting and scoring. There was someone on the table we were on that decided she knew exactly what to do and was determined to help everyone else and show them what to do. The problem was that she kept doing bits wrong. She said she knew what to do but really didn’t have a clue. She helped mum with the cutting and scoring went off and when she came back something wasn’t right. She then blamed mum for the things that were wrong when it was actually what she had done.

During that session I was struggling and sensory overload was starting. It’s because of all the noise everyone was making chatting to each other. So I really struggled to hear and follow the instructions. So during the card making bit I didn’t manage to get anything finished. I brought the kits home so I can work on them here.

On Saturday we worked on 2 projects and here they are:

Mum did a good job here are hers:

Again another brilliant job from her.

While we were there I struggled to decide what I wanted to get from Sandra’s little shop. Did I want some more stencils or stamps or dies or other bits. I kept going and looking at different bits trying to decide do I need them or want them. I eventually decided on some more stencils and a couple of dies. Mum also bought me some new pastel pencils. These are going to stay in the box. They will not end up like the ones I had already. They are a pain in the arse, it’s really difficult to sharpen them, I’ve had to use nail files to get to some sort of a point. But new ones now will fix that problem.

Here are the tiles I did during the week:

Here is a picture of me and Sandra:

Sunday we went back to knitting. I hadn’t been while mum and dad were away because I didn’t want to leave Zoe on her own for so long and that I wasn’t sure when the lady that was walking her was going to come. So getting back to knitting was great.

So that’s a bit of a busy week.

Stay safe.

Love and light.