Bit of catching up

I've got a bit of catching up to do. Somehow, since the end of the frantic NaNo month I have lost the desire to write anything. I need to get back into the habit of blogging rather than novelling.

As for "the novel", I haven't even read it myself yet. I am going to do what they say and not look at it until January. Then I will read it and decide if I am going to work on it further (- I can hear Colin shouting "you must, you must" from here!) We'll see. Now that the month has finished I can look back on it and say that I enjoyed the challenge and the satisfaction of winning, and will probably do it again next year. But it was a struggle some days.

So what do I need to catch up on? Oh yeah, we went to see The Mighty Boosh again last Tuesday at the Manchester Apollo. When I ordered the tickets back in December 2007(!) I got four and up to a few weeks ago there were three of us going. But number three dropped out so I asked Becca and Mark if they wanted to come. Apparently Mark was pretty excited about it but Becca hadn't really seen the Boosh before and wasn't sure what to expect. Anyway, we went and got there despite the stupid sat nav sending us the wrong way. I think I enjoyed it more this time because the seats were much better (row M in the stalls and I was on the end on the aisle so the Hitcher walked right past me) and we could see everything on the stage. Becca was clapping, shouting and laughing in all the right places so I'm happy that she enjoyed it. During the interval, Paul King, the TV series director was talking to the guy in front of me but I didn't realise it was him 'til he was walking away!

I know Nina likes a book review every now and again so here is my latest. Angels of 9/11 by Caitlin Walsh. This is the story of a man who died in 1980 and has been watching over his son ever since. He knows that his son is going to die in the Twin Towers and he helps him to cross over. Then it all gets a bit evangelical about doing good while you are on earth, and sort of becomes a self help book in novel form. Its okay if you believe in life after death etc, but I'm not sure I really liked it.

On Saturday I am getting a new car. The one I wanted a few months ago, a Mazda 2.

On the needles I have another pair of Fetching. Can't show them though, shhhh!! It is knitting group tomorrow night and myself and my co-organiser are taking mince pies and sweeties for everyone to wish them a Merry Christmas. Think I might take some photos too!

Not going on about it

It's going to get a bit tedious for me to keep posting my NaNoWriMo total each day in a new post so I've added it to the sidebar and I'll update it there instead. As you can see I'm still up to speed. I managed to get finished by 11.30 this morning so if I'm feeling inspired I may add some more later.

I am a couple of rows off the end of the Day of the Dead sock 1. In the new rules you don't actually finish the sock because your original target is not necessarily the person who will receive them so you have to stop when the foot is 5inches long and send them like that for the recipient to finish themselves. Seems a bit disappointing to receive an unfinished pair really. I wonder how the winner will be determined. Will it be when their final target receives their unfinished sock or when that person finishes them? Maybe at that stage the socks will need to be finished by the assassin because the final recipient will be known. Have to wait and see won't we?

I had a text earlier to say that my Mighty Boosh tickets will be delivered tomorrow. If anyone is interested I will have a spare one which I'll be wanting to sell, so if you fancy going to the Manchester Apollo on Tuesday Dec 2nd, email me or leave a comment and we'll work something out.

I've just realised all my latest entries have been photo free! I'll have to do something about that, I much prefer blogs with photos. I'll take a pic of sock 1 and post it tomorrow. Until then I'd better do some work for a change!

Ireland, to be sure.

Seeing as we have been back from our hols for 10 days now, I thought I ought to post a few pics which aren't Booshy!

The first place we stopped when we got there was Gorey, Co. Wexford. Some friends of ours moved back here from North Wales about a year ago so we stayed with them for 2 nights. These are their children. Do not ask me to spell their names, there are too many bs and hs in there to get my head around but phonetically they are Niall(l), Cweeva(r) and Derval(middle). Unfortunately Cweeva had her eyes closed in every one of the photos I have.
(Edit: the names are Niall, Caoimhe and Dearbhail)



From there we headed over to the west coast to Lahinch in Co. Clare where we had an apartment for 5 nights. This is one of the two streets there, the other is a main street with several pubs and shops.


The weather was pretty dismal for the first few days but we drove around looking at the beaches from under our rainhoods and through the car windows. One evening in Lahinch there was a surfing competition and between the rounds there was a husband and wife who went out on one surfboard and performed acrobatic feats for our entertainment.




On the Tuesday the weather cleared up and we were able to go to The Cliffs of Moher which is apparently the most popular tourist attraction in Ireland.


I thought this one was rather attractive too. She was called Bessie


and this was her owner busking at the Cliffs


Gratuitous shots of me and Colin at The Cliffs




On our last night in Lahinch there was a lovely sunset out of the window of the restaurant we were eating at




Oh I do have a couple more Booshy photos. Here you can see how high up we were from the stage


And this is a rather blurry shot of Noel. The pictures had to be taken without the theatre staff seeing as you weren't supposed to take photos.


I finally finished reading The Cure Of Souls by Phil Rickman last night. I can't believe it took me nearly two months to read this. That's the knitting habit for you! I do like this series of books but I felt it got a bit higgledy piggledy at the end. Maybe it was because I took so long to read it and lost the thread of the story. The next book I am gong to read is Storm Front by Jim Butcher.

In knitting news The Tweedy Waistcoat is coming along nicely, no pics yet! I have the back and one and a half fronts done. I didn't realise before I started that it was knit in so many pieces. I do like the two colours that I (and Anne at the LYS) picked for this, they do go well together and it will be quite understated but smart enough for work.

Oh yeah, me & Noel & Julian, we're like THAT (holds up crossed fingers)

I am back off my holliers! We went to Ireland for 10 days starting with 2 days with some friends in Wexford and then going over to Co. Clare for 5 days. But enough about that......................

The reason we went was because Colin's nephew had got us tickets to see The Mighty Boosh in Dublin on 17th September. The seats were in the upper circle and it was general seating and quite a few people were in already when we got there so we were on the end, four rows from the front. We had to lean forward a bit to see all the stage and we couldn't see the screen at the back but there were only 2 times when you needed to see that and hopefully we will have good seats at Manchester in December.

Anyway..............(.don't read the next bit of you haven't seen the show yet and don't want to spoil it. I'll do it in a different colour so you know where to scroll down to.)

They came out singing "Future Sailors", Noel in sparkly silver top, black jeans & silver boots and Julian in a lovely white sailor suit with blue piping! Then they did a bit of banter about what they'd been doing since series 3. It was then time to introduce their special guests....the usual suspects arrived, Bob Fossil, Naboo and Bollo. Then Noel as Tony Harrison, Julian as Crack Fox, the Boosh band featuring Rudi on guitar, the Hitcher singing "Eels". After the interval it was time for one of Howard Moon's plays. This was all totally new material and culminated in the 2 of them in very skimpy outfits showing off the full glory of their pasty white legs!! Then the band came out again and Noel, Julian, Mike, Dave and Rich were all dressed as old ladies doing the Nanageddon song, swinging handbags and all. Finally there was a medley of songs from the TV series including the soup song and bouncy bouncy. There is a really funny bit involving the Honey Monster too. (There are links in this paragraph, just click on the names of the songs to see YouTube videos)

We didn't see anyone dressed up in the audience but apparently the night before there had been someone in a full panda outfit!!

And then there was the book signing!!!!!!!!!!! We knew that there was going to be a signing of the Mighty Book of Boosh on Saturday 20th at 1pm. So we had planned to go down to Easons at about 10am and I would get in the queue while Colin parked the car somewhere easy to get to ready to head off to get the ferry afterwards. But on Friday we went into Easons and there was a notice up saying they were only issuing 250 tickets on a first come first serve basis so I thought I'd have no chance. I was so disappointed because I was almost looking forward to that more than the show itself, the chance to actually meet them in person. Although Colin was suffering with a cold and cough he got me up at 5am (what did I do to deserve him?) and we arrived at Easons at 5.30am and there was NO-ONE THERE. I was FIRST in the queue. We queued outside for 3 hours then were let in and I got ticket number one


and we queued for another four and a half hours sitting on the floor of the shop,

and then THERE THEY WERE.................

Julian looking very cool in his shades, and Noel just looking cool anyway, can he ever look anything but?




I think this photo is of Noel talking to me.......


and this is him possibly signing my book or the one we got for Peter & Jenny (Colin's nephew & girlfriend).




Didn't manage to get in any of the photos with them (Colin did his best among the security men and bookshop staff!) but I think the photo of Noel signing with Julian without his sunglasses on, is Noel signing my book. Julian had the book first and he took off his glasses and looked me straight in the eyes with this HUGE beaming smile, and I just didn't know what to say. I just smiled back and said "Hi Julian!" Then he passed the book to Noel and I said to Noel "I've been here since half past five to get first in the queue" and he said "Did you get first in the queue?" (there had been 8 competition winners who were brought in first to get signed) and I said "Yep!" Then he signed the book and I said "Thank you" and put my hand out and he shook my hand!!!!!!!! and he said "Nice to meet you" and then it was all over! But Oh God, it was brilliant!! I touched Noel Fielding and he spoke to me!!!!!!! They are both so nice and polite, but the funny thing was they looked really big, like bigger than lifesize, it was quite odd.

And here is the proof that it all happened......


I have reserved 2 tickets for the signing in Manchester in December too, so this time I'll be prepared with questions and I'll make sure Colin gets me in a photo with them.

Someone came in a full Old Gregg outfit, but she was too late to get a ticket, bless her. Full marks for being brave enough to walk through Dublin dressed like that though.

(Click any of the above photos to see them in all their full size glory!)

Bainbridge scarf

Also congratulations to my friend Mark who has just become a daddy. Click on over and see his cute little son Ben.

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!!

Repairs and a book review

I can't believe it is already only a few days until the Borders Knitting group meeting. It is next Tuesday. I have been in to the LYS and they have had more interest so who knows how many people will come this month. I have sent reminders to last month's attendees.

My Drops 88-4 is almost finished. I have to sew seams and do the neckband. I could probably finish it by Tuesday if I put my mind to it at the weekend. I'm just dreading picking up a hundred and something stitches around the neck and making it look neat, as the fabric is quite loose and holey. I am still working on the Zoknis, no progress on those lately, and I also want to cast on an Umbilical Cord Hat from the Stitch& Bitch book for a friend's baby due in May. There's a lovely one here. That may be my Borders project for Tuesday as it's small and portable. I'm going to use some Twilley's organic cotton.

So my car got fixed under warranty. The gearstick is still a bit stiff though so I don't know what they did. You just have to trust that they did something and didn't just leave it sitting in the corner of the garage for two days.

The Sky+ box had to be replaced in the end too so I lost 2 episodes of Supernatural, 2 of ER and the Boosh documentary that were saved on the hard disk!! Drat!!

And now especially for Nina - a review of The Keep. The story is about Danny who as a kid leaves his cousin Howard in a cave, and he isn't found for a few days. Years later Howard is renovating a castle in Eastern Europe and pays for Danny to come over to help. The castle is all spooky and you are expecting a lot of supernatural goings on. Then there is the part where Danny and Howard end up in some dark tunnels, and relive the experience from when they were kids. In the meantime there is another story going on which is the narrator of Danny's story who is a prison inmate called Ray who fancies his writing teacher. The book had a lot of potential which it didn't live up to. I didn't get the point of the narrator part of the book. And the reliving of the tunnel/cave thing was over and done with in a few pages. Then at the end you get at least 30 pages of the story of the writing teacher which I thought was completely unnecessary. If there had just been the castle story it could have been expanded and made much better, there were too many unfinished threads. The book has now gone off to a Bookmoocher in the USA.

Looks like we are going to see the Mighty Boosh live tour twice this year. Colin's nephew has two spare tickets for Dublin on 17th September which now have our names on them. Woohoo, that's a whole two and a half months before we see them in Manchester.

Hog Roast

Not a lot going on here at the moment apart from the agonising decision of whether The Gorgeous One stays or not. We have been making enquiries.

On Easter Saturday we went to the Chester Food & Drink Festival. It is on every Easter and is great, you get to taste all kinds of local produce, cheeses, breads, relishes and pickles etc. The wallet doesn't half take a bashing though. And of course there is the hot roast pork bap known as the Hog Roast for lunch, carved straight off the spit, yeee-ummm.

I have been reading a bit more lately and just finished Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell. I couldn't get into it at first because it felt like it was written by someone else. All the previous Scarpetta novels are written in the first person from the perspective of Kay Scarpetta, but his one was in the third person and she wasn't in it much at all. It was all about the various secondary characters that have cropped up in previous books, (so it is best that you have read those first). The ending was quite weak too.

I have now started The Keep (see last post) and am not sure about that either. Have my expectations of a good book gone up? I think I will like the story of this book but the writing is annoying me. The main character is Danny and we follow him along, Danny this, Danny that, when all of a sudden in the middle of a paragraph it changes to "I .....". Who is this "I"? It's not Danny anyway. Very odd.

I am still partway through the second Zokni sock but am working on my Drops 88-4 to try to get it finished. It is all in fits and starts though, as I go upstairs to do a bit (out of the way of little sharp teeth) but don't really want to sit up there on my tod! I like to knit in front of the telly.

Talking of which the Sky is on the blink so they are coming out to fix it tomorrow. My car is also in the garage, for a new clutch and bearings (its only done 5200 miles for goodness sake!!!) but luckily I am 5 days before the end of the warranty and it is covered. Would have been £600 otherwise! Eek!

PS Hope the Boosh fans like the new pics of Noel on the left side bar!!

Beach and celebration

As Colin is going over to Manchester for a course this weekend, we decided to take Thursday and Friday off. Today we are just pottering and doing bits and pieces but yesterday we decided to take The Gorgeous One on a little outing. We jumped in the car and headed up to West Kirby on the Wirral and here is where Charlie got his first experience of sand.




Not sure what he makes of it really but he was quite interested in some horse droppings on the beach!










There were lots of other dogs around and he managed to get on with all of them. Here he is saying hello to a couple of larger dogs. He was also quite taken with a rather attractive lady jogger and set off running to heel with her for a few metres until we managed to get his attention back to us.





And here he is trying not to have his lead put back on when it was time to go home.











I am getting through my Argosy scarf but the second skein is a bit different in colour to the first, I guess that's a risk you take with hand-dyed yarns. There is a darker blue in the second skein but i don't think it would be that noticeable when wearing it because there are so many other colours there. It is about 70% done so will be in time to be a present I think.

This morning I received some yarn that i ordered from a German seller on ebay. I had seen this seller mentioned on another blog but now I don't know where it was.

This cost me about a fiver including postage from this seller. It is 50% wool, 20% merino, 20% acrylic and 10% viscose. The colours are darker than on the ebay photo and also a bit redder than this photo. The colourway is called Celebration.







It is quite unusual because it is 5 strands of very fine yarn and it hasn't been plied together so you are effectively knitting with 5 strands held together.





It is a bit like the single strands of the DMC embroidery cottons But the resulting swatch is so amazingly soft. I'm not sure what it will be like trying to knit a whole pair of socks with 5 strands but hey, I'll give it a go sometime.





My Mighty Boosh series 3 DVD arrived yesterday at last. I have also now got Cesar Millan's second book "Be the Pack Leader" which I am trying to read along with the Matthew Reilly, and knitting and keeping an eye on the dog. Huh, multitasking!! Over the weekend i'm going to sort out my printed off knitting patterns into a ring binder cos at the moment they are scattered all over the place.

I have done another 2 reiki treatment over the past week, but you can read about that here. Well, off to do a bit more of the scarf before lunch.

Lots of bits and pieces.

The Gorgeous One is very cute, and I have to accept that he is only less than 4 months old, but he can try my patience. We are going to watch a puppy training class this evening, (we can't take Charlie because she is fully booked but we are welcome to go and watch), to see if we can pick up any tips. I have been watching The Dog Whisperer on Sky. Wow, Cesar Millan is amazing. The trouble is I have been trying to copy what he does and expect miracles to happen, and it just don't work like that. I obviously haven't mastered the art of being "calm-assertive". And Charlie certainly hasn't mastered the art of "calm-submissive", not by a long chalk. I even bought and read Cesar's book cover to cover, but unfortunately it isn't a "how to" book at all. It is a very interesting and absorbing read though.

I think I have worked out how to add video to a post, so hopefully this will work.

I haven't heard anything from the hospital about a reschedule for my hands yet. On the blood sugar front, things are going well, I am seeing a psychologist who makes a lot of sense so I'll stick with him for a bit longer.

We had friends visiting briefly at the weekend. Dave who was Colin's best man and Huw who was an usher. They both trained as Clinical Psychologists with Colin. Dave came up from Reading and Huw from Exeter just to have a meal, stay overnight and jump back on a train at 9.30am the next day, a little bit worse for wear after a few drinkiepoos. Dave was absolutely chuffed when we offered him one of our spare Mighty Boosh tickets, so either he or we have to find one other now. And its still 10 months off.

Supernatural is back on ITV2. I have the episode recorded but haven't got around to watching it yet. Can't wait though, I have to see what happens to Dean after his deal at the crossroads to get Sam back.

On the knitting side of things, I am just decreasing the toe on my second Monkey sock. So hopefully there will be pics in my next post. The colours have pooled differently in each sock which is interesting as both balls are the same dye lot. I really like the pattern though and am just starting to get it in my head now that I have almost finished. But that means another pair may be on the cards and will hopefully grow quicker. I have some Lorna's Laces in pruple and green that I am going to use for my next pair of socks, which I may just do plain toe-up.

Well I have 2 bookings for Reiki tretments coming up. The first is a friend of Colin's who suffers with MS. I was supposed to see her on the day that Colin went in for his operation back in September and we have only just got around to rearranging. The second is a friend who is going to have a treatment to see what it is like and then maybe book some sessions as gifts for her mum and sister. Ooo, I'm a bit nervous but I'll be fine once I get going. Wish me luck!

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.

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.

Hat, zoo, and eels.

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

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

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

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

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

Boosh Day!!! & op date

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

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

Additions to the stash

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

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

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

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

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