saturday snippets...

... or, would you like some rain with that?

Not a good week in various ways.  One day was the hottest day we've had this summer, 34°C here.  One of the very few days over 30°C that Sydney has had.  Now I'm not bothered by that, I like the mid-20s but there's been so little hot weather neither I nor many others were acclimatised. Horrible day and high humidity as  well.

We've had weeks and weeks of rain.  There are vast quantities of water making their way into outback NSW from the Queensland floods.  Now added to that is the huge amount of rain across practically the whole state.  Broken Hill had six months rain in a few hours the other day.  The rain trough moved in and took up residence and shows no inclination to move.  Everything here was already saturated  and the ground is at what was called field saturation point when I did Agriculture.  That means it goes squelch, squelch when you tread on it.  No more moisture can be taken in.

Little wonder then that 75% of NSW is either flooded or on a flood alert or watch.  Watch is slightly below alert, but when it pours all day, what's the difference?

DIL who volunteers with SES is busy.  Out at night and doing full-time work too.  Last night she was at  Wilberforce on the Hawkesbury River, down stream from Warragamba Dam which is now at 100% capacity.  Not so long ago it was just under 30%.  She was there from 6:00 pm till 9:00 am this morning.  She came home for a sleep and was back there at 4:30 this afternoon for another night.  She has most of the qualifications for all work, chain saw, trees, electrical, fires, floods, boats, roof work and more and does a lot of training herself now.  This time it's all hands needed on deck.

The flying rat squadron shown here has been on slim pickings this week here.  With so much rain, they've had a hard  time getting scraps from people eating while outside McD's.  This lot have been here along the roof  pretty well all day.  They have  a vantage point and if something is dropped they descend en masse in their rush to be first to grab it.

My son who had the bad fall down fire escape stairs some fourteen months ago is facing yet another operation.  He used to be a runner and went every day.  With the broken ankles, pretty well all strenuous physical activity stopped.  When the ankles were fixed he gradually became more mobile.  Not at all back to running, but at least doing physio and swimming.  It then became apparent that his back had also been injured in the fall.  It became worse and worse and he's had MRIs and scans etc.  Also steroid injections which for him were useless.  The pain has been terrible and the fellow who weaned himself off morphine after  ankle ops in a few days has been on the absolute maximum possible for at least three weeks.  He loathes taking painkillers of any type at any time.

Last week he went to doctor for another script, it's tightly controlled here and only 20 tablets at a time can be prescribed.  She took one look at him and listened to the worsening symptoms and was alarmed at some new developments.  She sent him straight to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he was for a couple of days.

His neurosurgeon  and various other surgeons have been insisting to the insurance company that he must have operation to repair damage or they will be looking at a much bigger scenario.  It's next Friday and we just have to get him through this week.  Prince Alfred is close to them if anything should develop, although the operation will be in a private hospital with same surgeon who is top specialist in RPA.

Yesterday I spent most of the day hassling Woolworths re delivery of grocery order.  Four emails and seven phone calls later, I thought the problem was fixed.  Not so.  The replacement order this morning was still missing major items.  I gave up and took a refund.  Now I admit, I don't usually have problems.  Occasionally the wrong product is picked.  If I won't use it, I ring and get a refund.  If I will use it, I usually let it slide.  This was over the top.

Last picture is looking up the street out the back from which I get my address.  I actually have two addresses, one for this street and the other for the main road outside which has a four (!!!) figure street number and is used only by the Water Board.

Off to stir my chicken curry.  It's cool today so a good day for curry.  Lots of vegetables, some leftover chicken taken off hte bone and some Korma paste which was open in fridge.  Smells good and I should have a couple of meals to freeze.

saturday snippets

Things have been very quiet this year as far as cicadas go.  Quite often the end of October or the beginning of November comes and there is a deafening noise from the cicadas.  Even in this fairly built up area, there are enough trees for  cicadas.  Not this year.  All quiet on the cicada front.

I went downstairs to check my letter box.  Hurray!  The March copy of Yarn was there and I like the look of it too.  When I turned to open the security door, this cicada was on the join of the two parts of door.  The black upright line is the felt between the doors.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I would have easily identified this variety.  'm out of practice now.  It's obviously not a green grocer or a yellow monday and it doesn't look aristocratic enough to be a Black Prince.  It's about 7 cm long.

All I had was my iPhone in my pocket so I took one photo and it flew away before I could get another.

As a child I attended school in what was then the outskirts of Sydney.  Not many houses, patches of bush, Chinese market gardens etc.  In summer at lunchtime we would catch cicadas in the playground and put them in a matchbox.  Back in the class room, a gentle shake could produce an outburst of drumming on a boring hot afternoon when we all were sleepy after lunch.

transatlantic shawl

I could not find my long cable anywhere so have taken these rather poor photos of the transatlantic Shawl by Stephen West in progress.

There is a lot of shawl bunched up on either side of the patterned centre.  The wider part of the centre panel will be (eventually), the bottom of the shawl and will be a plain border. It will need a fairly severe blocking, I think, and the three buttonholes on the right as an accent need to have an edging crocheted around them.

It's an interesting pattern done with slipped stitches.  Once I start it I remember the rows, but usually have the pattern beside me  to mark of each row as I do it.  If I stop before a pattern repeat, I can then easily find where I'm up to.  The contrast colour is a soft gumleaf green/grey.

Aside:  I haven't had problems with Blogger and picture placement for ages.  This afternoon is a pain.  Placement keeps changing by itself and the text is giving itself indents where I don't want them! Grrr!

I mentioned that Miss 11 had greatly admired my Striped Study shawl and asked for one.  I pondered for quite a while what to do.  The shawl is very big and although easy, would take a while to duplicate.  I finally decided I would lend it to her.  I took it up there last Saturday when I went to have a haircut.  I'd explained what I was doing to her parents beforehand so they knew the terms.

I told her she was welcome to keep it as long as she wanted it and used it.  I didn't want it used as a bed for the kittens or a roof for a cubby over a couple of chairs with her younger brother.  Or anything else like  that.  If she lost interest in it, as she may well do, I would like it back, but until then she could have it.  She was overwhelmed and so was her mother.  Mum is not in the least crafty as far as fibre goes and had not realised just how big or attractive the shawl was.  She's very fussy and will make sure it's well treated and will wash it carefully if needed.  I never have problems giving her anything knitted as she takes care with them.

A couple of years ago about this  time, I had a two meals in the Members' café  in the National Gallery in Canberra.  This was my attempt to duplicate the salad I had there.  I couldn't remember some of the ingredients but this was very nice in  its place.  I had a dressing waiting of fresh lime juice and olive oil, although I later remembered that there was probably a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar there too.

Fresh rocket, some fresh figs quartered and then sliced more. Truss tiny tomatoes, some cucumber and some sheep's milk fetta.  I was used to the Bulgarian sheep's milk fetta with the white container with a green strip around the top.  I bought some a while ago, not thinking that three or four of us used to use it and now there was only me.  It went off.  I found a foil pack of the Lemnos brand sheep's milk fetta an  bought that.  A much smaller and more manageable amount.  The cheese was good with a pleasant firm texture and a lovely salty flavour.

I had made some more bread rolls with plain flour, spelt flour and the Indian wholemeal Atta flour.  They were as good as the first lot.  I ate dinner in stages, a smaller roll with the salad to start with and then a pork sausage.  The rest of the sausages are in a container for another day.  Finished with a fresh sweet, white peach.

I may even do some more on the shawl tonight while watching the cricket or whatever.

gone phishing

It's been one of those days when I needed to keep  my wits about me.

It started early when I opened my inbox.  Fortunately gmail has a fairly good spam filter and I have a fairly well developed sense of  something not right.  It's been developed over a lot of years at computers.  My ex-husband did not have that discernment at all and opened anything his whacky friends sent him without a second thought.  I spent quite  bit of time cleaning up his PC and he couldn't understand why I tried to tell him that if it came from a religious group, then to be extra careful.

I could see the first bit of the email and didn't need to open it.  A copy of the infamous Nigerian rubbish, I think.

Dear Madam,  I am highly positioned in a major Scottish bank...

Most of these Nigerian type letters are funny and often won't have anything harmful just by opening.  Never click on a link in them.  I know there is a lot of unrest and political questioning in Scotland at the moment with questions of withdrawal, but are they really so poorly off?  Needless to say, they won't be getting my bank details or anything like that.

Half an hour later there was another one in my spam box.  This one was supposedly from Amazon. Hovering with the mouse over the sender's address showed what looked like  a genuine Amazon address. Now I buy stuff from there, usually for the Kindle.  However, I hadn't had an order cancelled (or canceled as it was in email), recently.  One before Christmas, but nothing recently.  Besides there was a spelling mistake in the bit of the email I could see without opening it.  I  looked up my own records and found  that the order number for a genuine purchase was  nothing like the number in the phishing letter.  So I took down details and sent them off to Amazon.  An answer quickly told me they were investigating this but it was definitely not genuine.

Then this evening, there was another identical email, so I have notified Amazon again.  And another one.  If at first you don't succeed...

The day was redeemed by the delivery of a book from the Book Depository, now owned by Amazon for the  last few months.  Still with good prices and free postage.  It was the River Cottage Vegetable book.  I took my afternoon tea outside and opened it.  Oooh!   Aah!  Must try this one or that.

The picture shows what is called Sweet Potato and Peanut gratin.  I had very fresh looking sweet potatoes delivered this morning so made this.  The recipe was for four but I chopped it severely.  One piece was 250 grams when  kilo was called for.  Sliced quite finely and spread in one layer in a greased ovenproof dish.  Cream, garlic, chillies, pepper and salt were mixed and spread over.  Then some peanut butter, sugar free, was mixed with the juice and rind of a lime and about a tablespoon of oil.  Dabs of this went on the slices and the second layer went on, plus any cream mixture left.  I covered it with foil, cooked it in the oven at 180° C for 20 minutes.  Off came the foil and it was cooked for about another 20 minutes till all bubbly.  I'd be more aggressive with the chilli next time, but it was very nice, even with the rather ordinary salad bits and pieces.

No rain at all today here except for last night and early this morning.  I sat outside to eat my meal after watching Letters and Numbers on SBS.  Very pleasant and I'm looking forward to making more from this book.

saturday snippets

I'm off up the coast again today for a haircut, so am posting early.

I get  a couple of longish chillies in my vegetable delivery most deliveries, but really could use more.  So I bought this  plant and holder.  I think they may turn red as some have a bit of red on the skin.

I'm hopung that f they turn red, then they will develop some heat.  I cautiously tasted the very  end of one yesterday.  Nothing.  Picked the thing  and had a bit more.  Still nothing.  I finally ate the last bit, complete with seeds.  All I could taste was capsicum.  The label says it's supposed to be very hot.

I know I like things fairly hot, I always leave seed in the chillies I use, but seriously there wasn't a hint of heat in this.

serendipity

Sometimes I'm in the right place at the right time.  I was walking towards the checkout in the local Target today when I passed a bargain table.  It seemed to be mostly lampshades which I neither need nor want.

Then I saw this pretty tin.  It seemed to be the only one on the table and was marked down to a couple of dollars.  I had to do a bit of  a hunt to find the lid, but it was there, under the shades.  It's quite a large tine and I immediately thought of one of my granddaughters who loves this sort of thing.  If I buy some special stationery and perhaps something pink and frilly, she'll be over the moon with delight.  So a start on early present buying for the year.

I had also found in the same shop a cotton blouse in a different colour to one I had bought for myself at the beginning of our so-called summer.  That one had been $48.95.  This was a few cents over $12.  How could I leave it there?

I'm still plugging away on my shawl.  I haven't done any for a couple of days as my shoulders have been very temperamental.  However, I just remembered I have a still longer cord, so if I can find it, I'll take some pictures.

a little bit of sunshine

I made a determined effort the other day and restarted my languishing Transatlantic Shawl.  It's not hard, it looks good, but I couldn't get into it for at least three  months.  I've done about another 25 rows on it and am really to the point  where the border is worked according to the pattern.  However I still have several balls of both colours so will keep going for a  while.  No photos yet.  There are lots of stitches on a fairly long cable.  They move around easily still but there are too many to stretch out to see the interesting pattern done with slip stitches.

There's some sunshine here  this evening.  I'd forgotten what it looked and felt like!  It comes after a massive storm over Sydney and the Central Coast and down the coast too.  Hail, very dark, thunder and lightning.  Up near my son's place on the coast it was described as a mini cyclone.

It's made photos for Project 365 difficult.  I haven't wanted to venture too far  from home a the rain arrives suddenly with little warning.  There are just so many photos one can take around the place.  However, I am now just under 80%.  The more I add, the longer it takes to go up a percentage point.  It was quick when there were only a few photos.

I was playing around with the aperture settings this morning with the flower.  A smaller opening, f stop, increases the clarity of the depth of the field.  (Smaller opening equals larger number on actual setting!)  I still have heaps to learn, but am making progress.  This is f10.

The second photo was tonight's dinner.  Tasmanian salmon, crunchy onion rings, some a bit too crunchy as I turned my back for a minute on them.  They tasted fine.  Asparagus cooked in the pan with the fish and some baby chat potatoes  with butter and fresh dill.  All covered with a hefty squeeze of fresh limes  which are  cheap at the moment.   I cooked the salmon skin side  down first in just a little oil. Then I turned it.   It was very good as the piece was uniformly thick down the length, making cooking easier.  Followed by rockmelon.

There was just one  downside.  I had intended to open a bottle of wine.  I was almost finished the meal when I realised it was still in the fridge.  Another time perhaps.  I very rarely have alcohol when I'm eating by myself, so just forgot.  I have plenty in the house but prefer to share than to open something with jut me to drink it.

parcel from the USA

I like getting parcels.  This one wasn't a surprise, I treated myself.  However, although I paid extra  for tracking facilities along the way, I wasn't expecting this here.  Just a couple of hours ago I checked the progress of this parcel and according to USPS tracking it was still in USA.  I went out for a short while, something I would not have done if I had known it actually arrived in Australia three days ago. That fact shows on the tracking page only now.  I really don't like complaining, but I could have missed this and possibly not known about this for quite a while if I had relied on their information and updating.  Last time I missed  a delivery, the man put the card into the wrong box.  Three weeks later I learnt of it on the last day before it would have been returned.

Enough.  Isn't it gorgeous.  I love the name Cousteau.  It really does have the deep swirls of blues and greens which are often characteristic of deep under water.  Two skeins of Madeline Tosh Pashmina, sportweight, 329 metres each.  It's merino, silk, cashmere and feels lovely.  A shawl.  I've given away several in the last few weeks.  There are some lovely patterns around.  I hope this will be a spur to finish my Transatlantic shawl before I start this.

I gave up

I gave up and for what I think is the third time since I moved in ten months ago, I have put washing in the drier.  This rain here has just not stopped for the last 24 hours.  It's eased but never completely stopped and was very, very thick last night.  I had a big pile of underwear and really didn't want it draped around inside.  The air is very humid, understandably, and there's no breeze, so washing's all now in the drier.

I see by the Bureau of Meteorology website that rain was forecast for 24 of the 28 days this month. That's on top of the two months of it we've already had.  While I don't mind the cooler temperatures, it would be nice to have some sunshine.

More up north too, and big floods again in places like Gunnedah and Moree and the smaller towns in the area.  I have a friend whose mother in south eastern Queensland is preparing today to be flooded for the third time in three years.  Heartbreaking.

When Miss M, my granddaughter was here last week, she took the Striped Study Shawl, shown here off the model.  She loved it and begged me to make her one. After her bath or shower each night she wrapped it around herself over her pyjamas.  Weather was not what you'd normally class as shawl weather. I'm in a dilemma about doing this.  It's not hard, but there's a lot of knitting in it.  I just don't know and also need to balance things so I don't seem to be favouring one over the other.  The three in the other family get plenty of knitted things, but the shawl is obviously a big project.  I also don't want to make it to find she's completely moved on.

I'm trying to design an easy but pretty scarf or small shawl for someone whom I know on the net but whom I've never met.  She comes from down near 2paw Cindy and has just been diagnosed with a recurrence of the cancer she thought she'd beaten many years ago.  I want something small but cosy for their winter and quick to do so I can get it off to her.  I have settled on the design and started it last night in some sock wool with variegated colours.  After doing three repeats of the pattern, I can see that the multi-coloured yarn kills the design.  I'll have to do some stash diving for a plain colour.  I may be gone some time!

I hunted around on the internet for edgings and found one I liked.  I was planning on a shaped scarf with gradual increases but think I will make it straight with the knitted on edging on one edge.

As I said, it was wet yesterday.  I wandered around the place with my camera in hand.  I took about twenty photos for Project 365.  When I loaded them to my computer I wasn't satisfied  with any of them and deleted quite a few.

So I turned to comfort food.  I had no bread in the house and it was too wet  to even think about going downstairs to service station to get any.  So I made rolls and very tasty they are too.  I've frozen all but one in individual ziplock bags, so I'll have stuff for lunch for some days yet.  They are very substantial.  I'll use the larger rolls as mini-loaves and slice them.  I have to freeze a big loaf anyway as it goes mouldy before I can use it all up.

These are very filling and easy. I have used a mix of flours because of what I had in the pantry, but don't take the mix as prescriptive.

• 10 gm dried yeast
• 600 ml warm milk
• about one tablespoon of softened butter
• 20 gm salt
• 500 gm atta wholemeal flour
• 250 gm plain flour
• 250gm plain spelt flour

I put it all in the Kitchenaid and mixed it for about ten minutes.  I needed just a bit more liquid.  The dough felt good, firm but springy.  Let it rise, covered, for about an hour.  Beat it down again, turn out and shape rolls. Let rise, covered again, for about twenty minutes and cook for about twenty minutes in a hot oven.  Mine runs hot now so that means 180° C fanforced for me.  It made one more than shown in the picture.

Atta flour came from Coles in a plastic container of one kilo.  It's a light wholemeal, used for making Indian flatbreads.  My brother used some in ordinary bread last week, so I've tried it now.

Today's lunch will be another one I've thawed with some smoked salmon and salad.

More cooking.  This time a pasta with blue cheese sauce.  This did me two main meals but could have stretched to three.

• Roast some chopped pumpkin sprayed with oil till it's soft but not burnt around edges.
• Cook pasta per directions on pack. I had macaroni but would have liked shells or bows or orriette. 
• Put about 100 ml light thickened cream in a small saucepan and add about 50 gm decent blue cheese.  Heat very gently, stirring till cheese melts and is incorporated with cream.  Put everything together and serve sprinkled with some walnuts.  I bought them specially.  I love them but don't usually have them around.  I also added parsley as I had it in fridge.
• Serve with some salad.

saturday snippets

Here's a fun Saturday snippet which my son sent me.  He and one of his brothers love very hot mustards, chillies, sauces and so on.  He said this one was so-so, possibly because how can it be hot English mustard if made in France?

I've had a couple of days recovering after having Miss M, 11, here for some time.  We filled in our time well.  Powerhouse Museum, Maritime, Australian Museum.  We saw Tintin in 3D and ended the time with a family birthday party at favourite pizzeria near here for her uncle who had a significant birthday.

However, it was tiring.  After almost six hours at the Powerhouse, a favourite place of hers, she asked if she could go home as her feet were killing her.  Mine were killing me too, only a good three hours before hers.  She checked out all the new things she hadn't seen and then visited her favourites several times over.  We took lunch and just as well.  She made ham and salad bread rolls.  Fruit and water.  However for morning tea, I bought myself a small bottle of Schweppes drink and a very ho-hum supposedly date and ginger biscuit.  It wasn't very nice and the two together cost $7.50!

At the Australian Museum, she happily toured the exhibits taking a long video on her iPod.  I bought a bath toy at the shop there for her brother.  It was a small whale which swished its tail, gyrated and dived.  Yesterday his dad rang to say he'd been instructed to tell me this was his ONLY bath toy now.  In fact, he'd been dragged from the bath to eat his dinner.  He's a good eater so it all went quickly and he went back to the bath for more play.  I hit the jackpot with that toy.

Tintin was a bit of fun.  It was not a film of  any one story but a film in the manner of Tintin.  The rolling 3D waves churned my stomach.  The 3D was much better than the only other 3D film I had seen, Avatar, which didn't impress me on many levels.

That evening was the birthday party.  It was also a time of tremendous rain.  Son from Central Coast took two hours to get here instead of just over an hour.  Son from the western suburbs  took an hour to cover what normally takes about twenty minutes.  I was dreading the start as those two DILs can be a bit touchy.  I almost suggested some deep breathing, but things turned out well.  He's now in Perth with his wife as a birthday event for the significant number.  They found some very cheap fares, well cheap in comparison to  what it normally costs to get to Perth, and have gone  for the weekend.  Back on the red-eye flight arriving early in the morning here, Monday I think. And on to work.

still ahead

The just thirteen year old eldest grandchild decided to see how far he could push me through the week.  I've been doing a lot of minding them.  My son who was bashed is finally back at work full time.  Because he had so much time off, even justifiably, he had a lot to catch up so didn't take holidays over Christmas apart from the public holidays.  He's a manager for a not-for-profit company specialising in finding employment for those with severe disabilities. DIL took a week off but she works for a fairly inflexible company and couldn't get more time off, even without pay.  So the family has been stepping in, me in particular.  Here he is at a birthday party for mum when he was thirteen months old.  Now thirteen years old and feeling very independent.

"I promise I'll do it later, Grandma," he said.  I've seen what happens there before.  "Yes, I really, really will."

I felt up my sleeve.  Yes, there were  some cards still up there.  He forgets I had three boys, all of whom were thirteen at some stage  and all of whom seem to have  survived. "Andrew, you wouldn't perhaps be arguing with me, would you?"

Visions of his iPod or his new adult sized expensive bike being removed for a few days floated through his mind. "I'm very sorry, I apologise."  He wasn't happy, but he did apologise and did as I had asked so I said no more.

It's been tiring and I'm glad there's just one full week left.  His school goes back on the Monday and his susters' on the Wednesday.

Tomorrow I collect his cousin who is eleven.  She'll be here most of the week.  I don't anticipate problems with that.

It has meant I'm tired when I get home so I haven't been on the computer much at all.  Nor have I done much, although a sock has been faithfully accompanying me out there and back.  It has hardly left my bag.

saturday snippets (sort of)

Yesterday seemed to disappear and along came three grandchildren needing minding.  When I arrived home, all I wanted was bed.  It was late last night and the rain was bucketing down outside.  I fell into bed about 11:15 pm and  slept in this morning. Squabbling children, a screaming tantrum thrower  and a yappy puppy do that.

So Saturday snippets have turned into Sunday lunch.  I decided to do an eat from the pantry, a bit like knit from the stash.  I can order organic eggs with my fruit and vegetable order and had about ten left.  I like eggs, but I don't think about them much and they have to be cooked just right for me.  That  means either mixed or with very firm yolks and well cooked whites.  Runny yolks  I just can't cope with and the smell and feel of the whites churns my stomach.  There was some fairly substantial white bread left in the freezer which tasted OK, especially for white bread.  So out that came.  Big thick slices of some reasonable brand.

So what would it be.  French toast, something that was one of my dad's specialties when  I was young.  Not sweet though, savoury with lots of pepper and salt.  When I first was served sweet French toast complete with maple syrup, I didn't know what had happened with my cafe order.  Thought a mistake had been made.

The top picture shows three fairly fresh eggs.  I've had them possibly three weeks and they are still far fresher than supermarket eggs.  You can see the white is still almost jelly around the yolk.  I whisked them up with a fork and had trouble whisking the egg white as it was very thick and firm.  I added some good freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt and some milk till the mix looked right.

I cut the bread slices in two and put them to soak.

In my good heavy pan I melted some butter and put the soaked bread in.  When it was nice and brown I turned it carefully.  It's easy to break, but these slices  were solid and turned well.

I had to add a little more butter for the last piece of bread but they cooked well.  I really like the eggs I get and will always buy organic over ordinary produce.  I'm not a fanatical greeny person, but in most cases I prefer the taste  and there's definitely a difference between organic and non-organic.  I suppose if I had a large young family I might have to reconsider because of cost, but the decision is easy for me now.  I buy organic milk and butter, chicken and beef if at all possible.  Chemicals etc are also best avoided.  Organic vegetables too  when I can get them at places like farmers' markets.

So here's the lunch plate.  Two slices of bread and some vegetables.  There would have been some healthy rocket s well  but when I pulled the packet from the fridge, it felt very squishy.  It was disgusting and smelt like silage, which I can assure you is very green, very rank and putrid.  Lots of good food especially in a drought for cattle but definitely not for my lunch plate.

Two nectarines finished my lunch which was very enjoyable and substantial.  Sorry about the shadow, it's not my head, I think it's the edge of the lens.  I've seen questions about it on photography forums but no solutions.

I'm psyching myself up to get back to the Transatlantic Shawl by Stephen West.  I put it down about three months ago and haven't touched it since.  Just  sort of lost interest.  However, I've seen some photos in other blogs of it and am beginning to regain my enthusiasm.  It's not at all difficult and looks good, I just haven't done it.  Mine is in a creamy white and a soft grey-green.