Plas Brondanw

We had so many lovely days out in Wales that I'd be pushed to pick a favourite but our trip to Plas Brondanw does stick in my memory, possibly because the place is just so photogenic. 

It became the  home of William Clough Ellis of Portmeirion fame (it had been in is family since it was built and he was offered it as a home when a young man). I've been to Portmeirion and found it weird and disconcerting. Plas Brondanw is neither of those things. The house was originally built in the 16th Century and Clough Ellis did a lot of work to it to make it suitable as a family home for 20th Century living. It was badly damaged by fire in 1931 but after restoration remained the home of Clough Ellis and his wife until they died. 

As well as the house he spent a fortune redesigning and extending the garden. You can't  go inside the house but you can visit the gardens (the welsh cakes in the cafe were excellent!) and they ae splendid. They must be, as I took a lot of photographs, and here are some of the best ones.

Update

 I have been unwell for a few days, in fact I felt so bad that yesterday I rang the doctor's surgery. This is not something I do very often, so it was a shame that I got no reply; yesterday being one of those weird days when NHS Orkney has a public holiday that is unknown to everyone else, except a few other NHS regions in Scotland who also have it. 

I won't rehearse the whole sorry tale of the day, but I got looked at eventually.  I've got a post op infection in one of my incision sites, the wound has been cleaned out and I have a week's course of antibiotics. So I hope very much that at the end of that week I will be feeling back to normal; partly because we have things to do and places to go  but party because just now I feel like a very hard wrung out rag and I don't like it one little bit. Most of me aches, the bits that don't ache are painful and I am so lethargic you wouldn't believe. Honestly I've had more wear our of my dressing gown in the past few days than in the whole of the rest of the several years I have owned it. Also I have lost my hairbrush. Which is annoying. 

Still why don't  I give you a lovely garden picture from our trip to North Wales because I am well aware I have yet write up the rest of that on here. I hope to feel up to that soon. 

Post Op Day 3 (already)

So on Tuesday I got up at daft o'clock, had a shower and then got taken off to the day care unit at the local hospital where someone took out my gall bladder, meaning that I can now revert to what used to be my normal diet, and also that  it is worth while going out for meals again because 95% of the menu is no longer forbidden to me. 

I am not in fact in a hurry to go out and eat. I am still quite tired and definitely still very sore, but I did manage to get dressed today which is an improvement on Wednesday and Thursday, and all being well I might tackle having a shower tomorrow. I'm a bit wary of getting in the shower lest I slip and burst my stitches, but on the other hand I would like to wash my hair - and the rest of me. 

In olden days it was apparently the habit of surgeons to present gall bladders, complete with stones, to the patients from whom they had been removed. Happily this seems no longer to be the case, otherwise I might have been tempted to take a photo and put it on this post. 

Which would have bene in very poor taste, no? 

A recently finished knitting project

 My sister asked me what I wanted for my birthday back in July and as it happened The Lonely Knitter had just announced their July mini club which was inspired by The Game of Thrones, so I asked for that. I knew it would come around about the right time for my birthday and it did. A few days beforehand in fact, so I was able to open it on the day. 

Now, Game of Thrones ... I had expected rich reds and golds for the Lannisters, whites and greys with perhaps some sparkle for the Starks, bright yellows and deep saffrons for Dorne, emerald greens and golds for the Tyrells, scarlet and black for the Targaryens, perhaps  a deep river blue for the Tullys....

Well that's not what I got. 

The yarn was pretty,  there's no denying, but the colour spectrum was a bit of a let down. 

Nevertheless I cast on my intended project, the Anne of Green Gables cowl which is a lace kitting sampler type thing. Since it was designed for 10 x 20g minis and I had 10 x 10g I had to make some adjustments to the pattern which I did by making the lace sections half the size they should have been and keeping the garter sections as written. If I made the cowl again under the same restraints I'd cut down on the garter stitch and make the lace sections longer. But you know, knitting is often a learning process, and given my general disinclination to knit lace this was designed as a learning project for me in any case.  So I'm not stressing.

Here is one side 

and here's the other

The rest of the pictures are of the individual lace patterns and the name of the colour in each case - more of an aide memoire for myself than anything. 

Top Arja Stark expanded feather stitch. It's probably not what I would have done for Arya, but actually she was a dark minded little thing so this dark blue/grey is perhaps right. And a fabulous colour I have to say.

Bottom Mother of Dragons little arrowhead stitch. Mother of Dragons That's those big things that fly about in the sky and breathe fire. So why their mother, a Targaryen, house sign a red dragon on a black background,  is represented by pale grey and turquoise is beyond me. 

Top Jon Snow Turkish Stitch grey and white - he turned out to be half Stark rather than Snow so that gets a pass, but he was in the Watch for a long time which dressed in unremitting black. A nod in that direction would have been nice. 

Bottom Margaery Tyrell Crest of a Wave Stitch - the Tyrells of Highgarden. House sign was a golden rose on a deep green background, so not sure where this very pale green with sludge splashes  was coming from.

Top Sansa Stark  mini leaf stitch

Bottom Tyrion and Shae eyelet stitch  

No idea where she was coming from for either of these colours, although they are both very pretty. 

Top,  Cersei Lannister. To be fair I have seen Cersei dressed in this colour a couple of times but it's not the one you think of straight off when someone say her name, right? Eight stitch Rib. 

Bottom Melisandre as in The Red Woman. This does not say The Red Woman to me. Half herringbone stitch.

Top The Purple Wedding, which is a bit apologetically lilac for me. Fan Shell stitch

Bottom Brienne of Tarth. Tarth The Sapphire Isle. Nuff said.  Cloverleaf Eyelet stitch 

I suppose the lesson here is never buy wool inspired by one of your favourite TV programs sight unseen. And I've learned it. 

The cowl looks nice as a loop but will also go twice around my neck for a cosier feel in winter. I'm pleased with the finished project and as Laura of The Lonely Knitter will be at the Glasgow School of Yarn I intend to wear it and see if she recognises her mini pack knitted up! I shall, naturally,  not tell her I was a bit disconcerted by her colour choices. 

A Visit to Perth

The last day of my recent trip to Glasgow was spent in Perth. I've never been, except once when I was interviewing someone for my Ph D and I saw nothing of Perth bar the cafe at the theatre. We were booked to see Scottish Opera's concert version of Massenet's Therese there in the evening and the OH was driving down from Orkney to meet me there so I thought I would go over early and have a look about. 

On paper it sounds a lovely place but I wasn't terribly taken with it. Although it did have an M & S, a Waterstones and even an Oliver Bonas store so it was ahead of Orkney on points as far as retail is concerned. 

By one of those wonderful coincidences that happen to me less often than I would like, the day SO were doing Therese in Perth  was also the day of the annual Perth Festival of Yarn, and as I had run out of things to look at in the town very quickly I decided to have a wander up to that and have a look.

It was miles out of the centre and it was a hot day so I was quite sticky and warm by the time I had found it, and when I did find it it took the woman on the front desk, who for some unaccountable reason wasn't selling entrance tickets just giving out wristbands, three times to explain to me where I could go to find someone who was. The first time she sent me to a lift shaft, the  second time she directed me to some male changing rooms and the third time she took me to a corner, waved along the same corridor again and said 'somewhere off to the left, one of those rooms'. So I found the ticket seller who then told me she could only take cash as the desk was in a 'wi-fi dead spot'.

I pause here to reflect that if you are selling tickets to an event in 2022 perhaps dong it from a wi-fi dead spot is not the best idea in the world. 

I made haste to enquire if the vendors were also in a wi-fi dead spot as there wasn't much point in me going in if so, since the ticket took about 95% of the cash I had on me. It transpired that all the vendors were equipped with card machines that worked perfectly, and so again I was forced to ask myself why the person selling entrance tickets could not have been placed a bit nearer to the vending hall where she could presumably have taken  card payments without problem. 

This all goes to hepl explain why I was not in a partculalry good mood by the time I got into the hall, and it was not improved by m first encounter with a vendor, some of whose yarn I knew I wanted to make a Christmas present. Yes, she took cards, yes she had one left of the thing I wanted but no, it wasn't in 4 ply, it was in DK. Which was about as much use to me as a chocolate teapot. (Note I'm not blaming her. She can't bring everything she sells with her to a yarn show and it must be a nightmare deciding what to take and what to leave at home and know that for sure several potential customers are gong to rock up and want one of the things you decided not to bring. But it didn't improve my mood at all. 

But then things looked up and I ended up having a nice time. There were a lot of dyers/vendors there that I didn't know, there were some who I only knew by name and some I do know well and have bought from before. Because I  am booked to go to the Glasgow School of Yarn I was quite restrained in my purchases, but of course I did make some. 

Voila

This was from dyers I hadn't previously known; a Hungarian couple recently relocated to Edinburgh from the Lake District. Very nice people and very nice yarn. I bought this with a specific project in mind, because that's the rule now. If I don't know what I'll knit with it I don't buy it. This is for a hat and there should be enough left over to make matching mitts for me, or a reverse colourway hat for the OH. we'll see. 

If you've been reading here a while you may remember the Glasgow Skyline Hat kit I bought last year at Glasgow School of Yarn from Wee County Yarns. You can see the finished article here. I'd already decided I'd like to knit their Three Forth Bridges hat as well and had intended to buy the kit at Glasgow. As it is, I got it a bit early by purchasing it at Perth. Their website is well worth a look, particularly if you  enjoy colourwork. 

And finally I treated myself to a new project bag. I'm not hugely into Halloween but I am taking part in a Halloween Knit a Long and the project concerned is currently living in the new Halloween bag. It's so colourful and joyous and the girl who made it was quite young and her Dad was helping out on her stall and all in all they were lovely people and I couldn't resist it. 

This wool I didn't buy at Perth but at the Yarn Cake in Glasgow.  I'm slipping it in here since I'm talking about wool buying. .It was just in and I made  a special walk down to the shop to get it. It's the West Yorkshire Spinners sock yarn colourway for Christmas 2022 and it's called Gingerbread. I bought two balls to make the now traditional matching family socks for Christmas Day, although since we have no plans to go to  Canada for Christmas this year that will just be the three pairs this time. I have started on the first pair already as I need something simple and soothing to knit as a contrast to the Halloween project which has a lace edging and 391 stitches in a row. Progress is slow. 

I have to say that I did talk to some very nice people at the Perth show and ended up quite pleased with the two hours I spent there but I definitely preferred the Glasgow Show and I'm looking forward to that at the end of next month. I've even booked a class there, of which more later. 

Meanwhile by the time I had wended my weary way back into the town centre the OH had arrived. We took ourselves off to a hotel near the Concert Hall for a drink (I had alcohol, which says a lot about the state of my nerves) and then we went off to the concert. The music and the singing were extremely good. The piece is short  which perhaps accounts for the fact that it's very rarely staged, and some of the acting was quite hammy, but the three principals had good voices and sang well. It was very enjoyable and I'm glad I've seen it.

So that was Perth. Like the curate's egg, excellent in parts. 

Go Me - I earned an 'epic badge'

Don't get too excited, it was only from Audible. They have all these badges, many of which I am unlikely ever to get, but a little notification cropped up on my phone yesterday to tell me I had earned the epic badge. I was intrigued so followed up. 

And you know what, I'm going to agree with that  'earned' even though all  did was listen to a book. Because it was a whopper. It came in at a massive 32 hours and 43 minutes, which is the longest book I have in my Audible library, and I wish I could say it had been a pleasure to listen to but it wasn't.

So what was this marathon listen? It was Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling) 's latest Cormoran Strike novel The Ink Black Heart. I wish I could say I'd it or that it had been worth almost 33 hours of my time, but I can't. 

The basic plot was reasonably good in that slightly OTT/bordering on the surreal sort of way that is the trademark of the series. But it was seriously bloated, the language was appalling and it read as JKR's revenge on all the people who had ever been nasty to her on Twitter. 

Don't get me wrong. The misogyny suffered by women, both private ones and those in the public eye, on social media (I really only do FB myself but even that horrifies me sometimes and I gather it's as nothing to what gets tweeted) is nasty and wrong. In fact I'd go so far as to say it was evil. But parroting it in a novel is perhaps not the best way to fight it. And asking readers swim in a sea of woman hating obscenity isn't doing anything to stop it. To campaign for change in the tone of social media is a good thing to do, although also I sadly suspect a waste of time and energy, but this is not a campaigning book, it's a personal howl of rage which does neither her readers nor her characters any favours. 

Yesterday was a pig of a day

We went to a funeral in Wick which was about a squillion times more upsetting than I was expecting. We couldn't stay for the drinks afterwards because we had to get back for the ferry, but as I was shivering (mainly with shock and grief) I suggested we drop in on a place we have driven past oodles of times to get a cup of hot takeaway coffee. 

It was a bit weird. There was one bloke of late middle age, in a drab chill room with a coffee machine, a table and chairs with a couple of newspapers and an array of coffee making equipment and coffee beans for sale. Also some books with titles like 'My walk with Jesus' and a poster on the wall proclaiming that God knows all your suffering. A Christian business then. 

For funeral related reasons the OH decided to by some African sourced (malawian) coffee beans. The man offered to write the name of the farm they were sourced from on the bag. Very nice. He also offered some comments on the difference between Christian dwellers in Malawi (rounded, cheerful, lovely people) and Moslem ones ( ungracious, not lovely people). Not very nice. 

I was speechless. Sadly. I wanted to challenge what he had said but because it was so unexpected I had no words ready. Possibly the expression on my face sad something though as he backtracked slightly and said 'well that's my take on it'. 

As a professing Christian myself , although not of the same (evangelical)  type as him, I was horrified. Apart from anything else, how dare he make these comments and assume that we, as perfect strangers to him, would agree with his very racist sentiments? Surely not everyone in Wick, churchgoer or not, feels that way. I sincerely hope not anyway. 

Just for the record, having lived for many years in West Yorkshire I met many Muslims. Generally speaking they were among the kindest, most gracious and generous people you could hope to meet. I daresay there are Muslims who would echo in reverse the sentiments expressed by that business owner. But I never met one. 

Also for the record we might have become regular customers if he had kept his mouth shut. In a way I'm glad he didn't. I don't want to support a business run by a racist. 

On a happier note when we got home I finished my latest jigsaw. 

The World of Charles Dickens which was a birthday present from my sister. It was quite challenging, but when done it did give an amazing sense of what a busy bustling city of huge contrasts London was in CD's day.

I am going away tomorrow (on the crack of dawn ferry from Stromness, which is gong to involve getting up at 4.45 which I am not so very thrilled about.) I'll be in Glasgow for just over a week, so no blog posts for a while now, but lots to blog about when I get back.