Sunday morning catch-up...

...and a week that has been less than great.

As I sit here trying to catch up with all my blog reading and other stuff, the Sun is actually shining and we have a blue (albeit slightly hazy) sky - not sure how long this will last as the forecast is for rain...go figure.

Yep, Mother Nature has been throwing allsorts at us this week Sun, rain, frost, winds - but I suppose we should be thankful that we haven't had the 'white stuff' and freezing temperatures that they have been experiencing the other side of "The Pond".

Every morning on my way to the station I cross the river Hope - I live in Stanford-le-Hope which apparently means "Stone ford/bridge over the river Hope" - and it is not unusual to see the river a racing, churning, muddy mess overflowing its banks (it is in a gully at this point) when there has been a lot of rain. However, this week the water has been at the highest I have ever seen and was only a couple of feet short of walls/outbuildings of properties that run alongside. The train journey has been quite interesting too as the view from the train would lead you to believe you were looking out a rice-paddy fields...not fields of spring wheat trying to make some headway against the sodden ground.

So commuting hasn't been great as it isn't much fun travelling on crowded trains with lots of soggy people and then having to try and dry out at work.

Work has been a bit of a trial this week. I have finally lost 2 of my only 3 fully experienced staff. This is great for them as they have moved on due to promotion but leaves the team in a bit of a sticky patch. The team consists of two clerical grades and there has always been an imbalance between the grades and the type of work and whilst I am lucky that a couple of my lower grade staff are happy to 'reach up' because they wish to develop - it is not a situation that you can insist upon. This being the case, it is going to be 'interesting' to put it mildly, how we cope with just one trainee at the higher grade.

As the week muddled by we reached Thursday which has to be one of the most awful days...

I lost an earring!

The awful thing being, it was a pair that my late Dad bought me for my 21st Birthday, so has extreme sentimental value. Bless them; my staff dropped whatever they were doing when I realised what had happened and they were searching everywhere - under desks, on desks, in desks, through work that I had been dealing with...one even went and checked the bin in the kitchen...just in case!

It hasn't been found!

You know when you start to doubt yourself...even though a couple of folk at work had confirmed that I had both on when I got there - as soon as I got home every light in the house went on. I stripped the bed, checked the linen basket, walked over every inch of carpet with my eyes 'glued' to it more times than I can count...just to be sure!

No luck - and a fair few tears have been shed!

It doesn't look promising but I can't give up on the hope that it might be found when I least expect it.

All in all, not a great week which has resulted in little or no crafting. I need to get a grip - moping wont help so I need to concentrate on something else.

Bugaboo Stamps kicked off their 4th Birthday celebration yesterday with a blog-hop and the first of the week's challenges. I think I will do what I did for their Christmas Chaos event - I will start a post later with details of each day's challenge and add in the completed items as I go. I completed the 'hop' last night and there were some fun creations from the Bugaboo DT. Why don't you hop on over to the blog to see what's going on - or better still; why not join in.

Let's hope next week is a better one......................................................................