Crafting Away, Movie-Going and A Shoe Dilemma

Took Voldemort and Severus to the vets on Tuesday to be neutered. Brought them home on Tuesday afternoon pretty groggy still, but extremely purry to be home. I was expecting them to have had a little bit of one front leg each shaven, which they did have, but I wasn't expecting to see a large part of their necks/chests shaven. I didn't even notice it until we got them home, as they were curled up in the carry basket when I got them. Don't know what that was for. Never mind, it's already growing back well. Being without their "bits" hasn't really calmed them down much, lol. They're still completely manic and *desperate* to be allowed out. We're trying to hold out at least until after Christmas, even if we don't make it past Emily's birthday. I have visions of some local yob deciding his girlfriend wants a black kitten for Christmas. They're staying in for now.

Apart from V.E.T. day, we've been having another busy week. With the rain we've been having, we finally decided we had to do something about the Emily Shoe Situation. At the moment (and for much of the last year!) she's been living in beach shoes and croc type shoes, as we couldn't find any decent shoes or even trainers to fit her. The lack of shoes wasn't that much of a problem until now. Anyway, we were snowed under with work, so my Mum and Dad took Emily into Scunthorpe shoe shopping. Her feet were measured as a 3H. Blimey. Knew she needed a wide fitting, but we didn't know it was that wide. None of the shoe shops had anything in that width. Literally nothing. Not even one pair.

Emily came home very disillusioned, so we started to search online. Found hardly anything there either, certainly nothing that she remotely liked. Apparently, the problem is that the D, E, F and G width fittings are made using the same manufacturing plate, but for H fittings it involves a different plate, which of course isn't cost effective for the manufacturers. Never mind the kids, eh? Apparently, as the comments under this article show, we're not alone in having problems finding decent H width shoes :-(( Nana and Gramps are going to take Emily to Lincoln next week to try the shops there, but not with any huge hopes of success. This hasn't done a lot for her self-image, the poor baby :-(

Took Grandad to the diabetic clinic yesterday. They had his notes (yay!) and there was only a small delay for his appointment. He and I saw a very, very nice doctor. Let's say his ethnic origin was not white British. Grandad didn't like him. What a surprise. The doctor patiently explained, several times over since Grandad always pretends he can't understand an accent, that there had actually been an improvement in his blood sugar readings. This is good. Less good is that he's gained nearly a stone in weight since last time - even though, as he huffily told said doctor, he "hardly eats anything". Even less good is that his blood pressure is up. The doctor explained to him that it's really important to lower the blood pressure in order to prevent his kidney function deteriorating further. He said he would write to Grandad's GP with some treatment suggestions and that we should go and see the GP in the New Year about it. I thought it was a very helpful, positive meeting. Grandad said it was a waste of time, the doctor doesn't know what he was talking about and that there's nothing wrong with his blood pressure or his diet. So. He's nothing if not predictable.....

We went to see The Golden Compass today. Shouldn't have done really, as we were still snowed under with work and deadlines, but what the heck. Emily and I got in free thanks to our nectar points, which I was chuffed about. We still have enough points for another three adult/child cinema trips. The film was great! I really enjoyed it. I hadn't read the book, although Emily had given me an overview of the plot before we went. She loved it too, but I was fascinated listening to her on the way home telling me about the way they'd changed the order of some of the plot for the purposes of the film, and about all the bits they'd missed out. I imagine some of the film would have been quite frightening for younger children - I'm at a loss as to why it was a PG when, for instance, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a 12A. They should have both been the same rating (whichever one) imo. In fact HP was probably less worrisome for small kids than the Northern Lights is. But then cinema certificates have always been a bit of a mystery to me! Anyway, Emily and I are both keen to find out what happens next. Father Christmas is aware of this and may well be facilitating said wish with a Subtle Knife book delivery on Christmas Day ;-)

In our spare moments this week, we've completely gutted Emily's room for one heck of a clear out, and have moved her dolls house and some other items back in there. Quite a lot of items, in fact - we needed to clear space in our big landing area (which is supposed to be Emily's play area and is in fact, loving called "The Dollshouse room" by everyone in the family, lol) because Nana and Gramps had bought Emily a lovely canvas wardrobe. She's never had a wardrobe before - all her clothes have had to be stuffed into a chest of drawers because her bedroom's too tiny for a wardrobe. But since we have plans next year to completely revamp the big landing (which is about three times the size of her bedroom) and turn it into a proper, enclosed room for her, the wardrobe is living there now. Very nice it is too. Emily now has an empty chest of drawers which she can use for her huge tape and CD collection. She's looking forward to painting the plain canvas wardrobe next year to match whatever theme she decides on for her new room :-))

We've also been "tinsellating" madly and doing a lot more crafts. Among other things, we'v made some lovely little dry felted robins for Emily's yule tree, some more white angels, and Emily's dressed her Yule festival figures - the mother Goddess giving birth to the Sun and the winter God in his snowflake cloak. I know it's a bit early for Yule, but last year we didn't get to do half of what we wanted to do because everything was so rushed, so we're doing all our crafts and things bit by bit this year.

Some other random piccies:
This is Severus with his toy of the moment - a mince pie case, lol. He carried it around and played with it almost non stop the other day.

This also Sev, in his most favourite place in the world, i.e on Jon's shoulder. Whenever he possibly can, he snuggles right up to Jon's face, nuzzling at him really, really hard - it's so adorable! Sev Sev is definitely a Daddy's boy :-)
This is Severus yet again in a remarkable moment - with a sleeping Juliet! Close to miraculous. To be fair, he didn't get up there by himself - Emily put him there. And Juliet woke up seconds after this picture was taken and was, um, not very pleased. But it's cute.
Here's JuJu in a nest of tinsel she found, too.


Next up is Voldemort having a cuddle:....and Voldy in a new home, lol!
And finally, a beautiful Barbie dress Emily made all by herself when I was out at the clinic with Grandad. She's getting really good at this sort of thing :-)