Weekend memories...

Well, I had intended to blog what we did on the weekend, and suddenly its Thursday....so I'll do it anyway!

Saturday we went into London for the day, and saw some theatre (Cats Eye at the Kings Head theatre- it was ok) and caught up with Bennie, Simon's friend. We went to the Borough markets which are excellent and about 99.9% food and booze! Shame I ate too much for lunch and didn't want to eat anything, but we did get some good parmesan. Highly recommended (get off at London Bridge station, but go the right way - we didn't). We had dinner at our fave korean place in Soho, had a few drinks (if you could get to the bar thanks to the London Pride rally!) and slept home on the bus! Lovely, but it rained all day! I am really glad we went - I was a bit uncertain after events on Thursday, but it was well worth it.

Sunday we had a 'home day', putting up with the rain again, but we bottled our homemade cider (even before secondary ferment it tasted good! I'll keep you posted), I made a carrot cake due to left over cream cheese (meant to take a photo but is all gone!), a batch of onion jam (picture below) which turned out ok I think (first attempt and copying the ingredients from the jar that we bought at a fete about a year ago!), and I almost finished knitting a gift! I promise more on this soon...

So anyway, very productive. We dug our first spuds from the allotment yesterday - some stuff is doing well, but lots of things look like they would love a day or two of sunshine (including me!) Anyway, I am preparing for my next post to be pretty big - I will have had 1000 hits to the site! I know, nothing flash for most folks but any excuse for a celebration here!

In the meantime, check out Esmerelda's blog - she has some cool NZ sites listed there. And have you all seen Brooklyn Tweed's latest creation? I am completely in love with it!

ECF

Allotment fun!

Secret Pal Revealed!

Its a little bit superhero, but today my secret pal finally revealed herself - well, her blog anyway! I knew her name and that she was from Estonia, but today I find out her blog is http://tikrimari.wordpress.com/ - you should go check it out, it is cool!
Anyway, show off pictures from my most recent (and possibly not the last!?) secret pal parcel - I am so very very spoiled!



Aren't I lucky! The yarn is (a) reddy pinky laceweight alpaca silk (!!ooooh!)perfect for my first go at lace knitting (actually probably far too good for my first attempt, but it is so delicious! I feel a mini knit-along with print o' the wave with Claudia and maybe others...?) and (b) bright light green 100% alpaca (another oooh!) and (c) beautiful leafy olivey green merino, which is absolutely on the mark as a Clare colour. Unfortunately it has rained and rained and rained so the pics are a bit dark - the individual yarns are better representations of the colour.
And then of course there is sheep! I have not been able to take a decent picture of dear lamby yet, but will keep trying. He is the perfect reading pillow and so cosy!
Thanks again, unsecret pal!

More Pics....

More pictures - I cannot seem to get the formatting on this right, so you get all the text up front! Pics are of boy & me in various disguises, mum & me, the gorgeous (winter!) view, and a turtle (look very closely...). Enjoy

Pictures! Millions of Pictures!!

Guess what ..... our phone line is back! Which means I can start posting some pics.
First call I think is holiday - later this week I will try and do pics of my Secret Pal parcel and of our allotment.
So here tis....
We ate a ridiculous amount of these lovely big orange things....although they weren't all this big! (Gotta love a country that makes giant replicas of prawns!)

We saw a real emu (actually, we saw a few!), as well as some of his metallic mates...














My brother caught this fantastic coral trout, which was delicious!











And we caught this cutie in a beer box!


















I swam with some real ones of these for more than an hour! (At least this big!)



















I caught up with old friends (and the latest in Melbourne street art)



















And more old friends - on rooftops! Aren't we all Melbourne cool!














I think thats enough pictures for one post....but more to follow I promise!

Secret Pal Adventure Continues...

I got to work this morning after an infuriating drive in the rain, and there was a lovely big parcel waiting for me! My wonderful Secret Pal had sent me a box full of delights! I got a sheep (you will have to wait for pictures of this - I am not even going to try to describe it!), lavender soap (mmm!), lavender tea (mmm mmm!), cherry chocolate & blueberry chocolate (perfect for Friday afternoon tea), an Estonian-English dictionary (excellent!), and yarn! Beautiful beautiful yarn - a skein of alpaca in a light appley green (nothing immediately springs to mind, but good for the patting and looking!), three balls of merino in a lovely olivey leafy green (I feel a hat coming on...) and two balls of gorgeous deep raspberry red coloured alpaca silk - perfect for a Print o' the Wave stole! Of course, Secret Pal had paid much attention and noted that i wanted to try knitting some lace! And this is great timing as I don't think I have mentioned that I inherited my grandmother's knitting needle collection, so I am all stocked up with any kind of needle (and some crochet hooks) that a girl could possibly need! (well, I am sure I will find an excuse to buy new ones every now and then, but for now I am set).
Thanks Secret Pal Carol - you really did spoil me terribly! I can't wait now to find out your true identity!

Welcome back....to the silence

We had a fantastic holiday, and happily returned to the UK last Friday to find that our phone line has died. BT is on the case, but it is pretty dire stuff involving the digging up of many things. Fingers crossed, but in the meantime, there is no internet! Disaster! Not only that, but no phone and, in an unrelated matter, our TV blew up! It is very very quiet at our house....

So apologies as still no pictures, but everything was great! As you have heard I had many marine close encounters. I also met my new nephew, and caught up with the rapid development of my other nephew, who is now two. Very hard to say goodbye to those two! I visited my parents in Tasmania, which was as cold and as beautiful as ever! I spent most of the visit in front of the fire with the cat, finishing off a pair of fetching fingerless mittens for a friend in Melbourne. We caught up with said friend, and a whole host of other friends, most of which appear to be expecting! I found out that a melbourne friend reads this blog, which is admirable as she is not in anyway a knitter! So hi D - I hope all is ok, and we are thinking of you & yours.

Anyway, not much point in rambling on here. Hopefully BT will get on the case sooner rather than later, as these non-pic blogs are getting a little tedious!

Holiday Update!

Hi! Am having a great time on holiday, enjoying the lovely weather - around 25-30 degrees and sunny every day! I have seen dolphins, dugongs, turtles, sea snakes, humpback whales, minke whales and a hammerhead shark! Also I swam with whalesharks for an hour or so! Amazing amazing stuff. Highly recommended.
Off to the Karinji gorges tomorrow, then heading south the next day! More updates soon.

Frustrating Farewell

Well, this is it for a little while as I traipse around the globe and have a bit of a holiday! Unfortunately, I am both very excited (about the holiday and seeing my folks) and very frustrated - I have something like tennis elbow and my physio friend said I need to rest my arm! Including no knitting!! We'll see....she also said no typing, so I'll keep this short and promise interesting pictures not from my garden when I get back!

Secret Pal 10 Competition 2!

Ok, so Hostess Bobbi asked us what we would pack to knit when going on our summer holiday, and what do we hope to shop for?
As I am conveniently heading off on a lovely holiday in just 3 days (!!!) it didn't take too much imagination.
Firstly I hope to be taking a finished pair of fetchings in lovely blue green colour, but at this stage, they might not be quite done. They are for a friend that I am seeing later in the holiday so that is fine.
Secondly, I am taking stuff to knit for my Secret Pal! I figured holiday time would give me that little bit extra to knit something especially nice.
Finally, I am going to take the yarn that my other Secret Pal sent me in my first parcel, and a pattern for some lacey-ish socks. I think I have decided. I am not totally sure> I will make a last minute executive decision on Saturday, in the midst of the rest of the mad packing.

The shopping bit...well, I am not really going anywhere that I know has good yarn shops, but I am hoping to pick up some more of the lovely handmade wooden knitting needles my mum got me for Christmas - they are made in Tasmania and are beautiful to use (fetchings are currently on them). Also I am going to try and get hold of some possum-merino (sometimes known as merino mink in that part of the world!), maybe in Australia, or maybe I will ask my dearest to get me some when he pops over to New Zealand. And apart from that...who knows? There is a lot of unknitting related shopping to do in Melbourne, as we are planning to update our wardrobes completely, given the good shopping and the excellent exchange rate!

Ideal knitting holiday....maybe a week in a cottage on the coast in Sweden, just with my dearest and good seafood and mushrooms and great wine and a huge stash, and just knit myself silly! One can purchase things any time, but getting the time to actually knit, that would be great!

ECF Scandal!

Ok Ok, you got me. That picture is definately not recent. It was taken on our Christmas holiday when we went skiing in Bad Gastein. Its just that at 7am this morning, with two seconds to guiltily post a pic for the whole Friday thing, it was the nicest thing I could see in my photo album - maybe cause it reminds me of being on holiday! Also, I like the light.
So no, no snow in Oxford! Just lots and lots of wind and rain....

Eye Candy Friday

Finished Object!

Look! Well, don't look too close, cause the pictures are appalling! Truly terrible, and I am very sorry. Turns out it is alot harder to take pictures of yourself in a mirror in the rainy day half dark than you would think. So, I promise I will try and get a better picture, maybe in situ at some point.
Until then....my shrug!
I used the construction and dimensions of the sleeves & back of the Fable shrug pattern, and worked it to suit me and the yarn - lovely Patons Jet that Simon's mum sent me for christmas. I really like it. Simon thinks that maybe it doesn't look like an actual garment. He'll get used to it.
























I really should have cleaned the mirror first.
Anyway, the yarn was beautiful to knit - no splitting, no bits of fluff all over your clothes like other alpaca blends can, great loft, very very nice. The colour is lovely too - very rich. I ended up using almost all of the 5 balls that I was given. It needs a wash & block - you can see from the back that it is still a bit 'lumpy', but given what my week is shapipng up like, that could be some time!

Eye Candy Friday

I know, more flowers - but these are just so pretty! I even stood in the rain to get these pics























Yay! Friday!

Crap blogging

Apologies for the crap formatting of the previous blog. I am just can't get it right today!

Good Stuff in Bad Times

Well, maybe not bad...how about, stressful and frustrating and .....anyway, not where I like to be. Interesting how even when everything else in my life is great, really great, that work being awful can ruin it all. Anyway, enough bitching. I made sure I had some time today to post, but it is raining! Can you believe it?! In England! No, seriously, we struggled getting enough water to our seeds & plants through april - no rain for weeks and weeks, so I shouldn't complain. The only problem I have is the lack of light for pics! So I apologise for the nasty indoor pics.

So the good stuff - the postman brought me a parcel this morning! It was from my lovely Sound Swap pal, Chris, all the way from the USA! Check it out:

Cool stuff hey! Chocolate (which I am saving! yep, I am that weird), a supercool tape measure, some excellent yarn, and a great CD which I have listened to right through already and is great! Really great! Thanks Chris!! (Also, check out her great website)

Also, there has been some knitting! Its not ready for showing in total yet, but its looking good....I like it! Lucky, cause it is for me Also, check out how well the new yarn goes with the new knitting! Once you get to see the finished thing, I will tell you my plans for the new yarn...can't let a coincidence like that go to waste! Good choice, Sound Swap Pal!

And finally, a finished object! It is a big ugly baby blanket! Turns out that sometimes when you swatch, you should swatch in the colours you intend to use too, not just what you have on hand in the same yarn. Cause sometimes those colours don't work out so well together. But nonetheless, here is a big new blanket for my new nephew, Thomas.

Pattern: Big Bad Baby Blanket, from Stitch & Bitch (written by Lisa Shobhana Mason! I love her blog!), but bigger, for some reason. I think I overestimated the size of a baby somewhat.

Yarn: Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino, two strands in cream & apple green

Needles: Addi Turbo bamboo cable in 5.00mm

The Sea, The Sea

Well, despite appearances I have been doing something other than working & playing around in our garden (although they seem to be the two dominant features of my life currently!)

I have been knitting, although fairly tedious pieces that don't warrant much discussion. I have also enjoyed getting to know my Secret Pal a bit better, which has been heaps of fun. I have been trying to give myself a bit of extra care, given recent stressful experiences (read, more baths!). I have been enjoying the sunshine and in particular, drinking Kopparberg Swedish pear cider (only from a giant red wine goblet!) and Aperol wine spritzers with orange slices, my two new favourite spring drinks! I have not been exercising due to sore knees. And I have been reading..

I have just started To The Lighthouse (Virginia Wolf) which I can't believe I have never read, and I have, in line with new years resolutions, bought a lovely old tattered copy of Sholokhov's And Quiet Flows the Don, which I am hoping to take with me on holiday soon. And I have just finished reading Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea (1978).

I bought a Murdoch book (The Bell) last year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I purchased it in an effort to read some UK fiction whilst here, and it really does have a sense of place. So when I saw The Sea (lets leave it at that from now on) in a charity shop, I snapped it up. Interestingly, it is both strongly resonant of The Bell (1973), and completely different. The Bell has a much more straightforward structure, which highlights the beauty of the prose. The characters are interesting, without being overly 'likeable' - the sense that everyone has faults is clear. In contrast, The Sea has an unusual structure - purportedly a diary but never quite fitting this genre. The prose, again, is beautiful and clear, and there is a more defined sense of human foibles and frailty. The entire story is told from the protagonist's view. It is in this sense that the diary structure rings true - the narrator's self-delusions are excruciatingly clear to the reader. He is a revisionist self-historian in many ways. And yet, I was never truly comfortable with the character. For a first person narrative, the distance between the reader & the protaganist felt too great - I like the idea of a dislikeable narrator, however I still need to have a sense of why I should continue reading. I did continue, and I did like this book. Alot. It is beautifully clever, and a masterpiece of technical writing I am sure. But it just didn't quite capture me. The introduction to this edition, by John Burnside, ends in identifying her body of work as a study on ideals and imperfection. This seems true - in many ways this book is beautiful, and wonderful, and yet it feels....almost like it has reached a level of perfection in one way that has come at the cost of that intangible 'something'. I am now committed to reading more Murdoch - I'll let you know how it goes!

Sadly, the only picture of the sea that I could find without resorting to my archive photos! It is the Med, from a city beach at Barcelona. Not at all the type of sea that Murdoch refers to, but at least a picture to liven up this dreary word-heavy post!

Eye Candy Friday Again!

Wow - Friday already, and thank goodness! What a week! Happy Friday to you all.

This doesn't look like much but of all the miles I have clocked up this week on the road (and there are far far too many), a huge percentage are driving past fields of rapeseed (canola) that look like this. Seas of stunning (but stinky) yellow. Spectacular, but somewhat disturbing. Even more freaky when you get out for a closer look. I had to hold the camera up to get this shot - all I could see what a few flower heads in front of me.

I told you I've been knitting...

Truly, I have. Only, in my haste to post some knitted gifts, I forgot to take pics! But I have promises that the recipients will send me some pictures, which I can share. In the meantime I have this:

It is the start of something....I will share more if it actually works! The first time of knitting without a pattern. But it is beautiful yarn - Patons Jet in a lovely pink that hasn't been captured here - much more of a dusky rose colour. It knits up beautifully! Except there are several poor joins in the yarn, which sneak up on you. Not so good.

This is a baby blanket for my new nephew, knitted in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. It is apple green & cream 2 stranded. The apple green is not the colour I thought it would be when I purchased it online, but I have grown to like it and it looks very fresh and springlike in its finished form. The blanket has become larger, as at the halfway point I decided it was too small! So I am awaiting some more yarn, before I can complete it. But it is looking good. Now I just have to get it to Australia!

This weekend we went to look at bluebell woods in south Oxfordshire. Very very beautiful, although hard to capture on camera. You'll just have to take my word for it.




































And finally, this lovely thing poked its head up in my garden over the weekend. I have no idea what it is - does anyone know? It looks like a bulb, with very plain, almost grasslike leaves. It is much more 'shimmery' and rich in colour than you can see here. I think it is beautiful!

Eye Candy Friday

Spring is in full swing in my garden - take a look at these beauties, ready to burst into bloom!

Eye Candy Friday

Sad News

Well, about an hour after my last buoyant blog entry I heard that my Nan had died. She was buried today. It is unbearably hard being away from family at this time. I love her and I miss her. I can't say any more.
However, after a horribly sad week, there was better news....just an hour or so before my Nan's funeral, my sister in law went into labour, and gave birth a very short time later to a beautiful boy. I feel so very sad and so very happy all at once. I look forward to meeting this new family member soon! Right now, I'm going to have a well earned glass or two of wine.

Sunshine, Lollypops & Rainbows......

Sunshine aplenty for the last four days and I am feeling grand! Amazing what a little light therapy can do for the stress levels. After a horrible week of workplace stress and disorganisation, a few days in sunny Bristol have sure done the trick. We made sure we have had Easter Monday at home though, to thoroughly catch up on things and get un-house-stressed as well. I am determined that this week will be better!


Anyway, the garden is looking wonderfully rambling, and there are all sorts of delights popping up hither and thither....
































These are seeds we are growing in a beautifully home-made glass case on top of our shed. Turns out the seeds love it! They are getting ready to live up the road in our new allotment...there is rocket, cos lettuce, cherry tomato, basil, two types of parsley and runner beans all trying to germinate in there! Hopefully this will be for planting out round one (for an early harvest), followed by planting out round two and maybe even seeds in the ground later on?! Growing stuff in England turns out to be a whole lot harder than growing stuff in the antipodes! But still fun.

There is knitting to show I promise...it is all still gift knitting though. But very soon some of the gifts will be shipped off, which means I can almost post! Betchya can't wait!

Secret Pal 10 Competition

Oh! A competition! Who could resist?!
Well, to answer the SP10 competition questions set by Bobbi, our wonderful SP10 group organiser person:
1. How old were you when you learned to knit? & 2. Who taught you?
I think I was about 6 or 7 (does this sound right, Mum?). I learned to embroider around this age, from my Nan. I loved embroidery - I would embroider these little printed doileys, and she would crochet lace edgings for them. My memory is that mum taught me to knit. She could knit, and knitted various things for us. At one stage I even remember a spinning wheel being in the house, although I am not sure about that! Anyway, I think she taught me to knit. I remember it being difficult, much more difficult than embroidery, so I preferred that for many years. I needed mum's help to cast on, to help me get started again every time I picked it up after a break, and help to cast off. Really, I could just knit and purl (interestingly, I have always liked knitting more than purling). I made squares. Not squares for a rug or anything, but squares. I think they were dolls blankets, or doll house blankets if I got bored very quickly. Some turned into cat blankets, as I didn't have that many dolls and wasn't really interested in them. I don't remember what the cats did with them! I do remember they were often stripey, due to the scrap knitting nature of things.
For all of this time I have old memories of wool, some of which was from unfinished objects, some of which is still in my mum's cupboards. Horrible, scratchy, seventies coloured wool. I also remember knitted bikinis, thanks to my other grandmother. I seem to remember those being in the same colour as the dreaded balaclava (also scratchy). Seems surprising I returned to knitting at all really!
Anyway, thats my answer, and I stand by it. I think.