Happy Mail and Wool Stats for March

 So the happy mail came yesterday and here it is

In a way I wish it hadn't arrived until today because then I wouldn't have bought any wool in March which would have looked good. But equally I was very pleased to get it. 

A while back I decided that I would like to make a sweater with my 2025 weekly yarn advent from Beehive Yarns. I chose the pattern I wanted to make but  because I have - ahem! curves - up top ,and also because I wanted to make it full length rather than cropped I needed 5 skeins of yarn and the advent naturally had only 4. 

I approached Beth at Beehive to see if she had anything that would work with the advent colours that I could buy and she had a think and then got back to me and said she had a colour in mind but she would need to dye it especially to match the base my advent yarns were on which she was happy to do if I  was prepared to wait a little while. Well obviously I was prepared to wait because as we all now I have plenty of projects and wool on hand  to keep me busy so I waited and now this beautiful skein has arrived. Once we are back from our upcoming holiday I must make a start on the jumper. I'm a bit nervous as I will have to adapt the pattern to fit and also I've never done a fade garment before, but if I don;t try I'll never know if I can do it. Plus I have several jumpers waiting to be finished, or started and I need to buckle down and get then all done. Especially as I have in mind to do a  root and branch clear out of my wardrobe before too long. 

Anyway, despite the arrival of this new skein  the March stats look good. Wool in 100g, wool out 602 g, net decrease for the year to date is 2915. Which makes me a fairly happy bunny. 

Two Busy Days

 

If I said that was an elderflower presse (which it is) then several readers might well say 'oh you've been to that antiques place again', and if they said that they would be right. I went to see a podiatrist last week and her clinic is in Doune. I daresay there are more local ones but I had seen this one advertise itself on Facebook and there were good reviews so I decided to go there. The appointment was at 11.30 which meant it finished in nice time for us to go and have lunch at the restaurant attached to the Antiques Centre in Doune and after lunch we had a pootle about in the centre  as well. We didn't buy anything although I picked up contact details for someone who I hope will upcycle a bookcase for me. There were some very nice things in there, also some of the other kind, but nothing that leaped off the shelves shouting 'Buy Me, Buy Me' so we didn't get anything. I did look in the modern bit of the shop for wax melts but they didn't even have any of those. So a nice day ( I even enjoyed having my feet looked at and pampered a bit)  without spending a fortune. 

On Friday we went to the SEC in Glasgow for Model Railway Scotland. I felt that we might well spend a fortune here but in the event the OH was very restrained and contented himself with buying some bits of bendable track to add to his 00-9 layout. That's  going to have to come off the coffee table in the living room shortly but we're not quite ready for that step yet. 

I have to say we were both overwhelmed by the show. It was huge, it was full of people, it was very noisy and there were a lot of model railway layouts which, to the untutored eye, like mine, all looked the same. Here's my big takeaway from this; at the end of the day model train layouts are basically model trains going round and round in a circle. Or an oval, at a push.  You can put in backgrounds, of distilleries, or paper mills, or small gauge railways in the Yorkshire Dales or the Welsh Valleys but at the end of the day it's a train on a track and most of them have scenery that's basically hills with grass and sheep. 

Some of them stood out a bit from the rest; this was my favourite 

although why the neighbourhood giants are cultivating equally giant primulas I don't know. I was of course well outnumbered on the gender front;

there were a few women there but they were mainly staffing the stalls. 

I did however make one amazing, and delicious, discovery 

And I say it's delicious even though I'm not the world's greatest fan of marshmallow. There were lots of other flavours too, we got some raspberry and some orange ones too. 

Three posts in one day! But I wanted to get caught up because life is picking up pace and we're off on holiday in less than a week, after which there will be lots to blog about,  without needing to catch up on the knitting, the jigsaws and What We Did Before We Went Away as well! Or at least I hope so. 

Stashdown - The Jigsaw Edition

I have lots of lots of different things; books, CDs, DVDs, wool and jigsaw puzzles. The books, cds and dvds all got thinned out before we moved, which is not to say they couldn't do with a bit more thinning out but you know ... I also donated lots of jigsaw puzzles to the library in Orkney but I still brought 65 puzzles to Alloa with me. 

My goal is to reduce this to 50 by the end of the year. I was told, when taking a couple to the charity shop for the cat shelter we got Cosimo from, that they have someone who likes 500 piece puzzles so I did all my puzzles of  500 pieces and under over the winter, reprieved one  and took seven to the shop a couple of weeks ago. This should have  meant I was down to 58, but I bought one while I was in there which brought me back to 59. That's not a problem as I have now finished it  and will be taking it back to the shop shortly. 

Here it is

The World of Frankenstein. I have several of these 'World of  ' puzzles. Originally three were only a few but the range has expanded over the past few years. I'm not a completist so there are a lot I don't have simply because I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter and Frankenstein was one of those. I wouldn't ever have bought it  full price and I don;t see it as being something I'd want to do over and over. But it was only £2 in the charity shop and I enjoyed the challenge of doing it and now it can go back and they can sell it all over again. 

I did get a rather lovely late Christmas present of another jigsaw which I dd before the Frankenstein one but ti will be a long time before that one goes to the charity shop. 

So 58 down from 65 whic means another 8 to go before the end of the year. Can I do it? watch this space!

WiP progress and a finished project.

So I've dealt with two more things from the Wip list recently. 

One got frogged; it was a DK  cowl that I was never going to finish as I only had two colours for it and you really needed three, or even better, four. Obviously for some reason I didn't realise that before I cast on. I've been out this morning helping someone from knit group teach knitting at a local school, and we all took along some DK leftovers for the children to practice on/take home and the wool from the cowl went to that. So a project off the list and wool destashed - definitely a win. 

The finished project was a hat. I bought the kit for this at the Glasgow School of Yarn in 2024. I'm a huge fan of the skyline kits from Wee County Yarns, which is now very local to me! - I've done   their  Glasgow Skyline and the Firth of Forth Bridges ( I think I have recorded here recently the sad news that the bridges one is lost which is upsetting.) Anyway back in Nov 24 we knew we'd be looking to relocate to the Stirling area so it was a no brainer to buy the Stirling Skyline pattern and some wool to knit it in. Sadly between then and now my desire for a pink hat has definitely waned, and although the two colours I chose were a good contrast in the ball they could have been a better contrast in the knitting. Too late now. 

It's not my bets knitting ever and I'm not 100% happy with it, ( my knitting not the pattern!) but I am pleased enough to  wear it. And some time I must reknit the Forth Bridges one. 
 

Quick Dash South

 We zapped off to Newcastle at the weekend with son no 2. Down on Saturday, back Sunday. The occasion was my last remaining aunt's 90th birthday; something well worth celebrating. One of my cousins had done all the organising so all we had to do was turn up at the selected restaurant at the right time. It was an Italian and part of a chain; not the best Italian food I've ever had in my life, and the place was extremely noisy so conversation with the various relatives at the table was quite difficult. We still all managed to enjoy ourselves and catch up a bit on our news. My aunt was delighted to see everyone and one of my cousin's step-daughters had baked a birthday cake so we all sang Happy Birthday, not very tunefully and she blew out however many candles there were on the top. Not 90, I do know that! Looks like it might have been nine. 

The next day we popped in to see her at home, together with my sister, and had a cup of tea before we set off in opposite directions; sister going south and us back north. The house was like a florist's shop; obviously no-one knowing what to get a 90 year old  nearly everyone resorted to flowers and I'm only amazed she had sufficient vases for them all. 

She was reminiscing about the days when we were all small and how we are now 'all grown up'. I pointed out we were not so much all grown up as 'old' but was roundly told that I wasn't old at all, which was consoling. I don't feel it, but a chill falls over me when I look at the age creeping up on my next birthday. 

I did a little looking back myself. When I was young I had 9 aunts and 8 uncles and I'm now reduced to one of each, and my remaining uncle,  who was also there and is 92, was looking very frail. It's very sad to see what time can do to those you remember in their prime. I'm told there are consolations to growing old but looking around I do wonder ... what I would give sometimes to be 15 again and in the middle of a big family gathering with all those people I grew up with  still safely around me. 

 

Hair Again

 I feel I want to add 'and gone tomorrow' to that title but it would be wrong - although not rhythmically.

Anyway, it being spring I went to the  hairdressers a couple of days ago,  had what was left of the winter blue ( which had faded to a rather nice teal) taken out and replaced it with pink. 

It's quite bright and there's rather more of it than there was of the blue. I love it. 

I put up a photo on Facebook and the person who was less than complimentary about the blue confined themselves to a 'nice cut' comment this time around. I was pleased about that. Wonder how they will feel about what I have planned for October ....

And It's Done!

 

The cross stitch kit I bought at the Palestinian Embroidery Exhibition at the V and A in Dundee.

I'm thrilled with this for several reasons. 

1 I like the design

2 It was a quick and easy stitch

3 I didn't need to wear my head magnifier! 

and the third one is the most thrilling because I thought I was destined to wear that or just not cross stitch for ever. I have no idea why this was easy to do without a magnifier, it's not huge or anything. Possibly it's that the fabric is a block weave, or maybe it's the fact that it was in a hoop and the tension made the holes easier to see? Who knows? In any case I was sufficiently happy to order a new kit to start which is on similar fabric and I'll put it in a hoop, a thing I have previously avoided like the plague and see how I go. 

There were a couple of things I wasn't so happy about though. One was that I thought the hoop was both for working and hanging but closer inspection revealed that it wasn't, it's just a working one. Not a problem though as I will use it on my new kit, and get the trees framed. The other was  more problematic. The box says clearly that it contains 6 colours of embroidery thread, which it does. The design as printed on the box, and the chart inside it, contains seven colours. This meant  a bit of creative input on my part, as I tried to stretch six colours to cover the job of seven, but I'm happy with the  result. I could have bought some extra thread but I didn't know the make or the weight or even if it would be available locally, not to mention that I wouldn't have had any use for the large amount that would have bene left over. So six it was. 

February Reading Round Up

 Well it had to come

The February book for the Crime Fiction Book Group was The Dry by Jane Harper. I had read this before many years ago ( possibly for the crime fiction group in Orkney? or maybe I just found it myself. It was long enough ago that I thought I had better re-read so that I had all the details to mind. Due to a mix up with the library catalogue system I ended up with a version on CD which was a bit annoying but finally prodded me into buying a new portable CD player that I could carry round the house. It was not as portable as all that and it isn't just a CD player which was all that I wanted but that's a story for another day. I listened to The Dry, and found it quite slow, a bit like the film version which I saw was on Sky the week after we had discussed the book. I recorded it and have so far managed to force myself through 20 minutes of it. I should delete from my recording list I know. Apart from that the ending is very tense if you haven't read it before, and not very tense if you have. 

My 'send me to sleep books' fr the month were Mick Herron's Bad Actors, a perennial favourite, and Agatha Christie's Nemesis. 

There were two detective novels; J D Kirk's latest which is A Killer of Influence and stretched credibility to its limit and then somewhere beyond. I still enjoyed it though. I really should read these in order but  it's too late now. The other was A Long Time Dead by J M Dalglish. People are always telling me how good he is. This is the first of a series set on Skye; I always like getting the first book of an established detective series because then you know that if you like it there is more enjoyment to come. I was ambivalent about this one. I didn't take to the lead character, it lacks Kirk's humour and I was able to spot the murderer quite early on. Maybe because there was a big spangly signpost over their head saying 'It Was Me'. That said it was a bit more complex than I had anticipated and the plot was well thought out. I'd sum it up as ;workmanlike and although I'm not rushing to the library to see what others they have I wouldn't rule out reading the next few at some time in the future.

I had a vague thought about working my way trough the sci fi and fantasy section at Stirling Library by picking books alphabetically by author, so one by someone with a surname beginning with A, then one for B and so on. So far I have only managed the A ( I don't get to the library that often!) and this was Tonight I Burn by Katherine J Adams. By borrowing this I unwittingly broke one of my own rules whihc is never to read Part 1 of a fantasy series if it it isn't finished ( the scars of GRR Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire run deep). In my defence I had seen a ( favourable) review of her most recent one called Tonight I Bleed and thought it was the last of three rather than the second. In the event it doesn't matter as I shan't be following up book 1. I enjoyed it but I wasn't sufficiently pulled in to care about what happens to the characters over another two tomes. The writing was good though and the plot set up and world building were well done. 

The there was Wintering by Katherine May. I can't describe this except to say it's the author's description of a winter in her life in which she tells somethign of what happens to her and also expands this into reflections on life, it's currents, the importance of resting and retiring from interaction to build up strength and motivation to go back into the world. It was done month by month and by the time we reached February I felt as though I had been reading it all winter long and it would never end. It didn't; teach me anything I didn't already know about the importance, and difficulty,  of finding a balance in your life between being out and in, or active and at rest, if you prefer that terminology. Her chapter on March was basically a long description of how she got into cold water swimming and there was far too much of it. My reaction to the whole book  basically was, what makes this woman think that anyone else if going to be interested in her wittering on about motherhood, her lost career, and the benefits of cold water bathing? Long time readers may recall I had a similar reaction many years ago to the work of Robert Macfarlane whihc I was forced to read by by my Ph D supervisor, possibly because he knew I would hate them, and I think the lesson is that this is just not my type of book. I had hoped for more psychology and rather less poor me really. 

And finally although I haven't read it from cover to cover I have been dipping into this 

because as previously mentioned we have booked a week's holiday in Tuscany and it's coming up quite fast. 

A Day in Dundee

 I was just starting to think that the blog had degenerated into something approaching what it was in Orkney when I remembered that I hadn't written up my day in Dundee. This has spared readers, for now, my reading review for February, but it cant be far away ....  We haven't been very active recently because the weather has been appalling and I've had something wrong with my left leg which has left me hobbling. Very frustrating. However it seems to be well on the mend now, although not before time. 

Anyway. - Dundee. I went on the train; there's a good service from Stirling, two trains an hour although not every 30 minutes for reasons which escape me but presumably make sense to railway controllers. I met my friend S just by the station and we immediately decamped to the V & A Dundee which is basically just over the road. First stop was the cafe for coffee, cake and a catch up and then we went to look at the Palestinian Embroidery Exhibition. This was interesting and the garments on show were beautiful. I didn't take any photographs, something I've been kicking myself over ever since. I couldn't remember whether it was allowed or not, which was silly of me because the OH and I both took oodles of photos when we went there for the Kimono Exhibition last year. However I'm hoping to go again and I will take photos - meanwhile I couldn't resist a little related treat for  myself in the shop.

I have not yet started this, but as it is pouring with rain and blowing a gale today I have decided to give it a go this afternoon. 

After the V & A we walked up to the Mcmanus Art Gallery where they are currently hosting an exhibition called Curtain Call - more info here. I did take pictures at this one 

that's the front and back of a film costume for Mary Queen of Scots

and this one is from various TV shows, mainly Poldark, although the wedding dress is from the  recent adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small. 

The exhibition was smaller than I expected, while the V & A one was larger. It focussed on designers and costume makers with a connection to Dundee, but although small it was a delight. Again I plan a return visit before it closes. After we'd looked at that we had lunch in the McManus' very nice cafe, put our families and the world to rights and then walked back to S's bus stop and then the station for me.

It was  a lovely day, both because of the company and the things I saw: the only downside was the weather. The temperature was Winter Baltic and the wind was as strong as anything I ever experienced in Orkney. Hopefully the weather  will be kinder when I go again. 

Finished Project No 8 ( not a WIP )

 

I don't suppose many readers remember the tale of how we came to acquire the bear called irresistible but the story is  here. I had in fact forgotten all about the irresistible  bear myself until I came across the post while I was browsing some old entries on the blog. He belongs to son no 2 and as we were going to visit him last weekend I decided to see if the bear  was still about. (How could I have doubted). 

In another part of my domestic planet I had come across a jumper pattern that I wanted to try and I thought I could get it to fit the bear so I borrowed him. As things turned out I used a totally different pattern, but still produced a rather nice stripy jumper for Irresistible Bear. 

Voila

So cute. And as I thought, only a couple of evening's work, so not distracting me too much from the work of sorting out the wips. 

Two More Wips bite the dust ...

 although only one resulted in a finished project. That was the Eye Cowl, a pattern from  my Fellowship of the Knits book. 

Sadly my grafted edge is not all I could wish, but then again, who is going to see it when I'm actually wearing the cowl? I did have a moment while knitting it,  thinking that I didn't know where I could wear this; it's not everywhere you can go with the Eye of Sauron round your neck! But then someone at knit group told me she'd never heard of Sauron but the cowl was gorgeous colours, so I expect I can take it anywhere really. 

After this I pulled out a thing called  Catkin. According to my Ravelry project page I started this in 2012, and I have no memory of why I gave up on it. I took some time to work out where i was in the pattern, which is largely made up of multifarious charts so it took some time, tried knitting one row while juggling the requisite 14 stitch markers, and went wrong multiple times before accepting that my vision is just not good enough to follow the charts anymore. They're too small. I daresay  I could have faffed about and done wonderful things with enlarging technology, but when I thought about it my enthusiasm for the pattern - well, I was going to say it had waned but the truth is it had evaporated altogether. No point in forcing yourself to slowly work your way through a pile of charts that are almost too small for you to make out if in the end you're going to end up with something you don't actually want. So I pulled it out ( or frogged as we say in the trade) and the yarn has gone back into stash where it will stay until next year when we reach the Year of Knitting up Random Stash Yarn as opposed to this year which is the Year of Finishing Wips and Kits.

That  said I am about to go and cast on something new but it''s very small and very special and in theory will take me at most two evenings to complete. Well, we'll see how that goes. 

Smaller Plot: More Plants

Not quite sure how that works, but we certainly seem to be keener on garden related things since moving from Orkney where we had an overwhelming 2.8 acres. We mostly ignored it, bar the OH's efforts to keep a huge expanse of grass under control, and now we have a small patch which is mainly patio and astroturf. Definitely ticked the box 'Small easily maintained garden'. 

Last autumn we bought spring bulbs and put them in a variety of pots; rather to my surprise they have grown and flowered. Here's one of them

Crocus and iris. We have a similar one which also has daffodils on the verge of blooming too. And another pot which has tulips in it but they aren't nearly as far on. Possibly they will be our failure as far as pots go. Or maybe it's just too early for them to be out. 

At the weekend we went to the local garden centre and splashed out on some primroses to add  a bit more spring cheer

and I also treated myself to a hellebore. It's a bit late for this year, although there are still plenty of flowers on it to enjoy,. Normally you see them in the run up to Christmas and there's too much else to think about/spend money on at that time of year so I've never bought one, even though I've wanted one for years. But now was the time! The variety is Ivory Prince and the colour tinge is a sort of dusky pinkish brown - it's beautiful. 

And a couple of weeks ago the OH brought home a camellia. When we moved to Orkney we left behind the most beautiful camellia. We'd bought it as a small plant and nurtured it for years, but there was no point in taking it to Orkney as that would have been a death sentence for it. One of the things I was looking forward to when we moved was getting a new one, but at the time there were none in the garden centres. Obviously we had missed the boat for that year. They  are appearing now though. 

Here's the plant; it has masses of buds

and here's one of its open flowers

So beautiful. The plant was a bit tall and spindly but we've repotted it and hopefully it will bush out as it grows. And who knows what else we may buy for the garden as time goes on.

2026 Finished Project No 6, and wool stats for February.

 I literally can't remember how old this project is. I know the wool came from Rowan as part of being a Rowan Member and I was only one of those for two years and it was a long long time ago. The pattern came from a small booklet included with Knit Now magazine, and it has been kicking around as an unfinished project for many years. 

I don't know why we knitters ( or possibly crafters in general) do this sort of thing to ourselves because, when I looked this out to finish it off, all it needed was for the hat to be seamed up and the cord to be made and inserted, and for the jumper to get six buttons and two press studs. For that it had been taking  up space for years? Part of not finishing it was not liking the hat very much and part of it was not having anyone to give it to, but this being the year of Finishing Things, and given that this didn't need much doing to it, it was a high priority. I even have someone I can send it to so it's a win/win. 

Stats are looking very good this month, thanks largely to finishing the Debbie Abrahams blanket and selling quite a large amount of sock yarn leftovers. 

Wool in was Nil ( hooray!) and wool out was 2297g and the cumulative total for the year to date is therefore 2413g. Not every month will be this good I know, but it's still a pleasing start. 

Well, that was a week!

 

My feet have hardly touched the ground. quick recap - 

Monday: to West Yorkshire and back for the funeral of our friend Christine. Memorable for the stress induced by the Satnav taking us through the traffic light hell that is  central Harrogate  for no discernible reason,  which had me giving vent to the memorable phrase 'I did not get up at half past s*dding five this morning to be late for a midday funeral'. Also for my Dorothy Dunnet reading friends  all agreeing that I looked much happier since the move back to the mainland,  and one telling me it had taken fifteen years off me. 

Tuesday: to a small village the other side of Stirling for a talk at their Heritage Society ( a friend helps run it) on Scottish Arts and Crafts Silver by someone who is a silver expert on the Antiques Road Show. The OH and I both went and it was  very good. Afterwards there were refreshments - 

there aren't any of the delicious homebakes in the photo but the tables all had these pretty teapots with lovely silk flower arrangements in them. 

Wednesday: a friend came for lunch and she brought the beautiful spring flowers in the picture at the top of the post. A very enjoyable occasion, with much laughter.

Thursday: i.e. yesterday  I took myself off to Dundee and met up with my friend S. We went to see the Palestinian Embroidery exhibition at the V & A Dundee followed by a visit to Dundee's MacManus Art Gallery for their new exhibition 'Curtain Call' which features costumes from film, theatre and television, with an emphasis on those created by people with a Dundee connection. A more detailed blog post on this coming shortly. 

It should have been knit group this morning but I was too tired to even think about it; however after lunch we went off to a local garden centre. Treats were consumed 

(three cakes because Son No 2 has been with us this week) and plants were bought, but again more about the plants with photos when they've been potted up. 

We have no plans for next week, but I daresay it will fill up!

2026 Finished Projects No 5

 

But Anne, I hear you all say, that is not a finished project, it is a single sock. And you're right it is a single sock, but you're wrong because it is a finished project. This is because it is The Replacement Sock.

Many year ago I made the OH a pair of socks in this yearn; Noro silk sock for the curious. Noro was incredibly fashionable in the knitting world at the time, although it was a bit marmite. For some it was Too Rustic which meant they didn't like all the bits in it s that weren't excluded in the processing as they should have been. But others didn't mind that because of the amazing colours that it came in. Let me say immediately this is not a good representation of how wonderful the colour combinations could be and it was never  a favourite of mine. Let me also add that although at the time I was a big fan of Noro yarns this is no longer the case because I cannot cope with the wide variation of thickness you get in the skein. This silk sock varies from places where it is no thicker than embroidery thread to others where it is practically aran, which is disconcerting, especially the thin bits. 

Anyway I made the socks and the OH loved them and then one wore through on the ball of the foot.Quite soon in fact and big time. One day there was  complete foot on his sock and the next there was practically nothing between the toe and half way down the length of the foot. It was not darnable. However I had a lot of the yarn left and I said I would throw away the one with the big hole and knit him another one, but not straight away because I was a0)sick of the sight of the colours and b) quite disheartened. 

Now, with my determination to work through my wips and kits this year, this rose to the top of the pile, basically because I am obviously going first for the low hanging fruit. All I needed to do to count this as a finished wip was to knit a sock. How long would that take  before I had the satisfaction of marking somethign completed on my lovely spread sheet? The answer was 4 days and I was working on another wip at the same time, a rather more complex one that I occasionally needed a rest from. 

So there you go, No 5. 

And the excitement just kept coming ....

... because after our extremely busy Saturday we were out again on Sunday.

This was for a valentine themed afternoon tea at the Japanese garden at Cowden. I've posted about our visits there with lots of photographs before; we love it. They have a very nice tearoom, often  very busy specially in the spring and summer, but you can usually find a table and it's well worth the wait. 

Of course it snowed on Sunday. We had a phone call from the garden warning us about that, and telling us which approach road was the best to use.  We set off 10 minutes earlier than we normally would to allow for that, but what we couldn't have factored in was getting stuck in a long queue of traffic which had built up so far ahead of us that we couldn't see the reason for it. Stressville. I hate being late and after edging forward not very far in 15 minutes the satnav was showing that we certainly  would be. In the event we turned around and found an alternative route and I was able to call and say we would be about ten minutes late. So much for leaving extra time!

They were very understanding and said it wasn't a problem and it truly wasn't. We had a beautiful afternoon tea;

three different sorts of sandwiches, none of them fish which was a win for me, although generally the OH can be counted on to eat my fishy sandwich and let me have his ham or egg or cheese one, sausage rolls, lemon and blueberry scones with cream and jam, little buns with raspberry icing and on the top layer - a chocolate fondue, with shortbread biscuits, strawberries and marshmallows for dipping. I thought that made  a lovely change to a standard afternoon tea. 

We'd planned a walk around the garden afterwards but the weather was shocking and in any case I have a painful leg just now and I'm limping so we just drove home and cosied up to watch some Olympic action - probably some ice skating since that's all that really interests me when it comes to winter sports. 

Great end to the weekend though. 

A Very Busy Day

Due solely to my own insouciance several months ago ( to wit: yes I'll book the matinee in Edinburgh without checking the calendar because we haven't got anything else in it for February yet) we found ourselves with a play to see in Edinburgh and an opera to see in Glasgow both on the same day. Saturday just gone in fact. Since the play was a matinee and the opera in the evening it was doable but it meant a very busy day with an early start, a lot of train travelling and a late finish. 

The moral of the story is,  however sure you are that there is 'nothing in the calendar' always always check! 

The play was A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, and as son no 2 is a huge fan of the Goes Wrong shows and as it was designed as a mid-February treat and  cheer up we had bought a ticket for him too, so we met him in Edinburgh and had lunch together before the play. 

The play was of course a riot; the company is so good at both funny dialogue and physical comedy. Here's the opening set: 

the beautiful intermission curtain 

and the curtain call

I have never found a box of Maltesers quite so hysterical. Also Tiny Tim was 'played' by a demonic ventriloquist's doll which was hilarious and sinister at the same time. Highly recommended.

Once the play was over we hurried to the station and caught a train for Glasgow, after which Son no 2 went home and we went to the opera. After the opera we came home on a noisy train with some very badly behaved youths on it and no members of staff to be seen. Possibly cowering in the end carriage. 

Once home we discovered that Scotland  had thrashed England at Murrayfield, which ended the day on a very high note indeed. 

Competitive Telly!

 Yes it's that time of year again; I am watching all the Ps; potters, painters  and professional chefs. 

I'd like to say that I'm glued to the programs they appear in;  The Pottery Throw Down, Landscape Artist of the Year and Masterchef the Professionals, but the best I can do is semi-attached. Maybe the formats are getting old, maybe my boredom threshold is lowered, but whatever it is  I'm only half watching the programs.

I think the pottery one is the worst offender; I find a lot of this year's tasks quite boring which  doesn't mean that the contestants aren't producing some amazing work; they are. That said I'm not convinced this years are as good as last years overall either. Maybe it's just that in the first few series I was learning lots, since when it started I knew nothing about pottery but now that I do know some,. it's not quite so interesting. I'll watch  until the end of this series but whether I'll tune in next time is another thing. 

Landscape Artist of the Year has had a change of judge. They have lost Kate Bryan who the OH used to describe as The Cute One (!) and who, despite that,  was my favourite. I have yet to warm to her replacement and I have seen references on social media claiming she is 'too good' for the show and wondering what she's doing on it! Again I am finding the process of watching the paintings develop less compelling than I have in previous years but I am still enjoying it. Since I cannot draw I am always amazed at the talent some people have for reproducing landscapes, sometimes quite busy and challenging cityscapes, and I generally love  seeing the way the same scene is interpreted differently by the different artists who are competing. 

What can I say about Masterchef The Professionals? Well first off it's a damn  sight better than it was, now the loathsome Greg Wallace has been ditched. Long term readers here will know that I have loathed Wallace since Day 1 and I have to say that all the revelations over the past months  about his behaviour towards women have not surprised me one bit. The new judge is obviously still finding his feet but seems pleasant enough and he is at least a professional cook which Wallace never was,  so that's  an improvement. The Professionals was always my favourite program in the Masterchef stable because it showed people who were mostly already very good and watched them improve and progress and develop and I always found that heart warming. We're not very far into the current series but already there has been some amazing talent on display and some mouth watering looking food. 

While I'm here I suppose I could take a moment to write about Game of Wool: Britain's  Best Knitter. I did not like this program for al the reasons that many knitters I know, both on and off social media didn't like it. Too wide a spread of contestants ability at the beginning, the constant presence of crochet even though that's a different skill ( I have nothing against crochet but if you call a program the search for Britain's Best Knitter then knitting is what they should be doing, some bizarre judging decisions, and actually now I've used the bizarre word, let's work it a bit harder and apply it also to Di Gilpin's headgear and Tom Daley's outfits and presenting style. It could also be applied to some of the challenges, like knitted swimwear and the decision to make members of Britain's swimming team model it, and deckchair covers. Finally it became very obvious that what the judges were looking for was not a knitter but a designer; that being the case the fact that there was a contestant who was a designer with a textile background tipped the contestant's plating field so far from being level that it was practically vertical. Will I watch Series 2? I'll maybe give it a go to see if it has had any improving tweaks, but I'm not holding my breath. 

It feels strange to be doing a blog post about tv programs again; there are so many things  I| used to write about that I don't any more. This is basically because life in general is just busier and I have more interesting things to write about than television. For example we have a super, actually stupid, busy weekend coming up, so that should  keep the fingers typing next week. 

A Sad Loss

 Some readers may remember our trip to North Yorkshire last December for a lunch in celebration of our friend Christine's's 90th birthday. While it was a lovely celebratory occasion everyone present knew that two days later  Christine was due to start radiotherapy treatment, although by her own expressed wish this was not discussed at the lunch. It was hoped that the radiotherapy might get her to  a place where she could start chemotherapy but it was not to be. The radiotherapy did not go well, Christine became very poorly and after a short spell in a nursing/convalescent home she was returned to hospital where she died peacefully in her sleep last Friday. Despite years living in Australia she was the epitomy of a Yorkshire woman; forthright, occasionally acerbic, and a great lover of cricket. She was also wise, had a great sense of humour and felt a deep loyalty and affection for her friends. I will miss her. 

I didn't put a photo of the celebration on the blog then,but now seems to be a good time to do so. Here are the Dorothy Dunnett readers, with Christine on the left in the beautiful scarf. 

2026 Finshed Projects No. 4

 And yes, this is it, this is the big one. 

It's the Debbie Abrahams Mystery Blanket from 2019.

I am indebted to a friend at Knit Group who pointed out to me that if I finished it it would make a massive contribution to my stash reduction statistics. I don't know why this had not occurred to me myself, but it hadn't. But as it was undeniably true, and as I felt I could  now face rectifying the  mistake that had had me dropping it in the first place, I picked it up towards the end of November and finally finished it yesterday. And yes, the stats for February,  unless I go unexpectedly mental will look very healthy. 

Have to be honest I'm not loving it.  Probably because I 'm not totally on board with the palette, and also of course because I can still see all the small imperfections in it which I will forget about as time goes on. And on the plus side it's very warm! 

2026 Finished Project No. 3

 No, it's not that one. Although that one is almost there. Meanwhile. I needed a small and mindless project  to take to knit group or for when I was watching TV or was feeling too tired for The Big One. So, voila!

New socks for the OH knitted with the wool he chose at East Neuk Knits. So that skein at least didn't hang around for too long. 

Nutcracker in Havana

 

We went to see this at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh on Wednesday. We had a chance to see a filmcast of the ROH one before Christmas but we decided against it, I think on the grounds that we were a bit 'Nutcrackered Out'. Odd for me tbh  but that's how I felt and we went to see the Cinderella instead. 

However when I saw this advertised on a marketing e-mail from the Festival Theatre I thought it might be fun and a great antidote to February gloom, so after a bit of humming and haaaing I booked it. I should not have hummed and haaed for as long as I did (all of two days iirc)  because by the time I went to book it there were very few seats left. I suppose that's not really surprising as there were only four performances. Anyway I booked some upper circle seats which were about all that there was left and on Wednesday we got up quite early and got the train to Edinburgh. We wanted to visit a hobby/model shop which was recommended to us by the OH's brother when he was with us recently. A railway modeller's dream I should say and they had a few bits and pieces of doll's house furniture so I splashed out on a kitchen table and chairs for mine, and the OH looked longingly at a very small gauge train set which he didn't buy and which I have been trying to persuade him to purchase, or rather let me purchase  for him,  ever since. Then it was back to the centre of the city and the ballet. 

Can I just say that the seats we had were not what I would describe as Upper Circle? They were what, in any other theatre, would be described as Balcony seats, or even, for those theatres that have one, Upper Balcony,  with all that that entails, mainly climbing stairs for what seems like forever and emerging into a space that is not at all suitable for people with a tendency to vertigo i.e. me. Apparently developing vertigo  is quite common in post menopausal women. Who knew? Well not me until recently. Vertigo, constantly itchy skin and thinning hair, what joy.  But I digress. 

I was not a particularly happy bunny by the time we had mountaineered our way to our seats and so was inclined to not enjoy Act 1 of the ballet which was not nearly as colourful or energetic or generally 'Cuban' as I had anticipate to be honest. And I was inclined to think the Cuban bits gimmicky and cliche'd. However my equilibrium was somewhat restored by the interval and I enjoyed Act 2 very much. Perhaps it was the unavailing attempt of the man in the seat next to us to purchase an interval ice cream that perked me up: he found a seller, queued up and then discovered that they only took card payments and he only had cash on him. I shouldn't have let that cheer me up, goodness knows I had the same experience at the TheatrerRoyal once when I discovered you could no loner pay for programs by cash and therefore didn't bother to get one. A practice we have continued ever since when we are familiar with the opera we are about to see.  I did however buy a souvenir program for Nutcracker in Havana since it was the Carlos Acosta company  and so  a Special Occasion. I did have to think twice though as it was £10 which struck me as ludicrous. At least it did until I heard from a friend who had been to see the Anniversary Tour of Dead Ringers recently and who told me programs there were twice that much! 

The one good thing about our seats was that the balcony has such a steep rake that the sight lines are excellent. I couldn't take pictures during the performance naturally but I did get a few at the curtain call; this is the best one 

The light is always rubbish for these things. 

We are due back at the Festival Theatre shortly for A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong and I was filled with foreboding lest we had seats once more in the misnamed Upper Circle. Having checked I was relieved to find that we are actually in the stalls for that - this still means one flight of stairs for some reason but I can manage that! 

January Reading Round Up

So, what did I read in January? I ' finished ' seven books - the reason for the  ' ' will become apparent.

I continue to read any J D Kirk that comes my way via my two libraries and I think a 99p Kindle Daily deal this month too. This means I am not reading them in order which is not ideal but I'm not that bothered. I should however try not to read too many of them all at once or I shall O/D and get sick of them. That's easier said than done though when you're prowling the library shelves and find one you haven't already read. So this month I read A Litter of Bones, which is actually Book 1, and shows it, the first in a series can sometimes be a bit below par as the author finds their feet,   and Come Hell or High Water which is somewhat further through. 

I have already mentioned/put out a warning on the book club choice of The Malt Whiskey Murders. Nuff said, as per N Molesworth. 

My two 'fall asleep to' books this month were Elly Griffiths' The Last Remains and Mick Herron's Slough House. Slough House is a bad choice for night time drowsing as there are some very tense moments in it which, even though I have read the book several times, I still find very difficult to listen to. But not, you know, so difficult that I don't! Fall asleep books have to be ones I've listened to before so that I have some way of finding the point at which I fell asleep the previous night and picking up from there. I usually put the timer on to 15 or 30 minutes, but that's less help than you might think! 

After that we have The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet. I'd seen this favourably reviewed by crime and fantasy reviewers since it is a crime novel set in an imagined world. I didn't enjoy it held as much as I thought I would. The murder mystery was fine as far as it went although  I thought the author cheated a bit by making the central murders and their solution reliant on the particular oddities of his world. It's  tricky to explain, but it seemed to me, and I may be wrong, that he made some things up as he went along, rather than having thought out the basic parameters of the way his world differed from the one we live in, just to make his life easier. A sort of 'oh if I say this is a thing, even if it's on page 201 and not previously mentioned then x can do y and therefore discover z'. I didn't take to either of the two main protagonists, and it seemed a novel driven almost entirely by the mechanics of (admittedly slick) plot,  and not development, or even display of character. That said, it's not a bad book, goodness knows I have encountered much worse, and if you like crime fiction or imagined worlds, it's probably worth a look. 

Finally we have I Who Have Never Known Men by Josephine Harpman and which was recommended to me by a friend as 'thought provoking'. This one was the cause of the ' ' above, because I have to confess I didn't listen to it all. I got about 2/3rds of the way through, some of that at 1.5 speed to make it go quicker. I then skipped to the last 20 minutes. And that was  a mistake because in a novel that was outstandingly bleak the final few pages were the bleakest of all. I know that the author probably wanted to say interesting things about what makes life meaningful and how communities work and the value of knowing things, but when you boil it down, she didn't. If you are any more curious about it, I refer you to the Amazon plot precis and then in particular to  the 1-3 star reviews. The reviews will a least raise a smile, which is more than the book did. 

Wool Stats for January

So, wool in 200g, wool out 316g net decrease for the month is 116g 

This is not the flying start I have had in the last two Januarys but I'm not too downhearted about that. The main reason for my equanimity is that I am still ploughing through this large project that I have mentioned before and, just as in December I failed to finish it in January. But, it is very close to being done now; I am confident it will be complete by the end of the coming week. And then it will go on the bathroom scales and I will be a very happy bunny. Not just for the weight reduction but also being able  to use the finished product which is lovely. 

The other reason is that I have bought very little and resisted the temptation to sign up for various yarn clubs, new yarns, treat boxes etc; e-mail notifications for which have been filling my in-box all month. This augurs well for very little wool coming into stash over the year. I bought the yarn for the Sophie Scarf which I have already shown here and the other 100g was this 

obviously destined to be a pair of socks for the OH. I won't go into all the details of how and why but it was a once only chance so I snagged it. 

Only two finished projects this month, which is hardly surprising given the amount of time I have spent on the Big One. They were the Sophie Scarf, and the baby blanket for my friend's daughter and I've already show them off in blog posts so won't  repost those. 

I am currently going through my knitting stash identifying, kits, wips, things I have wool and pattern for so that I know where they all are as I try to make my way through as many of them as possible over the coming eleven months.  I feel spreadsheets coming on whihc is good; I do love a good spreadsheet! 

 

Celtic Connections

 

Given that we lived in Orkney for 20 years without, despite our best intentions, ever once getting around to going to the Orkney Folk Festival I suppose it's not surprising that we had never thought about going to Celtic Connections. the huge celebration of folk music held in Glasgow every January.  

We went this year though, courtesy of the OH's brother who bought us tickets for one of the concerts as his present for the OH's Big Birthday. It was on Wednesday evening so that was  a busy day; picking up brother from the  station, showing him the new house, giving him lunch and then taking him over to Glasgow where he was spending the next few nights at the flat so that he could explore Glasgow a bit. 

The concert (gig?) was in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow where we have never been before. We were impressed, it's a bit Tardis like given that it's much bigger on the inside than you would expect from the outside. My only grumble would be the number of stairs - of which more anon. 

We saw three bands

Staran

Imar

and Rura 

I say this as though I knew all about them; the truth is I hadn't heard of any of them before we got the tickets. After my experiences last autumn I am now very wary of reviewing any live performances except in the most glowing of terms, lest I be to taken to task by a marketing or press officer. In those circumstances it is a good thing that I enjoyed the whole evening immensely.

I understand that Rura are 'one of the most sought after bands on the current Scottish folk scene' which I can totally believe as they were fabulous. Of the other two I preferred Staran, mainly because they had a vocalist (who was very good). The OH's brother vastly preferred Imar but he is biased as two of the players come from the Isle of Man, a place he loves and where he used to work many years ago.

I think it's probably safe to say that that won't be our last visit to Celtic Connections. 

We should have been going to a totally different concert at Glasgow Uni yesterday lunchtime but we had to call it off as I could hardly walk. The many many many stairs at the Concert Hall somehow aggravated that knee problem from the accident in Finland back in 2024 and not only that but my left hip came out in sympathy overnight so it became obvious quite quickly that I wasn't going anywhere. I was really disappointed. 

All things considered January wasn't as empty a month as I had feared it would be. February is looking busy but not too busy, and, as long as plans don't get upset by the weather, it should be good.

A biscuit baking disaster

 

This week I tried my hand at Anzac biscuits and do not be fooled by the photograph, they were a disaster. These are the only reasonable looking ones I could salvage to take a picture of. 

Don't get me wrong they taste fine. But apart from these few, they look a mess. They spread too far and too thinly and mostly all ran together into an amorphous blob. Very discouraging. 

I will however not allow myself to be discouraged. Check in next week to see what biscuit recipe I can massacre as January draws to a close. We might even have managed to finish eating the Would-Be Anzacs by then; they will go nicely with ice cream. If I'd only put in some ginger I could have pretended they were brandy snaps....

I think the problem was that the oven was too hot. It's difficult to set with any accuracy; I may have to look out the oven  thermometer. And new ovens are definitely on the agenda although not for a while as they will be expensive.