Just a Quick Entry today

 

Yes, I made some cards yesterday which was mostly quite relaxing. I've been away from the computer for a few days because we are working hard getting the house ready for a) a decorator who is coming next week and is going to paint and paper my study and paint the kitchen and b) the agent and surveyor who are coming the following week to get the house on the market. So we're sort of doing three things at once; clearing the rooms for the decorator to do his stuff, starting to declutter other rooms ready for the photographs the agent will take, and staring a prune of 'stuff' that we won't be wanting to take with us when we move. 

Hard work, time consuming but as ever, all worth it in the end. We hope! 

'Bloody Scotland' (1)

 

So that's a not very good photograph of Richard Armitage, the actor turned thriller writer. This was the second session that Doreen and I went to; we were a very long way back hence the short comings of the picture. Well that and the lighting. I had been delighted to see that RA, an actor who I have long admired, was to be at the festival and even obtained a copy of his book Geneva to read (well, listen to) before the event. It's a multiple POV and he and the amazing Nicola Walker were the main narrators. I did not find it either thrilling or engaging and in fact gave up part way through, contenting myself with the final chapter and the epilogue just to confirm to myself that I was right about who was good, who was bad, and what the bad guys were trying to do. I was very pleased that the book had been an Audible freebie, as it meant that I hadn't had to waste any of my money on it. He has now written a second book, but I won't be bothering Audible for that. To be honest I think it's probably an OK book, I'm just not a fan of thrillers. We were very amused when it came to the questions because they were almost all from women who all said something along the lines of 'Good evening Richard, my name is xxx' which was funny because in the previous session no-one had felt it incumbent upon themselves to give their names when asking questions!!

The session before this was a two hander of Peter James, who writes the Roy Grace series of detective novels set in Brighton, and Elly Griffiths who recently brought her Ruth Galloway series to a close. I've heard Griffiths before and she's delightful, I hadn't heard Peter James but he was good value. He also told a couple of funny stories about Martin Amis, which almost reconciled me to the hours of my life I wasted reading Amis' book London Fields. Almost, but not quite. 

And then it was back to Doreen's for an overnight stay. 

 

Estate Agents, A New Coat and a Pipe Band

 

Well, what do you know? My photo program is allowing me to crop again. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it, just in case I jinxed it. 

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. 

We're Back!

 

Gordon Bennet, every week another techy change that I can't get my head round. Suddenly the crop function on my photos program seems to have decided not to work anymore, despite telling me I am in focus and in crop tab. Not that it ever bothered to tell me those things before. I wish it didn't tell me them now, but just let me get on with cropping my pics....

Anyway that is why there is rather more white desk on the photo above than I would have liked; there should be more of The Bunny Isabel, and in particular more of her dress which I made ages ago but haven't previously shown because there are several others and some skirts as well, but they all need buttons. There was going to be a whole fashion parade but it seems seaming the back of small dresses and skirts and then attaching teeny tiny buttons isn't something that floats my boat every day. Or, judging by current experience, even once a month. 

We had a good time away, got back late last night just in time for the funeral of our friend-who-didn't- quite-make-90 which was today. Since we got back from that  we've been in prepare for the decorator mode and we've done quite well, hence taking five minutes to do my blog. I need to keep on top of it because we had a great time away, and there's lots to tell. Just not today. 

Two Books I Enjoyed - and One I Didn't.

Let's get the miss out of the way before we discuss the two hits shall we?. This was Dead Man's Grave by Neil Lancaster, and I got it on Audible, having seen that he was appearing at Bloody Scotland this weekend, and reading that he writes police procedurals set in the Highlands. I'm going to say right away that a good part of my non-enjoyment came from the narrator, who many Audible reviewers praised to the skies. I found him awful actually. I think I'd have enjoyed the book a lot more if I had read it on the page rather than listening to it. That's not the first time I've thought that. Don't get me wrong, I love Audible because I can iron, or do my knee exercises or knit or whatever and consume a good book at the same time, but  some books just work better off the page. Especially if the narrator doesn't do good voices. Which this one didn't. 

I mean, it's worth a try if you're looking for something new and set in Scotland. I can't fault the basic premise and the geography is spot on - apart from a character who appears to be doing the North Coast 500 anti-clockwise, and after all there's no reason why they shouldn't. I don't know what it is about men setting off down the police procedural road, but an awful lot of them have main police protagonists who are ex-Army. This naturally comes with rather more information about guns than I want, or the reader needs, to know. There's also quite a lot of 'gung-ho' talk; as in 'We're going to get the bastards who did this' or 'we know who he is and we're going to take him down'. Do policemen really talk like this - like real tough guys but tough guys on a moral crusade? Maybe they do.  It's also worth mentioning, with specific reference to this title, that I tend not to like books which deal with police corruption. Most writers turn to this in what seems to me to be desperation because a long way through a series they are running out of ideas, Mr Lancaster starts with it. I suspect it may carry on into following books. I'm not saying I wouldn't read another one of his - but I am saying I wouldn't listen to another one narrated by Angus King - or anything else read by Mr King either. 

The two I enjoyed were both from my recent library haul. Hope to Die by Cara Hunter was complex, twisty and well written; the final pages had me on the edge of my seat. In the past I have found her earlier books to have quite obviously upcoming twists and guessable endings, which slightly put me off, but I didn't see any of the ones in this book coming , and certainly not the final one - although it had actually been staring me in the face since the opening pages, had I but had the wit to see it. Not that I'm beating myself up, I defy almost anyone to see that one coming. This was Book 6, I may have to revisit 4 and catch 5 for the first time. 

Mari Hannah was, like Neil Lancaster, an author new to me, and also like Neil Lancaster appearing at Bloody Scotland, although I didn't know that until after I had checked out her book at the library. When I fond out I thought I wouldn't have minded going to her panel, but it clashes with one I have already booked for; another time perhaps. I really enjoyed The Insider, good plot, again with an adrenaline producing final few pages and the police characters were well done and credible. The two main detectives are both slightly overwrought; I thought Hannah didn't quite manage to make some of their emotional responses to crime scenes, other officers and one another quite ring true. A bit tell not show and not a 100% convincing tell, although I suspect a lot of that was down to dodgy editing. It's a minor quibble. And there was the added pleasure of having the book set in a place - the North East of England - with which I'm familiar. Again, I'll be looking for more. 

So despite my recent  moans it seems there are still good new authors to discover. Which is excellent news. 

You'll have gathered from the above that we're about to go away, for a few days. I will be attending several events at Bloody Scotland with a friend, the OH and I are doing some location scouting/house hunting, going to the big Degas exhibition at the Burrell Collection and catching up with our friend K, who has left her position as head of fundraising for Scottish Opera and gone to work at the University of Stirling instead. 

We will be back in just under a week at which point we will have to work very hard to get two rooms ready for the decorator to come and do his stuff the following week, and then we'll have to work equally hard around him and for a couple of days after he's gone to get the house ready for the agent to come and do measurements and photos ready to put the house on the market. Exciting but exhausting times. 

As usual I won't be blogging while I'm away, but hopefully lots to tell you when we get back, if I can drag my exhausted carcass to the laptop to write it all up. 

Here's the Happy Mail from Saturday

 

Note: the colours are actually deeper than this, it must have been a sunny day when I took the photo. 

There's a pattern I've been wanting to make for a while and it calls for 5 x 20g skeins 4 ply. When I first saw the pattern I had a good look at my mini-skein stash to see if I had anything that would work but I didn't, so I put the pattern on a mental backburner. 

A couple of months ago I saw these advertised  and knew they would be ideal. They were a special edition dyed up for a small yarn-and-other-things festival at Portsoy in Aberdeenshire by Clare at Cookston Crafts. I'd hoped to go this year, because it was sort of my last chance, given that Portsoy is a lot closer to Orkney than it is to the Central Belt, but the dates didn't work out. Which actually was a good thing because  - boring - knee ....

So I ordered them, partly as a consolation prize for not getting to Portsoy (and a lot cheaper than actually going would have been) and partly because they were just perfect for the pattern, so why not? 

Another tick in the box

 

So yesterday we had an excursion to North Ronaldsay which is the only sizeable and inhabited Orkney island that we hadn't ever visited. The other 'outstanding' one is Papa Westray but it's tiny and really difficult to get to so I'm not counting that. Who knows? If we ever come back here on holiday we may yet make it. Meanwhile North Ron was the big outstanding one. 

It wasn't exactly ideal timing with my bust knee but I booked it back in April - because otherwise we wouldn't have had a snowflakes chance of actually getting on the boat, as these excursions are only run by Orkney Ferries once a month for five months of the year, and it's the only way you can get there and back on the same day on the ferry. So, obviously,  popular.  Of course  back in April I had no idea that I would be limping rather than walking when the day came round.  At least I'd had the sense to book the car though - after the unfortunate events on Flotta last year when I suffered heatstroke and was really quite poorly - we had decided that we wouldn't go anywhere, however small, without it. Although heatstroke, given yesterday's weather, was unlikely to be a problem. 

So above see a general  view of the place from the ferry. Below is how they got the car off it

and it later went back on the same way. The oddest thing; not only were we  on the ferry with our current car, someone else was on it with our previous one! How small does that make the world? Although Orkney is quite  a small world in itself really. I have to say it was a bit worrying watching them swing the car around in a net, but there again, they do it week in  and week out so they know what they're doing. 

North Ronaldsay is famous for two things. The seaweed eating sheep who are kept penned on the beach by a stone  dyke that circles the island, and lighthouses. 

Here's a picture of the dyke; the dark line along the top 

and here are some of the sheep 

this is the old/first lighthouse

it's a bit far away; I did my best with the zoom function but I couldn't walk any closer to it sadly. I'd have liked to; it looks interesting.  Here's the second/new lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson's grandfather. Built of brick rather than stone because the stone was too expensive to transport. 

It has 176 steps and you can pay to go up it; I told the OH he could go and I would wait at the bottom but he wasn't keen. I don't blame him, even without a bad knee I don't think I'd have wanted to do it. 

It was a very long day. We had to be up at 7.00 to get ready and then drive to catch the ferry, it was 3 hours on the ferry to get there, three and a half hours there, and then another three hours in the ferry to get back. Although we did get off the ferry just in time to listen to The Archers on the drive home. 

So was it worth it? For the sake of completeness, yes. It was a bit of an adventure. I'd have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to walk properly, and if the weather had been better, and if everything hadn't had a sort of tired, end of season feeling. A shame we couldn't have gone in May or June really. It was interesting, but there are nicer islands, imo, to visit  if you want to see more than just Mainland Orkney. 

Surely one of these will strike a chord

So I just did a very long and fairly amusing post about my visit to the library yesterday but sadly Blogger was playing silly beggars and not only would it not let me add any photos, it wouldn't do anything else either. No italics, no formatting, and in the end no publishing either and then it lost the draft. Cross?  Just a bit.

After a lot of faffing about the problem seems to be resolved, but as so often with these things I have no idea how it happened, so if the problem recurs I'll be no nearer knowing what to do to rectify it than I was this morning. And this was after, I should mention, Blogger absolutely refusing to let me write anything at all last night.

Anyway I went to the library yesterday (and the supermarket, without my stick for the first time since I came back from Finland) and it's as well a few books caught my eye because my knee is letting me know that it doesn't appreciate being overworked yesterday. Since tomorrow it's going to have to climb a steep set of stairs on a ferry, today it gets rested so it's a good thing I have a few books to read. 

Three of the books are crime fiction. Karin Slaughter I know and sometimes like, depending on how horrible the things being done to women are  in any given book. Cara Hunter I have read before but somehow she had dropped off my radar, so I am grateful for a reminder in the comments on a previous post. Mari Hannah is new to me but it looked promising and I chose to read it first, I'm about a third of the way through and enjoying it so far. The other one is the first in a fantasy trilogy, and yes, I checked and yes books 2 and 3 are written and yes the library has them both. No more unwitting GRRM type traps for me, thank you very much. Of course I may not enjoy it, in which case the fact that the author has bothered to finish her series will be irrelevant.  But it's important to know these things nowadays in case book 1 is a winner. I'll let you know how I get on. 

Postie just came, very early, something complicated to do with yesterdays fog and todays fog and planes, whatever - he brought some happy mail but that will be a post for another day. 

 

Unhappy Happy Mail

But first, here is the missing photograph from yesterday's post, the one of the yarn I bought to make the OH some socks. 

And this was today's parcel, a beautiful art deco themed tin from Betty's of Harrogate

containing this lovely cake

And that should of course have been very happy mail, except that I ordered it a couple of weeks ago for a good friend's 90th birthday which would have been  next week, but sadly she didn't quite make it. She died peacefully in her sleep about a week ago. She will be missed by many people here, not least of them me. Sith da h-anam 

Happy Mail - This Time It's Wool!

 And rather a lot of it. 

After months of using up yarn I had to hand I decided that I really wanted to do something new; new wool, new pattern, just for a change, and I decided to make something from the Lord of the Rings pattern book I bought in Stockholm back in March. So I ordered some wool to make two of the projects in there. 

There was this 

I know what you're thinking; that's a lot of yarn*. It is. But it's for a scarf and scarves take lots of yarn. Also it's really thick so it will knit up quickly. 

*Actually you might not be thinking that since you can't see on the label that those are 400g balls.  Believe me, they are big! 

Then at the other end of the spectrum there was this.  8 balls of Jamiesons Spindrift, but they're only 25g balls. 

I also bought some yarn in  a destash on ravelry. I haven't done this in I don't know how long and I wasn't planning to again, but I saw this and knew it would make a great pair of socks for the OH for his birthday or Christmas. It's originally from a dyer - Cosmic Fibres - unknown to me so it will be interesting to see how it knits up. 

There is also a small parcel in transit which I didn't expect to arrive until next month, but obviously it's coming this month instead and will further plunge the September stats 'into the red'. I need to get knitting! 

 

Wool Stats for August and Finished Projects

This was a good month for the stash reduction project. Wool in was NIL. Yes, no new wool came into the house at all in August. Which was great. Wool out was 925g; of that 200g was sold, 100g was gifted and the rest was all knitted up. So overall stash reduction for the year to date is 7922g, which is a huge win. 

Early warning, the figures for September may not look quite so bright .... meanwhile here are the photographs of the finished things. 

I made three pairs of socks in August, one pair was for a swap and it seems that I totally forgot to take  a photo before I sent them off. They were done in West Yorkshire Spinners in turquoise with a contrast heel and toe from their peacock colour - the other way round to the ones I did for the OH a couple of months back. 

The other two pairs were these

This pair was for the OH, made from a self striping golfball from Giddy Yarns. Helen has given up doing these, and they were always quite difficult to get hold of as they were so popular, so I was lucky to get this one a few years ago. I found it as I was going through a yarn box where it had no business being, and rather than put it in the box where it should be I decided just to cast it on. It came in the form of a 70g sock set and there were only inches of the self striping left at the end; it would have been less hard on my nerves had I done the cuffs in the contrast colour but I wasn't sure I had enough to do that.  For reference I would have! Not inclined to use a 70g set for him again, though it should be fine for me, because I have smaller feet. 

These were for me, the pattern is Paddington Station socks and the yarn is another old Giddy Yarns one called Strawberry and Vanilla. It was nesting with the self striping and again rather than move it I used it. ( By the way there is going to be a 'thing' going on with my socks over the next few months, I wonder if any readers will spot it.)

I completed another of the baby jumpers that had been languishing for so long, this time the blue one.

Also in the box I found a kit that I bought years and years ago; it was for a very colourful and textured  type jacket made mainly of Colinette yarns. I was persuaded to by it against my better judgement really and the fact that I never even cast it on says volumes. I split up the yarn and sold 2 skeins and gave away another two. Then I used two on this fringed scarf

I've never knitted a fringe before and it looked fun. I wasn't 100% happy with the pattern and felt the whole thing came out a little small but it was fine after an aggressive block. It should be useful as it will go with almost every coat and jacket that I own. There was a very small amount of yarn left over  which meant Poppy the Penguin got yet another blanket

That left three skeins from the kit and I have a project on my needles that will use up two more and I know what I'm planning to do with the final skein. Which is pleasing. 

I recently won a small competition in a group I'm in on Ravelry and my prize was a pattern from my list of favourites. The one the prizegiver chose was Copenhagen Building Blocks and I made two of the blocks this month. I'm using my Seashore Colours Mini Club yarns from Henny Penny Makes for these; I was pleased to find a project for them. Eventually they should make a stunning throw. 

And that was it apart from a few small items and I'll leave those because some of them aren't quite finished i.e. they need seaming and buttons putting on. Maybe at the end of September I'll manage a photo of those.