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!

A Hogmanay post. Contains wool.

 From this...

 .. to this..

..via this!

Thanks to my parents, who gave me some money for Christmas, my new toy is a ball-winder! (I'm sure I've spent Hogmanay winding wool before; slight deja vu here.) I have a nostepinne but I can never wind a ball evenly, so the ball-winder is fantastic! And so quick.... Plus it entertained the kids. And the little cat was fascinated too.. No pouncing though, thank goodness.The bigger cat is more inclined to pounce on things like that but he's asleep upstairs.

We're at home for New Year this year, for the first time in about seven years I think. It feels a bit strange. In fact I don't even know what happens at midnight here though we've heard a few fireworks so I'm expecting more later on. We're usually in the Highlands staying with my parents (watching the village's organised firework display from the upstairs landing at midnight), but I left it too late booking the cattery, so here we are. However as I've had a chest infection and Miss M has a cough it's possibly just as well.  We've spent the last few days generally doing as little as possible, which has been nice but I've been losing track of the days a bit. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I have no idea what I'll knit with that newly-wound ball of wool. I picked the skein from my stash more or less at random (it's Malabrigo Sock in Primavera) just to test-drive the ball-winder, but it's so lovely and soft I kind of want to cast on now. I have a cowl to finish first though, so I think I'll go on with that this evening. The kids are deciding whether they want to stay up until 'the bells' (it's 9.55pm now, past their usual bedtime, though not necessarily their usual sleep time). To be honest I'm pretty tired myself so I'm not that fussed about it. But happy 2017 to everyone!

Hogmanay

We went for a walk today along the icy shores of Loch Morlich. (Incidentally, I'm typing this on my tablet and the autocorrect does not approve of either 'Loch' or 'Morlich' AT ALL). It was a lovely walk but there was a cold wind. Although the picture makes it look like a dead calm, that's because the ice further out had a thin layer of water on top making it look unfrozen. I hadn't realised until someone chucked a rock out at the 'water' and it slid along the top. It looked very odd.

So it's Hogmanay in the icy north and the kids are planning to stay up until 'the bells' (or, in the case of this particular Highland village, a firework display), but I'll believe it when I see it. Actually the Boy isn't fussed but Miss M is keen. We'll see.  I have been wished a happy New Year on Facebook by a Kiwi friend for whom it is already next year. In fact if he hadn't been still up at 3 a.m. posting on Facebook he'd likely be having breakfast just now. Just going to show how bonkers the whole thing is really. Happy arbitrary date change everyone!

A Hogmanay post

So, another Hogmanay, and this year we're at home. I'm knitting my garter stitch square and watching Tudor Monastery Farm, while drinking ginger-wine and lemonade. And cursing people who are letting fireworks off early!

I've ended the year with a little Hogmanay dye batch - red onion skins, brown onion skins and a few daffodil heads. Bunches of daffodils have appeared in the supermarkets very early this year so I've had daffodils on my windowsill since Christmas Eve, which has seemed a bit odd but added a welcome splash of zingy yellow.  I didn't do a huge amount of dyeing this year, so it was quite nice to end the year with a bit. It's still drying on the radiator and the colour looks quite nice as far as I can tell by unnatural light - I'd like to think it's 'old gold' but it might be 'mustard'!

It's been a very wet, windy, mild December, so outdoors is windswept but not bleak. The Boy and I went for a damp walk yesterday to blow away the cobwebs and took pictures of this hedge:

Lovely colours but it was surprisingly tricky to get a photo that got that richness of colour.

The other day I took apart the kids advent calendars (I'm not one of these parents who insist on non-chocolate advent calendars - I remember getting picture-only ones when I was young and they were fun, but I also remember my first chocolate advent calendar and it was brilliant!) for the recycling. I hadn't noticed the detail the good people at Cadbury's had included in their knitting-themed Christmas chocolate range.

Look - the inside of the doors match the squares behind! Nice colours too!*

I'm not going to do a review of the year - there have been good bits and less good bits but I find New Year pretty arbitrary. And I know in Scotland we're all supposed to go mad for New Year but lots of us don't, and I've not been that keen on it for a long time - I mean, who wants to welcome in January anyway?  Ridiculous, pointless month (yes, I know I said it's pretty arbitrary - I never said I was consistent). The nights may be getting imperceptibly shorter, but it's still a long time 'til spring. Blimey, that's gloomy!  I'm really not :-D.  I'm quite happy to be sitting peacefully at home knitting and watching television.

So Happy Arbitrary Calendar Change to you all!

* No, I'm not sponsored by Cadbury's. *sigh*

Hogmanay

 Invigorating!

I really should be wearing my slippers. We're at my parents' house and the floor downstairs is concrete under the carpet. The picture above is from yesterday when we were on our way here. It looks worse than it was actually - it rained most of the way and was only sleety snow at Drumochter, the most chilly and exposed bit of the journey. But on the way I saw deer, coming further downhill due to the snow, and lots of pheasants.

 Today. Chilly.

Christmas turned out quite frenetic in the end.  No matter how organised you are (not that I was) this can happen. No point worrying about it, though obviously I did, because I wouldn't be me if I didn't. We had an untraditional Christmas really. Although my Beloved and I like roasts, though not turkey, the kids don't really, and my mother-in-law (vegetarian) was coming over for Christmas Day, so we had homemade pizza instead. Everybody chose their favourite toppings, it was all quite quick and easy and there's minimal washing-up, so all in all it was ideal.  And delicious. Mmm pizza...

I made a mincemeat traybake from the Be-Ro cookbook, rather than than mince pies and it came out really well except that I baked it in a silicone 'tin' and I always forget that silicone doesn't conduct heat in the same way so the pastry didn't crisp up properly - oh noes, soggy bottom! Still tasted nice, but I must remember to use a tin next time.

And now it's Hogmanay. I spent some time this afternoon winding some Yarn Yard Clan into a ball. On a spurtle as I'd left my nostepinne at home. I couldn't have been more of a Scottish cliché if I'd been eating shortbread and drinking whisky, which I'm planning to do shortly of course.  The yellow Clan is for the next stage of Project Rainbow, though actually I've only finished half of 'orange' - a single lonely sock. I'll cast its mate on shortly but thought it'd be nice to have the gloriously sunny buttercup Clan ready to go in dreich January. I'm not really a fan of New Year as a celebration, never have been. It's all so arbitrary. And has the distinct disadvantage of ringing in January, my least favourite month, but when I'm feeling Januaryish I'll look at that yellow and forget it all!  I don't have very much (65g) so it's going to be the main colour in a thin stripy scarf, and I'll use up various leftovers from socks and other small projects, including 'red' and orange', as the contrasting stripes. In my head it looks fantastic!

Well, happy new January everybody - my Kiwi friends are already waking up with a hangover, my USian friends are probably eating lunch and I'm off for a glass of whisky with my parents and my Beloved!

It was, of course, inevitable.

If I were a paranoid person I'd be getting suspicious about now.

Yes, we were given a packet of Marks and Sparks cupcakes. They are very pretty, and they taste okay. But they're just little cakey things aren't they?

Anyway never mind that. I am excited! And also feeling faintly guilty. I have ordered a new compact camera. Now I am lucky enough to have a really nice DSLR thanks to a bonus MrBorg got at work a while back - and it's brilliant (and actually I really should get the manual out and learn some more of its technicalities) but heavy. My five-year-old Kodak compact which I carried everywhere as my everyday camera finally gave up the ghost a few months ago. I took it to a place to see if it was fixable but unfortunately they said it would cost more than the cost of a new one to fix! And I was quite sad about this as it was a cracking wee camera that took a lot of abuse one way and another and had charted the adventures of the Boy since his nappy days, as well as covering the arrival of Miss Mouse. It did its duty alright. MrBorg took the opportunity to have a look at its innards - actually I was curious too.

There you go.

But after much searching through Amazon, various photographic review sites and so on, I managed to find something. This was very stressful - I got totally wound up with the details. Which is silly because my old camera being 5 years old, just about anything new I get is bound to be of higher spec than the old one. But anyway, it's on its way. I don't know when it'll get here but I'm hugging that Calvin-waiting-for-his-beanie feeling to me just now knowing it's on its way. I'm so excited. I hope I like it. I hope it likes me.

It's a quarter to midnight now and I have a 'hello from last year' e-mail to send to New Zealand, so Happy New Year faithful reader(s)!

Time-travel

Oooh, is it the Future yet?