Solsticeness

Ooooh, here I am, on my computer! I don't seem to have much 'real' computer time at all recently - my tablet is excellent for any number of things, but blog-writing is not really one of them. Or any kind of writing really - brief note-taking and the odd tweet or Facebook status is about my level. It is completely brilliant for storing knitting patterns and OU resources though. Hmm. So anyway here I am with some actual uninterrupted time on the 'puter - well, possibly uninterrupted. The cats are getting that look in their eyes that suggests they think they should have been fed some time ago ('just five minutes, cats, honest...').

I think I'll summarise December - but just the nice bits, not the crazed, wild-eyed, 'how many things have I got to remember?' bits. It's been a bit frenetic, but there have been moments.

1. I have been knitting on and off, so the picture above is of the provisional cast-on for my second sock - thank you Annie, and also Sue whose great mind thunk alike, for suggesting the COWYAK cast-on! It worked a treat except that next time I'll use a smoother waste yarn to make the unravelling a bit easier. The one I had to hand was a bit grippy and reluctant to let go, but it was still way easier than the provisional cast-on for the first sock! I haven't actually looked at the sock in a few days come to think of it. The heel is turned and I'm on the home straight but there is a discrepancy in the numbers - one needle is a stitch short - and I don't want to continue until I've thoroughly checked there's not a dropped stitch anywhere. I may just have accidently done a k2tog somewhere, but I need decent daylight to check (rolls on floor laughing - in December?!).

2. Chocolate coins looking gorgeous! Mostly consumed now, but very pretty while they lasted - I loved those foil colours!

3. Miss M made melting snowman biscuits at school (digestive biscuit with icing on it and then a marshmallow stuck on top). In a moment of rare sibling amity she made the second one for her brother. He was pretty stunned, it has to be said, but delighted.

4. Chocolate advent calendar! I'm such a child. This is a posh chocolate calendar I bought as a reward to myself for getting my first OU assignment done with minimal fuss and panic. The chocolate is very dark and very nice, but as we've been watching a lot of Doctor Who recently every time I get one of these angels I see it as a weeping angel. I'll probably start thinking Rudolf is a Cyberman next..

5. A winter walk with Miss M. This was yesterday afternoon as it was getting dark. The wind had dropped a bit and I was desperate for a bit of fresh air after going to the supermarket (not as nightmarish as it might have been but the supermarket on a Saturday is never a bundle of laughs). We weren't out all that long but even a short walk can clear out the cobwebs pretty well.

6. And finally, a snowflake decoration hanging from a light fitting. I only hung it up there as a temporary measure but actually I think it'll stay there now. It swings around at every little breeze (e.g. Miss M running beneath it) and is quite soothing to watch. Oh, it's not home-made by the way, I got it from Sainsburys, but it's a concertina thing so I could probably make something approximating it. I might do that. Ah, it'll be a laugh.  (I'm hearing that in the voice of Father Dougal. Worrying).

School has finished now so we can have a bit of a lie-in, and although I know that won't actually happen, just knowing that there's the possibility of a lie-in is wonderful, and at least I won't be running around making packed lunches or finding lunch money or having someone tell me five minutes before we leave the house that they need to take a bit of tinsel into school.  Bliss!

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*

Christmas knitting

This was my one bit of Christmas knitting this year - a Jayne hot-water-bottle cover for my brother. I aim to amuse.  I've learned from previous years where I bit off more than I could chew, knitting-wise.

I used DROPS Nepal, and made up the pattern - it was a really quick, easy, watching-tv kind of knit.

It's been a lovely day, everybody doing nothing much, nibbling on chocolate, and pottering around. But now I feel something like a zombie so I'm going to lurch towards bed, and as Miss M lost a tooth while eating her lunch I'll do a bit of Tooth-Fairying on the way. Hope everyone else had a good time too!

Chicks and chocolate and eggs, oh my

I didn't knit these - I could of course, but I'd never get round to it... There's apparently a knitting group at our local library and they knitted a whole load of these little chicks with creme eggs inside, and the library sold them on their behalf, proceeds going to a cancer charity.  The kids were delighted with them!  They are very cute.

I'm going to admit something here - I used to read on parenting fora and the like about uber-mummies doing Easter Egg hunts for their kids, and thought 'Aye right' (useful Scottish expression suggesting extreme disbelief). Today though I sat down and wrote clues (in rhyme) and hid eggs and clues around the house. And the kids had a wonderful time racing each other round the house, bickering about who got to read the clues and so on. And eating the chocolate. And I got an uber-mummyish glow. It was a sublime moment. However it kept them occupied for maybe five minutes tops. I think you can work out how long it took me to find suitable hiding places and compose the clues!

In another supreme parenting moment, yesterday I made chocolate nests with the kids, though mostly the Boy actually.

 And oooooh, they're good. Mmmmm..

That's one sitting on my keyboard this evening, half devoured. It didn't last much longer.  Miss Mouse won't touch them because they contain corn flakes, which she likes as cereal but apparently is disgusted by in combination with chocolate. Does that sentence make sense? Ah, you get the gist. Nor does she like mini-eggs, weird child. So all the more for the rest of us, eh :-D.

Enough chocolate (never!) - here's a small cat watching us play a game:

I've just realised I've already used this picture on my 365 blog. Hmm, never mind. That was the scene yesterday, and actually this was the scene today, as we set up for a second go:

Yesterday was Table Top Day, a day invented by the Geek & Sundry Youtube channel people (so Wil Wheaton and chums) to get people playing games together and tweeting about it.

Now I'm not a gamer. Computer games very rarely grab me and I hate most board games (Monopoly - spit spit..). My Beloved is, naturally, a gamer's gamer  - he has been a games programmer, he plays computer games, he has a past involving role-playing games, war-gaming and once even LARPing.  He gets all the gaming jokes in Big Bang Theory. I fear I am a constant disappointment to him. All that I have going for me, in a gaming sense, is that in the early days of our relationship we played Day of the Tentacle and the various Monkey Island games together, collaboratively - he was the mouse-clicker, I said 'No, try clicking the  flag/pirate ship/whatever' and we both tried to figure out how you win a pirate spitting-contest. So I have no real history of gaming but in the interests of family something-or-other I bought Forbidden Island which has (phew) no board so is not technically a board game. Instead it has cards which form the game board. And there are no dice of any size or shape. And best of all it's collaborative - the players are not competing against each other, they're working as a team to achieve their goal which is to, er, nick the treasure before the island sinks. The treasures that were hidden on the booby-trapped sinking island to prevent their catastrophic misuse by thieving imperialists. Yeah, shouldn't have read the back-story, should I? Yesterday we won, but today we failed, which made me feel a whole lot better!

So that was fun. No, really! We haven't yet managed to persuade the Boy to join in which is a shame because I suspect he'd figure it out a lot quicker than me, but Miss Mouse is quite happy to join in. Three out of four (plus interested cats) ain't bad.