This monkey thing may be getting out of hand.....

Anyone would think 2008 was the year of the Monkey!
There's certainly been a lot of wonderful monkage going on here, here and here over the past few days. Although not one to consider herself in any way trendy I do have sheeplike tendencies and just had to join in.

The funny thing was a certain Lucy 'I've cleaned Primark out of all the best socks' Locket
was obviously baa'ing to the same tune!! You should see her Freddy - as it were. We've set each other a bit of a challenge to keep the craftiness going but more of that later when we've ironed out the 'rules' of the game.

All this blah is just a very tortuous way of getting round to introducing you to the latest recruits to the Worldwide Monkee Army.

These guys were made from the sock monkey tutorial link on Monkee Maker's blog and are constructed from the finest socks Peacock's could offer. I do like a bit of quality ;)

Minx meets Minnie Mabel Monkee:

Minnie Mabel Monkee with Peter Parker, so called by Sausage Monster because Peter is a Spidermonkee and as you will all know Peter Parker is in fact the mild mannered reporter who in his sexier moments transforms into Spiderman!

They are really badly stitched, lumpily stuffed and highly likely to burst their seams with the application of minimal pressure constructed in a deliberately ironic manner. The children love them and I have been asked to make some for friends already!

As well as making a start on the monkeys I also spent the better part of the morning stalking a bid I had in on eBay. At 12.04pm I won! I shall very soon be the proud owner of a sparkly new bargain schmargain sewing machine with 60+ stitches and a whole bundle of extra feet, bobbins, thread etc. It's not the bestest machine in the world but it's capabilities will open a world of 'fancy stitchery' to yours truly.

Oh, how the long winter evenings will fly by..........

See how fantastic I am? Making monkeys, online shopping and entertaining a small boy whose school is closed. I can hear you asking 'How does she do it?'

Here's how:
Ignore any sort of household task no matter how small.
Indulge your child's every whim to watch telly, play on the Wii, eat chocolate, destroy the living room.
Rarely take any sort of comfort break.
Repeat the phrase 'In a minute' approximately every 30 seconds.
Ditch rissotto for dinner in favour of beans on toast.
Do all the 'housework' in 34.5 seconds before husband returns home exhausted from a hard day's bread winning.

See? Easy when you know how :)

As I'm obviously in a jovial (post 1 glass of red) mood I'm not sure I should burst the bubble. However, something absolutely awful happened when I picked Minx up today and I sort of have to get it off my matronly chest - so forgive me.

I had taken Minnie Monkee up to school to meet Minx this afternoon and we were chatting happily with friends near the church. Suddenly my friend sort of shrieked 'Oh No!!' we all turned round and a poor little cat had run straight out in front of a car not 4 metres from where we stood. The poor thing didn't stand a chance and neither did the driver (who oddly did not even seem to notice and drove off).
Although the car ran right over the cat it did run away. My friend followed after it while I stood with a huddle of very shocked children. Needless to say the cat did not survive and died very quickly. The cat was wearing a collar and my friend, who is the kindest person, waited for an hour until the owner's got home to let them know.

As you may imagine this experience has encouraged the children to ask some interesting questions this evening and has caused me to draw on all those parental resources I never knew I had in order to provide satisfactory answers!

So that we don't end on a downbeat note I feel we should have some music. Will this do? Gotta love a bit of Dolly :)

xxxxx