the little grey cells

Now that I'm doing the OU again I'm finding bits of my brain reactivating, which is really a rather fantastic feeling! It's not that I never use my brain the rest of the time, of course, but there's something about really immersing yourself in a topic that makes the ol' brain start bouncing around as if I've been on the caffeine but without the attendant jitteriness (I do not tolerate caffeine well any more).

The course I'm doing this year is a 60-point level 1 introduction to the Arts course. It will in fact be my second last course, as I have 240 points hanging around from when I studied with the OU pre-kids, but these days they insist that you have to do a level 1 course (when I started, ahem, last millennium, I skipped straight to level 2). Actually this is probably just as well because after a twelve-year break I'm no doubt fairly rusty and it'll ease me back into it. Also this one is assessed solely by assignments - there's no exam, callooh, callay, oh frabjous day etc! So far it's going fairly well. I have an assignment to do on Cézanne and Cleopatra - not together, it's an assignment with two short questions. Imagine a single question linking Cleopatra and Cézanne! The mind boggles..

I'd written notes on both sections at the end of last week and just needed to get it into some kind of coherent answer, and today I had an intensive scribbling-on-bits-of-paper session at the local library, with both marker pens and post-it notes (get me, such a student), and it seems, touch wood, reasonably okay.  It turns out I'm a note-taker not a drafter when it comes to essay-writing, which is something our area tutor mentioned at the tutorial we had in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago.  I'd never really thought about it before, but as we have to do some reflective writing as part of the course it's probably helpful to think about the way I work and think. The whole reflective writing things is new to me and to be honest scares me silly!

As an aside I must say that I'm really really lucky with the local library. It's small and to be honest doesn't actually have a huge selection of books, though they'll try to order things in for you if there's something you really want, but it is a real community place. The staff are all friendly and lovely and helpful, and there are always things going on. Rhyme time and story time for the teeny-tiny kids, a book club, Minecraft club and regular craft sessions for the older children, and things going on for adults too. It's one of my favourite places and it's lovely to see a library so appreciated by the community.

The other day we were going out with my mother-in-law for a bit so we decided to go to Pollok Park in Glasgow. Aside from some lovely walks, Pollok Park is the home of the Burrell Collection which we used to mooch around a lot pre-children but tend to hurtle around in rather a hurry these day. Among other things the Burrell Collection includes some ancient Egyptian stuff and a collection of paintings, including a Cézanne, so I thought I'd have a look while we were there to get myself in the mood for comparing and contrasting and muttering about brushwork and so forth. Alas, the Cézanne wasn't there, just an empty space on the wall with no obvious sign explaining its absence.  I'd hazard a guess that they'd have noticed if it had been nicked though. My Beloved said there was a suit of armour missing too - the swords and armour section is his favourite bit.

So I bought the postcard:

 Le chateau de Médan

My mother-in-law and her gentlemen friend took the kids off to the café after a bit so My Beloved and I had a little while to have a proper mooch around looking at things, which is something we haven't done at leisure for ages. I had a really good look at the Egyptian stuff for probably the first time ever. I'd never had any interest in Ancient Egypt, but since the Boy did a Topic* on Ancient Egypt in Primary 4 and I had to help him, I've become more interested.  Between that, and chain-reading Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries**, and having just done the chapter on Cleopatra for the OU course I found myself looking at the various Egyptian bits and pieces with a much more knowledgeable eye. For one thing I was looking at the dates of the objects and being struck by the sheer age (and age-range) of them - there were things there which were truly old, as well as some from the Ptolemaic (Hellenistic) dynasty, the dynasty that included and ended with Cleopatra VII, the Cleopatra, which are comparatively recent as the Ptolemaic dynasty ended pretty much with ol' Cleo in 30 BC.

You know what, though? Studying can be really tiring. I'd forgotten. On that note, I'll head off to bed. Good night!


* There are many more Topics in primary school than when I was that age.

** I'm addicted to mysteries especially ones that are not in the least gritty.

On the necessity of doilies

Sometimes I look around our house and I'm faintly surprised by it, because it's a bit anonymous. I don't mean that it's anonymous in that creepily tidy* way of hotel rooms. It isn't in any way designed, it has just evolved in the way that family homes do, but I don't know that it necessarily shows much of our characters. We have a lot of Ikea furniture  - nothing wrong with that, I like Ikea furniture, but there's a kind of inevitability to the Billy bookcase. I think what I mean is that I was looking round and it occurred to me that considering I'm a knitter and dyer there's not much individuality to our actual furnishing. 

So I thought I'd change that a bit. I went to Liz Lovick's lace-knitting workshop at the Glasgow School of Yarn last year and as part of it started knitting a piece of cat's paw lace intended to be a scarf eventually. Of course I didn't have enough of the wool in that colour for a scarf, and to be honest no real desire for another lace scarf, so the sample piece sat on the needles for ages. Eventually I knitted a bit more so that it was roughly square, did a few rows of garter stitch, cast off, blocked it, and wondered what to do with it. And then I decided my bedside table needed a doily-kind-of-thing. Actually it didn't need it (let's face it, doilies are pretty much pointless) but it did look quite nice. And then I thought a coaster would be handy for when I throw caution to the winds and drink coffee in bed while reading**.  So I knitted a garter-stitch coaster to match the doily-thing. And it looks a bit more comfortable and a bit more personal.

* Perish the thought! It is a house of clutter - there's no way that anybody could walk into our house and not realise that it contains children. And two moderately untidy adults. And two cats, though they're actually the tidiest of all of us.

** I know how to party.

Neeps and apples

It's ten to seven on Hallowe'en, we've just run out of sweets and have taken the neepie lanterns back in off the doorstep. And switched all the lights off. Sorry, kids, it's all over for another year. I got a bit creative with the first neep this year. It turns out that cats' eyes are bit fiddly to carve though - for those who've never carved a neep they're much harder than pumpkins and it's tricky to get details, partly of course because they're that much smaller. Very satisfying though!

I went into Glasgow today and met up with a friend who I don't see nearly often enough.  We met up the Yarn Cake which is a very lovely yarn shop/cafe in the West End of Glasgow. Coffee was consumed as was apple crumble cake (my favourite) and we chatted and knitted*, and also caught up with Antje who runs the Yarn Cake and who I also hadn't seen for ages.  The West End was looking very autumnal. Very much a lovely day.

River Kelvin

* I finished that garter stitch square - wooh, achievement!

notknitting

My knitting mojo went AWOL this autumn. Actually for most of the summer too. I don't know why. It happens occasionally though. In that time I've finished a mitten (apart from the thumb) but failed to cast on its mate, and I've knitted one and a half garter stitch squares. This is not like me. On the other hand I've been reading in the evenings rather than knitting-while-watching-telly, so that might explain it.

The other day I dug out some really nice wool and cast on something I was really keen to cast on - a very quick project to get me in the mood for knitting again. And it was going swimmingly for the first two repeats of the cable pattern - and then I put it down to go and do something dull and domestic like making the dinner. And when I came back there was a needle missing. I suspect a large cuddly cat may be involved as he's been known to chew wooden knitting needles before and the missing needle is a rather lovely 4.5mm Brittany. But I can find no sign of it anywhere, not even splinters, and, yes, I have lain on my tummy shining a torch under the settee. Curiously I have no other 4.5 mm needles, though plenty of 4.0 and 5.0mm which is odd because they're not sizes I use often.

I think I may be jinxed.

I've come to the conclusion that the missing needle is not likely to suddenly reappear so yesterday evening I went and ordered another pair from an ebay seller. And then I realised (five minutes before I had to run out of the house to help at the school Hallowe'en disco) that I'd ordered the 4.0 mm not the 4.5. I'm such a numpty.  Rather than attempting to cancel or amend the order in a hurry, which was staggeringly unlikely to go well, I ordered the right size later on (from a different seller because I was embarrassed). Well, you can't have too many needles can you?

 Clearly innocent

In which I re-enter the world of blogging.

It's been a while hasn't it? Stuff has been going on - Miss M has had a birthday, I have started studying again (I'm going to finish the Open University degree I started before the kids came along), and, er, I dunno what else. It's just all seemed rather busy recently. Mostly the studying really - I've just been figuring out the best times to fit it in. My plan is to stay a week ahead with it at all times so that when things like the school October holidays and Important Eighth Birthdays happen and I get no studying done whatsoever I'm not losing way.

This year I left booking the cattery too late and it was completely booked up so it wasn't possible for us all to go up to see my parents in the October break.  In the end the kids and I took the train up and left My Beloved with the cats, giving them a bit of peace and quiet to watch zombie films or whatever it is they do when we're not around.

We had a lovely time in the not so frozen north. Miss M and I even went paddling in the burn up in the hills (very 'refreshing' - euphemism for 'a bit chilly'), and the Boy accidentally went paddling when he fell in the Spey. Fortunately it was a) slow-moving at that point, b) shallow, so all he got were wet feet, and his socks and trainers dried in no time next to my parents' wood-burning stove. Bliss... (the stove, not the wet trainers).

Mists and mellow (also more creepy-crawlies)

One day last week we woke to mist and an awful lot of very visible spiders' webs. The kids were delighted! As was I actually - it all looked absolutely magical. There's something very calming about walking in fog. We've done a lot of walking recently because there's some fairly epic digging-up-of-the-roads-to-lay-cables going on in our area with four-way temporary traffic lights and other such joys, so going on foot is working out as less stressful. Fortunately my occasionally charming offspring are proving quite accepting of this.

Other mornings have been damp but mild. This year the local council* planted long thin patches of wildflower seeds (possibly an oxymoron there, but I'm sure you know what I mean) here and there and the result was long strips of flowers by the roads, looking absolutely gorgeous.

There weren't many patches that I saw, but maybe there'll be more next year (and with self-seeding perhaps this year's patches will be bigger next year) and it's a good start.

Sorry about the wonkiness of the picture but I was distracted by unexpectedly wet feet - it had rained in the night, and I was wearing trainers. I always forget that the ventilation mesh bit on top of my trainers lets water in. You'd think I'd learn, but there you go.

Meanwhile (actually on a completely different day, so not 'meanwhile' at all) my sunflowers continue to attract the bees - buff tail bumblebee also approves, so I think we can label the sunflowers a success.

They also attracted this... thing: 

I don't know what it is, and it's not exactly a vision of loveliness, but it's oddly fascinating to look at. Anyone got any idea?  Update: I put the pic on Facebook and my very knowledgeable friend Wendy found out that it's a yellow dung fly (scathophaga stercoraria).  I've probably seen them loads of times before but never up close like that.



* Presumably - I remember reading of a plan to grow some pollinator-friendly plants at the roadsides, so this would seem to be it.

creepy-crawlies (nice ones)

I'll start with a poppy which has suddenly flowered and is providing the only splash of red in our garden. They're not lasting long as the slightest puff of a breeze seems to de-petal them, but they are gorgeous.

I'll follow the poppy with something which should be red but isn't:

This appeared on my arm while I was driving back from the school this afternoon - it wandered up and down my arm and then onto my hand, but as I was driving I couldn't take more than a very quick glance and think 'ooh that's tickly' and 'funny, it looks like a ladybird'. When we got home the Boy retrieved my camera from my bag and I got this one decent picture before it flew away. Actually I got a picture of it opening its wing cases just prior to flying away but unfortunately it's blurred. Then we googled images of ladybirds, and apparently it's a larch ladybird, something I'd never heard of before. I knew there were other ladybirds than the usual seven-spot ones, but I'd no idea there were plain brown ones. Nice to learn something new!

Meanwhile the sunflowers are finally flowering and proving popular with carder bumble bees and hoverflies. When I started getting interested in bee-friendly gardening I looked at some websites that suggested that sunflowers are popular with bees and some that said the conplete opposite, so I'm glad to find out that they're popular with at least some bees.