Not a design fault per se ...

... but I am painfully reminded today that even King Size beds are not designed to accommodate two large humans and three cats at full stretch. Especially when one of the humans ( that would be me) is a restless sleeper, and the other one (that would be the OH) protests vociferously if any movement made during the night  is likely to disturb the 'poor cats'.

 

Now I am not one of those who objects to having cats sleep on the bed, even when I'm in it myself, and even if I did it would get me nowhere because there is nothing so determined as a cat with its mind set on something. I do though rather object to having three of them taking up more than 50% of the surface area for the whole of the night, when they have acres of carpeted floor, a selection  of chairs, one comfortable cat-sized cardboard box (temporarily in the living room - it came with last weeks bear)  and access to one other bed as alternative places to sleep.

 

Anyway I got up this morning hardly able to move my left shoulder, presumably from some sort of cramped position I was forced to adopt during the night and it's still very painful many ours later. . We may be moving towards a 'them or me' scenario come bed time ..

Busy Days

The problem with having a work plan is that you get a bit fixated about doing things and then ticking them off as done, and then after you've wasted an hour of your time playing some daft casual computer game to recover the last thing on your mind is blogging. Especially when some of your fingertips are still sore from a marathon typing bout.

 

Anyway here's a quick round up. Remember how I signed up for Active Life, the Council's new initiative to get people into their sports centres to get fit? Well rather to my surprise I am making quite good use of it. I swim once a week, and I've also been to the gym three times, which doesn't sound so brilliant but you have to take into account that for a week I couldn't actually get into town because of the  weather which made crossing the barriers hazardous. Some of the time the OH was away and the weather so foul that I wasn't even going to try to get to the bus stop. I'm keen to get fit, but not so keen that I'll get soaked to the skin and frozen before I even get to the gym. Some of the tine the barriers were closed anyway. The aim for now is twice a week for the gym and once a week for the swimming  so we'll see how it goes.

 

Meanwhile we exhausted ourselves by having visitors. First up was my friend G who was here for her viva. I think I said it all went well and she passed. We picked her up from her hotel, brought her here for coffee, had a walk on a lovely local beach, and a very relaxed lunch in Kirkwall, so relaxed that there was no time for dessert (Boo!) and then delivered her to the airport for her flight.

 

On Sunday we had a lunch guest in the shape of one of her viva examiners, who is a very clever and delightful Professor from Italy, currently enjoying a year's sabbatical in Scotland. The program was almost the same as it was for Gillian except that we had lunch here and walked on a different beach. The OH was delighted to have an opportunity to a) show off his cooking skills to someone other than me and b) cook fish, which I don't eat.

 

It was lovely to see them both and we enjoyed having them but oh! the work, and  the stress involved beforehand. We are so out of the habit of entertaining people, except for coffee and cake dates, it's difficult to believe we used to do it on a regular basis, and when we had two young children and both had full time jobs into the bargain. I don't think we'll be doing that again. I suppose what is missing from that last sentence is the phrase 'but we were younger then'!

 

 

Apple Tree Yard.

Did you see it? I mean, did you see it? If you saw it you don't need me to rant. You're probably ranting yourself. However , just because no-one needs me to rant doesn't mean that I won't.

 

Let's be clear, I probably shouldn't be doing this, because it's on the back of only seeing the first episde. There again, it was perfectly obvious from that first episode that watching the rest would be no good for my blood pressure or my brain - it would heighten the one and rot the other, so in self defence, I didn't watch any more.

 

As an aside, what was Emily Watson doing in this? She's a fantastic actress, can she really be so hard up for work that she needs to appear in this dross? (I have asked this sort of quesion before. Remember Anna Friel in Marcella? Iain Glen and Jack Davenport in that frighful 1960s set medical drama that was so awful I have blotted out its name? David Morrissey in The Walking Dead? The whole cast of the appalling Falcon?) My usual explanation for good actors appearing in rubbish is that they have had an unexpected tax bill, but I'm starting to think that maybe someone jsut has to say Big Audience and they ask 'Where do I sign?'

 

Now I am well aware that just because I wouldn't do something it doesn't mean that a character in a drama wouldn't do it. In fact, without characters behaving in ways that I would never dream of, there  would be no drama, because I live a very quiet and circumscribed life. Actually looking at what happens to characters in dramas who indulge in the sort of behaviour I would never indulge in, in itself acts as An Awful Warning and makes me very glad of my quiet life.

 

But here's the thing. If they do odd, impulsive, inexplicable things, then I want  to be able to believe that they would do them. And the more outlandish the things they do, then the more credible, the more rounded  they need to  be as characters. Otherwise all you do is read a book or watch TV and think 'Who would ever do that?'

 

And that's the test that Apple Tree Yard failed. There may be happily married middle aged and very successful women out there who would let themselves be picked up by a man with a dreadful Essex accent and let him have sex with her in a cleaner's cupboard in the bowels of the Houses of Parliament before they have exchanged more than half a dozen sentences, but I don't believe it in general and I wasn't persuaded to believe it by Apple Tree Yard. Ditto all the other stupidities; handled well, I could have believed them but they weren't handled well and I didn't. You have a lover and never ask his name? You never get suspicious or object when he demonstrates a proclivity for having sex in doorways and knows where all the CCTV cameas are so that you can always avoid being caught on them? This doesn't strike you as an odd sort of thing for an ordinary chap to know? You go out to dinner and because he asks you, you go to the loo  and take off your pants , and not IIRC, even in a stall but by the basins where anyone who comes in would see you?

 

Then of course there was the scene where she was raped by a work colleague who, as far as I could tell, was muttering that he had the right to do it, because she was a faithless wife. Leaving aside all the stuff around rape that I hope we can take for granted, chief of which is that no man has the right to rape a woman at all ever under any circumstances, how was he supposed to know she was having an affair?  It was a big secret so how come he was privy to it? Did he just smell it on her somehow? Think she looked a bit chirpier/more distracted/ jumpier than normal which led him to a correct conclusion? Or was it just because it was needed for the plot so the small matter of plausibility was allowed to slope off under the door.

 

Honestly it was such, such tosh. I found a plot summary on the web, and I understand she got the lover to murder the rapist, which surprised me because the way it was being played in Episode One was very much that the nameless lover was the one in control of the relationship. He got a buzz out of making her do things she didn't want to/ hadn't previously thought of doing and that was what the relationship was about for him, not doing things, like murder, for her.

 

It may be that it got better. It may be that it was a bad adaptation of a brilliant book. But I suspect that actually it was a faithful adaptation of a bad book, and the only consolation for wasting an hour of my time watching the first episode is that I won't  ever be suckered into buying the book at an airport and wasting even more time, and money, on purchasing and reading it.

 

Other opinions I'm sure are available. But this is mine.

It'll Have to be Tomorrow

I have no time or energy today to rant about Apple Tree Yard, because I spent most of the day  slaving over a hot keyboard. To some effect I might add, because the first draft of Part 3 of my thesis got finished today and  sent off to my supervisors.

 

To clarfy what a big deal this is, my thesis is in three parts, plus an Introduction and a Conclusion so I now have all three major bits in draft form.

 

Let's ignore for now that Parts 1 and 2 both need a complete re-write and I'm not at all sure I know how to re-write Part 1. We will just rejoice that Part 3 is gone and  I'm having a few days off. Apart from anything else it will give my fingertips a wee rest.

 

Tomorrow I am spending several hours with a friend who came up to Orkney today for her Ph D viva. All was well, and I'm looking forward to a detailed review of the horror that was the viva to prepare  me for something similar next year. And catching up with some of the rest of her life as well before we deliver her to the airport for her homeward flight.

 

Tomorrow should be - A Good Day.

It's not all beer and skittles ....

Actually I have only ever played skittles once in my life and I don't like beer so I suppose that should say something like 'It's not all vodka and Jewel Quest 2' but somehow it doesn't have the same ring.

Life has been a bit annoying of late. I say annoying because much though I would like to moan at length I can't, being as how 90-something-quite-high per cent of the world's population is much worse off than I am in a multitude of ways.

 

Here however are a few things I don't like.

 

Having my husband need to go away at short notice and in a grumpy mood because he thinks his trip (to do with work) is a waste of time.

 

Having sole responsibility for  three cats and a fire for far too long, where far too long is defined as anything more than twenty minutes

 

Being on my own for three days and nights when the wind never lets up and it also rains constantly. Especially when there's no way of getting to town and the best exercise you can give yourself is working out your jaw as you chomp your way through a packet of Jaffa cakes, a box of brunch bars, and a packet of Battenberg derivatives known locally as 'snuffboxes'.  

 

Having my husband come back from 'that there Lunnon' with a bug so bad that he took to his bed for part of yesterday. The OH taking to his bed when sick is almost unheard of.

 

Needing to fulfil a self imposed deadline and turning my fingertips sore through hours and hours of solid typing, all the time thinking of all the general life stuff that needs seeing to that I cannot afford to break off and do.

 

That is what it has been like chez nous for the past ten days and I haven't  enjoyed it one little bit.

 

On the upside the OH is getting better, I am so close to finishing my stuff ( first draft of final part of thesis) that I can almost smell it, I am going to a friend's tomorrow, I am entertaining another friend up from Edinburgh on Thursday after her Ph D viva, the washing is on, there's a cake in the oven and if I can just sort out my sister's birthday presents and write a cheque for the coal man this evening I'll start to feel as though I'm catching up with myself.

 

Tomorrow - who's up for a rant about Apple Tree Yard?

Project 60 - Number 43

I guess most people won't know what this is, other than the 43rd of my 60 new things.

 

 

It's what's known in the trade, or more specifically amongst knitters, as a Turkish cast on. This is a technique used for starting socks when you ae knitting them  from the toe up instead of the sensible , more normal , alternative way of knitting them which is from the top down. And yes I'm afraid you are indeed fated in due course to see Project 60 - Number X, Socks from Toe Up, because if I am going to force myself to do 'em, I am certainly going to inflict a description and a picture of the result on the blog readers.  

 

You may have gathered from the forgoing that I am not totally enamoured of knitting socks from the toe up, and at present I can't see that, after this one attempt, I would ever do it again. But who knows? The thing is that I have now knitted so many socks the other way that I can no longer remember if they were a problem to me at the start. Possibly I looked at them too in despair and wondered how I would ever manage to complete them. I will keep you posted.

 

I think I can safely say though , that unlike the long tailed cast on of recent memory, the Turkish cast on is not destined to become a permanent part of my skill set.

 

Meanwhile I realised after I had put up the self deprecatory post about how little I had achieved with my knitting in January that there was a whole pair of socks I had done and accidentally omitted from the post. So here they are now.

 

Lemon and lime stripes, knitted for me the normal way! The new ones are for the OH. They'll be lovely.

 

Project 60 No 42 - A Burns Night Supper

The OH thinks it's cheating to count this on the grounds that I have been to Burns Suppers before. It is not cheating however because I've never been to a proper Burns Night Supper, just the local WI one where the  nearest you get to celebrating Burns is someone saying the Selkirk Grace before you eat some haggis and mince cooked by the members themselves. That is to a real Burns Night Supper what a single electric candle is to a chandelier of wax ones, i.e. not really related at all.

 

And anyway this is my Project 60 and I decide what goes in it.

 

Anyway I went to the Burns Supper being put on by the local SNP branch, and it was the real thing. Piped in haggis, which was then slashed with a dirk while someone recited the relevant quotation, talk about the relevance of Burns today, plus Toast to the Lassies, and a reply thereto, all given by local worthies, haggis and clapshot to eat (followed by slightly non-canonical trifle) and a dram. Not being particularly sociable by nature - or at least, not very good in large groups of people - I tend to avoid this sort of thing where I know hardly anyone and have to make excruciating small talk with strangers, and I certainly don't intend to make an annual habit of attending, but it was an experience, which is the essence of Project 60 after all.

 

I did take some photos but they're not very good, combination of the yellow lights in the venue not being very conducive to photography and zooming in too far but here's one of the haggis being piped in, by Andy Cant who seems to make regular appearances on this blog!

or rather - here's not, because internet explorer seems to be objecting to my attempts to access my photos. I have absolutely no idea how to cure that piece of machine officiousness and as the OH is currently away in London - don't ask, he was so very very annoyed about having to go - will have to go photo-less until sometime after he returns. He's due back tomorrow evening but I might leave this until Thursday, he'll be hours after he first gets in listening to the cat's complaints about how I've mistreated them while he's been gone.

You can ignore that previous paragraph now, seems IE has got over its conniption fit.

 

This one is slightly less blurry, but as you will see I was a long way from the 'action' Not necessarily a bad thing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Made in January

It has to be said January was a frustrating month knitting wise. Because of all of this:-

1  I wound some wool from a skein into a ball to do a shawl which the wool was perfect for. Sadly when push came to shove, I couldn't find the pattern, which I am 100% certain I have somewhere.

2  I cast on a fair isle pattern scarf and got quite a long way before I realised that the pattern on the chart from which I was knitting, and the pattern on the photo of the finished article, were different. Since I was knitting the scarf from a pattern in a magazine but had also been gifted the book from which it was taken for Christmas I thought it would be no great hassle to knit from the book instead, Except that the book had the exact same error, a motif that was completely missing.

3  I cast on a pattern for a pair of long fingerless mittens that I've been planning to do for ages and ages, but had to give up because the chart is too tiny and too faint for my problematic eyesight.

4  This had been designated as the year in which I picked up and finished many of my previous unfinished projects and also knitted up various kits that I have lying about the place. I decided to start with a rather nice reversible cabled cowl that I started way back in January 2014 and had given up on. I was doing really well with that until I discovered that there were no fewer than three errors in this pattern as well. I managed not to fling the thing from me with shouts and cries of destruction and despair when I discovered this  but calmed myself down and contacted the designer who very kindly sent me a corrected pattern, chart and special stitch instruction list, all of which contained errors in the magazine version I had been struggling with.  Trouble is  by the time I got those I had totally lost all enthusiasm for the project.

 

5 I suffered my first ever instance of second sock syndrome. For non-knitters this is the term for what happens when you have knitted the first sock of a pair and all of a sudden the idea of knitting the second one is just too much to contemplate This is the pattern in question

 

 

It's lovely but I can't face the prospect of knitting it again and with the cables twisting the other way. Or at least I can't  face it just now. I'm sure I'll man up and do the second one before too long.

 

I did finish a scarf in some Rowan kidsilk haze that a friend sent me for Christmas. Kidsilk haze is beautiful, light, fluffy and incredibly warm but is an absolute pain to have to take out should the occasion arise. So the thing is to knit something really simple with crossed fingers. Like a stocking stitch scarf.  Here it is

 

 

and as there was a very little bit of the ball left I was able to make one for a doll too.

 

And then I did some Calm Yourself Down socks

 

These were made with some very hard to get yarn produced by an American dyer who went out of business a couple of years ago. I have several skeins of her yarns and I have to say this was a dream to work with and feels incredibly soft and comfortable on my feet. It was a soothing knit on days when I felt I needed it because really January gave me more hassle than I was prepared for and I am hoping that February will be an improvement.

 

Just call me Pollyanna-in-Waiting.