YARN!!!!!

My first attempt at spinning yarn...... :-?

SNEEEEEEEEEUW!!!

Well, it has been snowing today, prompting cries of 'Sneeeeeeeuw!' in our house! It was covering the ground properly almost immediately to make a soft and sort-of crunchy layer about 2cm deep (probably deeper now but there is no way I'm going outside to check!)

It has been a good week since my last post; that was last sunday I believe, so I have had a full five days of hecticity and now I can begin to chill somewhat though not properly just yet. I am going Christmas shopping on Sunday (mistakenly believing, like last year, that it will be a lot quieter in Newcastle on a Sunday!!) and then food shopping to get the Xmas week's food on Wenesday, the day before Xmas Eve!! In between there will be another day in town plus a mad dash to the Post Office and around the doors locally delivering cards. Local cards for local people!! No doubt about it, I will need to write myself a detailed schedule - also on daily stick-it notes! The good thing is, this year, for the first time in a while, it is just going to be Rob, Josh and myself - and the Catses of course - all of us, at home, on our own, cosy family Christmas; nice and quiet and relaxed! The week between Christmas and New Year's is when we will have people round: possibly Jonny and Madeleine, Pam and Martin (?? - would be nice), Kim and hubby and their little girl, maybe Anna... and actually I think I am meant to be going bowling - some Co-op thing - on New Year's Eve.

Speaking of Co-op stuff, the December meeting/Christmas Party was pretty good! Well, the meeting was awful, as there are currently 'issues' we have to think about, issues, basically, of co-operability and so forth. Not for this blog though. The party was good - well, I thought so, and as many people did not leave until after 3 a.m I presume that I wsn't the only one who has a good time. Jerry was a star, we went shopping in her new car - which she said she had bought in the auction for about £300!! If only I could actually learn how to drive without almost crashing!!! We went to Morrisons, which is where I shall be doing a lot of shopping from now on, as I can walk there over the Moor then get a cab back. I thought we had got too much booze, but - and I still think this is unbelievable! - apparently 7 bottles of wine, a huge bottle of cider, a bottle of vodka, 4 cans of bitter, 4 cans of stout, and 24 little bottles of bier blonde was almost not quite enough for 9 or 10 people, one of whom (me) wasn't really drinking, and two of whom left fairly early!! The wine ran out first, and so people started just drinking whatever, and inevitably the conversation degenerated - mostly due to Beefy's one-track mind and love of toilet humour!! I lost count of the number of times he mentioned his bowel movements, his hairy bum, his pierced ****, and -----'s 'Fossil Fanny' (I won't mention the name in case they ever read this and are embarrassed or I get done for libel). I was almost on the floor with laughing so much and could barely breathe at one point. Even before the meeting ended(yes, it was maybe a bad move to offer people a glass of wine during the meeting...) certain parties were drunk!

But all-in-all it was a good night - I think the Co-op ought to have more of these social events! We don't live communally, but it's nice that we are involved, to whatever extent - some more than others - in each other's lives. And I am really really glad Hev decided to come round, and I'd like to think we managed to cheer he up even a small amount. Poor lass; not only has she lost someone she really loved - even if she couldn't really admit it at the time and often had a really rough time because of his issues (and I can certainly empathise with that because I was with D for three years) - but she is also having to deal with her little girl's grief at having lost her Daddy. I simply cannot begin to imagine what that must be like.

Well, after the party, I haven't really had much I've had to do this week. But I did receive the gorgeous wool fibre I ordered from the Etsy shops, and here they are in all their wonderfulness:


The two photos above are the one from Shunklies and the two photos below are the one from Amy's Rainbow - colour: Cassis, which will become something for me!! Probably mixed with some other colours which I shall buy in the New Year.


And I've discovered another couple of gorgeous Etsy shops too: Lime Green Jelly and Wonderful Wool, so watch this space -LOL!! I hve finished Saartje's scarf at long last - just need to fix the second lot of tassels on and maybe stitch a couple of those gorgeous little flowers with the mother-of-pearl buttons in the middle. Then I can spend Saturday spinning, and continuing my Cold Mountain scarf. By the way, the new Knitty is out and I'm sorry to say I am very disappointed.

I bought a few books with my Whatstoner's gift cards, but I haven't been impressed on the whole with the selection of books on knitting in the store in Newcastle. I think they had about a dozen - maybe seven different titles; they were mainly the sort of books non-knitters would buy a book-loving knitter as a gift without really understanding what knitters look for in a knitting book. for instance, those sort of 'idiots guide to knitting', and that sort of thing. no real pattern-filled books or stitch dictionaries etc. Rubbish. But i managed to spend all but about £16 and I'm saving that for when I inevitably see a book I simply must have, as usually happens when I have no spare money. I did see a book I think I'm going to buy for Sara: 'Mog's Christmas', complete with CD, and at the minute it's on a 'Buy one get one free' deal. I was also tempt6ed - as usual - by the expensive stationery, but I do actually have pretty much ten years' supply of Paperblanks and Cavallini notebooks, so I had to drag myself away for the rather delightful little notecards and so on. Newcastle is crying out for a decent book shop, somewhere which doesn't just sell the pulp currently being promoted by the min publishers.

I could go on forever about my dissatisfaction where that is concerned but it's after 2 and I do want to be up early tomorrow to get some milk, so I will bid thee good night.

COUNTDOWN TO SOLSTICE AND CHRISTMAS!!

So....here we go! It's Sunday evening, 13th December though it is after midnight so its really the 14th; we have 7 days until the shortest day, the Solstice. People don't always realise, in their weekender and Glastonbury 'Experience' part time hippyness, that the Solstice itself is NOT at dawn on the day in question, but at the sun's highest point on Midsummer's Day and lowest point on Midwinter's. The traditional Winter Solstice is however traditioonally celebrated at dawn on the day after the shortest day because in olden times when people did not understand why the sun rose/set, they realy thought the days were getting shorter because the sun was going out. They would leave fires burning all night in the hope of persuading the sun to come back,,and next morning, when it inevitably did, one again, rise, they were so overjoyed that they had persuaded the sun to return that they partyed big-time. Most cultures and religions have some kind of Lights festival at this time of the year, we need it to get us through! Then along came the Christians and said we don't want you celebrating these Pagan beliefs any more, but we know you need something at this time of year, so we'll brig Christmas forward a month or so and you can celebrate it on the 25th , just after the old Solstice. Of course, the Pagans still continued to celebrate the anual return of the sun and so that's why we still have lots of candles and lights and so forth. It has nothing to do with Jesus. As for Santa, well, yet again we have the wrong date! As we in this family know, Saint Nicholas - Sinterklaas - comes on the 5th of December; but we have got him mixed up with 'Father Christmas' (who is not really Santa at all) Father Christmas may well come down the chimney but he is not Santa Claus!

So what are we celebrating in any true sense of the word? Well, we are not Christian so we are not celebrating Christ's birth - Christ Mass. We may celebrate the Solstice in that it means the days, from then on, are going to get lighter (even though it is not that obvious) and I have always liked the house being full of candles. I like to think of it as marking the begining of a new cycle, though of course it isn't the beginning of Spring yet. So think what it is that we celebrate is being together, the fact we all belong to each other, which of course so many people do not have. a chance also to reflect on how fortunate we are compared to the vast majority of the world's population; and eve how lucky we are compared to so many in our own country, a so-called civilised country in the 21st Century which still nevertheless has great inequalities.

I won't go on about my socialist beliefs; as I've said before this is not a political blog, it is meant to be lighthearted. But most of the inequalities I refer to are caused directly by greed, which translates - because of the greed for money - into capitalism. So many people face the festive season with nothing, while so many have more than they can ever use.

We have a warm, comfortable home - it is a real home with a feeling of contentment and love, There are Animals lounging about, content that they do not have to go outside in the cold and happy that they have a warm lap to jump onto.

There are young adults, boys who have turned into men and not too badly either and I am partially - if not mainly - responsible for the fact they are happy, well-balanced, bright, articulate, compassionate individuals, they are good to be around and Christmas with them is a time of year which feels special. so for us, Christmas has to be about Home and Family and being thankful for the small things we have that make life just a little easier than it is for so many.

So...the countdown has begun. a week til Solstice, just under two til Christmas. This year, Christmas day is a Friday, which means all the boring days that comer after are got out of the way over the weekend and so it is little different from a normal Bank Holiday weekend. The worst years are those with a mid-week Christmas....do NOT get me started on those!

I am rushing to meet the deadline for posting parcels to the Netherlands, so the Uiterstegrachters get their dododjes in time! The hold up is that I have yet to finish Sara's sjaaltje, though it is a matter of a few rows and of course the tassels for that end (as I have already attached the tassels for the top)


Every year at this time - usually this exact time actually; about ten days before Christmas because a week seems like it's pushing it and besides there are the crowds to think about and two weeks means you have too long to wait afterwards - I have my annual trip to IKEA!! The usual purchases are small rugs, lamps, light bulbs for non-English lamps, scented and tea light candles....bits and bobs......last year it was a new sofa and futon, plus lots of lampshades and I almost bought a new rug....This year Rob came with me and we chose a new rug; I had planned to buy a Vitten but they were out of stock so I noticed and bought a large Flokati which is smaller than the Vitten but the same size as our current rug, so that's fine.

For the catses, their very own sheepskin rug, a beautiful soft thick pile of fluffy warmth for them to sleep on. I bought a cover for the sofa and a larger throw for the futon; cushions - which, back home, Josh pronounced to be 'gay' but Rob and I like them - for the sofa; thick cotton rugs for the kitchen to replace the long one I dropped the appelgebaak on a few weeks back and has never been the same since (plus all the spilled cat food stains etc.....yeuch! I wanted to replace that very quickly!); clip-onto-bookcase lamps for the boys; anti-slip smiley faced puddle-shape mat for the bath; small chrome pedal bin for the kitchen; and the piece de resistance: an apple corer/segmenter!!

I really like going to IKEA but you have to plan it in advance, choose the right day and time of day, know what you want so you can completely ignore and thus hurry through irrelevant sections, and above all allow yourself a good few hours because time flies in there and you wil need a break halfway too. We were in there about three hours, and it was just right.

The best thing was, it all cost less than my original budget, because even though I bought many things which were not on the list, the rug we bought was half the price of the one we were going to buy. so I didn't need to use my checkbook, which I only took for emergencies anyway. Rob was keeping that for me with strict instructions not to allow me to go over the top and buy things we really really did not need, yet it was he who tried to persuade me that what the cats really need is a 7 feet high rattan climbing 'tree' with little perches and hooks to hang toys from. Yes, they really need encouragement to jump about at height, clawing whatever they are sitting on.....in any case the thing cost £67 so that prohibited the purchase anyway, though he almost had me convinced! While we were waiting for the cab to take us home Rob suggested that perhaps the cats' psychic abilities had been astrally projected, and that they were putting these ideas into our heads. how else to explain my decision to buy them a £30 sheepskin rug all of their very own?

So, once home I decided to put everything in its place apart from the sofa and futon covers, which I shall do on Tuesday before the party. I have put the old living room kilim rug - which I refuse to part with as it is a genuine piece of IKEA history (it was framed and on the wall when the place first opened, and later put into Bargain Corner) - in the kitchen; the gabbeh is now under the table and the tatty old striped kilim (el cheapo as it is cotton not wool) is being chucked. The new rug looks lush in the front room, and the catses loves their little sheepskin rug!

I have made a schedule for the next two days because otherwise I will do nothing. so tomorrow I will chuck out the rubbish and chuck in some laundry before I go to work (early start) I'll come home at 12 - thank goodness I live 5 minutes away - and take the washing out before going to do the shopping for the co-op Christmas party refreshments and also for us. That done, I shall clean the bathroom, which is actually clean but the shower screen is a bit watermarked. On Tuesday morning I'll hoover upstairs then I'll start prepping the food; after lunch I'll then put the covers on the sofa and futon, and hoover downstairs. By then it will be time for anyone who's coming to help with the food to arrive. Sorted. Having a written list is the only way I can get things done these days. So anyway, watch this space for goss from the party later this week.

I haven't blogged for a while, but there is so much to catch up- on, for instance my birthday, which funnily enough meant I became one year older in the space of one day! I got some nice presies, the usual, by which I mean nice usual: smellies, chockies, gift cards for Whatstoners.....Rob bought me a book I've wanted for a while, "Ordinary Thunderstorms" by William Boyd and it is brilliant! I also treated myself to gorgeous gorgeous merino from two Etsy shops: BFL fibre in 'Cassis' from Amy's Rainbow:


And Kettle-dyed Superwash Merino Tops from Shunklies in gorgeous purples and pinks:


Of course, these are not yet knittable yarn, but I have bought a spindle to spin my own yarn - hopefully not too thick! I am still going to be buying gorgeous laceweight merino and wool/silk/cashmere etc. blends for my lace projects; these handspun yarns will be to make things like scarves and gloves and maybe felted stuff.

So watch this space!!!

A WALK AROUND THE GARDEN

Yet again I didn't blog for millenia! I have been too busy knitting, doing laundry, giving the cat his medication......and gardening(again) It has been a day of several weather types, it's like they are all trying to compete for some sort of award. This morning, Snow even put in an appearance, then Rain showed its ugly face, but Blue Skies finally chased them both away. Nevertheless I still ended up with boots so absolutely caked with thick loamy mud that I could barely lift my feet!!

Anyway...I've had a fairly good week considering my friend Seasonally Affective Disorder has come to stay (uninvited as per usual) However, this year I have a Secret Weapon at my disposal, thanks to Fiona who is researching S.A.D. as part of her PhD. AROINT THEE, you SAD knave!! (Notice how I have immediately made S.A.D. male in gender? Funny, that....)

So...the garden....I suppose you have to be a glutton for punishment and not to mention pretty mad to choose to work outdoors in November. But the fact is, as soon as you are through that gate you enter some kind of parallel universe where everyone is really lovely,it is impossible to be in a bad mood and the sun always shines! Well, two out of three ain't bad, but it sure feels like the sun always shining and like the sky is always a perfect shade of blue. The garden is hidden behind a set of gates along the little road to the side of the house. When you enter, you have a big wall to the left and a stone building to the right, so there is no hint of what's to come. As you get to the end of the wall to your right there is an archway and suddenly you are at the top of a short set of steps.To either side of the steps are stone-walled flower beds which have been carefully planned so that there are always flowering plants, as well as lavender and heathers, and several small varieties of fruit bush. These stone walls continue along the length of the garden on one side of a stone path which leads all the way up to the top of the garden. On the other side of the wall, down the steps, is the bottom part of the garden. It has two polythene tunnels (usuallyknown as 'polytunnels') running the width of the garden. At the very far side are some compost bins and a storage area with huts and a shed. Between those and the path, running along parallel to the road,with its back wall forming the boundary that the gates sit in, is a small building which houses a lounge,small kitchen and a shower room. Between the building and the sheds are several vegetable patches with Things Growing in them.

At this time of year there really isn't much going on - the polytunnels are almost empty; in one, we removed the last of the beans a few weeks ago and took down the frames. There is nothing in there apart from some black polythene from the timber yard,put down over the soil to deter weeds and keep the little creatures who live in the soil from freezing. In the next polytunnel there are still a few courgettes and beetroot but they are 'finished' pretty much. That polytunnel also serves as a kind of shed; there is a workbench where the vegetables have been weighed and boxed for transport during the growing season, and where the hens' food is mixed. The hens themselves are housed behind the polytunnel; there are eight of them altogether. They are as free range as it is possible to allow them, given that there are foxes around. They have a rather natty wooden he house,which has a space underneath for them to shelter, a kind of ramp leading to their front 'door', and the inside is warm and dry with straw that is later removed and made into compost. Round the back of the hen house is a long hinged cover at about chest height. Lift this lid and you will find a long box divided into sections and lined with straw...if you are really lucky you might even find freshly laid - and still warm! - eggs, and these are taken out and placed in a box to be collected later by whoever has asked for eggs that week. The hens live a fairly carefree existence, pottering about in their enclosure, sitting in the hen house and clucking. They are fed on a mix of pellets, carrot scrapings and chopped up greens etc. Yes, hens do eat vegetables!

Walking around the side of the polytunel, past the henhouse, back towards the stone path, is a long single-storey wooden building. This is a self-build project completed couple of years ago, known as the Garden Rooms. It houses four small one-roomed bedsit style 'studios', a conference room with kitchen, and the offices of the Horticulture Project (Known as NE4 VEG) The studios are lived in by homeless men: recovering alcoholics and/or drug addicts. These small rooms have their own front doors leading out onto shared verandah which overlooks the garden. It's a kind of half-way house, as is the main house normally but at the minute the main house is undergoing major renovation work, so only the Garden rooms are currently occupied. Men can stay here for up to two years with support to gain qualifications and training, before moving out, hopefully to a more long-term accommodation.

Going along past the Garden rooms and back onto the stone path, you walk past the door to the conference room, then up onto a lawn. To the right is a small wooden decking area leading to the door of the Project's offices. Past that, over by the far wall, is a wild area and a small pond. at the very end of the garden is a long greenhouse - this has a heating system - and in between are two long vegetable patches and - separated from that by a stone wall with flower beds - a wooden seating area.

The main thing that strikes you, walking around, is that you could almost be in the middle of the countryside. It's very peaceful, with no traffic sounds or loud radios etc. Everywhere you look there are signs of Nature doing her work, just going about her business. Even when it's raining it doesn't seem to dampen anyone's spirits. It's like: it's raining - so what? It's only water and the sky will brighten again; it always does.

The only thing I feel sad about is that the hostel is men-only and so homeless women cannot benefit from the project. As I piled whole woody cauliflower plants on the ground and hacked them to pieces with my spade it occurred to me exactly why these guys find it all so therapeutic! and the food - cooked by the resident chef - isn't bad either!

HAPPY!

What a happy day!
Apart from having a good night's sleep for the first time in a week, I am also feeling really cheerful. Thomas is much much better, so I am really hoping that when he goes back to the Vet tomorrow she will give him the all-clear.


Thomas slept all night on and in my bed, and this morning has eaten and had a long drink, and has also had no trouble wee-ing. He just seems a lot brighter, more like his normal self; he has been playing and running about and hopefully he can now get back to normal and not have to endure examinations and injections and having pills chucked down his throat any longer.


He is also back to his normal devious and trouble-making self where the other two are concerned. As I write, he has pinched Pete's space on the futon (marked by the Navajo blanket which Pete claimed the day we got it) Pete has returned from the kitchen to find his space taken and has jumped up on the other end of the futon. Thom is lying with his back to Pete, pretending to be asleep, but he is half looking around over his shoulder - with ears flattened -to see what Pete will do - if anything. Pete has sniffed Thomas from about a metre away, but then turned round and is now sitting right on the edge of the futon, facing the window with his back to Thomas and his ears flattened slightly (i.e in a bit of huff) Having reassured himself that Pete will not actually challenge him and has settled down on another part of the futon, Thomas has now turned round to face the fire and is now relaxing because he knows his space is safe. Pete is sulking. There is a three foot gap between them!


I love watching the cats interacting and their funny little mind games etc. Before we got Thomas, Spangle was the undisputed Queen of the house. Everything in it belongs to her, and she has to know what is going on at all times. She knows where everything is and never forgets where we put things (e.g a couple of weeks ago I looked around for - and found - all the ping-pong balls which had gone behind various bookcases and underneath sofas and so forth. I found about eight, and put all but one into one of the little IKEA chest of drawers next to the bookcase, which is where we keep occasionally-used but important stuff that has to be located easily. I promptly forgot about these other balls. However, the other day I was on the futon watching TV and I heard a scratchy-scrabbling noise behind me. There was Spangle pulling open the drawer, and as I watched she casually extracted a ping pong ball and started playing with it. HOW did she remember where they were, and how did she remember which drawer, out of a possible twelve, they were in? See what I mean?

Back in August 08, when Thomas arrived, a very boisterous 4 month old kitten, Spangle was incredulous! What an insult! Allowing this youngster to enter her home and go on the rampage, disturbing her peace and disrupting the household routine! Without her permission!! She was, to say the very least, highly offended. For about two weeks she sulked, looking daggers at me every time I had Thomas on my lap. Then, she tried another, more direct, approach: slapping him for absolutely no apparent reason every now and again. He started getting to know Pete, and Pete actually really likes him. They would lick each other's faces, and lie on the bed or sofa together.


Spangle continued to ignore Thom other than to whack him every time he got too close. As Thomas started getting older, he started fighting back. He is a big cat, and the other two - not having had a very good start in life before they were 'rescued' - are very small; Spangle in particular is very petite under all that fur. As soon as he was old enough he began trying to take over. He started actively seeking Spangle out to attack her, and these attacks were rather vicious. He was still young though and he didn't do any damage. When he was 6 months old he was neutered and this actually calmed him down. But he wanted to be the boss and Spangle continued - and still does - to defend her position! She has a hard job. Sometimes Thomas can be a real nuisance. And he is jealous!! If Spangle is being tickled or being shown any affection, Thomas will pounce on her and start fighting her. He cannot bear to see her getting attention! Spangle bears grudges and will often wait until he least expects it before getting him back. For example, if he walks past her she will casually whack him right across the face. Then chase him and do it again. If cats were humans they would be diagnosed with schizophrenia and locked up.

Last night I made two delicious Crumbles: one with apple and cinammon and the other with all manner of berries from the freezer, plus the remaining apple pieces. Josh declared the berry one to be slightly too 'cats' bum'(i.e sour - think about it) yet his plate was almost clean nevertheless. Rob had his apple and cinnamon crumble with Ben and Jerry's Belgian Chocolate Brownie (or is it Chocolate Fudge Brownie?) I had hardly eaten last week and so I had both types and a big chunk of B & J's too. Plenty left for today's brunch - ha ha!! It is almost a rule in this house that there has to be enough crumble for the next day. Josh swears by it as a pre-College breakfast.

On a totally different subject, I found this fantastic website the other week, called Colour Lovers. This site is the visual answer to Prozac for people like me who get their pleasure not from material things but from natural things, particualrly becaue of what their colours do to the brain. I look at the sky on a cloudless, crisp Winter's morning and that particular shade of blue, and also the way it fades from an almost lilac-blue higher up to the palest true Sky blue, create some kind of chemical reaction in the pleasure-feeling section of my brain. I cannot see the sky that colour and feel depressed or sad. The colours which really have a positive effect seem really difficult to reproduce, for instance it is hard to create them on a omputer screen,or rather if you do manage almost to create the right shade, it just doesn'tlook right or have the same effect. I have to see these colours in real life, in their natural state, on the right object. The colour which has the most positive effecton me is a pale-ish pale-but-bright purpley blue. I call this colour Sky North.


My other created colours are here. Mostly blues/purples, and combinations thereof! The site is great for messing about, trying to find your favourite and perfect colours. I'm sure there must be a more serious use for it, but i use it as a form of Therapy!

OUT OF THE WOODS

Wow! I didn't blog since Tuesday. This is because I haven't had time and also due to being really stressed and anxious about little Thom, who didn't actually come home until yesterday! What ought to have been a one night stay went on longer because as they were about to remove his catheter on Wednesday morning, they found he had actually chewed it half out himself (Yes, as we all know, Thomas LOVE nothing better than to gnaw on things....a large stick, stray pieces of Playmobil from Sara's Christmas games, the toggles from his play tunnel, the lock knobs on his carrier...all bear his trademark teethmarks, as do many of my books. And he makes an incredibly fierce-cute snarling sound as he chews!!) So, they had to do a minor procedure to remove the other half, which was stuck, and they replaced it and kept him in overnight again. On Thursday night they removed it and on Friday afternoon the vet rang and said they wanted to see if he would now be able to pee on his own, but they thought he was getting stressed and many animals will not pee in a strange place (plus fussy Thom is very particular about which brand of cat litter he will use when he has to wee indoors) They said they would send him home and asked me to monitor him closely to see if he was urinating. However when I arrived to collect him the vet said not long after she rang me he had done a wee anyway, and after checking his bladder she said it was empty. She gave him antibiotic and painkilling injections and then said bring him back first thing in the morning just to check again. When we got home he was so obviously 100 times better than when he first went in; he immediately started greeting Spangle and Pete and rubbing his cheek against all the furniture; also against our legs. He sat in front of the fire and had a full wash. He had several wees. At dinnertime he had some turkey and some tuna. Then he settled down in front of the fire again and went to sleep.


This morning however he was licking at himself and going back and forth to the litter box for small wees. so when we went for his follow-up appointment the vet again checked his bladder and said it was only a tiny bit full, not even as full as it would be before a normal wee. To put this into perspective, it was the size of a tangerine. She said the reason he kept going back to the litter box might be because now that the painkiller is wearing off he might be a bit sore from the catheter. It must feel like cystitis (ouch!) Or, his urethra might be spasming a bit. so she said keep checking to see if he is peeing properly and give him some more of the painkiller this afternoon. If he is obviously worsening tomorrow ring the Heworth branch - the only one open on Sundays and only for emergencies - who might want to see him. In any case he has to go back to the normal one on Monday, and hopefully that will be that.

We are just going to have to keep our fingers crossed and hope.

I have started a scarf for Saartje, in Debbie Bliss Soho - pinks. The pattern is from the Frabjous Fibers recycled silk yarn free pattern pages. It looks really nice already - slightly richer/brighter colours than they appear in the photo - and it will definitely be Sara's style! She loves pink and it will go with her pink jacket.

Also on the needles is the blanket I am knitting for the cats in Patons Inca, with a Peruvian style bird design on Colinette Shimmer Five.
Chunky and warm, it is knitting up fast, and my intarsia skills are definitely improving. I have learned to wrap the not-in-use yarn between stitches so that there are no unsightly lines of yarn at the back. I guess this is the idea behind Scandinavian two colour knitting, so on the back there is a kind of reverse pattern, like a negative photo image. Again, the colours are more vibrant than in the photos. I am really pleased with the way the bird design has turned out!!!


Tonight I'm going to get on with my Cold Mountain scarf - I have ordered loads of seed beads in various shades of bluey-purple and purple, in two sizes, and a couple of really narrow crochet hooks with which to thread them. So I will be able to make some really gorgeous scarves etc!! I have an idea I will get totally sucked into the beading idea the way I have with lace!!

Thomas Is back At The Vet's

*SIGH*
Thomas went for his follow-up at the vet's today. when we got up this morning he seemedto have turned a corner, he was fairly lively and instead of just lying about sleeping he was up and about, eating a little and pestering us for attention as he normally would in the morning.

However, this afternoon at the vet's it transpired that his bladder seemed to be blocked again, which was puzzling since he has been weeing okay (and proved this by peeing all over the examining table!!) So, the vet said she would have another look and then monitor him over the next 24 hours. Poor little Thomas; he hasn't really had the best of luck, has he. It is so horrid when an animal is ill because they cannot tell you exactly how they feel and you cannot really explain anything to them. The house feels wrong with one less cat, and Spangley Spangle and Petit Pete are kind of pining for Thomas; Spangle has been looking for him and 'calling' and Petey has just curled up into a ball and slept all day. Amazing how cats become a unit, regardless of how well - or not - they get on with one another, and if part of that unit is missing then the others cannot function properly. Kind of a symbiosis thing.

But what can one do, other than wait to call the vet in the morning and find out what time to collect him? then we will have a better picture of what is going on.

I feel like my whole life - such as it is - is on hold; I can't make plans to do anything, can't think about eating,can't settle at all. And I am getting more and more exhausted because of the stress and especially because of all the to-ing and fro-ing. Even doing some shopping in town requires a couple of days' recovery afterwards normally, but haven't had time to rest after two or three journeys to the vet, with heavy cat/pet transporter in tow.

I have been thinking about what sort of scarf and possibly also matching hat to knit for the little Uiterstegrachter! I have some Debbie Bliss Soho - 5 skeins - in multi pinks and am waiting for a skein of Colinette One Zero - in Alizarine a similar variegated pink colour but brighter and slightly darker - which I grabbed on eBay. These will make a lovely chunky scarf and hat set in multi shades of her favourite colour! I might actually knit the scarf in the Soho, and use the Colinette to make some I-Cord spirally flowers to stitch on and use the remainder for a fringe for the scarf and tassels for the end of the ear flaps on the hat. The scarf will probably be a simple ribbed pattern, but for the hat I have found a pattern called Jayne Beanie on Yarn Zombie

I am watching Breaking Bad, which I have already seen online last year, but it is actually on British TV now so I can watch it on the actual TV. Earlier I watched Later with Jools Holland, and it was a really great show with Corinne Bailey Ray, Big Pink, a duet with David Gray and nnie Lennox, plus chatter from Roger Queen Taylor and Vic Shooting Stars reeves showing off his new book,Vic Reeves' Vast book of Knowledge which I will be getting Offspring #1 for his birthday. I steer clear from most celebrity books but this is his take on a sort of illustrated encyclopaedia!

So...I ought to be making plans for Christmas, hoovering the floors,making the bed etc and reading decent literature, but it seems all I can do is watch trashy TV- American at that!! Hopefully, Thomas will be okay and I can get him home and get back into some semblance of normality.