League Against Boring Lunches

Fin

2011-01-19T22:07:00.001Z

This will be the last post on League Against Boring Lunches. It’s been going since 2004 (!!!) and started with no real idea of a direction. I’ll continue to blog at KnitCookSew. Please come over and check it out, and thanks for reading!

Friday funny

2011-01-14T15:44:00.000Z

Woman at work asks the team what they think might be wrong with her heating as there’s a tapping noise. We suggest bleeding the radiators.
Woman: ‘Blee-? Bleed? As in blood?’
Us: Yes, you need a radiator key, you turn it to let the air out and then close the valve again when water starts coming out.
Woman:
Us: Look on youtube
Woman: But it’s in the boiler!
Us: Oh!
Us: Well it could be air flapping a vent. It’s been windy. Or a bit of solder come off and ticking against something.
Woman: Sol-? Solder? What is that?
Me: Perhaps a very small person has got trapped in there and is trying to get out?
Woman: Ahahah! Hah.

Later, Woman calls the boiler man.

Woman: Hallooo? Halloooo? Yes. My boiler has a problem. I think it might blow up. Or perhaps there’s a little person in there trying to get out.

I’m serious. This happened.

HMOG people. HMOG.

Post Chrimble Corral (like a round up but different)

2011-01-04T20:05:00.005Z

Have not blogged for a while and now we’re back to work. Nooooo! I was really enjoying being at home and having some free time. Things got done! I could sleep in and relax occasionally! Spend some time with my darling husband! (Who is totally not neglected at all, whatever he might say.)

Before Christmas we had more snow. My parents went away abroad to a wedding and their 12hr return flight ended up taking two days with a stopover in Marseilles. How delightful. Our road was inpassable to anything other than 4x4s for about three days (unless you were going downhill) and the rest of town’s roads were a mess, and the pavements sheet ice. I don’t know if it’s because of inner wranglings in the Council but I saw nary a gritting lorry the whole time. The best we got were a few poor chaps with a flat-bed van hand-gritting the steepest slopes.

We hosted Christmas at ours this year, for ten of the family. Mum got the turkey for me, and stuffed it, and it was delicious but HUGE. Ten of us, including two second helpings, did not manage to make it into the second side. Therefore the freezer is well stocked with leftover turkey ready to throw into stir fries and whatnot. We had a great lunch with enough trimmings to please people from all sorts of family traditions. That seems to be a sticking point when you have to start going to other family’s Christmasses – will they do it right? Will there be bread sauce and cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon? When will presents be opened? Will they make us play Charades? (shudder)

All was well. I even got the Man and his cousins to come to midnight mass on xmas eve, which was an achievement and only done I think thanks to a timely mojito in the local trendy winebar. The Man did take a bottle of beer in with him but to be honest I was just pleased they were all there. Christmas isn’t Christmas without singing some carols.

And now, decs are down, snow is gone, back to work and January Healthy Eating Plans (snore). My friend Clare has had her baby, welcome to the world Alexander! My brother and the Man’s brother are both moving house. We have workmen booked in to come and sort our house out – electrician and plasterer so far. Things are popping up in one of the bulb pots – I can’t wait to see how many of the 200 bulbs we planted actually grow.

I am still knitting the tea leaves cardigan because I had to do some frogging and go up a needle size in an effort to make the yarn last. It seems I only bought four skeins, unless I’ve lost one, which is totally possible. The body is now done, so I need to do sleeves and button band with just over two skeins. Will it happen? May have to do some juducious juggling and perhaps have ¾ sleeves or something. I also started a cowl in some really yummy silk / alpaca yarn which I am beading (remember last time I beaded anything I said never again until hell freezes over?) but I just hope it will (a) fit over my head and (b) not be itchy. The yarn is like butter in your hand but you know how things get when they’re next to your skin and you start getting a little warm. Eeeeech.

I also visited Loop while slightly drunk after our team Xmas meal (which some genius booked in a restaurant in Islington) and bought way too much Madelinetosh sock, and then the Man and I went to the first day of the sales after Xmas and I hit the John Lewis yarn sale. Got yarn for a couple of jumpers / cardigans and also a heap to design something with. That’s a goal for 2011. I started doing the maths yesterday and my brain started to melt; probably full of mince pies or something.

In other news, with some wedding vouchers we bought a handheld vacuum thingy. Can you tell which is which?

And the Man and I went for a fish pedicure.

These things are springing up all over the place at the moment, I believe there are two in our town now. How it’s supposed to work is that the water makes the hard dead skin on your feet soft and then the little fish (about 2 inches long) suck all the skank off and eat it. Mmm, yum. I’ve heard the sensation described as ‘relaxing’, ‘like bubbles’ and ‘a bit tickly’. Riiight. It’s frikking weird. I felt like I needed a wooden spoon to bite down on. Do you remember when you were small and before you were trusted with scissors your parents had to cut your toenails for you? I remember my mum sitting on the edge of the bed with my ankle firmly pinned under her armpit while I thrashed in hysterics behind her, trying to keep my foot still so she didn’t cut off a toe. It tickled! And not in a good way. Well fish pedicures are like that, crossed with the prickly sensation from the little electrical zappy machine the physio uses. So I was laughing and crying and trying to keep my feet still do I didn’t either crush a fish between my toes or kick one out the tank. And then sometimes one fish really scrapes its teeth into your skin. They tell me the fish don’t have teeth, well that is LIES. I felt them. Little sharp pointy teeth. Seriously.

I’ll stick to the Body Shop foot file, thankyousomuch.

Bird flu

2010-12-12T15:22:00.001Z

Ill. Very ill. Poorly sick. Only knitted 4 rows since Thursday so it must be bad.

The Man has also decided to do some DIY and wants help which unforts won’t be forthcoming. Helping the Man with DIY requires more strength and tact than I can currently summon. Sorry darling. Sorry front door. Sorry cat (if we had one).

He’s currently singing though so perhaps the preliminary stages are going OK.

I made some chocolate chip cookies earlier. Note for future baking sessions: too much cookie dough in one dollop does not spread evenly into a monster cookie but just wrinkles up into something which resembles a cowpat.

Tastes OK though.

Chrimbo tree is up. Presents all bought and waiting to be wrapped. There are ominous sounds of sawing coming from the garage and kung fu ‘Yaahhhh!!’ noises.

Wish me luck, gentle reader, wish me luck.

Snowed In, or How to Get Lots Done

2010-12-04T21:03:00.009Z

Lots of pictures in this post.

It started snowing on Tuesday, so I've been working from home since then. Not much choice with the amazing train network we have in south east England. We had just the same last year, but I suspect it would cost far too much to install overhead power rails which are more snow-proof. Although for the rest of the year the rail-side power lines seem to have fewer problems. Hmm. Maybe I should just save up for a helicopter. Although they are quite sick making. :)

So here are some pics of the snow, starting on Wednesday. You need to keep an eye on the big plant pot in the garden. It was like a souflee rising over several days.

Thursday morning. It's risen!

The town sold out of sledges (again!) and the kids made the most of the big slope in Calverley Rec.

Someone made a cool snowman in the precinct. He's waiting for the phone box.

Good use of available materials. Carrots from M&S? (Not just any carrots.) Check out the eyes. Maltesers!

My little car turned jeep sized. Bless. I suspect if we try to start it the battery will be flat, poor thing.

Our gutters need replacing but the leaking makes some cool icicles!

Then last night it rained and look! Deflated souflee! You can see steps and plants!

The birds had little else left so went to town on the red berry bush.

Make this pic bigger to see the shredded stalks.

Remember those icicles? They grew some more after I took that picture. Good job the Man didn't park on the drive because this would have gone through his bonnet.

The gutter wasn't so lucky.

Just hoping it's not gone through the top of the bay window though. Because if it did that would be directly below the new hole in the gutter...

So anyway, those are our snow dramaz.

The great thing about having snow days is that I can catch up on some of those craft projects that I've been itching to do for weeks.

There are numbers on this pic but you might have to click on it to see them.

1. Mini Maiden from Handmaiden - two skeins for a Percy shawl that I'm not allowed to start until my knit group decide if it's going to become a knitalong next year.

2. Debbie Bliss Andes (65% baby alpaca 35% mulberry silk) with some clear beads to be a cowl or mini shawl / scarf when I finish the current project.

3. First proper dressmaking project I think - an Amy Butler Domestic Goddess apron. Was good, the instructions are clear even for a newbie like me. Had to dredge up some of the dressmaking hints mum told me aons ago, combined with some hints from the interwebs. Yay mums and interwebs!

4. Christmas cards. Card from Hobbycraft (hiss), stamp from Nooliebird via notonthehighstreet.com, inkstamp from Papertole in the Pantiles. Which is now the only shop in T Wells proper which sells cardmaking stuff. Now you understand the hiss for Hobbycraft.

5. Jumper which I knitted twice and it was still too small so is destined by my cousin I think. Just waiting for some poppers which are stuck in the snow somewhere to finish it off. Got the buttons there all ready, see?

So here is the Amy Butler project done. It came to an abrupt halt when I ran out of thread two yards from the end. Unforts that was to topstitch the waistband which goes right across the front, so it had to be matching. Even more unforts, I was using Sylko thread. They don't make Sylko any more. Since when?? Apparently Coats took them over. They are taking over the world, I swear. So I ventured into C&H to try to match the colour. So, it's minus two outside and everyone has elevently hundred layers on and C&H have their aircon on 9000000 degrees. I walked in and said out loud, 'Wow! It's hot in here!' and the man said, 'It's nice, isn't it?' At that point the sweat was already running down my back, under my lotsoflayers and feather-filled snow coat. Um. No?

One of my knitting buddies described it as menopausally hot, which I think sums it up quite well.

They were also playing Cliff's Christmas Hits on loop.

The things I do for craft projects.

This is a good project, if you're over 6ft tall. This apron comes to my ankles. I may be taking it up. This is the pleat front apron, with pockets. Not that you can see either in that pic!

During some recent sorting out I rediscovered these cool little tags I'd bought in Bath. One of those is now secreted around the apron.

And now it's time to clear up my desk...

2010-11-28T21:08:00.006Z

Don’t hate me, but I’ve nearly finished my Christmas shopping. I think I’ve learnt the skill of organising complicated events well in advance while still at work. Only problem person left to buy for is, as usual, the Man, so any suggestions gratefully received! Tempted with this:

Are you guys well stuck in yet? Are you knitting (or making) stuff for people?

It’s just as well these things are getting done early because we’ve got the family coming to ours this year so it will be all hands to the pumps to cater for the feeding frenzy. I’m looking forward to it really, it’s lovely to have a house full of people and I can pretend to be Nigella (or more likely Gordon Ramsay).

The Man is doing even more of a Victor Meldrew impression at the moment because not one but two (ie both / all) of our TVs are broken. One just shrivelled up and died three weeks ago, refusing to turn on from standby, and on Friday night I got home to find the Man sitting with a face like thunder in front of the big TV (his pride and joy) which was shooting lines of snow across the bottom of the screen. Apparently I broke it. Even though when I left in the morning it was showing the repeat of Loose Women fine. (I turn over anything that talks about the Royal Wedding and breakfast tv can’t get enough of it at the moment.) The big TV has now gone back to the shop (luckily still in warranty – broken before a year is up!) but not before we spent an evening playing petulant canasta. Not even winning could cheer him up. How sadly reliant we get on tv. I was quite enjoying it, suddenly you get out of the zombie state and think about all the things you could be doing – putting up pictures, sorting out the bookcases, starting that new knitting project I’m itching to get going on. But no, it was like having a toddler in the house who needed entertaining before he threw a strop. Sigh. And I was sure he said he’s over 30…

These things have been happening since the new people next door moved in and started gutting their place. We’ve had not one but two bluetits in the house. The first one was in the kitchen and we could not fathom how it had got there, because that was the week the Man had decided it was cold and went around plugging all gaps under doors and other draught-making holes with all the stuff that was in the charity clothing pile. (The house now looks a little like the laundry basket exploded.) Nonetheless there was a bluetit in the kitchen, hanging out on the windowsill. Then on Sunday morning I was in the bathroom and there was a massive scuffling under the bath. I thought it was a mouse going crazy, but next thing I’m getting divebombed. Since when did bluetits live under baths?

This weekend I also made a batch of christmas cake cupcakes and stollen cupcakes. These are experiments. The mini xmas cakes are getting fed with sherry for a bit and will be iced nearer xmas. Stollens freeze OK apparently. They are so cute! Lovely little bits of soft bread dough rising around balls of marzipan and lots of yummy dried fruit, peel and nuts. Mmmm. Great with a frothy coffee during a fraught moment.

However I am a newbie food blogger and took 0 pics. Apols. I will try harder next time.

Brrr - hat gloves and scarf weather

2010-11-23T19:43:00.007Z

It's cold dark and dreary and when the alarm goes off it's like the middle of the night. Sounds like we're in that long on stretch of winter. Hey ho. No choice but to just keep plodding on, and think about planning a holiday.

Lots of friends are having babies, so I am knitting. Clare is due any minute, and for her, an Undercover in sagey greens and greys.

And because they are fans, this Star Wars inspired babygrow:

Genius.

My old flat mate Ali has just had a little boy which they've called Alfred, so I decided on a Mrs Weasley style sweater. The sweater itself is pretty good, but the letter is wonky - too high. It's OK, Mrs Weasley's aren't perfect either. :)

Now I can get back to my own knitting for a while!

In between times we've been to see Bill Bailey on his Dandelion Mind tour. Go if you want to hear Ace of Spades played on an oud, or Abba played on a car horn xylophone (the act has Gary Numan’s Cars scripted so Abba was an impromptu bonus). I love Bill Bailey’s comedy, he’s funny and ridiculous but hugely intelligent and cultured. I’d love to have several pints in the pub and listen to him pontificate on the state of society. He’d be a great mad uncle to have.

Also Clare and I went to see Harry Potter. Fab. But you know that already. :)

Right, I'm going to go and wind some yarn for the Tea Leaves cardi. These small things make me happy.

Books

2010-11-01T21:02:00.002Z

God, I have no idea what to do with myself in those spare moments now that I don’t have a wedding to plan and there are no exams upcoming. I suppose in a while I’ll be occupied with redecorating and Christmas. In the meantime, do you think the boss would mind if I knitted a little at work?

I thought I’d do a little round-up review of some of the audiobooks I’ve listened to lately. What a brilliant concept; I can knit and read at the same time! Perhaps in future I’ll do these reviews on the end of my Ravelry project notes – I think it will be quite interesting to look back and see what I was listening to at the time.

True Blood: The Sookie Stackhouse novels – Charlaine Harris
Yes, all eleven of them. Loved them. The Southern accents add so much to it. What you get in the books which you don’t in the TV series is the humour.

Barchester Chronicles – Anthony Trollope
Takes a little while to wind down to the pace but the cast is excellent, the satire scathing and the romance practical.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer
Beautiful, gentle and charming.

The Help – Kathryn Stockett
Amazing book, about black ‘help’ in 60s Mississippi. Not at all preachy. A must read.

Vampire Diaries – L J Smith
Tedious. Watch the TV series, they took a concept and made it waaaay better.

One Day – David Nicholls
Book about two friends’ intertwined lives from leaving Uni in the 80s. A little flesh creepy in places because it’s a little too true, and ultimately unsatisfying because a novel is supposed to wrap things up in some way but this drops a bombshell then leaves off. I’m interested to read more about why the author wrote this book, but I didn’t like it.

Skulduggery Pleasant: Book 1 – Derek Landy
A book for teenagers but nothing lacking due to that, apart from it should be longer. Luckily there are more in the series.

Any other book recommendations would be appreciated!

Also, if anyone has any good ideas for xmas presents, please let me know. Especially men presents. And it’s too late to knit things for people, esp as other people keep procreating and I have a huge backlog of baby knits on the go at the moment. Seriously, can’t you all just take it in turns, about six weeks apart?

Married

2010-10-17T22:11:00.005+01:00

I took the wedding nail varnish off my toes the other day. It was the one remaining part of me that wasn’t shedding its top layer naturally. I am peeling from just about every conceivable part of me, it’s quite delightful. But it’s worth it, because it’s the result of too much sun on a totally decadent honeymoon.

I haven’t posted for a while because so much has been happening that I don’t know where to start. About three weeks before the wedding, my grandfather on my Dad’s side passed away, and the funeral was on the Friday eight days before the wedding. I’d not seen Grampy for some time, and he’d been suffering from vascular dementia so hadn’t been himself for the last two years. The memorial service was amazing, the church was packed, people were standing at the back, and he’d been such a big figure and featured in so many people’s lives, it was a great thing to see.

The run up to a wedding is a stressful enough time without having to contend with grief and funeral arrangements, but hey, what can you do but get on with things? And from then on it was all hands to the pumps, foot to the floor flat out busy until the day. I’d taken the week off and had a notebook of things to do, which was basically a closely written A5 sheet a day. And it all had to be done on that day because the next day was just as tight. There’s no way around it but it does mean that come your wedding day, a bride is absolutely knackered. I think the ‘glow’ they talk about is residual adrenaline and the euphoria of exhaustion.

But we had an amazing day. The weather running up to the day had been pretty grey but when we got to it the sun shone and it was warm and glorious. We had the service in the village church and the reception was at the farm, in a marquee in the field. Reception drinks and canapés in the garden. Children roister doistering everywhere. Funny speeches, great food, plenty of wine and local beer, dancing and cake and rose petal confetti. I loved my dress. It got taken down the field, across lots of sheepshit, unscathed. I loved The Man in his suit. I loved wearing a veil for the service. I loved knowing he loves me enough to want to go through all that for me (he’s really not one for being the centre of attention) and wear a ring to say to the world that he’s married. To me. Yay! I love that he wanted matching rings. He’s a big sop at heart. :)

He only told me where we were going on honeymoon the morning after the wedding, and he couldn’t have chosen better. He could have chosen cheaper, but you only go on honeymoon once, right? We went to one of the poshest hotels in the Maldives, flew Club Class on BA (oh yes, flat beds), took a little sea plane once we got to Male and pitched up in paradise.

It was perfect, because all we needed after the madness that is wedding planning was to do absolutely nothing for as long as possible. And pretty much all there is on a desert island is to sit around reading and sunbathing until it’s time to eat. Maybe go shell-hunting, or play with the hermit crabs, or dunk in the sea and check out the fish. Oooh, the food was so gooood too. I was so spoilt! We went to the Spa (amazingly beautiful) for one of those massages for couples. Two and a half hours of coordinated pampering, including having to go out into the secluded garden together to use the outdoor shower to sloosh off the body scrub. In paper pants. If we weren’t so chilled out at that point it would have been hilarious!

We got back in time for the Ryder Cup (of course) and finally I was allowed to open all the lovely presents. We were given a lot of really beautiful stuff, which I’ve had a lot of fun using. Sad that I have a lot of fun with kitchen stuff these days, but hey! And for all the new china, we’ve had to get a new sideboard. How terribly grown up.

Stunning organisation

2010-08-31T13:58:00.010+01:00

I read on someone's blog recently (it may have been the Yarn Harlot, I kind of lose track who I'm reading on Google Reader sometimes) that they have decided that they waste far too much time prevaricating over which stashed yarn to match with which pattern and thence end up being late for appointments or nearly having to travel with No Projects! Shock! So what they did was print out their queued patterns, put them in freezerbags with the appropriate yarn and fill a storage bin with them all. Then, when you need a new project, just put your hand in and see what you get, like a lucky dip. What a genius idea, I thought!

So here are my selections which are now parcelled up and some ideas for the next bucketload.

or the very similar

Using Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Sock in Vera (70) - a mix of blocks of magenta, khaki and stone. (Actually have just wound this and it's going to be quite bold colour blocks so glad I'm doing a sock without complicated stitches on it).

Frootloop using Sparkleduck merino/nylon in a hot pink semi-solid.

Nutkin using Colinette Jitterbug in Lichen (75) - sort of dark yellow. Although I am quite tempted also to use that yarn for Goldengrove.

Galder using Nimu Yarns' 'Tussmorker' (with two dots over the o) in a purple / blue colour from a 2009 sock club.

Hedgerow using Posh Yarn Esme in Keep Smiling Through, which is a muted sandy tropical sunset sort of a colour.

Love Bugs in Wollmeise Merino Superwash 'Walk the 'red' line' from same sock club.

I have a big skein of laceweight Touch Yarn which I'll probably use for an Aeolian,

(although it will probably end up this big...)

But the Vernal Equinox Shawl is also rather tempting.

I like the Torreyana too, but I think it looks best in some shiny worsted as below:

Tea Leaves Cardigan in Manos del Uruguay Silk blend in that rosey blend with flecks of green and gold.

Urban necessity gloves in Misti alpaca sock in a russety grey.

Knitty's Annis is on the next list:

And the Pea Vine shawl which is not yet released but on the way from Knitspot.

Other socks (if I can ever face socks again) are Rivendell, Ellington and Kalajoki. And the Vinterblomster mittens. Love.

What do you think? Any patterns you hate? Any suggestions for better ones?

I think I need to give up work and just knit!

Way too much lycra

2010-08-10T18:35:00.008+01:00

We got up at 3.45am on Sunday to get The Man to the London Triathlon for a 7am start time. All the comments from recent parents have been a knowing, ‘ah yes, good preparation for having babies’. Holy sweet jesus, enough with the baby comments people! The other day three people in three hours asked me what the baby plans are after the wedding. Well let me say here and now, currently there are no plans. Let’s just get the wedding over with first, I have enough to think about with that and work at the moment without considering pain and nausea and hemorrhoids (which I can't even spell).

The tri was great though, The Man did really well and was in the same group as Jensen Button so we managed to get lots of pics of both of them. Almost made up for getting up so ridiculously early on a Sunday! Anyone who wants to swim 1.5km in the London Docks though has my utmost ~~incredulity~~ respect. Seriously, why would you??

JB out of the water with a bag of soggy wetsuit

2hrs 46mins 14secs - well done my Man!

We went to see the vicar for the final time a few weeks ago for our last ‘pre-wedding counselling’. In this session he discussed managing finances, sharing the housework and (recurring theme) having babies. (And slightly unsettlingly coming from the vicar, not letting your partner pressure you into doing things in the bedroom you’d rather not.) I think these sessions, tangential as they often end up being, are a good thing for a couple getting married. Too often you get caught up in the madness of organising the day, what colour will the bridesmaids be wearing, what to have for the starter, how much the florist is charging you, but very rarely do people actually ask you how you feel about getting married, or do you actually think properly about what you are doing.

My friend Clare lent me a book called The Conscious Bride which has some interesting things to say, and some interesting quotes from other brides. One bride was saying that she organised her wedding in three months, but actually in the end wished she’s taken the usual year or so, just to allow herself time to get her head around the big change happening in her life.

I can’t speak for the chaps but presume this happens to some extent as well, but it’s a weird change of identity getting married. For girls, if they decide to change their surnames, it’s a huge deal. I can see myself in some of the descriptions in the book – initial excitement, then resistance and kick-back against my fiancé for the changes he’s inflicting on me, then a gradual come-around to accepting the different identity I’ll be taking on as a wife. I don’t know if this simile was due to corporate brainwashing, but I felt like a piechart being stabbed by a new piece of pie.

1. Me, whole and happy being me, finally (after 30-ahem years).
2. Man comes along and wants to be permanent part my life. Thin end of the wedge. Pointy and a little ouchy. Requiring rearranging of my nice complete pie.
3. Gradual acceptance of man in my life.
4. Full integration.

Now this makes it seem that having The Man in my life was a bit unwelcome, which is not at all the case, it’s always been fantastic being with him. The final pie is much shinier and bouncier. In fact, I’m sure if he thought about it he went through pretty much the same thing. The first part of the transition stage was a bit odd though; even though you're having lots of fun together it takes time to let that new piece of pie settle in. Now he’s a fantastic part of my pie. Life. You know what I mean. It just takes a little while for change to happen. I find the idea of spending the rest of my life with him hugely exciting. Do-a-little-dance-and-say-yay! exciting in fact. We shall see what the future brings but I know whatever happens we’ll both be there supporting each other and being proud of each other. You can put the bucket down now I've finished.

In other news, one of the dogs at home had a litter of five puppies. Here’s some when they’re just waking up and looking a bit grumpy. They are complete timewasters and brilliant fun and they grow so fast!

And a cardigan was knitted all the way up to the neck but then was frogged completely because it was too small. Amazing how many hours’ work can be destroyed with the aid of a wool-winder in five minutes flat. Sigh.

Sugar overload

2010-07-04T20:51:00.003+01:00

Cupcakes for the work bakesale....

Cupcakes for some sporting fixture...

And cupcakes for 4 July.

Each batch is helping me learn how to do them better. The frosting recipe has changed, now I'm using half butter and half cream cheese which makes it less rich and sickly. I've learnt that making cupcakes on hot days leads to floppy swirls and intense colours are hard to achieve. But we're getting there!

Will shortly be taking orders for weddings, birthdays, bah mitzfahs... :)

There is some knitting blocking so will have some yarny stuff for you next time.

How does your garden grow?

2010-06-16T21:36:00.007+01:00

You may remember some of the dramaz I've had in the garden. That was only the first implement that succumbed... Anyway, this is what it all looked like at about May time. A flowerbed of reeds and spent primroses. A haymeadow of dandelion clocks underlaid with moss surrounded by various late-middle-age shrubs and seeded saplings.

A riot of ground elder in the corner.

Flowerbeds on a serious slide held back with sandstone rocks.

Ah, the rocks. How many did I dig up?

(bags of small rocks, pebbles, stone, housebricks, guttering, drainage pipe, bolts...)

But The Man, being smashing, decided to get me a landscape gardener for the day for my birthday. In fact it turned out to be two - Italian brothers, who of course were referred to as the Super Mario brothers. ('When are the Super Mario Brothers coming?' 'Have you sorted a day for the Super Mario Brothers to come?' 'Shall I write a list for the Super Mario Brothers?') They weren't quite Italian stallions in the end but they were very nice, and as well as grubbing up loads of dead bushes and seeded trees, took away the lawn.

And then some other nice men came from The Man's work and laid the turf.

Mmm, grass. With an edge.

All these plants from the garden centre were waiting desperately for a flowerbed to become clear for them.

Some nine hours of digging and two wheelybins full of reeds and ivy roots later...

Some were presents from The Man's mum. Aw.

Is this peony (which was supposed to be white according to the label) ever going to open? It's been a bud for 6 weeks, I swear!

Nereide lilies from bulb.

First tomatillo flower! And the tomatoes are getting big too. (I still have no idea what a tomatillo is going to be like.)

Foxgloves. I love the little faces on the buds before they open, all squished up eyes and grumpy looking.

Buds everywhere...

And the best bit, the monster BBQ. Love it! It's already been used a lot, including a lunch for 10 of the family.

Next year hopefully we'll have more plants in the new spaces, and some fruit and veggies. So exciting! Can't wait to have a real harvest. Clare has given me two courgette plants so if I don't kill them, we can have some Real Food from the garden. Perhaps even a ratatouille from courgettes and tomatoes and tomatilloes. Who knows?!

I am perhaps a little overexcited by all this. Sorry. :)

Dear Lady...

2010-06-03T19:05:00.002+01:00

Dear Lady on the Train,

It doesn't matter how loudly and frequently you complain about gentlemen commuters not giving you a seat, the very fact that you've mentioned it has immediately glued their buttocks to the upholstery. Please be aware that commuters are creatures of habit. They have their bit of their carriage and their routine with their newspaper / ipod / blackberry / snoring and after a long day of pontificating and many years of practice will stick to this routine through hell or high water. A train has to be stuck stationary for a minimum of two hours before a commuter will speak to a fellow commuter whom he sees every single day. That is how rigorously anything which doesn't comply with the routine is ignored. He can quite easily ignore you for the usual 45 minute journey.

A commuter feels justified in this possessiveness of his seat when he has paid three and a half grand for it and tailored his day to ensure he gets to the station early enough to claim it. You with your lowly off-peak return, scrambling on at London Bridge, are way down in the pecking order.

Also, if the conductor kindly tells you there are seats further forward in the train, take his advice and use them instead of yabbering on when I am trying to work. Unless you would like to take my exam for me next week?

Lastly, complaining that you are 72 and your travelling companion is pregnant is not going to encourage gallantry, especially when you clearly are not 72 and your travelling companion is carrying her belongings in a bag marked 'HM Prison Service'.

Yours,

A Lady Commuter.

Blood, sweat and cupcakes

2010-05-29T13:30:00.006+01:00

Sorry for radio silence but things have been happening offline, promise!

Firstly I did the Yorkshire Three Peaks walk with work. 26 miles, 1600m cumulative climbing, supposed to be done in 12 hours. We did it last Friday and it was also 24degrees (at least) so it was hot for Yorkshire, and also hot for walking!! We completed the circuit in 13.5hrs, but actually walking time was about 10.5hrs. What can I say, we needed breaks. Boy, did we...

We started at 7am up Pen-y-ghent, then there was a 9 mile walk to the next peak.

But we all completed it and it was a job well done! Still lots more money to raise for charidee though...

Although at the peaks it was windy and cool (and we also had to put the corporate windbreakers on for photo ops) I have some stunning Tshirt and watch shaped tan lines now, which is just going to be dandy for the wedding in 4 months... Gah!

But onto less tiring things... I went to do a cupcake course at Faircake in Greenwich. I did the Roses and Buttercream one and it was fab. (You can also follow Faircake on facebook.) I learnt so much, I was frantically scribbling loads of notes trying to get it all down before I forgot it! Sugar craft is not something I've done before but it's something I've wanted to try, because I likes me a posh cake. :) And really, it's not that hard after all, as long as you know which widget to wield at the appropriate time. Check out this sugar rose! Excuse the marshmallow pink, apparently cartoon colours can be avoided with a dash of yellow or ivory into the mix, but I discovered that later. So now you know.

And these are the cupcakes. Yummo.

I love the big flowers on green grass icing best I think because they're so cute, but the blush swirls are classic Faircake and the reason I wanted to do the class.

Mmmmm......

Next time we will be investigating how to transform a garden (if it ever stops raining...).

Serious stash enhancement....

2010-04-27T15:07:00.007+01:00

...aka hammering the bank balance. Ouch.

We were at Wonderwool at the weekend and unforts while it's good for selling it's also good for buying.

Some Amy Butler fabrics from a shop in the north half of Wales which I can't even pronounce let alone spell, but they were lovely people. I shall make two aprons from this lot (in my spare time). Mum wants to come for a sew-in (like a sit-in but different) - she said she liked team curtain making last time, and seeing as she got some fabric too and owns the pattern, sounds like a good idea to me! Actually I think she's just very covetous of my craft room.

Two lots of Manos Silk, the first a lovely rose sort of jumble...

Mmmm, silky rosey loveliness....

...for the Tea Leaves cardigan. Do you think it will work?

She needs to cheer up I think. Perhaps someone should get her one of those chocolate torte cakes from Love Patisserie. I would put the pic in of mum -erm- eating is not the right word - one of them but I think she might object. You know those 1950s pictures of children with chocolate from ear to ear? It was like that.

And some silvery greeny stuff for...

...brooklyntweed's Wool Leaves baby blanket.

I don't think gauge is too important for blankets. Probably.

Also some Malabrigo sock, maybe for a Damson or a Multnomah.

Some Yarn D'Amour Ariadne (63% silk, 36% cashmere).

And Sparkleduck silk/baby camel...

...and merino sock.

Check out Sparkleduck, she's new and was staying in the same hotel we were. Her yarn colours are yummo.

And some completely pointless yet amusing badges.

Not sure the one on the bottom right was quite true after the weekend, but we shall pretend it is!

Next week I'm back to France but at least we're in the posh chateau again and not in Paris. Hopefully the weather will hold because as a team we're walking the Yorkshire Three Peaks next month, and we're going to do some walking training during the brain training. What can I say, the three peaks seemed a good idea at the time....

Outside

2010-04-18T19:16:00.002+01:00

The garden giveth...

Lily of the valley! Look how much!

...and the garden taketh away.....

This time the reeds won.

Do you think they'll give me another one? I only had it a couple of weeks, the bar code is still on the back.

Sigh.

Full of yarny goodness

2010-04-13T21:29:00.010+01:00

But first, a view of our kitchen table. Lovely spring flowers against a rare stroke of genius paint colour selection by the old house owners. The hyacinths smell lovely when I get home from work.

Some promised yarn! This is what I got from La Droguerie. Cassis and I forget what. Maybe some socks with contrast toes? Scarf with fancy ends? Fingerless mittens? What do you think? It's 100g and 20g. Answers on a postcard!

Some super dinky ribbon with radishes! This is made to trim some kids clothes I think. Little fingers would like to play with the fluffy radish tops.

And lots of Liberty bias binding! In fact the colours are a bit more peppy. It's almost proper daylight when I get home but not quite yet....

Some pics from the garden! Hurrah for the garden! There are some narcissi coming up in a mystery pot left to me by Grandma.

Some daffs already in the garden.

Large clumps of primroses discovered under the reeds.

And some wild strawberries!

Lots of grape hyacinths.

Some FOs, finally. Firstly the Bitterroot shawl in Fyberspates' Unicorn yarn. More notes on my Rav page. It was a quick and easy knit but the beads are spawn of the devil, seriously. The yarn is sooo soft and silky. I just love blocking out lace shawls, when you pull the points out to be all scallopedy. Pretty!

And the Whisper cardigan.

Supersoft Malabrigo yarn, surprisingly warm for laceweight, and quite boob-enhancing.

The colour is actually grey with undertones of purple. Love it.

You do have to get quite zen when knitting it because it takes foreeeeeveeerrr with teeny tiny yarn.

Flattering from the back view.

I have to say these photo shoots really help the diet. I can chart the gut over the months as I finish projects! The beady eyed among you may notice there are no pics from the front here. There are reasons. A month in Paris with no gym visits did indeed show...

One more pic of those lovely flowers.

Paris

2010-04-11T19:39:00.007+01:00

Sorry for the lack of posts but I'd been sent by work to Paris for a month. Ooo how glamourous, you think. Well, unforts I'm one of those poor unenlightened people for whom Paris holds few charms. Which is a shame, because there are lots of good things.

Don't I looked tired? Yikes.

This is a life-size model of the Statue of Liberty's flame, situated next to the Seine. It's surprisingly small I thought. I always think of Liberty as being huge. Interesting.

Merci, found via Posterous, are currently doing a Liberty range. Want want want a vintage Fiat in Liberty print!! The Man won't let me do the same to my ancient Golf though. Shame.

Noticed via Not Martha, in Paris there are around 350 of these mosiac space invaders. The artist invades all sorts of cities around the world, there is a list somewhere. This is on rue Rambuteau where is crosses with rue du Temple.

Another:

A classic sort on rue Geoffroy Langvin. Would recommend the restaurant too, if you want pain, vin or fromage.

Others were also spotted on rue Renard and somewhere near Les Archives. There are loads, keep an eye out!

Cupcakes from Berko on rue Rambuteau (there's another branch near Montmartre). Yum.

Of course no self-respecting knitter can go to Paris without stopping by La Droguerie. The first visit turned out to be a recce only, I was overwhelmed.

(General apols for iphone pics btw, they're rather dark.)

One day I did a site visit to a perfume factory (the whole place smelt of Shalimar), got back into town at a reasonable hour so I went back to actually buy something. I flagged a girl down and said something like, 'pardon, je suis anglaise' to excuse my rubbish French, and she shrugged that Gallic shrug and said, 'ce n'est pas grave'. Like I had a disease or something but it was curable. Funny!

They have a really old-fashioned system. First, have a good look around and decide what you want. The yarns are mainly sock weight or so, there are ribbons to die for, hundreds of them and all gorgeous (you'll never decide), jars and jars and jars of beads and buttons and feathers and silk flowers, some jewellery making bits and pieces, and some fat squares. Once you've decided, flag down a member of staff, and they tend to work a section so do your best. They will then gather your items, cut the ribbon, count out the beads etc. The yarn at the front of the store is just for show, it's sold by weight (min 20g), so ask for what you need and they go out to the back and wind it off a cone into a ball. Then all the bits are given to the lady in the little booth (like at a really old-fashioned butcher's shop) and she does all the money transactions. If you try to speak a bit of French it's appreciated but I think they understand English quite well. There were a lot of tourists in there so they must be used to it!

They had dozens of spools of Liberty print bias binding. Be still my beating heart.

They've used this as trim on jumpers, to reinforce neckbands etc, or to trim up shopping bags, or to make corsages... How to choose? So many lovely patterns!

This made me smile - business class on the Eurostar on the final trip home. Knitting and champagne. Hurrah!

And bought for the Man (who doesn't do any chocolate fancier than Dairy Milk): coeur cheese and saucisson sec, eaten on it's own or with a very cold aperitif...

So what's happened since I've been back?

1. The sun has shone. Hurray for the clock change!

2. I've listened to the Glee soundtrack and grinned inanely at people as a result (Loon.)

3. Mum and I spent two and a half hours doing forensic gardening and discovering things like alchemilla mollis and wild strawberries buried under pampas reeds and ivy

4. £700 has been dropped with the garage but the car has stopped making strange noises so I suppose that's good

5. The Man has been over to Augusta to watch a few days of the Masters, which he was very very very very happy about (did I mention he enjoyed it?)

6. I've finished the Whisper cardigan and Bitterroot shawl. Pics to follow in a generally yarny post next time.

It's so good to be back!

Grandma

2010-03-24T18:29:00.004Z

Eileen Dorothea Reder

1916 - 2010

Grandma passed away on 12 March 2010 after three months in nursing homes. Until then she'd lived independently on her own, rightly proud of the fact that even at 93 she still had all her marbles. But finally her body started to give up on her, her legs stopped working and she could no longer look after herself alone.

The funeral was yesterday. It was lovely, very emotional, but old fashioned and totally fitting. I want to put the tribute here, which was written and read by Dad, her son in law. It's a really brief summary of her life, but as you can see she packed a lot in. I'll be writing more about Grandma in the next few months.

I’m very grateful to Eileen for leaving us some wonderful notes, nay memoirs,that describe large parts of a varied and colourful life.

Eileen was born in 1916 in Leeds, Yorkshire. Her father, Revd. Percy Sturdy moved frequently with his job and by the age of 11 Eileen had attended 13 different schools before finally arriving in Gloucester. Movement and travelling were to be a large part of her life, with spells in Tanga (Tanganyika) Gloucester, Dar es Salaam, Moshi, Ashford (Kent), Lusaka (Zambia), Maidstone, Cape Town and Durban before finally settling in Tunbridge Wells, where she lived for the last 21 years.

Eileen was not a strong child but resolute. At the age of 3 her family was invited to a tea party with the Bishop, whose sisters were prim and proper but thought that they should force this little girl to eat a cake. Eileen responded by throwing it at them! She was also tough enough to survive a tonsillectomy, as she noted, “performed on the kitchen table”.

With the family settled in Gloucester, Eileen flourished at school. She “did well at learning” as she put it and also yearned to be captain of hockey, a post that she didn’t quite achieve but she was House Captain and during her spell her team won the Hockey Cup and three other trophies.

During the holidays she was often packed off to see her Grandmother (Grandie) in Leeds. She would be put on the train with a label, luggage and sandwiches. At each stop the porter & guard would check on her and arriving at Leeds, Aunt Eva would take her by tram and on foot to see Grandie. “The summers were good and we had lots of fun,” she wrote.

Eileen found out in later life that, after school, she was supposed to have become a teacher and marry a curate. However, she opted instead for a job in the accounts office of a ladies’ department store. Although this was a start she was soon studying typing and shorthand at night classes. This led to a job for a firm of solicitors and a further offer of work in East Africa. It was there in Tanga, in 1948, that she met and married Paul. After the reception they set off for Mombasa for a pukka night in the Mombasa hotel. Unfortunately, it was the rainy season and the car slithered on the unmade road, leaving one wheel over the edge of a precipice. There were no other cars and no passers-by, so they returned on foot to Tanga drenched from head to foot, to an empty house. Luckily the telephone was working so they sent the garage staff out for the car and a friend brought round eggs, bacon, baked beans and beer for supper. Not quite what they had anticipated.

After Pauline was born in Tanga in 1950, Paul was posted to Nairobi; but that being a potential troublespot, Eileen had to return to UK with Pauline, only returning when Paul gave up his job to be back with the family. It was 1953. Life was slightly more settled and William was born in Dar es Salaam in 1954. They moved to Tanga and Eileen made news in two ways : first she began to write a column for the Tanganika Standard and occasionally for the East Africa Standard and then she made news herself by becoming the first woman Town Councillor. As she herself wrote, “I could see the tremendous efforts being made to educate the young men and prepare them for independence, whereas hardly anything was being done for the women……this I considered to be shortsighted and was in the habit of discussing it at parties….so it served me right when I was summoned to the Provisional Commissioners office and was told that I was to be nominated as Town Councillor!”

She continued her public duties after the move to Moshi, working on Public Health and Building Works and Highways, later helping to host the opening of the New Town Hall by President Nyerere. She also worked for the British Council, Chamber of Commerce and UN Development Fund.

It was during her periods in office that she and Paul were recognised by the Chagga tribe and became honorary Chaggas. Some years later at an eye appointment at Pembury hospital the nurses were alarmed to hear this strange woman gabbling away to their doctor in Swahili – two Chaggas together in Tunbridge Wells!!

While in Moshi, Eileen also found time to run a shop selling women’s fashionwear (her hats were particularly famous), raise a family and continue her newspaper reporting. She made two scoops – the first when a plane crashed into Mount Kilamanjaro, the second when a French parachute team landed on the summit. The latter was an exclusive and enjoyed front-page coverage, for which Eileen earned the title “Here comes the Newshound” and enough money to buy a piano – a much treasured possession and one that many visitors admired, especially after it had been blessed by the nimble fingers of none other than the late Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong.

Music and singing were sources of great joy to Eileen. Her family were musical and almost every occasion was marked by songs together around the piano. From school choir, Eileen graduated to local operatic society but it was in Africa that her talent really came to fruition. She helped the Tanga Music and Drama Society and was producer of their first-ever production, “Aladdin”. She noted later, “It was an enormous amount of work. How did I manage to do it? Every detail covered, even down to the girls selling chocolates from trays (ice creams would have melted!)”. She recorded “like the A-team, I love it when a plan comes together!” She also co-produced the Coronation Revue, a daring production with a multi-racial cast, Indian dancers and African singers, which went to several towns to great reviews. They even added in an extra verse at the 11th hour because somebody arrived with the news that Hillary and Hunt had conquered Everest!

In Moshi, she teamed up with a superb soprano, Margaret Morphew and, as the Moshi Singers, they toured much of East Africa to great acclaim.

After returning to England, Eileen moved to Kennington, Ashford and joined the W.I.. She sang in their rather special choir and received accolades at The Canterbury Music Festival and at the W.I. Choral competition at the Albert Hall. She also sang with the Saint Nicholas Singers at Wye and on returning to Africa in 1970, for the Lusaka Cathedral choir, an experience that she recorded as “very uplifting”.

Not only that, she was a virtually self-taught organist. In Moshi, the organist had to leave and the plea went out “can anybody play or try to play the organ?” Eileen was coerced and found herself at an old organ that required pedalling at just the right pressure and speed and at the same time controlling two side flaps with one’s knees. The stops were all labelled in German, which wasn’t much help. Practise was on a Saturday afternoon when not too many people were about. One Saturday, the organ was playing up a little and she could not get a sound from one stop. Suddenly there was a swooshing sound. Eileen backed away and then slowly lifted the lid. There was a rapid scurrying and a large striped lizard darted out and away!

Eileen and Paul were in Maidstone for Pauline’s marriage in 1973, then Paul was offered a good job in Zambia and Eileen subsequently joined him there.

From Lusaka, Paul and Eileen moved to Cape Town where Paul died in 1982. Eileen thought of staying on, but fortunately for us all, she returned here in 1988 settling in Sherborne Close, Hawkenbury. Still active in mind and body, she became immersed in Hawkenbury life becoming involved with church, giving talks on her African experiences, writing as local correspondent for the Courier Newspaper and the Kent Messenger (I hate it when those junior editors chop my articles about!), helping raise the profile of Dunorlan Park, flower arranging and enjoying her tiny garden and our rather bigger untidy one, which she would tut-tut over and attack with her trusty secateurs.

I must just mention cats. Eileen loved cats and cats loved her. She had cats in Africa and cats over here. Sadly she couldn’t have one in the flat but when she visited our farm, the cats used to treat her like royalty. There was such empathy.

Above all, Eileen loved her family. She was immensely proud of Pauline and William, her grandchildren Katie and Peter, and her little great grandson Rory. She also kept in touch by card or letter with many of the far-flung family members. She was never more happy than on family occasions, where she could catch up on the latest family news, berate us for something silly that we had done (that was “daft” or you mucky pup) and be teased in turn for her lingering Yorkshire dialect (it wasalways 'bath' not 'barth' and 'plant' not 'plahnt').

Kind, decent, honest, thoughtful, patient, calm, resolute, forgiving, loving – words can only begin to describe her. We were so so lucky to have known such a wonderful friend, mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother.

Norty

2010-02-28T21:52:00.006Z

Yesterday I was in Islington for an afternoon of learning to jive. It was modern jive and apart from the basic step was very similar to salsa in all the spins we did. I thought it would be more jumpy up and down! Which dance am I thinking of peeps? Is it actually jitterbug? Or does modern jive get more jumpy as you learn more?

Aaaaanyway, a knitter can't go to Islington without going to Loop. It's much smaller than I thought, or than it seems in the magazine shoots. Cunning. More estate agents should learn that photographic skill. It was also stuffed with people on a Saturday lunch time, some tourists from up north, some students and a couple of young mums with enormous push chairs cluttering the place up. One was wanting to do her first ever knitting project and had chosen a baby cardi, and the other was going to help her, and was adament that she should do the thing in flat pieces and sew them up and not make life easy for herself and use circs to do it all in one piece. Sigh. How about starting with a scarf anyway?

It was yarn p0rn-erama though. I was quite restrained and only spent [cough]£75[cough].

Madelinetosh tosh sock in Jade. MTosh yarn keeps cropping up in some lovely projects online, so I'm looking forward to trying this out. Perhaps Loop will stock the DK soon.

Malabrigo sock in Rayon Vert. The greens are much more emeraldy in real life. Soft as Malabrigo always is.

Sea Silk in Pewter. I've always wanted to try this because it's got seacell in it, made from seaweed. I think this is destined to become a lacey scarf. It's gorgeous and silky and sheeny and I love the colours.

Colinette Jitterbug in Lichen. This looks like it should be sproingy like Koigu.

All of these yarns just could NOT stay in the shop and had to come home with me in a yes-you-are-a-big-spender-haha! fancypants cotton Loop shopping tote bag. You know when you get a free fancy bag they're going to have a huge smile on their faces when you leave the shop. Hey ho. Singlehandedly keeping industry alive...

There are some lovely shops between Angel tube station and Loop though. At the end of Cross Street is an amazing fishmonger, it had everything, including an enormous salmon. Seriously, this thing was about 4 ft long. There is a groovy flea/antique market in Camden Passage on Saturdays, and there are some big name boutiques and a lovely Art Nouveau antique jewellery shop. Also lots of little knicknackery shops which looked good to explore. Trouble is when you commute all week the last thing you want to do is go back up to London at weekends! So, I am recommending it to you guys - let me know how you get on.

Crafty

2010-02-15T13:10:00.004Z

Finally, I started work on one of last year's new year's resolutions. Ideally one day I'll be making one of those amigurumi ninja vampire things, but for now I'm starting out with granny squares. Or hexagons. Whatever.

I'm using Aragon Yarns Classic Romney because I have all the colours in plentiful supply. :)

Here is the first hex! Hurrah for patterns that write things out in longhand with notes! Thanks Attic24 for assuming the reader knows nothing, because indeed, I know nothing. Really Obvious Information is gold dust for me.

I also purchased a swift, as previously mentioned. This is a sunflower swift, as opposed to one of those umbrella swifts, as some of the girls at knit group recommended this sort.

It definitely does the job. In fact, it spins so freely you have to wind like crazy to keep up. I may have to work out some kind of dampening mechanism. But it doesn't eat yarn and it keeps an even tension which are both Good Things for me.

So despite the physio prescribing me a Slob Day, which I booked in for Sunday, it seems I am completely rubbish at such things. Instead, I fixed the new front door dead bolt, did some hoovering, then mum called and asked if I wanted her to come over and help me make curtains out of the fabric I bought on Saturday. Reasons against: that is not slobbing, and I had man flu. Reasons for: I hadn't made curtains since I was about 16, couldn't remember how, was terrified of cutting the fabric in the wrong place, was scared about the pattern matching, and have dubious skills at machine stitching a straight line. Also we may have people wishing to use the room next weekend and I'm sure they'd appreciate some window coverage. So, some help, and help now, would be Excellent.

The fabric I'd bought was in the sale at our local haberdashery and fabric sort of place (half price at £11.50/m!) and is sort of silk look with embroidered flowers. Hey, it's for my craft room, I can be as girly as I like! The sales girl also sold me some brushed cotton lining, which is thicker than just normal cotton lining so you can sort of make it look like the curtains are almost interlined. Sort of. It's on the way at least. And these are not big sumptuous curtains for a fancy window so 'on the way' was just fine with me.

Here is mum hard at work hiding behind her hair with one curtain done (bar the bottom hems) hanging up behind her. She got a bit excited and wanted to see what they looked like.

Its soooo much nicer working with two of you! Especially on big things like curtains, so you can pull from opposite ends to make it flat. One can cut and the other sew. Hurrah for teamwork.

I'll post some better pics when they're both up. Unforts the people who sold us the house left a curtain pole with nine rings on it. Genius. So some kind soul is going to buy a bag of 24 so we can actually hang two curtains. It will probably be mum as The Man only knows his way around the fabric shop as far as to extract me from the yarn section. Bless.

Funny how, looking through those craft room pictures, I don't mind showing you all the clutter. It will get tidied up eventually, but it's currently functional clutter, so that feels kinda OK.

And as well as all that on Sunday I baked some cupcakes. Just in case I got bored at all. I am raising money at work for this charity walk and therefore hoping that they don't poison people. I did cheat, it's all cake mix and frosting from a pot. Someone's already asked for the recipe. Damn you, Betty Crocker!

The Man helped me frost and decorate some. I'm sure there's some domestic goddess in him somewhere.

That is all so far. Progress continues on the hex blanket and the whisper cardigan - I cast off the second sleeve this morning so now I have a shrug. I think I should try it on, it looks of indeterminate size (ie huge) at the moment. Next step is to pick up eleventy hundred dozen stitches all around the neck/waist/armhole. Evenly. This could be a Home Task - doing things like that on the train (especially with man flu) is just asking for trouble.

Around the kitchen table

2010-02-08T20:41:00.002Z

The Man and I sat down to a very calm, civilised breakfast of fresh baked pastries and coffee yesterday morning, around the kitchen table that the previous night had had eight members of both our families crammed around it in raucous enjoyment of each others’ company. We’d all been watching the rugby (I pity the neighbours, apparently in numbers we can make quite a racket cheering and shouting) and at the same time I’d been cooking and helping my brother put up shelves, which involved power drills, dust and hoovers. Everyone took turns entertaining my nephew. He’s quite insistent – ‘Aunty Katie, Peeeeeeease (he doesn’t do Ls yet, which makes talking about clocks quite entertaining) can you come with me and hewp me do XYZ?? [tugs hand] Peeease pease pease?’ ‘Nephew, I’m simultaneously trying to cook everyone supper and help your daddy put up this wall bracket, can we do it later?’ ‘No Aunty Katie, need to do it now!’ Ah what it is to be in favour.

He also takes great delight in sliding the wardrobe doors in one of the bedrooms, because behind one of them is a bathroom – the Magic Bathroom – in which the lights come on all by themselves. Ooooo. Unfortunately he managed to get behind the wrong door and close it, where there were no lights, and we all (just, over the shouting) heard this little shout of, ‘Mummy! Mummy! Help!!’, to much hilarity, poor little chap.

Later, when we were all sitting around the table, Nephew boosted up by a cushion so he could just see over and so his mouth was about at plate level, we realised that it was indeed Nephew’s first dinner party. And as a very good budding guest, he even insisted on helping with the washing up. He loves making a mess with water and suds. Aw.

I am so lucky to have such a lovely family and have such a lovely house for them all to come to.

Recently, I treated myself to a swift. This was a long winded decision but Such A Good Thing. I think, despite initial raised eyebrows at my overexcitement, The Man will think so too as I won’t have to interrupt his telly viewing pleasure any more getting him to hold the skein and also my yarn cakes will be of totally even tension instead of getting a bit tighter at the points where he got distracted by an attempt on goal or a particularly good smackdown. The swift is freshly made and still smells of new wood and linseed oil or some such that’s been rubbed into it to make it gleam. There are brass fittings. My white and red plastic wool winder, usually kooky and retro, looks a bit sheepish next to it. Why is it that some knitting items get upgraded to brass fittings status and others remain solely produced in cheap plastic? Like using Lantern Moon circulars with one of those plastic rotally counter things. Not a good look. Who makes a pretty row counter, please raise your hand?

Work are sending me to work in Paris for a month. This sounds terribly glamorous, doesn’t it? Well, not really. I have laid the law down and taken the budget and booked a decent apartment for myself (I hope) in the Marais (yes I know that’s the gay quarter but it’s also supposed to be very nice and there are loads of restaurants and shops which are open on Sundays), although it’s on the fourth floor, which might make up for lack of gym while there. Last time I was in a sort of Travelodge with a kitchenette for a week, right by the red light district of Clichy, which was just plain nasty. The office, despite the façade and atrium (and executive floor) being beautiful, is pretty uninspiring, and the French like to have their own office each so it’s not very sociable. In fact, surprisingly for a Latin race, they are quite private people. When you’re at work, you don’t talk about home with your work mates. You don’t go out for drinks after work, or even out for lunch, although some have started going down to the cafeteria as a department these days. OK, so there are exceptions to this rule, but you can’t make assumptions! Luckily because of this sort of company university thingy I’m part of, I know a few people there quite well, which is a saving grace indeed. Gosh, can you imagine being away for a month and only talking about work??

In which the Fridge happened...

2010-01-27T22:04:00.006Z

This is going to be a post of pictures, and it's late, so sorry for the brief captions. Perhaps I'll have time for a wordy post soon, who knows?

Firstly, just to be normal, some yarn.

This is some Touchyarn laceweight which I've had for a couple of years, just waiting for the right project. It's gorgeous - lovely jewel colours in the skein, glossy when wound.

Yum! Perfect for a Bitterroot scarf, I thought.

Hmm. Perhaps not.

It just looks like a tangled mess and you can't see any of the pattern in there. I is having a rethink.

In other news, the fridge arrived.

That was as far as it got. Interesting trying to get in the front door when I got home.

So that's where it stayed for a couple of days, until people came visiting. Looking all mean and brooding, and then slightly self-conscious, and then rather put-out.

Brother and Brother-in-Law and The Man managed to unpack it and manhandle it into the kitchen.

BIL and The Man judging the space. (You can just see The Man's fingers, he's the one behind the fridge.)

Result!! It fits! Shock and amazement!!

Good job.

It's a monster.

The most entertaining thing is this:

..turns to this:

Due to this:

Are they kidding? A monster fridge powersaving by turning off six tiny LED lights on the front panel?? Seriously, that's the least of its worries.

Following a trip to Ikea on Sunday, the craft room had turned into this:

A desktop, a box with a flatpack chair in it, assorted other bits and storage and table and bags of stuff. A Mess, oh yes.

Several hours later it looked more like this:

Reusing some shelves left by vendors but these will be upgraded:

Some fabric from the stash, now amalgamated and easy to view.

Tidy cupboard with see through storage boxes (need more of them I think).

And finally, I am apparently starting to turn into a granny. Not only knitting but also this:

The Rolls Royce of shopping trolleys, oh yes. Raised eyebrows all round, as well as a vow never to be seen with me if I'm using it, let along take it for a spin himself. Hee hee, can you see The Man wheeling that back from Sainsbury's?

All change

2010-01-17T18:32:00.003Z

First of all, some knitting. Since finishing that baby blanket I've been rather more productive! This Ishbel was started on Boxing day and finished on 12 Jan. It was just enough knitting for me, being the small neckwarmer size rather than the large shawl. My first lace shawl, first time blocking a scalloped edge, really quite smug with myself. :)

Here is a compare between how it was when finished knitting...

....and how is turned out after blocking.

Like wings!

I also did a Star Crossed Beret for mum, who has an ancient one from the 70s which she wears around the farm in the cold. It's rather thin and weary looking, so hopefully this will be an OK alternative for her.

I love how the random cables look sort of like tree bark. It's done in Rowan Cocoon yarn which is lovely and soft, bouncy and drapy at the same time.

So, now we're up to date on the knitting what about the other stuff? Well, we moved house. It went through very quickly, luckily - we viewed in November and moved on 11 Jan. It's been a bit of a culture shock, going from a one and a half bedroom flat into a 4 bed townhouse - lots of rooms which we don't know what to do with, a bathroom each, a garage for junk, two flights of stairs... my legs are going to get more toned! Not least because we've not sorted everything out yet and whatever I need is usually at the other end of the house...

Best of all though, because we have so much space at the moment, I can have a craft room.

So far the only storage I have is what the old owner left behind (yeah thanks for leaving your crappy shelving unit) but I'll gradually get this all usefully arranged I'm sure. I've already scoped out a big L shaped corner desk from Ikea for a starting point, and The Man's mum has mentioned a big dresser which she used to have in her kitchen but since she upgraded it she's just kept in her garage. She's just as keen for me to have a fully functional craft room as I am! (It's possible since she now has a key I may come home to find her in it quite often.) It will be wonderful to have everything get-at-able. I aspire to having one of those workspaces they feature on home and lifestyle blogs, with useful shelves in the right places and chi-chi pots for your pens and paint brushes. Hey ho.

Here is a new house / new table combo pic. This new (old) table is rather orange because it's in the process of being 'revived', having been in the barn at home for several months waiting for a new home.

It's been given a drink of a woodworm treatment shooter followed by a beeswax and noxious solvents cocktail. In two days we are allowed to buff it to a sheen. Meantime hopefully it will have absorbed what it needs and the solvents will have evaporated and it will go back to a sensible colour. It has started to already so I should really trust my (furniture restorer) brother not to leave me with a tangerine table.

Here is some old woodworm damage - love the crazy pattern. I think it looks a bit like that tubes screensaver they used to have on Windows 97.

Yesterday we had our washing machine delivered. The Man's plumber mate is on hols so we thought we'd plumb it in ourselves. How hard can it be? There's an instruction manual and everything.

Just in case, we put a washing up bowl underneath to catch any drips for the first cycle.

Ahem. Yes, well. This has now been rectified.

All this house roaming fetching things from upstairs when they're needed downstairs is just as well, I had a serious gym session with my trainer yesterday and I hurt in strange places, and if I sat down for too long I think I'd cease up. Balls of my thumbs? I presume it's due to having my first session of pad boxing, which is much more fun than ten minutes on the cross trainer.

It's taken a while but I'm starting to get into the mindset that not everything in this house needs to be done immediately, which is quite a new thing for a child of the Now generation like me. It's lovely just doing a little chunk at a time, and thinking that we can write a list and cross things off slowly. It's also lovely watching The Man getting to grips with my power drill. Hee hee. He's somewhat of a DIY virgin but seems keen so far, which is ace. There'll be plenty of just-jobs* in the next few years I'm sure.

Since Friday though he's been very happy because the Sky man came and made Sport happen again (or indeed any telly, we've been surviving on DVDs), so now we have golf / cricket / football in HD on the big flat telly, and on Saturday his mates appeared to sort out the surround sound, so we also have Kef eggs (this is a technical term apparently) around the room and disconcerting noises coming from under chairs and in the bookcases. I have to plead to being terribly girly and being happy with the telly not set to HD and with its own speakers, but apparently I'm being a Philistine and Must Not Utter words like that.

Finally, hurrah for being able to see the roads again and them not being white and skiddy, but some doom-mongerer said the other day that we might be due one or two more snow snaps this year. Noooo! I've already had six (yes, six) days when I couldn't get into work because the trains weren't running, enough is enough!

* Can you just...?

Ah.

2010-01-06T17:32:00.004Z

Here follows a lesson in why you should not do anything more complicated than a stocking stitch square at knit group:

Can you see the problem?

Click on the pic to view in its full glory. This is also a lesson in making sure you pick up the same number of stitches going up as coming down. Buggrit.

This is Helena and is normally really cute, if you do the neck band according to the pattern. I read the instructions about counting section 1 to flange B, section 2 to the left armpit intersection, place marker and knit to section 22(a) subclause viii, and thought stuff it. Ha, said the pattern, you fool! So now one side has not enough stitches and pulls up, and the other has way too many and hangs down. Clearly at some point my fingers defrosted and the hot chocolate kicked in and my picking up rate changed. Yeah yeah, excuses...

This will be fixed, oh yes.

I must also share with you this:

A mutant got through the unigrape scanner. Check out this monster!

It was like three or four grapes had grown together and formed one super grape, about to Take Over The World, I tell you!!!!

The Man ate it. With great relish.

(He'd offered it to me but I was too scared. )

Moving junk

2010-01-04T16:19:00.003Z

Oooo, I slept on my neck funny last night and it’s just getting worse and worse.

Back at work. I have sooooo much to do at home, but here I am twiddling my thumbs in the office. Do people who work from home do this? Sit at their laptop and think they can’t possibly just nip out and put a wash on? I think not. But, there may be another snow day in the offing if the BBC weather service is to be believed so perhaps I can be more productive than I think.

Things to do this week:

Pack up the entire flat – this will hopefully involve a lot of throwing away too

Eat as much as possible of the contents of the fridge and freezer

Minimise the laundry situation

Do the rest of the recycling and drop offs to the charity shops

Order a washing machine and (depending on the vendor accepting our offer for their old one) a fridge/freezer

Send off three parcels for presents for people (two to the States) (and possibly four if I finish the latest knitting project in time)

Read the meters

Things to do after we move:

Read meters and call utilities people

Call BT and have longwinded and ultimately futile conversation about (lack of) moving broadband over

Call Sky likewise re telly reception*

Unpack contents of flat

Take delivery of new TV**, washing machine and possibly fridge/freezer

Get Sky man in to fit new dish and gubbins for sky multiroom

Take a trip in a van to The Man’s mum’s house to pick up a load more stuff

Take a trip in a van to my mum’s house to pick up a load more stuff

Take a trip to the physio to fix my back

Get someone in to plaster over the artex ceiling in the sitting room (why? WHY???)

Sit down and have a well-earned drink (or six)

* I called Sky last week to inform them of change of address and get man booked in to install new dish etc, and they still had our old address because some mouth-breather had put our last moving date in as 2088, not 2008, and not ticked a box somewhere. So of course as 2088 has not come along yet the system still thinks we’re at the old address, and as it’s over a year later the call centre can’t amend the record, they have to ask Sky IT to do it, and apparently that could take up to 30 days. Allrighty.

**Ah, the new TV. One of The Man’s mates came along to help us decide, as he knows all about Making A Noise with sound systems. With the voice of ages, as we walked past Fenwicks’ sale and viewed the bunfight inside, he said, ‘Ah, loads of people spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need.’ True, very true, we thought sagely, heading into the Sound and Vision store to drop a couple of thou with the pimply salesman. I think the irony was lost on the boys. Clearly big TVs and fancy dan speakers fall into the ‘Life’s Essentials’ category.

The parents, like parents the world over I’m sure, are overjoyed at the prospect of ‘getting their houses back’ when we move as we’ll have space for all the stuff we’ve been storing in respective parents’ houses for years. Ha, misguided fools. They said that when we (generic, universal ‘we’) went away to uni, they said that when we left uni to get Proper Jobs, they said that when we moved again, always hoping, hoping, that one day the junk would find another home. When will they learn it will never happen? We take what junk we need and leave the rest, which gradually accumulates and accumulates, merging with our siblings’ junk and more parental junk until, basically, the attic floor gives way.

After the wedding I’m going to hire a skip and one of those dustbin chute things and go up into the attic with my parents and throw away all the crapola that is never used and often tripped over. There are strings of lilac fairy lights from my brother’s wedding five years ago, a BBC Acorn computer, broken chairs, old clothes (lots of old clothes), ancient tapes and CDs, old mattresses, a broken easel, baby toys, a model ship, zillions of crappy books no one is the least bit interested in, nasty pictures, macrame plant holders, old files from the office, toy prams and tea services, fishing kit and just JUNK. Piles of it. Argh!! The trouble is this theme extends to other parts of the house, most notably the office. My flesh crawls walking into my parents’ office, and it’s not just an allergic reaction to the dust (a mixture of real dust, dried mud and clarts), pet hair and cobwebs. There can only be about 12 square inches of actual desk visible. The rest if covered by the PC, two printers, his’n’hers in trays, the desk diary, a phone/fax monster, and several mountains of sliding paperwork and magazines. The pen pot has one, maybe two pens which actually work, not one ever actually having been purchased but all having come free with vet drugs orders or wormer samples or seed catalogues. There is a pen holder in the shape of a hedgehog with a pencil sharpener nose which I remember being there when I was about seven years old, with the collected scunge of ages in the bottom. Ditto two other pen holders (yes, three pen holders and two working pens). There is a collection of rubber bands and paper clips and stamps held together by dust bunnies. The wall is papered with notes and phone numbers all of which are so faded they are nearly impossible to read. The wall shelves bow under the weight of long unused files. I daren’t ever open the desk drawers because if you actually look for anything and thereby rearrange the contents you never get them closed again.

Under the desk there is no room for actual feet. There are assorted boxes of cartridges, piles of jiffy bags (some reused and some new! Shock!) and other packaging, vast leaning towers of eggboxes, boxes the computer equipment came in (throw them away!! All you need is the paperwork!), some other stuff lurking at the back and The Bin. Now we are all supposed to be eco friendly the bin has become the Paper Recycling Bin, which basically means the same stuff goes in it but it gets emptied less often so there is a wire bin somewhere under another mountain of paper. All of the above is distributed among liberal amounts of dust and fluff and hair. Yum.

So you can see I can go either of two ways: either I’ll react against all this junk-keeping or I’ll bow to genetics. I know someone at work whose wife is a professional declutterer and if something in their house has not been used for a year (or if he’s not worn a particular shirt in three months) then it’s out. Scary. But, you can see why this could be a good thing. We do all indeed have loads of Stuff We Don’t Need which we’ve spent Money We Don’t Have on. I am getting better at realising when that pretty sparkly thing with 20% off (or ‘80% on’ as I read somewhere recently) is in fact just Something Else to Dust rather than a functional item that I need. I need to get better at doing a similar thing with clothes (getting better at remembering if I have one almost the same) and books (hopeless – books just have to come home with me). It will be interesting to see exactly how much junk I do own as opposed to things I need and use.

I am so glad we booked a removals man this time….

Lists

2009-12-30T14:43:00.001Z

Everyone is talking about resolutions again. I suppose this time it’s not just a new year but a new decade, which adds a certain quelque-chose. Was Y2K really ten years ago? Sheesh.

Last year these were the goals I set myself:

1. Find out what I have to do to achieve to get a promotion at work
2. Learn to crochet and do one of those amigurumi things, possibly a ninja vampire.
3. Buy a house
4. Lose a stone
5. Decide a direction for the wool business
6. Keep on top of the home filing

Have I actually done any of these things? Well, maybe one of them, and that was cutting it fine! We exchanged on a house last week, and we’ll be moving in January. Number 1 should be a quick question to my manager really, I don’t know why that wasn’t done. Lose a stone – I think I’ve lost a few pounds but over the past few months I’ve really got back into exercising so hopefully that should go a bit better now. There are so many things I’d rather do than go to the gym but I do feel better for it afterwards. Home filing has been reasonably well looked after, but I am looking forward to the new house when there will be space to have some decent systems in place for things like that. It’s not hard, it’s just little and often and dealing with things as they come in. The wool business is still languishing, and would involve sitting down with mum and dad and thrashing it out, but getting them to a) sit around a table and b) talk about the same subject for more than about 15 minutes without the phone ringing or a crisis of the sheep getting out or the tractor breaking down or someone not being available for babysitting the grandchild or a vet emergency happening or even just being able to not get sidetracked and start talking about who’s died recently or if some forms came in the post or have I got enough chutney? is slim in the extreme.

Crochet progress has been woeful. I have purchased two books on the subject and that is all. The knitting group girls are trying to encourage me to do the Ravelympics 2010 learn a new yarn skill event and actually crochet something during the 14 days of the Winter Olympics. Is that rather optimistic, or is it the deadline I need? Also, what should I crochet? Does one granny square count?

2009 has been a positive year though, on the whole. Good things that have happened:

1. We got engaged in April
2. We have bought a house
3. Lots of good and positive things have happened at work – this job seems to be suiting me
4. My back has got 99% better (yay!) which means there are no excuses now about exercise (bum)
5. I finished a life coaching course and am nearly qualified (just need a few more hours practise)
6. I have in large part sorted out the wedding7. The Man became an uncle
8. We travelled to the States twice (Arizona in Feb and Florida in October)

2010 promises to be a very busy year and I’m feeling exhausted at the prospect of it. The main events will be:

1. Move house
2. Sort out said house
3. Working in the Paris office for a month
4. Walking the Yorkshire Three Peaks for a work charity event
5. Get married
6. Do Christmas.

Yes, the families have decided that as we’re going to be in a big house, we can host Christmas next year. Lawdy. No pressure! Moving house in itself is OK, if you’re organised, but this house will need some redecorating and also possibly a new boiler and rewiring. Perhaps those things can wait until 2011… Plus we need to furnish somewhere much bigger than we’re used to, which to me sounds rather expensive (you should see what TV system The Man is planning!), before we even get to the wedding. Argh. You can see why I’d rather just stay in bed with the duvet over my head at the moment, wibbling softly to myself.

So perhaps I shall only set myself a very small set of goals because I will be busy enough with all these things as it is. Things I would like to do:

1. Go to a dance class; tango is looking favourite at the moment, or maybe jive or something energetic too

and

2. Learn to bloody crochet.

2009-12-28T14:10:00.005Z

Do you remember this post?

Look what The Man got me for Chrimbo:

He swears some computer hiccup meant that both initials came out the same. Double scary!!

Nice though aren't they? And very comfy! Hopefully leak proof and squeak proof. The old pair have gone firmly in the bin - hurrah!

Oooh, shiny.....

I thought I should also do a knitting roundup because there have been some Finished Objects happening, saints be praised.

First off, a baby blanket for Baby Cusack, due any day now. I started this in September and finished it on 12 December. You can imagine the joy...! I have learnt my lesson re baby blankets, don't worry.

It's called the Lace Panelled Baby Blanket and the ravelry link is here.

Very pretty edging but after you've knitted about four yards of it, you've had enough.

Need to work on my labels I think. I've seen some beautiful ones out there that people have designed for themselves. Something to do in the new year.

We also have another bear from Erika Knight's Simple Knits for Cherished Babies (rav link) which is going across the pond to some friends in Atlanta who have just had a baby girl.

I knitted him in a day and my shoulders really knew about it. But good to get that off the list.

Also finally got some time do to the Shalom cardigan! I bought some baby alpaca in the states, the last 4 skeins in this colour, and I was hoping and hoping that it would be enough. Well, I had a satsuma sized ball left after this, so it was perfick. Phew!

It took ten days of on and off knitting.

Love it. The yarn is the softest yummiest warmest cloud of gorgeousness, the pattern is straightforward and I think it looks rather classy, and more complicated than it is. I made a few mods (on rav page) but they were pretty minor. The yarn does shed a little so will be interesting to see what happens when I dare to wash it. May also stretch to bu99ery so I may be taking some friend's advice and fishing it out of the sink in a colander...

So then I was left with nothing on the go! (Well, socks didn't seem to count.) So I cast on an Ishbel with the secret santa yarn I got at knit group - RYC cashsoft 4ply.

And I'm also going to be making a Helena for yet another baby who has popped into the world. What is going on with all this procreating??? I can't keep up!

In other news, we have bought a house. I should be wildly excited but at the moment I'm 50:50 scared and feeling exhausted at the prospect of all that organising of moving over the gas, electric, phone, internet, sky, bank details, and the gazillion other people you have to notify of your change of address. And then we have to contend with a possible rewiring, boiler replacement and redecoration of somewhere much much larger than we're used to. Sigh. It's good timing though, because hopefully we can get all these things sorted out well in advance of the wedding. We have nine months, so hopefully most of it can be done by then. And the families have announced that we'll be hosting xmas next year. There may be at least a dozen. No wonder I'm feeling tired already by the prospect of 2010!

More snow pics

2009-12-20T12:56:00.004Z

These are from the Common yesterday.

And here, due to a gas leak at Hoopers (which seems quite serious as it's been going on nearly 24hours now), are people walking up Mount Pleasant in the road, because they can, because it's closed to traffic.

I've really enjoyed these snow days. I've spent some lovely time with The Man, had some time to appreciate T Wells, got some fresh air, sorted xmas, been entertained by the general goings on in town and appreciated people's cheerful wonder about the snow, which let's face it, while it may have been inconvenient to some, has been very beautiful.

Baby it's cold outside...

2009-12-18T17:25:00.006Z

No work today because when I looked outside this morning it looked like this:

Actually it looked like that last night when I got home (at half past midnight due to train nightmares due to (shock) SNOW!!).

However, it turned out to be a lovely day.

The Man's car didn't think so though.

The Pantiles looked beautiful.

Look how deep the snow is!

The sky was bright bright blue. This looks like a picture taken in America somehow, what do you think?

I measured the snow on the way down London Road and it came all the way to the top of the cuff of my gloves. Which, as it turns out when I measured it when we got home, is almost 9 inches. Nine!! For gosh! No wonder SE trains thought it was a good excuse.

We had a productive day though, finishing the Christmas shopping (we walked in the roads all the way there because they were the least icy place, there was hardly any traffic and Mount Pleasant was even closed by the police), visited a Very Quiet Sainsbury's (bliss!) and then we went browsing for wedding rings. For a relatively simple item I think it's going to be as complicated as choosing a dress.

The most entertaining thing of the day was watching what traffic there was trying to get anywhere, especially the genii in rear wheel drive cars who were going nowhere fast, and where they were going was mainly sideways. One BMW tried to get around the roundabout and ended up doing a crab manouvre and coming back the same way but on the other side of the road and backwards. There were lorries stopped broadside across the High Street trying to go up an uphill turnoff and left with nowhere to slide, cars just left abandoned at the bottom of hills and dozens of people slipping over and landing on their arses. But it was so pretty!

It's due to snow again tonight. Snowmen tomorrow!!

Preparation's what you need....

2009-12-02T17:31:00.001Z

My eyes are turning square today. Too long parked in from on the monitor looking at smaller squares and trying to make the numbers at the bottom come out differently. (Silk purse and sow’s ear comes to mind…)

We have Quite A Lot On at the moment. For instance:

1. Planning a wedding
2. Buying a house
3. Getting ready for Xmas
4. Hospital visits to Grandma
5. Xmas social calendar
6. Work

Which doesn’t leave a huge amount of time for things like:

1. Food shopping
2. Laundry
3. Cleaning
4. Sleeping
5. Speaking to each other. It seems that we do most of our conversing over email these days! Although The Man did come with me last night to visit Grandma so we had a good catchup while walking up the hill to the hospital. Ah, multitasking…

So, how is the run up to Chrimble going for you guys? I don’t usually feel this shattered until the 15th at least! I am now, sitting at work about to go out for my second (no, third!) restaurant dinner of the week (yes, I know it’s only Wednesday), about to start writing Christmas cards. I am shamed that this year (same as last) they are not homemade – while some amazing person at work has even made her own wrapping paper. Just to set the bar somewhere ridiculously high. Sigh. One day I shall do that, and all the gifts will be handmade too. Yeah right, who am I kidding. *;)

Ho ho ho

2009-11-29T21:40:00.001Z

New pattern shortly to be up on Aragon Yarns' website.

Anyone else getting into the festive spirit, or it is just me?!

Golf shoes

2009-11-22T20:11:00.003Z

On Friday I played golf with work, which was scary in prospect but in reality turned out not too bad. Apart from one manager saying, 'Are you caddying?' and then later, surprised, 'You look quite golfy!'. Well, grrr, he'd better watch out, I'm not taking any of that male chauvanist crapola.

The worst thing was my golf shoes, which used to be mum's, are about 15 years old and leak like a government back office. The Man, now I'm showing I'm serious about the golf lark, might arrange some new ones for me. Apparently the golf shoes to get are Footjoys, and on their website you can design your own personalised ones. How cool is that?! So I had some fun playing with the (shorter) batch of colours in the women's section.

And then you can put your initials on them if you like.

How freakishly scary is that, seeing your to-be initials for the first time?

Old and new together, for the changeover period.

Nope, it's just too weird. I'm going to have to come back to this.

2009-11-18T21:15:00.005Z

Katie…must remember that listening to audiobook versions of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on packed commuter trains is not a good idea. It’s hard to have hysterical laughter quietly.

Ah, audiobooks. Why didn’t I download some of these before? If anyone has some good recommendations, please let me know. I’ve just started on The Historian, which is about Dracula, so we’ll see how that goes. It's been good so far apart from having what seemed to be a Brooklyn policeman based in Oxford. Why do so many American publications have these glaring editorial errors? At least now I can read and knit at the same time. In effect…

As promised, here are some pics of the other half of the Florida trip:

Intracoastal waterway, with some sort of egret on the dock.

Nuclear sub coming out of port, with two shield ships.

Daisy on the beach.

The Man's choice of motor.

Things I have also done (but which there are no pics for):

Been on a business trip to view some distribution centres for a very large highstreet clothes chain, which was huge and mainly automated and involved lots of robots and conveyor belts and did indeed in places look like the door storage area in Monsters Inc in its vastness.

Visited some friends and their new baby who is only a month old and still in the floppy poo-scream-eat stage but still super cute. I felt bad invading but Jo seems to be totally in control and the whole family (including the dog) working like a well-oiled machine. Impressive!

Made half a santa hat. But then I saw someone on the train wearing a variation of this, and I thought that I could improve. Trouble is I was meaning to whizz this pattern off in a few days for the Wealden Times Christmas fair which mum is manning a stall at, but I fear I’m now cutting it rather fine…

Tomorrow I'm off to Bristol for another work thing, and I've signed up for golf on Friday. The only girl to play, with about 40 men. (Essential comma there.) I'm scared!! How embarrassing, I shall be particularly rubbish, but hey ho, you have to start somewhere.

Status updates

2009-10-29T20:55:00.003Z

Too many to do today so here they are all at once:

Katie…

...is repulsed by the dapper old man on the train filing his fingernails and then using the sharpened talons to pick interesting things out of his beard and peruse them.

...wonders how on earth The Thong Song got on her ipod

...is amused by the power exec in his large Merc listening to Guns n Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine at top volume at the traffic lights

...is pleased her car worked this morning – hurrah for WD40!

...is kinda relieved what she thought were just fat ankles are actually disfunctional muscle build up do to with things to do with her bad back. If the back gets fixed perhaps they’ll go away.

...likes the Green Slime chocolate rolls someone has brought in for their birthday cakes.

...is tickled by a restaurant having a caviar menu. Starting at £120.

Next week I'm away training in Paris, back at that lovely chateau. Shame.

Baby it's cold outside

2009-10-18T20:17:00.006+01:00

We were only away two weeks! Suddenly it's autumn over here! It's a bit of a shock coming back from Florida where it's been mid to high 20s and walking off the plane and having to chisel ice off the car.

Our condo overlooked the Atlantic and in the mornings you could watch dolphins and pelicans working their way up and down the beach.

We were at the condo with The Man's family, but then we two disappeared off for a couple of days to Orlando to do the parks. There will be some more pics of Amelia Island, including of a submarine, but I had to offload them onto the MIL2B's laptop. My camera only stores pics internally, so clearly I need to RTFM. Meanwhile here are some pics from Universal Studios and Disney.

Getting wet on rides seems to be a popular theme.

Dr Seuss area was fab! One of my fave rides even though The Man thought it was lame-o and for kids.

Most sick-making rollercoaster which The Man rode twice (and screamed like a girl both times I expect, but I can't vouch for the second time).

Blues Brothers arriving for their gig.

Dancing in the street...

We stayed on in the evening for the Halloween haunted house extravaganza, which was really good. It was billed as the best in the States, and it was scary! There was a Saw house, all dark and spooky with the characters jumping out at you and hostages screaming, characters in the street following people (zombies, vampires, Texans with chainsaws), a Rocky Horror Show tribute, and loads of other stuff happening but the queues got ridiculous and we'd been there for 13hours and my feet were shredded.

Next day we dragged outselves out of bed to go to Disney's Magic Kingdom.

Capt Jack Sparrow (savvy).

Can you see Mickey?

On the whole Disney was pitched too young even for my mental age and could do with a lick of paint in places and some decent places to eat. The evening fireworks were good though.

After two days at the parks though, I felt like this:

We did visit Walmart. Bargainous and big craft section.

And KnitWitz yarn store in Jacksonville - they were sweeties and gearing up for having a midnight knit-in! When I got home there was the next Socktopus parcel! Which looks fabbo - a Cookie A pattern this time.

So, the first installment will follow. Sorry to be topsy turvy.

Ouchee

2009-10-01T19:23:00.003+01:00

I can't read. I mean, I can read, obviously, but at the moment I'm unable to read. I have a nasty eye infection called iritis which is an infection of the iris, which involved going to the optician who recoiled in horror and packed me off to the hospital with dire warnings of losing my sight unless I got it seen to IMMEDIATELY, which scared the holy bejesus crap out of me. The completely disinterested doctor at the hospital has given me drops which dilate my pupil so I'm really sensitive to light, so even though it was a lovely day today the curtains were drawn. Sigh. What a pest.

On the plus side, it's starting to get better, and we're off on hols at the weekend so I can rest up and get rid of all these problems and hopefully come back fixed and fighting fit. Will be back in two weeks with lots of pics. Take care all!

Meltdown

2009-09-28T20:04:00.004+01:00

I’ve been squished. In fact, I feel like I’ve been run over. I just want to lie in a bed somewhere very quietly and hear the distant noises of birdsong and people clunking in the kitchen. The lurgy has not quite gone away, I have an eye infection which is truly delightful, and I went to see a new physio this morning who was excellent but my body is in a bit of shock from being cracked from head to foot (literally). She did say that it would take 72 hours to feel back to normal, plus this rheumy eye is making the world a little fuzzy and drunken looking, so on the whole I’m feeling a little under par. Roll on hols this weekend! Plus I’m feeling a little glum because the physio drew a picture of all that is wrong of my back and apparently from the rear I look like Quasimodo.

The Man did another triathlon at the weekend. I’m sure it’s all very noble and athletic but frankly you can keep swimming in a muddy lake at 9am on a crispy cold autumn morning. It wasn’t nearly as slick an operation as the London one but I think everyone enjoyed themselves (apart from those cyclists who didn’t know the sharp bends on the route and ended up stuck in the hedges or spreading themselves along the tarmac). I am no longer enthused to do one myself. Perhaps I should start a new event of walking, riding and tea drinking. Where is the appeal of voluntarily freezing yourself in skanky water, getting onto a bike while still dripping wet, cycling yourself into the ground and then going for a run?! Why?

Surprise knitting is coming along well. Preparations from the Whisper Cardi are experiencing a slightly more stuttering start. I decided to be a good girl and swatch, but have discovered that for some bizarre reason the Malabrigo lace is actually quite hard for me to knit with. Stitches get caught up and muddled and (gah) dropped. Is this what happens with laceweight on aran needles? I suppose the swatch is therefore good practise for learning how to handle the yarn before I end up with massive ladders on the main piece. I feel like a novice again. As Ted says, how discombobulating. It’s knit group tomorrow so I can see if anyone else gets the same problems, and I’ve also been instructed to bring the last two sock club skeins in for consideration. Mitts off my Wollmeise!

Also, this weekend, I learned what a modesty bone is. It’s kinda like a funny bone but different. I hope I never stop learning things, it’s what makes life so interesting.

Socks and Crocks

2009-09-25T16:50:00.002+01:00

Gah, I’m two parcels behind on my sock club knitting and have completely lost my sock mojo, and the next parcel is imminent. It can’t be two months since the last one, it just cayn’t!

I’ve been off work with the lurgy for two days. Being at home during the day during the week is a revelation. I suppose it’s helped that the weather has been beautiful, but there’s a very laid back industrious atmosphere in town, it’s surprisingly quiet, everyone seems to have their head down (apart from the Chavs and the slightly smug smiling mothers on maternity leave). There’s even less traffic noise outside our window. Yesterday my back was starting to twinge from too much lying on the settee so I called Clare and we went for a (very slow) walk around the Common. There was still a heavy dew in the shade and the drops tickled and cooled my bare sandalled toes.

I’m trying to plan knitting for hols. There’s the surprise knitting which has a deadline but it’s quite a way off, there’s the Whisper Cardigan which I’ve wound the yarn for (Malabrigo lace, wow it’s so soft! And so fine! I’m going to break it! And it will take years to knit up! Gah!), or some of the aforementioned sock kits. One set of dpns has gone walkabout and even my lurgified tidyings and sortings have not unearthed them. I think the clothesmoths have eaten them or taken them away to decorate their palace (they were the Knitpicks jazzy coloured ones). Bloomin clothesmoths.

One thing Clare and I were talking about was all those food blogs. My question is, does all the amazing looking food actually get eaten? Some bloggers have large families so I can believe at a push that all the cake and pies and tarts and brownies and casseroles and pot roasts get eaten, but some just have a partner in the house. Is the partner 30 stone? Do they donate stuff to charity bake sales? Or does a bit get eaten and the rest thrown away? If you have a food related blog, let me know!

Featuring FOs....

2009-09-21T19:40:00.007+01:00

During the recent radio silence (apols) I have discovered a few things:

1. I am a sad commuter who has their own sad commuting games. Mine is trying to get through the station barriers without breaking stride. This involves being able to post your season ticket into the slot at speed without missing, and trusting that the rollers inside will redeliver said ticket into my fingers fast enough so it can be extracted so the barriers open without me crashing into them. Usually I slow down a bit, but the intention is always there to stride through. I really do need to get a life. *;)

2. I hate knitting bobbles. Lace is good, bobbles are excruciating.

3. If I somehow manage to chip a golf ball onto the green and it goes in the hole, I do a little dance. It won’t happen again for another decade though.

So, some catch-up pics.

Escaping from a conference in Cambridge, here is the inside of King’s College chapel (where they have the carols at Christmas). Henry VIII gave them the big oak screens to hide the organ, and there are his initials and Anne Boleyn’s carved into it so it’s dateable to within a few years. How weird, when you know what happened to her, to see her initials there and think that at the time they were oblivious to how it would all turn out.

There's a new clock at Corpus Christi with the Chronophage eating up time at the top. It's the world's largest grasshopper escapement, apparently, and it walks along, driven by the pendulum, moving the disc of the clock around. Sometimes it blinks with golden eyelids. Definitely something to check out!

Here is also the Mathematical Bridge. The myth is that is was built by some dons or something as a bet without using any bolts but only held together with Physics, and then some naughty undergrads came along thinking they could take it apart and put it back together, but then couldn’t work out how it went so they had to resort to bolting it. Apparently that’s all rubbish but I like the story!

We went to a wedding in Paris, as an old school friend was marrying a Frenchman. You have to get married twice, once in the town hall and once in a church. Well, you don’t need to do the church bit of you’re not religious. The church service was done in two languages so at some points the English guests were singing in French and the French people were singing in English. Cool!

And I have finished two jumpers. I know, it’s amazing.

Firstly it’s the Third Time Lucky Debbie Bliss detailed yoke jumper from her Summer 2009 magazine, done in Twilley’s Gorgeous which is 95% bamboo. This is the one that taught me that I hate bobbles. But! I also taught myself how to do mattress stitch on the seams so all was not lost.

Good job I ripped it out twice at the beginning because if I had carried on with the medium size it would have been vast. This is the small size and it’s still plenty big enough. Any why on earth isn’t this written top down and in the round? I did the body and the sleeves in the round anyway. Having done Baby Cables, I am a total convert to doing it that way. You can try on as you go! Genius!

Second is another Debbie Bliss from the same magazine, in Rowan wool/cotton blend DK. I’ve adapted this to make it sleeveless, and I think it works quite well. I keep wanting to put my hands in non-existant pockets in it though, maybe because I have another gilet with pockets. It would bulk it up too much I think. Will just have to make do with jeans.

This could maybe do with some shaping through the body, and a double ended zip. For the sleeves edging I just knitted 5st of garter stitch and then sewed that on to sort of match the front.

It should be an easy throw-on for the spring or the autumn.

The Man has also finally succumbed to being a Knitter’s Partner-Photographer too, sweetie that he is. I think, having made me pick him up at midnight from a boys’ night out on Saturday, and then sit in front of two (or was it three? I tried to blank it out) successive football matches yesterday afternoon while I finished these projects, he felt that he couldn’t really say no when I dragged him to the park to take these pics for me. I told him he was in good company (lots of other bloggers get their husbands to do the photo shoots for them), but I don’t think it helped. ;) Previous knitting pics have been taken by my photographer friend who understands the need to take LOADS so that at least one will not make me look like a gurning horse with three double chins and a beergut.

Only two weeks until holiday! Yay!

And a special pre-festive something for you all:

Fornicating reindeer here on Ravelry.

Progress

2009-09-06T17:56:00.004+01:00

I've been knitting these projects for so long it was starting to feel like they'd never end, but apparently some evil fairy wasn't coming along in the night unpicking everything I'd done every day. Here is the Debbie Bliss detailed yoke jumper with the sleeves attached, so now I can actually knit the yoke. I have to say the instruction 'join raglan sleeves' took me about 20 mins to work out, because it doesn't immediately say that not all edges will be joined leaving you with just live stitches, instead there will be an edge from the sleeve and an edge from the jumper that will be left with the cast on edge ready for picking up stitches from on the next round. Thanks for that. Perhaps a diagram next time?

On the plus side I decided to do it properly and looked up how to do mattress stitch and *that* was worth while - look how smart my seams look!

I can't believe I haven't done mattress stitch before!

Other project (also Debbie Bliss) has got this far:

My camera hates the colour, it's actually a lot darker and auberginey. It was looking very skinny but now it's nearly together I think it's going to be plenty big enough. The Ravelry comments from people about the blue jumper were that it comes up really big, and I did have to rip out the first start and do the smallest size, which I think is still going to have 'plenty of positive ease'. This purple pattern actually has sleeves but I'm going to finish it sleeveless as a gilet, so just do an inch or so cuff around the armholes.

*******SPOILER ALERT********

I have to say the latest Socktopus sock club parcel was brilliant. I am almost scared to type what was in it in case some rampant knitter starts hurling abuse and comes and burgles me, but it contained Wollmeise. Yes, that's right. The yarn that sells for £100 on ebay.

Cute little project / bits bag from ZigZag Stitches, and row counter from Atomic Knitting (there are instructions somewhere online for how it works, because it just looks like a load of stitchmarkers strung together at the moment), and great looking pattern.

Cute inside of the bag!

One more drool shot of the yarn. Don't you just love that rusty ruby red? I might just knit short socks so there's enough left for an Ishbel or something...

Soapbox and geekiness

2009-08-25T16:40:00.006+01:00

Well, having had a go with this new ipod, I have to say that I object, strongly. Perhaps I missed a tiny button that said 'skip' on the screen, but having to put my name, address, bank details and inside leg measurement in before I could even use the blimmin thing is rather objectionable. As and when I wish to download some itunes I will do that, but not before! I suddenly feel a fond affection for my previous, anonymous, clunky mp3 player...

Anyway, Clare sent me a great link to this on xkcd.com:

I have sent this to my mother and MIL-to-be. I hope they will print it and laminate it and refer to it at all times, but it won't happen. Hey ho.

From the xkcd site you can also purchase stickers to put on the spare buttons in your car.

It would be so tempting to use the armageddon one sometimes....

Big Catch Up

2009-08-17T21:37:00.007+01:00

We got some last minute tickets to see U2. Here is The Claw with whirligig searchlights.

The work police have reclaimed my slightly bending the rules long-term-loan work laptop because they might need it in case of a big swine flu outbreak, so I had to pony up the dough and actually buy one for myself (first time ever!), so I bought a pink one. And an ipod. Which is also pink. Matchy matchy!

I'm not at all a pink person but these guys just were calling to me! Actually girls - the laptop is called Mary-Lou.

So, here are the WIPs:

The Third Time Lucky Debbie Bliss Yoke jumper. If it's wrong this time, just tough! Nearly got to the point where you separate for the arms.

Progress on the cable cardigan:

Sorry about the selection of colours here - I don't think the camera was loving the end of the day light.

And interlocking leaves socks all finished!

And now I have to show you the masterpiece of DIY:

Sock blockers from wire coathangers! I saw this on a blog ages ago and actually it works really well. Take a coathanger and pull the middle of the bottom wire down, and then fold back one of the angles and voila. Sock blocker!

Adjustable for different sizes with a bit of brute encouragement, and with hooks pre-formed for hanging. I am inordinately proud of these! Really must get out more....

Rearly

2009-08-06T16:54:00.010+01:00

Today The Man, Dad, my brother and a buddy of my Dad's are playing golf - there seems to be an ongoing tournament forming, as none of them like to lose. I am thinking of getting a trophy for them to award at the end of each game - a Perpetual Challenge Trophy, if you will.

Trouble is, do I go for tasteful or hideous? There seems to be a lot to choose from!

Something in the Swwwinnnggg!! school?

Le Comedie? (Love that turkey's expression. Perhaps he just got a ball up his butt.)

Slightly misshapen man with a slightly misshapen stick?

Crystal balls?

Not quite sure what category these are in apart from 'something I really don't want in my house'.

Amputated club heads (one with a clock!!!) One of these, and I did LOL in our very open plan office, was titled a 'Rearly Lovely Golfing Trophy'.

And the 'misc' section - one completely lacking in all taste, one pretending to be tasteful but I'm not sure if it quite succeeds, and one so completely off-piste I don't know what to think! Golfing angel anyone?

What do you think? Is it better to admit that a tasteful trophy for under 40 quid is never going to happen and just go the whole hog and get something hideous? Will that actually stop them wanting to win???

Answers on a postcard please.

Knit Global

2009-08-04T16:49:00.005+01:00

I am intrigued with the phenomenon of meme knitting patterns. What is it with a pattern that causes a pandemic? Things like, Evelyn A. Clark’s Swallowtail Shawl, Knitbot’s Whisper and Featherwight Cardigans, Ysolda’s Ishbel, the February Lady Sweater. Somewhere along the line there’s a tipping point and the pattern goes global. The Owl sweater by Kate Davies suddenly is in the magazines as new and exciting, yet the pattern was quietly around since Nov 2008 – my old flatmate pointed it out to me.

What do you think it is? Does the pattern have to be simple or challenging, or strike just the perfect balance between the two? Does it have to be endorsed by some influential people before others sit up and take notice? Can the sea of opinion change and suddenly from indifference, people love it? I have to say I was a little underwhelmed by the Whisper cardigan when I first saw it in IK, but seeing how other people have knitted it, how they’ve adapted it and made it their own, how they've delighted in the simple but cunning construction, you can see why it’s become such a popular choice. This has been especially well adapted with this Featherweight, as pointed out by the pattern designer herself!

My current favourites list? Well, it’s got:

Whisper Cardigan – 1042 projects (although this might become the Featherweight (499 projects) if I think the yarn I bought for it is enough!)
Ysolda’s Liesl – 992 projects
Ysolda’s Ishbel – 2236 projects
Print o’ the Wave Stole – Eunny Jang – 846 projects
Grumperina’s Jaywalker’s – 6490 projects
Evelyn A Clark’s Flowerbasket Lace Shawl – 1422 projects

(These project numbers are the number of people knitting it (or finished) on Ravelry as at 4 August.)

I doubt I actually even want to knit all of these things, but somehow not to have them there means I feel like I'm missing out. I love to look at all the projects people have knitted and to judge the successes and failures. I love being fascinated at how global knitting (facilitated by Ravelry) has become - often comments and explanations of projects are in French or German or those little squares because I don't have the right characters installed on my computer. I love, when I do actually knit one of these patterns, feeling 'in', one of the kniterati, because I too can put my notes down on the Projects list and people can go 'Ooooh, you've done a Baby Cables!'. If this means I've succumbed to the pandemic, then so be it. I'm in with the in crowd!

Does anyone know the way to the garden party?

2009-07-27T20:06:00.005+01:00

So, all the life coaching training courses are now over, and bar another 20 hours practise coaching I am qualified! (And what’s 20 hours between friends?) We also got a freebie course to learn how to become a trainer, which I think is going to be very useful at work; and I am picking up loads of practise at negotiation with this wedding planning. Argh. Input and suggestions I love, but then please, let me make the decisions? So, I am officially People Skilled up. Ask me anything, and see if I can give you something powerful and incisive in reply. (Well, anything bar nuclear physics or about the finer workings of an internal combustion engine.)

Learning to train was entertaining. We all had to do 20mins of training each other on something, so now I can make a cocktail, frost a cupcake, and have an inkling about photo compositions and swimming butterfly. Can you guess what I got them to do? Can ya? Yes, I got them all knitting. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to make sense of a tangle on a stick when you’ve never looked at stitches before. I had people trying to knit from the blunt ends of the needles, with the knitting sticking up rather than hanging down from the needle, knitting over and into the next stitch instead of slipping the just worked one off the needle…. Phew. And all in 20mins, less preamble! I was shattered! But good to realise for next time the things that knitters take as read that you actually have to point out to a newbie.

This was the view from the training room.

Right into the Queen's back yard, where they were setting up for a garden party from the looks of things.

We managed to coincide some breaks with the changing of the guard.

You can just see the brass band bits there. Good job the horses don't mind all the racket.

I’ve started the summer jumper. I know we’ve had our annual week of sunshine, but this is for Florida in October. I have a horrible feeling that although I measured my bust size properly (Liz can vouch for this because I did it during knit group in the middle of the restaurant), it’s going to be rather capacious. Possibly there’s not as much shaping as the baby cables jumper, which is my main comparison. Hmm. Anyway, it’s being done in a Twilley’s yarn called Gorgeous which is 75% bamboo (how terribly modern of Twilley’s!) which looks like being quite nice and drapey. Not as silky and floppy as the Soya yarn I used for Daisy’s hoodie, but not bad.

Uh-oh. Just found the jumper on Ravelry and everyone says the sizes come out big. I have a feeling that I should have succumbed to my inner vanities and gone for the smaller size – it was borderline between the smallest given and the next one up, but I went for the next one. But having spent three days worth of train journeys on it already, I’m not sure I have the heart to rip it. What to do what to do? Ah come on woman, where’s your knitterly bravery, people have ripped a lot more than 5 inches of st st. Just because you had that trauma of starting out and realising your lovely knitting-in-the-round was twisted into a mobius strip… you can do it again. Deep breaths.

This weekend The Man is competing in the London Triathlon at the Excel Centre in the Docklands. He came up a few weekends ago to practise the swimming section, which was just as well, as he now has tactics on how to avoid being drowned by other competitors. Watching him wriggle into his wetsuit is the funniest thing in the world, but hopefully he will be in The Zone at that point and not thinking about me unable to breathe from laughing!

Update: It's ripped. That'll teach it.

Goodness, where does the time go?

2009-07-14T12:52:00.005+01:00

I knew June and July were going to be rather manic, but they’ve been fun too. The prospect of having a quiet weekend at home is beckoning though and I am soooo looking forward to it.
I’ve been on life coaching training courses, a hen weekend in Bath, helping at the shearing competition, to a wedding fair and a birthday party. But this weekend The Man is celebrating his birthday and I am not going anywhere. Bliss! A lie in! Time to tidy up!!

Knitting seems to have been on a go-slow lately, but the interlocking leaves socks are looking great, and such a cunning heel design! I’d not come across it before, but then again I’ve only knitted three pairs of socks in my life, but this is so cool – a sort of short row heel flap but the slipped stitches make it double thickness. I can see me using this technique again. I managed to finish one on the train back from the hen weekend, and am just about to turn the heel on the other. It’s all about being disciplined and not snoozing on the way home but making use of the time!

(I must ‘fess up to making a positive choice to take the train to Bath, rather than drive, so I could knit. I am turning into a true yarnie.)

The new Socktopus club parcel arrived last week, and I’m not sure what to think about it. OK, I still haven’t finished using the previous yarn, which is making me feel guilty for a start. But this one came without the extra goodies (for which there were apologies, granted) and seems to be a rather plain pattern with block colour yarn. It is an Ysolda pattern so no doubt with be full of hidden complicatude, so we will see. I hope the goodies are exciting when they arrive with the next parcel. I was disappointed with the last one I have to say – a few peas to plant? (I don’t even have a garden!) I’d heard great things about this sock club! So there, I’ve said it – I shall have to subscribe to that Knitting Blasphemies thread on Ravelry.

So you know of my quest to find the perfect Pride and Prejudice spin off? The other week I came across this:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

‘Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class conscious landed gentry?’ It’s had mixed reviews, not surprisingly. There are brilliant illustrations including Lady Catherine du Bourgh sending her ninjas against Elizabeth, and Elizabeth kick boxing with Mr Darcy. Barking. It was suitably ridiculous, but I have to sympathise with one reviewer on Amazon who said the good bits were the bits taken from P&P and all the badly written bits were the new additions about zombies. So you may as well save yourself £6 and reread P&P from the bookshelf. Although I will never look at Charlotte Lucas in quite the same way again.

So, while sort of on a Jane Austen theme, I have to tell you Bath is a lovely place to spend a weekend. Especially when the sales are on. But if you’re over that way, you must try out the new thermal spa, where you can actually bathe in the spring waters. It’s a great facility, four floors, two pools (one on the roof with great views) and one massive steam room with four pods, all with different essential oils, and a yummy restaurant. We also got around the Jane Austen museum, the Roman baths and popped into the Pump Rooms to try the water (which is much nicer than T Wells water), took a boat on the river up to Bathampton, and ate out in some great restaurants (Fishworks was amazing). The girls (bride and her sisters) discovered this bizarre shop called Hansel and Gretel which sold anything Bavarian and German, and had a strudel bar downstairs. They loved it. (On the other hand I discovered a bead shop downstairs in this little jewellery/gift shop which was amazing, but they were completely uninterested in. Each to their own!)

On Saturday night we were joined by John who apparently entertained the traffic stuck in a jam on the M4 on the way back on Sunday. He is so thoughtful.

The Man and I went to see Thriller. I’d spookily booked tickets on the morning before the news broke that MJ had died. I suspect tickets are like hen’s teeth now – it was booked out when we were there. Including some fanatical fan who kept shouting, ‘Michael! I miss you!’ until someone told him in no uncertain terms to shut up. It redeemed itself in the second half with an amazing dancer from LA doing the routines from Smooth Criminal and Billy Jean, but on the whole I preferred Jersey Boys. Jersey Boys had a plot, whereas Thriller didn't, and could have really done with one.

Mum and I went to a wedding fair near Maidstone on Sunday, and I think it was a bit of a revelation for her. I was quite surprised – she’s been involved in organising weddings recently, but there were things there she was pulling my sleeve and pointing at. We both tried on some tiaras and veils - I don’t see why she can’t have some fun too! And we found a really nice dress in the sample sale, which I didn’t buy because I’d probably be bored of it in a year’s time, but for 400 notes you can afford to run that risk and just bung it on ebay or sellmyweddingdress.co.uk if I changed my mind! Hey ho, it’s gone now. I must stop thinking about dresses and sparkles and concentrate on the bigger white thing ie booking a marquee! We are still in negotiations about that. I found this amazing company that does marquees with indian block-printed liners, but the quote was the GDP of a small country. There are other marquee companies which also do the marquees at the county show and other such events and are not very weddingy, but apparently they’re happy to put the bill down to hardcore (tarmac rubble) or cherry tree covers so you can put it through the farm books and claim the tax back. (Was I supposed to write that here?) So, we are still working on marquees. Will need to be inventive I think. And also check out our requirements in the way of generators, toilet trailers, chiller trailers, lighting and flooring. Then we can get on to the tables, chairs and catering stuff. Argh!

Just had a mail back from a photographer though so we will have a chat with him and see what he has to say.

Sigh. I am really looking forward to that Hannibal moment when I can suck on a cigar, smile, and say, 'I love it when a plan comes together...'

How to shear a sheep

2009-06-22T13:53:00.010+01:00

Yesterday was the second Romney Shears International Shearing Competition to be held at Aragon Farm.

The winning shearer managed to shear 20 sheep in 18 mintues, which is a sheep in approximately 40 seconds.

There were also ferrets. These were babies and made only a half-hearted attempt to take my finger off.

And spinners.

We were of course also selling yarn, and didn't do too badly considering.

Hurrah for random things to do in the British summer!

Blimmin Chavs

2009-06-18T21:38:00.003+01:00

This is not a classy new look. This is down to chavs. I'd just done perfect nails last night, gone to bed before they were totally dry, which I often do because I can fall asleep with my feet sticking out, but because the sitting room windows were open I could hear the drunken chavs out in the street. So I climb out of bed, close one window, but to get to the other one I had to climb on the settee, and... guess what. Smudged nail, which I had to take off until I have time to fix. Blimmin chavs.

Another unusual look is this:

Sainsbury's Wild Alaskan salmon fillets. What's with all that white goop that's come out of them? Ew! Like cheap bacon. They must have been pumped full of that salt sugar water preservative stuff to keep it and make it weigh heavier. Well Sainsbury's, that pretty icky. Kindly desist.

La belle France

2009-06-17T15:08:00.004+01:00

So, work sent me on this terribly painful course for four days at a chateau outside Paris.

The food was amazing and there was wine with every meal (well, not breakfast).

There were opens bars all around the house, and they fed us every hour and a half.

There was pool and archery and a tandem bicycle and Wii and poker and karaoke and a hammam and tisane de rose boutons (rose bud tea). Isn't that just the best teapot you've ever seen?

And now I'm back to curled up sandwiches and manky machine coffee. Sacré bleu.

(All is not lost, they're sending me back there in November and most probably April as well.)

As penance, we have to do a team challenge, and the decision seems to be the Three Peaks. It seemed a good idea after a couple of glasses of vin rouge... The team is made up of English, French, Germans and Italians, but they are a good bunch and they all speak very good English. I always feel so bad when you go abroad for business meetings and everyone else there is fluent in three languages, although I suppose if English wasn't the international business language then we would be too. My French is coming along but it's still woefully clunky.

On the way, I met an old school friend in Paris. She's been living there for years and recently got engaged to a Frenchman. We all had lunch together and I am happy to report her man is lovely! They are very loved up, but I didn't mind being a gooseberry because I am sickeningly loved up too. After lunch us two girls went to investigate the wedding dress shops on the Boulevard de Magenta, which is right by Gare du Nord. There are some uber tacky and some nice ones, and dresses are much cheaper than in the UK. It appears we pay for having some customer service. Where in the UK you have a huge dressing area with pretty chintz curtains and a chaise longue for your long-suffering friend/mother to wait on for two hours while your helpful and cheerful attendant helps you trying on every dress in the shop, in Paris it's cubicles with formica doors and you have to use the mirror on the (spartan) shop floor. Getting a smile out of the staff is rare. Dresses rammed on the rails are shrouded in plastic like the chiller section in Sainsbury's. I'm happy to pay an extra couple of hundred notes to look back with pleasure on my dress buying experience.

That said, my friend has got hers already and it sounds beautiful, and very similar to what I'm looking for myself. Yay her!

No new knitting news other than I've finally finished the back of the cable and rib cardigan and have started on one of the front panels - with proper cabling. I thought the back was slow going... I fear this might have to go on hold if I want to ever start my summer knitting!! (It was supposed to be a spring cardi, but looks like being an autumn one instead.)

Cake

2009-05-24T12:32:00.003+01:00

Look, I've made my first yarn cake. Yum! The Man acted as a very good swift until the football started and then attention waned and we ended up with a massive tangle which took half of NCIS to unpick. But Cake!! Why are yarn cakes so satisfying? Is it the squishiness? Is it the diamond shapes? Is it the promise of creating something professional-looking from your I'm-a-real-knitter-now properly wound skein?

So this yarn is from the Socktopus sock club March parcel - Artist's Palette yarn Sweet Feet, 80% merino and 20% bamboo, in a beautiful angry sea slate grey/blue. I'm not doing the sock club pattern, this one is Interlocking Leaves from Knitty.

Also found this handmade yarn at a craft fair yesterday at Petworth House:

It's a very autumnal looking blend of wool and silk with a few metallic sparkles. Not sure I approve of metallic sparkles in yarn but they are very subtle in this one so I'll let them off.

It's hot hot hot out today - hurrah for some British sunshine!

For goodness' sake

2009-05-19T21:54:00.004+01:00

So the Speaker of the House of Commons has quit because MPs have been diddling their expense accounts. For goodness' sake. That's like a load of schoolboys getting caught, standing there looking shocked, then all as one pointing the finger and going, 'He's in charge! It's his fault!'. This expenses system seems to have been in place for decades, certainly since before this Speaker was incumbent. If it was me, I'd be furious! I'd bash my gavel and shout, 'Don't you dare blame me you dishonest bunch of [wotsits]!', but he just apologises!!! What are they going to fob the blame off for next? Things are not perfect. The law is weird in places. We have a PM who looks like this

rather than this.

Deal with it and sort it out people! Don't just keep manoevring for position and trying to keep the newspapers happy. You're not going to achieve anything that way, apart from piss a load more voters off.

Sheesh.

She said He said

2009-05-15T16:35:00.002+01:00

I seem to be in a spin-off vibe this week. A friend has directed me to a piece written from Edward’s point of view (Edward the vampire from the Twilight books – yes all right I know I should be reading something more high brow but everyone has their guilty pleasures, right?) which is as yet incomplete but is an entertaining start, and then a book arrived which I’d ordered from Amazon which tells P&P from Darcy’s point of view. I am still searching for a satisfying P&P spin-off. This one, praise the lord, has not offended me with horrendous clangers which the editor should have picked up on, like using modern language or playing free and easy with the characterisation (Darcy does not go to haunted house parties in the wilds of Wales, get pissed trying to forget Elizabeth and end up with a deranged woman trying to seduce and/or kill him). It is, however, a little dull in the end, despite some good angst in the middle. Perhaps there is something to be said for the bodice-rippers after all.

I have another weekend of coaching this weekend. I am shattered to start with, so I’ve booked off next Monday for holiday. As usual, I was hoping for an easy day, but suddenly everything has become booked up. Uncles and aunts are coming over from France and want to do lunch, but I have already arranged lunch, so perhaps we can do tea? And I need to do some much neglected cleaning, and shopping, and I suspect sleeping. Not sure I can remember how to have a lie-in, or even how to turn the alarm clock off….

We finally managed to book a day to see the vicar. 1 June. What kind of world is it that it takes over a month to get in an appointment with a vicar? I’m not quite sure what he wants to say to us either, and whether there are some answers to questions that are real no-nos. Any advice on this gratefully received! I know one of the questions he asked my brother was, ‘What would you do if you found a bottle of gin in [sister-in-law’s] handbag?’ (I believe Pete’s reply to this was, ‘Ask her for some’, but I can’t swear to it.)

Musings on Sparklyness

2009-05-08T16:58:00.002+01:00

One of the knitting girls quite rightly commented at the last meet-up on the proximity of a blog post here whingeing about not being engaged and wanting to be, and one featuring a heavily sparkly finger. Indeed an interested phenomenon. I’m 99% sure that The Man doesn’t read my blog, but hey ho. Just shows the power of articulating your wants and desires! Or something.

So, I am getting used to wearing a ring on that finger, so much so that sometimes I have to check it’s still there. I’m also getting used to being engaged. A couple of the girls at work warned against the one-week-cross, where it seems that about a week in you get cross and grumpy for no real reason, but apparently that’s normal. Have to say that I didn’t notice it, but now, at nearly a month in (already??!) I’m starting to come down off the champagne fuelled cloud.

I did initially have three days of panic at the prospect of organising a wedding, which really perplexed me because that’s the sort of thing that I usually love doing. (Some lovely friends talked me down with stories of how much fun they had organising their weddings.) I think now it was the prospect of the soul-destroying task of sorting the nice wedding things from the tacky hideousnesses that some purveyors of bad taste seem to think that brides will go for. Your portrait etched in a heart-shaped lump of glass and backlit in colour-changing neon anyone? See through lace wedding dress? No? I could physically feel my heart sink as I sat with the first bridal magazine in my lap, gearing up to peel back the cover. Needed brandy rather than tea in my hand. But I have found it very cathartic to scalpel out the few things I like and then throw the rest of the wretched publication away. To be fair there have been a few good ideas. As long as you try to ignore the pouting models with their heaving bosoms. The vicar would have a heart attack.

It’s been interesting to people watch girls on the train and around town with engagement and/or wedding rings, and speculate about their state of mind, especially when you see them out with their other halves. A ring is a real brand to the world that you belong to someone else. On one hand, that’s good – you are in a partnership, a team, and someone loves you enough to spend the rest of their life with you. But on the other hand, it changes you. I feel a little like a pie (bear with me on this) in which a slice has changed forever. That slice is now The Man’s, and that slice, slim though it is at the moment, cuts right through to the core of me. And it’s taking a little time to get my head around that, because I’ve always been very self contained, and to have something dissecting me is something I instinctively resist. Well, you do, don’t you? Change is hard. And that slice of pie (or thin end of the wedge, whatever) is just going to get bigger. I’m going to have to change my name! That’s drastic!

Do men go through all this? They just get to wear a ring, and even that’s not compulsory. They get a social secretary and someone to do the laundry. And bear their children if they want. Good deal?

Before I get Anon on my back again, I am very very happy indeed to be engaged, but I’m just taking a while to get used to it. And learning to get used to the idea that The Man does actually love me that much! He’s so laid back sometimes that it can be a stretch to imagine him doing something so extravagant, but he does, even though he’s only going to let me talk about wedding planning three days a week.

In other news:

1. Life coaching training continues this weekend and I’ve just started with a new client which went well, so fingers crossed it continues to do so.

2. Mum and I just realised that I’ll be away in Florida during the knitting show at Ally Pally this year, which turns out quite well because we both dread it and we can try to go to Woolfest or Wonderwool instead next year. Which are nicer and smaller and cheaper for exhibitors. Hurrah!

3. Have nearly finished the baby hoodie but the hood/collar border needs ripping out and starting again because I can’t work out how to overlap the front and keep track of how many k2togs I’ve done at the ends of the rows. But it’s nearly there.

4. Have picked up the cable/rib cardigan/gilet again and god, it’s the slowest knit in the world. [sigh]

5. Have had a genius thought that perhaps our yarn with work for Liesl. In discussions with mum about giving it a try.

6. Ordered more yarn for projects I don’t have time for, inc some malabrigo lace from Pure Purl, who I have to say have great customer service for people like me who can’t make up their minds. Thanks Kim!

And now I’m off to meet some friends who are taking us out to a posh restaurant underneath the Metropolitan hotel. Oo la la, aren’t we high falutin’.

Hunt Watch

2009-04-29T20:56:00.004+01:00

I loved Life on Mars, but the scriptwriters for Ashes to Ashes are really going for it with the Hunt-isms. Hurrah for un-PCness! Gene Hunt we love you.

From Ep 1:

Hunt: Put your knickers on, you're nicked.

From Ep 2:

Hunt: (To the team) Don’t ever tell me how to drive, this motor’s more a part of me than my own ball sack.

Hunt: (To Alex Drake) You’re looking very chirpy Bowles, been sitting on the washing machine again?

I'm going to start a drinking game - for every quote that you'd get hauled in front of HR for these days, drink a dig*. For every time he says 'knickers', down it. I foresee some messy Monday nights....

*dig = digit, ie one finger's worth of whatever's in the glass.

Winging it

2009-04-28T19:17:00.005+01:00

Trying to make a hoodie to go with the heart trousers, without a pattern. This is where I've got to:

And I'm hoping it's going to end up something like this:

Which is a Baby Hoodie pattern for Blue Sky Alpacas.

It's quite possible I've gone drastically wrong already, looking at this pic. Hey ho! Next time it will be better. Or at least not so bad.

On a side note, I love working on circular needles. Look how I can knit bits and leave bits and jump bits - how cool is that? And no poking fellow commuters in the beergut either!

Normal service will resume

2009-04-24T19:01:00.000+01:00

Here are the latest knitting projects:

Cable rib cardigan from Debbie Bliss, which will be sleeveless and therefore a gilet.

Heart baby pants (trousers, people!) from Hannah Fetig's Cherished Knits. It was a bit difficult sewing the hearts on while on the train without pins and getting them level so I think the one on the left knee (on the right here) will need to be repositioned.

And finally what I bought with some birthday money. An all grown up wool winder! No more hand-wound balls rolling off the settee and into teacups! Hurrah!

£16 off ebay plus P&P. Bargain.

Sparkly

2009-04-20T16:27:00.005+01:00

Sorry for not posting for a while, but last week (on my birthday) this happened:

As you can imagine it's been rather hectic since then! The Man proposed beautifully, with dinner at The Ivy followed by a private pod on the London Eye, complete with champagne and chocolate truffles laid on, where he snuck the ring into my glass. I was completely surprised as I thought it was all for my birthday!

I am so clueless sometimes.

But extremely happy.

And slightly panicking about organising a wedding!

Abolish Money!

2009-04-01T15:50:00.006+01:00

Took this at lunch time of the G20 'riots' at Bank. Also been following the fun on Twitter (what has the world come to when we turn to twitter for breaking news? Why can't the proper news sites keep up?) and these are some of the best comments (excuse the screwy formatting, blogger doesn't like it when I cut and paste):

1 person breaking stuff and 200 filming it. Idiots.

Stupid anarchists drinking Starbucks. Right.

*We* own the banks now. Stop smashing them up you idiots!

City workers hanging out of windows waving £10 notes at protesters. A few years ago it would have been fifties and bottles of Veuve.

This is the worst festival I’ve ever been to.

Someone just said it feels like glasto without the drugs.

They've reportedly been smashing windows at that RBS branch for an hour now. How many windows does it have?!

G20 protesters say 'Abolish Money!' Okay, let's start with them: turn all your cash in right now!

"Hippies. They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad" - Eric Cartman

Sshhh dont tell the G20 protesters but the banks have no money - so no point storming them ;)

Can someone tell the man smashing the RBS windows that he (presuming he is a taxpayer) will have to pay for that.

Trannies protest too

Latest placard: "Down with this sort of thing"

Illegal venue rules apply know your exit, watch your back and run as soon as someone up the front starts playing bongos

Shocked at the number of greengrocers' apostrophe's (sic) on the G20 protest banners. Follow the hobbyhorse for grammar crimes.

Can't believe all the fuss over G20. They didn't even win the X Factor and their Bohemian Rhapsody cover was terrible.

Police still in RBS when I left. disabled chap at 'Camp Climate' complaining about wheelchair access

Ask yourself Sarkosy: what would Chuck Norris do?

Lots of unwashed types at the g20 protest - Brighton town centre must be empty today.

OH MY GOD, A MAN HAS SPIILT HIS COFFEE AT THE G20 IN LONDON. IT'S ALL KICKING OFF NOW!!!! OMG!!!!!

14:37, Rage Against The Machine playing outside BofE

I'm protesting against the miserable state of G20 protesters: using my brain, working hard and wearing a Saville Row suit.

Do the protesters know that the additional police will cost the taxpayer? Could they even spell counterproductive?!

Embattled bankers are blasting out James Blunt and Dido through RBS building loudspeakers. Crowd disperse

The G20 protesters have the cutest angry clothes! Apparantly The Gap are basing next season on them.

If this was Paris would there be more burning cars and less standing around doing nothing by now

Just saw a couple of clowns wander past drinking strongbow. Literally and metaphorically.

Anyone else chuckling at all the anarchists with iPhones?"Fight the power, yeah? With your £50-a-month O2 contract."

A G20 protestor penned in with others slammed police "Some of us have to pick children up from school!" Planning's not her strong point eh?

Only things getting through police lines are portable loos. Lombard St, in case anyone needs to go

I keep missing all the constructive suggestions being put forth by protestors on how to remedy the economic downturn.....

Apparently seen in bank HQ window during G20 protest: "While you are here protesting, we are repossessing your homes"

Have the collapsitarians managed to overthrow capitalism at the G20 or are they pausing for tea time?

G20 Protests: All iconography and no ideology.

Which just goes to show that Twitter is used almost exclusively by bored office workers.

Lisa and I popped down at lunch time and saw about the only interesting thing to happen - the policeman that got hit over the head here being dragged back to the police vans, all bandaged up, and about thirty riot police plunging into the crowds amid much shouting. It sounded quite like someone had scored a goal. There were indeed eleventy hundred reporters and rubberneckers and not that many actual protesters. And no one is the wiser what they're protesting for. There were lots of hippy women with push chairs and papooses. Just the sort of thing to take your children to!

Anyway, why are these people causing a ruckus? If they really want to make a difference they should form their own party and their own policies, and run for office. If it works and people like the ideas they'd get voted in. Then they could sort it out themselves.

Blimmin soapdodging grufty hippies.

If you want something done….

2009-03-20T12:43:00.002Z

…give it to a busy person.

Did anyone ever say to Richard Branson, ‘do you think you’re taking rather a lot on?’ Or to my parents even. They run three businesses and have various other enterprises on the side. I expect that’s where I get this entrepreneurial tendency to do loads of things from. But it’s true, finding a balance is important and something that my parents are just now starting to concentrate on.

Tosser did actually raise some quite valid points in his/her second comment, and some that I did consider myself when I decided to do the coaching course. I have a full schedule, work wise and socially, but then I am not a person who is happy to stay in and watch Eastenders every night. Achieving things makes me happy, and it’s really not that hard to do with a bit of application, organisation, imagination and common sense. Life should be an adventure, whether it’s work, travel, or having fun.

So, re time for coaching – yes, I will be pushing it while I am doing my training, but that is for four months. After that, I hope to keep it ticking over with one or two clients on the go at any one time, which is only a couple of hours a week therefore realistic to commit to, until such time as my situation might change and I want to increase the hours. As for it meaning I don’t see The Man, the sessions are most likely to be phone sessions (these days most coaching is done over the phone, or even over Skype) which I can do during quiet time in the evening while he’s happily watching the footie.

Do I see The Man enough? It’s true we’re both busy people, but we’ve discussed this in the past and we quite like it. It means we look forward to the time we have together and make the most of it. We go out to dinner and Talk To Each Other rather than sitting in front of the TV every night not communicating. We are both of the opinion that having our own interests is good for the relationship – we retain our own freedoms and that’s important, it means we never feel stifled. It also means that we respect each other more for our accomplishments.

The engagement drama was just a wobble caused by a combination of hormones, wine and all the girls at work talking about their own weddings / engagements / ring hunting. Yes, I am a confident independent woman who, if she wants something, goes and gets it, but on the other hand I also have a lot of old fashioned values about things like manners, integrity, professionalism and love, and one of those is that the man should ask the woman. I suppose the main justification of that is that if the man asks, without prompting and/or thumbscrews, then he should be really sure that that’s what he wants to do, and he’s come to the decision of his own free will. That’s what I want when I get engaged, and for that I have to be patient. (Patience, unfortunately, is something I know I need to work on.) The Man is totally aware of how I feel and knows how important it is to me, but I am not pushing it, it’s up to him now when it happens. And actually, I’m happy to wait. For a bit. *;)

What would Chuck Norris do?

2009-03-09T19:06:00.003Z

Well, it was more of a ‘what would Puss do?’ moment. In the middle of Saturday night, I woke up with a start to someone (clearly pissed and having a laugh with the flats' keypad, or having forgotten his mates' number so trying the lot) pressing our door buzzer. I never usually notice the thing in the day, but in the dead of night it’s quite loud. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz………..Buuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Being suddenly woken up like that gives me a huge adrenaline rush, but the continuing noise just made me cross. Fuming, in fact. The alarm clock said 1.29am, and I had to get up early again on Sunday and needed my sleep. I wished I could have made the door phone cord reach the window, and carried out this exchange with the door person:

‘Hello?’ (me)
‘Shello?’ (pissed door person to disembodied voice)
‘Darling, could you just step back a second and look up to the right?’
‘Erm, OK.’
[flash]
‘Nice mugshot. Now f*** off you c***ing twat or I’ll call the police.’

That would be what Puss would do.

Thank you for all the great comments on Navel Gazing. I don’t think I’ve had so many since the post on Men’s Pants! I’m exhausted today but feeling a lot more positive, thanks mainly to my first weekend of life coach training. It was so motivating I got home completely drained of energy, and I’m wondering whether I’m going to be able to keep up with everyone else’s frantic pace. I suppose when some of them aren’t working they have time to go to all the seminars and meetups and read all the notes as soon as we get them. Thank God that I’ve already read the first text book a year ago! So, I’m looking for some practise clients to accrue enough hours for accreditation, if you know anyone. No friends or family though, although I’m happy to refer F&Fs on to some of the other trainee coaches.

I think I need some coaching myself on time management. Full time job, a business I’m supposed to be running with my parents, and now setting up another business… It’s not unheard of, but I’m going to have hit the Red Bull!

So, things with The Man are back to normal (normal being good), and this week we celebrate being together for two years. Two years!! It seems so fast and yet our first date seems so long ago. Perhaps it’s because we’ve done so much together since then – his brother’s wedding and now his brother’s baby, my brother’s baby, trips to Wales, Egypt and the States, moved in together, had a health scare (me, all fine), changed jobs (both of us), helped his mum move house. He is the first boyfriend I’ve ever had who I am completely myself with, and it’s so amazing to be able to just be me! Sometimes when he’s there I have to just jump up and down (he thinks I’m barking) because I’m just so excited to be with him. And yes, you’re all perfectly right, I should appreciate having such a good thing and stop wishing my life away. Well, for once I am going to listen to some advice. Write it in your diaries people, it’s a red letter day!

Navel Gazing

2009-03-04T12:12:00.005Z

Apologies, but this will be a rather introspective post. I've been feeling a bit dreary lately, and while I could put it down to hormones or post-holiday blues, it feels like more than that. I had a minor meltdown on Sunday night, sobbing on The Man who dealt with it valiantly. Frustration and impatience seems to be the main problem at the moment. There are lots of major life changes on the brink of happening, and I want them to happen, but they're just not getting there, and it's driving me nuts! I'm so used to being a can-do get-done person that I obviously find it hard to cope when I can't influence situations and make them happen. So, I just have to sit and wait for the small sparkly ring and the new house, listening to the girls at work planning weddings and putting a brave smile on for all the people who keep saying, 'Has he proposed yet? Tell him to get a move on! Have you found a house yet? Yadda yadda yadda?' while inside a small (and apparently growing) part of me is screaming. That's another thing I've discovered about myself recently, I cope with stress by ignoring it and blanking it and blithely carrying on until finally I snap and crumple. This is not good. I need to find a way of monitoring the scale a bit better and doing something about it.

The worst part about the minor meltdown was that The Man was trying (quite rightly) to find out what was wrong, and how could I say, 'it's because I want to be engaged dammit! And I want somewhere to live that has a garden! It's you and the housing market conspiring against me!' Garbled snotty explanations at 11pm must try anyone's temper, but he weedled it out of me anyway, assured me that it definitely all would happen, laughed at my fog-horn nose blowing, and somehow made it all OK. And then next day when I got home from work, hugged me again and checked I was still back in the land of the sane. He is a trooper that one.

Still, there are those people who have asked the $64,000 question - why wait? Apparently my brother was sure The Man would propose while we were away in the States, and mum said my brother was actually quite cross that he didn't. My brother proposed to his wife after six months, and fully subscribes to the 'if you know, you know, so why wait?' school. I think I'm sort of a 'wait a bit and check you can live with their weird habits' person, but if that's all good, yes, why wait? We might get run over by a bus tomorrow, or struck down with some dread disease.

So anyway the upshot of the meltdown is that I feel like I've put pressure on The Man when that was the last thing I wanted to do. Like he said, a proposal should be a surprise. I want to feel that he's done it 100% because he wants to, and I don't want even a tiny bit of the motivation to be because he knows it's doing my head in that he hasn't yet. So now I feel guilty about that too. The rational part of me says that of course The Man wouldn't do anything he didn't want to do, he's almost as stubborn as me and won't be pushed around, but hey, there you go.

Anyway, I must shake my shoulders, give myself a kick up the arse and cheer up, because it's really small fry in the great scheme of things, and life coaching training starts at the weekend. Who wants a gloomy melancholic life coach?

Development

2009-02-25T22:56:00.003Z

I was walking to knit group last night, and at the lights at the end of the Pantiles did the usual City-worker thing of seeing if I can nip across the road without pressing the button. It seemed not, there was a car roaring down the hill, so I thought sod you speedy, I'll press the button and make you stop. Don't you love how lights turn red immediately at night-time when it's quiet? Speedy duly stopped, and then I got toot-tooted at. The cheek!! The nerve!! Worse, the window was wound down and I was shouted at: 'Don't say hello then!' It was The Man on the way home from football.

(Amusingly he'd carefully measured the pancake batter before he went out and warned me not to use up more than half of it Or Else.)

Knit group was really good fun last night, I'd missed seeing the girls and talking yarn. We nattered about holidays, it seems that quite a few of us have been to the Canyon, and also welcomed in two new recruits, which was ace. They even work in the local crafting shop! (We need to educate them about indie yarns though.) The venue had a salsa class tramping away above us, which I have to start attending again to work off some of this lard (added to nicely in the States). We all cooed over new yarn, marvelled at my Soctopus sock, and I knitted my first ever stitch *Continental Style*. Well gosh. The cuff of the sock calls for knitting with two strands of yarn, alternate stitches, in rib. So, K1 in yarn A, P1 in yarn B. You can imagine the tangle and the frustration of that. So, the best solution was to knit it like the advanced knitters do intarsia or fairisle, with different colours in different hands. Yeah, right, look at me the advanced knitter! (Guffaw.) I think it was quicker to drop the yarns and undo the tangles, but hey, I have one more row to do (and the other sock), and I suppose I should try to figure it out properly one day on a (duh-duh-duuhhh...) swatch.

The Man and I are starting to househunt again. I've seen a few places online, but there's not much about at the moment, people are sitting tight until the prices come back up. I wish I could cut and paste bits of various houses to get the perfect one! There's one that's right place, right garden, outside garage, but the house is just a bit meh. There's another which is right price with 4 beds (pole room *and* craft room!!!), nice enough but wrong place and rather soul-less. I am not looking forward to trying to find somewhere good in this climate. I fear we might be reduced to posting notes through the doors of places that look remotely suitable, but at least that dispenses with the evil agents. Buying the old flat was pretty painless, selling it was a royal pain in the arse. Useless agents, even more useless solicitor. Well, she was part of a package deal with the agents, we should have known really.

I am feeling a bit fidgety to get settled, I must say. The flat we're in is lovely (I felt a pang leaving it to go on hols) but I can't feel totally content until we have a place of our own together. I'm looking forward to having friends to stay and BBQs, which requires a spare room and a garden. It will come, I just need to be patient and keep my faith in the housing fates...

Howdy

2009-02-21T19:54:00.005Z

Well, adventures are over for the time being. I feel like I've had a good travel. Do you agree with me that there is a difference between travel and holiday? This was definitely travel.

After a loooong flight and a loong drive, ending with a loooong gravel track (at which point Doris the sat-nav gave up knowing where we were), I finally found the ranch. It's right at the bottom right hand corner of Arizona, at around 5,000 ft up. The moonlit scenery looked stunning as I was driving through.

Trouble is, the next morning it looked like this.

Luckily in Arizona, snow doesn't last too long.

You can see Mexico from the south pasture, but as neither of the cowboys have passports they're not allowed to go there. This is me helping to move some (pig-headed stubborn) cattle.

Here is the ranch manager looking picturesque in Jackwood canyon. He was younger than me and would sometimes answer questions with a 'Yes, ma'am'. I couldn't work out if I liked it or if it made me feel 102. The Man has not been able to adopt this without a heavily sarky tone so unforts this sign of respect will have to be limited to interactions with cowboys. Shame. ;)

Then on to Tombstone, tourist-central. I have never seen so many tacky gift shops!

Big-Nosed Kate's Saloon - she was Wyatt Earp's girlfriend. I love the sign on the left. Perhaps we should get one for the flat.

The Man gave me a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon for Christmas. It was stunning. This is him looking slightly scared (he doesn't like heights).

And guess what? There was snow at the Canyon too!

It's a mile deep, and the river has now eroded down to the earth's crust through all those layers of sedimentary rock. The canyon is just so big your mind can't compute it, and all formed by the Colorado river.

Then on to Monument Valley, where they filmed nearly all the Hollywood Westerns. Here are the Mittens (left and right hands - see?) ...

...and the Three Sisters, which also looks like a W for John Wayne, apparently.

And back in Scottsdale in Phoenix we got busy in the cowboy boot store.

There was a Chihuly exhibition at the Desert Botanical Gardens, which was amazing. The pieces are internally lit at night, it must be magical. They were impressive enough with the Arizona sun streaming through them. (Click on these for bigger versions.)

And now back to work. Yay.

Off on hols (hopefully)

2009-02-06T19:28:00.002Z

The forecast says more snow for monday. My work friends are all saying, 'Have you seen the forecast? Will you be able to fly?' Well, I bloody hope so!! I'm not missing my holiday for a bit of frozen water.

It's so going to snow again and stop all flights out of Heathrow, isn't it....

The Man has flown out today with his team for his golf tournament pro-am thing, and they started as they meant to go on by having lunch at the Gordon Ramsay restaurant at the airport. I have the rest of the weekend to sort myself out which is good, and it's also Fenella's 30th birthday party on Saturday night. It's a TV/movie theme, and I'm going as Indiana Jones. So I'm doing movie *and* tv! What more can she ask?

I'm going to Arizona to be a cowgirl for a week, and then meeting The Man after his tournament and we're going to see the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley together. I can't wait! As long as I get there OK....

Meanwhile, on knitting news, the experiment socks are finished and I'm onto the Socktopus socks. Excuse the very yellow artificial light here.

As it goes, I have to eat my words. I've started the bed socks and ohmigod that yarn is delicious! Chameleon Colourworks Evolution, which is mechanically stretched merino apparently that's supposed to feel like cashmere but feels almost like silk. The feel of the yarn is so nice that it's made the colour grow on me. I wouldn't choose pink out of choice but the yarn so soft and fluffy it works. So, currently I'm enjoying them. Even if (and excuse my warped mind) the view of the sole does look kinda phallic at the moment. Don't they? (Please say it's not just me.)

Major Achievement Day

2009-02-06T19:09:00.004Z

(Apols, this should have been posted on Wednesday.)

It is amazing how a country like Britain, bearing in mind the latitude, can still be brought to a standstill by a little bit of snow. 6 million workers didn't go in on Monday, and quite a few didn't go in on Tuesday either. Ah well, who's complaining about a three day week?

We were down in Brighton on Sunday seeing this little one.

(How cute do they both look there??)

It was snowing, but not settling, but it's deceptive down on the coast, and by the time we got on the road inland it was getting pretty deep. We had to drop off The Man's cousin at his mum's before heading off home ourselves. We just about made it to his mum's, driving very carefully on ungritted roads, but once we left to get home to T Wells, half a mile from her house we couldn't even get up a hill (the wheels were just spinning and gripping nothing and we were drifting sideways towards a ditch, and you know how The Man feels about his motor...) so we had to backtrack and beg a bed for the night. Which turned out fine because the next morning we could do this!

There were absolutely no trains running, the entire south-eastern network was suspended, so Monday was a guilt free day. I could have limped in on Tuesday but the office closed at 12 so I would have been there for two hours, so I'm glad I cried off that one too. There is still snow and ice at home, and lots of snowmen in the park and children being dragged around on sledges by their poor longsuffering parents. The enforced stay at home meant that I got lots of knitting done (finished that blimmin babycables jumper on Sunday night!!) and also got to the hairdresser's but also meant unforts that our knitting group was cancelled last night (boo) and the Man's football has been cancelled a couple of times so he is grumpy and fidgety in the house and I have to warn him not to act like a two year old. Men, honestly.

Which reminds me, have you seen this? Too funny!

Man Chocolate

So anyway, back to work today. Nothing much happening here but the Major Life Goal that I have achieved today is signing up for a Life Coaching course. I've been fannying around about doing one for ages, trying to justify the expense, and one has come up with a good course but double discount offer as it's a newish starting up company, and I've negotiated even more of a discount (if you don't ask and all that) so I'm doing it. The rationale is that if I start now, I have some experience as and when I may be off work or working part time for whatever reason (babies) so I can earn myself some pocket money. I'm not envisioning this as a full time career (although if it takes off that would be ace), but I want to use my degree (psych) in some capacity as it's something I really enjoy. I will be needing some practise clients btw, if anyone wants to volunteer! (Not family or close friends though - god can you imagine?!)

So, due to the train taking fooooreeeeeeveeerrrr this morning, I am onto the cuff of Sock le Seconde, so hopefully will get that completed tonight on the way home. I am working out a pattern for felted egg cosies for easter, and might finish the one I started yesterday tonight, so then What Shall I Knit?? Here are the options:

1. Socktopus Club sock (which are pink bedsocks and not stoking my boiler to be totally honest)
2. Tank top in the green yarn I got in Sweden (home brew pattern which will take some work and swatching (gah, swatching))
3. Lace scarf in the Touchyarns laceweight (yum!) which I am scared to spoil (plus I haven't decided on a pattern yet)
4. New beret hat for mum. She has a brown one she knitted in the 60s or 70s which is very on trend but also getting a little tired, bless it. I think there are some really lovely ones out at the moment and she deserves something nice.
5. Pole shorts. I have an idea for these, which may require some planning but if it works might be quite amusing.

I need to decide because I need something to take to the States with me next week! Although as I can't knit on the plane I wonder how much will get done, so perhaps the socks would be the best option.

Speaking of not being able to knit on flights, How Will I Cope?? Are there any really good books out at the moment that will keep my wandering pressurised dehydrated mind amused for ten (count 'em, ten) hours? Or should I just take a sleeping pill and be done with it? Answers would be gratefully received!

Also, how many brackets can I use in one post? Just shows that eating only salad for lunch is not so good for constructing fluid and lucid sentences.

New recruit

2009-01-28T16:10:00.002Z

Firstly, the exciting news, that The Man has become an uncle! He has a little niece. Aw. More news on that as it comes in.

I had an interesting French lesson yesterday. We were discussing how the French's perception of the English and the English's perception of the French is somewhat around the wrong way. I was surprised when over there last week at how little socialising was done, and people didn't talk about their weekends, or ask if anyone wanted to eat lunch anywhere other than the staff canteen, or go out for dinner or a drink after work. The English have this idea of the French in a permanent sloshed-up eating environment, very jolly and welcoming if they like you, but in fact they are quite private people. I suppose that's why the office is still composed of individual cells, rather than open plan. It's open plan here in London, and people chat about their weekends and home life all the time. Even though the English are supposed to be very straight laced and reserved, and never let on if there's a problem.

So, clearly I'm learning a lot of grammar in French class at the moment. Ahem. Next week we're translating Asterix et les Normandes. To hell with the subjunctive tense!

I am romping through Sock le seconde this week, just about to turn the heel. I have another two inches on the second sleeve of the ~~goddamn~~ baby cables jumper, then I can decide what to do with the sleeve lengths and finish the blimmin thing. It's been on the go for so long it kinda smells, having been chucked into so many travelling bags and pushed around the floor for so long, so I think it requires some wet blocking so I can wash it at the same time. I fear the garter stitch will stretch for yards, so perhaps that will solve the sleeve length problem!

After that - well, I have the choice of the Socktopus socks, trying to design myself a tank top, or designing some felted egg cosies for easter. I think the latter takes the priority really, as they need to be done and put on the website. It would be ace if I could knit them on my flights to and from the States, but BA (yes British Airways I'm talking about you - google alert me!!) still subscribe to the ban on knitting needles. But they allow pencils, which is a more sturdy long pointy wooden thing, and therefore could potentially do more damage. It makes no sense and makes me cross. Actually, I could knit the egg cosies on pencils, they need to be big for felting. I've seen someone blog about doing just that. Might make matching the gauge difficult for people following the pattern though!

Right, back to the paperwork. Happy Year of the Ox.

Big pictorial catch-up

2009-01-24T20:02:00.004Z

So, as previously noted, I've been doing a bit of travelling. The week training in Paris was quite draining and as I've done quite a lot of sightseeing there before on other trips, I was happy to chill out in the evenings. However, one night I did venture out to see Sacre Coeur, which was very beautiful despite being in a less than salubrious part of town.

And another night I visited an old school friend who lives just outside Paris. It was of course lovely to see her, but also nice to see another old friend - a picture I painted when we were all 21, adapted from another painting (I can't remember what it's called though!) where I changed the characters to become myself (in the window), Sarah (on the settee) and Clare (being elegent and matriarchal in the chair). There are some glaring problems with the painting, the arches over the window don't match and the nets aren't level, and the cat (based on an old family cat) is proportionately too large, but there are also some pretty good bits, and I'm still quite impressed with my 21 year old self for persevering and finishing the thing. I think it took a couple of years to do in the end! It's nice that Sarah framed it and still loves it.

One thing I was trying to do in Paris was to finish some knitting projects, which I failed at miserably. I think I only did 8 inches of one sleeve of the baby cables jumper!

I have a question to you knitters though - for the sleeve that's done, what about the finishing? At the point I've got to, it should be bound off. I'm not sure it's long enough for me (clearly I'm a gorilla), so should I just do a plain garter stitch cuff, or should I do another cable repeat (which might make it too long)?

I think it only needs another inch or two, and I prefer my sleeves a bit longer so they cover the backs of my hands.

So, decisions.

Anyway, here is the yarn that I bought in Gothenburg - 300g of a sprucey dark green supersoft merino from Deisy Designs.

I also got some black cotton Paris yarn from Drops to make those hot pants, and (why, for the love of god, when I've joined the Socktopus club this year?) some more sock yarn. And some dpns that look like Knit Picks but are called Knit Pro, in the same layered multicoloured laminate.

Some other things from Paris - an Asterix comic book in French, and a very small Eiffel tower to go into The Man's new office fish tank. Obviously.

Oh, and I wanted to show you this, which The Man's mum gave us for xmas. The initials, I mean, not the cooker hood. They are just plain white plaster, but you can paint them. I was thinking of painting them gold, or perhaps (a bit too ambitious?) gilding them. What do you think?

Some more bits - moose things from Sweden! I had some more groovy things, but they've been given away as presents. A big swag bag of moomin things for Clare, some xmas decs for The Man's mum (special request), and another of those candle convection whirlygig things with moose on for mum.

So, we have a moose tray and coasters, and a branch pot stand, and a whirlygig thing with snowflakes on. I love the expressions of the moose on the tray.

Right, we now have a SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! Anyone in the Socktopus club who has not yet received their January parcel please look away now.

This was a very fragrant parcel as it was full of foot spa goodies! The pattern for the socks looks pretty complicated, I'm glad we get two months before the next one. Yikes. Well, they always say that a challenge is good for you.

Socktopus

2009-01-24T18:49:00.001Z

SOCK(topus)CLUB House Sorting Quiz

My Result: Yarnacre Cottage

Katie

Welcome to Yarnacre! A Yarnacre loves life, enjoys the good times and rolls with the bad. You're easy going, love love yarn, and don't mind taking a risk now and then (ever finish a knit with 4 cm of yarn left? Oh yeah, you're definitely one of us!). Adventure! Daring! Lots and lots of yarn!

Yarnacre Cottage's mascot is a monkey. The House colours are cinnamon and granite.

Quiz School

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Travelling

2009-01-16T22:34:00.004Z

This new job definitely has its perks. I've just got back from two days in Gothenburg, visiting a certain Swedish truck manufacturer starting with a V and ending with an O with a LV in the middle. (Now I use Google Alerts at work, I am suddenly nervous about Naming Names, because it's amazing what I get on my alerts, quite often people's personal blogs and notes about how good the car was in a snow storm, etc.)

Anyway, far from the usual Boring Blokes in Suits Looking at Spreadsheets, us desk drivers got to drive some of the trucks on their test track! Some of the trucks were up to 16 litre, 60 ton, 20m long. This manufacturer has a new product out which basically means any monkey can get a huge fully laden truck from A to B relatively easily. The truck drives like an automatic but actually there is a magic computer working the manual gearbox in the best possible manner. Things I learnt about truck driving include:

1. Your stopping distance increases considerably when there is 40 tons of gravel travelling behind you
2. The steering wheel is enormous
3. You can never have too many mirrors (or buttons and flashy lights on the dashboard)
4. Trucks are actually easier to manoevre than coaches are (yes, we drove them too)
5. Swedish test/co-drivers are very cool and have nerves of steel (No, fe haf nivver had anyone crash heeyah (twinkle smile).).
6. It's best not to wear high heels to drive a truck, but it's still not impossible.

This was one of the trucks I drove.

This was the first V-olv-o off the production line way-back-when....

... and look, the spokes on the wheels are wooden!

Things about Gothenburg:

1. The people are lovely and all speak really good English

2. It's cold in February

3. Nothing opens before 11am (apart from cafes)

4. It's a good place to go to get Moonin and Pippi Longstocking stuff (did you know she's depicted with suspenders too?), and loads of cool Scandinavian house things

5. Cars might stop at the pedestrian crossings, but trams sho' won't...

6. There are two yarn stores

7. Gravadlax goes well with pickled celeriac

8. Swedish is a really funky language to listen to. (If you want to emphasise something or be more polite, say it twice: Tack tack! means thank you very much, Hi Hi! means hello welcome on the plane.)

9. It's not where Batman lives.

Yes, a quick check on Ravelry revealed two yarn stores, and as one was on my planned route I popped in, and left a little worse off in the pocket but better off in the stash. This store stocked mainly Drops yarn, which was cool, although I don't think it's the softest in the world it does have a great range. There's another store across the river, so if I go back I'm going to try to get there.

And next week I am being sent to Paris for the week for Training. I fear there will be lots of sitting around waiting for people involved, when I could more usefully be sightseeing or knitting. Perhaps I will take some knitting into the office (maybe not on the first day). There are several WIPs that need to become FOs, especially before I get my first Socktopus sock club parcel which is due to come out next week. If I can get home with a finished jumper and second sock, I will be extremely pleased! I'm staying in an apart'hotel just by the Moulin Rouge, which is good because I get tired of fancy restaurant food, so I have the option of cooking for myself or nuking a ready meal. Unforts I don't think I will get to see a show, unless one of the other newbies going over for training fancies it. It's soooo expensive too! €99 just to go and see the show! Perhaps they do last minute discount tickets. Here's hoping.

Greenies

2009-01-12T13:31:00.002Z

Just come across this article about using waste as fuel (or the failure in this country to do so)
and have been very entertained by the slew of comments afterwards. I am not someone who religiously follows politics (or even current affairs really) - it only serves to depress and annoy me. But I feel guilty about ignoring it and fear this is rather a head in the sand approach. But then you look at the obvious wrath of some of the commenters to that article and I realise that these avoidance tactics could be worthwhile for maintaining my blood pressure.

I started reading Boris Johnson's book Lend Me Your Ears, where the mop-topped one starts by writing about his time as a reporter based in Brussels. At one point, apparently, there was a discussion about the classification of snails, and the upshot was that snails were considered not meat, but fish. Now, no matter what steps of logic you think you're going through within a classification process, when the outcome is something so clearly barking, why would you stick to it? And don't get my father started about some of the rules and regulations associated with farming these days. Apparently they are even coming around and checking you have a tidy farmyard, and fining you if not, and the amount of paperwork he has to do means that he has to spend half the day in the office and not actually looking after the animals on the farm.

If anyone out there can point me to some good clear summaries on the following I would be grateful:

1. The goals of the EU (which I thought was to facilitate trade amongst member countries, not piss all the citizens off)

2. The reasons we (the UK) went into it (other than the above) and the ongoing benefits we reap from it (if any)

3. The reasons why they are legislating now about how high we have to position light switches on the walls of private houses in the UK (which I'm sure has nothing to do with trade, or is it to prevent discimination against short electricians?).

Knitting Plan

2009-01-05T16:30:00.004Z

Puss has quite rightly pointed out that I am all mouth and no ~~trouser~~ hotpant about knitting some pole dancing get-up. So, here is a rough outline of what's high on the list of possibles for this year.

Apologies that these are mainly Ravelry links:

1. Paris shorts from Drops Designs

2. Felted slippers from Drops

3. Heroine by Jennifer Lipman-Bruno

4. Flower Basket shawl by Evelyn A Clark

5. Swallowtail shawl by Evelyn A Clark

6. Nederland vest by Mary Jane Mucklestone

The hotpants will be in black lurex with 'inverted superwhore' written on them somewhere. Puss is charged with inventing a new move of the same name. Felting is always fun and those slippers look quite cute. I am also going to design some felted egg cosies for easter, which I had better get going on soon I suppose... There are two shawls to choose from (I'll only do one, I'm not a masochist!), so I too can experience all that is knupps. And the tank top is a starter - I am going to have a play around and design my own. One day.

Other things are of course socks (having joined the Socktopus sock club) and perhaps some mittens. There are some lovely jumpers out there but I am still battling with the Baby Cables jumper (nearly finished one sleeve!) which is taking forever since it's too cumbersome to take on the train. So, small projects are the order of the day!

Brave New Year

2009-01-04T15:00:00.006Z

I am sitting here, with my feet up on the gym ball (which is quite the best use for it) watching the entire Colin Firth series of Pride and Prejudice on some obscure Sky channel. Six hours! And it's just got to the proposal scene! This Christmas has been really very laid back but I think it's just as well that it's coming to an end because I think I am starting to lose my marbles somewhat - becoming rather forgetful and airy fairy. Cooking has been badly burnt and craft projects deemed disasters and consigned to the bin. I think the leetle grey cells are suffering under too much tea and daytime TV...

Our Christmas Day walk required some sartorially dubious methods to avoid getting muddy trousers.

My little nephew Rory has started learning about How Things Work. I love how you can see things click into place in his mind.

And we ended up at the 02 on New Year's Eve, to see - guess who?

Can you see him behind that red piano on the star? Just about?

Alexandra Burke and Will Smith made an appearance.

There were an inordinate amount of boobs in the show, including the inflatable pair hanging in the ceiling, and Pammie's almost covered ones wiggling around a pole.

Nice shades huh?

Those are inflatable legs on the left, and a couple of phallic bananas. It was a good concert but you always feel a little removed from it all in a box (yes we were kindly given free corp leftovers again). I imagine the Red Piano tour in Vegas would have been pretty amazing, which is where this show was clearly designed for.

So, back to work tomorrow. I am still writing a list of goals for 2009 (I don't believe in resolutions), but for a start I have:

1. Find out what I have to achieve to get a promotion at work

2. Learn to crochet and do one of those amigurumi things, possibly a ninja vampire.

3. Buy a house

4. Lose a stone

5. Decide a direction for the wool business

6. Keep on top of the home filing

It's a strange sort of a list, because I feel like I got to a good place in my life last year - I got a new job, started a knitting group and improved my knitting, moved in with The Man, started blogging regularly. There are other things that I'd like to do, but those are more nice to haves rather than must dos. Like, spending some time writing, improve my pole dancing, do another dance class (salsa or tango), perhaps do a sewing machine class. Hopefully work will continue to be manageable so that I have time to do these things!

The beginning of 2009 looks promising though - I have two business trips abroad in January (one of which is a week in Paris), and then in February The Man and I are going to Arizona. He's got a tournament in Phoenix, so during that I'm going somewhere three hours from Tucson to be a cowgirl, which should be amazing, and then we're joining up again in Phoenix and going to see the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. I can't wait - not only to go cowgirling for a bit, which I've always wanted to do, but to do a bit of a road trip with The Man and see some stunning sites. Having these things to look forward to makes life so exciting - I love all the planning and research and anticipation!

Pictures

2008-12-16T12:13:00.007Z

I've finally got organised with the camera so here goes with some pics.

Firstly, our alternative to a Christmas tree (because we don't have time or the space this year), which cost me all of £6.49 at Argos, because I had all the bits to put on it (lights, ribbon, some bits and pieces) - across the mantlepiece:

Then some sock pics of the first completed sock:

I think the shaping worked quite well from a fitting point of view, but not sure it is very beautiful to look at (not helped by being modelled by my pallid calf). The cable at the top is called 'trellis'. I think there are too long, but can be boot socks. They fit which is the main thing!

And lastly the latest pair of bootees.

Don't you just love the way the sole curves? So cute!! These ones are going to Shanghai for a work colleague who is relocating. His wife is due in Feb, and they go at xmas. Brave girl! Pattern is from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, but I added six yos in row 9 to make eyelets, and then an i-cord lace. Apparently this means they are rare bootees that actually stay on.

Hope the Christmas jollities are going well for you all!

Why do I make things so difficult for myself??

2008-12-10T14:05:00.006Z

Saturday was glorious. The weather was cold and crisp, the sunlight pale gold, and I was standing in a field with nearly all my family. We were shooting, and looking down the line of guns I could see my brother, my dad and my uncle, with mum behind waiting to pick up. The late afternoon sun sparkled on people's breath and the dogs' coats. That is the sort of day that is good for the soul.

Last night the knitting girlies met up for a Chrimble meal at our usual haunt. Poor Claire had to stay home to babysit the 'feral child' (which conjures a great Quentin Blake image), so four of us did a bit of knitting and a lot of chatting. It's so nice to make new friends who don't care how much you talk about knitting, because they share the passion. I usually have to make do with just saying to people, 'look at this!' and people grunt and agree that it's something woolly, and then I have to change the subject before they either glaze over or think I'm a mad spinster before my time. It turns out that Rowan is also making great strides into self-sufficiency and has a homemade wine collection to rival that of The Good Life, so we discussed blackberry and elderberry wine and spiced mead. We all quietly envy her. One day I'll stop working full time and learn how to make cider and good bread and be able to sew and knit and grow my own veggies.

I didn't take any knitting needles last night, just a sewing needle to finish and sort the ends out on a pair of baby bootees, the first Next Generation sock, and a little heart I knitted on the train while bored, which might become a christmas dec if I add some backing and a loop to hang it by.

The Christmas social whirl is in full swing and I don't have time to get organised. I need to wrap some presents to distribute to people before xmas but don't have time. I need to do some laundry but don't have time. I need to get an outfit sorted out for the office xmas do, but don't have time. I need to do some back exercises (which take 10mins!!) but you get the idea. Next year I must make a note not to put more than three engagements in the diary per week. In fact I shall write a reminder in the diary now. Why do people save up for xmas to have loads of drinks anyway? What's wrong with the rest of the year?

Here are some more whys:

Why do other people write emails soooo slowly?
Why do I keep getting granny whiskers on my chin (and why to they have to start out as spots)? Why do people have to have birthdays during the festive season? Someone should ban sex during March.
Why can't I have a crystal ball to tell me if a better house will come onto the market in three months time?
Why did The Man decide to put my white bra in with the darks wash?

I think I need to sit down in a quiet room with a cup of tea.

Anyway, found this on Needles on the Move , and was shocked by the comment:

'Emma says, 'this one is originally from the Big Read. Apparently they reckon most people will have only read 6 of the 100, which I think is astonishing.' I do too.'

Here are my answers:

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read.
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7.Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - Some, at school.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (audio books count right?)
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres Mans
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan - but saw the movie
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt - well, most of it.
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (don't waste your time with this one though)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

52 out of 100. Interesting. The ones I've underlined are ones that I would like to read but I'm not going to lose sleep over. I wonder who makes these lists, and why it's these books particularly they rate? There are several I've not even heard of.

And just for good measure, one more quiz:

Your rainbow is shaded green.

What is says about you: You are an intelligent person. You feel strong ties to nature and your mood changes with its cycles. Those around you admire your fresh outlook and vitality.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Spot on for me, and green is indeed my favourite colour.

Update: The friend who I was due to see tonight has emailed and is just recovering from the lurgy and so has asked to postpone drinkies. While I was very much looking forward to seeing her and I'm sorry she's been poorly, yay, I have some time to wrap presents tonight to give to mum tomorrow to distribute to the rest of the family as I won't see them all before xmas! Phew.

Mange tout, Rodney

2008-12-05T14:24:00.003Z

I am feeling very smug because I've just translated a knitting pattern from the French. Yay for the internet and people who make the effort to create knitting glossaries for knitters!

I'd seen Ysolda's great little neckwarmer here, and thought that a clever trick, but she's not bringing the pattern out anytime soon, so having trawled through Ravelry came up with this, which turned out to be in French, and so with a combination of this, this and my trusty English-French online dictionary, we have the solution!

Donc, pour une écharpe française:

3mm or 3.5mm needles (no notes on yarn, they use something red and fluffy)

Cast on 2 st on 3mm needles, and in garter stitch increase one stitch at each end of the row 17 times (36st), then knit straight for 8 rows

To prepare the vent, separate alternate stitches onto a spare needle.

On one of the needles, knit in 1/1 rib for 20 rows. Then do the same for the waiting stitches [on the spare needle].

Put all the stitches back onto the 3.5mm needle (alternately).

Knit garter stitch for 50cm, on the last row do 18 [equally spaced] decreases (18st) and then do 1/1 rib for 20 rows.

Replace 3mm needle then increase 18 stitches evenly and do 8 rows of garter stitch.

To make the other point, knit 2st together at the start of each row; when 2 remain, bind off.

Notes:
The increases and decreases don't seem to match up to me, but I'm sure you can figure it out. Clearly my knitting translation skills still need some working on!

This is just the basic technique, Ysolda's scarf has some lovely intricate details, but I'm going to give this a try and see what I can come up with myself.