Grey and misty

I hate the fag end of winter.

Everything looks grim and grey. True, the days are getting a little longer, but the quality of light is still very poor.

Most of our walks, lately, have been around Saltholme. We had to stop for these guys last time. They were quite disgruntled that we wanted to be on the same path as them.

A visitor

I was walking past the landing window when larger than usual movement outside caught my eye.

If we're lucky we catch a bird of prey in action. Often we have a couple of woodpeckers, but the only evidence of this visitor is usually footprints in the snow or a ripped bin bag, if we're stupid enough to leave one outside.

Picture isn't great, as it's through glass.

He pottered about at the bottom of the garden for ages.

Big Rubble

Knitting update.
I've been trying to get things finished and reduce the number of projects I have in progress.

This is a terrible picture of a great sweater. It's Big Rubble (Ravelry link) and is very warm and comfortable. Unfortunately, the sleeves make it difficult to wear under a coat. Can't have it all, I guess!

Walking the walk

We're taking steps, literally, to increase our fitness. (As per post of 1st Jan) As we like gadgets and need some motivational kick-starting, we have Omron pedometers.
It's very childish of me, but I keep sniggering about alarms going off to tell me Jimmy Saville is around. Glossing over that, mine is purple, J's is green.

I'm working up to 10,000 steps a day. I'm not quite there yet. J is. We took a reasonable walk around Saltholme this afternoon, but afterwards, I was waylaid by ironing, sorting out a cupboard and cleaning out the fridge to track down what that strange, cheesy smell was. Plenty of moving and bending, but not as many steps as J managed while planting up his bargain flowering bulbs in the garden.

I like the new wooden installation at Saltholme. Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

There are lots of hares around, too. 

In knitting news, I finished a test cowl, 3 days late, but I didn't think I was going to manage at all. It's a test for Brenda  of Artemis Adornments.  I'm going to send it to my brother, P, but persuaded a p-ed off j to model it for a photograph.

The hawk's deliberate stoop in air

Unseasonally warm at 12 degrees C today.

We walked at Saltholme and watched a Marsh Harrier hunting. She was too fast to capture on the wing with my camera, but posed at rest in the tallest tree.

Last week we saw Waxwings there, but they seem to have moved on, having stripped every tree of its berries.

2013

Happy New Year!

I didn't make any resolutions last year and don't intend to this year, either. I do have a few plans and some goals, however. Goals aren't the same as resolutions. Don't ask me how or why.

Goals:

1. To increase my general fitness. This has dropped off significantly as my activity was curtailed by my abdominal surgery in the summer. I need to pick it up a bit again now that I've had the all-clear from my surgeon. I shall start by walking more, then I'd like to add some swimming and some running.

2. To reduce household expenditure on food. We spend far too much and still throw too much away. I need to plan ahead more effectively and engage J and j in the process a bit more. Sometimes it's overwhelming to carry such a large proportion of the responsibility for shopping and meal planning and cooking alone.

3. To save a reasonable amount of spening money for our holiday. We're off to California and Nevada again in July.

4. To knit from my stash and get it down a bit.

Half-term

and I'm very glad to see it!

I've been doing a bit of knitting:

I hoped to put my feet up a bit, drink coffee, watch movies and work on this a bit more. I had secretly challenged myself to finish it this week, but that isn't happening. The yarn is gorgeous. It was part of my Christmas gift from j and J.

On the subject of coffee and yarn, I received a lovely package in the post, all the way from Sacramento. It's my Knitter's Coffee Swap package from Liz. The coffee looks really interesting. It's from Temple and I'm looking forward to trying it.

We usually buy coffee from Whittards at Dalton Park and often order it for delivery from Pumphreys. We like to support localish businesses when we can. This week, I went a little further afield to Coffee Bean Shop. The service and delivery was excellent. Now, I just hope the coffee is as good.

And we thought we were in the clear!

It snowed quite hard last night.

When J went out this morning, the garden was full of fox footprints. We played CSI Fox tracking where they had been - there was more than one. The garden has a secret life all of it's own at night. I seem to spend so much of each night awake but still miss it.

Catchup

Every week I have good intentions about blogging and every week those intentions seem to fall by the wayside as each week is just as manic as the previous one!

A quick catchup:

I spent a lovely couple of days hiking around Gibisde with a group of kids and some hardy colleagues. We had a great time, but slept little! Gibside is a great location and the stable block, where we stayed, is a really interesting building. I had regular periods of feeling watched, though. I know the chances of that are pretty high when there are 37 of you sharing the space, but it wasn't that. Regular readers will know about my insomnia and night time wanderings, and it was the times when I was on my own that were most interesting. Need to investigate that a bit more, I think. Maybe not. Maybe I'm better off not knowing.

I've been finishing some small, knitted items as I haven't had much time/stamina/wakefulness to invest in a bigger item. I have cast something on in anticipation of my forthcoming half-term holiday, though. My plan is to sit on the sofa for a week and watch all the films the blokes won't watch.

Shivery!

Well, after wondering if we were going to get away without really having a winter, the weather starting to deteriorate a bit over the past week.
J and I got up early one morning to visit the RSPB Saltholme reserve in the hope of seeing short eared owls or marsh harriers. We didn't find them, but watched a flock of Barnacale Geese land on one of the lakes. It is very beautiful at this time of year.

 

In knitting news:

I finished a pair of socks for my brother, P, while on the train to and from the BETT show in Olympia. I enjoyed the show and it was a good day out with a colleague, but I know I couldn't do a really long commute like that every day (or even every week)! I did enjoy explaining how I got the socks to (more or less match) to the chap sitting opposite us on the return trip.

Then I finally finished my Hitchhiker scarf, in Sanguine Gryphon Bugga. This is gorgeous yarn. I was aiming for 42 points, but managed 36 - not quite the ultimate answer.

Next, I knitted up another hat - need to keep the wind off my ears these days. This one is in my hand-dyed, handspun yarn (merino, alpaca and silk). If I look wrinkly and knackered, it's because I am wrinkly and knackered all the time these days.

Stormy

J has gone off to repair a friend's fence, which blew down yesterday. Good to see he is getting such early use out of his new Christmas drill/driver!

Yesterday was so stormy. There was a brief lull in the wind and rain in the early afternoon. We headed out to the beach - I was feeling a bit stir crazy. It was deserted except for us and the sea birds. We watched a little colony of turnstones fighting to stay upright in the wind.