Hobbycraft, Puppies and Karaoke

While trying to carry on with the ongoing saga that my dissertation is quickly becoming, this week has had some lighter, more enjoyable points!
On Thursday I had a girls day out with my bezzie mate and her aunt. We went to Hobbycraft in Pembury near Tunbridge Wells. We are all crafters so Hobbycraft holds a certain amount of appeal and excitement. I have never been able to go round this shop in under two hours and Thursday was no exception! Sometime after two hours we were finally ready to go to the tills and see what the damage was going to be for feeding our craft habit or indulgences! But lets not dwell on that bit!! My bezzie mate was looking for wool, fabric and quilting stuff, her aunt who is currently visiting from Saudi was looking for scrapbooking stuff to take back with her, and I was looking for card and papercraft stuff mainly indulging in some more decoupage collections. It was immense fun looking at all the lovely stuff, and the all the wonderful colours, patterns and textures of papers, fabrics, wools, ribbons, paints,...............! We also managed to find some party bits for my 30th celebrations.

After we had fed our craft habit, it was time to feed ourselves with a very naughty and unhealthy lunch, but hey it was a day out! Then as we still had some time to spare before we needed to leave we had a look in some other shops; Home Sense and Staples. Home Sense is a gorgeous shop and very reasonably priced. We didn't even scratch the surface of what was in this shop and didn't finish the ground floor let alone go upstairs! Perhaps another time we can go when we have more time and ideally more money to spend - and in my case my own place to put some of these wonderful things. Not too sure my Dad would appreciate me bringing even more stuff into the flat and adding candles and photo frames to an already full home! They had really interesting and unique photo frames, gorgeous vases, beautiful candle holders and some beautiful hard backed note books. Oh yes, they do a posh stationery range which was luckily all reduced! So as you may have guessed as my name suggests I started cooing at the various books and eventually bought two very gorgeous hardback notebooks with thick lovely paper inside. I just can't resist these sorts of things so I am very grateful they were reduced and actually quite cheap! We then went into another of my favourite shops, Staples! (Sad I know, but its a huge stationery shop, what do you expect!). However unusually I didn't spend loads in here even though there were some lovely things, which was lucky as my budget for the day had already been exceeded. All I bought was two nice purple ink pens that were on a special offer of 2 for £3. My friend's aunt however spent slightly more treating herself to a very flash new filofax diary.

With our purses empty we headed for home in my friend's lovely new car. After dropping of her aunt we then went to another of her friend's homes to pick her up and get a cuddle with some very gorgeous little puppies! I have seen the puppies a few times now since they were born and they are just gorgeous. They are long haired chihuahuas. I am not normally a fan of this breed preferring Westies, terriers and the like. However as these are long haired they look nothing like my idea of a chihuahua and are just extremely cute balls of fluff. Their mother Maisie is also a very friendly little dog and there is another chihuahua which is crossed with a Pug called Pippi who is adorable. When I first went to see the puppies as soon as I sat down I had the two adult dogs Maisie and Pippi on my lap looking for a fuss and a cuddle before I had even seen the pups! There are 5 puppies; Pandora, Lestat, and Luna who are all white, and then Shelby who is black and brown (and one of my favourites) and then last but not least the little rascal himself Yoda who is a light brown almost creamy colour with brown tufty ears.  He is my favourite by far. He has the sweetest face and is such a little rascal which makes him very loveable. There was a sixth puppy called Ice however sadly he is now in doggy heaven due to health problems. The puppies are gorgeous and very friendly and seem to love being cuddled and fussed over. I managed to get a cuddle with all 5 before it was nice to leave. We also watched them playing with their Mum Maisie in the back garden. It was lovely to see. It was a lovely end to a fabulous day.

On Friday night it was Karaoke night! Another friend (Kim) who I know through my bezzie mate has this fantastic karaoke machine with 1000s of songs on and had arranged an evening of it at her house. My bezzie mate was going with her two children and I was invited as well. Now normally this is really not my sort of thing. I have never done Karaoke before for good reason. I can't sing. I sound dreadful, and the idea of having this magnified by a microphone and in front of other people fills me with dread. In the past whenever I have been somewhere where there is Karaoke I have usually just sat and watched. However as I was amongst friends and in the safety of  Kim's house I pushed myself to have a go. I am glad I did as after getting over the nerves and embarrassment of the first song I did start to enjoy it and have fun. Now please don't think for a second that when I sang the first song I suddenly discovered my voice wasn't that bad and enjoyed it for that reason. Quite the opposite in fact! It confirmed how terrible and out of tune my singing is! But with the kids having a go as well and some fun songs to sing it was quite a laugh, and fun to try and beat your previous score each time! By the end of the evening I was belting out the karaoke classic I Will Survive loudly, proudly and badly! Immense fun! It's such a shame Kim is moving away in a few weeks time as it would have been great to do this again.

Karaoke was not on the list of things I wanted to do and was trying to do for my 30th year but I am pleased to say I have had a go at karaoke! It's great fun and as long as you don't take it too seriously you can have a laugh with it!