Day 1 - Fuji - and More

So when we booked the holiday it was a bit of a bundle. The main bit was the cruise, but it also included 3 nights/2 days in Tokyo at the beginning, and one of those days there was an included excursion to Mount Fuji and Lake Hakone. We'd wanted to have a free day in Tokyo first then do the excursion the day after, thereby giving us a bit of time to recover from the travelling, but that would have meant doing the excursion on a Sunday, and they don't run them on a Sunday. The result of all this was that the OH spent the second half of our journey to Japan muttering darkly about how it would be sensible to cancel the Fuji trip as we wouldn't be able to get up in time for it ( it was am early start!) and even if we did we would be too tired to enjoy it. Being a thrifty soul and conscious that we had actually already paid for this trip, I was loth to do that and said we should see how things went. And how they went was that we were awake in plenty of time to have breakfast and get to the meeting point and we didn't fall asleep in the coach either. 

( Spoiler - it was a great day and we both agreed we were really glad we hadn't cancelled it )

We know a few people who have been to Japan in the past few years. They have all gone to see Mount Fuji and not one of them had actually glimpsed the summit, as it was wreathed in cloud. We were very lucky; we had blue skies, sunshine and a great view of the mountain. 

They take you a fair way up, to what they call  the fifth station and there was a small shrine, a huge gift shop and an ice cream kiosk. The OH is always up for an ice cream and he tried the white peach flavour. It was delicious. Generally speaking the Japanese make great ice cream we discovered. 

You are enticed into the gift shop by being given a voucher to redeem for a set of free 'lucky bells'; the counter for this is strategically placed at the back of the shop so you have to go through it twice. That said it was one of the very few places we found in Japan that actually sold postcards of views/sites. Had I known this would be the case I would have bought more there, but, blithely ignorant, I restricted myself to three and then spent days afterwards fretting that I would never find any more. Don't get me wrong; there were beautiful postcards but they were of the art variety rather than the sort where you write  'we woz here' on the back and slap on a stamp. 

After Fuji we went to a restaurant for  a typical Japanese lunch. I did rather better with this than anyone could have anticipated, and made quite a good job of eating with chopsticks, not something I've attempted before. 

See that fish shaped thing? Not fish. Some sort of baked custard. 

After lunch we had a drumming performance by a group of local youngsters with Downs Syndrome. The tour company supports various local groups that provide activities and social events for people with disabilities. This group certainly enjoyed their drumming, and we did too. 

Then it was on to Lake Hakone for a short boat cruise. A beautiful trip ....

...passing some Shinto shrines on the way 

And finally we caught a cable car up to the top of one of the mountains for a panoramic view of the area. My dislike of heights notwithstanding I enjoyed the cable car trip  and the view was worth it, although the photograph doesn't do it justice. 

And then it was a case of 'everybody back on the coach' for the return to Tokyo. We weren't very hungry so just popped into one of Japan's famous convenience stores, (I think it was Family Mart, but don't quote me)  located just across the road from the hotel and bought some sandwiches and a packet of these

Yup, raspberry flavoured KitKats. We planned to go back the next day to try the strawberry version but somehow that never happened. 

Getting There

Absolute nightmare. There is no getting away from the fact that Japan is a long way from Scotland. And that means a long time in the air. In our case it also meant a long connection time in Dubai.  So we had to check in in Glasgow four hours before our first flight to Dubai, that took eight hours and was full of the most restless passengers I have ever encountered on an international flight, up and down like yo-yos and congregating in the aisles, then we had six hours in Dubai before the plane to Tokyo and that was another nine hours. And then we had to tackle Japanese Immigration which took - well I was going to say forever, but obviously that would be a lie! it did take hours though. Our transfer driver was getting more and more agitated, sending us messages saying he was waiting for us and we were sending messages back saying we were wafting for bags, going through immigration, we were through immigration and where was he now? By the time we got to our hotel it was almost two in the morning local time and we'd ben up for about 30 hours. We were definitely ready for bed. It was just as well we were so tired,  or we might have been even more dismayed by the size of our room. (It was very small). But as it was, all we cared about was finding somewhere to put the cases so we didn't fall over them on the way to the bathroom and crawling into bed for some much needed sleep.

I Iz back

 

I iz also full of cold, as is the OH, which is unfortunate as there is lots of catching up to do as there always is when you've been away and although I say 'full of cold' what I mean is basically poleaxed by some sort of bug which has snuck in while we thought all we were dealing with was lots of sneezing and the odd cough. 

We got back on Sunday afternoon and our suitcases arrived early evening Monday. This was due to what we were told was a safety protocol preventing the opening of the baggage hold door, which may or may not have been true. I almost wrote 'have been the case' there, but decided against ... The luggage was at least delivered to our door at the airline's expense and it did mean that I was relieved of the guilty feeling that I should  unpack and fill the washing machine as soon as we had got home and greeted both son no 2 and the cat. 

(I have now done two lots of washing but have yet to approach the ironing board. )

I have counted up this morning and I had 328 photos of our travels on my phone, now safely transferred to my laptop. They won't all be appearing on the blog, but at least I will have plenty to choose from. Some general thoughts on Japan and on cruising are upcoming, plus naturally a destination by destination description of 'what we did on our holidays'. Probably interspersed with our day to day stuff now we're back home, but fingers crossed I'll get it all in before Christmas. Or even Advent Season. 

A Relaxing Afternoon Out

 

I seemed to have been spending a lot of time indoors at the end of last week, plus we had son no 2 with us and we hadn't done much together,  so on Sunday I insisted we go out for a while. We ended up going to the Nature /RSPB reserve at Loch Leven which on paper looked like just what I needed. In the event that RSPB place is not at the end of the loch I would have liked to be at, i.e. the end with the island castle so that was a bit sad, but not, you know, huge. 

There is a heritage trail which goes all the way round and I hope to go back on several occasions in future,  join it at different points and walk a different bit of it each time. That said we did the wetlands walk which was about the right length for us, although sadly you don't see an awful lot of the loch as you do that, then we treated ourselves to some hot chocolate and cake in the cafe. As I said, a walk that loses us about 18 calories, then we stuff our faces with 256 more. There's a small shop as well, so I picked up my first pack of Christmas cards for this year. 

My packing is just about done although I was fazed by learning that Emirates, with whom we are flying, do not allow women to take  a piece of cabin baggage and a handbag. Every other airline I have ever used allows that, even Easyjet! On the upside at least I checked, rather than pitching up at the airport tomorrow  with an extra bag that wasn't allowed. Other than that it went relatively smoothly which is a good thing as I'm a teeny bit nervous still and didn't need to get stressed over the packing. 

So, a bientot! 

Wool stats and finished projects for September

 yes, I'm getting the standard posts (wool, books) out of the way early this month because the holiday is not far away now and when I come back I don't want to have to face doing those when I could be blogging about the trip. 

Just for info, we go on Wednesday and will be back just in time for the clock change; son no 2 is holding the fort here and cat sitting while we're gone. We are going to Japan; flying to Tokyo for a few days and then doing a cruise which circumnavigates Japan and also includes a stop in South Korea. I've gone through a few reactions since we booked it, settled for months on 'apprehensive' and I'm now slowly tipping over into 'excited'. Hopefully the dial will get to 'very excited ' at some point. I haven't told many people where we're going, but I'm very pleased that I told Heather way back in spring when we first booked it, otherwise she would never have known and she was so excited for us. It's a big holiday but it's a joint celebration of our Big Birthdays and everyone we know who has been there says it's wonderful, so fingers crossed. 

Meanwhile, the wool stats. In was 150g, of which 100g was this month's self striping sock club, currently half knit up (yay!) The other 50g was something I bought to make a present with for Christmas. Since it was Rowan Kidsilk Haze the present isn't growing particularly quickly but it will be ready in time. Out was 600g,  400g of this, which I bought in August,  went into the new top for my holiday, 54g got used up in a hat which is also a  Christmas present, 30g into my long term project and 116g was given away. Net decrease for the month was 450g, and for the year to date is 1942g. All in the right direction. I'd like to have a huge decrease in the next couple of months before the yearn advents arrive in December, but I'm not hopeful.  Especially since I won;t be getting much done on the holiday. Of course I'm taking knitting but probably only socks so we'll see how it goes. 

Meanwhile here's the top - not a great photo but it's very pretty, and it fits! The colour is much nicer than it shows here - a cornflower blue. 

And the hat. Yet again it's the fisherman's cap. I knitted this from stash yarn, with a 4ply and a suri alpaca held together which makes it lovely and warm. It doesn't seem much for a month but I did some cross stitch as well which was fun but it's soooo much slower than knitting. 

There may be one more post before we go but definitely not two, as Tuesday is dedicated to packing!

September Books

 

I read six books in September and started another and for the first time in ages there were more non crime than crime, and I found that very pleasing. 

The DNF, which was more a HES ( hardly even started ) was The Sewing Machine by Natalie Fergie. I got this from Borrowbox late at night and was somehow fooled into thinking it wasn't yet another bloated family saga told over decades of the C20, in which men are men and go off to war and women are downtrodden but find themselves by achieving financial independence in some fairly non-male threatening way. In the event this is exactly what this was. I think I gave it 50 pages before I sent it back. 

So with that out of the way ... the first one I finished was Juliet Barker's The Brontes: A Life in Letters ,which is obviously a re-read. I was rather concerned to find that I was not as annoyed by Charlotte and Emily as I remember being in the past; however I read it partly as preparation for rereading Barker's  monumental joint biography of all four Bronte children and I'm fairly sure that once I embark on that I will find Charlotte, at least, as irritating as ever.   Unless I have mellowed a great deal since I last read it. 

The book club chose a J D Kirk, not at my suggestion I hasten to add. It was his latest, called 'Better the Devil. It went down well which isn't surprising,. Quite a few members were already fans and it was the mixture as before; a bit of a plot, good interaction between team members  and lots of humour, sometimes very dark. 

After that was Robert Harris' Agrippa which had been very well reviewed and which I used an Audible credit for. This was a mistake. Obviously Harris has decided that Agrippa was a fairly stolid, 'follow orders and support the man in charge' military type which presumably works well  on the page. The story is told in the first person and sadly the narrator had decided that he needed to make Agrippa someone with no expression in his voice at all, presumably because he was a fairly stolid military type etc This made for dullness. In fact it made it a very good book to fall asleep to which hadn't at all been the plan. In fairness it straightened out for me a lot of history that I had been confused about before; also taught methat Augustus really wasn't a loud cuddly Brian Blessed type, he was a murdering, power hungry horror (I Claudius reference there for any reader old enough to catch it). I came to the conclusion that overall the book  would have been better as  a read than a listen. 

Next up was Savage her Reply by Deirdre Sullivan which retells the Irish myth of the Children of Lir, who were turned into swans by their stepmother. Sullivan tells the story from the point of view of the stepmother and makes her credible and sympathetic.  I was fascinated by this book and read it over only a few days, helped by the fact that Sullivan writes beautifully. Her prose is poetic without being pretentious and it flows like a river. Highly recommended if   myths and/or lyrical writing are your thing. 

Finally got around to Frankly, the memoir by Nicola Sturgeon of her life in Scottish politics. I won't say it was totally disillusioning, but politics, even when pursued in a good cause, seems to be a dirty business by default. 

And finally another crime novel, The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley. I got this from Borrowbox because her latest book, which is a new Miss Marple novel commissioned by the Agatha Christie estate isn't available for months from the library and I thought this might give me a taste of her writing. It's less a crime novel than a ' who are all these people, how are they connected and what is going to happen next' novel. It was soooooooooooooooo slow. I got so impatient with it. Multiple POVs, and two time periods, and at the end the number of connections between this seemingly random group of people stretched credibility to its borders and beyond. I'm not saying that I don't like loose ends to be tied up in a book because I do. What I'm saying is that not all loose ends need to end up in the same oversized knot. Very disappointing. 

How long have you known me?

 I could make a guess if you told me how surprised you were to hear that last Friday I went with my friend S to the Barbie Exhibition at Kelvingrove in Glasgow. 

If your reaction is ' that sounds like a fun thing to do and I bet you enjoyed it' I've known you for less than ten years and probably more like three. 

If it is 'You? And Barbie? I can't quite believe that' then you've known me a long time and it's probably time we had a catch up. I am not the same as teenage/twenties me. 😄

I was not brought up to appreciate fun, or to feel that it's OK to do fun things just because they are fun,  and also that some things you should never admit to finding fun at all. Barbie would very much fall into the latter category. However I have learned over the past few years, occasionally with great difficulty,  that actually there is nothing wrong with fun; in fact it can add greatly to the enjoyment of life and of course I have also had to learn that it is also not wicked to enjoy life.  So when S and I were wondering what to do on our latest jaunt we thought Barbie, that might be fun, and we went. And it was. 

It was also a bit overwhelming. I had no idea that there had been well over 200 iterations of Barbie, nor that she had followed so many careers ( quite often totally unsuitably dressed) nor that she had owned such an extensive property portfolio. We alternated between 'I remember that' and 'After my time' and 'I don't think they sold that one in the UK.'

I never had a Barbie and I don't think I ever hankered after one, certainly not in the same way that I hankered after Sindy her UK equivalent. But she was there, in the background, in all the toy shops and endlessly advertised on television so a peripheral part of my growing up. I was  astonished by this piece of information recorded in the exhibition

here are a few Barbies - there were cabinets and cabinets of them 

and here are some Kens - I think this is every version of Ken they every made 

Seems like enough!

Bloody Scotland Days 2 and 3 - and an unintended consequence.

I went to two events on Saturday  with my friend D, and they were both a huge improvement on the Friday one, which was a bit of a relief. 

One was this 

I didn't think, going in, that I had read any of these authors but once the event began I realised that I had read a Simon Marks and been distinctly unimpressed. And after listening to him I'm still not going to go and read any more. My friend bought a Sarah Hilary and I bought a Patricia Gibney and once we've each read our own we're going to swap.  Both she and Sarah Hilary were interesting and thoughtful and I think I will enjoy both their books. Report in due course, naturally. Meanwhile D and I were both very taken with Patricia Gibney's plaid jumper and took the time afterwards to tell her so. D later found it on line and it is eye wateringly expensive. As in mother of the bride outfit type expensive. So I won't be buying one, but I still like it. 

The afternoon one was this 

and I was scoring 2 out of 3 here as I used to read James Oswald, and indeed went to an author event with him at Orkney Library which I'm sure must feature on the blog somewhere,  until his police procedurals became more Woo Woo Weird than I am comfortable with my police procedurals being ; in fact make that much more since I'm fairly intolerant of that sort of thing. Apparently it's known as genre blending and is very much a current publishing trend - who knew? Caro Ramsay was excellent; very funny, very down to earth. I assumed I would enjoy listening to her as I enjoy her books and I bought a pre-signed copy of her latest paperback. Nothing sartorial of note here. I didn't take to Mr Andrew James Greig despite his efforts to be self deprecating and funny because neither of those things quite came off ; largely I suspect because at heart he is not a man who feels he should be self deprecating and is doing it under duress. 

I was rather startled to find myself buying three books over the weekend but one of them was part of a Christmas present for someone else, and the other two were both paperbacks so it didn't break the bank. And the last time I bought a new physical book was last September when I treated myself to Natalie Haynes' No Friend to This House, so I'm not exactly on a book buying spree. 

Sunday I was on my own and the first panel I did was Gory Glesga. I thought I hadn't read any of these writers either but in fact I had, since Eve Macrae is aka Lynne Macewen, one of whose books popped up in the August book round up. Frances Crawford was the hero of the hour having managed to carry off both the major prizes of the festival; best debut novel and best crime novel of the year. This was definitely the most enjoyable event I went to, but how could it not be, you put four Glaswegian wordsmiths  on a stage for an hour and you know it's going to be comedy gold. 

And finally I went to this one. I had swithered about this because amongst the murders covered in his book is that of Jamie Bulger which is almost too distressing to contemplate, even now so long after the event, but it also includes Sarah Everard, and her murder and the events after it and the facts that emerged about the Met's so called 'Vetting procedures' made me incandescent with wrath at the time so I decided to go.  I don't watch True Crime programs on TV, nor do I read any True Crime books, so I haven't previously come across Professor Wilson but he's a serious criminologist who has also spent time  in the Prison  Service so he knows what he's talking/writing about.  In fact had I not had a very tight window for catching my train home I would have stayed and bought his book, but as I didn't I can only hope that either Stirling or Alloa library will stock it, if not now then in the future. 

And Bloody Scotland is back next year, and the dates, unsurprisingly,  are already in my calendar. 

The unintended consequence was coming down with a vicious bug which I can only assume I picked up while I was rubbing shoulders with so many people all in one place. It made itself known on Monday, retreated a bit on Tuesday then came crashing back on Wednesday since when I have done very little ( except for a trip to Glasgow which was enabled by a dose of paracetamol,  more on that later.) Today is Sunday and I feel quite a lot better thank goodness but I'm still taking it easy in the hope that proper rest will see the back of it sooner than otherwise. I have at least found the energy to sew up and block the new holiday top though - hooray!  

Bloody Scotland - Intro and Friday

So, as previously mentioned the weekend just gone was Bloody Scotland 2026. I remember when the program first came out I wasn't hugely enthused on my first flick through. Second time I was feeling  a bit more constructive and I marked down a few things I'd like to go to. Later when I thought I really should think about actually getting some tickets I concentrated hard, struck off a few things that had previously been marked as 'of interest', some because they no longer looked quite as interesting and some because I'm not wandering around the streets of Stirling on my lonesome quite that late at night. Lest you think it was a less good festival than previously that wasn't the case. This sequence of events is par for the course!

I booked one event for Friday which was called Death on the Island. This was set to feature Alex Gray, Lin Anderson and Andrew Raymond. I like Alex Gray's books, I quite like Lin Anderson's although I feel they now tend to the 'a bit too long', and of Andrew Raymond I had never previously heard. But two out of three again is par for the course. 

I was slightly disappointed to receive an e-mail on Thursday informing me that due to unforeseen circumstances Lin Anderson was now unable to attend, and  although I couldn't have a refund I could swap my ticket for another event if I liked. But  I just shrugged my shoulders  and thought, well longer for the other two, no big deal. However when I got to the venue I discovered that they had found a substitute for Lin Anderson.

If you've been here for a while you can look at the poster and see immediately why, when I saw who the substitute was, my heart sank. Yes J M Dalglish, writer of the  dullest set of detective novels ever set in Norfolk and possibly the entirety of Great Britain. Reviewed on the blog in February, March April and May, a sequence whihc chronicled my increasing disappointment, and I started with a low level of enjoyment with the first one I read. Even worse, he has just started a new series set in Orkney and he talked about that for  some time. In the first five minutes he made three glaring errors despite, apparently,  having been to Orkney on a research trip, so you know .... Even even worse he told a mother - in law joke. I thought they had rightly gone out of fashion when the last 1970s 'comedian' died, but it seems  they are still alive and kicking in some minds. 

I was quite bored all the way through this event. This was partly due to the presence of Dalglish who is quite as dull in person as his books, with an added dollop of self importance. Raymond was quite interesting but not interesting enough that I rushed off to buy any of his books. Alex Gray seemed to be on autopilot but then I expect she has done a lot of events like this, since she's been writing her books for 20+ years. 

Again, as with the  Arts Society talk, my reaction could have been partly coloured by the fact that I was still feeling under par after the flu injection - who knows? I left wondering doubtfully if the whole weekend was going to be a washout. (Spoiler - it wasn't). 

Crazy Busy week

 As anticipated last week was very busy although not necessarily with blog worthy things. 

Monday was Book Group Day, and they had chosen a J D Kirk so there I was reading another one after two months 'off'. Report to come in the book round up post. 

Tuesday was medical stuff; I had an eye test in the morning and we both had appointments for our flu jabs in the afternoon. Obviously my eye test was with a new optician since I hadn't  had my eyes tested since we moved. I was a bit nervous, as I always am before an eye test, which given my lamentable vision  history isn't surprising. but in fact it was very reassuring. My sight is fine, and it appears that the partial thickness macular hole is probably stable, but the new optician has requested the scans from my previous ones so that she can compare. The flu jabs were fine, I didn't even feel mine going in, possibly because I wasn't looking? and when asked about previous side effects of flu jabs we both blithely said oh, only sore arms, never felt ill after one. Ha! Those were words that came back to haunt us both. 

Wednesday we met up with our friend K for coffee in Stirling; hadn't seen her for a while so lots of catching up. 

Thursday was the start of the new season of the Stirling and Forth Valley Arts Society branch. I'm sure I must have mentioned joining this last year and presumably reported on their, generally excellent, talks. I was very much looking forward to this one which was on William MacTaggart, a C19 Scottish painter, held to be one  of the best painters of the sea ever. To wit; 

Yeah, a photo of a slide on a screen which itself was taken from a picture in a book, I think; it's not giving anyone the best idea of MacTaggart's skill. Google images is your friend here should you be interested. Meanwhile I became aware about half way through the talk that I felt distinctly off; slightly nauseous, a bit of a headache and wait! could that actually be a flu like shiver? I skipped the normal post talk lunch with a group of friends and took myself straight to the train station. When he picked me up the OH exclaimed 'what on earth has happened, you look totally wiped out' which isn't necessarily how a woman wants to be greeted by her nearest and dearest, but I felt too ill to care really and it was probably true. I went straight to bed when I got home and slept for five hours and by the time I got up again the OH was also feeling quite ill. We will be cross if we get flu this winter ....

I was not particularity impressed by the talk which I thought badly structured and fairly uninformative given that the speaker talked for an hour, but it seems I was very much in the minority in that view.. It may be that my reaction was coloured by feeling ill, in a way reminiscent of last year's opera stramash. Who can say? 

Friday saw the beginning of Bloody Scotland, but as that is still taking up time I'll bundle all the reports from there into one dedicated post. 

Meanwhile the needles arrived and the 'holiday' top is almost complete. The sleeves are done,  so now it's just a case of making sure I have the body the right length before starting the finishing rib. I think another five rounds will see that done, but of course I can't be sure without trying it on, a delicate manoeuvre if you want to be sure of not losing stitches from the needle! 

Wales - Wrap Up

Since our next holiday is (too) rapidly approaching I thought I'd make the effort to finish recording our week in Wales back in June .  The rest of our adventures, such as they were, were nearer to the cottage where we were staying. We had a leisurely day in Port Madoc visiting the maritime museum and going to Cadwalladers for an ice cream. No pics of the ice cream but here's the harbour at Port Madoc, and some crafty circles inside the museum. We are suckers for maritime museums; no idea why since neither of us has any connection to navies or sailing, although as long term readers might appreciate, when we're not knackering our knees we're quite partial to a bit of rowing.  

Naturally we visited the OH's favourite heritage railway station of Tan-y-bwlch,  as pretty as ever

There's also a good tearoom should you ever be in the vicinity and wanting to watch steam trains and have a cup of tea. Don't make my mistake and drink your tea outside if there's a train due; half of mine got wasted after the train deposited a good sprinkling of ash* into it. 

* I know it's not actually ash, but I don't know the technical term for whatever it is steam trains spew into the cups and over the clothing of the unwary.

And on our last day we went for  a ride on a steam train; the one that runs along the side of Lake Bala. It was still very hot so chugging along beside the lake was a pleasant experience - much more pleasant than going for  walk anyway. We saw both red kites and buzzards, sadly too high to take meaningful photos. This was our engine, Alice 

and here's a view of the lake

and that was our Welsh break. 

Phew! I'm glad I've caught up with that. The next trip isn't for another four weeks yet but I've got a crazy busy time coming up next week - gold star to anyone who's thinking, oh yes, it must be almost Bloody Scotland time - and there are various other things in the calendar which might find their way onto here - not to mention that I have a top I want to complete before we go. That has stuttered to a temporary halt as I found myself without the needles I need to do the sleeves. It is a constant mystery that however many needles a knitter has there is always a huge chance that when they knit something new they won't have at least one of the needles necessary. I would say, maybe that's just me, but I know it isn't. 

The necessary needles have been ordered and happily the top has been coming along quite quickly so it should be done in time. I'm crossing my fingers it will make an appearance in the September finished projects post. 

So, remember we went to Wales...?

 And one of the nicest days we had was in Conwy. 

This was not just because of this wool shop 

lovely shop, rather pushy owner. It's where I bought the little weaving kit. 

There were also some interesting old buildings, like this one

and a beautiful patisserie where we had an early lunch(?)

There's a beautiful harbour with great views, 

a spectacular castle 

and last but not least the Smallest House in the British Isles. 

We both loved Conwy. Sadly it was far too hot to do much and certainly too hot to tackle the walk up to and around the castle. We'd love to go back another time though, spend longer and explore the town properly. 

Unexpected Nice Things and a couple of cat photos

 We had a telephone call on Friday morning to say that the OH's brother was on a train on his way to our home town for a brief visit  (He's been in Largs this weekend for the Viking Festival.) We took him out to local cafe M.O.C.S. for lunch. We've been there for coffee and cake before and we've often said we'd like to try their Turkish pide for lunch so on Friday we did. 

Three different flavours, all were delicious, and very hearty portions. I couldn't finish mine; maybe I shouldn't have had any of those chips which the OH ordered and which really weren't needed. Although they were Very Nice Chips Indeed. 

On Saturday we went to the Japanese garden again, for a special event. Little Peru , a farm in Ayrshire, had brought three of their alpacas up to the garden and you could pay a small fee and pat them and feed them and have your photo take with them. Ours was called Diego, he was a bit flighty but I hung on to his harness like grim death whenever he seemed likely to make a break for freedom. I didn't get to feed him but the OH did, and there was indeed lots of petting and stroking and photo taking. 

Here we are

I do wish I had made that jumper longer.....

And a couple of pics for fans of The Cat Cosimo

He says he doesn't know 'what it is about cats and boxes and he wishes people would stop asking him; all he knows is that this new box appeared and so he had to go and sit in it. Because.'

"I know you're in there. I'm going to scratch at this door until you come out an play and I don't care that it's 3 in the morning". Ah the joys of sharing a home with a cat. 

Wool Stats and Projects for August.

 OK, could have been better, could have been worse. 

Wool in, which is  from all over really, totalled 1009g. 

There were two instalments of the Madrigal Yarn self striping sock club; the late July one and the August one.

A gift from my daughter-in-law for hosting the grandchildren

A birthday gift

some aran weight received in a swap

the left overs from my scarf weaving

and finally I actually bought 400g of this 

to make myself a top which I hope will be finished in time for me to take on our upcoming holiday.

Wool out was 515g. I made two hats, one with the swap yarn and one with the wool from my daughter in law

That's the top, and I love the squared off effect, both because it looks really good and because it makes it a better fit than the normal rounding off decreases. This was made as a Christmas charity donation but I was reluctant to let it go as it fitted so well. So I was delighted to discover that the wool from the daughter in law was the right weight for me to make myself one! 

The only other thing I finished was the coaster from the little 'have a go at weaving' set that I bought on holiday in Wales. 

It's less than brilliant and honestly the instructions weren't very clear in several places, so I count myself lucky to have managed something vaguely useful. There was enough wool to make two, but the rest is  off to a charity shop together with the  weaving bits and someone else can have a go. They may make a better job of it than I did. The only really good thing about this was that it prompted me to find the weaving course that I treated myself to for my birthday and even though that convinced me that I probably never wanted to even see a loom again I'm still glad I did it. 

I put some yarn into a swap package and also used up 220g in my large continuing project. So the net increase was 494g .  Net decrease for the year to date is 1492g and I'm crossing my fingers for that to look healthier by the end of September.