No photos

I have TWO finished projects that I'm dying to show but I have no photos yet. Actually that is a fib, I do have a photo of my Twisty jumper but I took it with my phone and it is not modelled and basically I don't like the picture. I want to show it in all its glory. The other project is a little neckwarmer that I made from the Fidget pattern with two balls of Drops Classic Alpaca that I got with my extra ball of Eskimo. Oh, I do have photos of the newly acquired stash.

This is the Drops Classic Alpaca, now used up


And this is Drops Karisma which I don't have a project for yet,

but may make this pattern, Titania. I'm a bit worried it might make me look fat though! That lace panel round the middle is what worries me as I have a bit of a "spare tyre" in that area!

I can't believe that it is already a year since my 40th!!! I will be 41 on Saturday. Yesterday we decided to go up and see what all the fuss was about at Liverpool One and so that I could find something for Colin to get me for my birthday. We ended up in the same shops we would normally go in here in Chester, namely Costa, Smiths, Waterstones etc. I did pop into John Lewis for some buttons for the Fidget, and they were amazingly cheap for JL. I got 8 for just £1!! Anyway I decided I would like to do more cooking so Colin got me a copy of The Silver Spoon which is a HUGE Italian cookbook. Oh dear, he's going to be expecting all kinds of culinary delights now!

Foodies

So last Saturday we went to the Chester Food & Drink Festival. It didn't seem like there were as many exhibitors this year but it was spread out more and easier to see everything.
We bought a big mixed tub of olives from this stall,

and various other things like ciabatta, cheeses, smoked garlic bulbs, and some rudely named beers for our friend's birthday. We have also signed up to have an organic veggie box delivered. We did this last year with a different company but we kept getting broccoli which I love but my tummy doesn't, and they weren't very good at substituting it, so we cancelled it. The company we chose this time, BoxFresh, said all the right things so we'll see what turns up on Friday.

Of course, soon we won't be needing to buy mushrooms, once these little fellas grow a bit more. They weren't doing too well but it turned out they were too dry. When I gave them a big drink they suddenly starting coming on better. Still only about 3mm across on the biggest one though.

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We had quite a busy weekend all in all. It started last Thursday night when we went out to Tilston to a friend's 50th birthday at the Carden Arms pub.

Then after the food fest we went to our neighbours for a meal on Saturday evening. Paul has a birthday 9 days before Colin so it was a double birthday meal really. Afterwards we watched Quantum of Solace on DVD. It was a good action film, but as Becca said last night, it's not cheesy Bond anymore! I don't think we did much on Sunday, then Eastham park on Monday.

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I did do a bit of knitting, and finished the first of a pair of Monkey socks which have been waiting around for a while. Then last night, eagle eyed Anne at knit group noticed I'd dropped a stitch at the beginning of my toe decreases. so we grabbed it and I'll just sew it in. I remember it happening but thought I'd rescued it at the time, I guess I didn't!

I actually joined a sock yarn club. I knew about the Wild Fire Fibres sock club when it started in January but didn't sign up. Then when I started seeing the yarns people were getting on the ravelry group, I wished I'd joined. As it turned out someone had signed up for 3 months and not renewed so lovely Vikki said I could have that slot for the following 3 months. I think I'm due my first skein later this month. The great thing is, it is not the same colour that everyone gets, there is a theme but my skein may be a different colour mix to someone else. I have had some of her yarns before and they are lovely.

It was really good to see Becca at knit group last night, I haven't seen her since the end of January which is shocking, but she has been mad busy at work trying to keep her job (she works in the head office of one of the big banks). We have arranged to meet up after work next Wednesday and get something to eat in town and have a proper catch-up. It's difficult at knit group because there are lots of other people to chat to. It was good though, because I haven't been for a month because of my ear infection, so there was lots of knitting and "knattering" to be done. Karen has finally succumbed to the lure of the socks and brought along some lovely sock yarns that she had bought. (Must not got to Woolly Workshop's website! Must not, must not!)

Good Luck

I managed to finish something for a change. Not a great picture, (it's obvious I haven't been on a course to learn about my new camera yet!) but this is my finished Good Luck Cowl in Noro Kureyon sock yarn.


I was going to keep going until the yarn ran out but this is about half a ball so it would have been twice the size, far too long. At least I can get another one out of the same ball.

I'm thinking I should maybe put it on now and not take it off for the next 15 days. I've managed to get to halfway in NaNoWriMo but I'm now going to need all the luck I can get to find another 25,000 words to finish it!!!

I am waiting to find out if I have killed my victim in the Day of the Dead sock wars prequel. I sent them off on Monday and she sent hers to me on Wednesday so it's a race to see which postal system is the fastest. I'm safe until Monday now at least. In the meantime I have cast on for a pair of Nine to Five socks using the Wild Fire Fibres merino/tencel. I had started a pair of the Teak Fingerless Mitts from the Boutique Knits book but the yarn really wanted to be socks so I frogged that. It is much happier paying homage to Dolly Parton! There is a free ravelry download if you want the pattern.

We are off to have a yummy cooked brekkie at the Blue Moon cafe in the morning with Becca & Mark,

Woolfest 2008

Guess where I went last weekend?


This the bag I filled with goodies, but what did it contain by the end of the day??????

Tah-dah............(click on any of the pictures for a close-up!)


Five hanks of Colinette Iona to make Cherie Amour


Some cute buttons from Injabulo


3 hanks of Manos Silk Blend


3 skeins of KnitWitches sock yarn and 1 of Natural Dye Studio merino sock yarn


KnitWitches silk laceweight (600m) and KnitWitches cashmere laceweight (1000m)


See that grey spotty alpaca at the back?


Yep, this one. His name is Mingle.......


and his fleece is partly responsible for this. 6 balls of WhyNot Alpaca from Sedburgh, Cumbria, to make the Gathered Pullover from Interweave Knits magazine Winter 2007.


We went up to Cumbria on Friday but it was a bit too late to go into Woolfest and have enough time. We did go to the site to have a look and the first person we saw was Chris, dashing out the door. She was empty handed but informed us that her car was already stuffed to the brim!

We checked into the hotel and then had a lovely Italian meal that evening.

On Saturday we "did" Woolfest. I wasn't sure what to expect, but basically it was a big livestock building where everyone had set up their stalls. Yarn stalls, spinning stalls selling wheels and paraphernalia, live animals at one end including sheep, alpacas and rabbits. The Angora rabbits were hilarious, I didn't realise they had such pointy up ears.

There were plenty of stall holders whose names I recognised, and many I didn't and there were loads of ravelry badges being displayed. I bumped into J, Beryl and Chris from the knitting group, but didn't manage to spot Mel, she was probably buried in fleece!!

I bought all the stuff above (not the animals though) and Colin bought me a swift and ball winder stick (but I don't know about them until my birthday!).

The ladies of KnitWitches were very chatty and recommended an Indian restaurant that they had been to so that evening we went there. And they were there too. And Amanda from Natural Dye Studio was staying in our hotel so we saw them at breakfast.

I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend that part of Cumbria for a stay, as we went off to the coast to have a look and it was very run-down and bleak. Such a shame because the Lakes part is lovely.

Since we got back I finished my Vegas Sands cowl. I have made it quite tall and it fits snugly so it is going to be very warm in the cold weather.


Can you spot the one (not) deliberate mistake?


Talking of mistakes I have had an absolute disaster. I finished Colin's jumper as you know and had partly sewn it up when I asked him to try it on "just to see". Well, the sleeves were about 6 inches too long and the cotton was stretching so it was pulling the shoulders down making it worse. I decided to shorten the sleeve from the cuff but the first one wouldn't unravel. I decided to take the sleeves off and frog and re-knit them. But, when I went to take the sleeve that I had sewn on off, I cut the wrong thread and a hole started growing in the BACK of the jumper. So the upshot is that I now have a lovely full bag of balls of cotton and NO JUMPER!!!! I had to frog the lot!!! I will not be making it again, certainly not in the cotton, it just hung off Colin like a sack, ulgh. I think it is now destined to be a selection of string shopping bags.

But on a lighter note, I have started the Gathered Pullover and the alpaca is GORGEOUS!!!!

Where did they all go?

Getting back to my trip "down south", on the Friday I went over to the Isle of Wight to see my friend Sarah. My mum came with me and we headed down to the ferry terminal with no guarantee that we would actually get on a boat. The Isle of Wight music festival was starting that day with 50,000 people expected, so we thought that if we got down there and the queues were huge, we would think again and maybe have a day in Southampton instead.

Expecting crowds of backpackers we got a 9.30 bus which went all over the world to get there. The routes have changed a lot in the 20 years I have been away! Anyway we got there about 10 and there was hardly anyone around. Where the other 49,998 people were is anyone's guess. We decided to catch the fast Red Jet which takes 23 minutes rather than the hour on the car ferry and arrived at 10.45. Sarah's husband Alex picked us up and in less than ten minutes we were at the house.

Wow, what a house. Five bedrooms (she has 4 children), 3 bathrooms, two huge fields, a triple garage converted into a games room containing a pool table and ten pinball machines, stables and a ride on lawn mower. She also has a huge static caravan on a site a few miles away which we went to see. Oh, and 10 chickens. When we were leaving, Sarah gave us half a dozen eggs fresh out of the chickens that day. They were delicious. We had a great day, with lunch out, and we got to meet the boys when they came home from school (Meg, Sarah's daughter went off to the festival earlier), before heading back to the boat shortly after.

Talking of lunches out, this Sunday we arranged to have lunch with Becca and her boyfriend Mark. I hadn't met Mark before and Colin hadn't met Becca. We decided to go to The Glasfryn near Mold. It was a lovely lunch, we arrived at 1 o'clock and we were still there till gone 3. The food was great, I had a couple of huge salmon fishcakes, Colin and Becca had burgers and Mark had steak. No complaints from any of us. The chat came very easily and it was a great success all round. (Edit: Nnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooo, I've just had a text to say that Becca can't come to Woolfest, sob!)

I never got round to reviewing a couple of books I have recently finished. The first one was A Metropolitan Murder by Lee Jackson. This was set in the late 1800s when the first line of the London Underground had been built. A young woman is found dead in one of the train carriages and a man flees the scene. Did he do it? You'll have to read it to find out! There are twists and turns and it gives an interesting insight into the seedier side of London in those days. I enjoyed it.

I then read My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick. I was looking at the Hay on Wye Festival website when I noticed this author and this book. When it mentioned vampires I had to have it. It is actually categorized as a book for teenagers but that's never stopped me, I'll read anything if its good. Although it is quite short, it could be an adult book. It is again an historical novel, set in Eastern Europe in a tiny snowy village. There are a couple of gruesome murders but then the victims are seen supposedly back from the dead, and it is down to Peter, a woodcutter's son, to try to stop them. Along with a band of wandering gypsies and a secret his father has kept from him his whole life, he tries to track them down and save the village. Again, I enjoyed this. There was an epilogue at the end which felt disjointed from the main story, as if it was tacked on to bump up the word count but overall a good story.

After that I decided to try Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre. A friend of ours had mentioned this author a while ago and I only just got round to getting one of his books from bookmooch.com. Well, I abandoned it after about 20 pages. It shouldn't be right to say that a book is for either men or women only but I'm afraid that this is definitely a "bloke's book". The graphic descriptions of the results of alcohol overindulgence were far too much information for me, and the description of the murder victim was very gruesome. Ulgh! No, there are many more books I would much rather read than waste any more time on this one. I have gladly left it and moved on to Sepulchre by Kate Mosse (not that one, the one with an e). I really enjoyed Labyrinth and this one appears to be along a similar vein, though I am only 100 pages of 732 along so far.

I suppose I should mention a bit of knitting before this post gets too much longer. OTN I have the Vegas Sands neckwarmer which is coming along very nicely. I think there may be a few of these for presents this Christmas!! The yarn is lovely and the colours are completely random so there is no striping. I think it will be quite fitted to my neck, (I was slightly worried at first whether it would go over my head) so I am going to knit until the yarn runs out so that it folds when I wear it.

I ripped out the Nutkin sock, so the only other WIPs are the Clapotis and the jumper to be sewn up. I have done the shoulder seams so I have made a start.

I was listening to the Sticks & String podcast on the way to work this morning. David was interviewing Franklin from The Panopticon and he was telling a story about how he was knitting a baby hat on a coach, and at the end of the journey another passenger asked him about it. After the usual exchanges, she then asked him "so did you learn to knit in prison?" He didn't know what to say, and as they were getting off the coach at the time. he never did get round to asking her why she would have thought that. What goes through people's heads? Obviously the only men who knit are those that are forced to because they are (quite literally) a captive audience! Sheesh!

Just on a final note (and in small writing so as not to upset anyone), please leave me a comment, I really like reading them and I haven't had many for a while.

Soup and a sandwich anyone?

We've just had a busy week really.

On Tuesday my car went back to the garage, and guess what? They could find nothing wrong with it. Maybe its just me then because Colin drove it yesterday with no problem either. I'm still going to look to change it though.

On Thursday the decorator came to start giving the house a new lick of paint. He works on his own so will probably be here for another couple of weeks. We are getting new carpets downstairs due to Charlie's lack of house training (!) so we thought we'd have a freshen up of all the walls and woodwork too. And new laminate floors in the dining room and kitchen. Those were done on Friday so it was a bit mad here with the fitters and George (the decorator) trying to work around each other.

Also on Thursday we headed off to Oswestry for Colin's latest scan results. And it was great news. The tiny spot that was seen in his lung 6 months ago hasn't changed at all so they have concluded that it is more than likely some kind of calcified something that is totally benign. They are not going to need to do any more CT scans on it. We were both very relieved. A great birthday present for Colin for Friday in fact. Yep, he is another year older!


On Saturday some friends, Jon, Verity & Molly came over for a visit to the zoo. This is Jon and Molly who is two and a half.


She was really taken with Colin, I think there was some kind of kinship going on between two redheads!!


As it was so cold the animals weren't that active but there were a few out and about, we even got to see a Spectacled Bear which is very unusual, they usually hide away.


The penguins were out and the flamingoes were looking particularly pinky-orange.




The tigers had their lunch and had a little doze indoors.


Then we came back to our house and had something to eat and watched Mary Poppins. I was very jealous when Jon announced that their Boosh tickets are FRONT ROW!!!

Because it was Colin's birthday on Friday and it is our wedding anniversary on Wednesday we decided to treat ourselves to a cooked breakfast on Sunday morning. We went down to the Blue Moon Cafe on the Groves and had a full English breakfast each before heading over to Winsford to look at cars. There were 2 possible Polos so we asked for the keys to have a look at them. The first one had a deposit on it so we couldn't look at it, but the other one looked promising. From the outside it was fine but once we were inside we noticed a cigarette burn on the leather bit round the gearstick which then made us notice the smell of stale cigarette smoke. Yuck, no thanks. Colin then started noticing a few cars he quite liked so we ended up sitting in a Mercedes and a BMW too!

On the way back I mentioned lunch (you can see life revolves around my stomach!) and Colin said "We could go for soup and a sandwich somewhere if you like." Does this make sense to anyone? The way I see it is you have soup with bread or toast, OR a sandwich. Not soup AND a sandwich. The whole point is that you dunk the bread or toast in the soup. You can't dunk a sandwich in because it has a filling. How yucky would that be? Am I wrong? Anyway, we decided that we had enough stuff at home so seeing as we had already had brekkie out, we went home instead.

On knitterly things, I ripped out the six inches I'd done on the Joma sweater as it was so obviously going to be too small. I have now acquired another 5 balls of the organic cotton so I have started again on a larger size. As for the Zoknis, they got a bit of attention while I was waiting to make sure I could get more cotton for Joma. So I have 8 more pattern rows left until I can do the toe decreases and cast off the second sock. I hope I can do that tonight so I can take the finished pair to show Becca when I see her tomorrow. The Clapotis is getting quite big too, I have finished 3 straight section repeats and have dropped three stitches so far (for those of you not familiar with Clapotis - is there anyone out there? - you drop stitches on purpose!). With the possibility of having only two WIPs later on this evening I think it is time to scout out a new project. Oh hang on, I'm doing a quick KAL next weekend with the Coconut Lodge group on ravelry. We are making a Bainbridge scarf in honour of Dixon Bainbridge!!

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.

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.

belated thanks, ravelling in it, and foodie friends.

I just wanted to say a belated thanks to my step-dad Bill, who came up to visit with my mum last weekend and washed both our cars and cut the grass. I am ashamed to say that mine hadn't been done since he did it last visit in May. Gulp!

I am having fun on ravelry. I now have 17 "friends" and have uploaded several of my finished projects, books, stashed yarns and queued some patterns I would like to make. AND, a friend and I have started a group called The Coconut Lodge, for all things Booshy, and we have 7 members! One thing I have noticed from putting up pics of my stash is that there is a lot of blue/green there. I need to add some colour desperately.

Less than a week until Sock Wars now. I have 3 possible yarns now. If my victim is female I'm sticking with the Natural Dye Studio BFL sock yarn

If my victim is male, I'm going with garnstudio Fabel
And if either of them are allergic to wool, I have some Rowan Bamboo Soft.
I have 3.25cm DPNs AND Addi circulars, so I'm all set. Let battle commence!!!

I have given up on The Angel Makers. When I bought it I thought it was going to be witchy and a bit supernatural but it has turned into a saga of a woman who gets beaten up by her fiance. No thanks! So I have abandoned it and gone for something I know I will like, Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice. Its the 5th in the Vampire Chronicles.

Last night we had a couple of friends round for dinner. We hadn't seen them since January. A very nice evening was had by all and my tuna fish pie went down very well. Heather brought some runner beans picked from her garden that day, and they were lovely with it. Colin bought some Stinking Bishop cheese, and I'm afraid it tasted to me like a cowpat, (not that I've ever tasted a cowpat! I came close once but that's another story) so I had some of the goat's cheese and the smoked Lancashire. Colin did a fancy starter of Ciabatta with Asparagus and Poached Egg, mmmm, delish!

On Tuesday we go to Manchester to see the radiotherapy team at Christie's. We should find out when Colin's treatment starts and for how long. Wish us luck.

A poorly titled post!

Blimey, a whole ten days without blogging. You'll all be abandoning me!

Well my new computer is now up and running. Lovely and fast although it does sound as if it is doing something in the background all the time. Maybe it is, who am i to say how the magic works? I got a new keyboard and mouse too which i am getting used to. I keep hitting 2 keys at once.

We have had a week off from the office so hopefully it will still be in one piece when we get back on Tuesday. We haven't been away, just "pottering". On Monday afternoon we popped up to the zoo, and were very priviledged to see one of the Red Pandas

(not my photo) on the ground for a change. They are usually asleep at the top of a very tall tree. And I don't know how they managed it because we thought the 2 panda's were sisters, but one of them has produced some babies which can just about be seen as blurs on a video monitor near the enclosure. These are maybe my second favourites after the orangutans.

On Tuesday we went to the cinema in the afternoon. Quite odd really, I kept thinking I'd forgotten to have my dinner! Anyway, we saw The Bourne Ultimatum. A great action film, non-stop. I will have to try a Robert Ludlum book at some point. I reckon Matt Damon might be able to play the part of Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield if they ever get round to making the film of Ice Station. Oooo I've just looked, and Hugh Jackman has been suggested on the Matthew Reilly website. Good choice.

I am currently reading Sandstorm by James Rollins. A good old adventure story concerning strange artifacts and goings on in the Oman desert. Pretty good. Similar to Matthew Reilly but not quite so break-neck. I am also still reading Various Haunts of Men but it got a bit dull so I left it to one side for a bit.

You will never guess what came in the post last week................

Oh yes, the infamous Galm Rock Ski Suit Socks have returned home at last. They've only been away for 6 months!!! They did return with a free pattern book though, which was a nice gesture on the part of Simply Knitting. Unfortunately it was all baby patterns, so no good for me but I may be able to use some of the stitch patterns in something else.

This morning we went to the Wirral Food & Drink Festival. It was very similar to the Chester one but was held on a farm in a big field. I got to have my second Hog Roast bap of the year which was delicious. We bought a few odds and sods including some big halibut steaks which we polished off for dinner this evening.

I had my second lot of bookmarks from the swap-bot swap.

These were from Violette. Just one more to come now, and a book from the CTnY bookswap. I was wondering whether to do a disposable camera swap. You get a camera, take photos of various things and then send it to your partner to get processed. So you don't know what pictures you are going to get until you process the film. Hmmm, I'll think about it a bit more, the closing date isn't until Saturday.

Anyway, back to the last week. On Wednesday Colin's brother Niall came over from Ireland for a quick visit, and also to sort out the office phone system which hasn't been quite right since it was put in. He was in the office for the best part of a day but it is now working fine and i know how to transfer and get back calls without losing people!! Always a bonus! He headed back to Ireland on Friday. We did go out on Thursday night to the fish restaurant The Foxcote Inn. Delicious!

Saturday was our usual trip into town and then today was the food festival. So that about brings us up to date. Now to think of a good title for this post. That's the bit I'm poor at. Oh, okay, I know.......

It's my birthday and I'll knit if I want to.....

Well no I won't actually cos I'm not allowed but I wish I could cos I got some knitting goodies I want to use NOW!

This was my CTnY Summer Birthday Surprise package from Blossom (I had guessed right!).

Some Opal Neon sock yarn in wonderful shades of purple, blue and green. I just want to start knitting it RIGHT NOW!! There was also a rosette kit, some Heaven chocolate, a lovely card and these stitch markers which are gorgeous.

Thank you Blossom. It's lovely when a complete stranger sends you such wonderful things. I hope my partner likes what I am going to send to them.

Here is the Mika CD from my mum. She also sent some money, choccie and some fancy shampoo!

Colin got me this lovely card that looks a bit like Podge! And the My Chemical Romance CD. He is also getting me a spanking new computer, which will be ready on Friday.

And look what T sent!! Hee hee heee heeeeeeee!! Made by her own fair hand. It's fabulous, dahhhling!

Colin took me out for a meal last night cos he will be a bit late home this evening. This is what we had and we went to Moules a Go Go...........

King Prawns for Colin, and Red Pepper Hummus for me,

Rissotto for Colin & Sea Bass for me,

followed by Rhubarb & Ginger sponge with cream shared between the 2 of us. Yummy!!!!

Today I have the day off so I am going up for a mooch around Borders and have a lovely frothey decaff cappucino. Ahhhh, and the sun is shining too, couldn't be better.

Poor old Podge!

My poor old dog. His back legs are getting a bit weak and wobbly, and he keeps falling down the stairs and making me scream as he lands in an upside down heap at the bottom. Two days ago I screamed AND burst into tears. He just gets up and walks away! Anyway if this is what he does when we are in the house, how many times does he do it when we are not there?

The solution? Colin went to Argos yesterday and bought a stair gate. The dog is not happy. Usually at night he comes up with us and sleeps on the floor beside Colin's side of the bed. Last night we shut the stair gate and he couldn't come up. For at least an hour he prowled back and forth, back and forth, from the bottom step out into the dining room (where his feet clippity clop on the laminate floor) and back like a caged jaguar at the zoo. I think he eventually jumped onto the sofa in the living room and slept. We already bought a carpet runner for the dining room because he started to slip while he was eating his dinner, until all 4 legs were splayed out under him and he couldn't get up cos it was too slippery. Bless him! I have left him at home today sulking cos he can't go up and lie on the bed all day.

We have started thinking about a Christmas meal for the people who use The Consulting Rooms. We are probably going to go to moules a go-go. We have been before and the food is great.

I have now joined a third swap on swap-bot. I am in the CTnY's summer birthday surprise and reader's delight bookswap and yesterday I joined a bookmark swap where you send 1 handmade and 1 shop bought bookmark to your partner. I am ready to post off the first two swaps, and am waiting for a package to arrive for my birthday next week. The third one hasn't been allocated yet but I have made my bookmarks already. For the bookswap I am sending this book, which I really enjoyed. And I'll put in a little something extra too!

Girly shoes and lunch

As you may remember I am going to a "do" in July. I have shown a pic of my dress already but here is a reminder...........

It is navy and grey. As you may also remember I have the problem of small narrow feet, size 2.5UK. And I don't do heels. So I have been having trouble getting shoes to go with the dress. My sister in law lent me a pair when we were in Ireland but they are 3.5 and were my back up plan just incase I couldn't get any. Friday, Colin had an appointment in Bolton for an hour so I went along and waited for him and had a good old read of The High Lord. I am about half way through now. Anyway, after that we went to The Trafford Centre to look for shoes. After trying a few shops with no luck, we were directed to Debenhams, and tah-dah.................


I got some!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They do have a small kitten heel but it is fine. They do look a little bit more bluey in real life. And they have an ankle strap so they WILL stay on! The front is all beaded and sequined and they are the most girly pair of shoes I have ever owned! I don't do girly!! Or shoes!! But that may have something to do with my shoe size. Maybe if I had normal feet I would buy more shoes. Who knows.

My old boss from the hospital is retiring next Friday, and he invited me to a lunch yesterday in Llangollen with all the old gang. It's lovely because I haven't worked there for 18 months but he still asked me to go. He said I was still thought of as a member of the group. It was in a hotel called the Chainbridge Hotel right beside the river. We had huge windows overlooking the river and when the little steam train went past on the other side we were all waving and all the people were waving back. It was lovely to see everyone, and sorry to anyone I didn't get to talk to much. I had a good old natter with my friend Bex though, who was already a bit tiddled when I got there. I left at about 4.30 when they all moved on to another pub, but I had a text this morning to say they didn't leave until 9pm so goodness knows what state she was in then!! I am going to pop down to the lab for Gil's last day next Friday so will see some more people then.

And we are out for lunch again today. Colin has just had a call from a psychologist friend who is coming to Chester for the day so we are going to meet them in town for a light lunch in Swanky's coffee shop. This has become quite a regular haunt for us recently, very friendly staff and the food is pretty good. I think it is open into the evenings too, and I had thought of maybe using it for a knitting group meet-up, but that was before my "terrible knitting injury" caused by "thirty years of knitting, man and boy". (If you are a Fast Show fan, you will get that reference, if you are not a Fast Show fan, why not????).

Ill, fish fingers, and birthday

Just a short post today, I have been a bit under the weather. I had a bit of a stomach "episode" on Tuesday and Wednesday. I am in the office for an hour or two today because Colin is in London, but I haven't got a great deal of energy. I am going to treat myself to fish fingers, new potatoes and peas tonight!!

I have had a bit of a read of everyone's blogs and I will get around to the memes that I have been tagged with, honest.

I did pop up to knitting club on Monday afternoon, and finished off the second front of the FLIC, and cast on for the first sleeve. No knitting since though, I may have a bit of a go on mum's bag this afternoon. My parent's are coming to visit next week and I would like to get it done if I can.

It was my step-dad's birthday yesterday. I sent him his card but he is going to have his gift when he gets here on Wednesday. Happy Birthday Bill for yesterday.

Please also send get well vibes to my father-in-law who has been in hospital for a week in Ireland. He is doing okay now and hopefully will be going home at the weekend.

Light at the end of the tunnel, fishing bag & sandwiches

Thanks for all the suggestions about my thumb, I think it may have met its match - Arnica! It is not better, but is a lot less stiff and I have been able to knit. Tomorrow I am going to get something called Swedish Bitters from the health food shop. It is actually a supplement of some sort - never heard of it myself - but someone has suggested soaking a cloth in it and wrapping up the thumb in it along with the arnica cream. I'll give it a go anyway. I may get some lovely sexy support gloves too!

We went to the zoo at the weekend, and the orangutans were up to their usual mischief with their sacking wrapped around them. Suddenly Colin said "Would you like one of my pies!" a la Mighty Boosh. I fell about giggling, I'll never look at the orangs the same way again. Their fantastic new enclosure opens in a couple of weeks, it is 3 times as big as the one they have now, they won't know themselves.

So yes I have done a little bit of knitting, I made a start on my mum's bag which I'm making up as I go along. I started at the flap and when I thought that was big enough I cast on the same amount of stitiches again and joined up to knit in the round. When it is big enough I'll add the strap and felt it. I'm using 3 strands of the 4ply Yorkshire Tweed I got from Janette held together. I may need to felt it a couple of times cos the little swatch I did didn't shrink that much. It needs to be big enough to get magazines in for when my mum goes fishing with my step-dad. She doesn't fish, she sits in her chair having a good read!!

Hooray, today is Sandwich Shop sandwich Friday. Since I started working here I have made it the law that we have a sandwich shop sandwich every Friday, but bring our own the rest of the week. That way it stays a treat. Why are sandwich shop sandwiches so much nicer than the ones you make at home?

Tomorrow we are going to Macclesfield to see some friends. However, I didn't realise until a few days ago that it was EUROVISION night!!! I hope they watch it, I think its a scream, and funnier every year. Let's all wish a big tongue-in-cheek GOOD LUCK to SCOOCH!!!

I finished the Patricia Cornwell book last night. If you haven't read any of the Scarpetta novels before, don't start with this one as it relates back to the previous 2 or maybe 3 books in the series. Cases that seemed to be done and dusted in those books are dug up and reviewed, so you do need a bit of knowledge of what has gone before. I am now reading the new book by one of my favourite authors. No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong. I've loved all her previous books, involving werewolves, vampires, ghosts etc. This one is about a necromancer, Jamie Vegas, who has had bit parts in some of the other books and now gets one all to herself. If you have read any others you will be pleased to hear that werewolf pack alpha, Jeremy Danvers, is in this one too.

Oh forgot to mention, I had a lovely get well card from T yesterday. Thank you! It was one of her purchases from piglotties charity cards. Maybe that's why my thumb is feeling better, all the vibes!!

My day at the Manor

(Sorry, bit long.......)

Yesterday I went off to Burton Manor on the Wirral for a day course called "Designer Fashion Hand Knitting". Ok, so they got 2 out of 4 words of the description correct - hand & knitting - good effort.

Here is the description from the brochure:
"For experienced knitters looking at how to transfer a design idea into knitted reality. Using fashion photographs or your own sketched ideas, we examine adaptations for size and shape, and wool and needle size calculations. After experimenting with different wools, colours and textures you will be able to write up knitting instructions for your own individual garment/s. The emphasis will be on sharing ideas."

What would you expect from that description? I took it to be learning how to design a garment to fit with shaping and fitting, and working out sizing from gauge, stuff like that. It seems most of the others in the group thought similarly. Here's how it went:

There were 8 of us in the group and we all sat in a semicircle with our bags of yarn and needles that we'd been told to bring. The first alarm bells regarding the word "fashion" should have sounded when the teacher arrived wearing what I can only describe as a man's jumper. Mid-thigh length, straight up and down with a huge rib gathered around the bottom and cuffs, in brown horizontal stripes, crew neck, probably an aran weight. This was paired with a pair of Simon Cowell waistline (ie belted under the armpits) polyester navy "slacks" and very sensible shoes. I don't want to be critical, she was a lady of a certain age and we'll all get there at some point, but NOTHING about her screamed "fashion". Moving on..................

Our first task was to knit a swatch - what she called a template. But not a plain swatch. She showed us an example of a "fashionable jumper" with intarsia clouds all over it. and we had to draw a cloud on graph paper and transfer that to our swatch. We all duly did this, and went off for a tea break. When we got back, there was no mention of what to do with the swatch but we then had to move on to something more "advanced" - a swatch with a leaf on it. A few looks passed around the group. Some people did it, I did a leaf in relief in one colour and the girl next to me just did her own thing. The next advanced step was to do another swatch with a flower. At this point there were mutterings, people including myself saying it wasn't really the kind of thing we would knit. One lady had arrived wearing a lovely intarsia cardigan that she had made and obviously didn't need to be doing swatches at all. Another lady hadn't actually knit in more than one colour before so the teacher spent some individual time with her while the rest of us got chatting.

Lunch was lovely. Roast pork or beef, roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy, following by some gorgeous puddings which I won't even start to describe. I had a little bit of fruit salad. I got chatting to the lady with the intarsia cardigan, Wendy, who was very nice, and I told her about my sheep. When we got back to class she asked to see them and then another classmate Christina, had a look, and I ended up with orders from them. As it was, Wendy had some Rowan bamboo tape that she decided wasn't her colour so we did a swap, yarn for sheep.

Well, the afternoon session started with where to find ideas. The teacher showed us some photos of "fashions" which could be adapted, most from magazines she had obviously had since the 70s in some dusty attic room. And some examples of - what can I call them? Pub carpets!! At this point 2 people left, saying that it was not what they thought they were coming for. While the teacher spent some time giving a bit of individual tuition again, the rest of us were chatting again, and it turned out that Christina and I had read a lot of the same books, visited a lot of the same websites, and she also writes a blog. We are also about the same age. Some of the ladies had never used circular needles, knit on the round or made socks so the 2 of us ended up showing them how to do new things. I said to her "you could run a course like this, but much better," and she said "WE could do this, but much better".

The icing on the cake for me, was when a lady was talking about getting the lengths of sleeves right. She asked the teacher if you could knit from the top down instead and she said - wait for it - NO! She said, if you had done all your calculations using your swatch/template, you should get a perfectly sized garment and what would be the point of wanting to knit the other way? I am usually quite shy, and don't speak up for myself but I couldn't help myself. I spoke up!! I said, "actually I have just knit a top-down sweater and its the best fitting sweater I have." I brandished my copy of "Fitted Knits" and told them every jumper in the book was top down. There was no way I was going to let that lady go home thinking that the only way to knit a jumper was in 4 pieces from the bottom up.

Actually I think between the two of us, Christina and I managed to p*** the teacher off with our far superior knowledge. Hee hee. Anyway, it was good to spend the day with other knitters and Christina and I exchanged blog addresses and will hopefully be in touch. I was polite when I left and thanked the teacher for her time, but said what I thought on the feedback sheet. And that was my day out at the Manor.

Last night I finally succumbed to the lure of the Posh Yarn sale, and have ordered 2 skeins of Eva 4ply, cashmere/silk in Dapple. Can't wait to get it. There are a few skeins of things left if you are quick!

It looks like Yarn Forward magazine issue 2 is finally on its way. Looking forward to that. I'm not sure what is happening on the forum side of things at the moment but can't say too much.

Oh, and it is my Wedding anniversary today, 13 years, unlucky for some, but not us!!!