As per usual I’m not really sure what to talk about today.

A few weeks back I had a major melt down. I’d lost my wallet. I was going to place an order online for something and need to enter my card details.

So I routed through my bag and couldn’t find it in there. And because I couldn’t find it in there the panicking started. It started small as these things so often do. I then went to my room and had a look round the space I normally keep my bag Incase it had fallen out there.

It wasn’t there either so the panic got a bit worse. I went to the car and had a look round on there but still couldn’t see it. I’d been out at church the night before so started to wonder if it had come it of my bag there. So me and mum load ourselves into the car and go down there to see if we can find it there.

So when we got in there and started to look round I really started stressing. I was convincing myself that it had been stolen and any money in my bank account was going to be siphoned away to some offshore account.

I spent most of the rest of the day stressing and worrying and checking my bank account every hour or so to see if anything had been taken.

To try and distract me and take my mind off things mum convinced me to go to knitting. So off we went. I focussed on the shawl I’m working on for mum.

It distracted me for a while and gave me something else to concentrate on. While we were there my eyes were darting all over the place just to check if my wallet was there and hadn’t been spotted. I trust Carolyn and know she would have said something if it turned up there. Of course I didn’t see it because it wasn’t there.

After knitting we load back up into the car to go home and carry on the search.

It was an un eventful trip home as they pretty much always are.

When we got home and taking out knitting bags out the back of the car mum finds my wallet. It was crammed into a corner. It must have come out of my pocket when I got in the back of the car a few days before.

But my wallet was found safe and sound. As soon as I had it back I felt like all the emotion and stress that had built up during the day just hit a wall and shattered into a million pieces.

It’s a strange feeling when that happens, a mix of relief, relaxation, emotional overload , release and a crashing feeling like you have lots and lots of pieces to pick up and put back together. It’s almost like you’ve built up loads of energy and then all of a sudden it has nowhere to go.

After that though I started to feel stupid, like I over reacted, and that I hated myself for the way my head works. I did message round though and let everyone we’d been in contact with know that it was all ok and that my wallet had been found.

In the last post I talked about an email I’d sent out about disability benefit reform. Well, I got a reply from someone on Kier Starmer’s Staff.

Here is what it said:

Dear Chris, 

Thank you for your email to Keir. He has asked me to respond to you on his behalf.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the welfare system and I am very sorry to hear about your health, and I hope that you are receiving the support you need.

I am keen to share Keir’s plans regarding this with you.

With 1 in 5 people in the UK having a disability, and that encompasses those who have both a physical and neurological disability, Keir is committed to protecting and advancing the rights of disabled people. 
 
The government claims that they want to tackle long-term sickness, but they have no plan to ensure that people can get the treatment they need when NHS waiting lists are out of control. We all know that under the Tories far too many people with mental health problems just can’t get access to the treatment they need.  Personal Independence Payments (PIP) is a system created by the Tories that isn’t working for disabled people and isn’t working for the taxpayer.

As part of our programme for government, Keir is committed to working collaboratively with disabled people and leading organisations, to ensure that our policy programme is embedded by the principle of working together with those who have lived experiences; to ensure that Keir tangibly improves the lives and living standards of many disabled people in our country. 

Keir will produce policies in partnership with disabled people that have dignity and respect at their heart. This means: 

• An end to cruel disability assessments; our replacement will support disabled people to live the lives they want. Disabled benefit claimants should have the right to choose their own method of assessment (e.g. face to face/phone). 
• Drive down NHS waiting lists by getting patients treated on time with 2 million more weekend and evening appointments – paid for by cracking down on tax dodgers. We have the highest ever number of people who are out of work because they are unwell. 
• Reform to the Access to Work scheme where the waiting lists for an assessment have trebled and people now wait months for a decision. Under our changes, people looking for work will be able to apply without a job offer, and be given an ‘in principle’ indicative award so that both they and their future employers know what support will be available for them if they find a job. 
• Many people with ill health or disabled people simply do not want to risk having to go through the whole benefits application and assessment process again if things go wrong.  Keir’s ‘back to work guarantee’ would mean that people in this position who do move into employment with the help of employment support will be able to return to the benefits they were on without the need for another lengthy assessment process. 

Thank you very much for writing to Keir, and we wish you the very best.

Yours sincerely, 

Anna
Office of Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KC MP
Leader of the Opposition

I’ve put it in Red to keep it separate from my normal waffle.

Let me know what you think. I think it’s relatively positive.

Some of the time over the past couple of weeks I’ve just felt off. I can’t really explain it. I just felt like something somewhere wasn’t right. I don’t know what it was/is but something was wrong.

At first I thought it was a bit of anxiety but I didn’t have anything obvious to be anxious over.

I wasn’t Hungry (that can sometimes cause Aussies for me). I hadn’t missed any doses of medication. My pain level was no higher than it normally is. I wasn’t any more tired/fatigued than normal. I just couldn’t put my finger on whatever was its was that was/is causing me to feel off. I’m still looking round for it though.

The only other thing it could be was age thing. I have had a birthday since my last post. I’m now 41.

As always there has been crafting keeping me out of mischief. The best thing is that one of the pieces I did for Sandra’s Shows on HSN went to America (I know it’s a big country I just don’t know where HSN is based). The show Sandra was on went brilliantly but unfortunately my Sample didn’t make it on to the screen but other samples from the creative team did and as always they looked amazing. Can’t remember if I’ve show a picture of my sample on here or not but this is the piece that went to HSN:

A week or so ago Sandra was on Hobby Maker with a new Stencil set called Mindful Moments. It’s another set that I’d managed to do a sample for and this one was shown by Sandra Live on Hobby Maker:

Here is a picture of the actual piece I did:

I’ve had some lovely comments about this piece and I’m really happy with the way it turned out. Here are a couple of other pictures of flowers I’d done on spare bits of card:

It’s always a nice feeling when a piece of work you’ve done is shown on TV.

Here are the tiles I’ve done over the past few weeks:

That’s about it for tangling pieces but I have started working on a bookmark:

So I’ve also done a few cards too:

Also I made a wire sign for Father’s Day too:

I’ve been doing lots of other crafty bits too.

When it comes to knitting I have finally finished a pair of socks that I started while on holiday last year. I now have a pair of rainbow socks just in time for pride month. It’s only taken 8 months:

While we were at knitting a week or so ago I was just sat crocheting near the window and a squirrel came all the way up to the window. It was looking at me as if to say “well, are you gonna give me some food or what”

It was shocking how close it actually came. We had the door open too because it was a warm day. I had to close the door because if I didn’t it would have come in, I just kept coming that close. You can see the door in this picture so you can get an idea how close it came.

Other crafty bits I’ve done some gnomes

To go with the gnomes I’ve done some fairy doors too:

I’ve made a couple more pads/books/journals:

I think that’s about it for crafts and things at the moment.

So on that note I think I’m going to leave it there.

See you again soon

Love and light