January - part one. Look up!

I was going to call this post 'Surviving January - part one' but then I thought it sounded too negative. Who knows, it could be a great month! But to stave off any potential Januaryness I'm trying to focus on the positive things. So today it's all about beautiful skies, such as the one this afternoon. It was taken across the supermarket carpark, which is not in itself the loveliest place, but has the advantage of being an open space, a little elevated, on the edge of town, so there's often a feeling of big skies and wide open spaces there (maybe not the steppes or the open sea, but not bad for an inland town).  And it was lovely.

In fact even the supermarket was a pleasant experience, as it was quiet and everybody was relaxed and happy, unrushed. Supermarkets are not usually open here on New Year's Day (or at least not as far as I've been aware on previous years) but I knew this one would be this year from a conversation with one of the trolley guys last week. And it was just as well because we were running short of spread, milk and cat litter, though the main reason I went out was just to get out really, just for a little while by myself. Bliss.

holiday snaps

I've just been looking through the few pictures I took when I was back up in St. Andrews for a reunion at the beginning of the month. I was only away overnight but I had a lovely time - feels like ages ago already!

St. Andrews is frequently photogenic:

These two pictures are ones I took on the Sunday morning when I went for a wander before heading back to where I was staying to pack. It was probably about half past eightish and the light was silvery and amazing..

And this one is from the evening before, on the way to a restaurant to meet up with a bunch of people, some of whom I'd never met before, some who I'd not seen for more than 20 years. It was slightly intimidating actually, but it turned out to be a completely lovely evening.

South St at dusk

Going wild on our birthday

 No, I'm not using the Royal 'we' - as well as my 42nd birthday it was the Boy's tenth birthday, ooh double figures!  And it was a glorious day too - we were in the Highlands again visiting my parents for the long weekend, so we all went to the Highland Wildlife Park for the day. There was still snow on the mountains but it was hot (that's Scottish hot, probably just tepid to Californians and similar, but the kind of day on which peely-wally Scots get just a bit pink-and-singed-looking). The camels looked quite relaxed and sleepy. I think that's a yak in the background. A yakground. Or possibly it's a spy-sheep in a mac. Incognito.

Another camel catching some rays:

This is a rare sight, the saltire against an actually properly blue sky:

Well, it's rare in the soggy bit of Scotland which I inhabit anyway. My family mock me for my habit of taking photos of blue skies but it's good to relish them and even better to look back at the pictures when it's grey, wet and generally dreich. Look! It's so bluuuuuue!

That's the view across the snow monkey enclosure. I'm relaxing just looking at it.

Like Eliza Stickleback, I was also taking pictures of the 'wrong' things - such as lapwings and oystercatchers in the bit of the park you drive through. Well, the bison and suchlike were further away from the road. And I like birds, especially oystercatchers but my oystercatcher picture is a bit blurred.

I indulged myself with a pink drink with my picnic - rose lemonade! I'd never seen or, obviously, drunk it before but it was too pretty not to have as a birthday drink, don't you think? 'Weird but nice' is my summary. The Boy tried a bit and agreed.

A very nice day indeed. I was quite happy to be 42 (in recent years I've not been keen on the new number but 42 is different) and the Boy seemed quite pleased to be ten. Even if I kept muttering 'you can't be ten, you were just a baby a minute ago' and other similarly parental things.

Star Wars Day

I'm a bit rubbish at this blogging malarkey at the moment. You know why? Constant interruptions. For example, I wrote the first line of this post seven hours ago. They're not deliberate interruptions by any means, but it does mean I lose my train of thought. Hmm, I'm starting to feel jinxed.

Anyway, happy Star Wars Day! Which by very happy geeky coincidence is My Beloved's birthday - couldn't be more apt really, though actually none of his geeky presents were Star Wars ones. My secret knitting of the last few weeks was this:

A Jayne hat

Oh, so much fun to knit! I've been doing quite a bit of 4-ply knitting this year so the gorgeous squishy aran-weight Drops Nepal and 4mm needles were a real pleasure to work with. And making a pompom is always fun :-D.

I've also knitted a blanket for Miss Mouse's teddy:

That was using Drops Nepal again, bought the same day I got the Jayne colours.  I took Miss Mouse with me on a trip to the Yarn Cake woolshop/cafe last week and let her choose some more from the wall of woolly goodness, for another blanket for Snowy this time, her polar bear teddy: 

She always chooses interesting colour combinations ( you should see her when she's given free rein to dress herself) and I really wasn't sure about these colours together

but she was insistent that 'this is what Snowy likes', and actually now that I'm knitting them up into squares they're looking quite good together.  While were up in the wilds of the west end of Glasgow (necessitating a trip on the underground, the first time for Miss M*) we took a detour through the botanic gardens and had a quick mooch around the Kibble Palace:

Miss M was getting tired and fed-up by this point but I love the swooshy shapes in the greenhouse. Greenhouse is too domestic a word for it really, it's more like how I'd imagine a Victorian spaceship. Lovely place.

* Wide-eyed the night before: 'Will we see icky worms and things?'

You can't take the sky from me

We had a frosty start to the day with fog bumbling around, patches here, patches there, but in the fairly immediate vicinity of my hoose in the middle of the day it was sunny and clear, though still cold. So I went for a walk. I tend to forget how close we are to the edge of town, but actually it's only a few minutes walk to where it suddenly stops being a housing estate (and it's almost comical how sudden it is) and starts being rural.

The light was beautiful and the sky amazing. The fog was still billowing around in the distance all the time.

 Birds taking off - I loved the way they swooped around. 

I'd only intended to go out for a quick half-hour in the fresh air but I was enjoying it so much and seeing so much that I just kept walking and was out for over an hour in the end.

Slightly wonky horizon on that one but I like it anyway (and am too tired to sort it in a picture editor).

As well as the big skies I was taken with the little things too - gloriously lush moss on a fence-post..

beautiful neutrals..

 a hedge covered in lichen ..

 and in a bit closer:

 Looking back along the road as I headed back home, still sunshine and blue skies..

..and then suddenly the fog rolled over again - still beautiful but in an eerie way!

Skies

 This was the sky just as I picked the kids from school at 3 o'clock.

And this is the sunset just before we set off for Miss M's dance class, so at about 4pm.

We don't often get beautiful sunsets here as cloud tends to be the dominant feature, but tonight's was a cracker - it got even better, and at one stage the horizon was a really delicate apricot colour, but obviously I was driving and couldn't take any more pictures. But really, driving into a beautiful sunset made up for not being able to take pictures. I should have had some kind of stirring soundtrack, but actually it was the usual low-grade bickering from the back.

Success! Tonight, while I watched I'm A Celebrity and had my feet numbed by a sleeping cat*,  I have Turned A Heel, having done some arithmetic to get it right as I'm doing a 72-stitch sock and the pattern is for 64. I'm perfectly capable of arithmetic, it's just I'm still at the stage of thinking that turning a heel is Magic, so working out what the decreases and turns are actually doing is a bit... intimidating.

 (Dubiously) But it looks as if it's worked.

I have no idea what the next line of the pattern means though. I keep re-reading it, hoping that the meaning will jump out at me.  I'll have to dig out the pattern I usually use and compare it.  I really do need a pattern that's written for the completely clueless. But, the rest of the foot should be pretty quick and easy anyway!



* You should have heard the cracking noises as I walked upstairs after having had Small Cat sitting on my ankles for two hours. Quite alarming really.