Some knitting content!

I was really disappointed in the lack of yarn shops in the Lake District. There was a tiny shop in Ambleside above a cafe called Hannalin Crafts, where I bought two balls of her own handspun DK from her Herdwick sheep. But the shops in Penrith and Keswick were almost exclusively crackly acrylics and I spent probably a total of one minute in there between the two. (Yes, I'm a yarn snob!) You would think there would be a decent yarn shop in a place with such a lot of sheep.

Did I ever put up a finished picture of my red cardigan? I don't think I did. Well here's one. According to Ravelry I finished this on September 19th. That's 3 weeks ago!! Yes, I remember I did finish it before my holiday and that is long gone now.


Pattern: Drops Jacket with Rib from Garnstudio, pattern 100-2
Needles: 5.0mm and 5.5mm
Yarn: Drops Karisma superwash DK
Mods: Don't remember any!

While away I got on with my Baktus scarf which I will be donating to Seasalt for the Bees Conservation Trust


Pattern: Baktus by Strikkelise
Yarn: Lana Grossa Cool Wool Big
Needles: 4.5mm
Mods: increased until there were 58 stitches across then started decreasing again.

I am now casting on for another knitted kitty which my friend Mel requested a while ago. She has probably forgotten but it is their first wedding anniversary on Sunday so I thought I'd give it to her then.

I am taking part in the mystery sock KAL hosted by Through the Loops again this year. It started on 1st October and you get a clue each Thursday. I have completed the first two clues using some of my WIld Fire Fibres sock club yarn.


I'm not sure I like the way it is pooling though. This is after clue 1. It is kind of swamping the actual lace pattern.


Well at least I will wear them and this will get that yarn out of stash.

I have also finished the gift for my friend's new baby. It is another Drops pattern but looks suspiciously like the Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman. Here is a friend of mine modelling it!

Pattern: Jacket in garter stitch b18-25
Yarn: Drops Fabel colour 901
Needles: 3mm
Mods: made the smallest size and added 2 rows to the collar.

I finally caught up to date with the LimenViolet podcasts so had to search for some more. I am trying Stash and Burn, ElectricSheep and the Sassy Sheep at the moment. The woman on ElectricSheep is quite English and posh and sounds just like Melinda Messenger!

Dogs, UFOs and The Moth

Firstly, especially for Clarabelle as requested.........more doggy pics













Yesterday afternoon I had a little bit of a tidy in my knitting baskets, and uncovered a few UFOs!

I found the Interweave waistcoat that I'd thrown in the naughty corner, but looking at it now it is easily fixed and finished.


The first of a pair of Jaywalkers in the Regia Kaffe Fassett sock yarn. I had hoped that this would have more of the bright blue in it, but most of has disappeared under the heel.




The unfinished pair of socks I received during the Sock Wars Day of the Dead competition. These just need a tiny bit more foot length and a couple of toes.

Cherie Amour in Colinette Iona, abandoned becasue I couldn't work out where to continue the pattern after casting off arm holes!









Then there are the projects I am currently working on sporadically, a pair of Monkeys using Wendy Happy bamboo yarn. Coincidentally I made my other pair of Monkeys with bamboo yarn.

And a Drops cardigan with the ebay yarn that arrived last week.







And of course the super secret own design socks that are not progressing very fast at all.






Then today as I was perusing the sites I like to look at regularly, I came across a tutorial for making Dorset buttons and promptly came home and made this.

I have stuck a bit of magnetic tape on the back and turned it into a fridge magnet.









Yesterday I was looking at mooncalf's blog and was reading the comments left. Sometimes I click through onto the commenters' blogs to see if I can pick up on any good ones I'd like to follow. On one called Peapods I clicked through to a site called The Moth. The Moth is a group of people who meet in two places in the USA and get up on stage and tell stories. The stories have to be true and are completely unscripted. They are a maximum of approximately 15-20 minutes long - perfect for my commute to work. I subscribed through itunes (free) and listened to a couple to and from work today. They were really good. Some people are just born story tellers and can string out an incident that maybe took 5 minutes into a whole 20 minute fascinating story. Give The Moth a try, it's worth a listen.

What should I be reading?

I have books on my bookshelf that I acquired because they were books I thought I should read. One of these is Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, another is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins which I have been meaning to read since 6th Form biology.

I also have a book of Greek Myths and Legends. I bring this up because I was listening to one of Stephen Fry's podgrams in the car on the way to work and he mentioned King Midas. All I know is that he was cursed so that everything he touched turned to gold. However, there is another bit where he is given the ears of an ass but no-one knows because he always wears a cap to cover them. Only his barber knows and he is sworn to secrecy. Because the barber has to carry this secret, the only way he can let it out is by shouting into a hole in the ground "Midas has asses ears!" When reeds grow in the place where the hole is they start whispering "Midas has asses ears" and then the trees hear and the secret eventually gets around.

I wondered if this was the basis of the song Whispering Grass, because of the lines

"Whispering grass, don't tell the trees,
'Cos the trees don't need to know."

It makes me wonder what other gems I have missed that are the inspiration for everyday sayings or song lyrics. But where do you start with Greek Myths. Is there a logical order to read them in? Do I need to read the Iliad or Odyssey? Or shall I just dip into my Myths and Legends book? Any thoughts?

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.

Going a bit posh

Thanks for the comments about Ellie, it was a quick fun knit - 2 days - and I may make another at some point, possibly a smaller one. Ellie is about 5 inches tall and is knit from this pattern, using two strands of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn held together, and 3.75mm DPNs. The DPNs were the purple ones which were free with an issue of Let's Knit magazine and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were for a freebie.

Still OTN - Joma, Clapotis and Nutkin.

My Sock Wars assassin sent me some more gifts this week. The leftover Tofutsies from my socks, some jams, and some Socks That Rock sock yarn!!!!!!!!!!! It's fab, and a great colour. And the colourway is called Backstabber, hahahaha!!!


I got through quite a few episodes of another podcast last week. Sticks & String is from "an Australian bloke who knits". It's only half an hour long and easy to listen to, and gives a male perspective of knitting. I also found Stash & Burn a couple of days ago. A bit similar to Lime & Violet but not quite so manic!!

Yesterday we were wondering what to do with ourselves so we went into town to see what was going on. There was a home & garden show on at the racecourse but we didn't fancy that so we walked along the river for a bit and up through Grosvenor Park. Had lunch in The Gallery cafe and after Colin had bought some new sandals, headed back towards the car. There just happened to be some Polo going on at the Racecourse too so we wandered in and ended up finding some chairs right beside the pitch. The match turned out to be the final of the Coutts International Polo Tournament. There were quite a few posh people there whereas we were in shorts and t-shirts!! We watched 2 "chukkas" and took part in the treading in, where the crowd goes onto the pitch and treads in all the divots that have been thrown up by the hooves. I think traditionally it is supposed to be the ladies who do this while carrying a drink in a posh glass but there were men and kids and dogs doing it yesterday. The weather was fabulous dahling!! I came home with a bit of sun. When we looked it up later we should have paid £10 each for the priviledge but there was nowhere that we could see that said we had to pay. We just wandered in off the street!

This morning we went for a walk along the river but this time at The Meadows. Very pleasant. And this afternoon I finally finished reading Grave Doubts. It has taken me quite a while to get through this, it is about 600 pages long and I kept having long gaps between readings, but when i did get down to it I read a chunk at a time and the pages turned very quickly. It was pretty good for an English murder story, I've never been able to get into Ruth Rendell etc, but there were rather a lot of very annoying typos throughout the book. (she says, quickly checking this post for errors!!). I have now decided to have a go at A Metropolitan Murder by Lee Jackson. It is a much thinner book so I should get through it quicker.

On Tuesday night we went to see Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I thought Harrison Ford was really good in it and completely forgot the age issue. It was a good old romp but the ending was a bit daft, reminding me of the X-flies movie. Talking of which......the new one is out soon. Woohoo.

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!

books etc.

So last Sunday was Mother's Day, and this is what I made for my mum. It is from the latest issue of Let's Knit magazine. It came out quite big because I used a ball of Wendy Fusion and 5mm needles, so I didn't have enough lavender in the garden to fill it. I added some polyester stuffing in the end. I also sent her some Liz Earle body wash.



I actually watched her open it on the webcam!! This webcam has produced much hilarity, not least of which when I flashed my knickers and other undergarments at them. (The ones hanging on the clothes dryer behind me at the time!!). Here's my mum and step-dad concentrating at their end!

Whilst listening to a knitting podcast Pointy Sticks, (which sadly hasn't been updated since March 2007) I heard about an earlight. This is like a bluetooth telephone earpiece but is actually a torch. I got one from ebay and it's ingenious and perfect for knitting when it is getting dark and the light in the room just isn't bright enough for fiddly work.

Tuesday night is the first night of the new knitting group. I'm quite excited and intrigued to see how many turn up. I think we will be at least six anyway so it won't be a complete flop.

I have just finished reading Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly. As usual you have to suspend all disbelief when reading an MR novel. This one ended at a huge cliffhanger and its going to be ages till the next book. I think I need something totally different after that so am going to try The Beekeeper's Pupil. I've had it for ages so its time I got round to giving it a go. Nothing else on my 50-strong TO Read shelf is jumping out at me.

I joined Bookmooch about a week ago. You list books you have read and get points for listing them, and then if someone asks for one you get more points which you can then spend on books you want. I have been asked for 7 of my books already so am building up a nice little cache of points to spend when I feel like it.

Answer me this!

A quick plug - have a listen to this podcast

http://answermethis.wordpress.com/

Its just a couple of people answering questions sent in by listeners but is quite amusing. There is some bad language and dodgy content so keep the kids away, but check it out.

I had to rip the Zokni socks back to the beginning AGAIN last night, cos i made a mistake on row 8 of the lace pattern. I didn't know how to pick up the rib stitches once they were off the needles so I started again. This time I have discovered the wonders of LIFELINES!!! I'm putting one in after every 10 rows!!

Sock crisis!!

I have been having a major sock crisis!! I need to have a sock in progress, it's just one of those things. I finish a pair of socks and I have to cast on another pair straight away. Is that an addiction? From my last post you can see I cast on the Zokni socks in the Fauveline Yarn. This is the second time I have attempted these socks, the first time was with garnstudio fabel in the 672 colourway. This was far too busy to show the stitch pattern, so they got ripped out and the yarn became a Dragon Scales scarf. This time the Fauveline yarn was too fiddly and also too busy, so the little I had done (one and a bit repeats) got ripped out and that yarn put back in the stash for a later date. I really want to use this yarn because it is so interesting and very soft when knitted up which is a bit surprising. I have now cast on for a third time using a plain(-ish) light coloured yarn (the bottom one in this pic).

I am only on the rib so no opinions on its success yet but fingers crossed.

I have also whipped up a little project that I saw in the latest issue of Let's Knit magazine. I can't show it yet as it will be a gift. (If you are on ravelry you can see here). It took me an evening and about another hour to complete and I used up the single ball of Wendy Fusion from my stash.

I only have 2 other WIPs, one is the Drops 88-4 cardigan (link on left sidebar) which I really want to finish this month, and the other is a lacy scarf that has been hibernating for about 12 months. I picked it up the other day and it is actually quite pretty, so I may go back to that too.

Well I've gone and let myself in for another round of sock-related bloodshed and signed up for Sock Wars III. It all kicks off on 9th May. This time it is sponsored by South West Trading Company Tofutsies Yarn but I don't think you have to use that yarn. It seems that that would suggest that this time it will be sock yarn weight rather than DK weight as used in the last two rounds. Well we shall wait and see. Go on over and sign up, the more warriors the better, but be warned there is a $2 charge this time too, but what's that? A pound? Nothing really.

There is growing interest in the knitting group at Borders. They have even put it in the events page on the website (click the link and scroll down). I was up there on Sunday afternoon and there was a poster on the notice board just inside the door and one on the end of the knitting books section, so it is well publicised. There has been interest from customers of Stash too, so I wonder how many people will turn up. 'Citin'!! I was listening to the podcast "Lixie Knits It" and she mentioned she was on ravelry so I messaged her to say I liked her podcast. We "chatted" a bit and I mentioned the group and she said she will try to remember to mention it on the next podcast which she is doing at the weekend!

Have a look at this pattern, Cherie Amour from knitty.com. I managed to miss this one and only happened to click on a link from another blog. It is definitely going on my to-do list!

Finally on knitting news, I bought a ringbinder and some clear pockets and sorted out all my printed off knitting patterns. They were all over the place but are now filed by type - socks, scarves, jumpers etc. I had more than I thought in the end, I just kept finding them in my various knitting bags and piles of magazines. Oh there's a thought, I could go through the magazines and tear out the patterns I want to keep and chuck the rest in the recycling, hmm, may do that this evening.

Update on The Gorgeous One - he started getting very defiant and ignoring our attempts to stop him doing things he shouldn't so we rang up Amanda at BarkBusters for advice. She said to not give him any praise or cuddles etc for 48 hours!! It was agony. When he realised what was going on he started becoming extra cute and desperate for attention, bringing us all his toys and rolling around the floor as if to say "look at me, aren't I wonderful?" His behaviour did improve though when he worked out he wasn't getting attention. This morning he got lots of cuddles and seemed none the worse for his experience.

I hate to even think about it, but the big birthday is coming up later in the year. I have decided I would like to take better photos and learn how to do it properly. I like taking "snaps" but I'd like to be able to take arty type photos. I know you need to be a bit artistic to recognise an arty subject in the first place, and I'm not really that way inclined, but surely you can learn that to some extent. Anyway, Colin suggested that he gets me a digital SLR camera for the big birthday, so I'm going to take my time and get advice on what would be a good one to get for "an enthusiastic beginner"! I want to learn about lighting and f-stops and all that technical stuff that the compact point-and-shoot camera that I now have does for me. And then there's all the imaging software stuff these days instead of developing. Could be a huge learning curve.

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

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?

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!