Examples of my woodworking skills, I built this kennel in 1997.  It has a slate roof, tongue and groove flooring and perches on a stainless steel stand.  We kept the cocker spaniel for six months; he did not like his home and chewed up my house!  I had always wanted a Rolex but the children preferred to call him LEX instead.  The experience cost me £600 to find out what having a dog is like and now I only have a piece of ‘sculpture’ in the backyard to remind me.

I built this en suite cabinet.  It is solid wood, shaped like the mirror and I painted the tile design and motif.  I am real proud of this piece.  Look at the shelving, even a tall one for the bathroom cleaner!

I painted the tile motif on this other bathroom cabinet.

This is my daughter’s white computer table.  The two boy’s are made out of pine and they are designed to suit their needs as regards to the spacing of shelves etc and they all have sliding mouse trays, as well as dinner trays.

Examples of my pottery skills.  These are my college works; the coiled pot was nicknamed Marilyn Monroe and the college put it on display in their show cabinet for a whole term.   I also want to show you my throwing skills on the pottery wheel so here are a couple of my coffee pots.

I am having a go at topiary.  This is my Green Dragon and he guards my house at the back.  He needs pruning soon.

There is my book called Curiosity Killed the Cat – Well Almost, so far 114, 219 words long and still adding on. It is about my life with the discus fish, to get my husband noticed and a superb advertisement for my Takeaway etc, a story within a story, more about this on my New Challenges.
September 2003, I have finished writing this book and it consists of 115,581 words.

On 24th October 2005, I went to see a Steve Vai concert at the Carling Apollo, Manchester. I took three painted portraits of Mr Vai for him to sign. He felt honoured that I had painted him and I was very privileged to have met him in person. My youngest son (who introduced me to this great guitarist when he began learning to play the electric guitar) and I had been waiting in the pouring rain for 45 minutes for Mr Vai. This is me beaming with delight after he had signed my paintings and this is one of the finished pieces. Believe me, I was like a star struck teenager and felt rejuvenated after that experience! Mr Vai you were fantastic, I thoroughly enjoyed your performance and a big thank you for signing my paintings.

Now that all three paintings are finished, they are definitely my pride and joys.

I must add my latest portrait of Mr Vai. This one is even more precious to me because I have got him to write on it as well.

This is a beautiful piece, signed by both my heroes

July 22nd 2007, I met Steve again and got him to sign another painting, just look how happy I am

I am a member of a Msn group called Crazy Friends and before, Msn dissolves these groups in February 2009, this is one of my threads which is too funny to wipe off so I thought I’ll add it here for you all to read.

This is a waistcoat that I made my man about 30years ago while we were courting and HE STILL WEARS IT – hidden of course underneath his sweatshirt. I have made a few for him during the last few months, the latest is of same design but I doubled up on the wool at the back where he feels the cold more, it’s like a carpet! He loves it and calls it his bullet proof vest. Wonder whether this piece will last for 30 years?.

Just look at him? I came on here to update this link today – Boxing Day (2014) and THAT MAN still brings a smile to my face…..

I have been selling and giving away many cuttings of my money plants this year and by looking at my poor hubby here, he still takes a lot of ‘battering’ from me! To make people realised that a money plant is a feng shui plant I put a notice up at the shop for my customers to read while waiting for their supper.

Money Plants – individually priced.  It is a feng shui plant, has a belief to bring you luck, wealth and fortune. They are very easy to keep, I will give you an instruction sheet. I have kept these for over 30years and they have indeed brought me good fortune including a Chinaman that I can boss about!  LOL

I now, allow him to walk up and down the middle of the stairs! it was hard to tell the kids when they were young, running up and down the stairs wearing the middle of the carpet out, someone has to even the wear so can you imagine Mr Chan clinging closely onto the bannister or banging against the wall? Awww for years…… Look at it this way, he was lucky to have some carpet to walk on.

Before you start by saying ‘Poor Mr Chan!’

The other day I made him a nice HOT cup of tea, the gormless man doesn’t see it! He downs the previous COLD cup fast and spits up the last mouthful because the cat has dropped a cat pellet in it! Even the cats don’t spare any mercy but my customers believe that I train them to bully Mr Chan as well!   Yeh, yeh….”Come here, Sue-Ling take this pellet, don’t swallow it now, take it into the next room and drop it into Dumbos’ tea!”

No, I think a pellet got wedged between her whiskers and fell into Mr Chans’ cuppa.  Can you just imagine this….. such a delicate performance in the Chans household.

Anyway, I have got carried away there, I meant to put up this picture up of my new converted dog kennel into a cathouse.  Utterly proud of it, I am, not bad for a woman.  Doghouse into a cathouse… I think Mr Chan can still live in there!

On the subject of money plants, my conservatory has now become a rain forest or my oxygen tent, I want to show you some of these bonsais which are over 15 years old.  You can tell by looking at the colour /pattern of the stem and not the size.

This one is amazing because it is hard to get very thin shoots to stand up.

The bake beans can is there to show you the size of the pot and if you compare, you will realise that there is hardly any soil!

To get these bonsais to flower as well is something to be proud of.  I cannot stand people getting rid off their money plants when it has got too big for their house!

Presently I have about 10 of these huge ones because I cannot bear to part with them as I have had them for over 30 years and have grown them from a tiny shoot.  They are in bloom at the moment, always round about Christmas and during some years, there are still some white flowers on them on Valentines Day.  Here is a poor picture that I have just taken now in bad light, to show you what the flowers are like…

So where does the luck  or feng shui come in?  In order for the feng shui to work? one must sell these plants as cheap as possible or give away for free which I usually do especially to pensioners and some sick people I meet or had a bad spell.  I had over 80 plants to hand out this summer and these were the best of all cuttings.  So far from what my customers have been saying, only after a few weeks of buying- a  couple have won the lottery, another the Premium Bond, another won thousands in damages after a 18month court battle, one runs a business, it became so busy he had to employ extra staff, another won £2k on a scratch card and latest one was waiting- then found a 50p on the road when he went for his medicine (the pub) and Me?

I went on Ebay and bought this……for £5 + £6 19p postage = £11 19p

This Gold Beaumont Cranked Bath Shower Mixer 18ct gold plating costs over £200 from a plumbers merchant and I only went on Ebay to look for a gold shower head and hose.  Absolutely bargain, this is my fortune for 2014 as well as gaining a daughter-in-law.

So my customers are asking;

“How was the wedding?”

“All good. In Hong Kong, the reception went extremely well BUT in the UK it didn’t!”

“Why?”

On the 8th of February, three and half hours before the reception at 6pm, Mr Chan puts this amount of petrol into his diesel engine….

Yes, a full SEVEN gallons of petrol in his diesel engine.  Of course he was dancing, stressed to the eyeballs!!! I had to ring the garage up twice to get clarification that they would tow the car away the next day to get it drained.  This Chinaman, this Chinaman kept wondering why the children kept calling him a DICKHEAD and he didn’t know the meaning and now he knows! Me? I am shouting on top of Mount Everest now…

“I AM MARRIED TO A DICKHEAD!”

As one customer say, Mrs Chan he wears a dick on top of his head!

After clarification Mr Chan calmed down and we enjoyed the meal and here is me making it up – I don’t know why he is clenching his fist.  Maybe, he is thinking… Yes, at last she has forgiven me!

I really enjoy telling you about these incidents that stress me out.  My son says that I should start a blog explaining each situation as it comes.  At the beginning, I feel like tearing my hair out especially when he cannot see the error of his ways.  We have a short shouting match, even the cats stay clear in case we have them for dinner!  Then I ponder for a bit and just laugh it off.

You have to be such a forgiving person or divorce him – me, laugh, laugh, laugh and say to myself:

“He can’t help it cos he is THICK!”

So please go to Tattys Blogs if you want more entertainment.