Day 4 Arezzo

 Of all the places we saw on our tour, and admitting that Florence, you know, is Florence and a place  apart, it was Arezzo that really stole our hearts. 

This was unexpected as our hotel was on the outskirts which were underwhelming, and we hadn't seen much of the city itself as we were being driven out to see Florence and Siena so it came as a surprise to find the city ( v.small city, it has to be said) so beautiful and full of interest. 

Most of the places of interest were churches, but this is Italy so that's a given, and they're mainly of interest, assuming they don't have random bits of a mummified saint to draw the crowds, because of the art and Arezzo was no exception. Apart from the churches  there are  the remains of an Etruscan Fort - top of  a hill outside the current city walls, it was very hot, no we didn't walk up to it!, the home of a famous poet and the home of an almost equally famous artist and architect. And it's buildings are beautiful and it's main square every bit as lovely as the one in Siena, if somewhat smaller. It even plays host to somethign similar to the Palio, an annual Saracen Joust. 

We had a group tour in the morning whihc took us all around the historic entre plus into two major churches; San Domenico and the Cathedral. After that it was time on your own and the OH and I opted for another church followed by a relaxed lunch on the square where we were serenaded by a violinist. I've got a short video from then but I've tried and failed to upload videos to the blog before so I won't be attempting that again. It's a lovely little memory though. And after that we went to Casa Vasari, the home of Renaissance artist Giorgio Vasari, who is thought of as one of the  first Art Historians, courtesy of writing a  famous  book entitled Lives of the Artists, Interesting fact; a paperback copy of this, together with another one of Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography was the first Christmas present I bought the OH., decades ago now. 

So a few photos, from a very large collection that I took 

A few general views

The Square

The Poet's House ( Petrarch) sadly closed for renovation while we were there

The 'extra' church the Oh and I went to was San Francesco and the reason for that was to see the Piero della Francesco frescos there. Here's The Annunciation

As it happened we had already seen a small painting by della Francesco in the Cathedral. I hadn't known who it was by when I first caught sight of it. It's only the second painting I've ever encountered that has brought me to the brink of tears just looking at it. Obviously a photo does it no justice, but here it is, a picture of Mary Magdalene. Personally I'd take this single image over the whole of the fresco cycle in San Francesco., amazing though that is. I strongly suggest clicking on this to enlarge it which will give  abetter idea of how good it is. 

And from the Casa Vasari, a view of the garden

and one of the many beautiful frescos he decorated his walls and ceiling with 

This was our last day in the Arezzo area; the next day we travelled to Rome, via Assisi. But  that obvs., is another post

Oops! How did that happen ....

 

How did what happen Anne?  I hear you cry as you look at the photo and think , she's bought some sock yarn. Hardly needs much explanation. 

And yes it is sock yarn and yes I did buy it and yes it's the first instalment of a monthly sock club. That's the bit you didn't see coming and how did it happen? 

Well Madrigal Yarns put up a Facebook post about their new self striping sock club. Self striping is relatively difficult to get hold of because it's a pain to dye and a lot of dyers seem to have decided  that it's more bother than it's worth. The OH of course, loves bright socks and what he most likes is bright stripey socks so this, despite the fact that it means at least 100g of yarn incomnig every month, was a bit of a no brainer. 

The colours will be inspired by the month the yarn is produced and this one, for April, is called Colours of Spring. While I love the main skein, and indeed the mini that came with it, I don't think they pair very well together so I've looked out a green that I had 'in stock'  to pair with it when I get around to knitting it up into socks. 

That won't be for a wee while because at the moment all my knitting time is taken up with my So Faded  sweater, which is the pattern I'm using for my Beehive advent yarn . I am so very nervous about whether or not this will fit that I have taken a tremendous amount of trouble with it; swatching (in the round, no less!), measuring myself, measuring two slightly differently fitting jumpers, comparing measurements to pattern schematic etc.  etc. If the universe tends to the benevolent  then it will fit and fit nicely. I'm a lot further on with it than I thought I would be after only five days but not quite at a place where I can yet try it on to see how it's looking. Fingers crossed. And then the self striping is second in the queue once it's done. 

 

Reading Round Up for March

 

So it appears that I read10 books in March and did a DNF on an eleventh. I kept hearing DNF on people's You Tube reading blogs and it took me longer than it should have done done to work out that meant Did Not Finish. 

So we might as well start with the DNF which was The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse. The blurb sounded promising - an old sanatorium in the Swiss Alps (possibly the French Alps actually, but definitely the Alps anyway) has been turned into a luxury wellness retreat type thing by an award winning architect and people gather for the grand opening only for them to disappear one by one, and then turn up dead. Sort of And then There Were None, but abroad. I borrowed this from my library's borrow box program and I did really reallly try but honestly it was about as interesting as watching paint dry. I couldn't keep in my mind who half the people were, and most of the ones that made an impression made a bad one by being either unpleasant ( the men) or feeble ( the women). Possibly it's better if you read it rather than having it read to you; at least that way you can go back and check who all  people are - if you find yourself caring enough. Pearse has since written two follow ups featuring the same detective so obviously someone out there likes them. That someone is not me. 

At the same time as I downloaded The Sanatorium I also got The Silent House of Sleep by Allan Gaw. This sounded very promising as it was the first one in a series, so if I liked it, lots more to read, It features a young forensic pathologist at  almost  the start of the development of the discipline and that could be a really interesting way to approach the detective genre but  oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The method of murder was just ridiculous and the motivation for it non-existent. What a let down. Also to be honest the main protagonist is a total misery guts and the police he works for/with are unsympathetic in the extreme. A C+ for the ideas and an E for execution. I won't be reading any more. 

With attempts to find new authors so unsuccessful, is it any wonder that I fell back on some old favourites. My falling asleep to book was The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie, a set of short stories which feature the first appearance of one Miss Jane Marple. When you've been reading Christie as long as I have there aren't many surprises to be had, but the plots are competent, the writing is fine without being fancy and the motivations for murder are all credible. 'nuff said. 

I listened to Karin Slaughter's Indelible and in a way this was disappointing because I thought it was the book in which she killed off a recurring character who I dislike very much. Imagine my disappointment at the end of the book when it turned out they had survived. (Spoiler, they don't survive the next one ...) Meanwhile I enjoyed this one, and certainly didn't see how it would end or how the past and the present would all tie in together. One of her best I think. 

I knocked off a couple of J D Kirks; One for the Ages and City of Scars. I must surely be running out of the library stocks of this man, but as long as I keep finding ones on the shelves that I haven't read, I'll keep reading them. 

Staying with the detective novels I also read a couple by J M Dalglish who tends to turn up on line attached to messages like 'If you liked J D Kirk, you might also like J M Dalglish'. On the grounds that I do like J D Kirk I followed up last month's not entirely successful experience of reading one of JMD's  books set on Skye with several of his Hidden Norfolk series. When I say several, this was courtesy of them being bundled together in sets of three on Audible which sounds like a bargain and I'm a great one for trying to get the best value possible for my Audible subscription. So in March I listened to One Lost Soul and Bury Your Past. I'm not sure if its the writing or the reading but Gordon Bennett these books are pedestrian. This they then did, squared. Great if you like your books to have chapters that usually open with a weather report though. And the lead detective to be half heartedly dating the most passive aggressive girlfriend ever. 

In search of some light relief I got Jodi Taylor's Lights, Camera, Mayhem which didn't supply many laughs to be honest.  I think I've got a bit tired of these characters and their recurring behavioural and conversational tics. It all gets a bit monotonous. 

Next up was a fantasy novel called Immortal by Sue Linn Tan. Can't remember now why I bought it, possibly I was looking for something to read that wasn't a detective novel and picked this up at Waterstones from a Book of the Month table? I knew it had been well reviewed, and initially I enjoyed it. The setting is oriental-ish and there were some interesting concepts. However it went on a bit too long and there was a not very well revealed 'reveal' about 5/6ths of the way through, for winch nothing had prepared the reader ( unless possibly an acquaintance with Chinese mythology that I don't have? ) I did at least finish it, but I was bored with the characters long before the end. I would say 'at least they weren't riding dragons', somethign for which I no longer have any patience at all, but at one point the heroine does ride something else, possibly a thing called  a 'quilip', which, while it isn't a dragon, does fly and have hissy fits if the wrong person wants to get on its back. 

And so finally to Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones.  It's not her best, but it's a long way from being her worst and it's a personal favourite. It's not particularly deep or subtle,  since it is after all a children's book, but it has charm, real danger, and a satisfying denouement. It also features one of her signature hapless academic males, who are great fun  on the page but who would be really really annoying in real life. And there's an understated message about the importance of tolerance and how a life full of love is  infinitely  preferable to a life full of money or power. 

No judgement  if you DNF-ed this post as it's rather long. Suspect April's will be longer, unless I content myself with just a list! 

I had Some Sad News

 It's a week now since I received the sad news that  my last surviving uncle had just died. 

To be honest it wasn't a total surprise. We had seen him at my aunt's 90th  (she was his sister, not his wife. His wife died some years ago and I wrote about that and how deeply it affected me  here ) and he looked very frail then. He had been slowly losing his sight over many years and two years ago was registered as blind. He coped with that with his usual determination to make the best of things, greatly helped by his love of music, but over the last couple of years his hearing had started to go too, so that even that consolation was gradually being closed to him. 

He was 92, which people generally refer to as a good innings; his side of my family certainly seem to have a gene for long life. And it had been a largely happy life; a strong marriage, three sons and a multitude of interests. always curious about new things and ready to try them. I remember he was the first person I ever knew, when I was quite young, to have a cine camera. One of my favourite photographs of him is at my sisters first wedding, where he is standing in the grounds of the church holding the latest one and looking about.   In my photo album this this is captioned 'Now is there anyone here that I haven't got on my film' and the reason I called it that was  because , although he had the rest of the family there, he had somehow missed the OH and me. He and his wife were mortified, and very apologetic. One of those things that seem dreadful at the time but which, after years, are just either not important or funny. In fact  as far as I recall I found it funny at the time.He also had an a mazing sense of humour and a gift for telling stories; I can remember evenings in my teens  when we would all get together and the time was just full of hysterical laughter. As a  a huge music fan;he was also  one of the few members of the family with whom the OH and I could share our love of listening to singing. 

I am heartbroken that he has gone, while at the same time realising that his life had become so narrow that his passing may have been a blessing, although to be honest  I am very far from actually believing that.

As always English funerals take an age to sort so his is not until 12th May. It's going to be very sad and I'm dreading it. 

I made some cards

 This week was supposed to be all about paper crafting but somehow the week got away from me a bit and I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. That said, I did make some cards on Wednesday and here they are

For something so simple they took a remarkably long time to do, but then it's not the actual doing it's deciding what to use that takes the time. 

I'm reasonably pleased with them all, but the front two are my favourites.

The (Not So) Magic Flute

 

Another month, another ROH filmcast, this time The Magic Flute. 

Regular readers will be aware that I am not a huge fan of the plot of this opera, perverted and bonkers being about the best things I have to say about it. However I can often be reconciled to it because of the beauty of the music. It's also a huge favourite of the OH's, so when he pointed out there was an ROH filmcast at the Arts Centre at the University, given that he has recently gone to two operas on his own (Wagner, need I say more?) I felt sort of obliged to go with him. After all I reasoned, the music IS fantastic and it's Covent Garden so the cast and the playing will be great. 

Alas for such confidence. The cast was not great,and nor was the orchestra. The playing was mechanical and, bar the Queen of the Night who was excellent, the rest of the cast were either competent, uninspiring or underpowered. It was a revival of David McVicar's 2017 production and I can sort of see why people think it's wonderful; puppets, people with animal heads, a 12 section snake ( rather than a dragon!) to open. I wasn't charmed myself. They had also put in a lot of the spoken dialogue which is usually heavily cut ( and rightly so),  so it was l-o-n-g. 

No production I have ever seen has beaten Bergman's film, although the performance at Savonlinna a few years ago came close. We would have done better to stay at home and watch that instead. 

Never mind, it was a night out. Next month it's the Met's production of Evgeny Onegin and I'm hoping that will be really good. I was going to write 'hoping that will be better' but I can't see that it could be less enjoyable to be honest. 

Day 3 - Florence Reprise

 The day after Siena we were taken to Florence, a welcome return for the OH and me and a bit of an endurance task for some of the others if you listened to them afterwards. We started off with a guided walking tour of the centre and despite having done a lot of reading before we went last autumn we still learned a lot on this tour. It ended by the the Uffizi and the general plan was people had lunch nearby and then came back to visit the Gallery at the time on their pre-booked tickets. We'd already said we didn't want to go to the  Uffizi; it's not as though it isn't only six months since  we were last there, so we went off to do our own thing. 

Above - Dante's house, so they day. 

This was basically to have lunch; the OH had decided it would be nice to revisit the place we had eaten on our first night in Florence, so we did that. It's not that we like ruts or anything 😄 but he had exactly the same meal as he had on our previous visit and I only varied mine by choosing  a different dessert, because, as I recalled it, their pannacotta had been just a tad on the rubbery side on our previous visit.

 

After that we went back to San Lorenzo to visit the Medici Chapel.Previously we'd only been to the Library and the Cloisters and we thought we might get into the church proper this time as well, but it turns out you buy a different ticket for that somewhere else, so we saved it for another time. The Medici Chapel is - well, shall I say overwhelming again? Jaw dropping but not what I would call tasteful. There again my taste doesn't run to green marble, but then I'm not an uber-wealthy Renaissance Duke. 

After we left he chapel I said to the OH he should see if he could find any wool shops in the vicinity and I honestly thought he was joking when he said; There's one a two minute walk away'. Despite being so close it was difficult to find, as Google directions can be a bit iffy when you get down to small distances. It was very nice but I didn't buy anything in there. Still it was fun to visit. And then we trooped back to the  group meeting point for the long walk back to the the coach park. 

I have to say that I thought Florence was crowded in September, but that was as nothing - as nothing I tell you!- to how it was in April. A thoroughly enjoyable day nonetheless ( for us. Some of the rest of the groups were less than enchanted by Florence.) Can't think why not

Tuscany Part 1 - Arrival and Siena

 We flew to London on Easter Sunday so we could catch our mid-morning flight to Rome on Monday. The hotel at terminal 5 obviously still had notes about our unfortunate previous  experience there and had upgraded us to a suite as a result, which was nice, but you know, for one night ....still it was a gesture. We had a room service meal and all I'm going to say about that is that I wouldn't do it again. 

There were a few hiccups at Heathrow, the procedure for checking in when you're on a group ticket is different to normal and no-one could be bothered to explain what was happening but you know; water, bridge. We arrived safely, our little group was gathered up, the person in charge of our coach transfer to Arezzo where we were staying for four nights admired my pink hair, so that was all good. 

The hotel in Arezzo was very nice and the staff were lovely. The restaurant, where we ate the first night was over priced and overhyped although my dessert was nice

Day 2 (since arrival day is Day 1 ) we had a trip to Siena. I have wanted to go to Siena for many years and I have to say that of all the places in Italy I have longed to visit and finally arrived at, Siena was the only one (so far) to disappoint. There's  nothing wrong with it, it's a small Tuscan city with a huge shell shaped square in the middle where they run the famous Palio, but it just didn't live up to my expectation. Possibly the main problem was that the free time we had there was ill judged. It gave us too long to see the Cathedral and have something to eat but not long enough to do anything else. Still that's not Siena's fault. It was rammed with people, but that was a recurring theme all holiday really.

Our guided walking tour took us first to the basilica of  San Bernadino. Since this holds the mummified head and an equally desiccated thumb reputed to belong to St Catherine  it was perhaps a shame that photography is forbidden. Who doesn't want to come back from holiday with a picture of a saint's mummified  thumb?

Our guide told us a a lot about the contrada, the city factions which run  The Palio and also, as far as we could tell, the lives of the people who belong to them. I expect they do a lot of good although her description made them sound like a cross between the mafia and the masons. It's obviously something everyone takes very seriously; you can even have a civil 'baptism' into a contrada if you're not a member by birth ( strict controls apply). 

The areas of the city controlled by each contrada are marked by small plaques like this on building walls, especially prevalent near borders between one contrada's territory and the next.

Next up was the square where the Palio is run -

difficult to take a good photograph - and then we went on to the site of the Duomo where our tour ended. We chose to go into it. I think overwhelming is the word

Once we came out we searched out some ice cream which did instead of lunch and wandered round some of the places our tour hadn't taken us to. 

So that was Siena; glad I've been, wouldn't rush back. 

I Went to a Wool Show

 and yes, I know I went to Tuscany as well, and reports on that will be forthcoming just as soon as my phone and laptop decide to talk to one another properly so that I can upload my photos all in one go. Meanwhile - the wool show

It was Woolly Good in Edinburgh. This is only the second year (I think) that it has been held and I didn't go last year, probably because we were  in the throes of moving and things like yarn shows just weren't on the radar. I probably wouldn't have gone this year either if a friend hadn't suggested we go together, but she did and I agreed. 

(I still can't  get over the fact that I can get to Edinburgh and back on the train for a fraction over £8. It's surreal) 

So first of all let me show you what I bought. 

A sock project bag from Wildwood Stitches Readers may remember I bought one of her sweater size project bags back at the East Neuk Show last November. The only problem I have with these is choosing as they are all lovely.  I'm very pleased with this bag and I was also impressed that the vendor remembered me from East Neuk; I'd like to think it wasn't only because I had decided against a puffin themed bag on the grounds that it reminded me of Orkney, although she certainly did remember that! 

This notions pouch is a Christmas present for a friend who loves African waxed fabric. The business that makes them is called Soft Accents  and they are all beautiful bags and the vendors are really nice too. The website is definitely worth a look and if you aren't into knitting or crochet and therefore don't need project bags they do packs of fabric scraps for patchwork too and they come with a pattern if you want one. The pin and stitch markers at the front came from Marna at An Caitin Beag - the go-to place for all cat themed knitting related things. 

Obviously I can't go to a wool show without buying sock yarn for the OH; at East Neuk he picked his own skein from this vendor - The Woolchemist. Of these two that I bought from her yesterday the one on the right was for the OH. The other one is for me; it's not as pink as it looks in the photograph and I'm a sucker for dark reds, grey and black in combination. Not sure if I'll make socks with it, we'll see. 

And finally, this is what I mainly went for. It's some DK to knit myself a cardigan from one of my Knitted Kalevala books. Do not hold your collective breaths; it's knitted in the round and then the front is steeked! Eek! and the wool was expensive so I need to take it very slowly and ensure it's a good fit. 

Obviously the stash stats for April are going to look a bit sad ... but as long as I'm  kitting up or otherwise disposing of yarn faster than I'm acquiring it overall then that's  progress. 

As for the show overall it was very much a case of the Curate's Egg. Upside, lots of vendors, some of whom were new to me, or that I only know from on-line/You Tube. I was delighted to have a brief chat with the very talented Tara from Irish Artisan Yarn and to see Skein and the Stitch who , as far as I know, haven't ever come north of the border before. Equally some of my favourite dyers weren't there, which was a shame. The catering, as I seem to be forever saying with regard to yarn shows, was lacking. The main hall, where you could buy light snacks,  didn't have hot drinks, only cold ones,  which seemed ridiculous. It also had live music which I could have done without.. Why on earth would anyone think that was a good idea, when it's somewhere ( in fact the only place) where people could  sit and chat, and make plans about who to see next or display their purchases? Other than that as far as I could see there was a van outside selling bao buns and that was that. The venue was a school and many of the vendors were in classrooms; sometimes four to a room, which wasn't fair either to them or the customers. We deliberately chose to go on Friday because we thought it would be less busy than Saturday, and I'm sure we were right about that,  and we arrived about 30 minutes after the show opened and the place was already rammed. There were many stands where I just couldn't get close enough to the  merchandise to see if I wanted to buy anything. I appreciate it can be a risky thing committing to a larger, and more expensive, venue, but really, if it went well enough last year for a repeat performance  then the organisers must have known there would be more people attending when they did it again and could have planned accordingly. 

Would I go again? If they change the venue, probably yes, but not otherwise. But it was an enjoyable day. 

Not a WiP, but a finished object nonetheless

 

Most of my wips seem to be things that take some concentration - more than I can spare when I'm at Knit Group or tired in the evenings anyway, so inevitably there are going to be a few things made this year that can be done on autopilot. The sweater for The Irresistible Bear was the first of them and here's the second; a pair of socks for the OH. West Yorkshire Spinners Seascape is the yarn and they took about a week. 

While I had hoped to do the reading round up for March before I went away, on the grounds that there will be more exciting things to write about when we get back, that's not happening. I am suffering from my usual pre-holiday mega stress, which should miraculously disappear once we're underway to the airport in about 45 minutes, but I don't need to add to it wondering if I have time to finish a blog post about books that I can just as easily do once we're home. 

Back in about ten days with, I hope, some amazing photos and interesting tales to tell. 

Happy Mail and Wool Stats for March

 So the happy mail came yesterday and here it is

In a way I wish it hadn't arrived until today because then I wouldn't have bought any wool in March which would have looked good. But equally I was very pleased to get it. 

A while back I decided that I would like to make a sweater with my 2025 weekly yarn advent from Beehive Yarns. I chose the pattern I wanted to make but  because I have - ahem! curves - up top ,and also because I wanted to make it full length rather than cropped I needed 5 skeins of yarn and the advent naturally had only 4. 

I approached Beth at Beehive to see if she had anything that would work with the advent colours that I could buy and she had a think and then got back to me and said she had a colour in mind but she would need to dye it especially to match the base my advent yarns were on which she was happy to do if I  was prepared to wait a little while. Well obviously I was prepared to wait because as we all now I have plenty of projects and wool on hand  to keep me busy so I waited and now this beautiful skein has arrived. Once we are back from our upcoming holiday I must make a start on the jumper. I'm a bit nervous as I will have to adapt the pattern to fit and also I've never done a fade garment before, but if I don;t try I'll never know if I can do it. Plus I have several jumpers waiting to be finished, or started and I need to buckle down and get then all done. Especially as I have in mind to do a  root and branch clear out of my wardrobe before too long. 

Anyway, despite the arrival of this new skein  the March stats look good. Wool in 100g, wool out 602 g, net decrease for the year to date is 2915. Which makes me a fairly happy bunny. 

Two Busy Days

 

If I said that was an elderflower presse (which it is) then several readers might well say 'oh you've been to that antiques place again', and if they said that they would be right. I went to see a podiatrist last week and her clinic is in Doune. I daresay there are more local ones but I had seen this one advertise itself on Facebook and there were good reviews so I decided to go there. The appointment was at 11.30 which meant it finished in nice time for us to go and have lunch at the restaurant attached to the Antiques Centre in Doune and after lunch we had a pootle about in the centre  as well. We didn't buy anything although I picked up contact details for someone who I hope will upcycle a bookcase for me. There were some very nice things in there, also some of the other kind, but nothing that leaped off the shelves shouting 'Buy Me, Buy Me' so we didn't get anything. I did look in the modern bit of the shop for wax melts but they didn't even have any of those. So a nice day ( I even enjoyed having my feet looked at and pampered a bit)  without spending a fortune. 

On Friday we went to the SEC in Glasgow for Model Railway Scotland. I felt that we might well spend a fortune here but in the event the OH was very restrained and contented himself with buying some bits of bendable track to add to his 00-9 layout. That's  going to have to come off the coffee table in the living room shortly but we're not quite ready for that step yet. 

I have to say we were both overwhelmed by the show. It was huge, it was full of people, it was very noisy and there were a lot of model railway layouts which, to the untutored eye, like mine, all looked the same. Here's my big takeaway from this; at the end of the day model train layouts are basically model trains going round and round in a circle. Or an oval, at a push.  You can put in backgrounds, of distilleries, or paper mills, or small gauge railways in the Yorkshire Dales or the Welsh Valleys but at the end of the day it's a train on a track and most of them have scenery that's basically hills with grass and sheep. 

Some of them stood out a bit from the rest; this was my favourite 

although why the neighbourhood giants are cultivating equally giant primulas I don't know. I was of course well outnumbered on the gender front;

there were a few women there but they were mainly staffing the stalls. 

I did however make one amazing, and delicious, discovery 

And I say it's delicious even though I'm not the world's greatest fan of marshmallow. There were lots of other flavours too, we got some raspberry and some orange ones too. 

Three posts in one day! But I wanted to get caught up because life is picking up pace and we're off on holiday in less than a week, after which there will be lots to blog about,  without needing to catch up on the knitting, the jigsaws and What We Did Before We Went Away as well! Or at least I hope so. 

Stashdown - The Jigsaw Edition

I have lots of lots of different things; books, CDs, DVDs, wool and jigsaw puzzles. The books, cds and dvds all got thinned out before we moved, which is not to say they couldn't do with a bit more thinning out but you know ... I also donated lots of jigsaw puzzles to the library in Orkney but I still brought 65 puzzles to Alloa with me. 

My goal is to reduce this to 50 by the end of the year. I was told, when taking a couple to the charity shop for the cat shelter we got Cosimo from, that they have someone who likes 500 piece puzzles so I did all my puzzles of  500 pieces and under over the winter, reprieved one  and took seven to the shop a couple of weeks ago. This should have  meant I was down to 58, but I bought one while I was in there which brought me back to 59. That's not a problem as I have now finished it  and will be taking it back to the shop shortly. 

Here it is

The World of Frankenstein. I have several of these 'World of  ' puzzles. Originally three were only a few but the range has expanded over the past few years. I'm not a completist so there are a lot I don't have simply because I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter and Frankenstein was one of those. I wouldn't ever have bought it  full price and I don;t see it as being something I'd want to do over and over. But it was only £2 in the charity shop and I enjoyed the challenge of doing it and now it can go back and they can sell it all over again. 

I did get a rather lovely late Christmas present of another jigsaw which I dd before the Frankenstein one but ti will be a long time before that one goes to the charity shop. 

So 58 down from 65 whic means another 8 to go before the end of the year. Can I do it? watch this space!

WiP progress and a finished project.

So I've dealt with two more things from the Wip list recently. 

One got frogged; it was a DK  cowl that I was never going to finish as I only had two colours for it and you really needed three, or even better, four. Obviously for some reason I didn't realise that before I cast on. I've been out this morning helping someone from knit group teach knitting at a local school, and we all took along some DK leftovers for the children to practice on/take home and the wool from the cowl went to that. So a project off the list and wool destashed - definitely a win. 

The finished project was a hat. I bought the kit for this at the Glasgow School of Yarn in 2024. I'm a huge fan of the skyline kits from Wee County Yarns, which is now very local to me! - I've done   their  Glasgow Skyline and the Firth of Forth Bridges ( I think I have recorded here recently the sad news that the bridges one is lost which is upsetting.) Anyway back in Nov 24 we knew we'd be looking to relocate to the Stirling area so it was a no brainer to buy the Stirling Skyline pattern and some wool to knit it in. Sadly between then and now my desire for a pink hat has definitely waned, and although the two colours I chose were a good contrast in the ball they could have been a better contrast in the knitting. Too late now. 

It's not my bets knitting ever and I'm not 100% happy with it, ( my knitting not the pattern!) but I am pleased enough to  wear it. And some time I must reknit the Forth Bridges one. 
 

Quick Dash South

 We zapped off to Newcastle at the weekend with son no 2. Down on Saturday, back Sunday. The occasion was my last remaining aunt's 90th birthday; something well worth celebrating. One of my cousins had done all the organising so all we had to do was turn up at the selected restaurant at the right time. It was an Italian and part of a chain; not the best Italian food I've ever had in my life, and the place was extremely noisy so conversation with the various relatives at the table was quite difficult. We still all managed to enjoy ourselves and catch up a bit on our news. My aunt was delighted to see everyone and one of my cousin's step-daughters had baked a birthday cake so we all sang Happy Birthday, not very tunefully and she blew out however many candles there were on the top. Not 90, I do know that! Looks like it might have been nine. 

The next day we popped in to see her at home, together with my sister, and had a cup of tea before we set off in opposite directions; sister going south and us back north. The house was like a florist's shop; obviously no-one knowing what to get a 90 year old  nearly everyone resorted to flowers and I'm only amazed she had sufficient vases for them all. 

She was reminiscing about the days when we were all small and how we are now 'all grown up'. I pointed out we were not so much all grown up as 'old' but was roundly told that I wasn't old at all, which was consoling. I don't feel it, but a chill falls over me when I look at the age creeping up on my next birthday. 

I did a little looking back myself. When I was young I had 9 aunts and 8 uncles and I'm now reduced to one of each, and my remaining uncle,  who was also there and is 92, was looking very frail. It's very sad to see what time can do to those you remember in their prime. I'm told there are consolations to growing old but looking around I do wonder ... what I would give sometimes to be 15 again and in the middle of a big family gathering with all those people I grew up with  still safely around me. 

 

Hair Again

 I feel I want to add 'and gone tomorrow' to that title but it would be wrong - although not rhythmically.

Anyway, it being spring I went to the  hairdressers a couple of days ago,  had what was left of the winter blue ( which had faded to a rather nice teal) taken out and replaced it with pink. 

It's quite bright and there's rather more of it than there was of the blue. I love it. 

I put up a photo on Facebook and the person who was less than complimentary about the blue confined themselves to a 'nice cut' comment this time around. I was pleased about that. Wonder how they will feel about what I have planned for October ....

And It's Done!

 

The cross stitch kit I bought at the Palestinian Embroidery Exhibition at the V and A in Dundee.

I'm thrilled with this for several reasons. 

1 I like the design

2 It was a quick and easy stitch

3 I didn't need to wear my head magnifier! 

and the third one is the most thrilling because I thought I was destined to wear that or just not cross stitch for ever. I have no idea why this was easy to do without a magnifier, it's not huge or anything. Possibly it's that the fabric is a block weave, or maybe it's the fact that it was in a hoop and the tension made the holes easier to see? Who knows? In any case I was sufficiently happy to order a new kit to start which is on similar fabric and I'll put it in a hoop, a thing I have previously avoided like the plague and see how I go. 

There were a couple of things I wasn't so happy about though. One was that I thought the hoop was both for working and hanging but closer inspection revealed that it wasn't, it's just a working one. Not a problem though as I will use it on my new kit, and get the trees framed. The other was  more problematic. The box says clearly that it contains 6 colours of embroidery thread, which it does. The design as printed on the box, and the chart inside it, contains seven colours. This meant  a bit of creative input on my part, as I tried to stretch six colours to cover the job of seven, but I'm happy with the  result. I could have bought some extra thread but I didn't know the make or the weight or even if it would be available locally, not to mention that I wouldn't have had any use for the large amount that would have bene left over. So six it was. 

February Reading Round Up

 Well it had to come

The February book for the Crime Fiction Book Group was The Dry by Jane Harper. I had read this before many years ago ( possibly for the crime fiction group in Orkney? or maybe I just found it myself. It was long enough ago that I thought I had better re-read so that I had all the details to mind. Due to a mix up with the library catalogue system I ended up with a version on CD which was a bit annoying but finally prodded me into buying a new portable CD player that I could carry round the house. It was not as portable as all that and it isn't just a CD player which was all that I wanted but that's a story for another day. I listened to The Dry, and found it quite slow, a bit like the film version which I saw was on Sky the week after we had discussed the book. I recorded it and have so far managed to force myself through 20 minutes of it. I should delete from my recording list I know. Apart from that the ending is very tense if you haven't read it before, and not very tense if you have. 

My 'send me to sleep books' fr the month were Mick Herron's Bad Actors, a perennial favourite, and Agatha Christie's Nemesis. 

There were two detective novels; J D Kirk's latest which is A Killer of Influence and stretched credibility to its limit and then somewhere beyond. I still enjoyed it though. I really should read these in order but  it's too late now. The other was A Long Time Dead by J M Dalglish. People are always telling me how good he is. This is the first of a series set on Skye; I always like getting the first book of an established detective series because then you know that if you like it there is more enjoyment to come. I was ambivalent about this one. I didn't take to the lead character, it lacks Kirk's humour and I was able to spot the murderer quite early on. Maybe because there was a big spangly signpost over their head saying 'It Was Me'. That said it was a bit more complex than I had anticipated and the plot was well thought out. I'd sum it up as ;workmanlike and although I'm not rushing to the library to see what others they have I wouldn't rule out reading the next few at some time in the future.

I had a vague thought about working my way trough the sci fi and fantasy section at Stirling Library by picking books alphabetically by author, so one by someone with a surname beginning with A, then one for B and so on. So far I have only managed the A ( I don't get to the library that often!) and this was Tonight I Burn by Katherine J Adams. By borrowing this I unwittingly broke one of my own rules whihc is never to read Part 1 of a fantasy series if it it isn't finished ( the scars of GRR Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire run deep). In my defence I had seen a ( favourable) review of her most recent one called Tonight I Bleed and thought it was the last of three rather than the second. In the event it doesn't matter as I shan't be following up book 1. I enjoyed it but I wasn't sufficiently pulled in to care about what happens to the characters over another two tomes. The writing was good though and the plot set up and world building were well done. 

The there was Wintering by Katherine May. I can't describe this except to say it's the author's description of a winter in her life in which she tells somethign of what happens to her and also expands this into reflections on life, it's currents, the importance of resting and retiring from interaction to build up strength and motivation to go back into the world. It was done month by month and by the time we reached February I felt as though I had been reading it all winter long and it would never end. It didn't; teach me anything I didn't already know about the importance, and difficulty,  of finding a balance in your life between being out and in, or active and at rest, if you prefer that terminology. Her chapter on March was basically a long description of how she got into cold water swimming and there was far too much of it. My reaction to the whole book  basically was, what makes this woman think that anyone else if going to be interested in her wittering on about motherhood, her lost career, and the benefits of cold water bathing? Long time readers may recall I had a similar reaction many years ago to the work of Robert Macfarlane whihc I was forced to read by by my Ph D supervisor, possibly because he knew I would hate them, and I think the lesson is that this is just not my type of book. I had hoped for more psychology and rather less poor me really. 

And finally although I haven't read it from cover to cover I have been dipping into this 

because as previously mentioned we have booked a week's holiday in Tuscany and it's coming up quite fast. 

A Day in Dundee

 I was just starting to think that the blog had degenerated into something approaching what it was in Orkney when I remembered that I hadn't written up my day in Dundee. This has spared readers, for now, my reading review for February, but it cant be far away ....  We haven't been very active recently because the weather has been appalling and I've had something wrong with my left leg which has left me hobbling. Very frustrating. However it seems to be well on the mend now, although not before time. 

Anyway. - Dundee. I went on the train; there's a good service from Stirling, two trains an hour although not every 30 minutes for reasons which escape me but presumably make sense to railway controllers. I met my friend S just by the station and we immediately decamped to the V & A Dundee which is basically just over the road. First stop was the cafe for coffee, cake and a catch up and then we went to look at the Palestinian Embroidery Exhibition. This was interesting and the garments on show were beautiful. I didn't take any photographs, something I've been kicking myself over ever since. I couldn't remember whether it was allowed or not, which was silly of me because the OH and I both took oodles of photos when we went there for the Kimono Exhibition last year. However I'm hoping to go again and I will take photos - meanwhile I couldn't resist a little related treat for  myself in the shop.

I have not yet started this, but as it is pouring with rain and blowing a gale today I have decided to give it a go this afternoon. 

After the V & A we walked up to the Mcmanus Art Gallery where they are currently hosting an exhibition called Curtain Call - more info here. I did take pictures at this one 

that's the front and back of a film costume for Mary Queen of Scots

and this one is from various TV shows, mainly Poldark, although the wedding dress is from the  recent adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small. 

The exhibition was smaller than I expected, while the V & A one was larger. It focussed on designers and costume makers with a connection to Dundee, but although small it was a delight. Again I plan a return visit before it closes. After we'd looked at that we had lunch in the McManus' very nice cafe, put our families and the world to rights and then walked back to S's bus stop and then the station for me.

It was  a lovely day, both because of the company and the things I saw: the only downside was the weather. The temperature was Winter Baltic and the wind was as strong as anything I ever experienced in Orkney. Hopefully the weather  will be kinder when I go again. 

Finished Project No 8 ( not a WIP )

 

I don't suppose many readers remember the tale of how we came to acquire the bear called irresistible but the story is  here. I had in fact forgotten all about the irresistible  bear myself until I came across the post while I was browsing some old entries on the blog. He belongs to son no 2 and as we were going to visit him last weekend I decided to see if the bear  was still about. (How could I have doubted). 

In another part of my domestic planet I had come across a jumper pattern that I wanted to try and I thought I could get it to fit the bear so I borrowed him. As things turned out I used a totally different pattern, but still produced a rather nice stripy jumper for Irresistible Bear. 

Voila

So cute. And as I thought, only a couple of evening's work, so not distracting me too much from the work of sorting out the wips.