Celebrity week at little-acorns!

Last night we went to see Beverley Knight in concert. I'll admit I went to make up the numbers so to speak, I only know one song of hers, but Colin has somehow been "chatting" to her on Twitter and when she announced she would be in Liverpool on her tour he got a couple of tickets.

So after finally finding somewhere to park near the Royal Philarmonic off we went and sat in our box seats! How posh!

The support band were Mama's Gun and they were pretty good. Very tight.

After that Beverley Knight came on. After about 5 songs she said "This next song is dedicated to someone I never met, but ....(something I didn't quite hear but was something like "through the power of Twitter" )........ I know her brother. His name is Colin and he is doing amazing things through 365challenge to raise money for cancer research." Everybody shouted and clapped at this point. I just looked at Colin, and he was as stunned as I was!! "I don't know where you are Colin but this song is for Brenda." I was saying to him "stand up and wave!" but she wasn't looking in the right direction so he didn't. I said "you have to try and see her at the end, I'm sure she'll want to say hello after that" so at the end we went down to the edge of the stage and explained who he was. We eventually got ushered outside to the stage door with the other people waiting to get things signed and eventually at 12.15am she came out! We let the other people get their stuff signed and then Colin told her who he was and we got a picture. Unfortunately I only had my iPhone with me and no flash so its a bit dodgy but here she is with Colin.



Then her manager whisked her away and she shouted "I'll tweet you later".

The song she sang for Brenda was Gold. You can watch it here on YouTube.

What a pair we are with our celebrity friends!!

U2 360

(Photos in this post not the best quality as they are from my iPhone.)

Thursday morning we set off for Sheffield - in the rain. This was the view from the car on the M56 - nice!


As we headed over the Snake Pass it was still raining.


When we arrived it stopped and it turned into a lovely sunny afternoon. This is Sheffield town hall.


Colin had a drink in the bar of the hotel when we arrived, as the room wasn't quite ready, and he didn't have to drive to the concert as we were going on the SuperTram!


We set off just after 5 and got to the tram stop as it started to rain again. Colin ran back for the raincoats which we had thought we weren't going to need, and off we went. We had to wear the coats while we were queuing to get in as it was raining quite a lot and we were a bit worried that it was going to be 5 and a half hours of sitting in the wet! But as we got through the gates the rain stopped and the sun came out and this was our first view of the 360 stage, it was huge.


The first support band came on at 6 while I was pushing and shoving and spending far too much at the merchandise stall! I got a T-shirt and a very nice fleece which I was glad of later on when it got cold because apart from the raincoat I only had a thin cardi. The band were called The Hours and weren't bad.

At 7pm, Elbow came on. I do quite like Elbow but I wouldn't go to see them live as headliners. Their music is more to be listened to at home or in the background as it is not the kind of music to whip up a crowd. They were ok though.

Almost an hour passed, and then "Space Oddity" by David Bowie started and smoke started pouring out of the top of the set and around the edges, and everyone started whistling and shouting. As the track ended Larry strode over the walkway and started the intro to "Breathe" and we were off! There was a real mix of new songs and golden oldies like "Unforgettable Fire", "Sunday Bloody Sunday", and "Pride" and we all had to sing Happy Birthday to U2's set designwer Willie Williams who is from Sheffield and it was his birthday that day. (A bit of creative scheduling I wonder?)

And as it got dark the stage transformed into this.....


and this.


A brilliant show, but then U2 always put on a good show. Roll on the next tour!

The Corporate Life

So another week has passed by in a flash. Last weekend my parents came to visit so that is the end of staying guests for a while.

Tomorrow night we have a couple of friends coming round for Eurovision night silliness. I'm sure it will be the usual mix of mad songs, even madder costumes and political voting, but it's good entertainment. Apparently 2 of the entries feature knitting, Moldova and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Hmmm, curious.

What's on my needles? I am still plodding on with the Joma jumper for Colin from Let's Knit magazine. Interestingly it is a pattern from a Sublime knitting book and in there it is called Yoke. I have finished the back and have almost completed the second half of the front. My Clapotis is kind of hibernating until i finish the jumper. I also started a pair of Nutkin socks yesterday using some of the Angels & Elephants sock yarn I got from ebay.


I learned a new technique doing the cuffs because you knit 5 rounds, purl a round, knit 6 rounds and then fold over and knit the cast on edge onto the active stitches. It is very neat




I have also been listening to a lot of Lime & Violet podcasts. I now have an adapter to plug my iPod in in the car so I listen to them chatting on my way to and from work. I am toying with the idea of doing one myself, and am hoping to get Becca on board so that it is a bit chatty like L&V rather than me wittering on to myself. I am trying to find out where to start at the moment as I wouldn't have a clue!

Yesterday I texted Becca to see how she is getting on with her Clapotis and she suggested we had lunch. As I am more flexible with my timings I went to meet her at the head offices of MBNA (other banks are available!) where she works. It is on a big business park and it took me a while to find it, this wasn't helped by the fact that it is not signposted MBNA but Bank of America which was a tad confusing. Anyway, it is a huge building with pillars flanking the main entrance, a fountain and tall flagpoles!! I had to be signed in and we went through to the coffee shop inside called The Atrium. This is a large glass structure linking two parts of the building together like a huge conservatory. And they have a Costa coffee shop in there!! There is a payment system where the staff have to top up a keycard in a hole in the wall, to use at the till. Very hi-tech!!

So we sat and chatted about her holiday, knitting and various other things. AND........she is coming to Woolfest, woohoo!! Because of this we have decided not to go up to John Lewis and save our money for a big binge at Woolfest. Apart from this it will probably only be the dregs left anyway, because it is their last day opening on Monday, so it may have been a wasted trip. So there are quite a few people I know going to Woolfest now, and looking at the list of stands I noticed that The Natural Dye Studio are going to be there. I have had quite a few of their yarns from ebay so I am looking forward to that. There are about 100 stands so that should keep me occupied for a while!!

I have just got home from work and found 3 packets waiting for me. One was a bookmooch book, The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow. Another was the Knitter's Almanac which I got from The Book Depository for about £3.



And the third one was my renewed subscription to Yarn Forward magazine with a free skein of laceweight yarn. Unfortunately it is a lime green colour but I could always dye it I suppose, Chris & Mel were threatening to teach me how!

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.

Podcasts

Oooo, two posts today!!

You may remember I treated myself to a little iPod nano a couple of weeks ago. I'm not a big music listener, but one thing I have discovered is PODCASTS. I really like listening to Jonathan Ross on a Saturday morning but as we usually go into town then, I only catch bits of it in the car on the way there and back. By downloading the podcast i can listen to it whenever I like and each new episode is automatically downloaded when I open iTunes. I have done the same with Russell Brand. You don't get any of the music (this is probably something to do with copyright laws and stuff) but you get all the chat in between. Russell has about 1hr 15min a week of him rambling on about a load of old twaddle. I think I might give the Chris Moyles one a whirl too.

Apart from radio shows there is a world of ordinary people doing their own free podcast recordings. You can search for anything and find someone has done a podcast on it, knitting, diabetes, reiki, anything you want. I can't vouch for the quality of any of this stuff though. You don't need to have an iPod to listen either, you can just download iTunes (which is free) and listen through your computer. Give it a whirl!

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.

Swapping Monkeys

Ooo, I had a mystery parcel arrive on Saturday. It was my CTnY Summer Birthday Surprise package. I opened the outer envelope, and inside were several little parcels wrapped in tissue paper. Can't wait till Wednesday to open them. I will post pics then. I think I know who it is from, because there was a postcode on the envelope, but I'll wait to see if I am right.

There was also a package from my mum, which contained the Mika CD. Not going to listen to it until Wednesday either! Aren't I good?

I sent off a book to my partner in the Reader's Delight bookswap on Thursday, but I haven't heard whether they have received it or not. As this is my first swap, I don't know if you get an email when they acknowledge receipt of it or not. I put in a couple of my sheep stitch markers and a notebook and a bookmark too. I now have the names and addresses of my bookmark swap partners, 2 in the US and one in Australia. I wonder who is going to be sending to me. I managed to find some bookmarks in town on Saturday and I've made the handmade ones already so I'm ready to send those off too. I also have to wrap up the things I have for my Summer Birthday Surprise partner, and that has to go off soon.

I have just heard The Arctic Monkeys on the radio which reminded me of a band featured in Q magazine this month. They are a tribute band called The Antarctic Monkeys. But they are also a support band called something else, and they are the support act for........... The Antarctic Monkeys. In other words, they support themselves! That way people going to see them as The Antarctic Monkeys see them as themselves too so they get a bit of promotion. What a good idea.