Following my last post, I am pleased to report that the mystery of the missing pincushions is becoming clearer.

Last night I emailed Anka, from Happy hang around, who I have made the donut pincushion for to let her know that I am her swap partner and that I was concerned that it hasn’t arrived.  You may have spotted Anka before as she commented on my pincushion make post!  I really didn’t want to have to reveal that the donut was for her until she received it, but given the passage of time I wanted her to know its on its way!

Anka was delighted to know the donut was for her, having already spotted it on flickr and here, and said that Romanian post can take aaaaaaaaaaaaages.  She has promised to let me know as soon as it arrives.

In a strange twist of fate while I was writing my email to Anka I got a comment on the site from Tracylea from Homegrown-insanity who has made a pincushion for lil’ ole me!  Turns out that the postal service has failed somewhere and the parcel aiming for me was returned to Traceylea in Idaho, USA.  That’s going to be one well travelled little pincushion when it arrives.

So it seems mystery solved and we are all at the mercy of our respective postal serivces.  However, despite that, I love the thought of the new connections I now have with people in Bucharest and Idaho, all because of 2 humble pincushions!  You’ve got to love that!

It’s now 10 days since I sent off my pincushion for the Foxs Lane pincushion swap and I don’t think it’s arrived.  I haven’t heard from the intended recipient and I am quite sure they would have blogged about it or dropped me a line on receipt.  I do hope its not fallen into a postal black hole somewhere.

The question is, do I contact them about it, given that it’s meant to be a secret swap?   I don’t want to spoil the surprise but I equally don’t want them sitting waiting thinking they’ve been forgotten about.

Then there’s the complication of the volcanic ash that’s been floating around northern Europe in the past week.  I think my parcel should have got through airspace prior to this, but you never know…

I think I’ll leave it a few days for now and hope that its still in transit.  The Royal Mail website said 2-3 days to for the country in question, so it is quite a delay!

I haven’t received my pincushion from the swap yet either so maybe its delayed because of the airline situation too.  I am beside myself with anticipation.  Well, if such a thing were really possible I’m sure I would be!

No, not THAT time of the month… THIS time of the month:

I’m not the only one who was mad scrupulous enough to do all the research before spending an age and a fortune knitting infamous Tom Baker Dr Who scarf. 

Tara Wheeler has set up a whole website dedicated to her Dr Who projects. Check out wittylittleknitter.

The question is… do I show Tara’s site to Caveman, who will no doubt expect me to make him all the scarves from every Tom Baker season that she has patterns for!

Heeeeeelp! I’m having terrible trouble accessing my own website and admin pages! I can get on at work, Caveman’s house, everywhere else actually. However, on my own laptop and netbook I can’t access frou-frou, even with different internet access services. My netbook is virtually new and has hardly anything on it and I’ve tried to turn off anything that can be turned off. I’ve ruled out several things – it isn’t my ISP (BT), firewall, antivirus software etc.

I run Windows XP and use IE or Chrome. frou-frou is hosted on Freehostia and uses Wordpress.

Something I run is clearly getting in the way and preventing me posting or viewing my site!

Anyone had any similar problems? Advice very much appreciated! Also let me know if you’ve had problems viewing or opening pages.

I’m now going to press ‘publish’ and see if this post loads. I’m not expecting miracles so me need to do it elsewhere!!

I am delighted to report that my contribution to the Fox’s Lane pincushion swap is complete, wrapped up and going in the post tomorrow!

The big question is… who will the recipient be???

P.S. I’ll post pics of the contents when I know parcel has been received