Scarf and history

Today, the BBC are asking ordinary people to write a diary of their day and upload it. They want to build a picture of what everyday life is like in Britain to store it for future generations to learn about. The link is http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/Page96.asp You have until Nov 1st to upload your diary entry. They don't want exciting dramatic entries, just ordinary mundane goings on of real life. Interesting, I think I'll do it.

I caught up with an old friend on msn messenger over the last week or so. When I told him I was knitting, he asked if I could make him a scarf for walking his dog in the Welsh winds. Here is the result....... It's actually a lot brighter in real life! Hope he likes it.

A set of my stitch markers sold on ebay for 99p so I was quite chuffed, though its not going to make me millions! Gonna put a pair of my handmade fluffy slippers on in a minute. My neighbour popped round earlier and when I showed them to her she said she'd like some for her two daughters for Christmas. Result!

The other day I discovered a "Blogs of Note" called 3 Beautiful Things where the author lists 3 things they have seen or done that day that made them happy. So here are mine:

My 3BTs
1. My dog still looking and acting like a puppy even though he is 15 next week
2. Being told how good my slippers were.
3. Ordering the rest of the gorgeous yarn for my jumper.

Not too exciting but they made me happy.

Another scarf and yarn for jumper

Just a short post to show the scarf I made for my 4 year old niece - she saw her mum's and wanted one in "mad colours".



















Then you just had to see the gorgeous yarn I have for a jumper, the colours are sooo lovely.

stitch markers and fluffy slippers

Here are some pics of things I have made over the last few days. The blue and silver stitch markers I have listed on ebay at a starting price of 99p, so we'll see how they go and maybe do some more.

I love the slippers and have made another pair in the same colours but matching so that both start dark and go light on the foot.

Stuff I've knitted

Here are a few pics of the things I've knitted since going back to it recently.

The pink, grey and white socks are the Socks Of Doom I have knitted for Nina in the US.

The jumper is from Noro Unlimited and is Noro Silk Garden shade 84

The scarf is just some eyelash wool I got in the market and knitted up really quickly on 9mm needles and 20 stitches in garter stitch. And the 3 socks are just socks!!

Holidays, socks, Ed Byrne and dogs

Wow, where did the last 3 weeks go? I can't believe I've been back from holiday for a week already! It was a great break, especially for Colin who works so hard. We had a gorgeous villa with a pool (see photos) and the beaches went on and on and on.... It was a place called Conil de la Frontera near Cadiz on the Altantic coast of Spain. The area has not been invaded by the Brits and is not built up or anything. And hardly any English is spoken there, which was a struggle at times but we got by.

One thing I found hard was the meal times. I'm used to lunch at 1 and dinner about 7. Over there they don't serve lunch until 2 and dinner till 8.30. I was starving, hahahah!!! Although it was lovely, its always nice to get home and have a nice cup of tea!!!

While I was away I was getting excited about Sock Wars. I expected to get home and find I'd been "killed" ie have a pair of socks waiting for me in the post. But no, I was still in the game, or so I thought. I checked my email and there was no "assassination dossier" with my victims details so I checked the Yarnmonkey blog to discover a lot of people had not received their dossiers either. After some investigating it turns out that I had not been included in the game after all. I was most disappointed and wrote a comment on the blog. A very nice lady called Nina in Oklahoma offered to do a sock swap with me, so I am carrying on with my Socks of Doom and will be sending them off to her and she is doing the same. (Well I hope that is happening, for all I know she could be a big hairy bloke with a chainsaw! I hope he likes pink, white and grey!!!! )

Last Sunday night we went to see the Irish comedian Ed Byrne. He had rave reviews at the Edinburgh festival and didn't disappoint. The show is loosely wound around the story of the Michael Douglas film Falling Down, with Ed joking about how he would like to be Douglas' character, but with lots of digression onto other unrelated subjects. A good show. The support guy was a bit odd but had his moments. And luckily there was no audience participation which is a HUGE fear I have at live theatre things. I would never sit in the front! We were in row H which I thought was near enough but it then turned out there was no A-D so we were actually in row 4. Yikes. I still think The Mighty Boosh was a brilliant show though, we went to that in March. I love the Boosh - roll on series 3!!!!

Sadly, it seems our dog is getting old. He will be 15 next month and a couple of days ago he had a bit of a turn and has now had 4 of them. Its a small seizure type thing. The vet has given him medication and it hasn't happened yet today so fingers crossed. Its so upsetting to see it happen, I cry every time, probably because it makes me think of the inevitable "goodbye". Oooo quick, change the subject. Here is a pic of him a couple of years ago. Ain't he cute?

Got a new bit of kit yesterday. I went for a check up on my diabetes and insulin pump and I am trialling a piece of software for Roche which downloads info from the pump and blood glucose meter to your PC. It gives nice pretty graphs, except mine look awful cos they are all over the shop especially after the carb/insulin balancing (or mostly falling off) chaos of being on holiday, Still, all getting back on track this week. My HbA1c was slightly better at 8.8 down from 8.9. Not a great difference but I was expecting much worse, so I was secretly pleased with that. Lots of effort and gritting of teeth needed to get down to 7 still. Oh yeah, I'm going for hypnosis next Friday to see if she can help with the anxiety.

I got my first Reiki client. A friend of ours is going to let me treat her on Wed 25th. I'm not charging her, I need someone to practice on. I have had great results doing the distant Reiki so now I need someone "hands-on". Should be interesting.

Ongoing knitting projects are 3 pairs of socks and a scarf, and I just got some oddments of 4ply chenille from ebay this morning, so that will probably be another scarf and I have some chunky purple stuff coming from ebay too in the next day or two but I'm not sure what that will be yet. And while I was in Liverpool yesterday I popped into John Lewis - just to have a look, mind - and popped out again with two balls of mutli-coloured chunky and some 12mm and 15mm needles! I want to make a nice jumper in a lime-y green sometime too. I have got a great pattern on knitty.com (called Lucie) but I need to choose some yarn, the one they use is from America and VERY expensive. Oh, Christmas isn't that far off is it?

Writing update

Ahem, yes well it all sounded so promising in January didn't it.

Actually tho' in February i did sit down and write 25,000 words of my book. Unfortunately that was it. The ideas are still swarming and will get down on paper soon.

Sock Wars

I have recently started knitting again after about a 10 year break and am now obsessed with making socks. I am currently on my 5th pair. Last week I discovered Sock Wars http://yarn-monkey.blogspot.com/ and have signed up. I won't be able to start my socks until the 29th Sept tho' so I will already be a week behind and probably "dead" before I even start. But I'm not going to cancel my holiday!

I will now attempt to add some pics of my recent knitting projects.

The little cardi was for a friend's 9 month old and is made with Rowan 4ply Soft in 3 colours. The pattern is from Stitch n Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller.

The armwarmer is one of a pair, and is from the same book, made with Noro Kureyon No.159.
I will add some pics of my socks when I have them.

other stuff from today

Well, I met a fellow bookcrosser last Friday, which was quite interesting. We swapped one book each between ourselves and then released a few in the wild. She has had a "catch" from one of hers, but it seems i had a very near miss. The girl whgo picked up her book, actually found mine first but had already read it so left it there. Ah, so near and yet so far.
Last night I left a Terry Pratchett in a bar, while we were watching a tribute band called Crowded Scouse. Unfortunately the sound was pretty bad, couldn't hear the singer very well, so we didn't stay till the end.
Tonight I am having a meal with all my ex work colleagues. I left in November but they are such a good bunch that I get invited to everything still. I even went to 2 free Christmas lunches!" Very generous. I wonder what book I can offload tonight!!!
Last weekend we met our friends' new baby, she was very cute and despite her numerous attempts to have a screaming fit while i was holding her, I managed to keep the dummy in her mouth fairly well and all remained calm.
Well hopefully i will return in a month's time having been most productive on the writing front, rather than just not getting round to blogging. I think the key is to not go onto the internet while I'm at the keyboard so I don't get distracted from my task!
Back in a month!!

the weekend novelist

Hmmm, seems like the "40 days to more imaginative writing" has fallen by the wayside! I did manage to get to Day 4, but the mammoth task of making a list of everyone I had every met in my life felt a bit overwhelming and I just couldn't get round to it!
BUT... I now have 2 more writing books. The first one should take you through the process of writing a novel in a year by just working at weekends. This one is unsurprisingly called "The weekend novelist". I started to read that but in the meantime heard about the National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. This happens every year in November where thousands of people sign up to the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This amounts to 1667 words per day. At the end of the month you submit your work for word count verification. However, with it presently being January, I have kind of missed the boat this time round. But, there is a book called No Plot, No Problem written by the guy who runs nanowrimo. So you can basically do the challenge whenever you like. And the great thing is, you focus all your time on trying to get 50,000 words written that you write and write anything you like just to get a first draft. Making it any good comes later. I am DEFINATELY going to have a go at this. He suggests starting on the 1st of a month, so next Wednesday is it then. May start Monday seeing as there are only 28 days in Feb so i need to make up 2 days, it's only fair.
I have also made an agreement with a friend of mine, (this was before I got No Plot..) that I will have written one chapter by the 1st April and he will have written a song (these are both first drafts). If I turn up with a 50,000 word novel, he's gonna be spitting feathers!! Hahaha!!! I need to do a couple of preparatory things suggested in the book before I start and then off I go, all guns blazing! Watch this space!!!

Fat dog Mendoza

My poor dog is officially fat! He went to the vet last week and the vet said he was too heavy, so we have to cut down the amount of food we give him. Poor old fella, he's 14 now, with a grey beard and deaf as a post. Why can't he just get old gracefully? He's certainly not going to lose the weight through exercise, he starts dragging his heels after about ten minutes these days, but then who doesn't? Cutting down on his dinner means I can still sneak him a treat every now and again tho'.

Bookcrossing obsessed!

This has taken over my life! I am constantly checking www.bookcrossing.com to see if anyone found my books and somehow I didn't get an email to tell me. I guess the novelty will wear off soon and one day I'll get an email about a book I had totally forgotten about.
As of this morning I have released 6 books "in the wild". A 7th one was sent to a known person who very kindly did leave me a journal entry, and joined as a new bookcrosser themselves. I hope I haven't turned them into an obsessive too!
I wonder if someone has found one of my books and will leave an entry when they have finished reading it, rather than straight away. Of course, more than likely it has been found by someone with no interest in the internet or who just doesn't want to journal it. It's a risk you take in leaving your books behind. It is a bit disheartening though.

First entry

Oooh, this is all new to me...
Well hi, this is my first post on my first blog, not sure what it will all lead to. The title of my blog kind of indicates I would like big things to happen from here onwards. The purpose of the blog is to get me into the habit of writing regularly, with the goal of getting a children's book written and published in the future. I am just starting out on a fledgling writing career, having recently stopped working full-time. I have an idea, I just need to make it happen. I have a book that will give me an exercise to do every day for 40 days, to stimulate my creativity. Yesterday I did Exercise 1, write for 10 minutes starting with "When I write, I...." Hmmm, what would you come up with?
This won't just be a blog about my attempts to write, how boring would that be? There should be all kinds of random ramblings as time goes on.
My recent discovery has been book crossing. Have a look at www.bookcrossing.com for more info. It is extremely addictive, if you love books and reading. You register books you own on the site and they get a unique tracking number. When you have finished the book and don't want to keep it, you release it in a public place for someone else to find. Hopefully they will log onto the website and leave you a message to say they found your book, what they think of it and where they are sending it next. If you are very lucky you can follow your book's travels all around the world. So, next time you are in a coffee shop, on a bus or train, sitting in the park, keep your eyes peeled, you may find a book "in the wild".
Well I think that's enough for my first attempt, I'm off to complete Exercise 2. Wish me luck!
Dee