On an Adventure - part one

It's the schools' Spring Holiday at the moment (not 'Easter' holiday because they go back to school before Easter then have a long weekend the Easter weekend, it's all very confusing) and the kids and I went off to Loch Fyne again with my mother-in-law. I gather from Facebook-friends in England and from other blogs that England has had some glorious weather. Let's just say that our weather was... different.

The west coast of Scotland is notoriously wet anyway and it went all out to prove it while we were away. It poured down down all the way to the Rest and Be Thankful at which most unlikely place the sun came out and it remained sunny for the rest of the way. We got out for a walk along the shore in the afternoon though the weather was changeable..

.. hail shower on our side of the loch, sunshine on the other! Sorry about the slanting horizon, I have a real problem with this - I get it right when I can concentrate on it but not when I'm being hailed on! I'm very glad I splashed out on a new jacket before we went. Actually I'm very chuffed with the new coat, it has pockets all over the place, is long enough to cover my legs a bit , and has a peak to the hood. I'm very bad at buying coats and tend to wear tatty old ones until they actually disintegrate or buy some cheap ill-fitting rubbish which isn't practical.

Along the shore is a memorial to a student who drowned here aged 20 in 1926. It's a simple memorial but rather nice to think that Donald Eric MacKay isn't completely forgotten even though he was so young when he died and didn't get a chance to do anything. I wonder what he would have become?

I love the lichen patterns and colour on both monument and boulder.

The sun came out again.. That's the kids with my mother-in-law, her partner and his very soppy dog. It looks like a picture from a Visit Scotland brochure or something! The dog was clarted with mud by the time we got back from our walk and we had to pick ticks off her too. It reminded me of picking fleas off our cat's ears when I was a kid - he was a great rabbitter and was always picking up rabbit fleas.

Look at that sky!


I'd forgotten to pack my wellies so was just wearing walking-shoes and at one point we had to cross a fairly wide burn so I paddled and went barefoot from then on. Look at my peelie-wally feet!

And yes, I checked my legs for ticks too. Thankfully none!

So what do we think the weather did next?

Little feet and big feet. And ladybirds.

Yay! I finished the Tiny Shoes for my new sort-of cousin, in fact (let's work it out..) my first cousin twice removed. I think. That's to say, my eldest cousin's first grandchild. So they're off in the post, looking ridiculously tiny, but very sweet.

And just by way of contrast and as a reminder of just how much growing kids do, here's another pic of the Boy's completed sock, this time on his actual clod-hopping foot. Looks enormous in comparison, doesn't it?


In fact at seven-going-on-eight, the Boy is a bit shorter than average and doesn't have particularly big feet, but it's all relative.

The weather has warmed up considerably this week (though come to think of it I still had to scrape the car this morning) and the first ladybird of the year crawled out onto a bit of wood to sun him/herself the other day. I've seen too much of Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom recently (that's a lie - there's no such thing as too much Ben & Holly) and fully expect ladybirds to bark like Gaston. Maybe they do.

'Ladybird, ladybird fly away home - your picture's out of focus and no-one knows if you bark!'

The Odd Sock and Pimpernel Pugh

I started these socks for the Boy months ago, got distracted and with one thing and another Sock One was abandoned just as I reached the toe. The Boy reminded me the other day about this so this morning I did the toe-shaping and kitchenered the toe-seam. Actually the pattern calls for a three-needle cast-off but I wanted to practise Kitchener stitch having only done it once before and I reckoned the Boy would prefer a smoother toe anyway. I used the instructions on this site for Kitchener stitch and they were lovely and clear - the only problem was scrolling up and down 'cos I couldn't remember step one by the time I got to step four! Must practise..

Anyway, it looks quite nice - must crack on and get Sock Two done now. I'm hoping that if I blog it it'll get done!

And now for Pimpernel Pugh! I love Alice's Crochet With Raymond blog for the gorgeous colours, inspiring crochet, for Alice's vast enthusiasm, and because it reminds of my two years in New Zealand. Miss Mouse loves it for Raymond who she would like to think is Pimpernel Pugh from the Slinki Malinki books - well he's a Siamese cat in NZ, who else could he be! So just for Alice, a couple of pictures taken from one of Miss Mouse's Slinky Malinki books so you can check out the resemblance!

That house could do with some granny blankets and potholders don't you think?

Our own cats are less well-behaved than Raymond I think and are prone to pouncing on my knitting, stalking off with the ball of wool and so on. And the less said about a pair of Brittany needles I owned the better...

Sssh!

This is a bit weird.

I've been a bit ill the last few days - some kind of virus picked up on the school trip no doubt - and spent all of Sunday and Monday in bed, either sleeping or reading. I felt a bit queasy but not seriously sick, and every time I stood up everything spun (clockwise, if 12 is in front of my eyes and 6 is at the back of my head) so I took care not to stand up. And now I'm feeling less spinny but really tired. A short walk with the four-year-old this afternoon completely wiped me out.

There she goes!

But now my Beloved has come down with something. At lunchtime he was feeling queasy. Mid-afternoon he felt so ill he came home from work and promptly threw up. He did a bit of work on his laptop, then went to sleep. I put the kids to bed well over an hour ago now and apart from the four-year-old making a trip to the loo and informing me that in Spanish red is rojo and green is verde (hail Dora!), there's not been a peep from anyone since then. Even the cats are asleep.

So I'm in the weird position of spending the evening pottering around by myself. It's not unpleasant but it's weird. I've blogged uninterrupted. Twice now. I've folded all the laundry. I've made myself a cup of coffee. And now I'm going to catch up on all the blogs I read.

It's so quiet!

A boo, a huzzah, a ponder and a dilemma

But first a snowy heart from my daughter!


The boo is for my Ysolda Tiny Shoes which have Gone Wrong - I misread a line of the pattern and now they're completely squint, and I didn't even notice until nearly casting-off time (or in this case kitchenering time).

From looking at the Ravelry projects for this pattern it seems that I'm not the first - the comments are divided between 'oooh, so quick and easy!' and 'arrgh, I misread/misunderstood it and had to frog x times'. I love the reassurance I get from Ravelry that I'm not the only numpty, and also alternative explanations given by people who find the same bit tricky. Interesting that an explanation that is as clear as crystal to one person is as clear as mud to the next. At least it's such a tiny project that getting nearly to the end before discovering my mistake isn't such a big deal.

And now the huzzah! My daughter got this red (Asda) cardigan for her third birthday and it was gorgeous and practical.

Some time back the pocket began to unravel and I thought 'no problem, I'm a knitter, I can sort this' and put it on a pile of things to mend. Today - months later - I finally got round to sorting it out. It took, literally, two minutes. And the cardigan still fits her, even though she's four-and-an-all-important-half now, which is the reason I love cardigans on her, they stretch so much they last forever.

A ponder:

It turns out I have a baby cashmerino stash! Once I've done the Tiny Shoes what should I do with it? Ponder, ponder.. I love this part of the knitting process!


And the (not-at-all-serious) dilemma? Lol! Apparently The Lady (the magazine) are looking for St. Andrews alumni who married St. Andrews alumni for an article - I wonder why.. :-D. I wonder if I should contact them as we fall into that category? Our wedding was the antithesis of what that wedding will be - it took us ten years to get round to it, we had nine guests, my dress was bottle-green velvet, we didn't have any of the usual cobblers traditions (speeches, first dance etc). Hehe, maybe not..

Something possessed me to go on a school trip

Yeah, and when I saw this morning's weather I was regretting volunteering. Because the trip was to Stirling Castle (holy deja vu Batman!) - you know, up on a nice exposed hill. But actually once we were there it was, well, not so bad. Chilly obviously but not snowy and mostly bright. Oh hang on, you don't want to hear me ramble about the weather, do you? Though it had quite an impact on the day as shivering seven-year-olds are not shy about making their feelings known! Anyway I took a few pictures in the chapel of the so-far completed tapestries - remember my ramble about these from my last Stirling Castle post?

A slightly closer shot:


School-children are really tiring aren't they? It was a good day though. Highlights were managing to find the spending money one boy had managed to chuck in the bin along with the leftovers from his lunch (rummaging through the bin-bag was not a highlight but he was so relieved to find it), and even better the surreal sight we saw from the bus on the way home - thousands upon thousands of beercans by the side of the road. We were heading back several hours after it happened so what we passed was the clean-up. I've (obviously) never seen so many cans of Stella.

My own splash of colour

The 'official' splash of colour is over but despite the sunshine yesterday I'm in need of more winter-brightening.

Little foil-covered chocolate eggs - what could be better?

I tidied my sock-drawer today - the one that jams open and that the smaller cat wriggles into - and found my only completed pair of adult-sized handknitted socks. Ooooh, they're so comfortable... It's made me think that I really ought to finish the pair that are lurking on the needles somewhere. And do the second sock of the Boy's pair. I completed Miss Mouse's pair ages ago (exactly to her specification of pink and more pink) but she won't wear them. *sigh*