Fiddlesticks and Flaming Nora
Tuesday 15 October 2024
A Sad Farewell
Monday 14 October 2024
September Wool Stats and Finished Projects
I said to the OH the other day; it's not that I buy too much yarn, it's just that I don't knit quickly enough. I'm not sure he was convinced about that one.
Anyway I was dreading totting up the stats for September because I did buy all that Aran wool plus various other bits this month and that all came to a grand total of 1488g in. However it wasn't a total disaster as wool out came to 1342g, thanks mainly to a 'gifting opportunity' courtesy of my son. He worked for 6 months at a charity in Glasgow and still volunteers there two days a week, and it's just started running a year long fundraising campaign featuring knitting. There are various ways to join in, one of which is donating wool. So a bag with 872 g will be on its way to Glasgow with us later in the week, and another 150g left the house as part of a swap. Total wool out was 1342g, which meant a net increase of 146g which was sad but not nearly as bad as it could have been.
What with being away and then spending lots of time here clearing/cleaning the house I didn't have an awful lot of crafting time in September to be honest so I'm quite pleased, looking back, to see how much I did actually achieve.
Starting with the non-knitting stuff, I made two cards
Thursday 10 October 2024
The Degas Exhibition
So while we were south for Bloody Scotland, and a bit of house related stuff, we also took in the big Degas Exhibition at the Burrell in Glasgow. It was actually an exhibition about Scottish Art Collectors and their relationship to Degas' work, but Burrell was an early buyer so that fitted.
I was a weeny bit disappointed to be honest. There was a lot of information about the men who bought Degas' pictures, and exhibits which detailed which ones they bought, for how much and sometimes how much they later sold them for. Interesting if you're digging through an archive and discovering it for yourself; not so much if you're presented with it in a glass case. There weren't as many artworks by Degas as I expected and honestly the ones I saw in the Musee d'Orsay were much nicer. However there was a nice spread; some ballet dancers, some street women and laundresses, and some horses, so fairly representative.
The two problems I had with it all were 1) it was spread over a large area and because my knee was still highly compromised at that point I had to keep finding somewhere to sit down. And that's personal to me and nothing to do with the exhibition. Secondly the lighting was at a stupidly low level. I read all the signs about fragility of the work and needing to protect it and that's fine, but I've never ever ever walked round an exhibition that was so dim. The lighting was so low that it meant many of the colours in the paintings were completely wrongly perceived. And that problem was on them.
Finally, as always they never seem to have postcards of the paintings I like; the one above was the closest. I did like that picture which is rather more engaging in real life than in post card form but it wasn't my favourite.
We're going south again shortly, mainly so that I can attend the Glasgow School of Yarn, but we're also planning a trip to the V & A in Dundee to see the Kimono exhibition there and I'm really looking forward to that. Hoping for some good postcards there!
Sunday 6 October 2024
Just Popping In Briefly
to say, like Granny Weatherwax, I ent dead. I am however dead tired and have not had access to my laptop for several days while my study was being decorated. We managed to put bits of it back together yesterday as the decorator finished in here on Friday. I even have a photo
Saturday 28 September 2024
Just a Quick Entry today
Tuesday 24 September 2024
'Bloody Scotland' (1)
Sunday 22 September 2024
Estate Agents, A New Coat and a Pipe Band
So we drove down to Glasgow a week past Thursday and on Friday we got up quite early and went over to Stirling. We visited two estate agents, both of whom we had been in contact with already, sampled an Italian cafe and bought the OH a new coat in the Mountain Warehouse sale. Him needing a new waterproof thing hadn't really been on the agenda until we were ready to leave Orkney at which point we saw that the sleeve on his current one was ripped in several places. As it was waterproof there was no way I could just sew it up, and to be honest, he must have had it for years so, as my mother used to say, it didn't owe us anything. I think the shop we bought it from in Kirkwall has had three changes of business since then! We decided to have a look in M and S when we got to Stirling, but then spotted Mountain Warehouse opposite and checked there instead. The coat is very nice and there was a lot of money off it so win, win.
While we were in the cafe one of the agents we had been talking to sent us details of four houses on their books that she thought might suit. One we discounted immediately, and the other three we drove to and checked out the outsides, dismissing a further two, which left us with only one in the running so we arranged a viewing for that.
And that filled the day, by then it was time to go and meet my friend Doreen for an early dinner. I had my first alcoholic drink for months, I think possibly the last one before that was a glass of wine in Finland last summer; we're not big drinkers. And after the meal I transferred an overnight bag from our car to Doreen's and the OH wended his way back to Glasgow. Doreen and I drove into Stirling, she dropped me by the Albert Halls while she parked the car and I joined what seemed like the longest queue I'd ever been in, to pick up a ticket. Just as well we had the pipe band to entertain us. I could have done without Mairi's Wedding, but there again, it wasn't Highland Cathedral.
I had got to the Box Office but hadn't actually got my ticket when Doreen arrived from the back of the queue, which says something about the efficiency or otherwise of the box office staff. Actually it probably wasn't them. You know when you go to the bank and there are two people at the cashier's desk and one of them is banking £742 in copper coins and the other one is demanding to know why the bank can't send a tiny amount of money free of charge to a country which is so suspicious of foreign bank transactions that it demands a five page form filled in in triplicate, countersigned by the sendee, the cashier and two independent witnesses in good standing in the community? It was a bit like that.
Anyway despite the huge numbers of people in the queue we all got in and we all got a seat and the entertainment began. Of which more another day.