K1, P1

On my Hobbycraft jaunt last week, I picked up a ball of Crofter Fairisle yarn - just because - and because I thought it would make a nice winter scarf for Oliver.

It would have made a better one if I hadn't been such a tightwad and picked up two balls, because I have run out halfway through what I would call a decent length.  My nearest stockist of this £3.79 ball of yarn is 30 miles away and postage to get it to me is coming in at around the £3 mark.  Estimated petrol cost to get to the Hobbycraft is £3.69.  Rock.  Hard Place.  Me.  Bloody hell.

I have finally succumbed to knitting.  Only tentatively, mind.  My knitting resume consists wholly of 25 years of badly done and unfinished scarves.  I get very bored with rows and rows of bog standard starter garter stitch, and if I drop one, or make extra (don't ask) then I am unable to rescue the situation.  My Nan was an avid knitter, and my Mum is a capable one (or though inexplicably cannot sew all the bits together at the end and has to take it to my Auntie Anita to do).  So, needles to the wheel, I used my beloved YouTube, and last night produced my first rows of purl.  Or proper knitting, as I excitedly babbled to Mark, who couldn't have been less interested. 

Cable next - it looks even more proper. 

getting on with

'stuff' lately - cooking up this...

...and that.  If Granola counts as 'cooking'.  The cake is parsnip and sultana spice cake, baked on the back of the frenzy of health and activity that always accompanies the arrival of the first veg box.  It's quite nice - good with a cup of tea, as my SiL always tells me my cakes are.  Oliver said it sucked all the moisture out of his mouth, so - same view different windows eh?

I have bravely branched out in the crochet department and taken a departure from my normal blanket making to create this little fella:

I left him on the kitchen table for Oliver when I went to work with a blue ribbon and a lable round his neck calling him Pascal, which I thought very natty indeed.  He is a French poodle you know, but by the time I came home the blue ribbon was discarded on the floor, Pascal had been renamed 'Stitches' and absorbed into the toy mountain which lives in Oliver's bed.

Emboldened by this foray into toymaking, I recently purchased this:

and hope to produce a whole heap of cuddliesomeness.

And a Navajo Ripple update:

The white is working.  Phew.

Just after Christmas the three of us took our Christmas double chins out for an airing.

The three of us NOT being Mark, the squirrel and I, obvs.  And Oliver doesn't have a Christmas double chin weighing him down either.  Obvs.

The local squirrels were very tame, and very overweight, the fat little blighters.  Too many peanuts bought by cooing tourists, no doubt.  We tried to tempt them with cherry tomatoes, which is the only food I had with me, but they obviously hadn't started their New Year diets yet, as they were very sniffy about them.

Hmmm, what else.  Looking forward home-ed wise I have decided to focus on reading, writing and spelling for a few months.  This is a weak area for Oliver, and I suddenly woke up the other morning in a cold sweat panicking about how the hell he would ever sit an exam in anything given his current loathing of the written word.  Shoulder to the wheel and all that.  Poor Oliver, getting his education solely on the back of his mother's twighlight epiphanys seems a little ad hoc, even by my standards.

Anyhoo, his spelling and writing is improving, albeit slowly, so a focus on it for a while won't hurt.

Tootle pip.

New Years Realisations

No resolutions for me this year. 

Although Oliver has requested that I stop swearing in the car when out driving.  I'll give that one a good go for him. 

Today feels like the first day of the year to me, Mark has gone back to work and so have I.  The close family times are over for another year.  Yes, yes, I know we can 'be together' anytime throughout the year, but there is something very special and unique about that week or so at Christmas when you are drawn together by the celebratory feel of the season and family films, games and lovely meals eaten at the festive table with crackers.  I feel more of a unit then than any other time. 

And whilst mentioning crackers may I just say how disappointed I am by the growing trend for 'luxury' crackers.  I don't want a silver plated yo-yo or nail clippers in my cracker.  I don't want a sheet of highbrow jokey facts or charades nor a pleated hat made from high quality cartridge paper.  Crackers should be the crackers of my childhood - cheap and completely crap.  They should contain a hat made from flimsy tissue paper so that extreme care must be taken when putting it on.  Jokes should be groan-tastic and the gifts should be a clip-on moustache or a fortune-telling fish. 

Having said that I have found the odd tape measure and mini screwdriver set to be quite helpful in the kitchen drawer.  If I can ever find them in amongst the clip-on moustaches and fortune-telling fish, that is.

We are going to eat better this year.  I have spent some time scaring myself silly reading up about conditions you can develop by years of poor eating and have decided to overhaul the family diet (and budget) at the same time.  Mark is ok with that, Oliver less so.  Not sure Mark will be so happy when I dish up a kohlrabi and cauliflower sandwich next week ha ha. 

I have ordered a fortnightly veg box from a local organic farm, as I caught a TV article last night saying that spinach grown in the soil in 1914 contained so much more iron than its counterpart today that you would need to eat around 30 times more.  Shit a brick.  The same sort of figures were true for cabbage and calcium.  I think.  I was crocheting and skim-listening so I can't be too sure of exact figures, but it has jolted me enough to decide to not buy supermarket veg for a while anyway.

And fibre.  I am going to start cooking more oaty things.  Like cookies etc as the fibre we eat is not brilliant.  And I know cookies may not be 'the' way to go, but hey - gotta be better than no oats surely. 

And I will return to exercise as I gave myself December off (thank you me), and I can feel a layer of blubber settling in and no doubt making itself at home around my internal organs and choking me from the inside out. 

Out damn blubber.

...and THAT'S why I don't do housework

Today, as a back to bloody normal day, I had a little list-ette of jobs. 

The day started off with dropping Oliver to a friends for a play.  Tick.

Then on to the resi home where my mother-in-law now lives, for a visit.  It was the usual twilight zone of not knowing what to discuss with someone who can barely remember what day it is or what has happened at any given point in the last 72 years.  The normal rules of conversation and social etiquette don't apply and I find myself feeling inadequate and convinced my visit has been a waste of time for her too.  But tick anyway.

Then Sainsburys.  Oh joy of joys, oh wonder of wonders.  It was full of people who don't know how to shop properly, ie, in a fashion which does not annoy me.  Do these people know nothing?  The main purpose of going there was to print off the last of my December pics to complete my journal.  More of this in another post.  So, tick.

Then home to start the dreaded housie chores.  Aside from the usual hamster wheel of dish-washing,  the endless dirty/clean clothes rotation and general 'stuff' I had the enviable tasks of putting up new curtains in our bedroom and flipping the mattress.  These come under the heading of 'extra jobs' and it is these extras that have my gnashing my teeth in rage at the unfairness of 'housework'.  It is such a broad spectrum title and covers anything which needs doing within the boundaries of the property (which sadly seems to include outside too.  Shudder) and thereby fall under my remit.

Ok, so the curtains - I'll take that one, it seems like a girl's job (sorry feminists) but flipping the mattress?  This is a king size mattress in a confined space.  I think Mark imagines I am in the running for Britain's Strongest Woman, because he quite often suggests I help with things such as moving breeze blocks from one end of the garden to the other, or chainsawing the hedge into shape.  It reminds me of the time that he suggested I clear out the shed when I was 8 months pregnant.  His look of surprise when I thundered 'well THAT doesn't sound like a job for a pregnant person' was - well, surprising. 

I left the mattress-flipping event for later on when he would be home to 'help' me. 

So on to the four new curtains.  I took down the oldy-mouldy ones and then set about cleaning the window area where the condensation is almost an uncontrollable daily happening and the resultant mould persists.  Then the curtain track came off its tethering and I started to get bit agitated and sweaty. 

I turned the heating off, and Oliver's stereo on loud.  I couldn't get to grips with the 'repeat' facility, which was a shame as I only really like about two tracks on there and was forced to listen to all manner of strange sounds and beats as the curtain debacle rumbled on.  It was a relief when One Direction came on with a proper tune and discernible lyrics. 

I had to wait for the extra strong chemical de-moulder to do its de-moulding.  Then I had to wipe it all off.  Then I had to wash all the curtain hooks in the kitchen sink, under the watchful and accusing eyes of the waiting dirty dishes.  Then I had to dry the buggers.  Then I had to shovel them all into their little curtain tape homes on the curtains, which proved to be the wrong homes once I had clambered up onto a wobbly chair to check the length.  More swearing later I had wrenched them all out and re-jammed them back into higher places, rejoined the rail and was two hung curtains down before it occurred to me that they probably should have been ironed first as there were clear fold lines across them from being in the packet for a million years.

I took them down again.  Then I had to drag out the ironing board, retrieve the iron from a different cupboard and set up the whole shebang in the kitchen.  To help me see what I was doing, I turned on the lamp on the dresser only to find that the bulb had blown.  Then I lost my temper.  I was quite glad I was in on my own as I said some Very Bad Words indeed whilst rummaging around in dim cupboards looking for a new bulb.  The only likely candidate was an energy bulb which if turned on at 3pm just about gathers enough muster to produce 40 watts at bedtime.  I replaced the bulb.

I ironed the curtains.  Then I thought I may as well iron a few bits and pieces while the iron was 'up'.  Half an hour later I returned to the curtains.  By now the strains of dance music was hurting my ears, and it was getting close to the time I had to go out and pick Oliver up.  Curtains finally hung, I could stand back in satisfaction at my handy work.

Three hours later when I came to draw them against the darkening evening I found they did not meet, due to over-zealous gathering at the top.  I felt like stamping my feet and screaming. 

You see, one job leads to another, and another, and another, and another, and THAT'S why I don't do housework.

C'est ca

I am increasingly alarmed by how fast the month of December whizzes by.  It certainly does not seem like a whole month that we have had to enjoy our festive lovelies.

 

And next week I will be packing it all up again for another 11 months.  Sigh.  It is the ageing process, I am sure.  Time is flying by so fast that often time has happened before I have had the chance to live it.  I am finding more and more that I am having to calm myself down and be ready to accept the moments I am in rather than fretting about the ones which have gone by already.

Christmas has been lovely this year.  I had to work on Christmas Eve until 10pm, which was not brilliant, but I am grateful that I have until next week off, and that working bank holidays is not part of my current contract.  Christmas Day was great - we have no real 'traditions', but feel we would like to find the perfect ones for us, so every year we tweak things.  We try new stuff, in a new order, and one day Oliver will get to say to his kids 'that's how we always did Christmas in our house', and feel the love.

This year we tried out stocking opening, a breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg (an idea pinched from SiL), more present opening, chilling, Mark cooking a brilliant dinner, MORE presents (kept back in the wardrobe until after lunch to prevent an overload of frenzied gift unwrapping), hot choc pudding and cream, chilling and down to my parents until teatime.  Peaks of excitement spread throughout the day worked quite well for us. 

I had a camera from Mark, which is great, because I have spent the last 12 months complaining bitterly about the one I bought for myself in November 2011 - thereby spoiling the camera he had bought for me last Christmas.  Boy did I never hear the end of that one.  Oliver sank quickly into an electronic fug of his new tablet and xbox games and Mark plugged himself into the ipod I had bought him.  Complete silence.  I fell happily into a glass of bubbly and the tawdry rag that is Heat magazine which Santa had left for me. 

Joy to the world.

My brothers and their kids were gathered at my parents house, where we were treated to surreal gems such as this:

brother 1: 'hey, brother 2, fancy going out on New Years Eve?'
brother 2: 'yeah, there's a rave on in Norway'
brother1: 'hmm, I was thinking of just going up town, not to Oslo'

amongst this twilight zone of conversation my Father made faces and noises of incredulity at my Mother as she made a bit of a hash at playing 'Pointless'.  Bit cheeky really as my Mum is pretty clever, and my Dad often has trouble even following the rules of the game.  Anyhow, the Brothers Grimm won this year and retained their title.  Their unbridled joy at this happy event can seen here:

I don't know why brother 2 decided to spend the day dressed as Clark Kent.  In fact, this look is a little understated, as he was wearing a trilby when we arrived. 

Boxing Day was lovely too, and I think that being very together for little pockets of time is a Good Thing for us.  Cooking, eating and playing together keeps us a little more bonded than usual, and it has felt good.  Today it is all spoilt by me going to Sainsburys, Mark going out to do a bit of work and Oliver having a friend round. 

In fact I feel very sulky about the whole thing.  Reality is a real fun-sucker.

And just for you, my findings during the annual gift-buying period are these translations:

'vintage'  =  overpriced
'novelty' = cheap and useless crap
'ideal stocking filler' = small, cheap and useless crap
'ideal Christmas gift' = anything but.

There it is.

That's the only Bah Humbug you'll get from me about Christmas.

This comment from my very good blog pal Mrs TT was sound wisdom:

'Christmas is a very controversial topic, I guess, and everyone is coming at it from many and varying perspectives. Not all of which will be shared.'

Indeed, and I will hold this thought for next year.

CLOSED: to enjoy Christmas, my way.

In common with all bloggers, I also follow/read/dip into a vast number of other blogs.  From these I get a good laugh, inspiration and a sense of camaraderie. 

But not lately. 

At the time of year when I feel most in love with the world and the people in it,  I find the vein of snootiness about the 'festive period' running through blogland quite deflating. 

So at a time when I take the most photos, feel most inclined to spew forth on the bubbles of happiness which pervade my days,  I feel wholly disinclined to share. 

It is my personal opinion that the things that everybody complain about are the very things which make up the fabric of a modern Christmas. And rather than looking forward to a time when I don't feel I have to do the rushing/planning/Santa visiting/present buying/decorating/carol singing/film fests, I am dreading it. Because that will be the time that the very purpose of my Christmas frenzy, my meticulously planned and filled up December will have grown up and left home taking the sparkle of childhood Christmas with him.

Laters.

Rolling Down The River

In full Determined To Get The Most Out Of This Month If It Kills Me And It Might Just Do So mode, I am so focused on DOING stuff and taking photographs of every move that everybody makes that I find I have no time to blog the usual tosh.

Mark and Oliver are being very patient with my sudden camera fetish although when I just asked if he could photograph something as a record of his day with Oliver tomorrow he looked at me as if I suggested chopping up the cats and making a tasty casserole out of them.  Since I have stalked Oliver relentlessly since November 29th I think it not unreasonable that he take one bloody picture of the day's activities.  Either that or it will be a photo of myself and my work colleague red-faced and straining at the seams with stress over an eight hour shift. 

Today we 'sailed with Santa'.  This is the sort of idea which usually fills me with horror, but it is December, and I find myself signing up for all manner of crackpot ventures at this time of year.  I hate boats, and I hate crowds of kids.  More than that I hate crowds of dappy parents. Why I thought that combining these things in one parcel of sea sickness and ill-temper would be a fun idea, God in heaven knows.

BUT - I have to report - it was fabulous.

The staff were friendly, and seemed to actually give a shit that the kids had a good time.  The trip was only from Exmouth marina up the river Exe and back again in an hour, which was a bearable timescale and the hour was filled with every child being given the chance to drive the boat, get balloon models of hats/giraffes/swords/whatevers made for them, have their faces painted and see Santa in his cupboard grotto in the bowels of the boat.

 

Although cold, the late winter afternoon sun was most welcome and the waters were still.  Standing on the top deck, a glass of (not very) mulled wine in one hand and a warm mince pie in the other I felt strangely awash with serenity and peace.  We were kept well informed about the locality and waterfowl along the Exe, and it was all just a bit lovely, actually.   I highly recommend the experience. 

 

Our home is fully decorated and I have anally pencilled in the evenings upon which I/we shall be hunkering down to watch annual film faves.  We have already watched Nativity, Santa Clause 1 & 2 (all of us) and Holiday Affair (Mark & I).  To look forward to we have: Nativity 2 (to be seen at the cinema), Santa Clause 3 (all of us), Polar Express and Scrooge (Oliver and I) and Moonstruck (me, me, me, me, ME!!!)  Love that one.  That's my present-wrapping one. 

It's interesting how everyone has their own particular films they associate with Christmas.  For me, 'The One' is Scrooge.  This film happened to air one Christmas Eve many moons ago when I was still young enough to live at home with my parents and brothers.  There was only my Mum and one of my brothers home at the time and the three of us watched it in the living room with our real tree smelling lovely and the late afternoon darkness filling the house with a sense of anticipation.  Such a potent memory for me, and the film just encapsulated the whole feeling of home and Christmas for me.  Now I have passed that feeling onto Oliver, and it is our film now. 

I am simply just BURSTING with festive-ness.