When the rains came...

...I thought you'd leave, cos I knew how much you loved the sun...

We've been playing old Rod Stewart tracks in the car :) Today we sat in it, parked at the sea front, eating ice cream. We couldn't get out as the wind was whipping sand off the beach onto the car park and sandblasting the cars. Not good for a metallic black paint finish. But the rain had stopped for a short while - it's Bank Holiday, what else would the weather do?



The garden says thank you for the rain, though. Roses are coming into bloom all along the path.







And the late spring/early summer bulbs and siberian irises are coming into their own.

On the knitting front: still working on the Krista T. Hope to have it finished by the end of the week.

Oh boy...

... do I hurt today!

Bit of a flare coupled with sitting in a low chair all day yesterday for a 7 hour briefing on Child Protection legislation and a visit here



today with 41 six year olds.

It's Raby Castle. We're learning about castles as part of our project on structures this term and we're lucky, because in this part of the world castles are quite plentiful.

We met a couple from Australia today who were more excited than our children. It was lovely! They were so impressed when we could tell them all about murder holes and curtain walls and moats. I guess we take our heritage for granted a bit as, on the bus on the way home, the best bits were voted to be eating our picnic in the walled garden and going on the adventure playground.

SATisfaction

Now they're finished... the Key Stage 2 SATs that is. Anyone in Primary Schools this week has had their life on hold, focused intensively on getting the Year 6 students through this. It's a terrible thing to do to an 11 year old. A while ago the 'average' score goalposts were moved to 80%. Now, it seems that old Gordy has moved the 'average' to 100%. It still doesn't add up...

Nevertheless. Progress on the knitting front:



This is the Mia Shrug in Rialto. Excuse the slightly stunned just-back-from-11-hours-at-work look.



and the back



My new project - Krista from the wonderful Joan McGowan-Michael. Also in Rialto, which is a departure from the cotton specified in the pattern, but I'm really into merino at the moment.

The numbers don't add up

How dare he?

...and I voted for these people...

Into every life a little rain must fall

but when?

The forecast keeps promising 3 days of rain to come, but it keeps being pushed back further and further. What was supposed to come and revitalise our garden on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday is now earmarked for Thursday onwards.



J is having to use the hosepipe.

Knitting content: I'm making good progress on my Mia shrug, but no more pictures until it's sewn up as one long rectangle looks much the same as the earlier picture.

Have you seen the latest Stitch Diva newsletter? I wasn't taken by their pattern for Sahara, but the photos of Jenifer Hansen's mum modelling it in cerise in the newsletter have converted me. It's on the to do list for Summer with short sleeves in a bright colour.

I must confess, no offense intended, that I'm a bit disappointed by the latest issue of Yarn Forward magazine, which arrived this week. The production is just a little odd - some of the diagrams have reproduced badly when resized and the garments are unseasonal and, frankly, unappealing. It seems poor value for money at GBP4.40 an issue (more than Interweave Knits?). Maybe things will pick up. I hope so...I have a subscription.

No retreat, baby, no surrender.

Much discussion in the staffroom today about last night's Channel 5 documentary - the last in the wonderful Hidden Lives series: Obedient Wives. Put your hand up if you think becoming a Surrendered Wife would improve your marriage. Not me. Nor any of my colleagues.
We don't want our men to:
choose our clothes and hairstyles,
make all the decisions,
control our money,
expect us to do all the household chores,
expect us to be 'available' for sex at least once a week regardless of how we feel about it
and to keep our mouths shut whenever we feel a challenging or disagreeing thought surfacing.

I watched it with J and j. Afterwards I said "I'll just pop into the kitchen and make tomorrow's packed lunches while you put my clothes out for work in the morning..."
Much hilarity all round.


On your bike Laura Doyle.

Tightly coiled

Things have been fairly tense on the knitting front lately.
Understatement.
Let me tell you the story of Boobalicious:
I knit the front.
It was too small.
I blocked it larger.
The tension looked all over the place.



I frogged it.
I reknit it in a bigger size.
I finished it off.
I tried it on.
The fit was ok round the boobs but the shoulders were hideous.
The colour looked hideous on me too.
I dyed it purple.
The colour was lovely but no amount of purple was disguising the horribleness of the shoulder straps.



I felted it.
It's about to become the most expensive and labour intensive make up bag I've ever had.

I sought peace and relaxation by joining J on a drive across to Fryup Dale, near Danby.



and starting my Mia shrug.



The yarn (100% merino dk in a creamy colour) is a joy to work with (but I can't help feeling that it looks a bit like an acrylic!!! )The easy lace pattern is soothing and effective. Just what I need on the needles right now!

The garden is desperate for some rain. The weather folk keep promising it, but no show so far - even with the added temptation of a Bank Holiday to ruin.

Numbers

Following hard on the heels of 30; lots of numbers this week. J's Dad was 80 at the weekend. We had a surprise lunch on Sunday in Cotherstone village, in Teesdale. J's family are from there. This picture brings back memories of staying at his Aunty Nina's cottage when he was a child.



The plan was for one of J's sisters to pick his Dad up, on the pretext of going for a quiet pub lunch, and bring him to the restaurant for lunch, where 20 of us were waiting. Conversation went thus:
"Dad, are you really going to wear that jumper?"
"Yes, why? We're only going to the Red Lion"
"Yes, but it wouldn't hurt to be smart for a change"
Grumble, grumble, grumble all the way.
"This isn't the Red Lion, this is the Fox and Hounds. I want to go to the Red Lion. This is one of those Gastro Pubs, I've been reading about them."

Eventually they arrived and we had a lovely lunch at the Fox and Houndswith two of J's sisters and their families. I forgot the camera, but someone will email us some soon, I hope.

Another number: 44. I was 44 this week. Where did the years go? I might stay 43...

J and I went for a drive up to Eggleston Hall and had a walk around the grounds. Slowly... I'm suffering a bit with the old fibromalarky and am actually feeling older than J's Dad.

Not a reflection on mortality, but just because I love the little ruined family chapel, dating from early 1600s, in the grounds up there and the fact that even dogs are included.

Pearl

Our secretary celebrates 30 years at work this week. Not 30 years work in general, but 30 years at our school. It's not usual these days and in some careers can be seen as a bad thing - stagnation and narrowing. In our business, which changes on a day-to-day, person-to-person basis I can see how it just happens. I've been here since 2000 and it doesn't seem 2 minutes ago. In my previous incarnation I changed jobs (or locations) on average every two years.

The continuity of Mrs C in her role is a real benefit to the school. Not only does she know all our children, but she knows most of their parents (many from when they were children at our school), family circumstances, family links and community connections. She's a one-woman database and years ahead of the current Information Sharing initiatives.

Cheers, Mrs C!

Virginia Tech

My heart goes out to the families of all the people killed yesterday at Virginia Tech University. My son told me the news before I saw it on TV. He had heard it online from one of his friends in the States. We watched the pictures on the news when I came home from work, horrified.

As a parent I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about j, but stupidly, I tend to feel that he is safe at school. Not so. I put myself in the place of parents of students at Virginia Tech, watching that news footage. j says I overreact. He already knows all the facts and statistics for other school related shootings. He thinks it's 'interesting'. I wonder what kind of enquiring mind I have raised.

When I visited schools in Calgary, Alberta as part of a group of teachers looking at the programme for gifted students out there I took part in a 'Lock Down' drill. We don't have these here, we have evacuation drills for fire etc. In the Lock Down, I worked with a teacher to lock the children into the classroom with us and build a barricade from furniture that we could shelter behind. We shut the blinds and were as silent as we could be in an attempt to hide our existence from 'the gunman'. I was terrified.

Maybe we have to revisit our thinking on this at school. I am so saddened by the need for such thinking.

Honk if You're...

a goose.



My grandad used to keep a gardening journal, recording all the things he had planted, were in flower, fruit and the daily temperature in and outside his green house. I feel that this blog is going a bit that way with my preoccupation with our increasingly bizarre weather. Nevertheless, yesterday evening J and I went for a drive out to Seal Sands. When we left home the temperature here was 22 degrees C and we had the aircon on in the car. Out at the estuary, it dropped to 15 degrees. It's interesting out there at this time of year - even for those of us who aren't twitchers. J is much better than I am at spotting the various birds in our neighbourhood, but even I can spot the Canada Geese. There are gaggles starting to build up in the areas around the wetland reserves and it is starting to look a bit like a festival - a sort of goose Glastonbury. The geese camp out for a while, sitting out their summer moult. I love to see and hear skeins of geese flying over the house, honking at each other. It's so companionable. I might come back as a goose next time.



On the kniiting front, I'm a quarter of the way up the back of Boobalicious and just itching to get onto something more colourful, but I'm resisting starting anything else until it's finished.

Back to work today. I had to load the car last night and I couldn't eat my breakfast this morning. It's really stupid. I love my job! I just like being at home more...
Would the children believe it if anyone told them that teachers get school phobia on the first day of term too?

We're interviewing for a new colleague tomorrow. I dislike being part of an interview in any role. As an interviewee I'm terrified and terrible and as an interviewer I'm secretly bored inside. How bad is that?

More signs of Spring:

The Youth of Today

Lots of knitting done today - caught up on the reknit of Boobalicious from Big Girl Knits. I'm dividing for the neck again and it's a bit like deja vu, except this time it will fit...I hope. I'm not frogging it again, if it's too small this time I'm finishing it and then finding someone it will fit and forcing them to wear it.

I only broke off to have coffee with a friend and drive her to work. K and I sat in Starbucks in linen skirts, sleeveless tops looking healthy and tanned thanks to that lovely Dove Summer Glow. We used the fair skin version as they didn't have one for women who-are-so-pale-from-the-winter-that-they-are-almost-blue. I had spent the previous evening sanding my unsuspecting feet with this, which I must hide away after use as it repulses the men in my life so badly, and painting my toenails bright pink in an effort to ready them for the start of the sandal-hunting season.

I used to have a serious shoe thing going on and liked to wear interesting shoes that displayed my tattooed right foot to best advantage, but a couple of years ago I broke that ankle and ripped some ligaments. My orthopoedic surgeon said I may regain a 'normal ankle shape' within 10 years!!!! but ONLY if I give up shoes that put my ankle at risk of turning over, because that would be likely to result in surgery, which (along with being painful and risky) would mess up my tattoo totally.

So, it's this kind of thing for me now:





Both nice, but these are the ones I really want.



Nevermind. (God, I loved ankle straps!)

I should worry about becoming old and decrepit though... Finally persuaded J to go see his GP today. He's been having 3 migraines a week lately and has also been having (unrelated) swelling of both knees.
Apart from annual bouts of Man Flu he's in very good health usually, and problems with his body worry him.

He won't talk about them though:

When we came back from Poland last year he had chest pain at the gate at Heathrow but decided not to mention it to me in case I 'made an embarrassing scene' by calling an ambulance. Instead he thought he'd get on the plane and die quietly in his seat! (with my last words to him being "What's up with you, you've got a face like a slapped a*rse?" Lovely memories that would have left for j and I...) Anyway, he finally confessed - after he'd driven us home from Newcastle airport!! - and a trip to A&E confirmed no heart attack, but lots of stress. (Funny, I wouldn't have expected that from four days with 4 flights, miles of walking, a visit to Auschwitz...)

So, today he confessed that he'd gone to see the Dr expecting diagnosis of a brain tumour and cancer of both knees, only to be told to get his eyes tested for age-related changes (he's 52), give up coffee (aarrgghh! He's latte man) and to wear knee supports for working - after all, what can he expect at HIS AGE after a youth spent falling off motorbikes onto his kneecaps?

In comparison, I feel quite young and fit today.



Bless him.

Spring knitting plans

Inspired by the warmer weather I've been looking for some Spring knitting projects. I bought a brown linen dress recently



and have been thinking about a cardigan to go over it. I've ordered two patterns from White Lies Designs - the Krista Tee and Easy Lace Jacket. I think the Easy Lace might go well, but then again, I was wondering about a shrug...

...been researching them on rounder ladies and found this one, the Mia Shrug from Yarn is my Metier, which I really like. Need to think about a yarn next.

I'm supposed to be trying to get my stash down a bit, but I bought this:



It's Handmaiden Sea Silk in Woodland. At £17 for 100g I only bought one skein. It's going to be a scarf.

Proof that I am knitting something at the moment:



Sock in Opal something or other, sunning itself on J's newly refurbished "Dad's bench". (Guess it's more J's than Dad's now, but that's how it will always be in my mind)



And a close-up. This yarn feels a bit scratchy. I'm hoping it will soften and bloom a little on first wash. It's in a 3+1 rib for a little stretch and may be for j, if he likes the look of it when it's finished.



Marsh marigold looks lovely at this time of year and there's some nice lichen making a home on our Buddha at last.

It's not all purple

We've had a productive couple of days - J has been restoring an Edwardian garden seat we got from my Dad in 1989. The legs and uprights are cast iron and the back and seat are timber. The timber had rotted and the paint flaked quite badly, probably due to the fact that it lives in our 'woodland' at the bottom of the garden. It's a lovely spot in the morning becasue the sun gets down there early and it's perfect for sitting with a cup of coffee and listening to the birds (while praying that they don't dump guano on your head from one of the big trees, which can ruin the atmosphere...)

Finished assembling those purple pieces:



Angle of photo makes the mouth look a bit odd, but it's quite sweet, used up lots of odds and ends of purple yarn and has got the whole sock monkey thing out of my system...well, maybe:



and this:



I love those adverts!

More purple - this time in the garden:



A perfect Queen of the Night tulip in bud



and another, starting to open



Tiny grape hyacinths in the rockery.

It's not all purple out there though.