The only place for Christmas presents

Really, I should prepare a travel plan. Like, if I don't return home by 6pm, I am dead.

But be happy. Because you will know I have died in ecstasy. I will have died and gone to a heaven made out of hand crafted paper with leaves and bits of twig. Cover me in sparkly sequins and scraps of pointless satin ribbon that you have to look at with a microscope to see, but when you do see them, they will be woven into exquisite and delicate floral effects, suitable for sticking on Invitation to our Wedding. What else you do with them, I do not know. But I love them. Glue them to my headstone and call my spirit immortal.

This destination of joy, this nirvana, is of course, Hobbycraft, and there is a branch near you. Hobbycraft is perfect for Christmas presents. Dump Christmas. It is perfect for presents, all resources, bright and sparkly things and every crafting joy.

Now I know there are some naysayers out there. The sort who go POOPOO Hobbycraft. Ridiculously expensive and FOR WHAT?

Well, you doubters, ye unbelievers, just don't go. Leave the aisles to me and my kind so that we may process up and down in rapt adoration, dribbling.

Because Hobbycraft is not just offering craft resources. Of course not. I can get some of that stuff anywhere, and at half the price. What they are whispering to me, the glorious reward they are proffering, in return for my ragged soul and all Dig's money, is hope.

Here, everything is possible. I can be not the incompetent fool covered in glue, with glitter stuck to my face, but the careful and delicate crafter, creating flawless designs that are not only perfectly conceived and executed, but which result in items of such beautiful delicacy, they arouse intense delight in the eyes of the beholder.

And to joy, there is no end. I look at my children with new eyes. No longer these feral beings roving around my once ordered home, setting about my upholstery with two litres of PVA and six litres of unwashable acrylic paint. Not here, not here at Hobbycraft. My image is of Squirrel, transformed. Suddenly able to absorb and understand the complex instructions on the latex rubber mouse moulding set. That's possible. She can also read the warning instructions about pouring plaster of paris down the bathroom sink, and all the ones about microwaves, water, staining paint and glue bonding.

And Tiger! She will be able to knit! Shark will speak fluent sugarcraft dolphin set! Dig will be an inspired and involved parent, enthusiastically wiring up doll's houses to illuminate perfectly reconstructed Georgian interiors!

It is all possible, because we are in Hobbycraft, where everything makes sense and we will never again produce stuff which looks like this:


Or this:
And this:


Thank you, Hobbycraft!