Thankfully No Pics

There was a dead rat in the garden, and it looked extremely secondhand. DH was wonderful and disposed of it for me. I didn't take a pic.

It's been that sort of day. I'm having something of a battle with the washing machine. It's different from the one I've used from the last ten years and I'm taking a while to understand it. I'm getting outwitted by the manual. One feature that the old machine didn't have is variable temperature. I can finally select long, cool washes. I just need to be aware and not accidentally boil everything. 

I dropped bear off to his party but the steering was feeling off and it was unnerving so I'll have to call the garage. Bear was happy taking snacks. 

Today has been a 'sitting down' day. Tomorrow I hope to have a 'move around' morning and a 'sitting down' afternoon. 

I think that the clocks going back have left me unreasonably out of sorts. I think that I'll head for a very early night.

Writing stuff - another new Kane story here. I'm adding the pic from that story because otherwise this post would look a little bare and it's a pretty pic. 

Photo by Cali Brutz on Unsplash

Hugs and good health to all 

Two Kilograms of Mushrooms

I've been tired all day. Both DH and I seem to be run down and showing signs of being at the end of a viral infection. It's nothing serious, but we're both definitely off our game. We decided that today would be a 'sitting down day'. 

Tesco had a deal on mushrooms and I was running low, so I peeled, chopped and threw 2kgs into the freezer. That should keep me going for a good while. It was quite relaxing. I didn't bother with the radio or anything. Instead I just sat quietly, slowly working my way through and enjoying the peace. 

Bear stayed overnight at the party. I didn't ask him about drinking, but he turned up happy enough and bright eyed and bushy tailed, so I don't think that much drink was taken, if any. Sharon reminded me, so I reminded bear that he could call us anytime, no matter what, and that we wouldn't judge. That he had the app for Uber on his phone if we couldn't get him, or we could order an Uber or traditional taxi for him if he rung us, and that I always had enough money stashed at home to pay for a taxi from wherever he was and would be ready to pay if he rolled up after being stranded. And no matter what, we would have his back. He knew this, which is incredibly reassuring. I've drummed it into him, over the years. No matter what, it's safe to come to us. He seems comfortable with that idea, and I am so glad. He apparently has a party tomorrow and is good with taking snacks.

I felt a little out of sorts, so I decided to try knitting a baby blanket from one of the knitting patterns from Snufflebean. They are really relaxing until you realise on row 21 of 133 stitches that you didn't cast on the right number of stitches and have to unravel and start again. Still, I'd found my knitting notebook so I was happy keeping track of the rows. I haven't had to count rows for ages. I got this notebook before bear was born and I've erratically used it to track knitting with all sorts of patterns. 

My late grandmother tracked her knitting patterns by marking the rows on the cardboard insert that she got with her stockings, and I suspect that my late mother did the same whenever she knitted, but I find a great deal of pleasure using this lovely notebook. I know that I could the backs of envelopes, and in the past I've recycled plenty of them to bundles for note-taking, but I really enjoy this. If I'm canny how I use it, I'm sure that it will last for a good few years more.

Writing stuff - another new story for Kane here. It's been interesting thinking about the character as a whole and I've had quite a few new ideas. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Thank you!

Thank you for all the comments about bear. It gave me a lot of food for thought. I hope that I can include all of my responses in this post. I've studied all of your comments hard. 

One thing that I'm absolutely confident on - bear is not easily swayed by peer pressure. He does not care. There absolutely has been drink at the parties he's attended, but while I suspect that he may have had a drink at last New Year, I don't think he's made a habit of it. Bear is very capable of saying 'no'. 

We had a long talk about the whole 'drink' business. Bear doesn't particularly want to drink, especially after seeing how drunk people can behave. I have no problem supporting that. On the other hand, there are a lot of social expectations, and it's expected that a (nearly) 18 year old going to a party with other 18 year olds would bring something with an alcoholic value. I also want to convey to him that when you go to a party, you don't turn up empty handed. It's very likely that bear will be living away from home this time next year, among all the student parties, and I want him to have at least a sense of what is expected. 

In the end, bear took a bottle of white wine (easy to share and unlikely to stain if it's spilled), that was allegedly sweet, seriously inexpensive, and the lowest Alcohol By Volume rating on Tesco website. I doubt that he'll even have a mouthful of the stuff. If it somehow gets sent back to us, we'll use it in a risotto. 

The washing machine arrived. It looks awesome but I was starting with a sick headache and my joints have been very painful, so I'll start working out how to use it tomorrow. The delivery and communications were brilliant. I bought the machine from AO and I bought it online. I got calls the next day confirming the purchase, checking if I wanted a warranty, asking about parking for the delivery van and access and generally making sure that I knew what was expected. I got texts and emails on the day confirming the estimated time and when the van got near, I could track it on a map. The nice men carried it in, removed the old one (I paid for that service), connected everything up and didn't leave a mess. It all went smoothly, which is a nice change. 

Writing stuff - The Kane story today is new! You can find it here. I thought that it was time that he had another outing. And as I haven't managed a pic today, here is the pic from the story.

Photo by Christina Deravedisian on Unsplash

Hugs and good health to all. 

No pics

I still haven't taken a pic of the shawl (which I am wearing) because I'm charging my elderly phone and I know that if I unplug it to take a pic, I'll never remember to plug it back in. The washing machine comes tomorrow and I'll need the phone to be active and fully charged. 

The purple pens have arrived for bear, who is suitably grateful. I may steal a few. I love writing in purple. I try and be practical and sensible and pragmatic, but really I have the soul of an easily distracted magpie.

Bear is heading towards teenage parties again. He has a party tomorrow and then next week, after a lot of revision and an exam, he has some more. He's nearly eighteen, which is the legal drinking age here. I've had some thoughts about that. Bear doesn't seem keen on drink, for which I am pathetically grateful. However, if he goes to a party of mostly eighteen year olds then it's sort of expected that he brings something with an alcohol content. Up to now, he's taken Pringles. To the best of my knowledge, legally he could already drink in the home. He can't buy alcohol, however, and can't drink it at a pub or restaurant until he reaches 18. After that, all bets are off. 

It's hard to know what's the best. I don't want bear to start drinking. However I don't want him to stand out in his friend group. And he won't be invited to many parties if he doesn't bring something that has alcoholic units in, at least to a lot of the local parties. My inclination is to pick up some low alcohol white wine (which won't stain if it's spilled) and trust bear to be sensible. And if he's going to have a moment when he's not sensible with alcohol, now is a good time when he's at home and I'll pick him up from anywhere at any time if he needs me. For me, I'd rather anything stupid happened now rather than when he was at university and away from a safety net. I'd love to hear people's opinion on this. For me, the best course would be that he sticks to lemonade, but what do I know? 

As I haven't taken any pics today, I thought I'd share one that I loved and that seemed particularly suited to this time of year.

Silver Moonlight by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Hugs and good health to all. 

Dithering

There's the usual stuff going on here. Bear is up to his eyeballs in maths revision, the fridge is still temperamental and now the washing machine has failed. I checked up and the darned thing is almost exactly ten years old, so we've had our money's worth. A new one is coming on Friday, but I'm holding out for a few more weeks for a fridge until what I hope will be decent Black Friday deals. 

I keep meaning to take pics of the shawl, but it's lovely and warm and I'm currently wearing it. I've also finished a thick throw/blanket. It's around 40 inches by 52 inches and it's lovely and warm and squishy. 

I knitted it with two strands of dk yarn on 8mm needles and it came out lovely and cuddly. 

I'm also considering another type of blanket. I've got this yarn - goodness knows how long I've had it but I found it when I was thinking about selling stuff on eBay.

It's sold as antibacterial baby yarn and I think it would make a great baby blanket. I was planning on selling the yarn, but I couldn't get the pics to accurately reflect the colour. It's much nearer a salmon pink, though not a true salmon pink, than it looks. I had wanted to knit a baby blanket with it anyway, and Snufflebean Yarn has some amazing patterns. If you buy the pattern from their Etsy store, you get the right to sell what you knit from that pattern, although obviously you can't resell the pattern. Not all patterns allow that. I usually look for free patterns for myself, but I feel that if I make something to sell then I should respect the creator. I can't sell the yarn with a misleading pic, but I could donate it. Or I could knit the dratted yarn into a blanket that may or may not be from a Sufflebean Yarn pattern. I'm still dithering.

(and I have just been interrupted as bear needed a purple ball point pen by yesterday, can't find one and was panicking. Amazon Prime is worth its weight in gold in this household)

If the blanket doesn't come out right, I can donate that to the Salvation Army. I may not be a perfect knitter, but I don't get holes and it will be sturdy enough to wash and withstand wear. 

And carrying on the theme of things going wrong, my phone (which is my camera) is acting awfully clunky. I really don't want to replace it. I'm used to it now and I'm easily confused. 

(bear came back in and complained his hands were cold. He is wearing a t-shirt while I'm wearing a t-shirt, sweater and shawl and considering a blanket over my jeans. But he's not cold, it's just his hands so he doesn't need to put on a sweater...)

The two big electrical items that potentially could go next are the freezer and the tumble dryer. I'm watching both very closely. 

So all is normal for here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Dreams

The planner is becoming more trouble than it could possibly be worth. On one of the pages at the front, it asks me to list fifty dreams. I don't have fifty dreams. I've thought and thought and thought about it, but most of the ones that I come up with are more like a to-do list or are hopes for bear. It's somewhat depressing. Another slice of the dreams that I've managed to jot down are vague wishes. It's like, I feel like I ought to want to travel, but when I get down to it, it's a fairly lukewarm dream. I'm actually pretty happy trundling around here. I don't want a list of how to improve myself - that's not dreams. It's like a pressure to be better, but in a stern way rather than inspiration. However it's helping me narrow down a little of where I want to focus. I'm not risking putting down anything, as whatever I plan on here is immediately cursed, but I'll share if/when anything happens. 

Dinner was awesome tonight. It was a recipe from Tesco - Beef and Root Vegetable Hotpot, which turned out really well. However I think that I got the liquid wrong, and even though I used a casserole dish that was twice as big as recommended, the dratted thing overflowed all over the oven. I am not looking forward to the clean up tomorrow. It turned out beautifully rich as it was thickened with flour and tomato puree and had allspice as flavouring, though I think I'll add a little more allspice next time. Tesco recipes seem to be a little under-spiced. 

It's left me with a lot of veggies left over - I've got a leek, parsnips, sweet potatoes and plenty of onions. I can see a generous pot of soup in the future. It's getting to that time of year, and simmering those veggies up with lentils and plenty of garlic, turmeric and cumin will make me very happy and fill the freezer with good stuff. 

I haven't got any pics from today, so here's one from Unsplash that I think is good for the spooky season.

Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

Hugs and good health to all. 

As Expected

I meant to have a sitting still day. I meant to have a 'keep up with the writing' day. I could possibly go for 'finishing that dratted shawl' day. 

I listed another lot of yarn on eBay, then I went to list this.

And I thought about it. I could turn this into a sweater as I had originally planned. However I wanted to knit blankets. I thought that I may possibly be able to sell blankets. I may as well knit the dratted blankets. I decided against listing yarn that could be turned into blankets and I'm rethinking some of my ideas. 

Of course, the sitting day turned out to be... 

I rummaged in my room and cleared out a load of rubbish. I moved a load of stuff around in the kitchen that should eventually make things a lot easier all round. I hung up all of bear's over-fabric-softener-scented kit to air, washed my bedding and got quite a bit of writing done as well as cracking on with the shawl. I even managed to take the recycling out, though the steps were a significant problem.  

I'll be honest, the pain is wearing me out. That doesn't mean that I can't be awkward, difficult and generally contrary. So, as expected, I've done the opposite of what I meant to do. I wish that I didn't. I don't feel in control of my fate and it's wearing me down. 

Writing stuff - I'm not taking part in the October Frights this year. I'm trying to concentrate on other stuff which may end up on Amazon. That doesn't mean that I don't adore AF Steward and the October Frights Blog Hop and I've written a quick post with links that you can read here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Unexpected Directions

I nipped out to the Co-op today to pick up some Lurpak for DH. It's his favourite and while I nearly cried at paying the price at a small, local shop, he works hard and he is absolutely worth it. However I jarred my hip quite badly and I've struggled since. DH was very nice but he mentioned that he hears me scream with pain several times a day and perhaps I should do something about it. So I rang the GP. They didn't have any slots, but advised me to ring the NHS advice line. They advised me to go the pharmacy and meanwhile put an ice pack on my back. I told them that the problem was with the hip, but it didn't get me anywhere. 

Meanwhile, according to the very substandard cleaning planner, today is the bedrooms. I leave the men to their own bedrooms and keep to mine, but instead of being sensible and vacuuming and dusting, I dug through the heap of yarn and listed some on eBay. For the first time ever, I was accidentally selling yarn on eBay. I don't feel comfortable sharing the pics I took for the two lots that I put on eBay, and I didn't take a pic of the shawl (progressing nicely), so here is a pic from Unsplash with lots of yarn.

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

I've got all sorts of yarn stashed away, and I've decided that I'm going to only keep the stuff that I love. All this started with the shawl. I bought six balls of yarn for the shawl, but I suspect that I'll only need four. I was considering knitting a scarf, but I have several scarves and plans for some nice ones with the yarn I've rediscovered so I thought that the spares could go on eBay. Then I wondered about the stash sitting upstairs and thought - why not get rid? Any funds can be put aside for bear for when he gets to University. 

Speaking of bear, he sent in his application for University today. It's left him something of a nervous wreck. Tonight he spent his time on practice exam papers for Oxford and Warwick. For those who aren't familiar, bear has to apply to UCAS, which holds applications to all the universities in England. He has to apply for five separate universities who will consider his application and let him know whether they will consider him or not. A university could reject him, make him a conditional offer (eg, he will get a place if he gets certain grades), or make him an uncondtional offer (they will have him regardless of what grades he gets). If he wants to get into Oxford (his first choice) or Warwick (his second choice) then he will need to pass a maths entrance exam. When he took a break I showed him this.

Bear had views about this.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Mixing it Up

I didn't post last night because I was determined to finish the second part of the shawl, but by the time it was finished, it was stupid late and I just crawled up to bed.

I'll be knitting another square coming vertically from the right hand side of the shawl, so it will eventually be V shaped.

I had one big fail - I washed bear's clothes. He's been washing his own clothes and at one point wanted to use fabric softener. I use white vinegar but I got some Fairy free with an order and left him to it. However he is so overloaded with work at the moment so I offered to do his washing and I added the fabric softener. Apparently he's not been using it and the whole load stinks too much to wear. It's pretty pungent and I didn't use that much, so I wonder if it's fermented. We've washed the load three times, each time with plenty of vinegar, and it's still fairly strong. 

Otherwise I did quite well. I have a 'cleaning planner' which isn't brilliant or even comprehensive, but I'm taking it as a starting point. It may direct me to 'wipe down appiances' but I can ignore the spelling mistake and remember that Monday is the day to wipe things down in the kitchen. This meant that at least some cleaning got done. To be fair, I had to sit down three times while washing up, and I got less than I wanted to get done, but I cleared out a small set of plastic drawers to contain some of the kitchen clutter and generally started making some space. 

I also went to Aldi - and I remembered to take the spent batteries for recycling. Bear uses them for his Xbox controller and gets through a lot, even when studying. This evening he's had equations on two screens and one of those screens is controlled via the controller. I've been meaning to take them for far too long. I picked up the salad for DH and I didn't buy any yarn! I felt that was an achievement. 

I also managed over 3,000 steps. I've managed the same today, just pottering around. They may have been taken in batches of twenty or thirty steps, but they've still been taken. I even took the bin round to be picked up tomorrow. For some reason, someone had neatly set out a load of pans next to the bins.

I wonder about these things. Are they being disposed of? If so, why are they in the pavement and not in the bins? Are they being used by kids to play? If so, why are they left so near the bins? There must be a story here. 

And the yellow rose is still wonderfully scented and Gladys is thriving.

I hope that I can manage to keep going tomorrow.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Less Happy.

Do you remember this box?

The drawers inside had a thorough dusting of mould - like the wood had been soaked, become mouldy and then dried out. I had a look around the internet and followed the directions to spray with vinegar and leave for an hour. The smell was horrific. Then DH made a batch of pickled chillies and I swear that the smell got worse. Then I did bear's washing and by the time I added the fabric conditioner that he likes, I was ready to open every window in the house. I think that tomorrow I'll give the drawers a good wash in soapy water and then another spray. I really want to use them, but I don't think that I'd get much option if I tried to return it (Temu) and I suspect that the cost of returning the thing would be more than I spent in the first place. As it is, the joints and frame of the drawers seem sturdy enough, so I'll see if it can be sorted out. 

I've also done a few loads of laundry and some productive pottering. Mainly, however, I've been knitting.

That's the shawl. It will look coherent when it's finished, but it's currently complicated. You go so far with increasing two stitches on every alternate row, then you split them. I my case I had 122 stitches. I left 61 on an extremely long stitch holder (which I'm terrified won't hold), then knit across the remaining 61 stitches and cast on 60 more. Now I'm decreasing two stitches on every alternate row at the centre of the working part, obsessively checking the stitch holder and have a shape that can best be described as 'odd', or possibly 'eldritch'. Once I've decreased to the end, I'll cast off and then do the same with the stitches on the holder, but as a mirror image. 

I still have the planner but I didn't look at it today as I was obsessing over the shawl. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Steps

I've been having trouble walking. Another problem is that the 'steps' app on my phone has been acting up. I downloaded the Google version and I've started watching it again. 

It's strange. I've been struggling so much over the last few years and suddenly I seem to be doing better, and I'm starting to slowly pick up. For the last six months or more, I've struggled to do more than a thousand steps per day. That's barely moving, and I've been crippled by pain. However, over the last week or so, I've been gradually increasing the step count. The app thinks that five thousand steps are the bare minimum. That's my long term goal, but right now I've been aiming for two thousand. Not only have I managed it for the last few days, but yesterday I managed to get past three thousand. 

This seems pitiful compared to those who run marathons and walk miles and miles daily, but I feel that all you can do is improve, and I'm improving, and I'm proud of it. Today I've barely scraped past two thousand, but I'm okay with that as I'm taking a quiet day after pushing myself a little. Besides, I've done laundry, cleaned a few spots and finely diced and froze a couple of pounds (one kilo) of carrots. As the weather gets colder, some carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes and lentils with plenty of turmeric and cumin makes a great soup that warms in all sorts of ways. 

Bear has been studying maths all day. I keep looking up and seeing all sorts of incomprehensible formulae on his screen. As far as I can tell, he's loving it, but I'm keeping a close eye on him. 

I've been knitting for most of today, and the shawl is coming on nicely. 

I'm almost at the end of the first 100g (4oz approx) ball and I'm feeling good about it. This blog has helped because I was determined that I would have a pic for the blog. I'm coming up to the next stage of this shawl, which will have to wait until Amazon deliver the circular stitch holder. I'll be putting around 70 stitches on a holder, which is fiddly. 

I haven't looked over the planner. That's a job for later. I've got a lot that I need to do tomorrow before I make some time for thinking. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Knitting Happens

Thank you, Bless, for suggesting St Anthony - I've found the planner! I haven't looked at it today as that's a job for tomorrow though I'm promising nothing!

I abandoned my current knitting project, which will surprise no-one, and started the shawl I wanted. 

It's a two stitch increase in the centre every other row and I've found it a little fiddly, but it's doing okay so far. I have to concentrate because of the way the increase works, so if I'm watching Doctor Who with the men, I'll have to go back to the blankets. 

I'm not likely to be watching Doctor Who this weekend as bear is studying hard. He's got entrance exams coming up and he really wants to do well. 

It's been strangely productive today. I got a head of celery finely chopped and bunged into the freezer. I've had washing in, done a little wiping around, done a chunk of writing stuff and made a decent dinner that bear practically inhaled. It was only burgers, mashed potato, peas and gravy but it was a really pleasant meal. There hasn't been a big achievement but there have been a dozen very tiny victories.

The tiny chest of drawers has a load of mould in the drawers. I need to spray it with vinegar, so that's on the to-do list. DH suggested staining the inside, and that may keep the mould away once I've done the whole spraying with vinegar thing I'll consider it. I'm making no promises. 

Writing stuff - I decided to post on chapter of Kane's old stories per day in October. Today I queued up all of Kane's stories and it will take me through until October 24th! I'm not sure what I'll do for the last seven days, but I'm sure that I'll think of something. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Another Temptation Failed

I called in at Aldi. I prefer calling late at night as the drive is easier and it's so much quieter. 

The car park was wonderfully empty. I was hoping to pick up some burgers for dinner tomorrow, but they didn't have what I wanted. They had a lot of yarn, though, and it was spread out between paint, halloween decorations and pet toys in a set of sneaky ambushes. I resisted the first section.

Which was lovely, thick, soft, chunky baby yarn. And I resisted the third section which had some very practical double knitting. 

But I failed to resist the second section.

I spent £7.74 on some aran weight 20% wool yarn which will be perfect for a shawl that I've wanted to make for a while. 

I still haven't found the dratted planner. It's driving me nuts.

I've had a quiet day but I got some left over sweet peppers chopped and into the freezer. It's coming up to home-made soup weather and I want to have the ingredients to hand if I feel like it. 

Hugs and good health to all.

I Did Not Resist Temptation

I shouldn't have bought it. I should have resisted the temptation. But I thought that it would be idea for stowing pins, knitting needles, stitch markers, sewing scissors, etc etc etc and it was under £20. I think that it was either stored locally or made locally as it got here quickly and now all I need to do is dig out all the random bits from dozens of bags and boxes and stuff them into one place. It's sturdy enough, for what I want, and it's a good size. I got it from Temu (don't shop on phone) here I only use my laptop to shop on Temu as it as a lot of anti virus stuff on and I regularly clear cookies. 

At least I can't lose it easily. I still haven't found my planner and I think that confirms how desperately I need the dratted thing.

Yesterday I listed all the places I wanted to go today. Hah! I decided that I couldn't risk getting to a supermarket early if I was doing all that walking later, so I got a delivery (and topped up some of bear's favourite stuff). Then I wrenched my hip and my knees are bad as well, so I gave up on the doctor's appointment as I can only manage a few steps at a time at the moment. I was wondering if I would be safe to drive bear to his quiz night, being very clear that a wander around Tesco was out of the question, but bear has cancelled going as he has some serious homework to do. I am never announcing what I'm going to do again. 

But I'm managing to do little bits here and there. I have managed a small amount of pottering around in the kitchen and got rid of some stuff that was serving no purpose. It was a 'potter, potter, sit, potter, potter, sit' situation, but at least something got done. 

Writing Stuff - Tales from the White Hart are being uploaded daily on Royal Road, the second story every written about Kane has been re-posted on my blog and I've put up a little bit of chat to keep up to date. I wrote that I can't wait to find out what I'm going to write next, and that's the absolute truth!

Hugs and good health to all. 

Bad Start

I can't find my planner. And I only did a small amount of cleaning as it's been a sitting down sort of day. 

But I have done some stuff, and I'm feeling relatively positive. This morning I called in to Aldi, but forgot to pick up salad, then this evening I went to fill up with petrol. This was quite scary as the traffic lights at the junction nearest us weren't working and that junction can be tricky at the best of times. There have been a couple of fatal crashes there over the years and I try and stay cautious. This meant that after I'd filled up, I went all around the back streets to avoid the lights and get home. 

Tomorrow is also likely to be a sitting down sort of day. I need to pop out quite early to pick up salad for DH, then I have an appointment for the yearly checkup, then I have the trip to drop bear off for his quiz night which usually includes a wander around Tesco. Usually it's a very small wander, but it's something. 

I also did a load of writing stuff, and that's made me happy. Speaking of which...

Writing stuff - Yesterday I published the most recent instalment from the White Hart on my blog here. Today I re-published the first instalment of Kane's Story (again) which is rather lacklustre of me, but I wanted something spooky-ish for October and I clutched at straws and started re-publishing Kane as he is reliably involved with ghosts. I also put Under Dark Hills on Royal Road here. 

I spent quite some time working on a cover for the story. I'll never be brilliant at it, and I'm not thrilled with the lettering, but I'm relatively pleased with this.

Hugs and good health to all.

There's Been a Delivery

Jo - the plant is a fuschia. There are hundreds of varieties of fuschia in existence. Some are small with fat pink flowers. Others have dainty crimson and purple flowers. As far as I can tell, the nearest type to this is the variety known as Tom Thumb, but it's only supposed to get to two feet tall. Gladys, my fuschia, towers over me every year no matter how much I cut it back. It was planted by my father, however, and he had form for growing giant fuschis from what were supposed to be small pot plants. When I was tiny, he planted a 'small' fuschia that had to be hacked back twice a year so we could use the path and it cracked a sewer pipe. Here's an older pic that gives a slightly better view.

Bless - thank you. Bear remains calm, which is more than I'm managing. 

I've shopped at Temu. I'll be honest, I view it as a type of gambling, like putting a bet on a horse. I'm not against betting on horses, and if I could find a betting shop and work out how to place a bet, I would possibly bet on a horse with the prettiest name but it's unlikely. My form of gambling is shopping at places like Temu. I have concerns, but I shop using my laptop which has lots of anti virus stuff on it and I pick up stuff that I can't find over here. There are some serious temptations, but I work hard to limit myself. Today's parcel included some fancy dice for bear for Christmas and a couple of notebooks. 

The first is a cleaning notebook. I thought I'd do my best to follow that and hopefully I'll gradually get the home into shape. 

There will be plenty of times that I don't do what's on the list, or do more, or branch out and do something completely different. For example, I'm never going to meal prep. That has never worked well for me and I'm going to ignore the note for me to prep on Sunday. On the other hand, it's a framework and I'll take all the help I can get.

The other notebook is a planner. I thought it would only be a notebook divided into hourly blocks so that I could hopefully plan out what I'm doing, but it's more. There are pages about setting goals and making plans. If I work hard at sticking to that, it will help me direct my attention where it needs to go. Once I've got through the notebooks (if I can manage to stick to them), I hope that I'll be in a good place to keep going and use habits that I've developed. 

I keep thinking that they're a waste of money because I can just make lists, but if they give the slightest bit of help then it will be absolutely worth it. I'll share how it goes.

One thing that I'm not doing today is anything in the garden. It's cold, wet and miserable. Today is definitely an indoor kind of day. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Sorting Out a Schedule

I've not posted over the last few days because I'm not managing the timing. I've usually posted late at night about what happened that day. Over the last few days, however, by the time it gets to my usual posting time, I'm too tired to be even remotely coherent. I've also failed with pics. Yesterday, though, I managed to get a nice pic of Gladys.

We'd been to feed the magpies and crows and they had some serious gang wars over the peanuts. 

I'm not sure what other bits that I've missed. I put a post up for the Green Party in the window for the local council by-election. The local Green Party have worked really hard for their constituents over the years, and I've quite a bit of respect for them. Except... I was talking about putting the poster on the side window of the porch so that more people would see. The representative (who is a lovely lady - seriously lovely), said that she thought that it would be better facing front so that more people would be able to see it from the bus. I just took a pic of the view from my front door, right next to the window that shows the poster.

As you can probably tell, buses don't come down here. It is a bus-free zone and the drivers would probably strike if anyone asked them. I nodded, smiled, put the poster where they asked and considered my voting choices.

A week last Friday I failed to cook tofu because the darned stuff had been left in the fridge and was frozen. The fridge is still acting up but I know that I'll just have to work with it until something drastic happens. The day before yesterday, Friday, I tried again. The recipe was baked tofu with ginger rice. The tofu was fine and I had no trouble coating it with gluten free breadcrumbs, although next time I think that I'll use the cornflour-and-fun-spices technique. This time the problem was with the rice. I pressed the wrong button on the rice cooker and the rice turned out like gravel. I ended up using microwave rice instead. It turned out beautifully, and it's definitely one to consider again. 

As a bonus, we have some fresh ginger left over, so if all goes well I can see some lovely fresh ginger, lemon and honey tea in the near future. 

I cleared out the freezer yesterday so that DH could take it this morning on his usual tip run. There were some fish fillets that bear said were particularly nasty and wouldn't eat, some green beans that expired in 2023 and all sorts of packets holding one tiny fragment. In a perfect world, I should have creatively used up all the crumbs. I thought realistically about the chances of that happening and threw out all those bits where there was one tablespoon of mince, or two chunks of butternut squash, or some brussels sprouts that expired in June. I'm fairly lax about expiry dates on frozen foods, but I loathe the things at the best of times so it was a great excuse. I got rid of a surprising volume, mostly packaging.

We now have some space in the freezer so we can use it properly. I've got some plans that I'm not going to share on here just in case. I also have an idea of what's available and I plan to start working through those this week to continue to make space ready for Christmas. Besides, Tesco are running a '4 for the price of 3' deal on frozen foods. There's not much that we'd use, and no decent plain meat, but I may as well get a couple of packs of peas and some bits for bear.  

I'm planning on posting in the morning instead, so hopefully I should be able to keep up a little better. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

All About Writing

I've spent a lot of today on Writing Stuff.

Apart from that, I've been coaxing bear to hand over his washing. I was all in favour of him doing his own washing when it was a good learning tool and he wasn't under pressure. However the pressure for his A levels next June has already started. He has promised that he'll hand over his washing tomorrow. 

It's crazy for bear. He's pretty relaxed at the moment, but the pressure has already started. That's the thing. He's already got all sorts of tests and practices lined up at school. To be honest, I'm worrying about him. He's currently fine, but I'll be watching like a hawk as he heads towards the A levels. 

The current pressure is about the MAT, or the Oxford test for Maths. Bear's college are devoting massive amounts of time and energy to get him ready for it. I knew that there would be pressure when I agreed that he should enroll in a high achieving Maths college, and bear seems to be handling it with grace, but I worry.

Writing stuff - apart from worrying about bear, I've been setting more stuff on Royal Road and you can find all of Across a Misty Bridge here. I've been working on a few things, and I'll share when I can. 

 Hugs and good health to all.

Lots of Writing Stuff

DH and bear made dinner and it was spectacular. It was a large Yorkshire Pudding, filled with gently cooked mushrooms and a wonderfully thick and savoury onion gravy, together with peas and baby potatoes cooked with pesto and lemon. It was fantastic. I was so impressed. We all agreed that it was pretty perfect and I think I'll have it for my birthday dinner - whenever that is!

It's been another quiet day in many ways and we watched some more of the classic Doctor Who episodes. It's been wonderfully comforting spending that time together and I got quite a bit of knitting done. The rest of the time has mainly been writing stuff.

Writing Stuff - I've set up the first chapter of Tales from the White Hart on Royal Road and you can find it here. I've set it up to release a chapter per day and queued them all up to release one at a time right to the end of the books, which takes us to the end of November. After that I'll be posting Dark Picture and Under Dark Hills. Then I can put in Back to the White Hart and whatever else I've come up with. I've come to the reluctant realisation that I'm not good at converting stories told as serials into novels. I've been having a real struggle. So I'll put them on Royal Road to hopefully direct people to novels, which, with luck, I'll get more written because I'm not stumbling over the serials. I'll share as I go along. Though I'm not writing anything more tonight as sorting out the scheduling of 67 posts left my brain in a very porridge-like state. 

And as I haven't got pics, here's the cover of Tales from the White Hart.

Hugs and good health to all. 

It's Not My Birthday

I don't fake much. What I write about me and bear and DH is absolutely true. As you can tell from the last few weeks, I don't do well at elaborating when nothing much is happening. However Sybil isn't the name on my driving licence, and neither is Lyssa. 

I've always been a bit twitchy about birthdays. It used to be one of the easy ways to steal your identity. Things have moved on since then, but apart from bear, whose birthday is ridiculously close to Christmas, I try to avoid mentioning birthdays for any of my family that are still alive. When I created the Facebook page for Lyssa Medana, I lied about my birthday, because of course I did. I put down 22 September 1968 as it was nearly my age although not very near my birthday. The birthday wishes have already started coming on Facebook. 

I always feel hugged by a birthday wish. Sometimes I feel bewildered as I listen in British to someone giving me wonderful good wishes in American - bewildered but completely appreciative of the kindness. I also always feel guilty. Last year I had over a hundred good wishes. I have something like 4.8k friends on Facebook. I have met, I think, one of them or perhaps two. Some may not have met me in person, but are very dear friends. Others are something of an enigma. 

This is the page for the writer so I'm extremely undiscriminate about who I accept. I have had far too many encounters with sleazeballs and scam artists. Sometimes it's people who have got caught up in the algorithm that recommends me as a potential friend. Sometimes it's about the writing business. There are also some truly lovely, wonderful, kind and generous people who I've 'met' there and now adore - rather like this blog. It's wonderful fun for me. I still feel guilty when I get the birthday wishes. 

I'll fudge over a few things here and there to try and stay vaguely anonymous, but I'm well aware that anyone who wanted to find me wouldn't have much trouble. I'm more comfortable being honest about who I am. But I'm kind of glad to have a cobweb thin layer of a different name between me and people who aren't keen on my books or who are not acting in good faith. It's something of a sanity saver. 

So if you are on Facebook, don't worry about my birthday. If you aren't already a friend and would like to add me, or want to follow me, the link is here, but it's all about the writing and I don't stress about it. This blog is for friends. I'm quite boring on Facebook. I mainly share funny posts, info from fellow writers and an occasional reference to my writing. 

(I also have a Facebook page in my real name, but it's mainly mums from bear's primary school so I don't check it very often)

And this is the pic for my personal page. I guess I should update it with something fancy, but I kind of like it.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Fridge Freezer

The problems with the fridge continue and I suspect that it needs replacing. DH seems to think that we can work around the fridge's little ways. I am not so sure.

Tonight we were supposed to have Air Fried Tofu, but I was going to toss the cubes of tofu in a mix of cornflour, garlic granules, onion granules and paprika. I planned to make rice in the rice cooker plus stir fry veggies in a pouch of sweet chili and garlic sauce that was part of the offer on jars of sauce. 

The tofu was frozen solid. 

I ended up doing the rice, the veggies in sauce and some herby vegetarian sausages. It wasn't a complete fail, but I would have preferred the tofu. 

I need to overhaul the contents of the freezer. There are a few boxes of food that bear requested and then decided to never eat again. I may throw a couple of them out to make room. I'm also sure that there are things that have lurked in there for years and I may as well get rid of those as well. I also need to use up the oddments lurking in the corners. We are in the run up to Christmas and I want to be able to store stuff in there. 

Apart from that, it's been a quiet day. I need to make more excitement in my life.

Hugs and good health to a..

Spiders Don't Have Skeletons

DH and bear have both explained to me that spiders can't have skeletons. It's not possible. It didn't stop me from indulging from Morrisons Halloween section.

 I nearly got the rat with the skeleton ears. The men in my life were equally bewildered and tried to explain to me that there were no bones in ears and there couldn't possibly be skeleton ears. It didn't stop the creators of that Halloween decoration. 

I've spent a lot of today going over the sequel to King's Silver. It was in editing when Three Furies Press shut down, so it's finished but it needs a lot of polishing. It's been fun, but it's meant an unremarkable day. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Passport Chaos

We thought that my brother's partner could countersign bear's passport application, but apparently they're in the wrong department or something so we were stranded. Bear needs photo ID by the end of October and we may be cutting it fine with the passport application. 

It's been tense today.

I found a few possibilities. There's a Citizen card which is used to prove things like age, and I may suggest that bear gets that anyway because he'll soon be of an age to start drinking and it's better to carry around a replaceable card than a passport. His student ID may be appropriate but apparently it's not signed and there needs to be a signature. 

In the end, I rang bear's old school. The person signing the form has to be a teacher who has known the applicant for more than two years, and bear's old head of year was very happy to sign for him. I am pathetically grateful. 

I have spent a large part of the day frantically searching for answers. I don't fully understand all the details, but there are a couple of tests that are used as almost entrance exams or aptitude tests for Maths courses. Bear is applying to Oxford and their courses require the MAT test. There's another one for Warwick University which is one of bear's fallback universities, but I can't remember its name. I've told bear that I'm happy to do things like washing and cooking for him. I've left him alone with those chores for a while to help him get ready for life at university, but I'd rather run around after him and take the stress off. As it is, bear told me he is fine. I'll keep an eye on things. 

He's keeping some balance in his life so it's not all studying. Tonight he went to a pub quiz with his friends so I drove the ten miles or so, dropped him off, called in to Tesco, found a nice, quiet car park and had fun knitting, picked him up and drove home. Driving home was a little more adventurous than I'd like as there was a road closure and I had to get creative with the route.  

I didn't get pics, so I'm enclosing a pic of the moon. It was gorgeous tonight. 

Photo by Micah Giszack on Unsplash

Writing stuff - the eBooks and paperbacks are all live on Amazon and the White Hart series is down. I'll start posting it on Royal Road next week.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Accidental Housework

I wish I could remember what this cloth was called, as I would absolutely link it.

I got a pack of them from Amazon, and I've used them to mop up spills in the kitchen and occasionally to wash dishes. Today I wrung one out in cold water to knock some dust off the fan heater in the study. However, before I got there, I found myself wiping over some of the woodwork on the way. The woodwork hasn't been touch for far too long and was covered in gunk, and this cloth, or rather, the damp version because I don't put damp cloths on my laptop, just wiped it off. There was no cleaning fluid, no soap, no magic ingredient like vinegar. It was just this cloth and water and it made a massive difference to some seriously mucky door frames, handles, light switch covers, window frames and the front of the fridge hasn't been so clean for years! It's better than the standard microfibre cloth - it's a miracle! I can see some easier cleaning in the future.

Bear has been working on his personal statement for university applications. It's a whole process, and it looks like he's in a good place as long as he gets the grades that are forecast. Some universities add weighting to kids from deprived areas and our postcode counts. Before Brexit, this area got extra funding from the EU because it was so deprived. Bear isn't particularly affected because of DH's hard work, but the area isn't a good one. There are a lot of one parent families, lots of generational unemployment, and far too much deprivation and drug use. I used to worry about bear a lot, but bear isn't easily influenced and his friends seem to be good people. And tonight bear was working on some maths problems while watching the first Tom Baker Doctor Who episode which was awesome. 

Writing stuff - King's Silver is now available as an eBook. Out of the London Mist is available as a paper back and Amazon is reviewing the paperbacks of King's Silver and Under a Bright Saharan Sky. A huge block in my creative process has disappeared. Now I hope to move on with purpose. The White Hart stories should be down by the end of the week, though I'm making no promises. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Where Was I?

I've been pootling around and felt guilty and thought that I'd better update. 

There's been some stormy weather around here. 

I posted off bear's passport application and noticed that a huge branch had come down by the Co-op. 

The tyre pressure light came on again, so today I was back at In n Out, the garage, who are awesome. They didn't charge me as they just needed a little air. I'll keep an eye on things. I'll take them some chocolates later in the week as they are awesome and never mind me waiting and knitting.

I have fourteen different tabs open on my laptop and I think I have two music feeds going on. One is a rain sound effect, so I suppose that it's not too bad.

Bear has been fine, with a wonderful social life that has had me giving a lot of lifts. 

I'm sure that I'll remember a few more bits, and I'll add them as I go. My health is still a little ricketty.

As you can tell, I'm feeling a little fragmented. Today I've done a couple of loads of washing, been to the garage and Tesco (bear's favourite frozen Thai thingy isn't on the delivery app) and got a vast amount of writing stuff done - quite unexpectedly. I'd planned to only do housewifery today. 

Writing stuff - I put up an overdue instalment for the White Hart here. Then Amazon were amazingly helpful so you can once again find Out of the London Mist and Under the Bright Saharan Sky on their site. Currently it's just the eBook, which is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, but I'm hopefully sorting out the paperbacks as well. It went quite well, but there were a lot of fiddly details that needed to be tweaked, altered in the original document, checked through the Kindle Create App and then uploaded again. I'm frazzled as I'm not very good at that sort of thing. I'm not exactly sure which way is up. I've a lurking suspicion that the books may be questioned by Amazon as they have been previously published, but I've got the documents I need ready and hopefully there won't be any problems. 

And that's it. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Slow Day

Cheri - I shall try veggies in sweet and sour. One of my favourite recipes is something I just threw together one night and it stuck. It's one of those that's a 'some' recipe. I chop 'some' onion, soften in oil and add 'some' garlic. I throw in at least one, preferably two, chopped bell peppers and whatever other veg will suit. I usually have some mushrooms around, and courgettes would work, or practically anything that can be added and softened. I add some kidney beans/chick peas/black beans/haricot beans/some sort of legume and something tomatoey. In the past I've used condensed tomato soup but ordinary tomato soup or passata would work with abundant mediterranean herbs and worcestershire sauce. It's really good served with pasta of whatever type that you have on hand. Now I fancy substituting sweet and sour sauce for passata and serving with rice. 

Bless - thank you for your kind hugs. 

Today has been something of a fail. I've spent a significant chunk of it on Amazon chat as I'm trying to upload Out of the London Mist. The problem is, it's been published before by someone else - the wonderful people at Three Furies Press. When they shut down, all rights reverted to me, so I have the right to publish. So far it feels like technical difficulties, but I may have to work on this. As I haven't done anything worth taking pics, I'm including the cover of Out of the London Mist which was created by the amazing Rebekah Jonesy.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Tesco May Have a Point

Last March, I think, Tesco had a 3 for the price of 2 deal going on sauces, including the pasta bake sauce that DH likes. I knew that this deal ran twice a year so I bought 26 jars. A few weeks ago, we ran out. It was a problem. Now that the deal is back on, I'm planning on committing. I don't save much, but it keeps me entertained. I can't stick 26 jars of pasta bake sauce on one order, but so far they've been happy to accept 6 at a time. I'm not getting much else, but I've added a jar of butter chicken sauce as that's something that we can always fall back on, and a jar or two of sweet and sour sauce for me because I like it and I can make up a batch of sweet and sour something and have it in portions at the same time as DH has his pasta bake. 

(As an aside, last week, before the deal, pasta bake sauce was 66p and now it's 76p which makes me really want to keep a price book and it also shows how few pennies I'll save.)

I've also just renewed my Delivery Saver. I got the expensive version where I can get up to one delivery per day at any time free. It also allows free delivery from their third party Marketplace sellers and it cost me £83 and change for a year. I think it's a bargain.

In fact, I may have saved the cost of the delivery save in the last month. For example, this week I had a delivery on Monday for the start of the week. That's the salad for DH and the basics for the rest of the week. I usually also have a delivery on Friday with all the stuff we need for the weekend. The minimum order is £50 but that has been a surprisingly easy target to hit with bear at home. This week I added a Wednesday delivery, as I needed more salad for DH and I thought that I'd take the opportunity to top up on jars. I just about scraped up to the limit by adding a few candles which we'll very much enjoy over the winter (and we're running low on candles after having a stock for ages).

Today (Wednesday) I woke up and checked the app to see if the order was on time, and before anything else I got a pop-up. It suggested that I may like to try shopping in-store. It felt like an intervention. 

I've had a day where I've moved a little more. I'm (very) slowly clearing the cupboards, throwing stuff that's out of date, and shifting things around to make room for the new jars. I've washed a load or two of washing and generally managed a few more steps. I even cast on for the next blanket, which was the only thing that was worth taking a pic.

I hope that I'll have something more to show tomorrow. 

Writing stuff - I'll be taking the White Hart books down on the first date possible after 7 September 2024. I'll be posting them again on Royal Road starting (if possible) on 1 October 2024 with one episode daily until I've caught up. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Finished!

I finished the blanket.

And I don't think that I had enough for another row.

And I even sewed the end in straight away, which is a miracle. It's about 52 inches by roughly 72 inches, which would make a blanket for a single or child's bed or a decent throw. I knitted 800g of aran weight yarn on 7mm needles in just plain knit and it was incredibly relaxing. I did a search of this blog, which is better than a diary, and it cost £18 total and I bought it on 13th February 2023. I'm hoping to perhaps sell it on eBay, though I don't know whether I'll get the cost of the yarn. It's a lovely warm blanket, though, and I'm planning on waiting until November before listing, so fingers crossed that it will appeal for the long, cold evenings. 

This afternoon was spent trying to sort out bear's passport. He needs photo ID for various entrance exams. I was told this last week. He needs it by the end of October and the website said that the turnaround is currently three weeks, as I suppose that it's the end of the summer holidays. We applied online, filled in all the boxes, dug out my and DH's passports and then we needed to find someone to sign off his photo. This was hard. I don't get out much. DH doesn't get out much. Bear doesn't really meet up with his friends' parents. The list of people who can endorse his picture isn't that long, it's full of professionals and they need to have known him for at least two years. I was concerned that I would have to call his old school and beg one of the teachers as he's only been at this college for a year. Fortunately we worked something out, so they can now get his pic endorsed, then he sends off the birth certificate and we keep everything crossed.

I've also downloaded an app to count steps. I can only manage a few steps at a time, but I'm planning on getting more bursts in and I'm aiming for at least 10 steps more each day until I hit a decent target. 

Hugs and good health to all.