A good day

Still on holiday here so I've been having a fairly relaxing day. Today is also my birthday, though it is now almost over for another year.
My dad took me out for lunch to a restaurant in the next town to us, where I grew up. The restaurant is fairly new although it is in the former premises of a favourite restaurant of the past. It is also next to my former high school, which I am glad to say has finally ditched the horrid brown uniform that I had to wear in favour of black.
Anyway we had some crab cakes to start with and then I had some lovely Scottish salmon with lemon and lime butter. Dad had some chicken in pepperly sauce. All in all it was fairly good though I still greatly prefer Chinese food to everything else.
I spent the afternoon going around carpet and flooring shops. I've been trying to decide what kind of flooring I want in the flat for ages. I like carpet but there is little choice available. So I've decided to go for laminate flooring in the hall and living room with carpet in the bedroom for cosiness and tiles in the bathroom and kitchen. This may all change again.

Stitching wise, I've been working on Taj Mahal garden from Chatelaine. I only joined this one after part 5 came out so I'm way behind and okay with it. All the progress pictures tempted me into it. I'm using the silks except for the NPI ones and I can't say I see a difference with DMC. Other than that, I am think about what I would like to stitch next year Chatelaine wise. I decided not to sign up for Mermaid treasure box as I felt I had enough to do just now. I'm tempted by Mystery 8 but the size of the parts that the folks doing mystery 6 are stitching is putting me off. I wasn't sure about Christmas mystery 2 but I'm definately in on that one and Mini H. Celtic quilt is starting to look tempting but I need to think about it all lot more. I want to stitch more mirabilias and TW. Anything Chatelaine related seems to suck up most of my stitching time. The possiblity of Vicki Clayton silk substitutions is definately going to make the financial side of things much more appealing.