Crafty

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

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...

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?

Moving junk

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….

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!

Preparation's what you need....

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. *;)

Development

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...

Confloption

New word for the day: confloption (n) a random mishmash of parts that may or may not work out. Such as, for example, a flight booked under one company name (XL), arrives as a rust bucket of quite different branding (Viking Airlines) with Finnish food, Spanish crew and Welsh pilot.

I feel for the poor people stranded abroad at the moment. Not only does XL fold, but the Channel Tunnel has a fire and closes for two days, sparking Operation Stack up with M20 and whatever the equivalent is in Calais. And also apparently bun fights in business lounges when economy is booked out and they check in too many people for the business seats. (Fenella will vouch for that.) What a lot of travelling we do these days, without realising until there's suddenly a problem.

The Man and I will hopefully be adding to the stats soon, with a week or so in Egypt in October to try to find some sun (shock!) and heat (will we cope, it will be over 20 degrees?!). We've never had a holiday together before so it should be interesting! His job means that getting away in the summer is difficult, but does mean that any holidays will therefore involve winter sun, which has got to be a plus.

The flat is coming together. The huge mirror is up, and looks elegant and homey. We had our first proper visitors the other day - Clare and Nick came over to see our friend Sarah who currently lives in Paris, and was back visiting her family. Sarah even cooked dinner for us poor working unfortunates! She's got herself a boyfriend and she brought some pictures to show us. 'Don't you think he's handsome?' she demanded, while Nick and The Man looked on. Is one allowed to appreciate other men when one's own is in the room? I decided yes, and Clare did also, pronouncing him 'very Gallic'. And also, it seems from the two pictures of him holding babies, good with children, and from the last of him holding a scribbled 'Sarah is so lovely' note to the camera, not scared to show how he feels. Which I guess is also a French attribute. Aw.

I have 12 more working days of being in the IT department, and suddenly, with booking underwriting training courses and taking holiday sheets to someone else, it's actually dawned on me that I'm getting a new job! I can't wait - not just to get out of this crapola, but to start something fresh and have opportunities and learn stuff. There is more weekend work this weekend, and it seems that won't be the end of it, but the hands on stuff in the UK is done, and what the French teams want to do to mess it up from now on is up to them. This may be the last overtime I get from this company so I'd better make the most of it - IT is the only dept that gets money rather than time in lieu. (BTW we were working until 4am the other night.)

While work is crazy I am seriously behind on knitting. The big stitch show at Ally Pally is coming up at the beginning of October and I have to check-knit a baby jumper and design, knit, check-knit and write the pattern for a felted bag. Argh! Knitting on the train and during lunch hours is the only option. Once AP is out of the way, I have seen several beautiful jumpers on the net lately that just have to be knitted: this one, but with something different done to the sleeves, this one, with brilliantly quirky cables, maybe this one, this bag and this scarf. Yikes! Looks like some serious stash enhancement will be happening at AP!!

Brave New World

Well, a new chapter has well and truly started - not only have I now moved house, but I've just accepted a new job! Same company, but completely different department. I've been doing some key account management for about 18 months, which means I've been working directly with clients, who are big multinational companies, and coordinating the teams (underwriters and claims) dealing with them. About a month ago, I had a phonecall from my dept manager to say that one of the underwriting teams wanted to invite me to apply for a vacancy with them. Which was a bit of an, 'Oh, right!' suprised moment, but made sense when I'd thought about it for a while. It was by no means a dead cert as paperwork must be followed and I had to interview, but everyone who knew had great confidence in me (even if I didn't), and thank the gods, I got the job.

If life wasn't so manic and crazy at the moment I might actually have time to sit down and think, 'wow!' about all this. I was so excited before moving about living with The Man, but since we have moved I've been so shattered I've hardly been able to keep my eyes open when I'm at home. Added to that is the pressure of this big IT project (for which we are working until midnight tonight) and all sorts of other things at work. I am hoping that after tonight's work, and a good sleep tomorrow night, I'll get that amazing lightness of heart feeling like at the end of exams, and feel happy happy happy like I should do. At the moment I just feel drained, and I think more likely I will suddenly get ill. I've been too busy to have time to be sick lately!

The new flat is coming along. It turns out The Man is a real tidy bug and all the boxes really stressed him, so the bedroom and sitting room are now almost done, even if everything else is crammed into the other bedroom. We have cooked our first meal there, and even before the curtains were up The Man ran around the house, first to be nekkid in every room. Something tells me he is somewhat excited to have his own place at long last!

Moving

I went to have breakfast this morning, and there was no milk for cereal, so I pulled a slice of bread from the bag, turned around and discovered.... Clare has freecycled the toaster!! All that is left of the funky toaster with leaves and ladybirds on it was a sad little pile of crumbs. So, it was a croissant on the way to work for me...

This is all about moving, and getting rid of stuff in order to fit two people's belongings into the same flat. Clare and Nick both have a full complement of Stuff, so they're having to shed a lot. The Man and I have the opposite problem - we've both lived so far mainly using other people's stuff. I believe as far as kitchenalia goes he owns a steamer and a George Foreman grill. But it's kinda fun to set up a house together, rather than have it all there already, and choose things you both like. And get unnecessarily excited about a box of plates and a new hoover. *:)

I am shattered, but tonight I will pick up the keys to the new flat and start the task of moving boxes. Living with Clare has had its ups and downs, but on the whole it's been great fun and I've loved being in that flat. It's been a two year transition period, and now that part of life closes and the next chapter begins. It's exciting, and I can't wait!

Tired out but loving it

Apparently I look tired but I keep jumping up and down and clapping my hands. I'm moving in with The Man this weekend! As well as trying to juggle work, I have to move on the Saturday, go to a wedding on the Sunday, and another wedding next Saturday, and do another all-night work stint next Thursday night, and possibly work the following weekend too.... Hey ho. By the middle of September I will have time to sit down and have a cup of tea.

The puppies are going soon, I think there are only a couple still looking for homes. Very sad, they are extremely cute, but they'll have lots of fun where they're going. Hopefully by the time Mir has another litter we'll be in a position to keep one ourselves. We being me and The Man. How domesticated! Some even sadder news is grandma dog Millie, Mir's mum, had a nasty medium-grade tumour removed from her leg last week. It's just a case of wait and see now in case it metastased, or however you spell it. No jumping over fences for her for a bit.

The cable cardi is nearly finished, I just have to make myself sit down for a couple of hours to complete the cuffs. The rest is all blocked and sewn together and looks very smart. I love seeing construction detail in the knitting on finer knits - slanting decreases three stitches in from the edge around the arm hole, that sort of thing. I think my finishing is getting better, I am trying to take a hint from The Knitting Curmudgeon who was talking about seeing it as a whole other skillset rather than just an annoyance you have to tack on the end of knitting. I'm sure thousands would disagree but I use backstitch which creates a lumpier seam but also gives a really crisp finish. I'll play around with other ways of doing it I'm sure.

I've also finished the knitting on a Dumpling Bag from the Fall edition of Interweave Knits. Perhaps it was a good issue but there was loads in there I loved! I just need to felt the sucker now, will do that tonight, once I've sorted the rings of the strap handle out. Pattern is complicated in its explanations, but the proper way of doing it came to me in a flash as I was waking up this morning. Will post some pics when it's done.

Right, off home shortly to cook dinner for poor Fenella and Andy who have been working like stink on their new house, rewiring, reflooring, sanding floorboards, sorting out deliveries, massacring the hedge... They're moving the last of their boxes out of the flat tomorrow, and then on Friday night, after the cleaner has been (isn't Fenella sweet to book a cleaner?) I can start moving stuff into our new flat!

Mamma Mia!

Quite appropriately titled, that film. I have not seen quite such a concoction of cheese and tenuous story lines (or lack thereof) in quite some time. And Pierce Brosnan singing? Please, someone, anyone, make it stop!! But the absolute best bit, worth the price of the seat alone, was after the end credits when the whole cast are up there, spangly lycra jump-suited to the nines, singing Waterloo. Including Brosnan and Colin Firth. Seriously, I will never be able to watch Pride and Prejudice the same way again.

Terrible film, great tunes, Meryl Streep valiant in face of all - go see it, it's hilarious.

In other news, The Man has bought himself a new car. It's the same, but newer, and the sports version, and blue. As far as I can tell the only differences are the colour, there are two fewer doors, and the suspension is 'sports' which means I need to bring a cushion. Oh, and it's got that new car smell which makes me want to heave. You can get that stuff in a spray-can now. Why, for the love of god??

We have commenced battle with the buyers to our flat. I should have known it was all going rather too smoothly. They want some ridiculous amount retained from the sale price in case they get a big stinking bill from the management company at the end of the year. Having done some homework which took about 20mins, this appears to be about three times too much. Why doesn't our solicitor investigate this? Surely that's what we pay them for? Sheesh. I should do my own conveyancing in future. A friend who did her own tells me it's not that difficult. Anyway, the upshot is that we still have not agreed an exchange. Pah. I want to move house in two weeks people!!

Knitting news - all pieces of cardigan blocked, ends are being woven in, and then I can start sewing up! Yay!

Puppies update!

Gratuitous puppy pr0n but here they are with eyes open, rough-and-tumbling and starting to look like proper Andrex puppies.

I love those little tails sticking up like aerials! And their ears are so silky and the pads on their paws are still soft as anything. You could just snuggle them for hours - apart from the atrocious puppy breath. They just don't tell you these things in the text books. *:)

We now have a moving date so in under a month The Man and I will be living in sin together. Today I've ordered a box of plates and a hoover from Amazon, about which I got unduly over-excited. I'm nesting, and it's the PMT time of the month, which makes it worse. I can't help it!

Here is The Man, in the snows in March.

Special big golfing mittens apparently. Not a big soft southerner at all! We are having Discussions about settees. There are two black leather sofas kicking around, and we're short of a sensible size sofa for the new place. As it will only be temporary, I say we take one of my huge ones and split it in half (they are designed to do this, it won't be me getting trigger-happy with a chainsaw) to have two chaise longues. Please, no, not black leather. Massive flatscreen telly with playstation plus and sky 360 and setanta I can deal with, but don't make me have black leather!