if at first you don't succeed... also known as winter is icumin in,

So the thirteenth century song has summer not winter, but I suppose there must have been winter for people to sing about summer.  Right?  This morning was chilly, quite chilly even at my place.  Winter seems to be really thinking of arriving.

I had to go out this morning to collect a parcel  from  the Post Office which I missed yesterday.  I managed to write a whole post before I had to leave.  Went to add some pictures and the post disappeared totally.  Grrr.  SO I am trying again.

I could have finished bedsocks for granddaughter if my son had let me know the length of her foot.  I have reminded him twice so think I will just guess.  I could have done the second sock in the time I have been waiting.

Mothers' Day saw two sons, myself, DIL's mum  and DIL at a pub called Vic on the Park.  Opposite Victoria Park in Marrickville with a new aquatic centre.  We had been going to buy cafe takeaway for a picnic but other son could not come as his wife had a very nasty ear infection.  So we went to pub for lunch. Very good too.  Three of us shared an entree and some tiny sliders, duck and chicken.  The duck was really good with a subtle but pleasant blend of various spices.

DIL had a beef and mushroom pie in honour of my mother.  Mum used to cook skirt steak, red wine and mushroom on the side of the slow combustion wood stove in the kitchen for hours and hours.  Then she would match it with her delicious homemade pastry.  The result was a superb pie.  One son said my pies were 8/10 because I used commercial pastry.  Mum's he classed as 12/10 because of the filling and her pastry.  After lunch we adjourned to son's house for a flourless chocolate cake made by other son.  Very good and it was a pity the gluten intolerant family wasn't there for it.  Actually, it wasn't a pity, we all had a larger slice.

I've started a shawl in a mix of camel and silk fingering.  The yarn is lovely to knit as it's very soft.  However it starts with 363 stitches being cast on.  Twice I have made a mistake in the fifth row, even though I thought I was being careful.  Grrr!

I think winter might be quite cold.  When we were at Wollombi near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, mice would start arriving at the first sign of a chill in the night air.  I had to secure all food in mice proof containers there.  My son on the Central Coast has had a couple of mice recently.  My brother on the upper north shore had to reorganise all storage in his pantry after an onslaught by mice last week.

Yesterday I was at the doctor's for a repeat prescription and a flu injection.  Also had pneumonia vaccine as he thought it was a good idea.  While I was waiting I could see a mouse running around the car park outside.  I told the doctor who was horrified.

However, the best  story belongs to my sister who  is minding a house about 40 minutes south of Canberra while the owners are overseas.  It's been cold down there, well below zero many nights.  The house must have lots of entry points for mice as the owners were well aware they would be there.  She also had to remove an almost dead rat from the pantry.

I have a shower in the morning.  She has  bath at night before bed.  Two nights ago, she was carefully hanging up her towel AFTER she had used it.  As she hung it up, a mouse fell out of a  fold.  Eeeuw! The place is lovely, but she will be glad to be out of there.

Now to  wind some more of the camel from Renae at Suzy  hausfrau at Canberra.  No 1 son saw the agate and navy hat described in post below which his brother now has.  He asked for one and I have bought two shades of  grey.  He will normally wear only black hats, so this is a change and I am striking while the iron is hot.

lavender blue, dilly, dilly, lavender green...

The third pair of bedsocks for grandchildren. This is for Miss Ten. I've done some for her brother and sister and when this pair is finished, I'll have only two pairs left to do. These are warm and quick. Patonyle again and some Bendigo 5 ply, machine washable. A grey mix of Patonyle and a lavender coloured Bendigo 5 ply.

 I've had Miss Eight here for several days even though school has gone back. She was really quite ill and we were all worried about her. She saw two different doctors and spent one night in the Children's Hospital at Westmead where she was seen by more. The best they could come up with was that it was a virus. Someone on Ravelry said they knew the name, TALOIA, meaning There's A Lot Of It Around.

She really was quite ill and I had to concentrate on getting fluid into her. When I had done that, I turned to tiny amounts of food with Nutella toast, cut into tiny pieces, really less than a bite. An apple sliced and arranged as a flower, small pieces of ham rolled up and secured with a toothpick. Things that were different and a bit fun to eat.  Some mashed potato which is her favourite vegetable, although it's not mine.  Anything I thought she might eat, even in tiny quantities.

The top picture shows what she looked like when she arrived and there is another picture with an even worse rash.  Not measles, not an allergy, not meningococcal.  The rash was all over her body.  She was totally listless and slept almost all the time.

The lower picture was taken yesterday after a few days here.  The rash is going although it flared some of the time.  As you can see, she still looks quite ill and not very animated.

I tried on Thursday to get her to have a wash, there'd been nothing like that since Monday, but she'd heard the doctor saying washing would make it worse.  What was meant was that a hot bath or shower would aggravate the rash.  It took a lot of swift talking on my part, but she finally consented to a very quick sponge down with lukewarm water and a soft washer.    She did concede it made her feel better.

She's gone home for the weekend and was very glad to see her mum when she came to pick her up.  This little miss can be a handful but not this time.  In fact, she was so listless and quiet I might have appreciated a bit of being a handful!

I not only did bed socks, I also did a hat with some yarn from Renae at suzyhausfrau in Canberra.   I love her service, always pleasant, helpful and very quick.  It is camel from baby Bactrian camels.  The colours are agate and neat navy.  It is a heavy 8 ply and will be very warm.  It was an easy knit and didn't need much concentration.  This is the medium size and is very cosy.  I used 4.5 mm on the stocking stitch band and 5 mm for the hat itself.

bedsocks et al

I've been pegging away at a pair of bedsocks for my eldest grandson.  I made a pair for his younger sister and with the onset of cooler nights, I realised I had better get going on socks  for his siblings and cousins.

He's hard on socks, but hopefully these will do a couple of years.  Firstly, I'm making them tubular.  He's growing very rapidly at 14 years old and I really don't have any idea just how big to make the socks.  So I thought that if I did tubular socks with a heel, next year they may hopefully still fit him, just a bit shorter in the leg.

Secondly, I'm doing them in Patonyle which as most Australian knitters know is the next closest thing to cast iron.  I know I am happy to wear Patonyle myself, although I also enjoy more luxurious sock yarn.  I throw my Patonyle socks in both the washer and drier and have never had a problem with them after that treatment.

The dark maroon is one of the earlier lots of Patonyle.  When the yarn was discontinued for a while a few years ago, I scored quite a few balls, the smaller 50 gm type, on eBay.  I have another couple of balls in same colour.  The grey and white is some of the new release Patonyle in 100 gm ball.  I'm using two strands and 4 mm needles.  The fabric isn't stiff and they grow fairly quickly when I actually remember to work on them.  Hopefully he won't do as he did with a previous pair of socks when he was younger.  I was presented with a sad sock with pulls in the yarn and several holes and lots of ladders.   He asked if I could mend them.  Well perhaps I could, but it would have taken a long time. He had run around the backyard without shoes or slippers, just socks.  The dog they had then had played with him and had chased him, nipping at his heels and basically destroying the socks.

The days here have been beautiful this week after a very cold, windy and wet weekend a few days ago.  I sat on my balcony in the sun  today to work on these.  It was lovely.  Now the sun has moved around it's too chilly to be out there, but the days are lovely.

My eldest son and his wife have had the family collection of slides and the old projector for a long time.  They have spent a lot of time over the last few months scanning the slides into a  digital  format.  Some were past redemption as the projector had eaten the slide when it didn't move through properly.  Some were just plain poor photos.  The other day they gave me a memory stick with almost 700 photos on it, the first selection of what they have done.  My goodness, the memories!

Mum and dad always had a Malleys picnic kettle and water in the car boot, along with a small old globite case.  Remember those?  Like patonyle socks, they were discarded only for a larger one.  They were indestructible. Mine fell out of the train once and suffered no ill effects.  The case contained picnic cups etc and also tea and coffee.  There are pictures of a morning tea stop beside the edge of a country road and the picnic kettle boiling for a hot drink.  He went through two or three of these over the years and my sister thinks the last is possibly at her daughter's.

Middle son was asking about one this week.  They often go on a picnic and camp every year.  I found the Malleys is no longer made.  A copy is made in NZ but costs well over $200.  I was not feeling that generous.  Then I did a search and found this.  It's an eco billy from here.  They aren't cheap either but I think that as Malleys kettle was over $30 and that would be possibly thirty year or more ago, it wasn't too bad.  I bought one for him and on Friday I had an apologetic phone call from the owner of the business.  He could not get to the Post Office till next week as he was exhibiting at the Camping Show.  I put my son in touch with the owner.  Son had already been planning on going, so he found the stall and the kettle was handed over.  Win/win situation for all three of us really.  Son said the owner and his wife were lovely people and it was a pleasure to do business with him.  So, as you can see, kettle has been tested.  A sheet of newspaper, or a handful of dry leaves or twigs is enough to boil the kettle which is double walled.

I am totally exasperated with misplaced apostrophes.  This label came with some fancy muesli I bought as a treat from my fruit and vegetable supplier.  Again, another small business making good.  The muesli is really good, but I will use it as a  treat at the weekend  as it's too expensive for every day.  I had burnt fig, almond and cinnamon flavour and it has whole almonds and huge chunks of chewy figs in it.  However, I looked  at the blurb which came with it and  shuddered.  I have emailed the company but not had an answer.  Aaargh!

the staff of life

As I've noted before, I've been making bread for years, too many to want to count actually.  However with the no knead recipe flying around the internet and people like Cindy turning out lovely loaves, I thought I would give it a try.  Cindy cooks all sorts of things but has always shied away from yeast cooking.  She made a loaf of this no knead bread and now seems hooked.

So yesterday afternoon, I had a look at this recipe which is called Josh's even lazier than no knead bread.  That's why the baking paper is in my picture.

I had too much water in my mix so added more flour in this morning.  I was still unsure whether I was wasting my time but decided to cook it anyway.  This is how it turned out.  Picture was taken about a minute after it came from oven.  The recipe suggests the baking paper being used so there is basically no cleaning up.  Dough is turned on to the paper for shaping, not onto a floured bench, then put in a very hot cast iron casserole or anything oven proof providing it has a lid.

This loaf has about 35% Attar flour which is an Indian wholemeal flour available certainly in Coles.  It has a pleasant nutty flavour.  I'll experiment with another mix, but this was certainly easy and looks as if it should be delicious.  I might try the quince jelly I was given last week on a slice.

I smiled at this picture this morning when I opened the site of my fruit and vegetable supplier to place an order.  He regularly places recipes and other related items on the site.  I can really identify with this picture.  I love pretty well all types of cheese, although I seem to have cut down a lot on my consumption of it. I have no cholesterol type problems, just seem to be eating less cheese than I used to.  However, I really agree with the picture.  Cheese improves many things. I always have some reggiano or similar in fridge, cheese for pizza stays in freezer, I love a good camembert or brie and am fussy about a good bitey cheddar.  I don't buy blue cheeses often as I have to be very self-disciplind  to have just a small amount.  Gorgonzola melted into lasagne is great, it gives a hard to discern something extra to the lasagne without being obviously gorgonzola.  Bitey cheese with a granny smith apple is good too. I remember making cheese bread in the little Bega woodstove we had on bush property at Wollombi.  It rose so much that the extra cheese I had placed on the top stuck to the roof of the oven!  Everything I cooked smelled cheesy for quite a while after that.  That was a loaf made in a big old fashioned 2 lb. loaf tin.

I went with friend and one son and his wife last night to local good pizzeria.  He had asked two young Malaysian sisters for dinner to celebrate  their birthdays, one a 21st.  They are studying here and he met them in the course of St John Ambulance duties as they have joined a division here.  I gave the Milkweed shawl which is shown in previous entry to the girl who had just turned 21.  I hadn't met her or her sister before although DIL knows them quite well.  She was amazed someone could not only make something like that, but also give her something handmade.  It was a very chilly night here, so she put it on before we came outside.  It is actually simple knitting, very soothing which was what I needed at the time, just rhythmic counting of pattern repeats.  Not hard at all.

Now to see if that loaf has cooled enough to cut.

it was a dark and stormy night

Well actually, it was a dark and stormy morning.  This very grey photo was taken just after 10:00 am yesterday as I was on  my way to have coffee with another blogger.  We live not far from each other really as the crow flies, but she's close to one road leading to and from the CBD and I'm close to another from a different direction.  I needed two buses to get to the coffee shop, regardless of which way I went.  The Town Hall tower or clock is being renovated or cleaned or whatever, and this scaffolding and awning has been erected around it.  Yes, it really was as dark as the sky shows.  The breeze was cold.  However, I managed to avoid any rain and we had a pleasant morning.  She gave me a jar of beautifully clear quince jelly which she had made.  Nicely set and tastes great.  I had some on a piece of bread when I returned home.  A pleasant morning which actually turned into a sunny afternoon despite this beginning.

I can imagine a duelling pair of advertising agencies.  The Audi dealership has been there for years, probably at least fifteen.  The wall hosts many posters which are fixed by several men abseiling up and down the wall.  Some ads are clever, others like the last one are unpleasant  for one reason or another.  The last one was garish red and yellow and was spruiking medications for men.

This poster is much more subdued and even classy if such a thing can be classy.  However, I can imagine the firm concerned smirking behind a hand and saying something like, "Here's one in the eye for you."  The BMW ad is directly in the line of vision from the upstairs of the Audi dealership.  This photo was taken just after dawn this morning.   All the photos are a good deal clearer when enlarged by clicking on them.  The light is poor in  each photo. It's just possible to see the Audi sign on the building.  I was awake so got up and showered as I wanted to take a photo of another Milkweed shawl before the sun sucked all the colour from it.

So here is Milkweed, certainly version 3, possibly version 4.  I'm too lazy to go back and check.  It's done in Lana Gotto on 5.o mm needles, part of the new Addi Clicks set I bought.  It took almost five balls of the yarn.  I had bought it for something else which never worked so I did this.  The pattern is easy, just needs some attention to it so decreases line up properly.  Last week was unpleasant with totally untrue accusations from DIL against me and another DIL.  Accompanied by some strange behaviour which I think is fuelled by excessive dieting which has been accelerated by probably amphetamines.  Courtesy of the new boyfriend and I was very sad about it.  She's lost over 30 kg in a bit over three months and lunch one day last week when I was there was a can of  CocaCola.  Not good and I'm sure her brain is affected.

The rhythmic knitting was just what I needed to block out some of what she had said.  When I started it I just knew I needed to knit something like this.  I have a couple of these and enjoy using them.  By the end of the week, a recipient had arisen and I'll give it to her on Saturday.

I still need to weave in the numerous ends on the wrong side.  It's bigger than shown here.  Several inches are over the top rail on my awning and it's held there with some pegs.  There's  a kink in the centre from another peg and the yellow of that can just be seen through the shawl.  This too was taken early this morning, not long after dawn.  I face northwest and the bright sun sucks colours easily later in the morning.

going postal

No, not the Pratchett book, although I did enjoy the screen adaptation of this last year.  I've been reading Pratchett lately.  I'm currently reading Nation and I read Dodger a couple of weeks ago.  Miss Twelve, who used to be a voracious reader is also reading some of her dad's collection of Pratchett's stories.  She discovered Manga comics and  that's OK to read.  Peer pressure that reading is not cool dampened her reading appetite.  However, she is now being bribed.  Her mum does not give her any pocket money so she is being given $10 for each book she reads.  Yes, it's bribery, but in a good cause and she is actually enjoying reading again.  Sort of situational ethics, I guess, the  end justifies the means.

No, my title refers to the surprise when I checked my mail box a few minutes ago.  There's often a pile of trash and I get little posted material.  Most of my bills come via email and I pay them online or by direct debit.  There were five letters today, all addressed to me.  No junk stuffed in the box.   Three were small pendants I bought as part of birthday presents for the granddaughters.  I'll need to add to them, but it's a start.  They aren't "little" girls any more, they have more than enough play things and stationery.

One was a catalogue from a firm I occasionally buy vitamins from.  Sort of junk mail, sort of addressed mail.

The fifth was a voucher for $30 for a supermarket.  I have  been buying a particular brand of cheese for years.  It's good and strong, but also importantly, it's been consistently good over the years.  I've cut down a lot on the amount of cheese I eat, not deliberately but it's definitely less.  The last three packs have been nowhere near as good as I expected.  They have had excessive salt and I actually threw out about half  a pack of the last I bought.  That annoyed me, so I emailed them giving batch details etc.  I received a very prompt reply and this $30 voucher.  The letter said their reputation was important to them.  So good service there.

Easter Day lunch was good and the slow roasted lamb was a great success.  Master Seven made and flew paper planes and Miss Twelve borrowed my big camera.  I did set it on auto, I use the manual settings, and I explained the distance setting to her.  She took some good photos, and deleted those which she didn't like.

I bought some Lana Gotto Supersoft merino a few months ago for a short row shaped shawl  I've tried it a few times, haven't reached anywhere near the shaping and given up.  So two days ago, I started Milkweed again.  I think this is the fourth time I've made  this pattern, it's easy and effective and fairly quick.  The yarn is pleasant but it's very splitty.  The needles are the new Addi clicks I bought.  Not Addi lace which are quite sharp.  Even these fairly blunt  needles split this yarn if I am not really careful.

It's cool and wet here today, very restful actually.  I'm going to make a small pie from the very last of Sunday's roast and vegetables and leftover gravy.  It's that sort of day.  Then I'll freeze the bone for  some lamb and barley soup.

tradition

I was thinking about traditions, good and bad.  Old and new.  I tried to lay down some traditions in my family, things like the birthday boy choosing dinner and a special guest.  At Wollombi, we had traditions about lighting fires and life in the bush.  Lots more.

I remembered the opening music from Fiddler on the Roof and found this very non-traditional rendition.  Stop motion Lego.  It's a bit of fun and the music is good with a heavy bass line and great singing.  It's about seven minutes long and I wasn't planning on watching it all,  but  I enjoyed it so much I did watch.

So I have been turning to traditional food lately.  A few months ago, I made my grandmother's banana chutney which is good with cold meats.  Then I made beetroot and eggplant chutney, making up the recipe as I went along.  I had a huge eggplant and more beetroot than I could eat by myself.

I've been hankering after some old fashioned tomato sauce.  I hardly ever touch the commercial stuff around these days but love the homemade variety. Cindy posted  a recipe she had tested so I bought some powdered mustard and made some.  It's good  but I will make a few changes.  I'll use malt vinegar, I can't ever remember grandma having anything else, and I think the flavour's better.  I'll also make sure the cooking apples are tart, mine were a bit sweet.  However, overall it was a success.

I bought the jars in my online order from Coles.  I'd been thinking about protecting the lid from erosion corrosion, drat autocorrect at times,  and then found these lids were two part.  The flat bit is coated on the inside to protect from the vinegar and the outside part screws down and makes a seal.  $3 from Coles.  I'm giving Coles another go.  I used to use them a lot years ago when they were the only online supplier.  I don't think their website is as easy to use as their counterpart's is, but could just be usage.  I've found standards from the other mob have slipped dramatically and getting that acknowledged is long and tedious.  They offered me a credit of $5.76 after an order full of mistakes.  After several phone calls and a couple of very strong emails, they decided I was right, or at least that they didn't want to argue any more and gave me a credit of almost $70.  Worth persisting in my complaint.  So I've changed suppliers, at least for now.  Supermarkets in my area have dropped the home delivery service they used to have and there is no way I can carry heavy stuff home.

Another of Grandma's traditions was fish on Good Friday.  When I was growing up, Grandma always came for lunch on Good Friday.  My mother pushed the boundaries once and served a BBQ.  She heard about that for a very long time.  I'm not sure why she was so insistent about this particular tradition.  I can trace it in  another ecclesiastical group, but she was Anglican and it wasn't something she ever followed on any other day.

I've been wanting a good fish meal for ages, so decided on fish for lunch yesterday.  I often buy fresh Tasmanian salmon and enjoy it but I was after white fish.  I refuse to buy frozen thawed fish or fish other than Australian, or at a pinch from New Zealand.  I found flathead fillets and bought some.  Fresh, very fresh.  The sales guy said I would enjoy it and he was right.  Flathead is sweet but hard to fillet well.  It was expensive but I had enough for two meals.  Superb.  I had planned on crumbing it and had flour on a plate, an egg whisked in a bowl.  No Panko crumbs and not enough bread to be bothered making my own.  So these were just floured and quickly fried in some good oil.  I'd been planning on asparagus but totally forgot and made the very basic greens with fresh tomato salad.

I'll be on the lookout for some more of this.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Son and two grandchildren are coming for lunch tomorrow.  Baked leg of lamb - another tradition.  I'll put this on early with lemon juice, herbs and garlic and cook it very slowly.  Turned down very low, it can look after itself for a while.  Lots of baked vegetable and all should be well.

He took his children to the Easter Show yesterday, breaking another of Grandma's traditions.  She took me every year but definitely, never on Good  Friday.  Master 7 had not been before and Mis 12 hadn't been for eight or nine years and remembered little.  They had a great time.

We used to buy all the licquorice (grandma again!) show bags and sit in the grandstand.  The licorice was more mellow than it is today and the flavour was different.  We would watch the mounted police displays, munching licorice.  We paid for it the next day, but that was our show tradition.

soft autumn light

No knitting here at the moment.  It's very hot still although hopefully there'll be a change  tonight.  I can't remember when I had even the sheet over me at night in bed.  I really prefer to feel some covering, but it's been too hot.  It looks as if a storm is  coming up, rain would be good.  However, I can smell smoke from a bushfire and it's quite strong.  I checked the RFS site and there's hazard reduction burning off in the Blue Mountains and a warning of thick smoke is given.  Now that's over 80 kms from here, so I hope nothing has got out of hand in the heat.

I went to wind what I thought was a skein of MadTosh Vintage which is Aran weight for another hat.  I had two skeins in the cupboard, both lovely colours and both sock wool.  So nothing on the knitting  front.

The evening light has been beautifully soft here lately.  I've noticed other bloggers' beautiful photos using the light.  Two days ago, I glanced outside and  raced for the camera.  Light can change very quickly and there was a soft golden glow  to every thing.

I really liked  the dreamlike outline of the city skyline in the top photo.   Depth of field has turned out well, probably more by good luck than good management.  The leaves really were that colour in the trees and everything was soft and shiny.

When we had our property at Wollombi in the bush, I was always happy to look at one hillside in the afternoon.  The tree trunks had a glow about them.  If there had been rain, there might be water oozing over rocks on the hill.  Shiny leaves, golden trunks and wet rocks went well together.  This tree is not far from me, although I did use the zoom in this picture.  At night it has large white lumps scattered  through it.  Or so it seems.  Actually the scavenging ibis roost there at night and I know they are really anything but white.  Most of them are filthy but at night the tree looks as if feathery pillows are scattered through it.

Over the years, I have tried to overcome my pedantry about correct spelling and the right use of words. To a degree, I have been successful in this, although I  can quite easily miss typos of my own.

One word has come to my notice lately, wrongly used.  I even saw it in a newspaper the other day.  A word which many may not have even heard of not so long ago. An underline is continuous.  It is not discreet at all, nor is it discrete.  A discrete line would look like this - - - - - -.  A discreet person is whole with admirable character traits, not chopped into pieces.  I have seen this error probably at least every day for several weeks.  I'm having  trouble overlooking it.

Off to make basil, mushroom and fresh bean risotto for dinner.

rosebuds and hail

One rosebud which would not have been affected by the massive storm we had late yesterday afternoon.  The rain was torrential for quite a  while here and we had lots of tiny pieces of hail.  This is  my balcony doormat, possibly three metres from front of balcony roof and almost two metres from the side of the roof.  My open lounge room door is behind this and I had more hail blown in even that far.  This is very little,  but it's well under cover.  There was a good deal more outside in the open.  The day was very hot, a ridiculous 32° C.  Not March weather at all and it was still 27° when I went to bed.  Today is hot but cooler than yesterday.  The next week is forecast to be 28° or more all week.

One Rosebud  hat undamaged by hail.  It  is unblocked, I've just sewn in the ends.  I hope blocking will give the cable a bit more definition.  I like the pattern and will make it again.  The small ball is all I had left.  I really wanted to do an extra thirteen rows to make it slouchy, but could tell I would not have enough to finish if i did that.

I would never buy the yarn again.  It's Shelter and was sold as a kit with the hat pattern.  I'm really disappointed with it.  The hat is very warm and possibly moisture repellent.  It's thick  and cosy.  However, I have a sore thumb from it, I found it hard to feed through my fingers in knitting as it's coarse and hard.  The coarseness burnt my fingers if I tried to knit fast.  I hated the large bits of organic matter in it.  Seeds, cobblers pegs and more.  I pulled out as much as I could.

The colour is darker than shows in photo.  It's Cast Iron and it really is a cast iron shade, quite dark.  It's hot and sunny here so I'll block it today and hope the cable pops more than now.  The pattern was not difficult but I made a couple of mistakes through inattention.  There's a small cable on either side of the large and at least twice I did the wrong combination at the end.  I dropped stitches  down and fixed it.

just what the doctor ordered

As I've said before, it's very slow doing the skirt part of the low tide jacket.  endless stitching which takes time to show any result.  I've been plugging away on it  most days.  Sometimes I  have done only one or two rows, sometimes up to eight in a day.  But it's slow work making an impression on those 15" needed.

Despite the prettiness of Ailsa's yarn and the fact that I really do like the look of the finished article, it's been sapping my enthusiasm. Very much so.

When I saw that Renae at Suzy hausfrau had Addi needles in stock now, I was tempted.  In fact I was tempted for over a week.  Then I thought of her good service and I found that I needed yet another set of Harmony 4 mm.  I succumbed.  I ordered a set on Sunday afternoon a  few days ago and the postman put them into my eager hands at lunchtime on Tuesday from Canberra.  A little bit of retail therapy.

The needles are well packaged in a fairly flat pack and there is a joiner section which can be used if knitting is on a cable.  They clip together easily and I have been enjoying using them.  I've never had problems with either the wood or metal Knitpicks.  My metal set are the original Knitpicks and the Harmony are Knitpro.  I always use the little pin as a lever to tighten the join and I've never had a problem.  However, I do like the Addis.

Just by coincidence, cough, cough, I had wound the Brooklyn Tweed Rosebud hat yarn at the weekend. I'll wait till it's finished for a photo as it's very dark, called Cast Iron,  and it's hard to see the detail of the hat on the needles.  I'm not quite halfway through the pattern.

This is done in Shelter.  I would not buy this yarn again but yarn and pattern were a kit.  It is supposedly promoting American wool.  Noro Silk Garden hurts my fingers to knit as it's harsh.  This is almost as bad.  It's very solid and I am surprised it's used as a hat as I wonder about the ribbing being prickly.  This is not something I have problems with as even as a child I liked the feel of a woollen garment on my bare skin.  I'm not sure about this yarn.  When I put the yarn on the swift to wind, I could see broken ends in the skein.  There were three breaks.  In only 140 yards!  I was able to spit splice them but it slowed the winding down as I had to wait for the splice to dry before winding more.  I consider this unacceptable.

Have a look at the photo.  This amount of foreign matter, plant seeds, bits of jute or hessian cam from about five rows of knitting.  I've been pulling out the burs and seeds and bits of hay etc.  This is a hat and I don't want bits of it actually in my ears.  I bought 8 ply from Nundle Mills about ten years ago which was like this but the yarn was softer.  It was also much cheaper even allowing for increases over the years.  I'll be putting this stuff in my rubbish bag.  I wouldn't want to be germinating weeds from the USA over here.  we have enough of our own.

I find this a shame as I like the patterns from there.  I've made others and envied some too.  They are decidedly different to many around, are well written and easy to follow and the finished project looks great.  I'm really disappointed in the yarn. I like this hat and will make the pattern again but probably in some MadTosh Vintage worsted in my stash.

I haven't taken many pictures of the sky lately but this was so beautiful I grabbed my phone and took a couple.  The iPhone does skies well bcause of its colour saturation according to my sons.  An antidote to my grumpiness above.

Also an antidote to sadness.  Snuggles the cat my DIL found as an abandoned kitten in a cemetery in winter 1996, went on her last trip to the vet  today.  Quite old, but many cats are older.  She hadn't been well for a few weeks and the vet wasn't sure of the problem, but she worsened rapidly overnight and my son decided it was another trip he had to make today.  She lived at my place for quite a while with her two sons.  She would sit on the stairs and ambush me through the railing as I walked down the hall.  I found she'd been winding my wool once.  A small ball was  wound around chair legs and from  side to side under the dining table.  My husband used to put his business suit coat across the back of one of the dining chairs.  She often hid under it and would dash out and bite the bum of one of her sons as he ambled past.  She'd be back in hiding before he had even realised what had happened.

My husband used to feed her little treats from his plate, despit my entreaties.  I had friends  over for dinner once when he was away and she stood on her hind legs and clawed the thigh of the person sitting where he usually sat.  He had not given her anything.

One more thing.  Google reader is being shut by Google in a few weeks.  Son recommended Feedly.  It will actually sync with my entries in Google reader so it will save entering things again.  I'm currently using it but will keep looking.  It's OK and I am probably just not accustomed to it as I've used the other for years.

be prepared

I was never a Guide or a Brownie.  Mum and Dad weren't people who did that sort of thing at all.  I remember in possibly fifth class, a new girl came to school.  I even remember her name, Sheila Moon.  She was the only child of English immigrants and she came to school one day with a Brownie uniform on.  Brown dress with yellow tab at neck and a brown beret.  It had badges sewn to it, although I don't think many of us were impressed with some of them.  I seem to remember one for washing up. To most of us, she was exotic, although not in the sense often used today.

Of course, what we were seeing was really cultural differences.  She was shy, understandably so, she had no game skills, she was pasty.  However, she was a Brownie.  I think her parents found a group nearby and she continued there.

At High School there was one girl who was a Guide.  Blue uniform this time and again badges.  I think she continued guiding after High School.  I knew one woman heavily involved in guiding.  Till not long before her death in her 80s, she camped at Orange in the snow every winter with the guides.  In 1973, she was made a Member of the British Empire for her services to guiding.

When my sons were small, the eldest pestered me to allow him to join Cubs. His best friend was a cub. This was awkward for us.  We had little money for uniform and their father was teaching accountancy at TAFE at night, so I had the three of them at home with me.  The group met about 20 minutes walk away, but at some stupid time like 6:00 or  6:30.  The others needed a meal and bath but we had to all walk down.  Then I had to return home, only to repeat the walk to collect him.

This craze for him died a natural death, thank goodness.  This was the boy who read encyclopaedias at night in bed.  It took only a couple of weeks for him to be bored stiff.  I persevered another couple of weeks and then he dropped out.

All this leads to  the motto, Be Prepared.  I think it must have been the day today which has been cooler and crisper than most lately.  The feel of autumn has returned, at least for  a few days.  I am preparing for winter.  I have had my little swift spinning merrily  since lunchtime.  I've wound another skein of ailsa's 50/50 merino and silk which I am using for the Lowtide jacket.  I'll need that yarn soon.  I have one skein left to wind if needed.  Ailsa's yarns were always beautiful to wind.  I don't remember any breaks in the yarn and certainly no tangles in the skein.

I wound the one and a bit skeins of the Brooklyn Tweed Shelter for a hat and the three  skeins of his Loft for a shawl.  My table top accumulated the start of a mini compost heap.  Lots of vegetable matter fell out of  the yarn and lots stayed in and passed through my fingers.  I was reminded of some wool I bought from Nundle Mills about ten years ago which even had burs in it.   Another couple of small skeins and I am done with the swift for today.

It feels good to be prepared like this.  I really do think it's part of the subconscious preparations for winter.  Elizabeth Zimmermann speaks of fingers with knitting memory.  Preparations for winter are related.

Last night we had an evening at the favourite family pizzeria which used to be only a couple of hundred yards from my former home.  Youngest son, whose new position was confirmed a week ago wanted to thank his brothers for all the work and support they gave him in his application and to thank a friend of mine for the general moral support he has been to him.  A backstop really.  We had a lovely time but the grandchildren were all tired.  Two of them had  been at the Powerhouse Museum most of the day and their cousins had played soccer.  However, we all had a great time.

The seven year old above had six pieces of pizza and quite a large serve of a Nutella and strawberry dessert pizza.  Miss Eight on the right, sat next to me and scarcely spoke all night.  She's a year older than Master Seven, but a good 2" shorter, although she doesn't look short when he's not around.

The World's best Auntie took three napkins to clean this up.  It's Nutella.

I can sing a rainbow too

Lots of colours today and even some knitting!

This looks as if it's quite early but it was just before sunrise, around 6:45 am, looking toward the city skyline.  As the clouds suggest, there has been a bit of rain since, but it's very sunny and humid here now.  We had rain last night around 11:00 pm, but it didn't last long and the night was sticky too.

Fruit and vegetable delivery day and I was out of fruit except a lime and a lemon.  Variety of food colour daily is stressed by some nutritionists.  I should be fine.  There's an avocado hiding in there, small red birds eye chillies, bananas, apples, two colours of grapes, red capsicum, purple carrots. two types of tomatoes.  Also more lemons and limes.  I use a lot of them.  Not shown are brown potatoes, sage, sugar peas, fresh beans, bok choy, broccoli, kale, zucchini and rocket and purple onions.

Add in some good olive oil which tastes  wonderful, and the box was fairly full.  I'm going out for lunch down south on Saturday and think I'll make an old fashioned zucchini slice.  I'll buy some bacon and jazz it up with some feta and ricotta.  Here's Donna Hay's adult version of it.  It packs well and is yummy.  There are plenty of other less indulgent recipes on the web too.

Another rainbow. Now my fingers are feeling better and most of the swelling has gone, I've returned to knitting.  Carefully and in a measured way.  I can hardly do much less.  Fine wool on 3.5 mm needles with several hundred stitches does not make for quick progress.  The neckline is at the top, sleeve stitches and armholes are on waste thread.  The stocking stitch at the bottom s supposed to be 15" long.  I will try it on later and see where that comes to on me.  I'm fairly short, the shortest in the family bar one DIL, and if shorter is OK, then I'm not arguing.  It's bunched up on the cable of the circular.  It's still easy to knit but not to spread out for a photo.  The pattern does not say to, but I think I might have to do a hem or some moss stitch n the bottom or the stocking stitch will roll.

After a long period of turmoil and uncertainty, Central Coast son has finally been told he has been made permanent.  It's basically what he has been doing for ages but is a promotion by several grades and work load has changed.  Lots of others were made redundant or just plain sacked.  He's happy but not for them.  He now has six months probation which his brother in the recruitment field warned him of.  He has heard however, that others who had contract positions made permanent have 12 month's probation.  He's been there 8 years and still has this last hurdle.  I think the place is very carefully doing everything by the book and this was the least they could give him.  However, he didn't want to move.  He has a very particular set of IT skills, shared by not many in Australia and he could easily get a  job.  However, he has experienced the joys (not) of over an hour's commute to Sydney.  Newcastle would be the same. Trains are unreliable and often late or missed altogether.  He is door to door in under 30 minutes if al works well together.