The knife saga is over, sadly, not with help by Amazon. In the end, yesterday, we just drove to the outlet mall again and bought the equivalent quality knives from the kitchen shop there. It did cost a little more than the Amazon prices, but both knives also come guaranteed for 25 years and at least they're bought as it was getting a little close to Christmas for comfort.

We did our usual thing of going an hour early, planning to go for a Costa while waiting for the shops to open at 10. Only to find out the Sunday hours are different, and you couldn't even get to any of the shops, including the food ones, as the gates to the actual mall were all shut. But, you could go into the McDonalds at the end, so I had a McMuffin and coffee and watched the craft and food stalls set up.

There were so many tempting stalls, including one selling bath stuff. I'm a sucker for soap, whipped soaps etc, so after checking out the smells I gave James a big hint such stuff would be nice to receive, and he sent me on my way as he made a surprise purchase. Which he then left next to the Christmas tree at home in an open paper bag.

We may also have come home with some cakes, which were enjoyed last night, with more left for tea later.

Saturday it was the delivery day for the pieces James has been working on. Thankfully, the man who'd commissioned the pieces loved them. James had also created a freebie for him, a raccoon on a live piece of wood. I think that's the technical term anyway, it's wood which still has bark attached at the sides. The man sat stroking that piece -- the other two are a bit big to hold onto -- and it was obvious he was genuinely happy with everything, which was such a relief.

After delivering those, we drove up to Seahouses, taking the coastal route and stopping off in some small villages to have a mooch and hot coffees. It was so nice to do that, normally those places are packed in the summer, but in winter it was easy to look around and actually see stuff, including a red phone box that had been turned into a Christmas decorated tiny library.

In Seahouses itself, we got to pose with a giant plastic polar bear, and a lovely lady offered to take a photo of both of us together You can also see photos of the pieces James delivered if you're interested, just click the arrows to see all the photos. No photo of the raccoon piece, though, I had to take a screengrab from a video from that, so that's behind the cut. With bonus standing in front of our Christmas tree too, as I know turlough likes to laugh at it every year *g* ( behind here )

I've been getting quite a few comments on my bandom fic lately, which is so incredibly lovely. Included in those was someone who read Tints verse and asked if they could draw Frank in his colourful outfits, and my reaction was, hell yes! My bandom friends may remember artwork for those fics was something I always asked for in wish memes, and now it may actually be happening. And yeah, it was an actual comment not a bot, I checked.

We went to see Kinky Boots at the theatre last night, and it was so good. We had brilliant seats, row H, end middle aisle and as a bonus, the lady in front of me was short so I could see perfectly. We've seen the show before, but booked tickets earlier in the year as Johannes from Strictly was supposed to be playing the role of Lola, but as it was, he wasn't eliminated from the show until last week, so he didn't do it. Not that it mattered, as the guy who did that role was amazing. The end remains ridiculously feel good and as always something that has me on my feet clapping along makes me a very happy bunny.

One drawback to going to the theatre is the lack of parking, there are a row of disabled parking spots, but they go very quickly, so we always go early and tend to go for a drink before doors open. Yesterday we got the last spot available, and as it was still 90 mins to curtain up, decided to walk to the winter village and check it out.

There wasn't that much there, some sculptures, some rides, and places to eat. But there was also a fire pit, and we decided to share a portion of crumble and that really hit the spot, sparks crackling and smoke in our eyes on a cold night. I'm glad we did share, though, as man, that crumble was sweet. Stewed fruit, buttery crumble, creamy hot custard with biscoff crumb, delicious but verging on being too much.