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.

as if by magic

It stopped being dreich yesterday afternoon and decided to snow. And snow and snow. So today everything has changed, and everything that was grey and drab has been transformed into something a bit more magical. So I went for a short walk and took some pictures!

Yesterday these trees were sad, grey and bare and the ground was muddy. Add a bit of snow, and instant Christmas card scene!

 I loved the way the snow had made fluffy clouds on all the plants.

 I'm pretty sure this is the tree from my six-years-ago picture from yesterday. It's grown a bit I think, and I've taken it at a different angle - and of course the snow was very much deeper in the other picture!

I like this one, with the pale yellow of the cornus just showing through so it's not quite monochrome.

And the postbox just for a splash of colour!

The sky was looking very heavy and blank, and an hour or so later it started snowing again, though quite lightly. The forecast is for rain tomorrow so I'm glad I got out and enjoyed the snow however briefly. It does brighten things up a bit, even with the heavy sky.

And the boy cat was glad to get out and be actually camouflaged for once!

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.

addicted to rain

It failed to rain today. The weather forecast promised heavy, no torrential, rain, and all day the sky looked heavy and soggy and rain seemed imminent, but not a drop fell. I'm slightly disappointed.

I've probably mentioned before that I find the sound of rainfall very soothing. One of the great pleasures of our stay in St. Andrews was the moderately heavy rain that fell on several evenings. We were staying in a 'lodge' at a caravan park. To all intents and purposes it was a static caravan though it was a bit wider and it felt more like a small house than a big caravan, but the roof was also the ceiling if you follow me, so when the rain was drumming on the roof it was immediately above us. As well as that we could have the window fairly wide open at night which we can't at home for fear the cats will try to jump out. All this meant that when the rain was falling I could lie in bed and really listen to it - all very relaxing if you're a weirdo like me.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago to wonder why I like the rain so much - yes, it's a soothing sound and there's that amazing fresh smell in the air during and after rainfall, but could it be I've lived in the wet west of Scotland too long and I've developed a weird form of Stockholm syndrome? Well there's an unnerving thought!  Eventually I came to the more reassuring  conclusion that growing up on the windswept coast I rarely knew vertical rain, or for that matter rain when it wasn't also cold and miserable, so summer downpours are probably still incredibly exotic to me. The most vivid memory I have of a horribly jet-lagged stopover in Singapore is a half-day trip over the bridge to Johore Bahru in Malaysia and a visit to a mosque on top of a hill and a batik workshop in the middle of a thunderstorm and properly equatorial heavy showers - that's properly exotic. Summer rain in mainland Scotland can come a good second though.

So where was my torrential rain today then? Oh well, it meant the Boy got to commune with the trampoline.

Edited to add: I had just posted this when my meteorologically-minded cousin posted an amusing and very appropriate Daily Mash link on Facebook.

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!

Ah'm makkin bannocks

A grim day outside

One of my earliest memories is of being at the playgroup at the community hall and sitting at a table just below the stage playing with playdough (not Play-Doh, just salt dough) with some of my friends. I was about three or four, and my friend Allan was rolling out the playdough when he announced in a deep and serious voice 'Ah'm makkin bannocks'. I don't know why it stuck in my head, but it did. Maybe it was just because he sounded so earnest.  Allan is now an accountant but in my head he's still the little boy who was makkin bannocks.

Anyway, since Up Helly Aa I've been meaning to have another go at bannocks, as my last couple of tries were a bit hit and miss. As it was a grim, wet, windy, wild day today I thought a bit of baking might cheer things up a bit or at least stop me staring out the windows. I googled and found a Youtube video, Makkin Shetland Bannocks, in which Mina Flaws demonstrates how to make bannocks, obviously.  It helps a great deal seeing someone making them and technique seems to make a difference as today's batch turned out a lot better than the last lot!

The ingredients are given in imperial measures in the video and I'm a metric cook. I thought my kitchen scales had a way of switching to imperial but I couldn't find it - I'm sure it's blindingly obvious and I'll figure it out sometime next week but for today I was googling again.

A lot of it is done by experience really. The first four were slightly singed as I had the heat a little high, but you don't want it too low either or it'll be raw in the middle (I'm hearing Paul Hollywood saying that in my head).

But overall they looked pretty good. Actually I was really chuffed with how they turned out and they tasted not bad at all! Going, as ever, for the multicultural experience I had bannocks instead of naan bread with my sweet potato and chana dal curry and it worked brilliantly. Mmmmm..

Food photography's a bit weird isn't it? I very rarely try it because everything turns out yellowy orange. Fortunately this is a yellowy-orange curry so that's okay. Or so I tell myself.

In non-baking news I'm going on with knitting my cowl, having fixed the bit which had inadvertently stopped being moss-stitch for half a (lengthy) round and turned into rib instead. That was a lot of un-knitting. I might even be finished by the time spring kicks in!

Things Fall Apart

Our microwave packed in the other day. My Beloved poked at it a bit and declared it beyond his help (as he was waving a rolling-pin at it, this perhaps wasn't surprising - however he is usually quite good at this sort of thing so I'll believe him). So today I went out a-hunting microwave ovens.

Apparently I've bought a conventional one. The opposite of conventional is not, alas, unconventional or even bohemian, but y'know, those-ones-with-the-grill-built-in, which I was mildly tempted by but you can't grill much on them and we have a George Foreman thing, and even, technically, a grill in the real oven (though it's rubbish and smokes a lot so is not often used) so it wasn't necessary.  I quite like the idea of bohemian microwave ovens, but cheap, small and not overly complicated was what I was looking for.  Mission accomplished.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the snow is mostly white, so it was quite nice being out and about today, even in retail parks.

Far from being gruntled

The cats are not entirely keen on the snow (neither are the kids for that matter - weird), but as long as the roads are clear, which they mostly are, I quite like it. It brightens things up no end, and there's that satisfying muted crunch when you walk in it and the cold smell, and  fascinating footprints and sparkly bits. I think it will thaw tonight so I'm enjoying it while I can!

Warm feet

Woohoo! I'm out the other side! The fuzzy ear turned out to be an ear infection and though I'm not completely better I'm feeling an awful lot better than I have the last few weeks. I had to get an extension for my OU assignment in the end because I was feeling so fuzzy, but the downside of that was I was still trying to get it done, feeling guilty because I was running over (even though my tutor was fine about it), getting frustrated because I was losing my train of thought mid-sentence, and ultimately just getting fed up with it. But I submitted it last week, whether it's gibberish or not, and it's time to move on - yay! Apart from all that I have also achieved the final weaving in of ends on my Elgin socks, with the help of the boy-cat.

Obviously when I sat down with the socks to finish them off, he came to see what I was doing and equally obviously sat on one of the socks. There was a thread on Ravelry a while back where somebody, apparently genuinely, wondered why so many people 'put' their cats on their knitting for their project pictures, to general amusement from cat people and some gentle explaining.

Also finished is the purple cabled headband of doom, as I finally anchored that random dropped stitch  and got to wear it. To be honest it looks ridiculous on me because it makes my hair stick up in funny ways, but it keeps my ears warm so I don't care. It does of course look gorgeous on Miss M who borrowed it the other night (well, afternoon, it was five-ish but dark) when she and her friend were attempting to build a snowman with much giggling and throwing of snow, but very little actual building.

There has been a bit of the white stuff and it's a bit on the chilly side so I'm particularly glad I got my Elgin socks finished now rather than, you know, in June or something, which is when I usually finish winter things. They're a bit big really but I wear them as slippers over another pair of socks

 This was also on the walk to school, near the top of the hill, hence the leaning trees - I'm not that bad a photographer! Though don't look to closely at the horizons on beach photos..

Totally gratuitous cute cat picture - she was sticking to the bit by the back door where it was sheltered and there was only a scattering of snow. Cold paws are not her thing. I don't blame her.

But clearer skies yesterday meant sunshine and the daffodils on my kitchen windowsill looked so happy. I'm so glad that something as cheap as a bunch of daffodils can cheer me up so much!

Daffodil-coloured snow? Just snow by the light of the streetlights.

Argh, no, time to get the kids from school - bye!

Fresh air

We made it - after all the chaos and the rushing around, yesterday we just chilled out. The kids don't get up obscenely early on Christmas morning and never have, thank goodness. The Boy woke at his usual time (seven-ish) and was stoatin' about wondering what to do, and the rest of us drifted downstairs eventually, Miss M last.

As usual Miss M was comically slow at opening her presents, hugging things that particularly delighted her in a slightly bonkers but endearing way. The kids chucked the wrapping-paper everywhere and there seemed to be vast amounts, but when we came to tidy up and sort the recyclable from the un- there wasn't that much really. I'm not going to think about how long it took me to wrap it all (especially the little fiddly things in their stockings) or how short a time it took to tear the whole lot off...

And I've learned not to bother trying to wrap things too neatly for children, it's not as if they even notice!

Meanwhile Stealth Cat was in his tunnel grabbing at pieces of wrapping paper and ribbon and having a brilliant time.

The weather was cool but bright, and in the afternoon Miss M and I went out for a walk. The kids had watched both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on DVD and Miss M needed to recover from the trauma of the death of Dobby, always her favourite character, and I just needed fresh air. 

Today was cool again and foggy, quite calming really, so Miss M and My Beloved walked to the supermarket for one or two things, and then later on the Boy and I went for a walk out of the edge of town.

The Boy was amused at the way the power lines just vanish in the fog:

This reminded me of a book I read as a kid - something about two children going up a tower (possibly Blackpool Tower) in the fog and then the fog magically freezes and they can't get back down so they set off across the frozen fog, using their Lancashire clogs as skates. I haven't the foggiest (hoho) what it was called but it's an image that's stuck in my mind for years. If anyone knows what it was called please tell me, Googling hasn't helped, and I'm really curious now.

There was a crow (or corvid of some kind) in a tree carking at us:
  

Later still I took Miss M out to the playpark again (that's three days in a row - she's hooked on the new climbing frame) and while we were there the streetlights came on, looking ridiculously golden and sunny:

I know this is all quite dull, but quite often we're hardly outside at all at Christmas and I hardly ever have outside photos from Christmas Day, so it's really a reminder to myself of a surprisingly outdoorsy (in small amounts) festive season!

Cockbridge to Tomintoul

 Traffic Scotland ‏@trafficscotland 55m ago

#A939 btwn Tomintoul and Cock Bridge - Snow Gates are *closed* due to severe blizzards and drifting snow :( #StaySafe

There's something really vicious and personal about sleet - it wriggles into your shoes and down the back of your neck; it finds all your weaknesses. Snow falls, gently, heavily or in flurries, but sleet sidles in, looking a bit dodgy.

I got soaked taking the kids to school this morning. I imagine they got a bit wet too actually, though they only walked half as far. I felt guilty about doing my usual thing of parking at the local shops and walking along to the school  - it's only 100 metres or so, but the weather was vile this morning, and I'd have been better braving the school car-park and dropping them off just for once. Mummy Guilt - it's ever-present. Also I'd have got much less wet. Hmm, must remember that in the morning if it's still horrible.

I follow Traffic Scotland on Twitter and they've been hard at work today with updates (Skye Bridge closed, Skye Bridge open, Skye Bridge closed again - it's been a bit fresh apparently). And now the surest sign of winter is here - the A939 Cockbridge to Tomintoul road is closed, among others. There's also the A93 Spittal of Glenshee to Braemar, B974 Fettercairn to Banchory and the B9007 Carrbridge to Ferness, which I'm including to add an air of exoticism to the blog. I live in the comparatively tropical Central Belt, well to the south, where we're getting sleet, hail and highish winds rather than blizzards, and I haven't been over that road in years, and never in winter thankfully, but from my childhood I remember traffic reports on the radio in the winter talking about the Cockbridge to Tomintoul road - mostly Terry Wogan joking about it as I recall.

Should you be interested, my second sock is about to have its heel turned, I'm getting stressed about Christmas shopping and tomorrow night I'm helping at the school disco. The very thought of the disco is making me want to lie down in a darkened room but I'm sure it'll be fine. Fine. Fine! (to be said in the voice of the mother in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang).

Every night I think I should write a blog-post, and I honestly do have things to ramble on about, but every evening it all trickles out of my head and that's that.  Evenings over the last three weeks were rather taken up with my annual trashy telly fix, that being I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, which was fun but not startlingly so this year (possibly nothing will ever top the comedy gold that was Paul Burrell doing Hell Holes), and at the end quite mystifying - who exactly was voting for Foggy?  My Beloved said that his motorbike forum were equally perplexed.

Oh well.

Raindrops keep falling on my pond

At last, after what's felt like days and days of threatening, it has finally rained today. My pond was getting a little low and I was running out of saved rainwater to top it up with. When I say 'saved' that sounds a bit planned - what I mean is that we have a home-brewing bucket standing in the garden that had filled up with rainwater and which has come in very handy.  I can't remember how the home-brewing bucket came to be in the garden but there you go. 

I was getting concerned for the one or more frogs and the taddies, assuming there any left. I know the toad is okay because I heard a bizarre squealing noise from under a plant whenever the Small Cat extended a tentative paw under it. Small Cat looked appalled and disconcerted, and seemed quite relieved to come back into the house.

Wet buddleia

My Beloved is away at a (motor)bike forum barbecue this weekend, so it's just me and the kids at home. Today, naturally then, was the day that the Boy, who is never ill in term time and has three Perfect Attendance medals to show for it, got a sickness bug. As he's so rarely unwell he's completely clueless about illness and looked as appalled as the Small Cat and twice as helpless.  In fact he didn't actually get round to being sick. He clutched an empty washing up bowl for an hour and a half, whimpering occasionally, and eventually took himself off to bed and fell asleep for three-quarters of an hour. Then woke up almost back to normal. Kids are weird.  I'm quite relieved. What has surprised me about being a parent is that I can deal with vomit with remarkably little queasiness or distress of my own. However the Large Cat threw up while sitting on the windowsill the other night - and there is a radiator underneath the windowsill, and I'm sure you can fill in the blanks. Large Cat certainly did. So the less vomit the better this week really.

This evening I am entertaining myself. I have been knitting and watching a West Wing DVD. It's all very retro.

Disaster and triumph (may be slight exaggeration)

Why do weird things not happen when My Beloved is in the house?  On Monday the cabinet that encases the boiler just fell off the wall. Out of the blue. Very fortunately it just sort of flipped out away from the wall so the boiler wasn't damaged and neither was the microwave that sits underneath it. In fact the only thing actually broken was one of the cat bowls but it was a cheapy plastic thing so was easily replaced for the unprincely sum of 79p. And even more fortunately neither the kids nor the cats (nor me for that matter) were in the kitchen at the time. I was up in the bathroom trying to get the shower curtain pole back up because it had just fallen down. Honestly, in any other part of the world I'd have suspected an earthquake but it's about as seismically active here as a teabag.

Monday was a bit chaotic generally, it has to be said - I had an exercise class in the morning, then Miss M had her ballet class in the late afternoon, then a gymnastics class after tea, so it was a bit of a running around day.  On the upside, the weather was sunny and bright and both the kids and the cats got out into the fresh air a lot, and I got a tonne of washing done and out on the line.

The garden is starting to look more springlike:

And yesterday (also sunny) we discovered that there are masses of tadpoles in our tiny pond. I'd been about to clear some of the green sludge out of the pond when I noticed all the black wriggly things.

The camera sees many more details than my eyes did!  Now I'm wondering if I should try and clear some of the green sludge out to give the tadpoles some space or if they need it to lurk in or eat. All I remember about tadpoles from the tadpole tank in our classroom when I was in Primary Three is that they'll eat each other given half a chance. Bleurgh. However I am delighted that our tiny pond has been deemed worthy of spawning in, so good luck to them. I'll just not look too closely.

In the interests of staving off holiday boredom I got some marbling inks off ebay (yes, I actually planned ahead!) and Miss M and her friend had a go at marbling yesterday. I think the results are beautiful - why have we not done this before?

Not sure what to do with them - maybe cut out shapes and stick them up on the pinboard?

The latest episode in my further adventures in sewing is that I have made a small drawstring bag which is now a lavender bag (I made a small pouch for the lavender to go inside the bag otherwise with just a drawstring there would be lavender everywhere) and I'm just trying to pluck up enough courage to start Miss M's skirt. I've washed and ironed the fabric, now I just have to stop over-thinking it and just have a go.

The kids are out for a bit with their Grandad tomorrow so my plan is to try to start the skirt then. How hard can it be?  (Don't answer that)

Sprung

No, I haven't been sprung from the joint. Nor have I sprung a leak. Nope, what has happened, and it's really most unlikely, is that spring has sprung. We have had two consecutive days of sunshine, blue skies and relative warmth. Two! It's not been raining! Yesterday the kids came running out of school into the balmy 10.5 degree sunshine shedding jackets, cardigans, hoodies like, well, Glaswegians in the spring. And there are yellow things in the garden.

I'm still not feeling 'one hundred per cent' as athletes being interviewed by the BBC always say (shortly after the default athlete sentence opener 'well, I mean..' pronounced 'wellamean'), but a little bit of sunshine certainly helps. And watching Cat1 blissfully expose his belly to the sunlight is both amusing and relaxing. Talking of whom...

Monday afternoon was chaotic.  We were running around getting ready to take Miss M to her dance class, when the doorbell rang and it was a creepily smiling man who wanted to give me a leaflet, not as I initially thought about 'the Good News', but about a service he offered cleaning leather suites. ''Er, no, sorry, we're just going out, bit of a rush.." I muttered shutting the door in his face while simultaneously thinking "I use baby wipes to clean the leather settee, doesn't everyone?"  Maybe specialist leather suite cleaning is a euphemism for something. 

Then we continued to run around like headless chickens, because I couldn't find my keys. That deserves the bold type, it's the kind of thing I get anxiety dreams about. I looked everywhere, even most unlikely places (bathroom), and had the kids searching too, which is usually pointless but worth a try. By this time we're really actually running late and I hate being late. Then as I was looking upstairs for the second time, the kids shouted up "We've found them!"
"Where?" I shrieked, running down the stairs.
"Under the cat."

I'd thrown my keys on the footstool as we'd come in from school and the cat had gone and sat on them. And continued to sit on them while I ran around looking for them. *sigh* Until he got bored and sauntered off.

At times like this I need mindless knitting. Or actually the crochet is good at the moment because it's getting easier and less wonky and therefore more enjoyable, but I still have to concentrate a bit so it takes my mind off whatever my subconscious feels I should be fretting about. But back to knitting and a recent piece of mindless knitting, a facecloth:

I hardly ever knit with cotton as I don't find it the pleasantest thing to knit with, but actually a garter stitch square is fine because you don't need a lot of give in it. What I'd forgotten was what a pain it is finishing off because any ends you weave in promptly unweave themselves and knots tend not to stay knotted*.  So I googled for an answer and found this Youtube video which has an answer that is both clever and so blindingly obvious that I really did want to kick myself. And I hope that if I include the link here I'm more likely to remember it next time.

I can't see a need for a vast number of facecloths but it was a quick enjoyable knit and I learned something useful from it. And at the time I was avoiding a half-turned heel that was not quite right (fixed now - just needed daylight and concentration). It's always handy to have a procrastination knit in the background!

* I'll confess here that although it is considered a cardinal sin on Ravelry to tie in a new piece of yarn, of whatever type, I've done so for years and don't think it matters much if the 'wrong' side is hidden. For example, inside a garment where it's not seen, as long as it's not a huge knot that'll rub, why worry?