An exploding time!

Did it, finally made my firstest exploding box. Was going to take the cowards route and wait for my kit from QVC, but then 'need' got the better of me, I just 'needed' to make one. I did download a template, but it was a bit small, sooooo I had to decide for myself the size and then wing it from there. I mean how hard can it be to make 3 boxes, all in descending sizes? Settled on 7 cm for the first box, then went down in half centimetres, the tricky part was the lid, it had to be only slightly larger... could I pull it off? Well I did, but first effort was a disaster, but second effort, which you can see, worked perfick! Tis naturally an Xmas theme, but that gave me an idea, got this whacky idea to dismantle the crackers (posh ones with nice gifts) and put the gifts, jokes and hats, inside exploding boxes! Got lots of festive stash left over... tho need to make eight, may persuade the robo to take some of the angst away.

All this was before our Christmas night out, the works do. Every year we say we'll arrange everything well in advance, so everyone can be there, and every year we are defeated. Same this year, out of a possible 30, only 10 of us showed up. We stayed local, it was a nice restaurant come cafe bar, live act, but WHY, oh WHY do they have to thump out the music? In fact everyone complained, so the owner had to turn down the festive soundtrack he had chosen to play, that was fine, then on came the live act, a nice chap, great voice, great choice of music - but the sound level would have been better suited to a large theatre, and we were in a tinyish cafe bar. By eleven my ears had had enough, so me and Brenda bailed out, converstation was impossible, so off we went home, leaving the younguns to get even more sozzled and deafened. I was happy to get home, sober - exactly as I planned it. Had no intention of getting drunk, hate hangovers, and had a busy day to look forward to, taking mum on her Xmas shopping trip.

We toddled off to Southport, deciding once we were there to have lunch and then tackle the shopping. We found a quietish restaurant, but we were both annoyed to be made to wait a good 20 minutes before we could order, I was almost at the point of walking out when I collared a waitress, who was sharp with me, that is until I turned back to mum and said: Let's go somewhere else, then the waitress changed her tune and became pleasant. There was no excuse for her abruptness the place wasn't busy. After that the service was fine, food was good, but too much of it, can we adopt what they do in America, offer -small, medium or large portions? I'm sick of being given a whacking great plate of food that I know I just can't eat.

But we got the final bits and bobs of the Xmas shopping, tho I expect there is stil something I've forgotten. Oh well, just over a week to go...

I think the anticipation is far out wieghs the actual day...