Gardening and knitting.

Tomatoes ready to ripen

My little back-yard garden is coming along nicely, considering that I really don't give it the attention it should have.  I do water it most days but haven't been overly active on the feeding side of things.  I should really because my tomatoes and cucumbers are abundant with fruit just waiting to ripen.

Little cucumbers

Whilst they were still very small, I thought they were not going to survive so I planted a second crop as back up, some trailing cherry tomatoes to put into nice pots.  Now they are growing too and I'm not sure what to do with them!  I have put one of them in a tall pot with some mini surfinas and a basil variety called Minissimo with tiny leaves to keep them company

Trailing toms, basil and mini surfinas

and I have another two that are still languising in their little nursery pots as well as a cucumber.  I'll ask Patrick, if he wants them as I don't know whatever I will do with all these tomatoes if these ones crop as well as the Latah.  Mind you, as they're not yet even flowering, whether they will fruit whilst the summer is still here to ripen them is unknown to me, being inexperienced in tomato growing as I am.  I also have some Pepper plants which are flowering and one or two of them have tiny fruit on, it's very late in the year now though so I'm not overly hopeful about the success of these.  I must be earlier with my planting next year!

Pepper plant in flower

Carrots, radishes and salad leaves

Finally, I have carrots, radishes and salad leaves, the radishes and carrots haven't come to much yet but the salad leaves are fine, pity they'll probably all be gone to seed by the time the tomatoes and cucumbers are ripe!

Ishbel for Coral

On the knitting front, I finished the Ishbel for Patrick's sister Coral a few weeks ago and she was very pleased with it.  Here it is blocking. I really enjoyed knitting this and I'm sure I will knit it again and again.

I decided to bead the last section to add a bit of interest.  I was particularly pleased with how it turned out as it was my first attempt at knitting with beads.  I knitted a little sample of the edge chart to practice with and also to decide which of the 4 different beads I had bought (because I couldn't make up my mind!) to use.  In the end I went for some dark green iridescent ones that I thought looked really effective against the pine green yarn.  The yarn I used was Cygnet Wool Rich 4ply in colour Pinemix.  Below is the beaded edge detail, the yellow things are pins not beads!

bead detail

 I am almost finished with my Traveling Woman Shawl http://feministy.com/patterns/traveling-woman/ and am now on the last section and adding beads for a bit of bling.  I'm pleased with this and have enjoyed it more as I've gone along.  At first, I wasn't getting on with the lace pattern, although I have to say it is incredibly easy to remember, I just seemed to have a mental block and kept having to count all the time.  It just clicked after the first repeat of the chart and I got along with it fine after then.  I really wanted to have it finished in time for the weekend because we are going away but I don't think I can have it finished and blocked in time.  I am also STILL doing the boyfriend's Hug Sweater!  Mind you, if I actually did some work on it instead of just saying I am still working on it, it might get done a bit faster!!  I can't say that I'm hating doing it, I'm not, it's just a bit tedious and there are so many other nice things I want to knit.  I know I will be thrilled once it's done and I can present it to P, I thought of knitting him a sweater because I wanted to give him a gift that I had spent time making....and believe me, I have certainly spent a lot of time with this one!  Once I finish my shawl though I think I will concentrate on getting it finished.  P just cannot comprehend the constant flitting from one project to another but I know that all you knitters out there will understand perfectly :-)

Shaggy

When I came to write this post, I found the previous one still saved as a draft which is why we have two posts in the same day!

We had a scare on Sunday night. Our elderly dog, Shaggy, had a Vestibular Syndrome attack http://www.nutrecare.co.uk/Product-2245/Dog-Diseases/Vestibular-Syndrome. Basically, he looked like he'd had a stroke, he was tilting over to the left, falling over and being sick. I honestly thought he was dying and it was horrible. I phoned an emergency vet and after talking through the symptoms with her and establishing that he was settled and rested, decided to wait to see our own vet the next day. Monday morning arrived and he seemed worse, I thought we would be taking him to the vet and not bringing him home again. Michael, my eldest son and I had slept downstairs with him all night to make sure he was ok during the night. I say slept, I dozed but woke and sat up at every little movement from Shaggy. I had cried a lot during the night, thinking that we would be saying goodbye to him the next day. When Michael woke up, I told him what I thought and he was devastated. I mean really heartbroken, sobbing, it was awful to see because I couldn't do anything to ease his pain. Shaggy is very much Michael's dog. He all but lives in Michael's room, coming downstairs only for food and toilet needs! He sleeps on Michael's bed, shares Michael's snacks and is generally all-round devoted to the boy. Michael is almost 19 now but still that devotion is mutual. He stands for a lot of what most owners would draw the line at, getting up in the middle of the night to take Shaggy downstairs because he needs to go outside, having to curl up uncomfortably in a small area in his own bed because Shaggy (who is a fairly small dog) has decided that he will stretch out and utilise almost all the bed for himself. Shaggy also smells! He is an old dog at 16 years of age and makes some pretty nasty smells at times. Michael just doesn't let it bother him, most people would be throwing him off the bed in digust but Michael just laughs and gives him a hug. So, I'm sure you can imagine how the lad felt thinking that his beloved pet was about to be put to sleep. So, off we go to the vets, both sobbing all the way. My ex-husband met us at the vet with younger son Mason who is almost 16 who wanted to say goodbye to Shaggy. In we all trooped, crying! The vet and his wife are the parents of Mason's best friend so we know the family fairly well, Mike the vet called us through and the boys and I went in, me carrying Shaggy. I explained the symptoms and was surprised to see that Mike wasn't perturbed by this at all. He went on to explain that it is fairly common in older dogs and is treatable with drugs and most dogs make a full recovery in about 10 days! All that grief was unecessary, thankfully! Michael has now decamped to the lounge with his mattress and bedding and computer equipment so that he can still be with Shaggy who cannot manage the stairs at the moment. I don't know if he ever will be able to again so I really don't know what will happen when Michael has to go back upstairs to his room but for the time being, we are happy to still have him with us and will do whatever we can to keep him happy whilst he is recovering from a very unpleasant experience.

Shaggy waits to come downstairs!

The Deep

Well I haven't been around for ages but I thought I would check in and update. I've been busy, my mum has been in hospital and is now in there again. So what with working all day and then visiting in the evening, I've not had a lot of time to myself.

However, a few weeks ago P and I decided to have a day out to the local submarium (that's aquarium to the rest of you but when it was built, they wanted to make it unique so decided to invent a name! That's marketing types for you eh?! Our 'Submarium is called The Deep and it is built right on the junction of our two rivers, the River Hull, which flows right through our city and the River Humber which used to be one of the busiest channels in the country with docks either side in both Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It's been a while since I visited the Deep and some new areas had opened since my last visit, we enjoyed our day and I took a couple of photos. The first is of a Clownfish (aka Nemo), hiding in the fronds of an anemone.

Nemo peeping out


The second pic is of some eels, They were tiny, about 3 or 4 inches tall (well the bit that was above the sand anyhow) and only about 1/2 inch, if that, in diameter. I can't remember what they were called I'm ashamed to say. I'm also ashamed that despite turning off the flash of my camera and taking one picture, the second picture automatically flashed so I probably blinded the little fellas! Just as well there were no staff around, it specifically says 'No Flash Photography'. I didn't do it on purpose, honestly! Anyhow, how cute are these guys?

How Cute!