Some brightness from last week

Because this week I have a cold and a cut on my thumb (so I can't knit) and I'm feeling less than bright. I know, small worries eh? Anyway, last week! Miss Mouse loves playing snap and though I am not a gamer at all (whether computer games, board games or card games, I'm pretty much bored by them all), thanks to our very pretty wild-flower playing cards Miss Mouse and I have spent the odd peaceful half-hour here and there playing Snap. A very quiet, sedate game of snap - I am uncompetitive in the extreme and Miss Mouse is not one for shrieking 'SNAAAAP!' (don't get me wrong, she shrieks other things at other times but Snap is quiet, thankfully).

Last Sunday we took the kids to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow:

- this is where we went with the Boy's class on their school trip and he was keen to go back. Miss Mouse was just keen to go somewhere she hadn't been before. It isn't really leaning, it's just my weird photograph. We ended up spending about three hours there and had only just got to the 'art' side so we'll go back another time. We had a lovely time and saw all sorts of weird things, like this:

Isn't it fantastic?I don't know what it is really - it was part of an education display about industry in Glasgow I think, and there didn't seem to be information about this particular item, that I saw anyway.

I particularly liked the Viking section further round - aside from the displays there was an audio presentation about the Viking influence on place-names, read out by a very familiar voice. It sounded an awful lot like Mary Blance who used to be a presenter on Radio Shetland, so I half expected the thing about place names to drift into an account of what the various SWRI* groups were doing. It was rather pleasant hearing a familiar voice and accent. Down here I'm still having to think when people talk to me, even though I've been here years now.

Cheap daffs, for the win.
Can't go wrong with cheap daffs! Instant sunshine in a vase (or jug in this case), especially if the actual sun deigns to shine!

And this is what I bought in the shop at Kelvingrove:

This makes me laugh every time I look at it. I have had so many unpleasant experiences camping (-3C at Barnard Castle and a puncture in our airbed, for example) that really I'm more inclined towards, you know, actual comfort. And warmth.

Indicative of which are:

Pretty new tea-towels and pink spotty bowl. You should see some of our tea-towels, there's one that is absolutely shredded. I keep it though for the Boy to wipe water off the edge of the trampoline. He'll go out on that trampoline in any weather provided the trampoline is dry - and a good thing too. He has So Much Energy he's (occasionally literally!) bouncing off the walls. Just too much energy.

Before cutting my thumb - it's very frustrating trying to knit with a plaster on the tip of your left thumb - I'd been making coasters. Just a mitred square in some leftover wool but good for knitting-while-watching-telly. And I needed a couple of coasters anyway. As much as anybody actually needs coasters that is.


I might try felting one of them and see how it looks.

And there we have it, a colourful week.

*Scottish Women's Rural Institute, or 'the Rural' - an equivalent to the English WI, i.e. Jam but no Jerusalem.