Be afraid, be very afraid!

Disclaimer: Please ignore the inane expressions on my face in the following photos. I took them all several times and could not get a decent one! I was taking them by holding my phone at arm's length and couldn't concentrate on doing that and looking like a human being at the same time!

Anyway, when I got up this morning I looked like this - 9 months of not getting a hair cut is not a pretty sight.



So off I went at 9am to the hairdresser. Becca had given me strict instructions to have it cut short enough that I couldn't drag it back and put it into a hair clip. We'd looked at some hair magazines in Borders last night while we were at knitting group and picked out a few styles. Of course you never end up looking like the pictures in those, but I got an idea of what I thought I might like.

By 10am I looked like this



It definitely had a bit more body and bounce in the hairdressers but by the time I got home it had gone flat. I had popped into Morrisons on the way back and bought some Shock Waves wax so after a quick dab of that, I had it looking like this


I didn;t bother having a colour done, I quite like my little grey streak at the front now that my parting is further over. I may get a cheapo one and do it myself at some point though. (And if you are wondering - no I can't get it into a hair clip!)

Butterflies flutter by

I have come to a decision about chocolate. After years of not liking dark chocolate I watched the two series of Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory and Willie's Chocolate Revolution and decided it would be better to eat dark chocolate. After quite a bit of practicing I have decided that I do like it, and that is what I will eat from now on. I know, what a revelation for a Sunday evening!

Colin went up Snowdon yesterday with a group of people as part of his ongoing fundraising for cancer research.

So I settled in and got a good head start on my Flutter-by socks. I finished the first one this morning. This is a pic of the detail of the "butterflies". It is actually a very simple and quick pattern.

(click)

After 3 weeks I have decided I love my iPhone. I am not using it to anything like it's potential but some of the applications are amazing, AND I can watch BBC iPlayer on it at any time. You know when you are watching TV or in a shop and a piece of music comes on and you want to know what it is? There is an app where the phone listens to 30 seconds of the song then off it goes into its little brain or the interweb or somewhere, and tah-dah, it tells you what the song is, a biography of the artist and where you can buy it online! I must say though that Becca showed me a game that is a bit addictive and sometimes when I close my eyes all I can see are little cat, dog, cow, pig, hippo and bear heads!

If you are wondering where the knitting content has gone..........

.........I've been a bit distracted.

Firstly by reading. Since I joined GoodReads I have renewed my interest in reading - not that I ever lost it, I always have a book on the go, but I am more enthusiastic about getting through books quicker. Just the fact that you read a book and write a review for other people to read, seems to make it more urgent that you get a book finished. There is also a "progress update" bar where you put in which page you are currently on, so you can see how far into the book you are. I have also joined a couple of groups, one of which has a reading group where you can nominate a category and then when the category is decided you nominate a book and then everyone votes and that is the "book of the month". I suggested crime/thriller - well I would wouldn't I? - but the category voted winner was "a book with the name of a flower in the title". I suggested The Red Dahlia - a crime/thriller (2 birds with one stone and all that) but the winner was "The Rose of Sebastopol". Now I wouldn't touch this book with a bargepole normally but I am going to be open minded and give it a go. I've ordered a copy from GreenMetropolis because I had a bit of credit from when I sold a book through them. This is a great site for secondhand books, all books are £3.75, and postage is generally free on normal sized paperbacks.

My other distraction has been my new iPhone! Colin has a contract with O2 and was due for an upgrade so he decided to go for an iPhone. The minute it was in the house (last Thursday) I wanted one. I have been very happy on Pay as you Go with Orange for donkeys years, and probably would have stayed with them, but the iPhone is only on O2 so I have had to go over to them. And go on a contract which I've never had either. So on Saturday I got my lovely shiny iPhone. I've been surfing the web, and downloading apps and generally just staring at it a lot!

It was a bit naughty of me to get it on Saturday because it was actually Colin's birthday that day, not mine! We had a pub lunch and then in the evening we asked Paul & Kate and their girls round and we ordered Domino's pizzas. And I made a cheescake - no photos, it was eaten too quickly - which was delicious. I'll be making that again.

Tonight we are probably going to have something with mushrooms in it!


I have TWO fully grown mushrooms now. There are loads of tiny ones too but I'm wondering if they will come on better once these two aren't sucking up all the goodness in the soil.

As for knitting, I am plodding on with my Monkey socks, just passed the second heel last night so they should be finished off fairly quickly, and then I am going to go back to the Tweedy Waistcoat which went in the naughty corner. It shouldn't take too much to get it sorted out and finished, and it is just the right time of year now to be wearing it.

Finally, Colin is very excited because his 365challenge has been featured on the JustGiving website's blog. You can read it here.