It's soooo cold at the moment! It snowed on Sunday! And the icy biting wind has not gone away. It howls down the London streets with malicious abandon, making my nose run and showing how rubbish smart city clothes are at anything other than being presentable in meetings (viz, comfort, warmth, lack of ironing requirements).

There are also soooo many things that I want to knit! Just seen these amazing mittens on the blogsphere, which are also here on Ravelry. And I rattled off some more baby bootees for the newest small person generated by a work colleague. They are so quick and easy and cute - I think it was 2.5hrs all in, including knitting the icord laces. In fact, so quick there are no pics, but they are the same as these:


Anyway, I braved the cold on Sunday and went for a shooting lesson. I've not picked up my gun since last season, which hardly seems a minute ago, so I was clearly rubbish out of practice and couldn't shoot a barn door at the start of the session. But, it improved, and practice makes consistency, so by the end I was starting to feel that I was hitting clays by technique and intention rather than pure luck, which has been my style to date. It's all to do with mounting the gun correctly (quit sniggering in the back), ie fitting it into your shoulder in such a way that you can look straight along the barrels at the thing you are trying to shoot. Sounds easy, non? Well, for rifle shooting yes, when you have all the time in the world and a pretty static target, but for game shooting you actually start the mount as the target comes into view, so you only get a few seconds to arrange your gun, aim and shoot. Today, having had the gun in the right place, I have the beginnings of a bruise forming on my cheek, and of course my arms are going to be killing me tomorrow - not used to holding something so heavy up for so long!

The Man, bless him, came with me to this lesson as it was one of his buddies giving it, and having frozen himself in the morning playing football in the snow, defrosted in the bath afterwards, then had to stand for another hour looking like a schoolboy whose mummy had forgotten to pick him up, hopping from leg to leg with his nose getting redder and redder. Aw. I shall have to persuade him to purchase a Proper Country Jacket and (worse) wear it!

Finally, try the Noodle Soup Oracle for some supper ideas.

TMI

There are things on my ipod I swear I never put on there. Samantha Fox's Touch Me (I want to touch your body)?? Good grief! Where did that come from?

The Man and I seem to have arrived at new levels of sharing. Last night, walking back from the gym, he said he'd had a tuna melt for lunch. Tuna, he thinks, seems to gives him wind. 'Oh dear', I said, 'you'd better not eat it any more.' 'Oh no', he replied, 'it entertained me all afternoon.'

Such insights into the male psyche I seem to be getting lately. I'm not sure if this is good (being open with each other) or ruining the mystique. Or whether blokes have any mystique to ruin...*;)

So anyway, The Sock is progressing quite well. I am trying a new technique of some increases around the end of the short rowing, where the foot is widest but the basic shape does not really increase apart from for the short rowing for the heel. This might be better demonstrated by a picture:

I had to rip the heel out once because I'd clearly forgotten how to short row, and there were huge lace-like holes everywhere. So, the best way I've found so far is to:

1. Double wrap and pick up both wraps
2. When you've picked up the wraps, unravel them so that you have three loops lying next to each other around the left hand needle
3. On knit stitches (ie when you've picked up the wraps and are about to knit them all together with the main stitch), knit through the back loop
4. Pull the wraps really tight as you go!

As you can see I am still mastering the picking up of the correct stitch when the short rows are finished to get rid of that joining together hole. I always seem to have to go back and fix it at the end with a needle and thread. Hey ho.

I'm also experimenting with doing some ribbing up the back of the ankle for a bit of shaping. We shall see what happens with that.

Ooo, just done some googling and it seems there's another short row method which uses backwards yarnovers, so I think I will give that a whirl and see what happens. (Another load of links here, but some don't work any more.) Yay for the internet!

Grass is always greener

Here is a cute little hermit crab from an island just off Hurghada. An 'uninhabited' island, apart from 300 tourists boated in every day for the amazing snorkelling!


This was the patch of beach at the hotel, which was brilliant.

Karnak temple at Luxor. The ancient Egyptians were amazing. They built all this stuff about 2000 years BC. There are heiroglyphs on just about every surface.

The Man at Karnak.

In the Valley of the Kings.

A camel by the Nile.

Us on the Nile.

We've been away on hols for a week, relaxing, doing nothing but sunbathing and reading, and yet this morning, having parked the car after going to Sainsbury's, as I walked back through The Grove with all its cool, damp autumn smells and fallen leaves, I had a very content smile on my face. I love being on holiday, and The Man and I had a wonderful time and were probably very bucket-worthy and loved up, but it's still the best thing in the world coming home and having to make the bed, do the shopping, clean the loo. Because it's my bed, my shopping, my loo, and it's all just the way I like them.