The Plastic Box Project

Way way back before C19 had even been heard of, in that dead time between Christmas and New Year I re-organised some of my wool stash, and in particular I put most of my old DK wool (some of it inherited from my mother, who died in 2004) into a big plastic box and pushed it under the guest room bed, with the idea that I would 'do something with it, one day'. 

Here it is 

At the beginning of August I decided for some reason that 'one day' had come and that I would devote all my knitting time, bar the time I needed for my Mystery Blanket squares, to knitting up the wool from the box. 

And I did. I knitted cardigans

and burial gowns 

and lots and lots of hats ....

and now the box looks like this

It was an interesting exercise and I'm glad I used up so much wool, but I did rather run out of steam towards the end. So  I won't do it for a whole month again, or at least not for a while. I'm not averse to maybe a week once a month to get the box emptied - I mean how good would that be? Something to aim for. But not just yet. 

I did knit some more socks ...

 and here they are 

and given the colour they could only be for the OH. He's very pleased with them. 

I have five more pairs I want to knit between now and Christmas. We'll see how that goes.

100 Books to Read poster Number 17

 

Just breaking up the extended 'what we did on our holidays' posts by catching up with the reading poster.

This one was The Secret History by Donna Tartt. This is  the second book of Ms Tartt's that I have started and the first one I have finished. I can't help feeling that if this one hadn't appeared on the poster then the score line would be a symmetrical Started 2 Given up on 2. But there it was and it had to be finished.

There were many many rhapsodical quotes on the cover of this book from people whose opinion I generally respect so I can only assume that it is better than I thought it was. Apparently amongst other things  it's a fine and meticulous study of remorse. Really? Well OK then. 

There were many things I didn't like about this book and the first one was its length.  It was ridiculously B-L-O-A-T-E-D.  A decent editor could have cut it by about 50% and the book would have been better for it. The second was that not one person in it was likeable. When did it become acceptable, no, fashionable even, to write novels in which no-one has a single redeeming feature? I loathed everyone in this book, including the narrator, and could only wish that the remorse had led to a mass suicide at the end, instead of the reader being presented with a lame epilogue which told you what everyone was doing, including several characters whose part in the narrative had been so minor that I had forgotten who they were, some twenty years later. Yawn. 

And most importantly the two central events were just so non-credible. Especially the first. Obviously this is a no spoiler space, on the off chance that anyone who reads this might be spurred on to read the book itself, so I can't say what it was. Except that it was risible. 

Reading this represents quite  a lot of hours of my life that  won't get back, and I rather resent that.  In the spirit of searching out small mercies however I did at least get it from the library so I didn't waste any money buying it. It is though a resounding Miss. 

That's not a piece of ruby jewellery!

No, it's not, it's a set of Le Creuset cast iron pans. On the second day of our Fife break, we went to St Andrews. St Andrews is small, old and posh. A perfect place we thought, to source a piece of ruby jewellery to celebrate our anniversary. 

I don't know quite how it happened but we didn't find a jewellers all the time we were there. We certainly seemed to have found the centre, and we saw some very nice shops and walked a very long way, but jewellers were there none. 

What we did find was a kitchenware shop. A kitchenware shop that had a set of Le Creuset pans on offer The pans which the OH has been hankering after for a very long time. I resisted for a bit. I really don't like the bright orange colour. But there you go. As my mother used to say they were a good buy. My father generally added 'yes a goodbye to £x'.

Happy Anniversary all over again to the OH. 

Ouch!

This isn't the post I was expecting to write today. Last night I started experiencing very severe pain at the top of my left leg. Assuming I had been siting awkwardly I manoeuvred myself up from the sofa, not without some ooos, and ows deserving of an Oscar nomination had I not been actually feeling the pain and not  acting, and took myself off to bed expecting everything to have sorted itself out by morning. Alas, after an uncomfortable night things were no better so I rang the doctor for an appointment for a  phone consultation.

He diagnosed back trouble, told me to take painkillers, keep active and expect it to be better within 1-2 weeks. He also mentioned losing some weight, although he added 'that's a long term measure'. Too right it's a long term measure, it's so long term I seem to have been trying to do it for three decades without signal success. 

Oh well, once the back's better it's try again time I suppose. Sitting in a chair, or more to the point getting in and out of a chair is quite difficult just now so it's a sort post before I lock into position! 

Ruby Anniversary

We, or rather I, had booked a champagne afternoon tea to celebrate our anniversary. It was at somewhere relatively posh ie this place,  Rufflets  They could only offer us a 2.30 time slot which is a bit early for tea but we decided we could skip lunch. It's also an awkward sort of time for doing anything very much in the morning especially as it was about 30 miles from where we were staying so we decided we would have an easy morning exploring the 8 acres of grounds which our accommodation boasted. 

I've found previously that acres are not as big as you think they are but we had a pleasant time wandering around the gardens and the small woodland. There was also a ruined castle that you weren't  allowed to go near to, but obviously near enough to take pictures. 

We came across the property owner in our wanderings and had a brief chat with him. During the course of this we mentioned that we should have be in Australia and I expressed the opinion that there was probably nowhere in the world worth going to if, by doing so, you ran the risk of dying. 'Well apart from Afghanistan' he said. That wasn't a conversation I particularly wanted to carry on since our opinions of British military involvement in various paces in the world seemed unlikely to coincide so we left it at that. 

I was intersted to see how the tea lived up to our previous experience of posh tea at Gleneagles, which I blogged about at the time. Tobe fair to Rufflets they were struggling with the exigencies of Covid winch Gleneages at the time of our visit wasn't, so the comparison isn't totally fair.  Rufflets scored on music (there wasn't any) and speed of service. Gleneagles won on temperature (Ruffllets was freezing) and atmosphere, since, due to social distancing, tea this time was served in a huge function room with about six tables, very widely spaced,  in it. As for the food there wasn't much in it; for what it's worth I preferred Rufflets scones, but their sandwiches had only too obviously been just that moment before serving been taken out of a chiller cabinet. So overall Gleneagles edged it, but might not have in  normal times. 

Here's a picture of what we got. 

and we had a fun time  reminiscing, mainly about holidays and opera performances. As you do. 

Aaaaaannnnnnddddd - we're back!

I have to say that in general our trip to Fife was very enjoyable. It must have had something going for it as the photo app on my laptop told me this morning I had taken 106 photographs while we were away. Who knew?

A few photos will appear here naturally in due course, as I relish the opportunity to blog about something other than books, tv, and knitting, and I'll start small with a photo of the cottage we rented. 

Much of the benefit of being away dissipated the moment we set foot back in the house as we were met firstly by an overpowering smell of dead rodent, and secondly by a pool of water in the middle of the kitchen floor. This is only partly explained by the fact that the OH appears to have left the kitchen tap running while we gone - thank goodness we're not on a metred water supply.

We mopped up last night, while checking for signs of water elsewhere - table top, work benches etc but it seems only to be that one place on the floor. Extensive searches have so far failed to ferret out (ha!) the dead rodent but we have hopes that when the cats return  from the cattery they will go straight to the place ... perhaps we're being  a bit too optimistic there.

To add to the gaiety of nations the washing machine seems to have given up the ghost this morning, with a full load of washing inside it. 

How's your weekend going?