A jigsaw, and an Unexpected Present.

Things have been a bit slow on the jigsaw front recently, not least because of needing the dining room table over Christmas, but my sister bought me a new puzzle for Christmas and I finished it yesterday. It took a while but that was mainly because I only allow myself half an hour a day on puzzles so it can be slow work. Anyway the image on this one is an appropriate one! 

And last week postie brought these, an unexpected gift from the OH 

My sister has raved about Icelandic licorice for ages; she has bought lots of it in the past when she has visited  Iceland but had never found a source for it in the UK. Last autumn the OH started getting adverts on his Facebook feed for Lakrids Bulow, which is not Icelandic but a Danish firm which makes licorice  'in the Icelandic way'. 

We havered about getting some for my sister for Christmas because of it not being made in Iceland, but then when we went south in November we saw a box at Tebay so we took a chance and bought it. I think it wold be fair to say she was very pleased with it. Unbeknownst to me the OH then ordered some for me as a present to open on Christmas morning and I discovered that I too have  a taste for Icelandic licorice. The box I got for Christmas was soon gone - it's very more-ish. Anyway last week totally out of the blue - for me, not him of course - these two jars arrived for me, a propos of nothing except he thought I'd enjoy them. Plus I think he signed up and gets loyalty points or an introductory offer or something. All the more generous of him though since he doesn't like licorice at all! 

Worth A Post All Of It's Own

These days I generally post pictures of my crafty endeavours on a monthly basis to tie in with the stash stats and I'll be sticking to that throughout the year as otherwise things tend to get forgotten, but here's something that's worth celebrating with a post all to itself. 

This is the lap blanket I made with the yarn advent from The Yarn Artist that the OH bought me for Christmas. I was really pleased that I more or less managed to keep to knitting the one square a day; it slipped  a bit towards the end as I was trying to get a pair of Christmas socks done for Son No 2. However they were all knitted up by 31st and then I havered a bit about the border as I wasn't sure what to do. In the end  I made a magic knot ball with all the little bits left over from the squares, dug out some undyed DK that I'd got from the YA earlier and combined them in a simple striped garter stitch border which I think works very well.  Sadly the colour is a bit blown out on the photo; it was difficult to find somewhere to tkae it that had enough space to lay it out and wasn't too dark to take a picture. 

Quite proud of this one. 

Back to Normal-ish, and some holiday TV

Son No 2 flew back to Glasgow yesterday - 3 hour delay on departure for a 40 minute-ish flight, thank you Loganair, or possibly the weather. Anyway just the OH and I, plus of course the cat and Visiting Cat in the house now.

I feel like I'm living in a grammar lesson that's concentrating on the flexibility of tenses in English; it has snowed, it has been snowing, it did snow; it snows, it is snowing and according to the weather forecast it will be snowing, it will snow, it will have snowed for several days to come. The sun was shining this morning and I was almost suckered into suggesting we bundle up in warm coats and woolly accessories and go for a short walk. Two minutes later the white stuff started falling from the sky again, so I was glad I hadn't got around to that after all. 

Snuggling up is all very well but as I have said before, it doesn't make for much interest on the blog. I have read, I have watched some TV , I have knitted and crocheted and I have moaned about the cold.  

As far as TV goes, I don't  know why we wasted so much money on the Christmas Edition of the Radio Times  because it was full of articles about  programs that we were never going to watch and after looking at about two days worth of the listings I felt totally overwhelmed and generally relied on my on-screen guide. I may have missed some absolute gems of programs but hey-ho! that's not end-of the world stuff. Judging by what I did seem it's also  doubtful in the extreme. 

So what did we watch? Outnumbered which contained one of my favourite Christmas watching moments when Karen told her mother's needy friend Jane to butt out of their lives (hooray for Karen). All the Only Connect specials that were on.  A sort of  spin off of Death in Paradise, whose name escapes me but which is set in a small coastal town in Queensland. I gave that a go because - well Australia and stayed with it because it was funny. Son No 2 and I streamed a couple of episodes of Colin from Accounts ( also because Oz) and enjoyed what we saw but somehow never went back after the first day. A Sydney-set detective series called North Shore started on ITV? Channel 4? last week and we streamed the rest of the series over 3 nights after watching episode 1 when it was first screened. Definitely a bit of a (favourite country) theme developing there. Other than that we took ourselves off to You Tube and binge watched three series of the old BBC kids adventure game Raven. (Son no 2 commented, after a stream of passive aggressive comments on the kids performances in some of the challenges from the presenter/guide Raven, that the show was 'rather more mean spirited than he remembered'. Also on YouTube we treated ourselves to a re-watch of A Christmas Carol Gone Wrong, which like all the Gone Wrong stable was hilarious. 

TV, like the rest of life is now returning to pre-festive season normality which is good news for me in that it brings us new series of Kirsty and Phil's Love it or List It and The Great Pottery Throw Down. And a new detective series set in York started last evening which looks promising, even if some of it sounded a bit like Autism Awareness Week at times. 

I was going to do an update on the reading challenge as well today, but given the relatively slow pace of life just now I'll hoard that for another day! 

Well, we weren't expecting that!

So, yesterday we went off to the local Leisure centre where the cinema is, to see The War of the Rohirrim. Son no.2 was keen and was sure he would enjoy it, the OH thought he wouldn't, and I knew I wouldn't because it is a cartoon - sorry - anime, and as anyone who has been here for longer than five minutes is aware, I loathe cartoons. I particularly loathe anime ones because everyone has a very pointy chin and a strange upturned little nose -  and after yesterday I can add that all the horses are basically square. 

Actually we all quite enjoyed it. perhaps going into things with very low expectations is the key? The plot was derivative and had holes you could have ridden a cavalry regiment through, and as with anything Peter Jackson has even a remote connection with, it was a bit too long. But only a bit, it wasn't a three hour indulgence fest. Some of the detail in the background drawing was really beautiful and the soundtrack was fine, if a bit insistent. 

About 10 minutes from the end the fire alarm went off and we had to troop out and stand on the front steps in the freezing  cold. I should add that the cinema itself was quite cold anyway but it was much, much worse outside. The OH was all for abandoning the film and going off to Tesco's to do the big shop but I wanted to see how it ended and I didn't think it was going to take them long to establish that there actually wasn't a fire and let us all back in. It didn't,  we went back and saw the end, which was satisfying and, again rather oddly for a PJ film, didn't hold out the certainty of an equally long  follow up, so I was glad I had stuck to my guns for once and insisted we stay. 

Of course we still had to do the big shop afterwards, but at least we weren't left doomed forever to wonder what had happened to Hera, daughter of Helm. 

We actually got out for a walk today, the first time we've been able to do that - well, all the Christmas break really. We've popped out for stuff, like the Post Office and the occasional bottle of milk but otherwise it's all been about  staying in and snuggling up, which generally I'm all for but it hasn't made for much interesting to write about. 

Life should get back to almost normal tomorrow though, and even more so after Wednesday when Son No 2 returns to the Big City.  

Reading Challenge 2

 

It snowed yesterday , not just showers where the snow  disappeared almost as soon as it hit the ground but real proper snow that lay. (In fact there is still some lying now a day later). It was also bitterly cold, so definitely a staying in day. I spent the morning doing various boring chores, and in the afternoon curled up in front of the fire and read the Margery Allingham book that I bought recently.

I really enjoyed it. It takes the form of several essays, several by Kate Davies herself but others by various experts on Allingham, social history, cultural history etc. Lots of wonderful photographs included too. I especially enjoyed the two on the social and cultural effects of WW2 .

There are 11 patterns included in the book, many of which look 'extremely interesting' to knit, which is code for, they have an unusual construction which I probably couldn't manage and the finished article would be no good for anyone with a less than model girl figure. So I doubt I will knit any of them, but never say never.  

We Went To The Pictures

 Not sure if anyone still calls it 'The Pictures' these days, but anyway, we went to the cinema. After Christmas but before New Year.

The film we went to see was Wicked. No-one more surprised than us, really, but we knew someone who had been to see it four times and loved it - obviously. So we thought we would give it a go.  

We did not love it. We will not be going to see it again nor will  we  be going to see Part 2. I was amazed that the film itself only covered Act 1 of the stage show, but I suppose if Peter Jackson can make 3, 3hour films of The Hobbit which is a single, and quite short!, book, then someone can make a two film version of a two act stage show. It's all about the money. 

I have never read any of the Oz books, although I have sat through the film version of the first one. This was a little help to me  in understanding what was going on in Wicked, although the talking animal storyline lost me.

Anyway, chalked up to experience, and undeterred we are back off to the cinema again tomorrow. I suspect it will be another film we regret spending money on, but we'll see. 

2025 Reading Challenge

I know, why do I do this to myself? I have no idea really. No sooner have I ditched the poster ( well OK, that was a while back ) then I get caught up in another reading challenge. 

I saw this article in The Guardian on-line by someone who had decided last January that she needed to read more and doom scroll less and so she set herself the challenge of finding the time to read a book a week. 52 weeks, 52 books.  

What a good idea, I thought. I should make time to read more, I used to do so much more of it. Let's give this a go. So I am. 

There is an official Agatha Christie entity of some description, run by the Agatha Christie estate, and every year they pose a challenge to read one Agatha Christie book a month, based around a theme for the year. I've been aware of it for some time, but never joined in, but this year I have, because it will get me off to a flying start for my book a week thing. The theme this year is Characters and Careers and for January the career was artist and the suggested book was Five Little Pigs. This has always been a bit of a favourite of mine* so I bought it on Kindle and finished it last night. They don't take  a lot of reading really and I enjoyed it despite knowing the end. 

* yes, even before ITV dramatised it and cast Toby Stephens in a major role

So, 1 down and 51 to go.