This week I have....

I saw my eldest son off to University on Saturday so it was a bit emotional for me but made much easier by the fact that he was looking forward to it enormously and settled in really well immediately.  He's gone to York to study Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence.  We had a time slot to arrive in, between 9.30 and 12.30, I was tremendously impressed with how smoothly things ran, considering around 600 students would have been arriving that morning.  Upon arrival at around 11am, we were directed to where we could park and unload, a lovely young lady who was a second year student came to meet our car as soon as we had parked up and introduced herself and offered her help.  Michael was taken to where he needed to be to collect his key and she helped unload the car and took us to the flat he will be living in for the next year.  The accommodation is all brand new having only opened last year.  Michael is in a flat for 12 people, all rooms are en-suite and the shared kitchen is huge!  After helping him to unpack and make his bed (his priority was his computer - no surprise there), we asked if he wanted to come and have lunch or if he wanted us to leave him to meet his flat-mates and get on with things.  He opted for the latter which, although I was a teensy bit disappointed at, I was also very happy that he felt confident enough to be alone in this new environment.  From subsequent chats on facebook etc, I'm happy to report that he is settled and enjoying his new life.  Michael will not be a party animal, that's not his bag but I have no doubt that he will embrace all opportunities that appeal to him and will enjoy a full and satistfying life over the next four years.  I'm very proud of him.

By coincidence, I'm going to be in York this Saturday too.  I am doing a Rowan knitting workshop on finishing techniques at Poppys, a beautiful yarn shop on Colliergate in the City.  I'm looking forward to this greatly, it is a workshop I have wanted to do for some time now as I feel it is often the sewing up and other finishing bits and bobs that let my knitted garments down.  I'm looking forward to learning how to finish more professionally as well as a good old natter with like-minded souls.

I always enjoy going to my knit group each month for the same reason.  I don't have any knitting friends that I see regularly, so it is always a joy to be among a room full of other women, all knitting and chatting, comparing our projects and sharing tips and techniques.  Last night at knit group, my lovely friend Shona had given me a ball of Merino so that I could knit the squares we need to take with us to the workshop on Saturday, so that's what I was doing last night and I've almost finished all four of them now.  In other knitting news, I finished my Ishbel and I am so pleased with it, it is really beautiful.

Ishbel for me

I've started Mr Greenjeans in red and frogged the February Lady in the Adriafil Soffio, I also frogged one of the summer tops, I needed the needles and when I tried to transer the stitches over to spare yarn, I got in a muddle and lost some.  I hadn't done much of it and couldn't quite remember where I was up to in the pattern either so it's no great loss.   I also started Clothilde in Arauncania Ranco Multy and have wound the yarn for Propello.

I have quite a busy weekend ahead what with the Rowan workshop on Saturday and then on Sunday, we have having a family party for my mum who will be 90 next week.  More on that next week.

So much to knit, not enough time!

Firstly, I'm not under any pressure, I rarely knit for others so it's entirely up to me what I knit and when. It's the deciding that's the problem at the moment.

I'm currently on the last leg of my Ishbel, I'll get it beaded and finished by the weekend I think. I have a couple of summer tops OTN which have been around forever and are likely to be around for much longer before I can be bothered with them again :lol: .

I really wanted to finish the Ishbel before I started anything else so I've resisted casting anything on for the past couple of weeks. I did start a February Lady  in some Adriafil Soffio Plus from the knitting group raffle but have decided that I won't have enough to finish it so that will be frogged, it would have been lovely, was knitting up a dream but I only have 5 balls of it and have used almost one whole ball and not yet finished the yoke. I need to find a use for this lovely yarn though. I also had started a Central Park Hoodie  in Patons Jet in a lovely bright red but have decided that I probably won't wear it a lot and will get more use out of a Mr Greenjeans in that yarn. My dilemma at the moment is that it takes me rather a long time to knit a garment and I WANT THEM ALL NOW!! I have some Navy Blue Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran which I can see as a February Lady, the red Patons Jet which is destined for Mr Greenjeans and I've just bought some Ethical Twist DK in cardigan/jumper quantities in both camel and baby cream, either of which would make a gorgeous Coraline . I also want to use the Soffio for something and I have some Rowan Summer Tweed to knit Propello, which is the KAL on the Wormhead Hats group on Ravelry. Oh, and I will want to join in the mystery KAL on Wormhead in November too. Almost forgot the Arauncania that I bought with Clothilde  in mind too.

So....you see my problem? Too much to knit and not enough time.

Holidays part one.

So, like I said, I'm a few weeks behind with my blog posts but I'll try to catch up as best I can.  This could make for a very long post so I'll blog in stages to avoid boring you all to death in one sitting.  You can die of boredom bit by bit instead!

During the last week of July, Patrick and I had a weeks leave from work and we had planned to go to Huddersfield for the first weekend. Not a very exciting prospect I can hear you saying!  However, for real ale fans, it is very exciting because Huddersfield is one of the stations on the Transpennine Real Ale Trail.  The weather was lovely as we arrived at Huddersfield and we firstly bought our train tickets for our journey.  The trail takes in 7 stations now because the pub in the first station of Batley has closed down, I'm sure there are plenty of other pubs in Batley but as we don't know the area, we decided to stick to the recommended route.  Five of the stations are in West Yorkshire and for that part of the journey we could buy a family day rover ticket which cost us the princely sum of £8.80, seriously, how cheap is that?!!  The other two stations are over the Pennines in Lancashire and the tickets for that cost I think around £15 for the two of us but I can't quite remember the exact cost.   Huddersfield station is a stunning Grade 1 listed building.

Huddersfield Station

Having left our baggage at our hotel, we ventured down to the first pub of the day, The Kings Head at Huddersfield station.  However, what we didn't realise until the next day was that there are actually two pubs, one at either end of the station and the first one we went into was the other one.  The Head of Steam was an interesting place, four very distinct rooms and plenty of hand pumps on show!  I opted to try a completely new beer, I almost always do this, unless there is something on that I particularly love.  I was unlucky with this choice though.  I now cant quite remember the full details but it was either called Brass Monkey or that was the brewery name and it was vile.  It had a strange metallic kind of taste and for only the second time ever, I couldn't drink my beer!  We  had downloaded a Beer app for Patrick's new phone so that we could make notes about what we enjoyed and what we didn't.  Geeky?  Maybe, but it makes perfect sense to me to make a note of it you have enjoyed a beer or not for future reference.  We have, on numerous occasions, seen a pump clip, known we have tried the beer before but cannot remember, until we taste it again, if we like it.  This app should hopefully help us to recall what our fuddled brains have forgotten.

Here is the interior of The Head of Steam.  I've no idea who the bloke in the  picture is

The Head of Steam - complete with random bloke at the bar

Proud mum alert!

I'm several blog-posts behind and I will catch up soon I promise.  I have lots to tell you and lots of pics to share.  However today, I am a very proud mum.  My eldest son Michael has his A Level results and achieved grade A in Maths, Further Maths and Physics, giving him the required points to be accepted at his first choice university.  So, in October, he will be going away to study a Masters Degree in Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence.

I will miss him terribly but York is only 50 miles away so I'm sure I will still see him fairly often.  Shaggy (the dog) will miss him even more than I will I think!  I asked Michael if he will miss me,  No he said, but I will miss Shaggy.  Typical!  I'm really glad that he isn't the homesick type because that would make me worry.  He is very independant and will grasp the opportunities in front of him with all his might.  I just know that he has a great future ahead of him.

Here he is in his finery at his Leaver's Ball from Hymers College, with his younger brother Mason who was dressed up for his School Prom.

Michael (left) and Mason (right)

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!