This is a Thing, then

Posted on December 2, 2014 by admin

I thought I should post an actual post on the timeline so that anyone stumbling across the blog will know…this Sunday I will be running in a 10km race at Weston Park near Telford in an effort to raise funds in support of a forthcoming charitable trip to Kenya that I am doing in January. I’ve set up a special page which tells you all about it – read all about running for Kenya (not *to* Kenya, that would be insane) on its own special page (see the Kenya-ish link on the menu if you don’t click through here)

If you want to donate but don’t really care about the detail, use THIS DONATION LINK to send sponsorship money.

Shortly I will be selling xmas stockings – if you want something special or novelty, get your orders in sooner rather than later.

I had my second set of travel vaccinations this evening so am feeling a little bit pin-cushion-y and there are A LOT of things I’m not supposed to do or touch or go near when I’m there – it’s an awful lot to remember…

ONWARDS & UPWARDS, though, eh?!

Chicken shit..

Posted on October 19, 2014 by admin

In the aftermath of tree-mageddon, I went out this morning to make some progress on winter prep and to get some stuff in t’ground. This is the new view from the vegetable patch towards the house. You’ll notice that where there was once a whopping great big tree there is now a stump and a big pile of future firewood. It’s a lot clearer. We loved Oakie and agonised for a long time over the it, but overall I think we’ve made the right decision.

It’s fair to say the neighbours are quite pleased and I’m not surprised – they’ve gone from having a line of 50 foot trees to having full exposure. Aren’t we good to them! So – below is the pano for the post-work vegetable area. As usual the progress isn’t necessarily obvious… Working left to right, I re-planted a couple of the raspberry posts and tied the raspberry canes back a bit. I picked a decent bowlful of raspberries (still – at this time of year!) and mulched around the bases of them. In re-planting the stake at the far end, I must have dug up about 5 tiles-worth of broken tiles. Definitely a fork job! I put some more mulch around the lilac trees at the back – the lower branches of these need some trimming I think – that’s a job for next week. (click to get the full panoramic effect, as usual.)

I dug some compost into the bed-formerly-known-as-the-strawberry-patch and had to pile some of the earth up against the remaining strawberries as it’s getting quite full and would have been pretty humpy. I might have to re-distribute some to somewhere. It’s good quality – not too weedy & plenty of worms. This weeks evening task is to research setting up a wormery so I might be able to use some for that. We were given a wormery as a wedding gift (from Steve’s Essex Uni chums I think) but the worms died in transit to it never really got going. We still have the barrel with the tap at the bottom so I think we can work some free-fertiliser magic with that… I’ve now planted 4 rows of onions – 2 rows of white & 2 rows of red. The red ones are called “Red Winter” so if they fail because they’ve been planted at the wrong time of year I’ll be wanting my money back! Let’s see what happens, eh?! There were some sets which have started to sprout already which, I understand from the RHS site, makes them more likely to flower and thus make rubbish eating onions. My plan is to plant these & let them go to seed and then I’ll have some onion seeds to start a new crop with. Yes, it’s a long game, but at £1.99 for 20 sets, if I can get them for free I’m going to consider it a bonus 🙂

There were some accidental potatoes growing next to the rhubarb, so I lifted & split them up to hopefully increase yield a little. Some bit the dust in the meantime but I don’t think we’re going to be short. I very nearly inadvertently planted some with the onions which came from the compost, so I have some teeny tiny potatoes which might seed at some point. I also have a plan to build up the soil along their little row to try to increase yield yet again – so maybe this is a good destination for the excess soil from the other bed.

My friend Ken who, among MANY other things keeps chickens brought us some chicken manure last weekend, so my final job was to dig some of this into what I’m going to refer to as the spring planting bed. Apparently this stuff is so strong that you need to leave at least a month after spreading for the chemicals to bed in, or water lots daily. My plan is to clear the second half of this bed and dig it in there – and then not plant anything until the spring. And, as it apparently gets very smelly when damp, my plan is to stay well away from it when it’s raining… It was all a really good workout, and I really enjoyed just pottering.

I’m thinking that we may need to come up with some names for the various veggie patches so I’ll apply my brain to thinking of something appropriately themed… But while we only have 2 beds it’s not really urgent!

My plan for next week includes lifting & dividing the rhubarb, planting some over-winter broad beans (omnomnom!) and further clearing of the spring planting bed. You heard it here first, folks!

This evening will be some crochet and a project involving this:

…for a family who use re-useable plastic bags we sure do have a lot at the moment…

New favourite cardigan

Posted on February 26, 2014 by admin

According to Ravelry my new favourite cardigan has taken me 3.5 months to knit. I’m really pleased with this – there was a time not so long ago when I would plan *months* ahead and not be able to bank on finishing a garment until after the season after next. Those days are gone.

Well, for the projects I work on, clearly. For others, the months rules still apply.

I got the yarn for this latest project from the New York Sheep and Wool Fair, or Rhinebeck for short.

I could have sworn I took a photo of my Rhinebeck haul but a cursory search in a single location didn’t yield fruit and the picture wasn’t all that great anyway. I took yarn weight and quantity details with me, as I wanted to get something lovely to make a Lavandula with, and this seemed like the right place to get it. I wanted to get something in a dark grey.

When I saw the skeins of dark grey alpaca hanging in the booth, I thought “that looks like the color I’m after” (I was in the US, so clearly was thinking in US spelling). I reached out and felt it and -ooOOooh!

I was in love.

This is possibly the smooshiest yarn I have ever felt, smooshier even than previous alpaca yarns I have loved. For the next few weeks, my favourite trick was to hand a skein to someone who was in full conversational flow, and -ooOOooh. Yes, it’s conversation stoppingly smooshy. I quite quickly moved on, though, from petting it to winding it. I wound each of the 3 skeins I got into 2 balls so that I could knit a row in each of the skeins, thus preventing any colour-pooling or having the arms in a different colour. For, as the lady at the booth said, although the yarn is undyed and all from the same fleece, the underbelly might have been a different shade to its back. The balls of wound yarn were also very smooshy.

The first part of this pattern requires one to knit 12 inches of very long rows of 1×1 rib. This is not my favourite kind of knitting, being 1 step up from the dreaded moss stitch, but needs must. After quite the ribbing extravaganza, you get to knit a lacy pattern so I hung on in there.

Through series 2 of The Bridge and I think some Game Of Thrones I ploughed on, having memorised the lace pattern (to the extent that the second sleeve has slightly more lace at the row-ends than the first – I got more confident by then) and much concentrating and checking off through simultaneous raglan and neckline decreases. And The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I had to do the button band twice because I didn’t pick up enough stitches and it pulled in too much.

A quick beef about this. Why say “pick up 90 stitches”? Why not say “Pick up 3 stitches for every 4 rows”, especially when the body of the garment is measured in inches rather than rows. Eh? A lot of misery could be avoided that way.

…and so it was nearly done. I sewed the buttons on straight away (I had planned ahead and bought some before starting to knit. Get me, with my thinking ahead) and thus found out straight away that I had one button hole too many. I think, however, that I do indeed have one button hole too many and not one button too few as doing up the top button, were there a button there, would look really quite odd.

And so here it is – my new favourite cardigan.

I had a moment of crisis about half way through making this that the combination of raglan sleeves and rib over the belly would only serve to accentuate my negative features ~ however, in spite of the amount of sucking in that’s going on in the photo above (note the blue shade around my lips) I think it’s actually pretty flattering. And the snowflake pattern works well. As does the colour. And it’s still very smooshy. If a bit hairy.

I just hope the large amount of negative and dark telly I watched while making it hasn’t affected its aura. I’d hate to start growing tattoos as a result…

50/50

Posted on December 10, 2013 by admin

Steve was away at the weekend which meant that on Friday night I got to choose what we watched on the TV. Scratch that, I got to choose what *I* watched on the TV. After the children went to bed. Before that, we watched 3 episodes of Dr Who in place of the usual Friday night film & pizza night. We kept the pizza in the mix, just ditched the film in favour of the programme of the moment.

I took the opportunity to watch something I’ve had my eye on for a while – 50/50. Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, who I’ve liked since he was the child in 3rd Rock From The Sun, the review on five live’s flagship film review show was good. The premise is that JGL’s character is diagnosed with a tumour on his spine in his late 20’s, a cancer which typically has a 50/50 chance of survival, and the film follows him through treatment, his family and friends’ reactions, and so on.

It’s very good. There is a touch of humour, it’s not laugh a minute, and it’s nice to see Seth Rogan, who plays JGL’s best friend, in a serious role. Although, I said that about the last film I saw him in, the title of which I can’t remember just now. It was something like The Last Tango (I’ll have to check that). It was a quiet companion for the evening – some laughs, some smiles, a fairly predictable denouement, but it’s all the more satisfying for that. I cried more than once, but it wasn’t in any way mawkish.

I managed to remain knitting obsessed, as when JGL’s character loses his hair he takes to wearing hats. As he’s in Seattle, he can wear nice knitted hats. My favourite was black with a grey, red and white stripe. Mmmmm, knitting.

I left with a similar warm, wistful feeling that I had after I’d watched The Station Agent. One to go back to one day, and I may well make Steve watch it as well.

I love the smell of Brasso in the evening…

Posted on December 5, 2013 by admin

Many, many years ago I was able to claim to be a trumpet player. Sadly, I wasn’t super-keen, and when I hurt my shoulder and lived in unheated rented accommodation in cold, windy Leeds, I didn’t need to search deep in my soul for the desire to stop. Several times in the intervening period I’ve felt a bit of an urge to pick it up again, but it’s never been super strong.

One of the reasons why is because the instrument (a cornet) I have at the moment isn’t fab. It feels a bit blocked (although that could easily just be that my lungs are out of condition) and after about 15-20 minutes of playing the valves stop springing up when you release them which makes playing anything which has more than one note in it a bit tricky.

Another reason is that I now live in Brass Band country. I’m surrounded by people who haven’t just taken a 20 year break and who are really super good. This makes me very nervous about trying to find other people to play with. But, if I’m going to take this up again and keep at it (these words will sound very hollow in about a week when I haven’t touched it again, I know) that’s what I should do as once I reached a certain level, swing band and concert band were the things I liked best. And Christmas Carols by a Brass quartet are just awesome. I want to be able to play in this (seriously, go listen to that – it’s my answer to It’s A Wonderful Life, only shorter). But I’d probably need music because I’m old and my memory is pants.

However, this evening I went for that first 20 minutes. I can still remember quite a few of the scales although anything above “top” E is a bit of a challenge and I really can’t get above the top G. More lip resilience is required.

So, what has prompted this new-found enthusiasm?

I may get to play duets without leaving the house.

Lunchtime beers

Posted on October 23, 2013 by admin

Friday was a sight-seeing day, so Ann took me to the Ommegang brewery in/near Cooperstown. They brew lovely beer, including the beer made especially for Game of Thrones. We drank proper actual beer and by the time my special sandwich (turkey & pesto) arrived its quality was, frankly, incidental. I have no idea what strength the beer was, but it was damn tasty, especially given that it was “proper” beer rather than lager.

Outside the rest rooms they had a rather lovely map with pins – you were encouraged to add a pin where you were from – clearly the form with non-US locations is to add a piece of paper with your place name written on. I thought about pinning my note to the door of the ladies, but that’s really not how Ormskirk wants to be known. Plus, although we were leaving I still had purchases to make in the gift shop, so being thrown out would *definitely* have been counter productive. If you look closely enough you can see Ormskirk which I’ve now moved to the Bermuda Triangle (or near it, at least).

We took some photographic evidence that we were at a genuine brewery. Ann didn’t realise the pictures were taking because I had the sound switched off. So we had six versions of the picture below. And all of them had my (new) sweater riding up and a sexy sliver of midriff showing. Avert your eyes if you’re at all sensitive!

After the brewery we went over to Fly Creek Cider Mill. Fly Creek is a derivation from the Dutch for swamp according to a sign on-site and nothing at all to do with Fly Fishing, which was my guess. It isn’t a major attraction, but if you’re in the area with not much to do, probably worth popping by. It has a fabulous farm shop which sells not only cider and Cider, but many cider-derived goods. We bought cider, which is non-alcoholic apple juice in this instance, and some fudge. The fudge was very tasty and the lady who served me quite funny. She spotted our accents (Ann sounds fully American to me, but apparently her accent stands out like a sore thumb to genuine americans) and asked where we were from. Ann promptly smiled and edged away, and I said I was from near Manchester in England. “Oh!” she says, and then shyly asks “and have you met the queen or any of the princesses?”

It was very tempting to say that I was top mates with *all* of the Princes but I bit my tongue and said yes, I’ve seen the Queen once from about 100 yards away when she was unveiling a statue in Stratford. And then ran away from the crazy lady.

Look! It’s a cider press. That only presses on weekends during the apple season. We’re in the apple season, but today is Thursday.

To copy The Everywhereist… The Brewery is definitely worth a detour. The beer and service were excellent. In spite of being perched on high stools, which we thought would be uncomfortable, the atmosphere was convivial and we had a lovely time. We didn’t do the tour, but if it involves tasting the beer then you’re in for a treat. The cider mill is probably only worth a very small detour unless you’re after unusual farm-style foods (seriously, they have everything you could want and more. I overheard a couple arguing over whether it was necessary to eat everything they bought or whether they could take some of it home to Iowa. He wanted to eat himself sick, she clearly wasn’t so sure). The Cider mill has an interpretive video which added some colour to the static machinery next to it. It also has a cafe which a shop purchase gets you a 10% off voucher for. We didn’t try the cafe so I can’t report on what it’s like. Neither place is really suitable for children unless they like to watch their parents drink lovely beer and they like to eat food.

Also, we found a pair of glasses in the car park and a chap who was walking into the brewery with us said our accents reminded him of when he worked in the UK for BAE. I’d say it’s a small world, but BAE is an enormous company so frankly I’m surprised we don’t meet more people who have worked for them on our travels.

Throwback

Posted on October 23, 2013 by admin

This afternoon, on the way to the airport, Ann showed me a “proper” mall.

I can see how a day could be whiled away. It wasn’t as big or grand as the Trafford Centre but then, what is? We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant where there were no Chinese people. There may have been some slaving away in the kitchen but front of house, all non-Chinese. Very odd in my world.

We had lettuce wraps, which I haven’t had since the first Chinese meal I had as a child. The recipe is available online. I may have to make that soon.

OM NOM. I now feel very garlicky, which is unfortunate for the person sitting next to me on the plane. Maybe some toblerone will take the edge off…

Unfamiliar, yet… A bit familiar

Posted on October 22, 2013 by admin

Staying with my aunt has been lovely. I’ve been to her home once before, just over 10 years ago. The decor is a mixture of things I’d never seen before and things which are really familiar. On the wall above, for example, the wooden ship roundels are from my Nana’s House and the small needlepoint of poppies (towards the bottom left, on dark blue) is one of my designs. There’s a set of four seasons pictures in the dining room that my Nana had, or maybe it was my parents, and there are pictures by my mother all over the place.

While still essentially American and _not_ home, the familiar touches give quite a comfortable feeling to the place for me.

Thank you for having me, Ann!

Vicarious exercise

Posted on June 11, 2013 by admin

No exercise for me today as I’m having to fit a full day’s work around taking Lily to the district cross country event, so vicarious exercise only.

Here she is, being spurred on by my cheers and Joel’s waves of embarrassment, helping her to overtake the girl in the light blue t-shirt.

She came 36th out of… Not many more than 36, but in her defender she started near the back and apparently there was both blocking & barging.

Also, we got to see most of Scarisbrick Hall School, apart from the bit that was under scaffolding, which I’ve never done before. Lily is keen to transfer, but I’ve made it clear that its basically a choice between attending scabby hall or eating…. The jury is still deliberating, so maybe I should have been clearer!

Underachieving to overachieving

Posted on June 7, 2013 by admin

Well, there you have it. I went from some rather pathetic excuses for an attempt at exercise (Tuesday was especially bad, I think) to somewhat over achieving, and am now breaking all kinds of personal best records in runkeeper. I don’t think I’ve actually cycled more than I did the last time we were down to one car (2 days this week, and I think I did 2 days per week last time), but this time I’m making damn sure I register it. That, and the brisk walk from Manchester Oxford Road to Grafton Street on 2 days (normal behaviour, but see above) means I’ve broken km, calories and elevation records, plus a glitch in the tracking on the way home yesterday means I’ve set an unrepeatable personal best average speed. Que sera – maybe one day I *will* repeat & beat it. Yesterday morning was my best and easiest ride so far. Admittedly it was downhill, but as I said at the time, I think the ability to sit on the saddle comfortably helped a lot.

Quite a few people at work have noticed me arriving and leaving in exercise gear: my reputation as someone who Does Exercise is now cemented, so I can probably stop.

ONLY JOKING! There’s the Wigan 10K to do yet.

Plus, I haven’t mentioned it because Steve’s foot is clearly a lot worse, but my left knee is sore again. Pain killers and elevation this evening as I watch BSG and finish off Lily’s cardigan, and then I may try to take it for a little spin sometime at the weekend. The pain is an odd one – it started when I was in Wales last week, so it might have been the beach that set it off, but since then it’s been bubbling away & this evening my right knee joined in a bit. My hormones sometimes cause my thigh bones & leg joints to be sore, but the timing is totally wrong, even on my messed up schedule. So I’m being a bit careful. Just don’t tell Steve, he’ll think I”m trying to muscle in on his sympathy allocation!

And now, here’s a gratuitous picture…

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