A wee trip to London :)

Hi every one :) its gonna be a loooonnngggg post ...lol so grab your cuppa's and your dunkers and settle down for some excitement ;0)
Last Sunday DD and I went down to London via Globe Tours, they are building their website at the moment ... we had the front seats and a good view all the way down and the weather wasn't too bad , just a tad windy .... we stopped about half way down at Northampton service station I think  and we decided to have a Mississippi mud pie Mc Furry as a treat .... I went to order it and the young man behind the counter said " do you want hash browns with those ?"  well after I doubled checked as to what he said I gracefully declined the offer ....lol ...
we arrived in London with a few hours spare before our hotel room was ready at the Tower Hotel .... so we pottered around the tower grounds and found the tube station and got some maps and an idea of the prices of tickets etc ..... we then went to the nearest Weatherspoons and had a delightful Sunday lunch/tea  before meandering back to the hotel and checked in .... we were on the 8th floor and thank goodness for lifts ...lol ....
Our room was lovely and the view well it was fantastic .... we looked over onto Saint Katherine's Docks and beyond and looked down on to the Queens Jubilee Gondola ... in fact we didn't shut the curtains all week as no one could see in and the view was just amazing at night as well as the day time .....
Sunday night saw the start of the storm that hit the UK and apart from some minor damage we got off lightly where we were .....and luckily we had booked the coach trip to see the  Harry Potter Studios as the trains the next day were not running ....
The tour round the studio was fantastic and we even tried "Butterbeer" which is definitely an experience ....lol and I want to do it all again ... and again ....
that evening we went to see "Wicked " at the Apollo Theater and the peeps we saw were just amazing singers .... DD wasn't as impressed as they had changed a lot from the book which she had read ...but me... I thoroughly enjoyed it  :)
Tuesday ermmm what happened Tuesday ... ohhhh yeah we got up early and went to Covent Gardens and found .... they weren't open until 10.00am sheesh  sooo we hummed and ahhhd and decided to nip back onto the tube and go to Harrods ... only some one forgot to mention that the stairs down to the tube were equivalent to 15 stories high = 193 steps !!!!!  Any hoooo we got to Harrods in one piece and had a nice browse around without collapsing at the prices of stuff ...lol  and then we decided to go to Hyde Park for a wander while the weather was nice and some how we ermmmm managed to end up towards South Kensington and off my wee map ....lol sooo we did what all good explorers do..... find the nearest tube and get on it back to Covent Garden ... which by this time was open ...lol and we got to go in the Moomin Store :)
Needless to say by Tuesday early evening the intrepid explorers were snoozing ... I only managed to put a few stitches into Miss Peepers!!!
Wednesday we awoke bright and breezy and still foot sore ...lol and decided to stay near the hotel and potter around the shops and have a late lunch before we got back on the coach home and instead .... we walked over the Tower Bridge and down the water front to over the London Bridge and back again !!! then we had lunch ...lol 
All in all it was a wonderful few days away but I was glad I was still off to recover .... and do a wee bit more stitching on things I can't show as yet *sigh on the plus side a new patchwork shop has opened near to the mouse house and I have bought some dies that go in my big shot that cut the fabric into triangles with the 1/4 in seam in and some other shapes too ... sooo I have been playing :) oooo almost forgot to say I got my exchange piece from Jan (photo below) 
Well by now you will be needing another cuppa sooo I shall go and fill the kettle and load up a few of the photos I took ... don't think you want to sit through 792 of them do you ????
oooo and it is also TUSAL sooo I will show that too *waves to Daffy :)

November Tusal

My  Autumn exchange piece from Jan 

The journey begins

The Shard 

oooo there's me ...lol

aptly named "girl with Dolphin"

The Tower 

watch out below

these beefeaters are getting smaller 

seafarers monument in the fore ground  

ooo another beefeater

view from room window

we know all the best peeps you know ... the Queens Gondola 

getting dusk

says it all on the bus ....

compact and beju  Harry's room

The Great Hall

original costumes 

Diagon Alley
(death eaters there as it was Halloween and halfterm)

stupendous model of Hogwarts simply stunning :)

Back of Prince Albert's memorial 

Squibbelllll

Tower Bridge at night 

Cooo look a new start ... Miss Peepers by LHN 

she had just said she was engaged to Thomas Becket
hence the pulled face ..lol

And there you have it in a nutshell ....hope you have enjoyed your wee tour .... its back to work for me tomorrow and hopefully next time you call, there shall be some more stitching to show you ....

take care one and all and have a wonderful stitchy week :) love mouse xxxxxx

COOO its tusal time and some thing to show :)

 Hi every one :) cooo these TUSALs fair come round quick ...lol ...Kettle has just boiled and the cups are ready .... I have some choccie biccies for every one :)
well where can I start mmmmm when I last squeaked to you I had a brain wave .... not often that happens heheh but it worked sooo I have been busy sewing away on my machine making some little presents for folks ... and they are sewww pretty even if I say so my self ... in fact I love them that much I made my self one heheheh ....

 you can tell how busy I have been by the threads in the Tusal Jar modelled by my wee sewing machine :)

November TUSAL

My lovely postie has been bringing me lots of goodies too :) first of all my Halloween exchange ornament from the Friendly Stitchers finally made it across the pond ... my partner was Shaunterria and she stitched me spooky :) I can show you what I sent her now too ....

My name was then pulled out of Junes hat and a gorgeous wee Christmas ornament was sent to the mouse house ... June stitched the LHN design over one .... you can see how small and perfect it is as Master Bentley decided to enjoy the vanilla scent that it smells of just as I was taking a picture ...lol, in the package was a lovely stitched card of a field mouse and a book mark with a mouse on it too ... seems to be a theme here hahahahah ... she has also sent a Christmas card but I am waiting  a wee while until I open it :)

I was also picked to win a Christmas ornament from Andrea  and that should be turning up any day at the mouse house too :)

I got some charts from the bay of evil ..lol but haven't taken a photo of them DOH !!! I won BBD's small token and I have some others on their way too :)

and I have just found out today that I won Heathers blog give away .... whoop whoop :) six wonderful LHN charts that I don't have and want to stitch ....

and on top of that  there is something on its way to the mouse house via another Heather  apparently she saw something while out shopping and it said it had to be sent to me ... soooo I am rather giddy and hopping up and down waiting for the deliverys heheheh.... Of course I will show you all once they arrive ;0)

Work has been very very busy again with another induction taking place this week as we are expanding very nicely :) but I am counting down the days until next Friday as that is ...... HARROGATE  whoop whoop ... its the annual Knitting and Stitching show held in the International Halls ... there are a few of us meeting up and staying as usual for the weekend and quite frankly I can't wait .... I am going to count up my pennies from the running away fund heheheh and going to do my small list ;) of things that I require /want / need etc etc etc ....and I am taking the camera and hope to record a few photos for you all to drool over :)

I think I need another brew after all this ..... care to join ?? I shall get the photos I can show you 

spooky from Shaunterria 

Master Bentley approves June ..lol

showing you all my cute side heheheh

all the goodies from June

Boo Mansion by Blue Ribbon Designs stitched by me 

the back of the ornament 

look carefully you can see it is made of rulers

I forgot to show you the ornament hanger I bought the other week ... I thought it was sooo cute and just perfect for hanging my ornaments on ,,, it is made out of rulers :) and I just had to have it :)

I think that this is all my news she says having a good old think .... apart from having my 6 weekly stabs in the back (acupuncture ..lol) just in time so that I should be able to "run" hahahah round Harrogate ....

hope every one is as well as can be expected ... take care one and all and happy stitching / crafting ... squeak to you all soon :) love mouse xxxxxxx

ps have put comment moderation on as been having a few spam comments :(