Coming apart at the seams

Couldn't stay up today so had to retire back to bed after feeding the kids. Some unspecified lurgy. Felt much better after another few hours sleep. Katherine has been asking for a few months for me to make her a knight's outfit so, in these nothing-kind-of-days between Christmas and New Year, I'm all out of excuses and just have to get down to it. She wasn't entirely happy with my choice of old curtains for the main tunic, but she seems happy with the badge - a felt Occitan cross, seeing as how that'll be our new neck of the woods (hopefully and crossing everything and touching wood even though I'm not superstitious).

A close up shot of my sewing machine prompted its first good clean in a few years - amazing what that macro lens shows up, must remember never to look in the dusty corners with it.

The machine was bought for me as a present by my mother in law, who wanted me to make some curtains for her. Seemed like a fair exchange to me, but then she went and bought ready-made curtains, which I hemmed by hand for her. Sometimes it's best not to enquire too deeply into what people do.

So, we're waiting for some inevitable but nonetheless very sad family news, and spending our time searching for French plumbers, electricians, plasterers, renderers (now that's tricky - no-one lists themselves as a renderer), and plant hire places. After so long with our life on hold, we're not going to let a couple of legal documents and a pile of money stand in the way of our plans.