St Patrick`s Day

Now and again I seem to arrive at such a busy phase in my life that I almost hyperventilate with panic. Take this week, for example. I just put my Mum on a plane on Sunday (after spending her last day here frantically stitching my Granny`s birthday present!), but not before she dropped a bombshell on me: why don`t we spend the spring holiday in Hungary? So Gregory and I are leaving on 1 April - while my poor Hubby has to stay and work - for ten days in Budapest, including Easter, yay! ("Yay", except for the part where my Hubby`s not coming with us :((( ). Someone a bit less anal retentive than I am would probably not even blink if they were told that they`re travelling in less than 3 weeks; me, I`m blind with panic. I just spent the last two days booking tickets, confirming passport numbers, printing boarding passes, then sending e-mails to a number of friends to inform them re: arrival... and then the REAL panic hit: what prezzies to take, and what`s to be made for here before I go? Well, to keep them in chronological order: the first thing was an Irish shamrock for Gregory for St Patrick`s Day at the school on Friday:

It took me almost a day to get the chart right, I basically copied a tattoo on graph paper and I only realised when I started stitching that I had to put quite a lot of fractionals in it, which otherwise would not be a problem but this time I was working on plastic canvas so that I can turn the design into a badge... well, you see the result, my knotwork is a wee bit wonky at places but hey, at least it`s done, one box can be ticked. My next task will be to stitch something to go in the lovely little poppy-decorated frame that came as a freebie with one of my magazines a couple of weeks ago - this I`ll make for my mother-in-law for Sunday. And then I`ll have about two weeks to make something that I can take in my suitcase (as opposed to posting, cf. my earlier rantings) for my Mum and Gran for THEIR Mothers` Day present - for here`s an interesting (albeit useless) piece of information for you: in Hungary, Mothers` Day is the first Sunday in May, then the last one is Children`s Day, and the first Sunday in June is Teachers` Day - I think this latter is especially recommendable, although we don`t have Fathers` Day and that`s pretty shameful... On the other hand, we still celebrate International Women`s Day on 8 March when men give flowers to women and generally try to be a wee bit nicer, if only for a day... Och, well, that`s the way of the world but enough of this blah-blah, time to go back to my stitching!