Last of the Christmas knitting

This is it, the end of the Christmas knitting. A pair of plain stocking stitch socks for Colin. I started them for me but they are good "man colours" so he decided he would like them. Okay, they don't match but he's not bothered and nor am I. All I have to do now is hide them and hope he forgets about them for the next 6 days!!

I got tickets!!!

Whhhoooooooooooooooopppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! I have Mighty Boosh tickets!!!!!!!!! What a palaver. I am on a fan mailing list called Modwolves and we were told that all our emails had been sent to the promoters of the live shows so that we would get an email link and a PIN number to get advanced tickets. Some other Booshys I know got their PINs and 24 hours later when some of the tickets had already gone on sale, I still hadn't had a PIN or link!! I started to panic and went on the message boards, and nearly everyone had a PIN and some already had tickets. Anyway someone gave me a number to call and I got through easily and was given a PIN number. So Thursday morning more tickets were released at 10am, so I refreshed for about half an hour before just in case. Well, 10am came and the page flashed up, and I was in there like a shot.......at 10.04am I had ordered 4 tickets and it was all over and done with. I think I was one of the lucky ones cos I went straight onto the message boards and there were all kinds of problems and people moaning and wailing about screens going blank and not getting tickets and how it was all a shambles. Anyway, I got mine and they are for Dec 2nd at Manchester Apollo. Of course they are not physically in my hot little hands yet, apparently they are not being sent out till August! But hopefully they will come, and I am a happy bunny. I just don't know where we'll be sitting. Or who is going to get the 2 spare tickets!!!

Colin finished his radiotherapy last Tuesday, and his arm is already starting to look better. It looks like strange sunburn now with lots of peeling. He went for a check-up on Thursday morning and had a chest X-ray which was clear. This afternoon he has gone for a CT scan cos they couldn't fit him in on Thursday as we had to get to the airport to go to Ireland. We'll get the results of that in a few days.

So we went to Ireland Thursday afternoon. We stayed with Colin's dad and also saw his sister Fiona who lives 5 minutes away. And on Saturday we went to Niall's which is about an hour's drive south, and saw him and his family. He gave me something which is quite possibly something rather special............

Yeah, yeah, they may just look like a couple of drinking glasses to you but there is a story. Niall worked for Telecom Eireann (Ireland's BT) and when there are big concerts at Slane Castle his team were responsible for sorting out all the phones etc, so he had access to the backstage areas. In 2001 U2 played Slane and afterwards Niall was able to snaffle these 2 glasses from the room where they had all been drinking champagne from them. These glasses could very probably have Bono's saliva on them!!!!! Or Edge, Larry or Adam's! Knowing what a huge U2 fan i am Niall has kept these for me for 6 years!

Onto the knitting..........

I started a pair of plain socks in some Lana Grossa Cotton Fantasy sock yarn that I got from Stash's bargain bin. The colours are 812 - blue/brown/grey and Colin decided he would like them so I am trying to get those done for Christmas. I also worked on my Drops 88-4 sleeve in Ireland and have nearly finished the cabled bit so that shouldn't be too long to finish now.

I got this from ebay last week, 150g of sock weight Kauni yarn for a grand total of £4.20.

And what did I do when I was opening the packaging with scissors?
Then I tried to wind the skein by myself and it has all ended up as two small balls, 2 large balls and one lovely knotted mess that I am trying to unravel, ulgh!

On other knitting things I have been chuckling along to the limenviolet podcast that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. They are just 2 American women talking about knitting but some of the things are funny. They record it in one of their houses and she has a couple of mad dogs who you can hear breathing or running around in the background. In one episode they fell about laughing cos the dogs were humping, and in another the husband came in to get the dogs out and he was chasing them round the room wearing just a pair of boxer shorts with hearts on them. Good job this is not on a webcam!

On TV I am getting excited about the final of Strictly Come Dancing. My favourite, Matt is through to the final but I think he will have a job on to beat Alisha. I don't know how the winner is decided, by the judges or the public vote?

Tomorrow morning I am going for another pre-op appointment about my thumb. I guess it has been a while since I went before but it shouldn't take too long as I can't see that anything has changed. Then the op is on Jan 11th.

Jaywalkers

Just a quick post to show off my completed Jaywalkers. I'm pleased with them, but the yarn wasn't the softest in the world.

Now I shall get onto the second sleeve of my Drops 88-4 and probably cast on another pair of socks. You should always have a pair of socks on the needles.

Stitch markers

While I was out shopping yesterday I popped into the bead shop and for a change it was empty and I could see all the beads without having to try to peer over the shoulders of much taller than me teenagers. I thought I would make some more stitch markers because if i am going to make another Clapotis I will need a lot of stitch markers. These are the markers I made this morning......
and individually................
I think the dice ones are my favourites. I could only get small jump rings so most of these will only fit up to 5mm needles (fine for the Clapotis), but I did have some larger ones left over so I have made some of them to fit up to 7mm. Plenty there I think, and some may end up in other people's Christmas stockings!

Bah humbug!

It has been over a week since my last post. I was sort of waiting because i didn't have any photos of anything, but I can't see any photos happening in the next few days either so i thought I'd just get on with a new post anyway. Does a blog post need photos or pictures? I'll admit that I do tend to look at blogs if they do have photos than if they are just plain text. So I'll not be expecting many readers today!!

So what has been happening this past week? A bit of planning for Christmas. The mad "buying presents and getting them in the post" rush has been averted this year because we have decided to go down south to visit my folks on 27th Dec for a couple of days. I have still been doing a bit of shopping though. I am finding it really hard thinking of presents for people this year. I remember when it used to be that if you wanted something you waited until Christmas or your birthday to get it, but these days if you want something you just go and get it. Then when people ask what you want for Christmas, there isn't anything you want. And when you ask them, they can't think of anything either!! Grrr. And wandering round the shops just doesn't inspire me either. I like to get things that are a little bit different for people, not just the same old thing. But everything in the shops is the same. I guess I could have knitted everyone unique gifts but what with my hand problems this year, and the fact that I want to knit stuff for myself, it wasn't practical. I also think that you only get the benefit if you knit for people who appreciate the work and effort put into it. Like other knitters. I have made a couple of things for other knitters. And something for my mum.

I was in town today wandering aimlessly. It wasn't helped by going to the optician first thing and being informed i needed new glasses which I will have to wear all the time instead of just for driving. Varifocals!!! But "THAT BIRTHDAY" isn't until August!!! Yet I'm getting varifocals!!! The price tag was a bit of a stunner too, I won't say how much, but it was round about "that birthday" times ten. Yikes!!!

We are also going to Ireland for a few days next week to see Colin's family. His 6 weeks of radiotherapy finishes on Tuesday, can you believe how quickly that has gone. But you should see the arm, red doesn't start to describe it, and the heat, phew! We were joking the other night that I wouldn't need to shave my legs, i could just let him singe the hairs off with his arm. He was supposed to have an appointment with the consultant tomorrow but it has been postponed until nest Thursday. We think it is for a scan. Fingers crossed for that.

We had our works meal on Tuesday night. Well as me and Colin are strictly speaking the only employees of our company it would have been a bit sparse but we asked various people who rent the offices from us so there was a total of 7 of us. Unfortunately the food wasn't brilliant, so we will try elsewhere next time. It wasn't bad by any means but not inspiring either.

I can't believe it is already the 4th episode of The Mighty Boosh tonight. It has improved every week so I have great expectations for tonight's episode. It's been great having a double dose of Noel on a Thursday night, but sadly it is his last night on Buzzcocks tonight.

I have been catching up on a few podcasts. The knitting ones are really good for listening to while knitting. I found a new one called Lixie Knits It which is an English one rather than American. She sounds quite sweet but goes a bit bonkers sometimes especially when her husband gets involved! Also the Lime & Violet podcast. Boy can those two talk! I've only listened to one episode and there are 48 so far!!

As for my knitting I am still working on the Drops 88-4. I have finished a sleeve and am leaving the second one to take to Ireland. So I am back onto my second Jaywalker for the time being and am getting near to the heel flap. I have an urge to start something else as well though. I am waiting for some yarn from ebay for another Clapotis which I am going to make wider than the first one as I am getting 10 balls of yarn so should have plenty. I don't know what the yarn will be like though, its one of those "unknown yarn impulse ebay bargain purchases for a tenner from China" type things so i hope it is okay when it comes. Their feedback is good and it says that it is 100% wool so we will see.

I'll stop now as I have thought of something I may have photos of tomorrow, so I'll post again then.

Canal, gloves & hands

Sunday morning we went for a short walk along the canal at Christleton. This is the view facing one way........
And this is the view facing the other way.............
Some strange bloke decided to get in the photo...oh no, hang on, that's Colin!!

These handsome fellas were trying to round up some lady friends but they weren't too interested!
Yesterday I finished off Mandy's Miss Potter gloves, so that is the Christmas knitting finished and I can knit my other Jaywalker.

I am also getting an itch to start another Clapotis (correctly pronounced Clah-poh-tee apparently, I thought it was Clap-oh-tiss, but what do I know!). And I am swatching for a Mr Greenjeans.

I shouldn't really start anything at the moment, cos my operation is on January 11th. Some people have commented on whether I really need to have the op seeing as I am back knitting again. The fact is that the break did give the hands a rest and they are not sore when I knit but I still cannot bend my left thumb or right little finger. This causes problems with everyday things like writing and opening jars etc so yes, I am still going to need the surgery. But thanks for your concern!!

Knitting podcasts

A few weeks ago I was talking about my iPod and how I had discovered podcasts. These were limited to podcasts from radio shows I like, like Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand. Well, I have been on iTunes and found knitting podcasts. So far I have only tried a couple of them. The first one is called pointysticks by Christine Selleck. She hasn't updated recently but there are a lot of back issues to listen to. It is not all necessarily about knitting but somehow I can listen to Christine wittering on for an hour or so. She has a very southern USA drawl (she is from Texas) and her voice is strangely soporific. There is even music on there that I quite like or at least don't go "Ulgh!" and fast forward. From that podcast I found Cast On by Brenda Dayne. I didn't like the voice as much on this one and I must admit to drifting off a bit and not quite listening, but I have only heard the first episode so will persevere.

What is bizarre about listening to a knitting podcast is that you aren't really learning anything because how could you learn anything about knitting from just audio? You have to be shown a technique to see how it is done. But they aren't about that. I guess they are really an audio version of a blog. Both talk about what they may have read about knitting, LYSs they have been to and what is on their needles at the moment, and any challenges they are facing with their WIPs. The first episode of pointysticks starts off talking about Jaywalker socks which I'm doing at the moment, so it was really topical for me.

To find these podcasts just go to iTunes, which is free to download, and type knitting podcast into the search box. Or you can use the links above to go to the websites and find the links from there. You don't need an iPod to listen, you can just listen on the computer.

Talking of Jaywalkers, I finished the first one yesterday.I am now starting on the second one of these
in order to avoid second sock and second glove syndrome. So the sequence is 1 glove, 1 sock, 2nd glove, 2nd sock. Seems to be working

Jaywalkers, Mike's hat & zoo

Here is the progress so far on my first pair of Jaywalkers. I really like how the stripes are working out, but I'm not sure if it is that Tiger-ish, apart from the colour. I have finished the gusset so it is a straight run down to the toe.

Mike was really chuffed with his Tundra hat and wore it around the office for a while. Goodness knows what his wife said when he arrived home with it.
Finally a couple more photos from our zoo trip on Sunday. I forgot to look to see what this bird was but the birds tend to get neglected in favour of more exciting animals so I thought I'd make this one feel loved by taking its picture.
And here are the lions enjoying their lunch.

Squeaky Green

I have been using Squeaky Green shampoo bar from Lush. It is good for the environment and doesn't use palm oil products which is good news for orangutans. Most of their habitat is being destroyed for palm oil plantations. And it is a half decent shampoo too.

Hat, zoo, and eels.

Mike's hat is finished. This was a different yarn to the one I made mine in and shrank more vertically than horizontally, but a bit of blocking has done the trick. It is just about dry and will be handed over to Mike tomorrow. Hope he likes it.

In other knitting, I have finished one Miss Potter. I have decided to just make one pair though, in case I get fed up of the pattern.

We have a friend called Paul who we know from our student days. He is originally from South Wales but now lives in Fife with his wife Audrey and their 2 year old son Elliot. Every now and again we get a phone call from Paul, saying he is about half an hour away and can they pop in. Somehow we are usually in and not busy. It has become a bit of a standing joke. When I got home on Friday there was an answerphone message asking us to call him on his mobile. He was in the area but wondered if we were doing anything on Saturday. They were down for a family party in Lymm but were going to come over to the zoo, so we arranged to meet them. And here they are................The fourth person is Paul's niece Katie. We had a lovely day wandering around the zoo. It was very chilly though, and I should have taken my Tundra hat, but Paul came to the resue with a hat for me. Here I am wearing it, and discovering that one of the chimps has been named after me, hah hah.
Here are some leaf cutter ants doing their thing and carrying chunks of orange peel up to the top of the tree trunk. (Click the picture to see it better)
They also have prairie dogs where you can go through a tunnel and pop up inside a dome in the enclosure..........
Well Kate Garraway got voted off Strictly Come Dancing last night. At last!! It was getting a bit silly keeping her in as she was dreadful. I'm still not sure who the winner is going to be, but I think Kelly, Alisha and Matt have a good chance. Also been watching Long Way Down with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on Sunday evenings. They are travelling from John O'Groats to Cape Town on motorbikes through Africa.

Have you seen the film Team America - World Police? It is all done with string puppets but is definitely NOT for kids. When I first started watching it I though it was rubbish but I stuck with it and it turned out to be really funny. A p**s take of Tom Cruise films like Top Gun. Check it out if you haven't already.

I'll leave you with a little song..........
"Eels, eels, eels, eels..............Eels up inside ya! Finding an entrance where they can........."

Boosh Day!!! & op date

Yay, Mighty Boosh series 3 starts today. I've just listened to them on Jo Whiley in the Live Lounge. They sang Love Games and the Soup Song. Chris Moyles let me down this morning by saying he doesn't like them!!!!!!!!!!

I have a new date for my hand operation - 11th January. Better get all my WIPs finished by then!! I am about half done on Mike's hat, 10% done on the jaywalkers, 45% on the Drops cardi, and I have decided to make 2 pairs of Miss Potter mitts for Christmas presents. Yikes!

Additions to the stash

Last Tuesday at work, I was looking at my page on ravelry and one of the guys who rents a room from us saw my Vince hat and wanted to see it in real life. So on Thursday I took it in and when he'd tried it on he asked if I could make him one!! He reckons his daughter will steal it though. But I went on ebay and found this...........
They assure me it will felt at 60 degrees but I'll swatch first. Also last week I got this from ebay.............. It is 75% BFL/25% nylon sock yarn called Tiger Stripe and I have started a pair of Jaywalkers in it............
Then I discovered Angels & Elephants (again on ebay) and ordered these............

The first one is called Candy Floss and the second one is called Tamar. This is 100% shetland sock weight.

On Sunday we went up to the Lake District. A couple of friends were renting a cottage for the week to do some walking and they invited us to go up for a night. So we went Sunday morning and got there about 12.30 just in time for a yummy pub lunch. In the afternoon we went to visit Fairfield Mill near Sedbergh. There was a working loom and water wheel and lots of handmade crafts to buy. There were also displays of the history of the mill and the Terrible Knitters of Dent. All the way round there were baskets of yarn, but it was all for display, very frustrating. But when we got to the far end there was a shelf of "mill ends" and I grabbed these...........
There is over 1200g of fingering weight yarn there, goodness knows the yardage, all for £6!!!

The awful thing was we also had to share the cottage with this creature..........This is Molly, ain't she cute? Sadly, Mandy wouldn't let us keep her!

This is the progress so far on the cardigan. One more front and then the sleeves. Not looking forward to doing the neckband, I have read through it and it sounds a bit complicated, eek!
Two days to go to series 3 of The Mighty Boosh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cardi progress

My Drops 88-4 cardigan is coming along nicely. I have now finished all the cable-y bits and am on to larger needles and plain stocking stitch so it should grow quicker now. The little cables were driving me bonkers but I still have to do them again on 2 sleeves!! There will be less of them each time though, there were 14 of them across the body!!

Now I have a question...........I want to make a cardigan in a neutral colour that will go with purple, blue, grey, red, green or white (or any colour you can think of really!!!). What colour do you suggest? Please don't say black, I can't bear the thought of knitting with black, I think I may go blind, eek. (If you are wondering, these mentioned colours are all colours of tops I have which I would wear underneath the cardigan in question.) Please leave any suggestions in the comments.

Yesterday we went for a walk around the Marine Lake in West Kirby on the Wirral. Half way round we veered off up a side road to a cafe I had spotted on the way, called Sand's. We sat outside and the sun was so warm I had to take off my fleece!! While we were sat there I put a bookcrossing book on a chair at another table, and one of the staff had a look. Then she told someone else and they came and took it inside. Later in the evening I had a journal entry on it. Yay!! My catch rate on my wild releases currently sits at 18.9% so roughly 1 in 5. Not bad.

We had a brief discussion about how we felt about another dog. Colin's thoughts were "I'd probably have to do most of the walking etc, BUT they are lovely", "they are a commitment BUT they are lovely". Mine were, "you do have to think about getting home when you are out or arranging kennels if you go away BUT they are lovely". Hmmm, no conclusions there then. It is a bit too soon yet anyway, and we need to get Colin's treatment out of the way first.

Talking of which, it is going fine so far. The only effect has been that his arm is going a bit pink, but being a redhead he burns easily anyway so it looks as if he has caught a little bit of sun on one arm only. No tiredness or nausea so far, so he is happy to drive over to his appointments on his own for now.

Vince's Tundra Hat!

On ravelry, I am one of the moderators on the group called The Coconut Lodge, which is for fans of The Mighty Boosh to chat about the Boosh and also show off any Boosh-inspired knits. Knittyinpink suggested we had a bit of a knitalong based on the hat that Vince wears in the series 1 episode Tundra. I found a couple of suitable-ish patterns but I wanted to make a felted hat. I was using the leftover Lamb's Pride bulky from the Fabulous Lace Inset Cardigan, and 8mm needles, so I went with Ryan's Hat from here but using the larger yarn and needles. Once I started it was a quick knit, and grew very rapidly into this..............
I was a little bit worried it wasn't going to shrink enough during the felting, but after 2 goes through the 40 degree cycle it came out like this................
(that's me pretending to be Vince asleep in the snow, didn't quite carry it off!!)

Anyway, I'm really pleased with it, apart from it maybe could be a bit taller. It is worked down from the top, so maybe the increases could have been done on every 3rd row instead of every 2nd row. I had bits of skeins left so I think I used about one and 3 quarter skeins on it. I'm not sure if I will add any Booshy embellishments, I'll see what everyone else does with theirs first. I don't want to make it so that I don't want to wear it in public for fear of ridicule, at the moment I think it is wearable apart from being very RED. I shall have to get one of the red T-shirts with the lightning bolts on, and then I can wear it with that and the Glam Rock Ski Suit Socks while I'm watching the DVDs!! (Colin thinks I'm bonkers!).

We had a lovely evening with Gill on Sunday, and then Tuesday we met up with some friends who moved back to Ireland in January, and who were over for a visit to sort out some things on the house they are trying to sell. We had lunch at The Rake near Cheshire Oaks and then popped into Borders for coffee afterwards. We were too busy chatting that I didn't get a chance to look at any books!!!

Yesterday we went over to Manchester for Colin's first radiotherapy appointment. I sat in the waiting area listening to the Jonathon Ross podcast and trying not to make a show of myself by stifling my sniggering. I did think of taking some knitting but I think sniggering and knitting in a corner may have resulted in 'the men in white coats' carrying me off!! The session all went fine and there were no nasty effects so he is going to go on his own for a couple of weeks, and then see if he needs me to drive after that. I gave him a session of Reiki last night to help things along, and I'll do about a 20 minute top up each day.

So it means I don't get to skive off work now!! Pah!

Sad news, lunch, & catching up.

My computer lost its internet connection for a few days and the other computer doesn't have my camera software on it, but this afternoon a friend who is a computer genius came and sorted it all out, so everything is back to normal.

But unfortunately I have to start this post with some sad news. On Oct 10th we had to make the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye to our boy Podge. He was almost 16 and had been having lots of falls and couldn't get up again without help. It was all a bit confusing for him and when the vet said there was nothing more we could do, it was time to say goodbye. We had had him since he was about 9 months old, when we rescued him from the RSPCA shelter in Colwyn Bay. He has left a huge hole in our lives and we will miss him dearly. We have had him cremated and so he is now home with us at least.



Yesterday we went out for lunch with some friends we hadn't seen for almost a year, Paul & Scottie. We went to Piccolino's and spent a leisurely 2 hours eating and chatting. After that we met some other friends Graeme, Mandy & Emily for a quick coffee. And tonight we have Gill coming round for dinner. She is the friend who went off to France after Colin did some life coaching with her. She is now back and sorting out what to do next.

I am working on my Drops cardigan but it is very slow going. I have done about 15cm in four days!! The yarn is fine, the needles are small and as it is worked in one piece there are loads of stitches. It looks lovely so far though so I am happy to trudge along with it. I have also finished the present for my mum.

Couldn't resist this from Natural Dye Studio............BFL Dazzle sock yarn in colour Peahen.

Colin is off for a "trial run" for his radiotherapy tomorrow, and then he starts properly on Wednesday for 6 and a half weeks which takes us to 14th December we think. So all done and dusted by Christmas.

I am Sooooo lucky

I am so lucky to have a wonderful friend. And the daft thing is we have never met. Our first contact was through a bookring that was running on bookcrossing.com. And then we became blogging friends. I won't mention her name as she prefers to stay anonymous if she can but she knows who she is and some of you know her too. Anyway, she sent me this Ilga Leja Diamonds on the Diagonal scarf out of the blue!! Just out of the goodness of her heart because I have had a dodgy time of it lately. What a sweet person she is. Thank you so much.

It is made with Posh Yarn in a wonderful mix of pinky purpley grey colours with a hint of a yellowy green. Gorgeous. And just the right size for this time of year when you don't yet need a really big scarf. In fact I shall wear it today!

No sign of my Lace needle yet so I shall carry on with the other project for the time being.

Mighty Boosh in the Observer

Apparently there was an interview with Noel and Julian in the Obserer Magazine on Sunday. I didn't see it but there is a link to the interview here for everyone else who missed it too. (Thanks to Badger for the link!)

Lavender Scars, Miss Potter and Drops 88-4

I am officially out of Sock Wars. These arrived on Saturday morning, lovely pale lavender Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. They were knitted by Rooknits (three quarters) and wendyswoolies (finished off). My Yarn Forward magazine came last week. It is much glossier and magazine-like now with some good length articles. As I didn't know if I would be knitting more on Sock Wars I decided to start the Miss Potter Mitts from the front cover. Unfortunately the pattern was not well written and I had to work out a couple of bits myself. But this is what they came out like....
They are knitted in Rowan Tapestry which is lovely and soft, using size 4mm DPNs. I think if I made another pair I would go down a needle size as they are quite roomy. I used one ball of the Tapestry and literally had 4 inches of yarn left over!! More pics on flickr (see link on the left).

Also on Saturday I had a delivery from Bruce at Scandinavian Knitting Design. Six balls of Drops Alpaca to make the Drops Cardigan 88-4. The yarn is wonderfully soft, but is very fine (thinner than sock yarn) and the pattern is knitted on 3.5mm needles. It is going to be a longer term project I think. Here is my progress so far........
After doing a couple of rows of cables with a cable needle I decided there had to be a better way, so googled cabling without a needle. I found this method and it is great apart from the scary bit of dropping stitches off the needle. You need to hold them tight so you don't lose them. Mine is only a four stitch twist so only two stitches to drop and pick up.
The bamboo needle I was using however, is rather blunt so I have ordered one of the Addi Lace needles which are more pointy.

While waiting for the Addi I have started a secret project for my mum for Christmas. I was going to do her a cardigan of some sort but as I don't want to over stretch my hands I have scaled down to something smaller. Can't say what because she reads this. All I'll say is that it is in a colour she likes.

Clapotis finished

I finished my Clapotis scarf last night. I'm not sure about the colour pooling but I'm not worrying enough to frog and do it again. It is Natural Dye Studio hand dyed yarn so there are colour variations between skeins. I used 3 and a quarter skeins (170ish grams) of sock yarn.


I liked getting near the end because you are decreasing at both ends so each row is getting shorter and therefore quicker to knit.

Somehow I am still alive in Sock Wars. Mel declared herself 'dead' yesterday so hopefully I will get her victim's partly made socks to finish in a couple of days. Unless I'm 'killed' first, but I have had no word from my 'assassin' at all. Perhaps they are in stealth mode.

On the TV front, I watched Sunday's Top Gear last night. I can't believe that they managed to sail the English Channel in a pickup truck!! Surely not! Very funny though.

Since I have managed to pick up the needles again recently, my reading has started to suffer. I have started Memnoch the Devil, which is no. 5 of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I did pop into the second hand bookshop on Saturday and got Priestess of the White by Trudi Canavan, and Night Rise by Anthony Horowitz for the grand total of £7, and the Canavan was a hardback. I enjoyed the Black Magician trilogy so I hope I'll like this one too. I'm not usually a big fantasy fiction fan but there you go.

Yay for Russell Brand having Noel Fielding as co-host on his Radio 2 show last week. If you are quick you can listen again or download the podcast here. The show was very funny, but I don't know how he gets away with some of the stuff he talks about, what with it being the BBC n'all. There was a bonkers chap on who wants Russell to stand for mayor of London. You can sign the petition here. Noel & Russell did say that they will be defending their title on The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, which I'm guessing will be on around Christmas/New Year. Not long now then, where is this year going?