Not on the list

Brrr, still cold here with temperatures hovering a couple of degrees above freezing during the day; no snow here, although when I drove to my voluntary job Friday morning I was really surprised to find a dusting of snow just a few miles away.  We're trying to get out if we can, even if it's just a walk into town and back.

I'm making great efforts to tackle this pile of projects in the sewing room but I seem to be adding more than making any inroads.  So yesterday I made a cover for my newly-acquired hot water bottle (since the electric blanket gave up on us we have been sharing a bottle - very cosy but not so practical!).  Road-tested last night and deemed a resounding success.  But not on the list.

Also not on the list was N's thermal gloves.  He's had them a few years and they are just so warm (having borrowed them, I can testify to this).  However, the glove cuffs are worse for wear and tear - the velcro fastening has caught and pulled the fabric badly and they really did look a mess.  I had a look at them and decided that if the damaged cuffs were removed, I could make some replacement cuffs in ribbed knitting.  So N sat and unpicked the old cuffs and I sat beside him knitting some new ones - how's that for teamwork?!  I sewed them on this morning and we're both very pleased with the finished result.  If I hadn't been able to do that, those gloves would have been thrown away; as it is, there is plenty of wear left in them so a few pounds saved with little effort.  

More meals from the freezer today - a portion of veg stew, one pot of beef rogan josh (both home-made) and some spare rice; at least it hasn't gone to waste.  To eke out the remaining frozen vegetables, N decided to investigate the carrots that he sowed back in the autumn. We didn't bother thinning them out and to be honest we had almost forgotten them. However, all is not lost - N came back with more than enough carrots for dinner tomorrow. A little pale but the taste is fantastic.  Nothing to beat home-grown veg.

I managed to catch up with the Sewing Bee this evening, and as usual I'm itching to do some dressmaking.  And I will do, just not quite yet.  The 'project pile' is still too big, but I am working on it ;))

Feathers and cosies

We've had some chilly old mornings here recently, -2 degrees a couple of times, very heavy frosts but to date no snow.  I see reports and pictures of snow 'up north' and, well, it would be nice to have something to show for the freezing temperatures here, too, but it doesn't seem to have ventured across the Solent yet.  In the meantime, I had to spend 20 minutes scraping ice from the car windscreen before I could drive to work yesterday morning, but the ice on the fields and trees was incredibly pretty, and the creek at Wootton was frozen as I drove over the bridge.

I went to the second half of the 'feathers' workshop yesterday afternoon and spent a most enjoyable three hours practising machine quilting.  It's such a treat and I was surprised how much more confident I became as the afternoon progressed.  Lots of hints and tips picked up along the way, and so many ideas and inspirations.  Now it's just a question of lots and lots of practising.  The only down side is the amount of thread I seem to be getting through - a great way of using up strange colours and oddments but I'm getting quite a collection of empty cotton reels on the window sill!

I mentioned, a few days ago, that I was knitting a hat to take away with me, but forgot to post a photo.  N refers to it as my 'tea cosy' (goodness, so sweet!) but as it keeps my head and, most importantly, my ears warm and toasty, I guess 'cosy' is a very apt description.  It's made from Shetland wool bought in Orkney, so it is very dear to me.  I used this pattern (aptly named Gin and Tonic hat!), but added a few extra rows as the wool was quite dense when knitted up and didn't slouch quite as I had hoped.   

After some deliberation, I finally decided on a self-bind for the bowtie quilt; I was going to do a separate binding but decided to opt for a bit of a short-cut. 

 I machined around the edge of the quilt, trimmed the top border fabric to about 1", the backing and wadding to 1/4", and turned the border fabric over the edging and hemmed it in place on the back.  The quilt police would probably have something to say about that but the finished result is neat and, amazingly, the opposite sides are the same length!  It's being pressed into service tomorrow - we have visitors for a couple of days - and an extra layer on their bed will not go amiss.  I'll get around to quilting it later in the week.  I feel some feathers may be in order ;-)

Being grateful

A morning at the donation centre yesterday, and a chance to catch up on everyone's Christmas and New Year news.  Things are getting a little more organised there, and I managed to get a fair amount of work done.  I always find myself pondering over the problem of 'stuff' while I'm sorting through the donations.  A lot of the goods that are donated (in good faith and for a very worthy cause) are good quality and suitable for resale through the charity shops on the local high streets, but every so often I open a bag or box that is just full of, well, rubbish.  We salvage what we can for scrap value, but sadly rubbish is rubbish, even if it has been donated in a charity bag.  When did the accumulation of all this 'stuff' become so important to us?  

Back at home, we were delighted to be given two big bags of shredding which we are mixing in to the compost bin.  We're novices at composting, and the grass cuttings and veg peelings were getting a bit sludgy, for want of a better description, so a bit of shredded paper will hopefully help the mix.  We'll wait to see in a few months time.

Lots of crafting going on here.  N has another model kit on the go, and can be found most mornings at the kitchen table, glasses perched on the end of his nose, meticulously painting some tiny piece of kit.  It's all about having the time, taking the time, and enjoying the time spent creating.  

Absolutely loving these colours!

I've been knitting (this wasn't even on the list but it was a quick and easy 'tick').  And I'm now tackling one of the projects that has been bugging me for a very long time.  It's a quilt top I began piecing many, many years (that sounds familiar, doesn't it?), and over time it has been put away, forgotten about, rediscovered, had a bit more added to it, stuffed in a bag . . . 

I have promised myself it will be the next project to be completed, and I would really like to have it done by the end of the month.  I think that may be a little optimistic but I am determined to get it finished.  Once I had spread it out on the lounge floor, I saw straightaway that I was going to have to begin by unpicking the borders, which were just too wavy for me to ignore (did I really measure those sides first?)  That was today's task, sort the borders out.  They were clearly too long, which made the edges wavy, so I've shortened and resewn each side and it all looks a lot better.  I dug around in the bag of sheets from the charity shop and have found one that will do for the backing, and I have enough offcuts, if I do a bit of joining, for the wadding.  Making do with what I have.  It's fun.  

We have had two phone calls in the past 24 hours which have served as a timely reminder to us of just how fortunate we are.  We both enjoy good health, something that is so often taken for granted but which I find I am becoming increasingly thankful for, and secondly, we are in the wonderful position of being debt-free.  We are not beholden financially to anyone, and it is the best feeling and one we made a conscious decision to achieve.  We have never regretted that decision.  It has allowed us to leave work early knowing that everything was paid for and it has given us choice and freedom.  We are happy to live within our means but we don't feel that makes us poor in any way; we are far more self-reliant than many.  Our life may be simple in comparison to some, but we consider ourselves rich in so many ways.  We have much to be grateful for. 

Monday? Already?

Lots of nesting activity in the garden recently.  This jackdaw arrived on the fence with a piece of newspaper . . .

. . . which he proceeded to pull to shreds before flying off with it.  Something to read whilst incubating eggs?

I'm sure time is on fast-forward at the moment.  It certainly seems that way.  We're skipping through the weeks and months with alarming speed and I would quite like for life just to slow down a bit.  No?  Ah well, just a dream I guess.  

We cleared and sorted lots of bagged donations on Friday - it's always satisfying if we manage to make headway into the huge pile of boxes and bags.  And the time certainly flies by.

I need to mention, very briefly, the knitting I was so thrilled about last time.  Having knitted up over two 100g-balls, I became a little concerned about the sizing.  Bearing in mind I had very, very carefully knitted up a tension square, as per the instructions, and made some alterations to the number of stitches I cast on.  (I had even enlisted N's help to ensure my calculations were correct!)  Something had gone very much amiss.  The jumper was knitting up way too big and the only solution was to unpick the whole lot.  *Sigh*  In fact, lots of *sighs*.  I was so enjoying the knitting, and now I'm back to square one with it.  

However, I did have some sewing to keep me occupied over the weekend.  I'm making a special cushion for some special people, and having bought a 22" square pad, I found out that what I actually needed was an 18" one.  A bit of cropping was required.  That was not a problem.  What was a bit of a faff was squeezing the hollow-fibre filling back into the cover.  It expands, you see, and there did seem to be an awful lot of it.  Perseverence was the key, I discovered.

We've been back to rain the last three days, and cold enough for me to need a jumper again.  The only glimpse of sun today was as it set this evening.

Through the window . . . and the raindrops!

N and I are taking a break for a few days.   We're looking forward to a little R&R, good fresh food and pleasant walks by the sea.  We'll be back, rested and refreshed and ready for a busy few weeks.

Going round in circles

The knitting I started recently has gone from two needles to one.  I'm back on a circular needle and loving it.  It seemed to make far more sense to knit the front and back of my jumper in one piece, at least up to the armholes, rather than two separate pieces with a seam either side, especially as the four balls of wool I bought in Orkney each have a slightly different range of dyes in them.  I decided the jumper would look more coherent if I knitted in bands of dye colour rather than blocks, so I unpicked an entire ball of wool (over 100g *sigh*) and started again with a circular needle.

Now I've got going again, I don't know why I don't always use a circular needle.  It's so easy - always doing knit rows for stocking stitch makes the knitting grow a lot quicker!  I've used a couple of small split rings as seam markers (I think you can buy special markers but these makeshift ones do the trick at the moment).

I've decided I like having some knitting on the go.  It's good to have something I don't really have to think too much about, I can just sit and knit, and talk or watch TV (rarely!), I can carry it round with me to different rooms or take it out into the garden.  I think 'portability' is the key here.  And I'm sure I need to make a bag (rather than using an old plastic one) to carry all my knitting paraphanalia around with me.  Best add that to the list.

Indoors, and out

Indoors:

•          beautiful shoes (worn just once several years ago) deserving of another outing, perhaps to a wedding?  

•           finally beginning to knit that lovely Shetland wool I bought in Orkney last year.  It is so soft to work with, and the dyes are just sumptuous.  

• remember the milk jug?  Well, meet the matching tea pot!  We couldn't believe our eyes - and our luck - when we unwrapped this little treasure at work this week.  

The chances of matching milk jug and tea-pot turning up a week apart in different donation boxes are pretty remote, but it happened.  We were thrilled, to say the least, and bought it there and then.  There is a small chip inside the rim of the teapot but N has managed to file it down a little.  We couldn't wait to make our first pot of tea in it; of course, the tea was lovely!

Outdoors:

• new leaves glowing in the sunlight this afternoon, 

•  and celandines in the hedgerow adding a splash of bright yellow.

•  matching boiler-suits drying on the line, having had a well-deserved wash (I suspect for the first time, judging by the colour of the water!).  

Clean work overalls may be called upon in the coming weeks and months ;-)

A labour of love

Finally the jumper is finished!

Almost completed in time for Valentine's Day but N says it was worth waiting for - it is wonderful to make clothes for someone who is so appreciative of the time and effort that goes them.  The jumper fits a treat which is a bit of a bonus, given the number of times I've had to unpick it and the fact it was knitted without a pattern :-o  

The moss stitch and garter stitch detail on the yoke and at the top of the sleeves has worked very well, and although I had misgivings about knitting the welt in moss stitch, it actually looks well on and I guess that's the main thing.  Do you see the little bit of dark-coloured wool at the back of the neckband?  Apparently the front and the back look the same to N - he asked for a marker so he didn't put the jumper on back to front!! 

More wind and rain.  Yesterday on the way home from volunteering the roads were completely awash with run-off from the fields.  At one point the water was right across the road, several inches deep - I've not seen flooding there before.  N took some photos on his mobile but I haven't got them transferred to the laptop yet.  In addition to all the rain falling, there is now so much groundwater it is forcing it's way up to the surface in the most amazing ways - we even saw it coming up between the kerbstones and the tarmac of a pavement, gushing out in a fountain - quite bizarre to see.  Everyone has fingers crossed that the weather is going to calm down a little over the next few days, hopefully giving some respite to those people badly affected by the flooding.  

And finally, on a quick dash to the garden in between the rain, I spied the first crocuses of the year, hopefully a sign that Spring may be lurking just around the corner.  It's certainly been a grey, wet and windy old winter but the evenings are gradually pulling out, the sun sets a little further along the skyline each day, and new life in the garden lifts the spirit and reminds me I have much to be thankful for.  Sometimes I try to make life too complicated when in fact it is the simple things which are likely to put a smile on my face.

Unravelled

The knitting, that is . . . . 

 I don't think I have ever unpicked a knitting project as many times as I have this one :-((   Both sleeves have been knitted up (and cast off) only for me to discover they needed to be altered, so unpicked several inches.  Goodness, is this proving to be a test of my patience.  

However, I am determined to finish this jumper before I start another project - they are lined up ready and waiting! - so I am taking my time and plodding on.  The sleeves are now done again, and fitting so much better; it was worth all the unravelling.  Only the neckline to pick up and knit, then seams to be sewn to finish off.  I am very thankful N is so patient in waiting for this jumper; I certainly didn't expect it to take this long to knit.  I think the moral of this particular story is, in future, use a pattern!

This week has seen yet more rain and high wind.  Across the country floods and gales have wreaked havoc.  And more on the way.  We try to take advantage of a dry couple of hours to get out and walk, even if it's only into town and back, otherwise I think we might get a little 'stir-crazy'.

We are still waiting for quotes for building work.  I can understand that in this weather tradesmen may not be keen to go and price a job up, or that roofers are probably all busy dealing with loose slates and ridge tiles, but if that's the case, please just tell us.  Don't say 'yes, I'll get back to you in a couple of days' if it's not going to happen; there's only so many times we can chase for quotes.  We feel a bit helpless at the moment, just waiting.  Again, perhaps a lesson in patience.  

The local birds tend to take shelter in the worst of the weather, so we don't tend to see many of them unless there's a break in the rain.  In the high winds even the bigger birds get blown about by the gusts.  

This jackdaw was on the fence earlier this morning, they have very 'beady' eyes: 

 and a little later, this pied wagtail was out and about - it's long tail is constantly 'wagging' up and down as it walks.

One of my tasks this week was to cut my hair.  It lasts for about 6 weeks between cuts and seems to go from 'OK' to 'really not OK' almost overnight!  That's when the scissors have to come out and I spend half an hour in front of the bathroom mirror.  It may not be a professional cut but it's generally not too bad at all.  The only bit I struggle with is at the nape of my neck and thankfully N is usually on hand to tidy that bit up for me ;-).  Job done and a few £s saved, not to mention a little less grey hair for a few weeks!

Grafting on the shortest day!

It's the shortest day of the year today.  There were Winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, and here it rained and blew hard all day.  Damp, grey and dismal, but in my mind I can look forward to the days ahead getting longer, even if it is only by a few minutes each day.  And when I was in the garden yesterday, I caught sight of a daffodil shoot just breaking the surface of the soil - in December, for goodness sake!  But it is yet another little ray of hope that Spring follows the dark days of Winter.  We also give a thought to our 'second' home of Orkney, where the daylight is even less.  

So, onto the 'grafting'.  Hard work?  Well, yes, for me, as I'd not done this before.  I've finally reached the point of dealing with the shoulder seams of N's jumper, and as the body was done in the round, I felt the shoulder seams should be grafted, not sewn with a seam.  I had to look this method up, and after a couple of false starts (I really do need to pay attention!), I got the hang of it and have ended up with two grafted shoulder seams I am happy with.

I want the sleeves to be knitted up in the round too, but at the moment I'm trying to decide how many stitches to pick up around the armhole.  It's all very trial and error, as the whole jumper has been, and I think in future I ought to stick with a printed pattern; I'm finding the whole uncertainty surrounding the project rather unnerving =:o

We had a lovely time yesterday with friends, enjoying their hospitality and good food.  We seem to be on the same 'wavelength' about many things which is probably why we get on so well.  Without going into details, our get-together yesterday did all of us a lot of good - a bit of a kick-start that we were all looking for but had yet to quite find.  N and I so appreciated the effort that our friends had gone to - the decorations and attention to detail on the dinner table were beautiful, and made us realise that those little touches are important, and really do make a difference.  We both felt that is something we want to make more effort with at home.  It started us thinking about quite a few ideas and we feel that we will start the new year with many positives to take forward.  We have our friends to thank for that.  

We had Grandson No 1 with us this afternoon; he did a sterling job of keeping the two of us entertained!  Several rounds of I-Spy, Ludo (although that seems to go by a different name these days), a bit of footie on the television, and the afternoon whizzed by.  

We're keeping fingers crossed regarding the weather for tomorrow as my daughter is travelling to us for Christmas.  We'll check the ferry websites for any cancellations, but hopefully we'll see her tomorrow afternoon :))

Time slipping through our fingers

I't's Friday again, it's almost December, the year's end is in sight.  How has this happened?  Where's the time gone?  And why does it seem to be slipping through our fingers so quickly?  I just don't seem to be able to get a grip of it.

Perhaps I'm not supposed to.  Maybe I just need to ensure I make the most of every second, every minute and every day, and go to bed knowing that I didn't waste the most precious gift we have - time.  It's a thought that's with me constantly.

N and I are both aware that now we are not working for a living, the time we have should be well spent.  We go through periods where we feel we have not made the best use of our time, and that frustrates us, as we know we should do better.  We have come to the realisation that we would actually benefit from a certain amount of structure in our weeks - there are times when we lose track of what day it is.  It's strange that having left a job that was very highly structured, we're now feeling that some degree of structure can actually be helpful.  So, this week we have made some decisions and taken one or two steps to try to address this; we're excited about these prospects and hopefully can share our plans soon.

In the meantime, N has been pottering in his shed reconstructing the bird-box he made earlier in the autumn.  While he was busy, with the shed door open to make the most of the sunny day, he was delighted to have some company in the shape of the little robin who has been frequenting the garden recently.  The robin hopped right inside the shed to check the woodwork was up to scratch!  It's little moments like this that we have learned to really appreciate.

The jumper, before it was unpicked this evening!

I have a number of needlework projects on the go and try to add a little to each one every day.  N's jumper is becoming a labour of love; it's been unpicked more  than any other knitting project I've done before, and this evening I've had to unpick yet more.  This, I am learning, is the problem of not working to a pattern!  I'm sure it is teaching me patience - a quality I don't always have huge amounts of - and as the wool is so lovely to knit with, I guess it's just extending the pleasure of knitting for a little longer (although I would like to have it finished this side of Christmas!)

A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned the glass vases in the lounge, sorting through the shells and stones that we have collected on various holidays.  To solve the problem of dust gathering inside the vases, I decided to make some little cloth covers, weighted down with shells and stones.  I finished one today, and another is on it's way.  I had fun collected little stones with holes in them, and N has drilled tiny holes in some shells which I can also use.  At some point I shall probably do some embroidery on them too.

Yesterday we were on 'school-collection' duty, and spent a lovely couple of hours entertaining (or should that be, being entertained by?) grand-daughter No 1.  Grandad now knows all the members of 'One Direction'!!

A place for everything, and everything in it's place

Order is beginning to materialise from the chaos in the lounge.  Painting completed; wallpapering almost there.  Furniture has been moved into it's final positions and one or two pieces will be heading off to the charity shop in due course.  We have taken the opportunity to do some more decluttering as we go and making sure we store things in the appropriate place, so we don't have the problem of wondering where we've put them!  And those pesky shelves?  Well, one unit has found it's way back into the lounge but it looks so much better against the newly decorated wall so we're quite happy. 

 

A place for some figurines N collected during his travels in the Far East

It hasn't cost a great deal at all, we've recycled and reused bits of furniture and fittings and done all the decorating ourselves.  Best of all, we love how it looks now.  All in all, a very positive and productive start to the week.

After a couple of lovely bright, crisp days, today started off in typical November fashion - damp, misty, grey and cold.  It did brighten a little when we popped into town for a walk.  In the space of just a few days, many of the trees are looking really bare, more leaves on the ground than on the branches.  

The knitting (I must remember a photo tomorrow) is coming on a treat now.  As I suspected, the first jumper was unpicked yesterday and the wool rewound.  I'm making progress knitting the body 'in the round' but I know at some point a final decision on the patterning for the yoke will have to be made.  I'd love to do something fancy and intricate but I think the reality will be something a little less complicated.  As N has said several times, no one else will have a jumper like his, and it was really all about the lovely wool, not the fancy stitches.   

A coat of paint

What a glorious autumn day we had today.  Clear, bright blue skies and the sun streaming through the bay windows almost all the day.  It certainly raised our spirits.

We have started decorating the lounge.  The rest of the flat is having to accommodate bits and pieces of furniture and 'stuff' that's homeless for a few days, and there seems to be trailing cables and leads everywhere - might need to do something about those.

I've said it before and I will say again that N and I make a pretty good decorating team.  While N took the old wall paper off, I started the process of 'cutting in' around the top of the wall.  It requires a bit of patience and a narrow paintbrush to paint the underneath edge of the plaster cornices, but I actually enjoy that, and I think doing a lot of sewing helps with a steady hand.  

By the end of the day we had half a wall papered, and one wall with it's first coat of paint (and all the 'cutting in' completed).  We're pleased with how things are progressing, though the day has not been without the occasional hiccup; the very first piece of wallpaper had to be taken off again after it ripped badly (note to self - be sparing with the paste); I managed to drop my glasses in the tub of emulsion; and the paintbrush fell out of the window!  The first mishap was annoying but we could see the funny side to the other two.

We've obviously had to move the furniture around to accommodate two pairs of stepladders, and when we were trying to get some semblance of order back into the room when we packed up for the day, N put the bookcase against the nearest wall, and not it's original place.  Wouldn't you know, it works really well in it's new position.  And that means the shelving unit we took off the wall, the one we had thought of replacing (with the shelves we bought on the mainland that we now don't like), that original unit will probably go back where it was to begin with and look much better.  Isn't it always the way?  We'll wait until the decorating is finished, but it looks like we may have gone full circle with regards to the shelving issue.  

In between painting, I'm making progress with the jumper.  Actually, I've started a second jumper because I just wasn't quite happy with the way the first one was going.  I'll give it a few more rows but I think the first one may be unpicked before the weekend is over.  It's just as well I enjoy knitting ;-)

All in all, a positive and productive day, and we both feel better for it.

A day out shopping? Not for me.

We went to the mainland today to do some shopping.  It's not something we do very often at all now, and we won't be going again in any hurry!  We had a specific shopping list of things to buy at particular shops we don't have on the Island so we were actually quite confident we would be successful in our quest, but we returned home disheartened and disillusioned.  To begin with, I was after some fabric to finish off the 30th birthday quilt - now in danger of becoming a 'Christmas' quilt, but my daughter is very understanding - but even with two big floors of fabric to look at, nothing was remotely suitable.  N, on the other hand, fell in love with some material he felt sure would make a great summer shirt, so that's another little sewing project for next year - cheers!

Never mind, on to the next store.  We are looking for an oven for when the kitchen is re-done but that's not proving straightforward either.  There is, we've decided, just too much choice these days.  Too many functions and gadgets - all we need an oven to be able to do is cook food for us, at a suitable price, energy-efficiently, preferably fan-assisted and with a reasonable capacity.  We'll get there, it's just wearing us out a tad.

By this time we were both fed up.  We simply don't do shopping like this any more.  We had looked forward to a day out across the water, but it wasn't meeting our expectations.  We're not interested in browsing department stores, searching for 'something' to buy just because we could, our days of that sort of needless acquisition are over and we're quite glad about that.  

Our final destination was a very large retail store for household goods (the store that's blue and yellow!).  Again we had a list, a very short list, and we are very good at ignoring everything else.  Having been obliged to wend our way through all the levels, assiduously avoiding having our heads turned by things we didn't need, we finally reached the warehouse area, only to find the one item we had gone all the way over for was out of stock!  We stood there and looked at the empty space on the shelving, muttered a few choice phrases, and vowed we wouldn't bother again.  In future, we'll find what we need on the Island.  As I said, we were disheartened - we both felt we could have made far better use of our day.  We're not shoppers at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.  We couldn't wait to get home for a nice cup of tea.

This is my knitting pattern for N's North Ronaldsay jumper - lots of figures on a scrap of paper and a pencil sketch!

The knitting, on the other hand, is progressing well after a rather tentative start.  Knitting in the round is great, I'm loving it, all rows being knit rows, but I never actually come to the end of the needles.  I'm so used to saying:  'I'll stop when I reach the end of the row', but I never get there!  However, I'm really enjoying the relaxation of knitting; it's something I can do almost without having to think to hard about it.

The only problem is that the wool 'sheds' little bits (I think it's the way it has been spun) as it is knitted, so I've taken to having an old sheet on my lap as I knit - it's not a fashion statement, but at least I don't end up covered in bits.

At the end of a frustrating day we had a beautiful sunset, just what we needed to soothe our rather frayed nerves.  The colours were just lovely. 

Spuds, and knitting

Earlier this year we bought a 25kg bags of locally-grown potatoes that saw us through till our own crops were ready.  Yesterday we bought another bag of local spuds as we have now finished all our home-grown ones.  

The variety is Marfona, and we have tried them mashed, and very tasty they are.  We have no objection to the fact they come with a fair amount of good honest Island soil still attached to them!  We paid £6.95 for the bag; it works out at about 28p/kg which is a lot less than we would pay in the supermarket.  The bag should keep us going for quite some time.

It's been a bit wet here for the last couple of days, not a light drizzle but more of a steady downpour.  However it cleared up briefly this afternoon and I managed to get out for a brisk walk for an hour or so.  I'd been getting a bit 'cooped up' indoors and really enjoyed the fresh air - two and a half miles round the town was just right.  It may be urban walking, but there's usually something of interest that catches my attention - this afternoon it was an old-fashioned drop-leaf writing bureau in a second-hand shop that warranted a second look.  I didn't take my purse so I wasn't tempted to spend, but I may take N to show him as we are thinking of a new desk in the bedroom.  On the subject of furniture, we retrieved a dismantled cupboard from the loft this morning, and N put it together to try it out in stead of the very dark unit the TV currently sits on.  We were both amazed at how well the cupboard fits in; it's made that corner look much lighter.  With the added bonus of much needed storage space, we can hopefully now find a permenant home for some paperwork.  N wants to give the cupboard a bit of a spruce up over the next few days and then we can start moving things into it.

I have finally started knitting a jumper for N with the beautiful North Ronaldsay wool we bought on our trip to Orkney last May.  I think it may prove to be a challenge ;-).   I have spent quite a bit of time on the internet researching traditional gansey jumpers to reflect this very special wool.  The traditional fishermen's jumper  is usually knitted in very fine wool on fine needles and showcases wonderful intricate and very traditional patterning.  The wool we have is aran weight and after much consideration N has decided he is happy with a much plainer design, letting the wool itself carry the jumper.  I don't have a written pattern as such, so I'm 'winging' it just a little, using another jumper for sizing, and information I have gleaned from various websites on shaping etc.  I have worked a tension square to determine my gauge (which rather inconveniently seems to fall between two options) and have had the calculator out to work out the number of stitches.  To date I have cast on with 4mm and 4.5mm needles, and various number of stitches, all of which have been unpicked with growing frustation!   I took a break for a while, started afresh with 5mm needles and a different number of stitches, and it all seems to be going a lot better.  I was advised by the lady who sold us the wool to knit the body of the jumper 'in the round', something I've not tried before, so I'm looking forward to tackling that and hopefully becoming competent in a new technique - I did look up a couple of videos for advice on YouTube.  Hopefully I shall have some photos of knitting progress soon.

Not much is growing in the greenhouse at present, except this apple seedling (the other only has two leaves, although it does still seem to be alive), and the four lavender cutting I took at the end of summer.  I check on them every so often and hopefully they can all be successfully nurtured through the winter.

Depending on the weather tomorrow morning, we may be supporting the U9s football, or we may be curled up on the settee with a good book (him) and knitting (me)!  It's screen-free Sunday and I shall try to be good.