Zoë's Knitting Bag

Reads and Beads

This eye catching cover caught my attention when I popped over to Cornflower's lovely blog the other day.  Cornflower, (go check out her Cranford Mitts, too), always makes me want to find more time to read and she has some great book recommendations.  It was the synopsis on Amazon that finally convinced me that I needed to order this and that it would be my type of book:

"In a cave set back from the ocean, on the coast of New Zealand, Louise and Schmidt hide along with two local boys frightened of being called up to fight in the Great War. But the sensual rhythm of the tango lessons which Schmidt teaches on that sandy cave floor will have devastating consequences for all of them. Two generations later, Schmidt's fiery granddaughter Rosa, running an Argentine restaurant, captivates a young man with the same sultry music that inspired seduction and deception so many years before."

With the weather set for rain, this is just the sort of thing to devour in the summer house during the early evening with the rain pouring down outside and a scented candle lit in the lantern.

I have had a little tidy up of my sewing box which was choc-a -bloc with stuff.  I thought the old macaroon box gathering dust would make a new home for my seed beads.  One day I would like to learn to embroider with these and am starting to build up a little collection.  Knitting with beads is nice is too, although the threading of the beads onto the yarn is incredibly time consuming.  For now I am happy just to look at them every once in a while, give them a gentle shake and pop them away in their little box.

Words & a Bookmark Swap

Once again, please let me know when you receive your swap parcel.  I would like to get this all tied up and the photos posted on the Flickr group as soon as possible.  Thanks.

April Showers (written yesterday, photos taken today finally outside)

STOP PRESS - SIGN UPS FINISHED FOR SWAP - THANKS THERE ARE 22 OF US NOW.

Not just rain showers but also lovely sunshine and then there's the hail, frosty mornings and as I speak it's thundering and lightning.  The weather is so changeable and there has been little chance to pop outside and take some photos of my knitting.  So I'm afraid the colours may not be quite true but here are a few photos of my many WIPS.  Please move your mouse to read the caption and there will be more over on Flickr.

Thank you for all your good wishes about my tooth extraction, the gum is healing nicely and I'm not sure if it's an after effect or not but I have a heavy cold and haven't sneezed so much in ages.  Pepper has finally gone in for her new bumper this morning so I hope to have her back and like new this week - perhaps I am being optimistic!!!! I have been given a Peugeot 307 HDI to drive which is very nice but, sorry if I offend anyone, it's just not the same.

With me to add to the list there are 19 people signed up for the Words and Bookmark Swap.  Please note that sign up closing date will be this Friday 18 April 2008 and numbers are still limited to 30 maximum, so if you are interested please leave me a comment.  I will get the questions out Saturday morning with all the finer details and dates etc.  Once you return them, the matching can commence.   

Extraction

It's been such a long time since I posted.  However, it has been Easter school holiday here in England, so I have had this past week on leave from work.  The weather has been kind to us, being mostly warm and sunny but I did not venture far.  Time has been spent catching up, tidying both inside and outside.  The garden is beginning to look good with many plants about to open their buds. I visited the fabulous Read's Nursery and came away with an outdoors grape vine and a Key Lime plant.  Even if I'm not lucky with the fruit on the grape, then I hope to use the leaves for dolmades.

On Tuesday it rained so it was a good time to take a trip to the recently refurbished Cinema City to watch The Orphanage.  A very friendly usherette showed us to our seats by torchlight (I  love the old fashioned touch) and what splendid seats they were; a plush chenille.  This Spanish film, with English subtitles, is intelligent, excellent, scary, a beautiful old house and good story line - well worth a viewing.

I've been feeling a little sorry for myself as on Wednesday I had my first tooth extraction.  I was pretty nervous about the whole thing as the last time I had this sort of thing done was many years ago at the age of 20 when 3 impacted wisdom teeth were removed under general anaesthetic in hospital.  My face swelled up like a hamster and I was off work for 2 weeks.  Not being able to clean my teeth for days was not pleasant.  Before this, as a child I had lots of baby teeth removed as my second teeth were coming through and the milk teeth were causing spacing problems.  In those days we were "gassed" in the dentist's chair whilst the procedure took place. So maybe you can see why I was slightly apprehensive.  My poor old back tooth had been heavily filled from my neglectful teen years (plus too many hard boiled sweets as a child) and more recently root filled.  The dentist (who is excellent, I hasten to add) had originally thought that it could be crowned (my first) but the tooth had other ideas and was sinking into my gum.  After 3 injections and a wait of 30 minutes, I was back in the chair.  Great, I could not feel a thing, but oh what was that?  There was a loud cracking noise which rang in my ears and part of the tooth came away, then the first root and a further 45 minutes later and the second filled root was removed.  Phew.  I am now taking antibiotics, Nurofen and 10 salt rinses daily.   The pain is subsiding and the initial sadness of losing a tooth is going.  It made me feel sooooooo old.  It really was the best and only choice I had and hopefully I will wake up with a fresher mouth and not be permanently poking around the old tooth with my tongue all day.  Sorry, if this does not paint a pretty picture. 

I have been knitting and will post some photos next time.

 

Bump!

It was going to be just an ordinary weekend.

Plans:    to put flowers on my Mum's grave for Mother's Day
Shopping: a few ingredients to be bought for Cinnamon Buns
Gardening:   tidying up and DH getting the little fences up around the new vegetable plots
Jasper:    my Border Collie is 10 years old today

Crash, bang, wallop whilst giving way to the right and waiting patiently at a roundabout to go back into town, a docile old b*****d smashed Pepper's rear bumper.  Sophie was my passenger.  We are shaken but OK.  Too upset to speak any further - matter in the hands of my insurance company now.  It's the inconvenience of the whole thing and the "dob" never once asked if we were OK.  I've never been involved in an RTA before and let's just say the Fuzz were pretty useless. 

Long - no longer

It was time.  I've never found it difficult to ask a hairdresser to cut my hair.  In fact over the years, I've always been a bit of a follower of hair fashion.  I had long hair as a little girl and was fortunate enough to inherit the thick hair which both my parents had and, in fact, my Dad at almost 76 still has a full head of thick, wavy hair.  Believe it or not he has always washed his hair with Fairy Liquid and still uses the original type of Brylcreem and only in recent years has he gone grey.  I have straight hair which was cut into a layered cut in 1971 (think Olivia Newton John early 70s) by my Mum's hairdresser at the local department who was always know as Mr Cornelius (snigger)!  After this I grew it out and my next trend was to have it all cut again into a pageboy style.  It was considered quite daring as my friends still had their long hair.  In 1975 after a few years of very long hair, I had it cut into a short wedge shape at a trendy hairdressers in town.  I loved it but it was very difficult to style with my hair tongs and limited skills.  I grew it out and had long hair for a few more years and then in 1979, influenced by Kate Bush, I had a perm and about 5 inches cut off the length.  It was an ordinary hairdressers and the best perm I was ever to have.  But having thick, straight hair the perm doesn't stay for long.  Since then, and through the 80s, I had a succession of bobs, awful 80s layered perms (where I looked very mumsy) and medium length layered hair.  Just after Jamie was born, 19 years ago today, I had my shortest haircut ever and it was a big mistake.  I let the Australian girl who cut it, in another very trendy salon, just do what ever she liked and it looked great but it was another matter when I came home.  It seemed to take forever to grow out too.  The last year or so I have had a lot more highlights, lowlights and a semi colour in order to cover up the grey hairs which came creeping in at the sides and roots.  However, in recent months I have become increasingly fed up with my hair.  OK - it looked nice when just washed but by the second day it just looked a mess and I would never want to look like a 1661 (that's 16 from the back and 61 from the front)!  It was time for some serious decisions -  so I had 6 inches chopped off yesterday and have gone from 18 inches to 12 inches and am very happy with it.  I know I can never have it long again - those days are gone - but at least I can have it swingy and shiny and I think it suits my face better now.  Apologies to everyone who has read this far but I think everyone has at least one good physical feature and mine has only ever been my hair - so you can see how it deserves a post of its own.

Here I am - the return of the bob (Dave, you actually get to see more of my face)!!!!!!!!

A big Happy 19th to Jamie - the first year he has been away from home for his Bday, although we got to see him on Thursday and Friday which was great.

December Memories

This is the view across the fields and marshes where on Monday afternoon I went to collect Jasper after his quarterly grooming session.  The "parlour" is in the middle of the deepest Norfolk countryside next to a disused windmill and along a long and winding "unadopted" road.  Pepper is not an ideal car for this sort of journey as it is a bumpy ride.

I spent the day driving around North Norfolk doing the last bits of Christmas shopping.  It poured with rain all day so I was lucky to take a few photos in between the downpours.  There were many pretty village churches which I wanted to share with you but it was just too wet to use the camera.

The following mosaic is of Burnham Market (which is known here as Chelsea on Sea as many wealthy Londoners have second homes in this bustling village), Trimingham radar station, pink sky at Mautby and finally another view of Burnham Market.

We saw Sophie in the school Christmas show last night.  She performed in two dance numbers but unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos or make any "media" recordings (snigger) as this is school policy!  The show was excellent and Sophie is perfoming again tonight. Lots of backwards and forwards to and from school for makeup, hair, costumes and so on!

I wasn't sure whether to post today or not as it is one year today that my FIL died and my MIL has been in a nursing home for the past two months.  I don't want to harp on about it but as well as one of my favourite times of year it also holds sad memories.

Swap Joy

I received my parcel from Emily yesterday and what a lovely surprise. Emily sent items which were local to Vermont. The yarn is beautiful and is from Cherry Tree Hill (I've always coveted this yarn).  The colour is called Fall Foliage and with a name like this it couldn't fail to impress me.  I LOVE Autumn and always have.  There's something about the misty mornings and the smell of woodsmoke and bonfires in the air.  Emily also sent a pretty mug with a picture from Vermont and a gorgeous smelling lavender candle and some very tasty chocolates from Lake Champlain.  The chocolates were demolished this afternoon.  Thanks so much Emily - a great swap partner.

I've heard that Jennifer and Sigrid have got their parcels from me.  I hope we can all start adding the photos to the Yarn in a Tea Cup Swap group.  I'm off to do mine in just a moment but first a few photos from the garden this afternoon. Please move your mouse over the photo for the title.  Phew it's hot and we're promised a heatwave tomorrow!  I think I'll knit in the shade as I've so much to catch up with.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Hedonistic Monday

All our gardening plans have been put aside due to the non-stop heavy rain and high winds. Several shrubs and the beautiful peonies took a nasty knock over night.  The central heating was back on last night and the tumble drier is constantly on the go dealing with my "European Laundry Mountain".  Oh the joys of an English Bank Holiday.  The Stella Artois tennis tournament is less than three weeks away so the weather had better pick up.  So with no gardening photos to show  lest I get blown away or drown in a puddle, here follows a few photos of the little pick-me-ups I needed to keep going during my course and also to keep the "Stash" topped up.  Oh and the photo above is my newly acquired paper weight come objet d'art by Jane Raven.  Thank you Jane, for sending the parcel in record time so that I received before the Bank Holiday.  Beautiful engraving.  I've always loved stones and pebbles and just have to put one in my pocket  when I'm on the beach!  The background, is what I suppose, anyone in their twenties or younger would call "Vintage" and is an Aran jumper I made for Kevin (circa 1985) when we were still single. I can remember that the honeycomb stitch, (just showing as panels either side of the main cables), really hurt my fingers with all that twisting but it has a lovely 2 dimensional look about it.

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I do hope your Bank Holiday Monday isn't a wet one.

Done

Yesterday I had blonde highlights done in the morning and then in the afternoon I sat my timed final assignment/exam for my first year's degree OU course in Humanities.  Results will be in August.  I've just taken some photos of a few little beauties who have revealed their pretty faces over the last few days.  If you move your mouse across the photos you can see the plant name and just click to enlarge the shot.

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All the photos were taken about 7.30 pm tonight, the light was still good.  Two more photos follow the first is to record the height of our tomato plants in our greenhouse and the second is the little coffee table/foot rest to match the arbour.

Seven

I've been tagged by Sal for Seven Random Facts About Me.  I'm not sure that this is possibly a version of the  Six Weird Things tag which was doing the rounds earlier this year but here goes anyway:

1. The yarn stash is getting bigger by the week and now the end of my OU course is coming close, I really must make the effort to do more knitting.

2.  There are three types of drivers in Britain, two of which really annoy me:

i)  Those drivers who drive at 50 mph whatever the road conditions and speed limits.  They almost never use their indicators and swing out widely when turning left.  These type of drivers really shouldn't be on the road any longer.

ii)  Those with a death wish (usually male and/or BMW or Mercedes drivers or boy racers in Suzuki Swifts).  They break all the speed limits and drive as close to your rear bumper as is physically possible.  Heaven forbid if you are in the fast lane on the motorway and not driving at 100 mph plus - they will flash you to move over.

iii)  The rest of us who keep to the speed limits, tax and insure and service our vehicles and follow the rules of the HIGHWAY CODE.

3.  Good manners, a pleasant smile, a little enthusiasm and an alert manner make all the difference in my opinion.

4.  My personal annoyance at teenagers who hang around shop doorways and bus stops at night.  Very intimidating especially to the elderly.

5. I LOVE the smell of freshly baked bread, ground coffee, cut grass, hyacinths, lilies, peonies, lilac, lavender and roses.

6.  I HATE the smell of unwashed bodies especially on The Tube and in shops.  How much does a bar of soap cost?

7. Why or why do we have to suffer queues in supermarkets.  Go on work out just how much you spend in there in a year.  It's frightening.  They should roll out the red carpet for us.

I think it's turned out to be a bit of a moan by me.  All comments welcome.  Please feel free to join in and do this "Seven" tag if you wish.  Just let me know so I can go and read your lists.  Thanks.