January - part two. Knitting!

I did cast on my hat on Hogmanay - well, started. I cast on 20 stitches at twenty to midnight, and then Cat1 started throwing up - on the windowsill. He wolfed his dry food too fast again, that part is obvious. Why he choose the windowsill as a suitable venue is less obvious. Oh well. In any case I spent the remaining minutes of 2017 cleaning up cat-sick. Oh, and posting on Facebook about it of course, because when you lead a life as glamorous as mine you like to spread the sparkle a bit. Or alternatively I know my friends will be mildly amused by it.

But yesterday I finished casting on and did the rib, and today I got onto the cable bit. Actually I'm well past the cable bit now, as the picture is from several hours ago when there was daylight. I love it. The yarn is so squishy (wool for texture, alpaca for softness) and the colour so rich and the pattern is fun and.. it's all good!

The pattern is Jesse's Christmas hat (by Elspeth Kursh) again, the one I made for my mother-in-law.

In other news, this morning we finally watched yesterday's Great Festive Bake Off and I laughed myself silly at their East 17 pastiche. Apparently it was also used as the trailer but as I watch very little actual television I hadn't seen it, so it was completely out of the blue. The kids of course didn't get it, 'Stay Another Day' being well before their time, but I laughed!

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.

A Hogmanay Post

Boxing Day landscape

Hello, happy New Year, or whatever! Hogmanay is proceeding in its usual way - we're sitting in the house not doing much! Occasionally we hear the odd firework (it's only 9.13 pm as I type this so they're a bit early) but the cats are completely unconcerned thankfully. My brother came over for a bit earlier and when I dropped him off at the railway station a while back we saw crowds of young people all glammed up and ready to head into Glasgow for an epic night out. One girl had the most incredible dress of giant sequins, the kind of thing I wish I'd worn when I was twenty-ish, though I'd also have to wish I was outgoing enough when I was twenty-ish to wear that kind of thing  - I wasn't, but I still think it was a fab dress!

Christmas was quiet and nice, and we had snow on Boxing Day, just enough to brighten things up. I've been for loads of walks this week, and might actually go out for another in a bit as it's a mild night. The snow melted last night when it was windy and it feels much warmer today.

My only piece of Christmas knitting this year was a hat for my mother-in-law. The pattern is called Jesse's Christmas Hat and I found it on Ravelry - it's lovely and quick. The cables give it a bit of interest but there's only a few rows to the cable section so it doesn't take ages. I'm going to make another for myself, in two shades of green (olive green with a pistachio border and pompom) - in fact my plan for this evening is to cast it on. Miss M (now eleven) wants to stay up until 'the bells' so I'll need to do something to keep me going! The yarn is Drops Nepal, a wool/alpaca mix and it's very soft and lovely. I made the pompom the old-fashioned way with the two rings of cardboard, partly because I enjoy it and partly because the plastic pompom maker I had was rubbish, but funnily enough my mother-in-law then gave Miss M a set of rather better pompom makers so she's been making pompoms ever since! I've got to admit they're much quicker, though I think they look a bit sparser than the ones made with cardboard.

The final picture is from one of my evening walks because I didn't want all my pictures to be ones I'd already used on Instagram! That was a chilly night. Right I'm off to put the kettle on and then find my needles to cast on my green hat. All the best for 2018 everyone!

making a festive effort!

The December frenzy happened again - no matter how organised I intend to be it never quite works out like that. Oh well..

The picture is from a trip to the farm at Kittochside (the Museum of Rural Life) at the beginning of the month and is about the most festive thing I can find among my photos. Actually I love that tree - very simple and lovely. It's just a shame it was the middle of the day so the lights don't really stand out!

Oh, here, I've found a festive alpaca from the same day:

Now that I'm finally blogging I find I can't think of anything to say - I've been busy but it's all been boring stuff (work, PTA, shopping, that kind of thing) which I wouldn't bore myself with, let alone anybody else. I do however have some yarn from that very alpaca (can't remember her name but it's on the ballband) which I intend to cast on, for a hat probably, very soon. I've been trying to take a picture of the yarn since that day but I've never remembered in daylight.

Right, I'm off - I've got three things left to wrap, a card to deliver, and clean bedding to put on the bed.  Have a good time everybody!

Bonfire Night

And there's a picture of a bonfire - at the Scouts' bonfire and firework display. The display was very good but alas my firework photos were not. Oh well. It's been a beautiful cold day and was a clear cold evening, so perfect firework weather really. And everybody really did saw 'ooooh' and 'aaaah' when the first fireworks went off - I love that! We can't help ourselves. I always think fireworks are such a weird thing to enjoy - they look amazing but they sound disturbingly like artillery, especially when there are random fireworks going off in people's gardens so you can't necessarily see them and the sound is echoing off buildings. Fortunately our cats don't seem the least bothered by the noise. The occasional twitch of an ear and that's it.

The moon was particularly lovely tonight so that was a bonus. Using the amazing zoom on my compact camera I managed a slightly smudgy but suitably spooky-looking photo. Quite pleased with that.

A walk in the sunshine

It was beautiful today - a frosty start, followed by a perfect cool autumn day. I had to go and get my flu jab this morning, among other things, but I had some free time this afternoon and thought I'd better take advantage of it and get outside. It's that time of year when I find myself grabbing every opportunity to enjoy a sunny day because there's not likely to be many more of them this year!

And out in the garden my sweet peas are still giving it a go! Come to think of it, it might be because they're in a hanging pot up on the fence so they're getting more sunlight than things on the ground. I'm still impressed though, I thought they were done for the year a few weeks ago and then they suddenly started flowering again.

Miss M comes home tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping she's had fun. The school have been great, putting pictures on their Twitter feed so we at least have an idea of what activities they've been doing, though not necessarily who's doing them - twenty kids in borrowed waterproofs turn out to be difficult to tell apart especially if they're wearing hard hats and climbing gear as well!

Currently it's so quiet in here that I can hear the cats breathing. Well, snoring maybe. Ssh, don't wake them..

The Annual Neep Picture

Neepie lanterns

It was a bit of a weird Hallowe'en here because Miss M is away for the week on a school trip, doing outdoorsy sort of things in the pouring rain. The house is very quiet. Not that she's noisy but she's the chattiest of all of us, so without her peace reigns in the little village house we know so well (sorry, Astérix..).

I still did the neepie lanterns and made up bags of goodies for the guisers so it wasn't very different from other years, just a bit odd without Miss M. The Boy went out guising (as the Grim Reaper with home-made mask and scythe) with his friend from over the road and a few other local kids but as the boys both have deep voices now I suspect this may be their last year. Or maybe not! There were other teenagers roaming the streets, with varying amounts of effort being put into their costumes.

So hello November. I haven't changed the calendars (for I have several) over yet, must do that!

Scythe