I've got those...

...back to work blues.

Oh, yes. Have only been back to work for a couple of hours a day for two days and the insomnia is back already! Well, it's not insomnia really, I have no problem getting to sleep. I just don't sleep very deeply, am plagued by bizarre dreams and wake early.



Then my brain switches on. J calls it 'motorway brain'. My thoughts race round and round, leaping from one thing to another and any diversion towards work is fatal. It's the nature of the beast I guess. Leading a school isn't the kind of work you can leave on the bench overnight, unfortunately. Or maybe it is and I'm not doing it right. I get caught up in the issues, problems and intricacies of the 400 or so lives that are tied in with mine through our school community. I'm not the only one. We're still in the holidays but the building is full of my colleagues, working. I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by people who care so much.

What we need to work on this year is looking after ourselves a bit better. We had a lot of sickness and stress last year. This year needs to be different. But how?

While at home, avoiding thinking about work I have been working on a felted tote bag in Noro Kureyon. I'm using this pattern, but my gauge didn't work out as planned so it's got 4 squares along the base and each side square is cast on with 32 stitches. I'm onto the side gussets at the moment. It's been a quick and satisfying knit and I'm looking forward to the felting bit.
This is the colourway I'm using.



I bought it to make a vest or sweater, but have decided that I need to face up to the fact that, no matter how much I like them, sludgey colours do not suit me, so a bag it is.

Cheering me up in the kitchen is this:



We read, recently, that spring comes earlier and the seasons are moving around, but this amaryllis has got it's body clock total off kilter.

Out on the wiley, windy moors

Making the most of the last weekend before I go back to work on Tuesday.
(Next week is an acclimatisation programme: no children. First I'll get used to my office again, then venture out to the classrooms to find some colleagues... and it's just occurred to me that I didn't ask the site supervisor to water the plants so I guess there'll be a lot of leaf picking to do. I'll warn J to clear out some space for a horticultural Intensive Care Unit.)

We drove out across the moors, through Rosedale, Glaisdale, Commondale and a call in at the Moors centre in Danby for refreshments. Although it was still warm and sunny it gets very windy up there and the temperatures can vary enormously.







Although the road is high, we climbed a hill to get a better view down into the valley. The path we followed led into an abandoned quarry. Abandoned, but not unused. I heard a strange droning. Bees! It was full of hives and clouds of bees. I bet the owner produces fantastic heather honey! The views from the top were worth it though.



There are always lots of sheep around. Passed a sign that said 'Please drive carefully. 150 sheep killed on the road last year.'
Further into Rosedale a shepherd was gathering the sheep for shearing using a pair of dogs. It's amazing to watch, but we were blocking the road so J had to move on before I could get pictures.



The North York Moors were first worked by Neolithic man. And man has continued to make his mark since. The moors are full of these standing stones and, later, stone crosses.



A happy man with a fairy cake at the Danby Moors Center. 'It's a very manly fairy cake!' said the girl who brought our tea. She'll go far in customer relations.



If I have a nose for tearooms and coffee shops, J can sniff out a garden miles away. He found this steeply terraced herb garden behind the Moors Centre.



We watched rain moving across the dales. Very Wuthering Heights! It caught up with us eventually and the temperature dropped from 20 degrees to 14 degrees.



Finally headed back down towards the road into Teesside for dinner.

Lights, camera...

The beach at Redcar is littered with small fragments of charred paper today. If you look closely enough, the remaining visible text is printed in French.

If you wander along the beach you will come across carelessly discarded corpses and broken furniture piled up against sandbags.



Keep going and you arrive in 1941 on the North coast of France.



No timewarp - Working title and Joe Wright, who directed Pride and Prejudice, are making a film version of Ian McEwan's book Atonement and Redcar is doubling for wartime France and doing a good job too, with the help of some fake frontages and make-overs for the existing buildings.









Redcar was chosen for it's undeveloped esplanade and seafront properties. The town isn't taking a fee for it's appearance (although if I lived in one of the seafront buildings I would want to be paid), hoping that interest will increase the number of visitors to the town and there were plenty of people watching the film crew at work with us. To be honest, they need to work harder than that. The seafront is nice enough, but the town centre is looking very rundown.

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I have a finished object to report!

Bombshell from Big Girl Knits is done.



I like the shape of the sweater, but swear I will never knit anything in Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora ever, ever, ever again. I've been racking my brain and I think this has to have been the worst yarn experience of my knitting life so far. The shedding has irritated everyone who has come near it and I still feel like I might cough up a hairball any time now.
In order to try and fix the fuzz problem I washed the sweater as part of the 'blocking' process. No real improvement, a hairy bra and the washer has a hairball too.

SP8, Episode 3

Felt like the Queen or Paddington Bear this morning. An odd coupling, perhaps, but they both have 'official' birthdays in addition to their actual birthdays. The reason being, my final SP8 package and reveal card arrived from Sara. These packages have all felt like an extra birthday and my family have been quite envious. Sara suggested that this package might be the best and I agree. I opened the box to find all these lovely berry treats.



There are two skeins of roving she has hand carded and some Kool Aid (berry colours) to dye it with. I'm really looking forward to trying Kool Aid dying and then I'm going to get my spindle out again and put into practice all the tips I picked up at Danby last week.

There are three skeins of a lovely cotton and linen mix yarn from Craftspun Yarns. It's a lovely, crispy boucle yarn and I imagine that bobbles knitted in this would look just like blackberries; which brings me to Wild Blackberry soap, which smells just amazing. (j says it smells just like Whitby, which tells you how much time I've made him spend in all the lovely little shops there during his formative years - he's right, it reminds me of the Shepherd's Purse).

My favourite has to be a little felted merino bowl. I love felted bowls. I tried my hand at one a while back but it was too floppy. This one stands up beautifully.

Chocolate too.

Thank you again Sara. My SP8 experience has been a real pleasure! I also want to thank Bobbi for being the hostess for our group. My happiness will be totally complete when I hear that my reveal package made it to it's Scandinavian destination with my spoilee.

~~~~~

You Are a Soy Latte

At your best, you are: free spirited, down to earth, and relaxed At your worst, you are: dogmatic and picky You drink coffee when: you need a pick me up, and green tea isn't cutting it Your caffeine addiction level: medium

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Borrowed this quiz from Rho's blog. I've never had a soy anything in reality. I drink a latte in the morning at home, espresso during the morning at work and tea in the afternoon. Keep telling myself I'm going to leave blog quizzes alone, but actually think they're kind of fun.

Confined to barracks

J had a flat battery this morning, which wouldn't respond to jump starting so he took my car. I hadn't really planned to go anywhere today, but it's amazing how having no transport can make you think of lots of places you need to go. Used the time productively - caught up with paperwork, including a tax return (early!) and renewing liability insurance (early too!), which made me feel a lightness of being afterwards.

Then I spent 15 minutes on hold for our dental practice and tried to get a routine appointment. Earliest I could manage was 12th October! So I made our next appointments for April 2007 too in an attempt to book early. This is a PRIVATE dentist, who we have to pay simply to stay on his list. God help all those poor souls trying to get NHS treatment. The state of NHS dentists in England is one of the biggest health care outcries of our time...added to the MRSA outcry...and today's bowel cancer drug outcry...
Without being flippant, Kim and Aggie are doing a programme from a hospital this week, I'm glad I don't work for the NHS any more.

I posted a picture of Paddy, our Uromastyx, yesterday. She's 4 years old, 10 inches long and still growing. We have leopard gekkos and White's Australian Tree Frogs too.

We have had three Bearded Dragons in our time too: lovely animals all - the golden retrievers of the lizard world! :) We don't have any currently as losing each has been very traumatic and upsetting and we can't go through it again. This guy was our favourite. Bob, sitting on his favourite log. He had such a sweet nature and would sit on the back of the sofa all day (sometimes with our cat, Spike, now also gone, oh dear, this is in danger of getting really sad.)


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Changing the subject quickly, I've been looking at some of Len Tabner's paintings online. Can't afford one in the flesh, as it were. He was born in Southbank (see the post about buying the bedframe) and lives near Staithes (see post about Staithes). I know someone who swapped some land they owned behind his cottage for a painting. They definitely got the best end of the deal. Here's some of his work.





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I enjoyed SP8 so much that I've decided to have a go at another swap this Autumn. Nothing too involved. I've signed up for International Sweater Exchange 3 and have immediately become niggled by doubts about the quality of my work being judged by others ;)

Dark skies overhead

but at one end of the garden today it's still the height of summer:



The white agapanthus and the cannas are flowering really well, which disguises the fact that the hanging baskets and morning glories are going back fast.

While down at the woodland end, it's starting to become autumn:



The rowan is laden with berries,



the Japanese anenomes have come into flower (although I can't find the white ones I thought we had planted last year)



the copper flowered, bronze foliaged dahlias are picking up



and it's a race to the blackberries between me and the blackbirds.

J is splitting up a lot of our bigger perennials and potting up the bits we can't use - he has a cunning plan to get a stall at an unusual plants fair next spring - goodness knows we've seen enough people making money at it this year. Problem is, he keeps giving everything away to family, friends and neighbours. We were talking about our favourite nurseries the other day and my brother said 'Actually, I get most of my plants from J.'

~~~~~

We went car booting this afternoon. The weather was threatening rain again so we didn't expect many stalls, but we got some good bits and pieces: 32 1906-1916 French greetings postcards - I've been brushing up my French trying to decode the messages and a Tremar teapot, which matches the sugar bowl and milk jug I already have. I love car boot sales, auctions etc.

~~~~~

Finally to the beach. We raced the weather over to South Gare and then headed through the storm and out the other side. I think we would probably enjoy storm chasing (if I wasn't so middle-aged and concerned about things like insurance and getting back for tea.) These pictures are of the storm hitting Warrenby steelworks across the other side of the mouth of the Tees. I like the colours and the skies reminded me a little of Len Tabner. How I would love one of his paintings!





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My resolve disappeared during the X Factor audition show yesterday evening :) I broke into some new yarn and started a scarf. It's a mix of Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon and (Wendy?) Moiselle. I'm using my old favourite Seafoam Stitch and I love the way it's looking.
I've been experimenting by wearing my new Armadillo magnetic wristband in an "I'll try anything" attempt to relieve the fibro ache. Unfortunately, the velcro seems to be a magnet for the homespun element of the Moiselle, so I'm getting all fluffy.



Although this picture of Paddy, our Uromastyx, is slightly out of focus, you can clearly see the disapproval of my actions and the look that says 'Serves you right.' on her face...

And the rain came down...

...and down and down today. I used it as an excuse to stay at home, put my feet up and work on Bombshell. I am now down to the ribbing at the waist and things are moving along a little quicker. I'mnot sure about my yarn choice - Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora. It feels lovely, is a gorgeous colour, but sheds like mad. My clothes are covered in it, it's up my nose, in my mouth - everywhere. I hope it sheds less after first wash or I'm going to be very restricted about what I can wear it with. Something green and slightly hairy, I guess.

I was wondering if you could get an 'industrial' lung disease from working a lot with yarn that sheds, when I was looking at the Anticraft website. They have an article on craft-related injuries. They also have this nifty knitted condom pattern.
~~~~~~
The main reason for today's enforced idleness is overdoing it a bit yesterday with the arts and crafts bedframe we bought. j helped me assemble it and then I waxed it up. I'm really pleased with the way it looks. Of course I should have remembered the photograph it naked, before I put the mattress and bedding on it. The foot board is a repeat of the headboard, but slightly lower.



No more DIY projects for a while - need to focus on being mobile enough to go back to work in a couple of weeks :( Well, until the next one.

~~~~~~~~

The SP8 reveal has taken place - all the blogs are up on Bobbi's blog. I think I've worked out who my spoiler is, as she's the only Irish blogger on the list. Wonder if my spoilee has received her final package, including my reveal card?

All around the blooming heather

It's typical, isn't it? J has a day off, we don't need to set the alarm and I wake up at 6:42am. I was worrying a bit about a doctor's appointment I had this morning, to be honest.
I've been suffering from what's come to be known as 'old lady feet' - my ankles and feet have been swelling. It's not nice and it's not pretty. It's easy to put everything odd that happens to my body down to the Fibro, but this one has been niggling at me for a while. Left ventricular failure? Undiagnosed tumour? Lymph problems? I was a registered nurse for 15 years and consequently never get headaches, just brain tumours.
So, I'm at the doctor's again and have blood work done and hand in a urine sample. BP is ok, chest and heart are ok, lymph nodes seem ok. Probably just my Fibro. Feet are the same, but I feel better about it. What will this have in store for me next?



Hopefully not 'sheep legs'

As an antidote to this, we made j get up earlier than he likes and all went off to Danby show. I love all the agricultural shows within easy reach of us in the Summer. I love the sheep, cattle, rabbits and fancy pigeons. I love the crafts and giant vegetables. I love the beer tents and icecream. What I'm not so keen on is the Pony Club set and the pro-hunt lobby/Countryside Alliance presence. (Politics on sleeve time.) I have no problem with hunting to eat. I have no problem with the arguments that the fox population needs to be managed. But I can't see why it has to be done in a way that terrifies the fox - chasing it with horses and hounds. It may be a proud old countryside tradition, but so were burning witches, use of the scold's bridle and droit de seigneur...

Anyway - I talked with a girl spinning with a wheel and bought some of her yarn.



We looked at the sheep and cattle.





And drove home over the moors. I love North Yorkshire at this time of the year - it's mostly purple, my favourite colour.

The fear of imperfection

Very girlie morning with a friend who's been having super-complicated men problems lately. There are lots of times I give thanks for the sanity and security of having been married to J for 15 and a bit years. We've been together for 17 years now - second marriage for both of us. I, of course, was a child bride first time :)

By our second latte and after a couple of cinnamon buns in Starbucks we were howling with laughter at her psychotic throwing away of his clothes in the middle of the night and quite well thought through plans to go over to his flat and castrate him with a pair of pinking shears. It's amazing how weird your thoughts can get in the small hours, during a PMT week - she's all better now; all she needed was female company and cake.



~~~~

J and I drove out this evening, to collect a bed frame we bought from an ad in the local paper. We were looking for one and I was intrigued by the description of 'light oak colour with celtic design'. When I rang, the woman who was selling gave me an address in South Bank . We were a bit (very!!!) put off as, despite it having been once a wonderful community Slaggy Island, as it was known by locals, now has an image of very run dowm housing and social problems. We've seen houses down there go for £5000 at auction and have not been tempted to pick one up for redevelopment because of all the problems in the area.
Anyway, we went over and found the house - one of only a few not boarded up in the street! 'Just keep driving!' I said. J parked up (where we would be able to see the car from the house) and we went in. The inside of that house was gorgeous! What a wonderful job she had done - woods, creams and browns; mirrors and leathers. She explained that the street was scheduled for demolition and they were being compulsorily purchased. How heartbreaking to have lavished so much time, effort and love on a house to see it torn down.

The bed: not 'oak colour', but oak. Not 'celtic design', but arts and crafts. And gorgeous. We snapped it up and it's sitting in the dining room waiting to be moved upstairs and assembled. A lesson there, I think.

One of my favourite folkies was originally from South Bank - Vin Garbutt.



I love his songs, but most of all his stories that go with the songs.

We admitted we were powerless over our yarn

- that our stash had become unmanageable.
Confession is good for the soul so here goes...

This morning I put my hand into my knitting bag to find a horrible, soggy mess. Over the course of the family visit, a can of watermelon flavoured tango appears to have been upended and has poured into the storage box which houses some of my 'downstairs stash' and to have finished upside down into my knitting bag. After lots of cursing and a fair amount of getting upset I sat down to sort it all out and undo the damage. A skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock and three balls of Kureyon had to be washed along with the knitting bag, but everything else was protected by plastic. What horrified me was the extent of the accumulation down there. This is just the stuff that is closer to the needles than the stash upstairs. It lives in my knitting bag (really close to the needles), an open African basket beside my end of the sofa (likely to make it to the needles sometime over the next year or so) and in a walnut open work hamper which masquerades as an end table (proximity to needles? - who am I kidding?). I daren't even itemise how much yarn there is upstairs.





Time for a sort out then.

I transferred much of the hamper contents into a (nother) 35 litre plastic tub with a lid - my favourite stash storage - and moved it upstairs with the rest, had a good look at some of the remaining yarn and threw some old bits away! Acrylic baby yarn, lots of knotted ends of kureyon from a long abandoned project and a front from a Triangle Tango in Collinette Point 5. (She said, defiantly)

I've had an honest look at WIPs too:

J's Rowan Denim sweater - this is to be my penance for the accumulation of yarn:



Rowan Froth scarf:



Opal cotton and silk sock:



Bombshell: (I'm doing quite well on this, but each round is about 400 stitches now, so it's slow going.)



Jaywalker sock - probably to be frogged as it's too thick and stiff a fabric:



San Francisco Shirttail, front completed:



I am making a commitment to getting these finished before I make a start on anything else...with the exception, perhaps, of these:

Chunky baby alpaca - the softest yarn I have ever handled. Intended for a lace pattern scarf.



Moiselle and Sari Ribbon, intended for a scarf to go with a green tweed suit I bought for Autumn.



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Remember what I said about not knitting anything else for my niece? This picture arrived on my phone this morning:



Maybe I'll reconsider :)

Mist and mellow fruitfulness and woolen sweaters

I was woken up this morning by the sound of rain lashing against the bedroom window and our crab apple tree in the front garden thrashing about in a fairly hefty wind. I snuggled down under the duvet again for a while and my thoughts turned to Autumn and sweaters and socks.

Autumn is my favourite season. I always feel it is the true start of my year - New Year should be in September, not January. I guess it's to do with having been tied to the academic year for much of my life. Nora Ephron captures it perfectly for me in You've Got Mail. Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

Autumn:

new school shoes
plums and russet apples
boots and long skirts
lie ins with a latte
a new academic diary
the promise of the first page of an exercise book
thinking about reds in my hair again
picking blackberries out on the moors and bringing them home to make pies
the imagery of halloween
drying and pressing leaves
drives out with hats and coats in the back of the car and a picnic of coffee and fruit cake
pumpkin soup
woolies
planning our October holiday

“Tact is the art of making guests feel at home...

...when that's really where you wish they were.” That's not at all true, but our small house is our own again today after a visit by my brother, P, and his family. I wish we lived closer to each other and it's always lovely to see them, particularly this little sweetie,



but I'm really tired now and need a lazy day pottering about. So here I am messing about with some of our digital images and listening to some music on iTunes. As someone who grew up with the 'mix tape' providing the soundtrack to most of my experiences and journeys I love playlists. They are so revealing of mood and taste. This one has Kate Bush, Katie Melua, G4, Cat Stevens, Colin Blunstone, Dave Matthews, George Jones & Tammy Wynnette, Jethro Tull, Gordon Lightfoot and Richard Thompson. What does that give away about me?

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We visited Harlow Carr yesterday - the Royal Horticultural Society's Yorkshire outpost, in Harrogate. I adore Harrogate; there are some amazing houses, shops, and open areas. It's so posh Yorkshire. Harlow Carr is a lovely garden. We've been watching it being overhauled on Gardener's World and thought it might be a nice place to visit as a family (well, almost, as j wouldn't come, having done museum visiting and beach walking duty the previous day.), especially as P is getting into gardening now.
We were there 10ish years ago and there have been lots of changes, notably the addition of two Betty's establishments and the rennovation of the old rose beds.



A whicker whale swimming through a wildflower meadow.



A burgeoning gardener.




I relinquished the camera to allow J to take a rare photo of me. (Actually, it was an excuse to sit down and rest my aching ankles in this lovely recreation of a 19th century garden seat.)



My little brother.



It's a shame that this isn't video as a still cannot capture the beautiful movement of the grasses behind the echinacea.

My brother started to remember cakes from our childhood as we sat having lunch. (Don't think sister-in-law was very impressed - she's more a carrot stick kind of person, I feel) His favourite was a rice cake our nana used to make. She died suddenly, when she was only 63 and I didn't ever get chance to learn that recipe (Mum didn't know it either). I have most of nana's significant recipe books and love to find annotations in the margins, but despite all my best attempts I have never managed to recreate the moistness and solidity of her rice cake. All my efforts have been too dry, too light or too grainy.

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I intend to put my feet up for the rest of the weekend and catch up with some knitting. Didn't get chance to see the Rubster in the cardi I knitted. Actually, I've decided I will probably stop knitting things for her as I think my sister-in-law isn't really into knitted garments. She's always very polite, but I sense I'm subjecting her to things she doesn't like. Never mind. All the more time to get J's sweater underway...Whooppee!!!

Excuse my dust

The butterflies are doing very well this year, but the birds are suffering from the heat. J spends lots of time filling the feeders and washing out the bird baths after work.



Fruit flies are, unfortunately, thriving too. I'm not the world's biggest fan of spiders, but this morning I found myself telling one on the living room windowsill, 'Well, do your bl@*%y job then!'

Yesterday was much cooler here due to a breeze off the sea and although it was still 18 degrees C people were wearing jackets when I went to the supermarket. This is an odd indication of how quickly we adjust to new temperature ranges, because this is the part of the world where (young) people go out in short sleeves for a night out in winter.
I enjoyed a cooler day and my feet looked like, well, feet for a change.
~~~~~

And on the subject of feet...I've signed up for Sockwars, brought to us by Yarnmonkey



Looks like (stressful) fun.

My brother rang to say they are coming for a vist tomorrow so I have begun a better-than-usual tidy up as I am confined to barracks waiting for deliveries. I'm tackling the tidying in nibble-sized chunks (not even bites). Tidy a bit, reward myself with a latte or some PC time or a few rows of knitting. Due to the construction of our large storage room/study and PCs area we no longer have a guest room. Consequently, having four visitors means much shuffling around to fit everyone in. Fortunately, j is more than happy to sleep in the study as he spends most of his time there anyway, but bedlinen needs changing and the house must be toddling baby-proofed as far as is possible in a house full of vivariums and electronic equipment. Maybe I should just take the Quentin Crisp approach ('dirt doesn't get any worse after the first four years...') or the Dorothy Parker approach ('Excuse my dust').

I finished Ruby's hoodie last night. It was lovely to work on something in such thick yarn that knitted up so quickly. Having been unable to get a cerise open-ended zip to match the yarn, I had my first experience with a clear zip. Horrible! Unwieldy, rigid mesh fabric and it took ages to sew in every point and edge that might possibly scratch her. I should have just got a contrasting colour in a fabric zip.



It looks too big; hopefully, she'll grow into it over the next 10 years or so...

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Time's up! Waxing the dining room table awaits me...

One more Dorothy Parker quote, possibly my favourite: When challenged to use the word horticulture in a sentence. 'You can bring a horticulture, but you can't make her drink.'

Today's little run out

As we were getting in the car for one of J's 'little run out's (I love them, usually take ages, go miles and involve tea shops) we saw the first dragonfly to hatch from the pond that we have seen this year. It was sitting in the malus, drying its wings. This is a dreadful picture, but it was very high up.



After that we drove across the moors to Sandsend and back along the coast, dropping into Staithes for a walk down to the harbour. Not an ideal activity perhaps, during a flare-up given the steepness of the hill, but lovely just the same.



We walked out along the new sea defences, remarking how hot it was, here, on the North East coast. Almost unheard of.

If I had to live there, I'd like to live in the house with the ferns.





Staithes used to be a fishing port and was home to Captain James Cook from the age of 16 when he worked in a shop there and had his interest in the sea kindled.
The old methodist chapel has been converted into a museum to Cook. It's full of wierd and wonderful objects and photographs and there are some bits of knitting history too.

Instant gratification

A knitting person needs a little light relief from big projects. (San Fran Shirtail: front finished, Bombshell: down to neckline join)Usually it's a sock and I do have one on the go, but I wanted something bright and fun and quick. Hence a small hooded sweater (maybe a jacket) for the Rubster. Lovely mix of soft homespun type yarn and glitzy ribbon. Machine washable, so as not to antagonise any sister-in-law. A quick fix and nice to handle, plus I should get to see her in it next week.



Colour hasn't come out right - much less blue and more warm cerise.

~~~~~
Bathroom is finished! J laid carpet tiles this morning amid much cursing and banging of body parts against fitments, which is always on the cards when a 6 foot 5 inch man works in a small bathroom. I'm happy with it, as it's much more me (i.e. has elements of purple in the theme) than the previous retro browns (why did I think that was a good idea?) incarnation.

J's verdict? 'The carpet looks well.' I don't often have cause to say this but I think this calls for a 'Men!' Our friends have just had £20K of kitchen fitted and he was there this afternoon. I haven't seen it yet and asked for details. 'It's ok. T took his Subaru to the circuit last weekend and got it over 140!' Not the kind of detail I meant...

Dress down Friday

Still in my pyjamas.

Well, just when I was resting and letting my sore bod recover from my bathroom decorating endeavours (I can now remove old grout and regrout - if the bottom ever falls out of the headteachering market I am now skilled to take on a position as a tiler's mate) I pulled all sorts of muscles howling with laughter at this:



What were they thinking? Where would you wear them? Can you imagine how itchy they would be? Full link here

I'm spending a lazy day catching up with knitting, pottering and latte drinking today and have made a pan full of chocolate brownies in preparation. At the moment, I'm up in the study messing about with an animation I started earlier in the year and never got chance to edit properly - I love my Mac. I'm really enjoying having some time with j now that both our schools are on holiday. He's into nocturnal holiday mode now, but there's something comforting about his signature sound: whirring PC fans and rhythmical sleep breathing coming from his room next door to the study as I potter.
He'd kill me if he knew about this photo, which I'm entitling What I did on my holidays by j



I'm also exploring eBay for unspotted bargains in yarn and handbags and studio pottery, but I can't say what kind in case someone beats me to them!

Might even get dressed at some point...

Operation Desert Wind

Good grief, I ache and feel twice my age - the rewards from squatting in the bathroom for two days, applying undercoat to woodwork. At 8am this morning I could be found in the decorating section of B&Q, buying a grout removing knife (no girl should be without one) and quite enjoying browsing in the paint aisles. I was in hot pursuit of the perfect neutral shade for the woodwork top coat. It's unbelievable how many shades of not-white there are. Actually I love paint charts and match pots, shade names and all those paint compant websites. I am exactly the kind of customer the whole industry is aimed at. I decided on Desert Wind, but I'm worried that I should have had Mainsail or Lotus Blossom or gone for Hint of Haemorrhoid...

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I was just setling down this afternoon, enjoying the sound of yet another torrential downpour, to have a serious browse through the new Rowan magazine when the parcel post arrived with two new books I'd forgotten I had pre-ordered from Amazon.

Simply Shetland and Simply Shetland 2 are both gorgeous books. The designs are mostly lovely, the articles are interesting and the photography and presentation are beautiful.



Beautiful is not a word that comes to mind here though. A proper look at the Rowan magazine confirms the utter ugliness of this item:



but, on the whole the patterns are nicer than the last issue (or maybe 'Flora McDonald meets Eowyn of Rohan' is just more me than 'Tribal' was) and I do love this:



It's Wraparound and I'm adding it to the 'to knit' pile - maybe in just one colour. Actually, I'm tempted to replace Hex, which I was going to do for the AK knitalong, with this as I think I will probably get more wear out of it.