Upward dog, inhale

Sorry about the pause! I have had a rather busy and exhausting couple of weeks, but am now recovering.

I have been so exhausted that... shock horror... I have done hardly any knitting. I finished off these socks on Boxing Day, but the ones in the previous post are still languishing. I messed up one of the heels, didn't notice until the sock was nearly done, and am still psyching myself up to rip it back.



Still, you don't care about my socks. You want to know how the yoga is going.

My sister and I have now had four classes and are enjoying it. We are doing Ashtanga yoga, which is fairly energetic, although not so energetic that you seriously break a sweat. Our teacher is very nice; she's Spanish, and as a consequence we are probably learning all the words for the different positions with a Spanish accent.

To begin with, we both found it quite tough going: after the first class, I couldn't raise my arms for a few days, while S had a sore, um, gluteus. We seem to be adapting, though I wouldn't say I'm precisely graceful yet. Most of the others in the class are students, although one girl has started bringing her mum, so I'm no longer the oldest in the class. Probably still the chunkiest. But I'm managing OK.

On Monday evening I tried something new: I made a sock monkey.



Sock monkeys have a whole history in the US, but they're practically unknown over here. I think they're cute, though. And surprisingly easy and quick to make. I also like the fact that you do almost all the sewing before you have to cut into the socks, and that one monkey uses up one pair of socks, with hardly any wastage. (These were cheapo knee socks, cost £1.49).

The instructions I used are here.

Sock monkeys are very good at yoga.



I don't know if anyone noticed (other than Mum), but the comments on my last post contain one from J! A rather scathing one, frankly, but still. He excuses himself by saying that he's never commented on a blog before and doesn't know the etiquette. (Honestly. You'd think it was 2003.)

2010

Despite the fact that I was quite happy saying "nineteen-whatever" for the first twenty years of my existence, I am having trouble thinking that this year is "twenty-ten". I'm sticking with "two thousand'n ten" for now, although I hear that most people seem to be quite happy saying "the twenty-twelve Olympics".

I'm hoping that this decade will have a good last year. I will finish my thesis. Maybe we will move house (though I'm sticking with "maybe").

Just now, our own house seems quite big and commodious since the Christmas tree went back in the loft. We have to move the sofa to accommodate it, so we lose a bit of floor in the living room; strange how much difference it makes.

During December, the guinea pigs' living space underwent some renovations:



They're now on a fleece blanket (over newspaper) instead of wood shavings. The wood shavings get kicked on to the carpet, and they also create huge amounts of dust, which was annoying for us and possibly not that healthy for the piggies. The room's been much less dusty since we swapped, and the pigs seem to like the fleece.

They also now have a play-pen in the spare room (which folds away when we need the room), which is what we were making in my last post. I tried to get some pictures and video of them trotting about in it, without much success yet - it's been too dark.



We have not been as badly affected by the snow as... well, as most people we know. Our street is very snowy, but it's not on a slope and we don't have a car, so it could be worse. The main roads are clear, the buses haven't stopped running and the supermarket is within walking distance. It could be a lot worse.

The beasties, of course, are not hugely disadvantaged by the snow (though it would come over their ears if they went out in it). They do seem to think it's hibernation season, though:



It seems like the weather for knitting.



No, I haven't gone completely nuts - these are the toes of socks which I'm making for a "travelling knitalong" (the sock gets passed around a group of five people, each of whom knit a section and finally get their original socks back again). Should be fun. They make good guinea pig hats, don't they?

I cast on a non-travelling sock on the bus when I went to meet up with Loth and Mum on Monday. Mum said she was disappointed by my lack of progress a couple of hours later. I dunno - I don't knit particularly fast, and I thought this was quite good for one day's knitting...



This was rather a rambly post, wasn't it?

In other news, my sister and I are signing up to do a yoga class this year, so as to be calm and serene. "And to have thighs the size of pencils" - sister. Wish us luck with that one.

Busy busy busy

I have been grinding on with various useful tasks today, none of which were terribly exciting until the evening, when I went to B&Q to buy materials for a Mystery Piggy Project. The boy and I then did some sawing and sanding. Pictures when we finish!

(See what I do to try to induce some dramatic tension?)

Then we built the Billy Bookcase which has been languishing in our spare room for two weeks. It looks beautifully empty now, but I promise it won't stay like that.



The books in the picture are not in any kind of arrangement - they were hanging about on the landing waiting to be reshelved. I keep all my fiction in alphabetical order, which may be a little mad as it means that if I buy a new book by Margaret Atwood, everything after "Atwood" has to be shuffled along. Still, I can always find everything.

Other things that happened today: some yarn arrived in the post and I spent some time admiring its beauty:



It's going to be stripy socks. I need to finish my current socks first, though!

And the Christmas Elf arrived. A little late - he should really have been here yesterday, but he's a busy elf. Every home should have one.



By the way, if you are currently elfless, my mother is having a giveaway at her blog which includes this elf's cousin, among other Christmassy prizes. The deadline is the 8th of December.

And now I must go to bed as it's midnight!

(In answer to questions in comments: they're silicone muffin cups, from our local budget supermarket - for some reason they do really nice cookware! And the potatoes are Pink Fir Apple and you don't need to peel them; they're the waxy type that are best boiled.)

Happy Advent!

Or, if you're not contemplating the advent of anything in particular, Happy December.

Sorry. NaBloPoMo was a resounding Fail this year. I don't know quite what happened, but I lost the rhythm somewhere there.

Still, new month, new attempt to blog a bit. Two weeks ago, rather to my surprise, I managed to sort out my annual leave for the year. Because of various events beyond my (or anyone's) control, I had a lot left - more than I had working days left this year, in fact.

And they're letting me take them. I don't have to work again in 2009 :)



This is something of a boon as I have this thesis to finish. The original plan was to have a first draft in by Christmas. I don't know whether I'll manage that, but it's looking a lot more likely than it was.

In addition to which, I have had time to do things like dig up our homegrown potatoes (see above) and make chocolate-cherry cupcakes.



The cupcakes are very good indeed. Possibly not health food. Oh well, chocolate has antioxidants in it...

Petty scofflaws

So apparently it is the law that you can't go to IKEA without buying tealights and napkins (see yesterday's comments).

Well, I may be incriminating myself here, but we didn't buy either of those. In the interests of full disclosure, this is what we came home with:

* A steel vegetable dish with a ceramic lid
* Four white pasta bowls
* A washing-up brush
* A sieve
* The famous salad spinner
* A shower curtain
* Two venetian blinds (for the bathroom and the downstairs loo)
* A Billy bookcase

J is not very big on candles, being afraid of fire, so I don't think I have ever bought tealights from IKEA. We have a small box of Sainsbury's Basics ones in case of powercuts, but they have remained unopened since we moved here, I think.

Come to think of it, I would normally call little candles in metal casings "nightlights". What's the connection with tea? Do you put them under your samovar, if you happen to have such a thing?

Neither the venetian blinds nor the Billy have been assembled yet. My family have meanwhile been suggesting that buying a new Billy is a bad idea, because it may provide more book storage but doesn't address the real problem, which is that I buy too many books. A bit like extracting oil from tar sands.

I have pointed out that it was J's idea to buy another Billy (which may make him an enabler of my book addiction, but there we go). Also, if you have lots of books, you're sequestering carbon. Right?

Crisis over?

We now have a theory about why the piggies were nibbled (though not who did it). I mentioned it can be a sign of stress.

Last week we had to remove their little wooden house temporarily on a couple of occasions, because they had got it wet and it had to be cleaned and dried out (guinea pigs don't do well in damp conditions). This definitely freaked them out a bit and they all crammed into the other shelter, which they don't normally sleep in. I wonder if that's when the nibbling happened.

In any case, we have made a trip to the petshop and bought them a new plastic house, which will be readily washable and should give them a safe place to hide even if we have to take their wooden house out again. You're really supposed to provide one hiding-place per pig, and while we had the wooden house, a cardboard tube, and a shelter, we didn't have a spare if any needed to be removed.

No more nibbling has taken place. Fingers crossed.

We also went to IKEA yesterday and bought various household items, including a salad spinner. Apparently my husband has always yearned for one. Known him for eleven years, but he can still surprise me!

So we are not going to worry too much, and going out for Sunday lunch. See you later!

Good news, bad news

J's parents are here, which is lovely. It is J's dad's birthday today, which is also good.

Not so good is that two of our piggies, Brownie and Pumpkin, seem to have nibbled patches in their fur, on their cheeks - which means that they didn't do it themselves. This is known as barbering and it's not a good thing - it can be a sign of stress or aggression, and can be a forerunner of biting. The un-nibbled pig is Cupcake, who is about as aggressive as a cotton-wool ball, as far as we can tell.

So maybe Brownie and Pumpkin are doing it to each other? But it seems very odd that the patches would be in exactly the same place, which they are. We've never seen any of them behaving aggressively, so it's hard to tell.

I have posted for advice on a guinea pig forum and am awaiting developments. We do tend to worry about our piggies' health far more than we probably need to; but then they can't talk, so they can't tell us if something's wrong.

Whatever is wrong, it's not life-threatening and we can take them to the vet next week if we need to. Think about something positive.

It's six weeks until Christmas! I feel fairly positive about this; I like Christmas. Yesterday I saw that they had started to put up the Winter Wonderland amusements on Princes Street. I've never been on the big wheel, but I like the way it looks.

Fusion music

As I cycled home tonight* after doing a bit of late-night shopping, I passed one of the touristy shops selling Scottish souvenirs that infest the centre of Edinburgh. You can usually tell when you're getting near one because of the very loud piped bagpipe music which will be blaring out. (I'm really glad I don't live above one.)

The music sounded a bit odd. As I was stopped at a set of traffic lights, I had a minute or two to listen to it.

It was the Can-Can. Arranged for massed pipes.



*Don't worry, Mum, I had my lights and my new helmet and everything.

A red hat

I went back to work and tackled my e-mail backlog, as you do.

Then I came home, and tried on the latest product of my needles, which had been drying out after being blocked (soaked in water and re-shaped).



I like red hats. A significant proportion of all the hats I've ever owned have been red. Maybe it's the result of early exposure to the Amazon pirates.

Anyway, this red hat is particularly fine because the cables get bigger from the crown following the Fibonacci sequence. I don't suppose Captain Nancy would have been terribly impressed with that, but I like it.



Brownie's not that impressed, either.

Nothingy kind of day

So most people seem to much prefer either summer or winter?

I don't feel as strongly about it as I used to - when I was a teenager I actively disliked summer. Partly, I suspect, because I didn't like wearing summer clothes because the choice seemed to be between "revealing" and "frumpy" and because I felt hot and pink and undignified.

These days I'm not quite so self-conscious, and also I garden, so I like the period when everything's blooming or fruiting. And I like the light. Not good at waking up when it's dark. But I do like cooler weather, in general - maybe I have a tendency to hibernate.

Today was a nothingy kind of day in which I typed up stuff for the Dreaded Thesis, interspersed with brief bouts of messing around on Ravelry. Sorry. Some days are like that. I did cuddle my little furry friends several times, and fed them grapes.



Do not get between a guinea pig and her grape.

I go back to work tomorrow after my two-week-plus absence with the Virus. That'll come as a shock to the system...

Frosty morning

This was the view from my bedroom window this morning - the first frost of the year. It was pretty chilly when I ventured out to go to the supermarket.

Although I feel slightly cheated if it's cold and rainy in summer, I never mind the cold in autumn or winter. To every thing there is a season, and all that. I would rather deal with cold weather than hot weather, because I find it much easier to warm up than cool down.

Besides, I prefer winter clothes to summer clothes any day. There's something satisfying about getting out the flannel pyjamas and long socks and woolly scarves and hats. I like to be prepared for all eventualities, though it must be said that our winters aren't really very harsh in southern Scotland. I might feel differently if I had to struggle through feet of snow.

Even without severe cold, though, the onset of autumn is a good excuse to do a bit of nesting at home, and to wrap up and go for brisk walks.

And to contemplate knitting woolly socks.

Woolfest!

Yesterday got off to a very good start. We made good time down the A1 (we had borrowed Mum and Dad's car for the day). J does not love driving, but it was one of those bright crisp autumn days and there was no traffic to speak of.

St Abbs is not a big place and even with my less than reliable sense of direction, we had no trouble finding the community hall. However, there were no alpacas (or angora goats) outside this time. C'est la vie. I suppose autumn isn't really baby goat season.

We had slightly more difficulty getting into the hall for some reason - the door should have been perfectly obvious, but we ended up circumnavigating the hall completely before we could get in. Oops. But once we were in, we were greeted with tables covered as far as the eye could see in lovely colours:



It wasn't very long before I encountered Ysolda (Edinburgh's local superstar designer) and Jeni of Fyberspates, who I hadn't met before, but who dyes some of my favourite yarns. I bought my first skein of Fyberspates yarn at the last Woolfest in March, and several more have followed - it's all so pretty and lovely to knit with.

I said I would look at all the yarn before investing in any, but I became entrapped by a lovely skein of chunky green twirly yarn in the Fyberspates bargain tub and had to buy it before anyone else did.



It was only £2! Major bargain. It's very, very soft. After this triumph J and I fortified ourselves with tea and scones before looking at the rest of the stalls.



At most of them, something like the following conversation took place:

Me: Feel this: isn't it soft? It's got cashmere in it. And look what a lovely colour!
J: Very nice. What could you make with that?
Me: Oh, socks. Or a little shawl. Or some fingerless gloves, maybe.
J: Mmmm.
Me: I suppose £12 is a bit expensive for socks. Hmmm, look, this one's pretty too. It might be harder-wearing. Maybe I should get this one.
J: Yes, it's nice too.

And so on. The boy deserves a medal.

In the end, I bought two skeins of sock yarn (a bright springy green from The Yarn Yard, and a green/blue/purple Sheila's Sock Yarn from Fyberspates) and the blue skein in the photo above. I think this was very restrained.

Then J and I went for a little scenic walk around St Abbs.





I don't know if you can read this (click for bigger), but the sign says "Harbourmaster's Office".



"It looks suspiciously like a shed" - J.



Unlike when I was there in March and nearly froze and blew away over the North Sea, the weather was calm and still. There were some people at the harbour preparing to go scuba diving.



By now it was mid-afternoon and already starting to look a little evening-ish. The light goes early in Scotland after the equinox. We headed back up the hill and drove off to a country pub - unfortunately arriving after they had finished serving lunch. Oops again. They did us a very nice lemonade and packet of crisps each, though, and we may go back for their beer festival next week - J undoubtedly deserves an outing of his choosing after his patience with my wool-gathering!

We had a lovely time

and I'll tell you all about it tomorrow!

The alpacas didn't materialise, but the scones did. I did indeed meet some Ravellers. And I have four nice new woolly colourful bundles to play with.

I leave the house

Today I wrapped myself up in a big coat and ventured out into the rain to go and have lunch with my sister. Our offices are just a couple of streets apart, so we try to do this every week, and it's so lovely to see her.

I handed over the mitts - they fit, and L seems pleased with them (though she would never ever let me know if she wasn't, because she's lovely!) I am pleased with them myself - they're the best mitts I've done yet, I think, and the neatest as regards the finishing off. I didn't have any holes to sew up at the thumb joint, which is a first.

After lunch I wandered down to John Lewis and bought a clear acrylic desk-tidy thingy in which to put all the notebooks that live on our telephone shelf. Then I went to the café for a cup of peppermint tea. I know how to live.

Tomorrow J and I are going to the Woolfest in St Abb's, a village in the Borders. I am going to look at all the nice yarn (and maybe, just maybe, buy some). J is going because... well, because he's a good husband, really. And he can drive and I can't. I have told him there will probably be alpacas, which are cute, and tea and scones. I hope it lives up to my build-up!

More about knitting and guinea pigs

This is great. The way this is going, I can spend the entire month just answering the comments... well, maybe not. But the snag about starting this in a week when I was recovering from being ill is that I haven't done very much other than knit.

Answers!

Anna wants to know if guinea pigs go to sleep on you (presumably while you're knitting) or move about.

Guinea pigs are weird animals - most of them don't sleep very much at all. They alternate between twenty minutes of moving about and twenty minutes of sitting still - but looking perfectly alert - all day and all night. How they get by on so little sleep is a mystery as yet unsolved by science. It's thought that they take micro-naps but never sleep deeply at all.

I've known some guinea pigs for years without ever seeing them close their eyes. We do see Pumpkin and Cupcake catnapping, but Brownie is pretty much always alert. Cupcake is the sleepiest pig I've ever known, but even she has only gone to sleep outside her cage once (when she was a baby).

They do sit fairly still when they're on our laps, though. A restless pig is usually a pig that needs a toilet break.

Loth, I'm sorry that I can't show them knitting. Can I offer you an intelligent mouse instead?



Meanwhile, I have finished knitting the mitts for my sister. They were a commission rather than a surprise, so I feel I can show you photos without any trouble:





You can see the lacy bit better in the second photo, but I thought I'd better put the first one up just to prove I did knit two! The other knitted thing is a hat, not knitted by me, from which I copied the lace pattern.

Knitting with guinea pigs

Loth wants to know how you knit with guinea pigs.

Well, to be honest I don't.

I have crocheted a guinea pig:



And they often help me take photographs of finished projects:



But frankly, when it comes to the actual knitting, they're not that helpful.

She feels accomplished

Today I succeeded in reverse-engineering a very simple lace motif.

This may mean nothing to you if you don't knit, but it represents a step forward in my knitting abilities. Previously I have managed to knit lace, sort of, by following the directions blindly without knowing what the different stitches actually do. Now I can - just about - look at a knitted item (provided it's not too complicated) and work out roughly how it was made.

The current project is a pair of fingerless mitts for my sister - they're working out nicely so far. I didn't invent the whole pattern - it's adapted from this one, which I've knitted before and is simple and very comfortable. I am so grateful to all the people who put free patterns up!

(clears throat) Is this thing on?

Hello world!

I haven't felt like blogging for ages and ages. But since it's November, month of Nablopomo, I feel inspired to give it another go.

In the interim I've been away twice (to Crieff and to Norfolk) and spent a lot of time thinking about Freedom of Information for my thesis, knitting and playing with my guinea pigs.

OK, maybe that's not very exciting. So I'm going to set a goal for November, which is to do (at least) one fun and interesting thing every week, and write about it. It may be generally interesting. It may only be interesting to me. We'll see how it works out. I'll tag the relevant entries "Thing".

This week's Thing may have to be quiet and gentle as I'm recovering from a nasty virus, but I have to start somewhere!

Socialising

In the past few weeks, I have had something approaching a social life. I spent a lovely day with Rosemary Riveter and her parents, and we went to the current exhibition in the Queen's Gallery (The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life. It was good, especially as Rosie looks at pictures for about as long as I do.)

Then later in the week, I went to the knit night at K1 Yarns, which was very pleasant. I met lots of lovely people, including Wendy aka Tartanqueen, who I know from Ravelry. I also got quite a lot of sock knitted simply because I could knit uninterrupted for a couple of hours. I wasn't able to go back last week because I had to collect my bike (it was in the workshop - I managed to break the axle!) but I'm sure I will return. And I'll bring my crocheted guinea pig as requested.

Last weekend my parents-in-law made a flying visit. J took Friday off work to entertain them, which was just as well since somehow I failed to realise in advance that they were leaving on Sunday morning. (Whenever I think I'm getting better at knowing what's going on and organising myself accordingly, I do something like this.)

Despite this, we had a nice time, I think, if somewhat low-key.

All this socialising is very nice, but it is causing me to think that I am on holiday. Which I'm not. Soon I will have to get seriously going on my thesis (I'm still in the writing-vague-plans stage) and this is making me a bit nervous.

However, this week I will genuinely be on holiday at least some of the time. We are going up to Crieff for a few days. Crieff has the advantage of perfect, perfect familiarity; there is plenty to do if you want it, or you could just go for walks. Or sit and read books. No pressure.

We are taking the guinea pigs with us. I'll let you know how that goes...

Time passes

That was not meant to be a nearly three-month hiatus.

I didn’t feel much like blogging for a while. I was doing a big project at work which was stressing me out, and was working late a lot and then coming home and feeling that I had no brain or energy left to blog with. Yeah, I know; I only work three days a week. There we go.



2009 has been a depressing kind of year in so many ways, which has probably contributed to making me feel that I want to draw my head in, like a tortoise. It’s not had too much of an impact on J and me; we still have our jobs, and we’re doing OK. J has been feeling well enough to go to work for much of this year, as well, which is fantastic, although tiring in its own way as he has needed a lot of support. We’re beginning to feel we might be able to do grown-up things like book exciting holidays and actually expect J to be well enough to go, but we’ve been so tired out by the daily round that we just don’t feel like it. Yet. Things are getting better.

What happened in the past three months? Let’s see. We redecorated the entrance hall/stairway/landing of our house, and hung some pictures up. I did quite a lot of work in the garden, mostly on the lawn (boring) but also growing vegetables from seed and some flowers.



We did a lot of cycling and fitted panniers to J’s bike so that he can carry more stuff on it – I’ve had panniers for a long time and they do make a bike a lot more useful. We visited my brother in Dumfriesshire, which was lovely and very relaxing. I read quite a lot of books and did some knitting.

I completed the six-month fitness course in the gym; at the end of it, I still hadn’t lost any significant weight, although I was running a good bit faster and lifting heavier weights. A couple of weeks later, feeling my motivation starting to sag a bit, I had a couple of sessions with a personal trainer. This resulted in a new programme which relies almost entirely on free weights rather than machines, and a different sort of interval training (much shorter intervals, but higher intensity).

The new programme is interesting, and I enjoy it while I’m doing it, but it is definitely more demanding and takes longer to do than my old routine. Instead of having different days for upper and lower body, I do all the muscle groups every time. I know that the old programme wasn’t having quite the impact I wanted, but sometimes the new one feels like a lot to tackle in one session.

For that reason, a few weeks ago I took a break from it until my big work project was finished. I know that exercise is supposed to give you more energy, but if I’m too exhausted to do anything else, then it’s not working. I’ll be resuming this week, but if it continues to be too difficult to keep up, I will think about following the same basic outlines but splitting up the exercises into upper/lower body days to make the overall routine shorter. It won’t be as high-impact, but it will have more impact than not doing it because it’s too much!



The piggies are in good health and are not suffering from exhaustion in the slightest.



Summer has arrived in Scotland and last weekend we went to the beach and swam in the sea. No photographs were taken of this. This is what the sky looked like that weekend, though. It’s not so hot now, but still feels like summer – maybe the second half of 2009 will be a bit more promising?