Hairy legs and hairy string

I'll start with hairy string:

It's jute gardening twine actually. I bought a large roll yesterday because I always need string in the garden, and anyway a ball of string is so aesthetically pleasing...

And then, naturally, I wondered what it would be like to knit with. Not that great, if I'm honest, as there's no give to it at all, but I like a challenge. Obviously it's not suitable for, y'know, a garment or anything, but I'm making a coaster kind of thing to put under a plant pot that's on my windowsill. I'm hoping it'll be a bit absorbent if there's any leaking from the pot. After that maybe I'll knit little jute hats for the outside plants. (Or not).

Anyway, hairy legs:

Miss M's school had their Scottish afternoon on Friday (the day after Burns Night). As you can see the younger kids had decorated the school hall rather fabulously.  In January they all learn Scots poetry and songs, and if they feel like it and are good enough three or four from each class are chosen to stand up in front of the whole school and a whole lot of parents at Scottish afternoon and recite a poem (the Boychild avoided this like the plague when he was at primary school). This year Miss M was one of the ones chosen. Her class had a large chunk of Tam o'Shanter to recite. This chunk in fact:

But to our tale:- Ae market-night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither--
They had been fou for weeks thegither!
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
wi' favours secret, sweet and precious
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. 

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himsel' amang the nappy!
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious.
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious! 

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.--
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand. 

(Spell-check isn't really keen on Burns! Translation here)

I don't know how she memorised that lot. But she did and she performed it really well, without going blank or throwing up or anything (I may be projecting slightly). It is a competition, but she knew she had no chance of winning because two of the boys in her class are excellent at this sort of thing and have represented their class in it almost every year (and in fact one of them was over-all winner for the school this year). But she was just so pleased that she did it at all. And I was so proud. I also wondered how she did it as neither her father nor I would ever have done such a thing! 

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!

Spawned

Frogspawned that is.

I can still post from my tablet but that means using the camera on my tablet, which is a shame because I took a picture of the spawning in action this morning with my actual camera. From the Boy's bedroom window, i.e. upstairs. The zoom on that camera is amazing! And I was really pleased with the pictures I got but I haven't time to mess with html just now so I'll just go with this one. Thus spake the Frog - Spring is happening!

In other news, I've been missing studying so I'm doing a free online course about moons (it's an OU one but I'm doing it via Futurelearn), and it's fascinating. I've had an interest in space and astronomy for a long time, and already had a favourite moon (Enceladus), but not much of a science background academically-speaking, so it's interesting and pushing me a bit. It's supposed to take about three hours studying time a week, but the first week took me much longer because there were some things to do with orbits that it took me a while, and some juggling of apples, to get my head around. The second week was more geology-related (what the moons are made of*, and craters) and I found that much easier, probably thanks to my dad's interest in geology. So I think the study time will very quite a bit from week to week.

I suppose I'd better go and feed the family now..

* Green cheese with a core of Stilton and a Brie mantle. Of course.

The Frog Returns

Well, I seem to be having problems posting to my blog from my computer, so apologies if this looking funny - but, yay, the frog is back! It seems I cleaned out the pond just in time and hopefully there's enough water in it for her! I do have a picture waiting to be added to this post but it doesn't seem to be letting me, for reasons I can't fathom yet.

Edit: I've finally added it the old-fashioned way of my youth, using actual HTML. And a chisel probably. I hope it looks okay. I'm off to whittle something..

I was doing quite well for a bit there

Blog-wise, I mean. Still, I got through January, and I must have blinked and missed February, or mislaid it somewhere - probably down the back of the settee.. But I'm back and it's March, the days are getting longer and the weather is occasionally pleasant. I sat on the back doorstep drinking my coffee yesterday. The sun was shining and just there it was reasonably sheltered from the (rather chilly) wind, and it was... pleasant.

Also pleasant is that Miss M found my missing pencil sharpener, so I've just sharpened some pencils. Small pleasures.

That is easily the best sharpener I've ever had (it's the Spanish company, Milan, if anybody's stationery nerdy), so I'd missed it. I've just sharpened another nine, just for the fun of it - this is clearly the House of Blunt Pencils.

We're getting there

 Things keeping me going in January are:

A little bit of snow last week. I even have snowballing pictures but the kids wouldn't like it if I made them public. But it was great seeing them have fun in the snow!

The first daffodils in the shops

My new diary insert (by Morgan Le Fae's Trinkets - I love these; this particular layout suits me perfectly).  This took a random route from the Netherlands and I thought it had got irretrievably lost. Monique had posted it well before Christmas so goodness knows where it went on its travels!

Winding more wool.

And today I watched Rams (Hrútar) which I'd been meaning to watch for ages, and loved it. I even knitted while I watched, though it was only a sample to check how the variegated wool knitted up. I was meaning to make a hat with it but all my circular needles seem to have vanished. I must have put them somewhere particularly safe...

We're all more or less recovered from our various lurgies now, and although the first couple of weeks were pretty awful even by January standards, I think settling back into the normal routine has helped.

Throw Another Log on the Fire

We don't have an open fire or a wood-burning stove. Or even one of those gas fake fires. But we have a Youtube video of a burning fireplace and a spare television. So our cats do get to curl up in front of the fire!

Our favourite video has just the right balance of crackling and burning sounds and the odd spitting log, and it's all very restful - and no ashes to clean out either. Alas, of course, no actual heat, but that's probably just as well given how close Boycat is to the 'flames'!

Without any real intention, this is turning into a series of 'things to make January bearable' posts. It's no secret (i.e. I whinge about this every year) that I always find January a bit of a slog, and at the moment I'm on a second course of antibiotics for a chest infection so obviously it's my least healthy time of the year as well (last year it was 'flu, the year before it was conjunctivitis and an ear infection..). The obvious answer to this is to make December less frenetic and look after myself better next year (and I'm typing this partly as reminder to the me of Autumn 2017), but for now I'm just aiming to enjoy what I can out of January.  Even if it's just the little things, like a pretend logfire.

January and Jigsaws

We have a jigsaw on the go for idle moments. Miss M got the current one for Christmas and was a bit confused about the Christmas tree in the water. It turns out that the painting is of Bourton on the Water in the Cotswolds, where they do in fact put a Christmas tree in the middle of the river. I don't know how - a crane perhaps? So we've learned something new, if completely useless. The jigsaw itself is surprisingly tough (for a 500-piece jigsaw) because there are so many similar patches of snow, patches of river and patches of sky. If it were a 1000-piece jigsaw I'd be crying into my coffee by now.

Before we did the Bourton at Christmas one we did the books one in the middle of the picture.  That was brilliant - so much colour, and interesting without being too frustrating. We'll probably do the top one next - that's a portion of Benozzo Gozzoli's Procession of the Magi, and is great because there's so much detail. Also because I have soft spot for Renaissance art. And then I'll dig out the 1000-piece jigsaws...

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!

Time travel

Hello world, I'm still here! And enjoying a few lazy days after a hectic couple of months.

Dad was getting rid of some books a while back, so I acquired a vintage 60s Penguin copy of The Divine Comedy, Part 3, i.e. Paradiso. I'd read bits of the others but never this, and I've got to say it's hard going. I'm just dipping in and out really.  But aside from that, it was interesting to find Dad's bookmark from when he was reading it - a Sainsbury's receipt.  Instant time travel to Croydon, 1965! How exotic..

Using the power of Google I've discovered that that address is still a supermarket, but it's a Waitrose now. Which isn't what you'd call stunningly interesting, I must admit! But one of the pleasures of second-hand books is finding tiny snippets of social history in the form of random improvised bookmarks.

I'm trying to write this while the kids are watching television so my mind is wandering rather a lot, so I'll just wish you a happy New Year in case I don't manage the Hogmanay post I'm planning!

Inky stuff

I really did aim to blog more regularly this autumn - so much for that! It's been a busy few weeks one way or another, and Friday swings around with the inevitable thought 'What? Already??'

One thing I've been doing recently is Inktober - a drawing a day with ink for the month of October (obviously), which you then share on Instagram for the delight (or secret supercilious amusement) of the masses. I'd resisted Instagram up until now because I was put off by all those filters that people got excited about when it first became popular - the ones that made them all look like duff family photos from the '70s. I have plenty of genuine duff family photos from the '70s of my own thank you very much. But that seems to have worn off now, and I can see why a lot of ex-bloggers go for Instagram and the like for a micro-blogging experience as it's instant (and yes, I only just got that) and very easy. I quite like rambling on a bit though, which I can't really do from my mobile, so I think I'm a blogger at heart.

I'm not going to share any more of my drawings on here because most of them are a bit rubbish really, but if you are interested I'm Peeriemoot on Instagram. Rubbish or not though, I'm really loving Inktober. I'd heard about it on a Ravelry group and thought it could be a good way to get myself to do a bit of drawing. And so far it's worked as I've managed every day - whether drawing, sketch or just a doodle. I've been doing publicity (posters, flyers etc) for the PTA's Hallowe'en disco recently so rather than just using whatever free clipart I could find I've been inspired to do a bit of my own stuff to use as well, such as my friendly bat:

I must admit to being very very pleased with the fluffiness of my bat!

I'd better finish now. It's Miss M's birthday and I've still to ice her cake, no doubt to appear on Instagram later!

Very minor acts of creativity

Sometimes there's not a lot of time for being creative, but occasionally I can cram a very minor act of creativity into five minutes. Ages ago I bought a shopping-list notebook that had a magnet on the back. It lived on the freezer and was very useful but far too big. I think it was designed for people who do one massive weekly shop, but as I live within a five minute drive of a Lidl and a Morrison's, I'm more likely to do a smaller shop several times a week, and consequently my shopping lists are a lot shorter. The notebook was handy though because I could jot things down as soon as I realised we were running low on something. When it eventually ran out I got a very small (A7?) notebook and used that instead, tearing the magnet off the back of the old notebook and sticking it onto the new. I'm onto my third tiny notebook now and I really disliked the cover of the latest one. They're just cheap notebooks from the supermarket so they're ripe for a smidge of personalisation.

The kids had just had to cover some school jotters (notebooks, exercise books, whatever you want to call them - in Scotland a school notebook is always a 'jotter') and I had some gorgeous map-print wrapping paper left over from this so I made the boring, practical notebook a bit prettier. And transferred the magnet yet again - eventually there'll be so many layers of giftwrap attached to it that it'll be thicker than the notebook!

The trouble with a spiral bound notebook of course is that I can't get the cover completely, well, covered. But I like to tell myself that the blue strip behind the spiral binding almost matches the sea on the map..

baking sand; or odd things to do at the weekend

Hello to any OU A334 buddies!

And to everybody else, here's how I came to be baking sand.

One of the interesting bits of independent study I was doing for my OU course recently was learning about writing technology of the past. If you're a bit of a stationery nerd, as I am, this is pretty interesting stuff.  The independent study options were related to the section on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Embassy Letters, so that we could imagine intrepid Lady M writing and rewriting her letters (she kept copies) with the available technology - quills, oak gall ink, writing slopes, sanders and what have you - knowing that some of her letters might never reach the recipients at all.

One thing led to another - an article on how quills were made and re-cut led to Youtube videos on making quill pens, naturally leading me to a walk round the local loch to see if the geese had moulted anything useful.  They hadn't, so I ordered some goose feathers from ebay (is there anything that you can't buy on ebay..?) and on Saturday I thought I'd have a go.


Stage 1 - cutting the feather down to a comfortable length and stripping the barbs. With the first feather I cut the barbs off with a knife but with the second I just pulled them off by hand which is easier and leaves a softer edge (so more comfortable to hold, I imagine).

Stage 2 - baking sand.
Apparently heating the quill in hot sand and then letting it cool makes it easier to cut and less brittle, so I baked some sand in the oven for 20 mins, then took it out and stuck the feathers in it. This makes you feel a) very silly and b) as if you're at playgroup again.

Actually while I was baking the sand I took one of the other feathers and thought I'd try skipping the heating the quill stage to see if there was a discernible difference (for Science! - and also for impatience and curiosity).

Stage 3 was the cutting. I have no pictures of this because I was too busy muttering and swearing. The sharpest knife I could find was my husband's Stanley knife which only had the tiniest bit of blade left, so it was a bit awkward. I may invest in a craft knife.

Quill 1, the unheated one, was indeed an absolute pig to cut, as you can probably see from the first bit of writing: 

However it was still exciting to have created a writing implement, and Miss M, who had been to a birthday party, decided to have a go too, hence 'The party was fun!'

Quill 2 was easier to cut but needed some trimming to get it to write in a vaguely satisfactory manner. If you click-to-embiggen that picture above you'll see it was writing double, so I was trying to smooth out any scratchy bits to make it clearer.

As you'll see from the next two pictures the writing can be pretty variable. My natural writing with a pencil or ballpoint is pretty small. With a fountain pen I write slightly larger and more slowly. With a quill, my writing was forced to be a good bit larger still, just to make it legible, though I imagine some of that would improve with practise. The first picture is the only half-decent one I managed to get of the tip of the quill. I imagine cutting the 'nib' would improve with practise too!

And finally, blotting (see this clip from The Wrong Box, 2 and half minutes in). Actually this was my editor. She likes to check everything I write. Or do. She was most offended when I wiped her paws after this, but I don't know how toxic ink is to kitties. (Incidentally, if you're one of my stationery-nerd chums, the ink is Diamine in green-black.)

What surprised me actually is how much I could write before dipping the quill into the ink again. I thought I'd be lucky to get a couple of words but I probably got at least three-quarters of a line each time. It does make me curious as to how much time Lady M spent on her letters, not just on the writing itself but recutting quills. It's also made me view the various letters in Pride and Prejudice in a different light - how long would it take Mr. Darcy to write his fairly epic letter to Elizabeth? Well, if he were me, ages.  I'd have given up, it would be a rather shorter story and Colin Firth wouldn't have to listen to jokes about wet shirts.

Leap

I should probably do a leap post - I don't think I've ever done one before.  There's not much to post about though. There has been a bit of a study frenzy and the assignment from hell. Judging by the Facebook group for this course most people found it difficult, despite there being a choice of two questions and a choice of texts to apply them to. I don't quite know why it was such a nightmare (writing it was like pulling teeth), but at least I wasn't alone in finding it tough going. Part of it was the subject - seventeenth century literature - which didn't really grab me and I know others felt the same. It's always easier to write about things which interest you. I did enjoy the Turkish Embassy Letters by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu though, so it wasn't all bad.

To celebrate vanquishing the pesky varmint assignment I bought a cheap but lovely fountain pen and some ink, and I have been practising writing more neatly, because nothing makes you want to use a pen as much as fighting a keyboard. The pen comes with a thing called a converter so you can put bottled ink in it, meaning you can break away from boring blue and black.

So I get a soft brown ink called Sepia because that's how it looks.  Also like tea.

Oooh, shiny. (Yes, we had sunshine!)

 Should anybody be pen nerdy the pen is a Jinhao X450 and the ink is by Diamine.

And that's it really!

===

Edited to add: I did a leap post in 2012!

being organised, part 2

just five more minutes..

The cat fancied a duvet day - don't we all? January does that to you, but, hey, nearly done with January so that's good!

The kids are back into their routine, I'm throwing myself into studying, though in a slightly haphazard manner, and stuff like laundry is getting done. I am moderately organised though it all goes to pot when I'm in a rush, such as last night.

I'm still doing a daily to-do list/bullet journal-esque thing most days and my new diary and notebook thing is working out much better than the Filofax did. The Filofax was brilliant in principle but the rings really do take up a lot of room.

In one of my notebooks I've been making (don't laugh) notes on ideas for blog posts. So I just have to put it into action! Which I am, just now. How very meta.

fauxdori

In other news I have started knitting a sock. Cue the fanfares!

On this day in history..

.. And by history I mean my own history:

8/1/10

Six years ago today. That was a chilly winter.

This morning there was a frost and there are sleet showers predicted for later, but that's all - a normal grey, dreich January day, brightened up by a bunch of daffodils on my kitchen window-sill:

I am still recovering from whatever lurgy I had over Christmas - that's been over two weeks now so I wonder if it was actually some form of flu. I still feel very drained. Normally on a Friday morning I'd go to a Zumba class but that's still out of the question. However I do have a bit more energy today and have managed to get the kids to school, go to the supermarket (briefly), do laundry, clean out the cat tray and do the washing-up without having to go for a lie down between each one. I slept through most of yesterday so you can see that's a big improvement!

I've just realised this is my first post of January and it's not a very positive one! I don't really do New Year's Resolutions or anything like that, apart from the usual entirely sensible desire to get back into a normal routine after the Christmas break. This year however I do want to start knitting again, having had 2 or 3 months without knitting at all, which is most unlike me, so I'm on the hunt for something relatively simple and soothing to knit. I have some DK alpaca that I was going to make a hat from but I couldn't find a pattern that I liked enough and didn't require a gazillion different needle sizes, so I think I might possibly make a cowl instead as it doesn't require much thought or arithmetic to invent a pattern.

Time for a coffee I think.

Favourite Things

Raindrops on roses poppies (yes, the school holidays have started with torrential rain again)..

Whiskers on kitty..

Dum-di-dee, dum-dee,
Warm woollen mittens, maybe.

Er, can't remember.

Day One of the school holidays and aside from torrential rain, there has been shopping, pottering around, the making of optician's appointments, and, best of all, the receiving of a call from the dentist saying could I come back in so they could refund me because they'd accidentally overcharged me for my root treatment last week. I had no idea how much root treatment cost never having had it before and to be honest I was so spaced out at the time that they could have requested the contents of my bank account, a kidney and my firstborn and I probably wouldn't have noticed. But yay, refund!

So why the singing of Favourite Things? Because this evening I discovered that the freezer door was ajar, had been for some time, and its temperature was 8 deg C. So not so much of the freezing. All of which necessitated clearing everything out, chucking a whole lot of it out, and mopping the floor. And more than a little teeth-grinding, along with quite of lot of stomping around with sotto voce swearing.

Oh well.

Here's a rather brilliant favourite thing though:

My friend L in Vermont has been clearing out her late mother's stuff and has been rehoming all sorts of linens and things, including these beautiful boudoir pillowcases which have come to me. I need to make some small pillows/cushions to fit them, though they're so pretty that part of me would just like to frame them! I may be a total scruff but I do appreciate the pretty stuff too.

a non-post

I'm so sick of that Safeway carrier big picture! But I don't really have the time for a proper post so here's a picture from our visit to Greenbank Garden in the rain a couple of weeks ago. Although it was really chucking it down the garden was lovely (if a bit squelchy underfoot).

The jigsaw got finished eventually, slightly hindered by the larger cat who scampered over it one day and tore a whole chunk up again.  I really enjoyed doing it but it's not that convenient having a board with a half-completed jigsaw lying on the floor for days so I'll investigate alternatives.

I'm in the home stretch with my OU course this year - just doing my EMA. I forget what it stands for, but it's a final assignment that counts for half the course, done instead of an exam. Obviously I want it to be good, and at the moment I just can't see beyond it. Another day or two and it'll be done - I have a good essay plan, half a draft and copious notes - but like an exam you can't really imagine it being of the past. See you on the other side!

Vintage

Dull picture

Today Miss M requested that we do one of my (1000-piece) jigsaws. I haven't done a proper jigsaw for years, for fear of toddlers eating the pieces or some such thing, but it must be admitted that neither of the kids, or indeed the cats, are especially likely to eat jigsaw pieces now, and as Miss M has never done a proper jigsaw it was about time really. So we opened up the box and all the pieces were inside a Safeway carrier bag, which is a bit, ooh, vintage seeing as Morrisons took over most Safeway stores in 2004. That bag is from the days when the Boy was so young that he wouldn't even have attempted to eat a jigsaw piece (he was notoriously reluctant to wean onto solids). Good grief, it even predates Facebook, from the days when people could still distinguish between 'lightening' and 'lightning'. Miaow.

In case you're interested, Miss M's first reaction to the jigsaw was 'Ooh, the pieces are tiny', quickly followed by 'This will take forever' and, after some sorting and the ritual of the Finding of the Corners and the Edge Pieces, by 'I'm going out to jump on the trampoline'.  I've enjoyed it though. I'd forgotten about that calm meditative state of mind I fall into when I'm idly rummaging through the pieces looking for pieces of sky-with-a-bit-of-wall or somebody's-elbow.

British Summer Time

The clocks changed last night. I am completely thrown by it, as usual. In retrospect a trip into the wild West End of Glasgow possibly wasn't the best idea because now I'm completely knackered! However we had a brilliant time. My Beloved was out on the local motorbike club's first spring rideout, so the kids and I met up with my brother and went to The Yarn Cake for coffee, cake (I recommend the Aprikosenwähe) and yarn-squishing. I've been teaching Miss M to knit so for the first time she took her knitting with her and was happy to sit and knit a row, before choosing some DROPS Nepal (from the Wall of DROPS in the picture) for the socks I'm going to make for her. She couldn't decide between bright blue and purple, so naturally they're going to be both. In narrow stripes.

After that we wandered along to the Botanic Gardens and mooched around my favourite greenhouse, the Kibble Palace, for a bit. That's the fabulous roof reflected in a puddle (they'd been watering the tree ferns).

I love the tree ferns.

And a mystery pretty flower!

And then in the Killer Plants section (carnivorous plants) there were these mini-spirals in the moss. I don't what they were, though they looked a bit like the pitcher plants behind them so perhaps they're pitcher plant seedlings.  Or perhaps not!

It was a great day, though by the time we got home it was sleeting and the sky was black and heavy, and we were quite glad to back in the warm. I think I might sleep well tonight!