Bear is home! And he's happy to be home! I swear that he's grown an inch, he's looking happy and relaxed and currently asleep. I know that there are so many on here who understand - there has been a gap and now there isn't.
As I plan to be spending most of my energy on him today, I thought that I'd nip on quickly as I just received a parcel. I used to get a load of stuff from Approved Food but after a while, I just wasn't seeing the stuff that I wanted. Well, I saw a link to Price Panda, I was curious, I visited the site and the rest is history.
I particularly like the black fabric washer sheets which you add to a laundry load of black clothes and wash as normal to revive them. Bear only wears black so I consider these a boon. Anyway, I spent a chunk on little dehumidifiers, which I had been looking for, car mats, broken biscuits, a dozen bars of Pear's soap, some fancy teas that I had been considering for a while but never got to, and all sorts of bits.
This may sound silly, but for me, one of the the best things was the packaging. The delivery driver commented on how sturdy and well packed the box was, which I thought was unusual, but it's a really good box. I shouldn't hoard cardboard boxes, but I'm tempted with this as it's just such a good size and strength. Someone in that company committed to serious packaging and spent the extra to get stuff printed on it. I think that it's genius marketing.
The packaging encourages you to share hauls on places like Instagram to get freebies and discounts, and what great marketing! I'm only sharing it here, so I'm not going to try tagging anything, but it impressed me.
Now bear is watching back one of the lectures he attended as he has exams the week he goes back so he says he has a lot of studying. I'm going to grab a bite to eat and then settle down with my knitting to enjoy hanging out.
Shakespeare talks about sleep knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care, and my sleep-sleeve is currently completely unravelled. Last night was something of an example. I actually managed to fall asleep just before 1am, which was a miracle. I woke up around 4am, which is when I usually fall asleep, tried to sleep until 5am, got up, found out some of my stories had been pirated on an audio site, tried to go back to sleep at 7am, got up again 7.30am, was nodding off at 11am but as soon as I tried to sleep properly I was wide awake. I managed two hours in the middle of the afternoon, I've accomplished very little and I feel like something that the cat would refuse to drag in.
There is still a certain amount of squelch in the dining room but it's reducing. I'm not sure if it's because of the dehumidifiers or because it's stopped raining, but I'll take what I can get. When I wandered down around 6am this morning there was a slug in the middle of the carpet that looked like it wished it had brought water wings. It didn't help my mood. I suppose it's getting closer to this.
Small isles of dry carpet are appearing, but rain is forecast so I'll see how it goes.
One thing that I have managed is to get thoroughly depressed about audio books. Good narrators will make a story come alive in ways that the page can't manage, but they are rightly expensive. On one of the main platforms for authors to convert their ebooks into audiobooks, prices start at 2p per word. Out of the London Mist comes in at around 60,000 words, or £1,200 at the minimum. I don't have that sort of money, though I'm sure that they earn it.
A lot of authors are using AI, which makes me uncomfortable. Partly I don't like the idea of putting people out of work. There is also the whole worry that it wouldn't sound right. I've had enough problems with spellchecker. I don't want the AI butchering pronounciation and syntax in audible form as well, and I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't have the concentration to properly listen to an AI recording to pick up all the bits that were missed.
I'm not doing anything to take it down at the moment. Apart from not being able to get the dratted thing to work, it's not costing me anything and may possibly get me leads that will get me a few pennies. The site has all the stories from Royal Road but nothing from Amazon. I've always known that the stuff on Royal Road was vulnerable, but I've been treating it as a sort of gym to get me writing and to get another place to have my writing name on the internet. I don't put anything on there that I'm planning on charging for, although I can imagine me taking some stuff down, tidying it up, getting a halfway decent cover and then bunging it on somewhere like Smashwords. Not everyone takes that view, however, and some authors on Royal Road make money from their writing there, and it's taking income from them.
Bear is coming home tomorrow. I think I will be feeling a lot better.
It's still incredibly squelchy in our dining room. I emptied the two big dehumidifers as they were full, but the two smaller, cheap ones hadn't filled up yet, presumably because they were little and cheap. I bought them with small spaces in mind, so I wasn't fussing too much.
I've made a small dent in the dining room. I feel that it's been reduced from mountains to large hills. It isn't helped that my back doesn't like me standing or moving around for more than a few minutes at a time and the squish of the carpet is deeply unpleasant. Still, I have got a little further. Clothes have been distributed, I've got a roll of yellow bin bags for charity shop donations, and a roll of blue bin bags for stuff that should perhaps move to the junk room. I'm questioning some of my choices, though.
One example is non-slip liner. It's this stuff, a sort of rubbery mesh that stops things sliding around. We got some to put on top of the fridge as it's quite tall but we have a load of stock cubes and spices on the top which had a habit of sliding around and getting knocked down the back. The stock cubes, worcestershire sauce, salt and such were put in plastic boxes which went on top of the non-slip stuff and nothing has been knocked down since. I consider it a win, but I over-ordered and have quite a large amount left over. I'm considering putting it on my tumble dryer (which is in my dining room) and perhaps stitching some to the back of the bathroom mat which enjoys travel more than most people, but should I just donate or throw it? It's not that expensive if I needed to replace it, and I can't see where I'd use it, but it's not on the shelves of our local shops and I can't help wonder if I'm missing opportunities. Besides, it seems wasteful to get rid of it when the dreaded might come in useful thought hovers over me.
I think the most important step in this is to check my mindset. I guess that I need to consider the end result. What would happen if I didn't keep it? Where can I sensibly keep it? I need to think why I'm holding onto stuff.
Bear will be home soon, and while I know he wants to study, and I want him to rest, I know that he'll make time to come with me for some heavy lifting to the charity shops. I feel so lucky.
And while I stumble on, I've had some more thoughts about decoration for the dining room.
Writing stuff - I'm still grumbling about the spellchecker, and did so at length on my blog here. For those who subscribe to my Substack posts, I apologise. I'm going to be catching up with the posts that should be on Substack, which are chats, articles, reviews and news from the writing blog which means that there will be a gazillion notices flying out. My grovel post is here, and I am sincerely sorry, but once it's done then it will be easy to find things on there as well.
We are at the bottom of a hill and just a little above a stream that's maybe a hundred yards away. There has been a torrential amount of rain. And I think that we've now got a leak in the cellar floor. I know someone a few hundred yards away who regularly gets a flooded cellar, and takes it as part of living there. I could probably manage it that point of view if we didn't have our kitchen and dining room in our cellar.
The carpet in the dining room currently squelches. If you stand on it, you can see water. It is deeply unpleasant. Tomorrow I'm going to have to redistribute a large washing and ironing pile which still has stuff in from at least four years ago, towels which don't currently have anywhere to live and sundry craft and gardening supplies. After that, I should try lifting the carpet but I'm going to refrain. Apart from not wanting to have a complete wreck of a room for Christmas dinner, I've tried to get rid of the carpet before. I've loathed it since we moved in, back in 1994, but it's firmly glued down. It's going to be a mare to shift.
There are currently four, yes, four, dehumidifiers down there. There were the two that we already had, one in the walk in cupboard off the dining room as it can get musty in there and for a while we needed the dehumidifer as the people at the back had a leak, which is no longer much of a problem, and one tucked in a corner as a spare. I don't really bother in winter as the heating sorts out any damp that comes from being underground, but it can feel clammy in summer so they're usually on then. Then there are the two extremely cheap small humidifiers, one next to the carpet swamp and one in the kitchen next to the cupboards which are affected by damp. Those last two were bought when I was worried about the leak in my bedroom.
I feel like there's a theme here.
I've been thoroughly out of sorts all day, with a headache and upset tummy which I suspect had something to do with the tinned soup I had last night. It's finally wearing off, so hopefully I'll be more pro-active tomorrow, particularly with the new water feature. I was not going to take a pic of the utter dreadfulness that is my dining room, but I had been thinking about redecorating around it.
So here is a pic that I may or may not take as inspiration.
DH has had a rummage on the internet and he thinks that it could well be something straightforward to fix. I rather hope so, but I'm still bracing myself.
I failed the Writathon by around six thousand words. However I started six days late, went missing in action for around a week mid challenge and finally wrote ten thousand words in twenty four hours, so I'm not unhappy with what I did. I'm happy with some of the lessons that I learned, including that I shouldn't try and write ten thousand words in twenty four hours.
Knitting has been coming on.
That is the cheap Aldi yarn. The packet contains the cheap circular needles and I was extremely unimpressed. The yarn caught on the needles where they meet the circular wire on every row. I ended up digging out an old 5mm needle and it was infinitely better. The yarn is knitting up fine, however.
I've spent the day mainly on writing stuff, but tomorrow I start cleaning. I have to. Bear is home on Friday and he's been very clear how he's particular about keeping his space clean. My house is a disaster. I don't want him to come home and feel that he has to start cleaning, especially as he has exams the first week that he goes back after Christmas. I'll share any triumphs. Really I need to turn out a load of cupboards and make records of what there is and what can be used up.
Writing stuff - I haven't posted anything on the Royal Road for the last few days, but I'll be getting back to that soon. Today's installment of The Guest is on my writing blog here. I posted an article last Wednesday, here, and I've got one cued up (or queued up, I'm never quite sure) for this Wednesday coming.
I wanted to make something of Advent as I feel that Christmas is getting too much. I think that I failed when I didn't set clear objectives, but I will see how things go. I have taken the intention to be more mindful of what I'm doing. I don't want to be drifting or impulsively bouncing between ideas. Of course, things are never quite that straightforward with me, but it's something. Most importantly, I'm going to be choosing to make time for faith. At first it may be exploring how I make sure that I'm consistent and positive, but I hope to find my stride.
I really needed to knit the other night. I find knitting incredibly soothing, but I couldn't find the jacket that I was looking for. I'm on the first sleeve and I just want the damn thing finished so hunting for it wasn't so soothing. However, I started the aran sweater with the yarn I got from Aldi, and I felt a lot better for the knitting.
I need to take a pic of the freeze dried veggies that I got from Jux. There was a deal of some sort and I picked up a tubs of carrots, red onion, pepper and garlic. Yesterday I threw together a casserole to try out these veggies. I bunged in some diced lean beef, a generous helping of the freeze dried veggies, a tin of chopped tomatoes, Italian herbs and some beef gravy granules. I may have cooked it a little too hot and a little too long, as when DH went downstairs to check and add dumplings, he said it was practically all dried out, so he added some extra water. And the thickening type of gravy granules. I think I'll have another go with the veggies as what came out was delicious, mouthwatering, tar. I didn't say a word to DH, but it was incredibly tasty and thick. I made the mistake by putting it too hot, too long and not enough water, but the second dose of gravy granules wouldn't have helped.
Another thing that I want to consider during Advent is making New Year's Resolutions. I usually refuse to do that as it's rarely productive, but this time I want to be more thoughtful and considered. I also want to prepare and plan to give me the best chances of success. Again, I've no idea about how that's going to go, and I don't have a good track record of sticking to things, but if I don't try then I have no chance at all.
Writing stuff - last Monday's story is here and today's story is here. I'm supposed to be working on the Royal Road Writathon but I keep getting distracted - all the more reason to make mindfulness and choosing actions a big part of Advent.
One of the things that's been distracting me is the Bumper Book of the White Hart. I've got it all in one Word document, which I swear creaks as I upload it, and I've been going through with spell checker and the Word editor function. I think this might be technically AI, but part of me thinks that it's just good manners to get any writing I publish in the best possible state. It may, however, been a mistake. I have spent hours arguing with an indifferent screen about commas. I've picked up maybe half a dozen typos, but I keep getting flagged for extra commas, removing commas and semi-colons. I refuse to touch semi-colons with a bargepole! And it keeps arguing with me about whether a phrase should contain 'were' or 'was.' At one point I accidentally double clicked and ended up chasing back because it had made a correction that it shouldn't have. And I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the commas that I allowed weren't quite right. For my own peace of mind, I'm going to have to go back and check them. I did a 'find' for commas on the document and there are over six thousand of them. I said rude words.
But I made a draft of a cover, so that's a start.
Though perhaps I ought to make the stag's head white. Any gently phrased opinions welcome.
The Writathon finishes on Friday so I should have more measured posts after that.
I took it when I went out to Tesco this evening. Bear was complaining that he couldn't find the garlic in his local Tesco, so I thought that I'd share a pic with him. I'm proud because I think that this is the first time I've left the house properly in at least a fortnight, and the odd wander to the bin or to support strimming doesn't really count for much either. We're coming up to the time of year when it's hard for me to do anything, so I forced myself to go out.
It was late, and the windscreen had already started to get a little icy, but it wasn't a bad run and I need to keep pushing myself. Though I probably won't go out much this week as the weather is looking cold with a non-zero chance of snow. I absolutely do not approve of snow.
I've been concentrating on writing for the last week, more in Writing stuff below, but I've decided that from today, I need to try and find some sort of balance and motivation. Besides, it's only a month before bear comes back from university for the winter break in a month and I want to have the house nice for him.
If I've understood the weather forecasts correctly, this week is going to be freezing, then next week will be warmer, so I'll get back to the garden next week after the cold has killed off some of the weeds. I guess it's a good time for me to clear things out. I also need to crack on with the knitting as, did I mention? it's cold!
Writing stuff - As I mentioned, I'm taking part in the Writathon with Royal Road. The first big milestone and to get a mention, I had to hit 25,000 words by midnight on 15th November, 9 days after I started. I made it by ten minutes. I spent most of yesterday sitting around in a daze. The words are added in chapters, and each time I completed a chapter for Royal Road, I loaded it onto my writing blog. However I haven't put it on all at once or the notifications would be going crazy and, besides, to make my life easier, I decided that I would schedule them, with a new chapter each week on a Monday. I thought that it would take care of my commitment to posting fiction on Mondays. Once I finish this challenge, I probably won't have to write new stuff for Monday for a while. So far, I'm up to the middle of next February.
Anyway, this week's instalment for the writing blog is here, but you can read the whole 25,000 so far on Royal Road here.
Who am I kidding, this is practically all writing stuff but it's more about me being an idiot with writing stuff included in the mix.
It went something like this... I very clearly, absolutely, 100% committed to not writing a novel in November. I put it in black and white in a post here if you want a snicker. I was absolutely and utterly signed up to do loads of editing, tidying, converting and general writing housekeeping this month. Absolutely not writing a novel. Under no circumstances. Not at all!
So, as it happens, Royal Road launched a Writathon to write 55,555 words by 5th of December with a way point on 15th November when particpants need to reach 25,000 words. Of course I signed up! Dammit.
I'll be honest, it's not looking good at me making the 25,000 words by 15th of November, which is five days away and over 20,000 words to go. However it's not bad for me to make the attempt. I have a huge backlog of ideas and I want to try and write at a faster pace. I can look at this as training, if you like.
The brutal truth is that I can maybe walk or stand for five minutes without excruciating back pain. I don't have much in the way of current office and tech skills and I have tinnitus which limits my ability to do phone work. Writing is the best chance of me earning money to help bear through university. I doubt I'll make much - most writers don't, especially with all the AI stuff around - but the chances of me making anything are vastly increased if I write loads and publish loads. So I've taken the challenge on. It won't make me money, but I think that it will be like a gym for the rest of my writing and I'll take it.
I didn't particularly want to mess around with a novel. The next big things for me involve a lot of planning and thinking and I also have a habit of junking the first 25,000 words of any big project so a novel wouldn't be a good idea for me. Besides, Royal Road isn't really set up like that. It's more for things like the White Hart.
And speaking of White Hart, I wanted something that I could put into that place. I wanted a setting where I could dip in and add a small story every Monday just to keep me mentally moving, even if the rest of the writing was stuck. Then I remembered The Guest which was a failed anthology submission and which I'd kind of liked. So I decided that it would be the start of a new set of stories. And those stories would be perfect for Royal Road. And so, I got started. The first instalment, The Guest, won't count towards the word total, which is fair enough.
Currently, the plan is to publish as I go on Royal Road. The page is here, if you're interested and any honest reviews would be welcome but only if you feel like it. These will look very much like first draft, because that's what they are. However, I've put the first instalment up on my writing blog, here, and each of the chapters will be released one at a time on Mondays, which will probably take it up to the New Year. There won't be much materially changed in these chapters, but I'll scan them over for typos and grammar before they go live on my blog.
The Guest isn't quite The White Hart. The setting is similar, but not exactly the same, and there'll be a new cast of characters which I hope will be fun. I'd love to hear what you think.
As for what I'll get up to when it comes to stuff like the garden or housewifery or knitting - who knows? I have no idea! Given that I should be writing, I'll probably have a miniature version of Kew Gardens at the front of my house and a whole wardrobe knitted by 5th December. Sometimes I wish that I was a little more predictable. Please wish me luck.
DH hired what is technically known as a bushwhacker. It's huge. It's taller than I am when it's upright and DH had to wear a harness to hold it properly, like the heavy machine guns in Aliens. I feel that it may have been a little excessive for my little garden.
Before.
After
There's a load more to do, but at least we made a start and DH had fun with the strimmer. I'm planning on doing a tiny bit each day and seeing how it goes.
I'm grateful for lavender oil because it works wonders on scratches and stings. The brambles and the nettles fought back vigorously and even though I wore gloves, I have a few war wounds to show for the struggle. DH wore gloves to load up the car to take the weeds to the tip and was glad of them. I spent most of the day involved in writing stuff. I'll catch up with that tomorrow.
There is, or was, or will have been, a small rosemary plant that was managing somehow to keep going under the pile of nettles and various junk in the garden, but it's in the path of the strimmer tomorrow. So I finally got around to doing what I had been planning for a while. I cut it down, chopped it up and froze the leaves in olive oil.
I put a couple of springs aside for our meal tonight (nice sausage cooked with sprigs of rosemary in the oven pan, fancy frozen potato zigzag fries, peas cooked with a stock cube in the water and lots of gravy) and for the dinner planned for Sunday, which is honey mustard garlic sausages and I promise that we eat more than sausages but it's the way that the meals fell out this well, then dug in. I had this lot.
Which I got down to this
Which I chopped a bit, getting rosemary leaves everywhere and bunged into an ice cube tray.
It was all washed and I kept an eye out for any stray bits that shouldn't be there, then poured over around a quarter litre of olive oil. I definitely over filled it, and when I forgot to to take a pic before I put the lid on, I didn't dare take it off again in case the oil spilled everywhere.
I can always hack chunks off with a steak knife. And now the house smells like medicinal chest rub.
DH has picked up the strimmer. I'm sort of nervous, but I know that he'll do a good job and it's the push that I need to get the garden sorted out.
I've actually dragged myself out to our tiny front garden and I hacked back a stand of nettles. I've been watching too many of those self-sufficiency YouTube videos and I kept thinking 'there's good eating on these'. I pulled out a huge heap of them which I'm going to stuff into bags to take to the tip once they've wilted a little and reduced the chances of getting stung. I took a few hits as it is and I'm now very grateful for lavender oil and I smell like an old lady's handbag. But look at this - doesn't it look good enough to eat?
While I was battling the nettles, I cleared some space by Gladys, and I found some campers on her leaves.
The two tiny snails looked incredibly cute.
I'm having to cut Gladys back as she's hanging over the garden and we can't get around easily. And I need to get the worst of the rubbish cleared in the next couple of days as DH has rented a strimmer for the weekend. And when DH gets a gadget, he goes for it with gusto. I expect the garden to be strimmed within an inch of its life. I'm seriously grateful and I want to make things easy for him.
It's really noisy out with all the fireworks. I was originally considering popping into Aldi because if I go to the right one then they stock Thursday's deals late on Wednesday night and I can get a first pick of the good stuff. This week includes candles and I'm running short of candles, apart from the cute owls. However I don't always feel comfortable going out on Bonfire Night. Accidents can happen and while I'm pretty sure that I'll be safe, if I can stay in, I will.
Speaking of candles, I got a coupon from Tesco for 10% off candles in this week's batch. I did my usual trick of going through and clicking on all the ones that I fancy, knowing that I'll go back and weed out the ones that aren't actually that good at second glance. When the discount came in at over £13, I went back and pruned the list severely. It's not like 10% is a good discount. There will be better sales at other times, often with 20% off or more, or I could call in at HomeSense who have an extremely good discount candle shelf. It's the over-stocks and end of line candles and they're often from extremely high-end ranges. Not to mention it will encourage me to leave the house.
I feel quite good about today. There weren't any major triumphs, but I did a few very small, insignificant steps that were more than I have done recently and that to me is a win.
Writing stuff - I posted a little bit on chat about why I wasn't writing a Novel in November here. For years, November has been a novel writing month and it's never worked for me, so I decided firmly that I was going to spend November tidying up some loose ends, editing pieces that I should have submitted years ago and generally getting my act together. I wrote the piece last weekend with a view to posting it today (as I said, I'm trying to get my act together), and then I dipped into Royal Road, where some of my unfinished stuff is languishing, and they're doing a Writathon. All (hah!) I need to do is write 55,555 by the 5th of December. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to sign up? I was jotting down notes about what I could write and how I could juggle it with other goals and what sort of milestones I'd need to hit - and I shouldn't do it at all! There is a non zero chance that I'll sign up before 15th November (when you are required to have written 25,000 words to stay in the Writathon), and if I do, I'll be ready to beat myself over my head with my own keyboard! I'll share how it's going.
And I realised that my contribution to Connections E-magazine was overdue so I've been rattling along with that as well.
Last Christmas, DH got me cute owl candles. I've just finished burning one.
The container is so adorable that I don't want to throw it out. But I have no idea what it could be used for. The lid doesn't fit snuggly at all and so I can't use it as a container for something like pins. It's such a small size as well that I don't think I could use it for something like a pen pot. Here's the container with a shot glass for size.
To put that into context, the glass measures up to two tablespoons of liquid. The owl is diddy!
I was thinking about it being perfect for air plants or tiny succulents, then I remembered the swarms of aphids that descended on the chilli plants, so perhaps artificial tiny succulents. Or I could donate them and someone else could get the benefit. But they're so cute!
I'm readying myself for an early night. Tesco's Christmas delivery slots are released tomorrow to those paying for delivery savers, like me, and they open at 6am. To be honest, I'll be extremely surprised if I can't get a slot on 23rd December even if I log in later. The demand for them seems to have dropped over the last few years. Besides, I'll have most of the snacks, goodies, and frozen food already in. My Christmas pudding came today and that's just the start. And I have no shame that I'll be buying ready made practically everything. Mind you, I'm also going to be saving space in the freezer to pack away frozen bags of whatever the stupidly cheap veggies the supermarkets are giving out. If they're offering bags of carrots and parsnips for 20p again, my freezer is going to be rammed with soup!
Writing stuff - I'm considering the whole Nyla story and I don't think that it's working how I would like it. This means that instead of returning to that, I've republished an old favourite of mine here - I Never Knew Her Name.
Bear continues to keep in touch. He's explained his coursework to me, which impressed me no end. I barely understood one word in twenty, but it was so lovely to hear his voice. Things are just happily tootling along. I'm settling down to hibernate. I've also placed a grocery delivery and I've ordered the first of the Christmas goodies. I'm using Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for Christmas. As usual, I'm swearing that I'll get less than last year, and to be fair, I've gradually cut down. However it's November tomorrow and now I'm watching for sales on things like goodies that I can stash away until the big day. Really, I just want the men at home and for it all to be cosy. I may invest in candles - lots and lots of candles!
The next bit is a lot of knitting. You may want to skip it if you're not a knitter as it's a lot of grumbling about knitting things.
The delay since the last post is because I wanted to take a pic and I was baffled about the best way to do it. I then took the pictures and now my phone won't share them! In the end I looked for a pic of knitting on Unsplash, and when I entered 'knitting' in the search engine, it pulled up this, which is crochet. I can't crochet.
Eventually I managed to coax the phone to get the pics. This is the current state of the jacket I'm knitting.
It's just a sort of heap, because I've finished the main body, and the back and both fronts are knitted in one piece from the bottom up. The jacket is this one which is a jacket in chunky, and as I'm a larger lady with a ridiculously ample bosom, I'm knitting the largest size. Which is big. The finished length is supposed to be 36 inches or 93cm, and the bottom hem, which is all in one, is 62 inches or 157cm if I knit to size, and I have the uneasy feeling that I've knit it large. I've just started on the first sleeve.
The instructions I have are to block the pieces before making up. As it's all in stocking stitch or stockinette, the whole thing has curled up. Apparently, I need to block a stretch of knitting that's seriously curled and nearly two yards long - and that's just the hem! There isn't a single uncurled edge. I bought a pack of blocking pins but they look somewhat inadequate and the only place I can think of that has that sort of space and that is free is bear's bed, and I'm not sure that he'd approve.
My mother used to lightly press her knitting under a damp cloth, and I may try that. I'll have to do something as it's curling up to a ridiculous degree. After the mess I made when I dropped all the shoulder stitches, I'm not going to be wearing it outside of the house, so I think the main quality I'm looking for is 'fits over jumper and t-shirt' and from what I can see, it will do that very nicely.
I'm not knitting it again. I found myself knitting five stitches for the neckband on a circular needle that was 150cm or 60 inches long. I spent more time trying to get the needle and yarn in position than I did knitting the row.
Writing Stuff - today is the last day of October and my writing blog can calm down. I posted a story a day from Kane's story, most of them old but a couple of new ones. Today I posted the final story here - Not Fit - which is new and is quite a read at just under seven thousand words. I hope that if you dip in then you enjoy it.
The stats on my writing blog are now going odd. I have no idea what's going on and I'm putting it down to bots. However, for a while I've been getting a regular hit on Invitation Accepted so I thought I had better have a look and remind myself what it was all about. I'm ashamed to say that I'd forgotten how it ended. I enjoyed the read, but I feel like a very neglectful story mother. I've added the link to ease my conscience, but I feel that perhaps I ought to have a rummage and see what I've forgotten!
It's been cold and windy here today. I managed to get one pic to show that Gladys is still going strong.
But it was hard to get as the wind was throwing the branches around like crazy. I feel like there is a hard winter coming.
I found myself wondering what I managed to do today. I seemed to have done the very barest and my major triumph was remembering to take out the recycling for collection tomorrow. Of course, I also wrote just over five thousand words, so I suppose that accounts for some of the time. Some of it was for DHm but a large chunk was for my writing blog. I'm feeling pretty good about that.
I had a call from bear yesterday which was lovely. He sometimes calls just to talk stuff out, though I'm honest when I say that I haven't got a clue about what he's talking about.
With the weather being so cold and dreary, it's such a temptation to pile on the blankets and revel in feeling snug with all the wind and rain outside. It's my favourite time of year and I intend to enjoy it!
I finished the fish-tailed blanket, the one that had sat in the corner for years.
I had a good go at it because I spent a ridiculous amount of time at the garage. I thought something was burning, but apparently nothing was burning but the crankshaft pulley was loose and then they couldn't get the part, then the part turned up late, and it took some time to fit. I got about six inches knitted on the blanket that day. It turned out very roughly 150cm x 150cm or sixty inches square. I plan to hibernate under it.
I should carry on with the jacket I'm knitting which is in the home stretch, but I started another blanket, to have something mindless to knit while I'm watching tv.
I'm missing bear. He's been gone almost a month now, and he's been poorly as well. I guess most of the people reading this know that feeling. I'm sure that it doesn't really get much easier. I'm proud of him, though. He's getting good marks and I think that he's eating well. Tonight he's planning a fancy meal with chorizo and chickpeas. Hearing him managing just fine makes me feel that I've done something right and it's incredibly reassuring.
I've decided to give up on the chillies. They are absolutely crawling with bugs and it makes my skin crawl. It's a shame, as we were getting quite a bit of pleasure seeing the plants grow, but DH isn't enjoying the pickling so much and now that I've found a brand of hot chilli pickles at the local supermarket, at a cheaper price that DH can make, and they taste fine, then I may as well abandon the plants. If DH was enjoying the pickling, or the stuff in the supermarket was significantly dearer, I would probably have persevered, but I want my windowsill back, without the icky bits.
We've not gone entirely to ready made, though. I chopped up 2kg of onions for the freezer today and the house stunk. Still, I have the benefit of a good deal, ready to go and easy to use.
Writing stuff - for those who subscribe to email notifications on my writing blog - I'm sorry. But October is almost over. It's been all about Kane, and the new stories in order so far are Watching the Shop, Afterwards, A Cup of Coffeeand Dumping the Junk. And of course there'll be a nice long instalment on 31st October. If you want to read the whole thing so far, you can start here, but it's quite a read in full. I was surprised when I was going through.
I love using my lucet, but I can rarely think of any use for it. This is the lucet in question.
And this is the braid I made from some faded twine I found the other day. I've had it since father was gardening.
It's not brilliant, but it took me about half an hour total, including watching the video to remind myself how to use the thing.
You can see the difference between the cord on the video and the my attempt, which is largely because the lucet is too big for the thin twine I used. I've already started rummaging around to find the smaller size that I'm sure that I have somewhere. Or, apparently, I could use an ordinary fork.
The reason for the braid is that we have a log basket in our study. We don't have anything in the house that will burn logs, but it's a great size for us to drop the bits of recycling from the non-kitchen areas of the house into. The kitchen recycling bin is down a flight of stairs from the study and I currently can barely manage to walk across a room. Don't get me wrong, I can do the various cook/clean/laundry stuff but I'm grateful for things that can save me a few steps. At the end of every day or so, I can empty it into the outside recycling bin.
It came from Temu, equipped with wooden bars for the handles.
This presented a number of problems. The first problem was that the dowel wouldn't fit through the leatherette loops to make a handle. I dug out some sandpaper to cut down the size, but then promptly lost one of the dowels. It was always going to be a matter of time before they went missing regardless. However the basket is a nice size and it's made of a comforting sort of felt so I braided up the twine to make handles.
Which I will be replacing the instant I can find the smaller lucet. I like the rustic look but I think that I'll like it even more if it looks a little more deliberate.
Bear is feeling better, and seems to be settling in well. All is good with me as well, apart from the walking stuff. I had the flu jab today, so I've decided that the weekend is dedicated to resting my knee and knitting.
I've been dipping into some craft videos to see if I can find uses for braid that don't involve making mats. The few times I've tried it, I've ended up with more of a bowl and it hasn't worked at all. It's risky, watching those YouTube videos, though, as I get tempted to try things and I need to run down my craft supplies, not go out and buy more!
I can't remember which Psalm says it, but one of them says, 'make a joyful noise unto the Lord.' My mother said that was the only way to describe her singing. Once upon a time I sang in the sort of choir that used sheet music (I could read from sight, but not first sight) and was okayish, but now I stick with a joyful noise as the best description.
I've decided that as singing has been described as an aerobic exercise, I'm going to sing in the car. I couldn't inflict it on DH or any of the neighbours, but as I head towards Tesco, I can happily warble an approximation of a tune. It's not proper exercise, but it's vaguely good for me and it lifts my mood. It also makes my driving a lot more assertive.
Normally I'm a careful driver and I'm cautious at junctions. However it's amazing how much extra confidence I get from belting out old Liverpool folk tunes and while I don't ever think that I'll get mistaken for a boy racer, I'm getting out of some of the stickier junctions a lot quicker.
It has a downside. I have learned over the last few shopping expeditions that it's not a good idea to belt out Men of Harlech, a song all about medieval battles, when I'm in a 30mph zone. It's not good. I need to stick to something less martial in those areas. On the other hand, Kumbaya is wonderful and soothing and far from helpful if I'm supposed to be dashing down a 50mph zone.
I've done a little baking. There are two recipes that I know that involve browning the butter before baking. One is brown butter biscuits and the other is burnt butter cookies. I was supposed to be making brown butter biscuits, but I left them in the oven too long and I think I had a recipe crossover.
Bear has the 'fresher's flu.' It's a known thing that happens when students from all over the country meet up and mix all their germs. He's got a bad sore throat and is definitely suffering. I've had a few texts and a call or two, which is far more communication than I expected, and apart from the illness, I think that he's doing okay. He's cooking, he's got to grips with the local laundrette, he's shopping sensibly and planning his food, and generally keeping his feet on the ground. I'm not there and can only go off his reports, but it seems that he's laying the foundation of keeping a good rhythm in his life.
This is vital as bear, being his usual self, has signed up for a degree that is incredibly intensive with a massive workload. He's grumbled that he has a friend doing a History and Sociology degree at another university and they have the same number of contact teaching hours per week that he has most days. I'm pretty sure that he'll be fine, but I worry.
I miss him so much. So does DH. We're not being silly or dramatic about it, but there's a gap. However he's been in touch with both of us, and that is reassuring.
Writing stuff - it's carrying on with a different Kane story each day of October (apologies to those who have subscribed to the blog and who are now getting spammed). There was a new story last Friday here, and I've got a few more up my sleeve.
I didn't take any sensible pics today, so here is a pic of my new wrist rest and mouse mat.
I've been setting up a new station downstairs, where I'm planning on using the planner and getting some serious writing done. I have an old PC of bear's that I can use, and originally I ordered a plain black wrist rest and mouse mat. However bear asked nicely and took them away with him, so I indulged in fancy rests. So far I'm still setting up the planner and working out how best to use it, but it's been fun.
I've had something of a runaround today. I tried to pay money into the Post Office and failed as apparently my bank doesn't work there, then I dropped off some donations at the Salvation Army. I don't know what was going on, but I nearly passed out in the car park. I had a dizzy spell that I absolutely did not appreciate and I had to sit in the car for twenty minutes before I felt anywhere near to be safe to drive. I was so cautious driving to Tesco which was only a few hundred yards away and I got a baked potato and a hot chocolate in the cafe to try and ground me. I felt a little better, at least enough to carefully drive home, but I'm still feeling off. I've made lots of notes in the planner. In the past I've found it difficult to track any symptoms but now, if I keep it up, I can see if there's an underlying problem. I have a suspicion that it's lack of sleep, but I'll track and see.
DH had a text from bear saying that he had had trouble making a chicken curry, but he got it sorted. What I heard was my son is making himself proper meals!!! I am so proud and relieved.
It's not officially the start of autumn. Meteorological autumn starts on 1st September and the other start of autumn that I remember is 21st September or the equinox, but 1st October always feels more like the start of autumn to me. It feels like the colder weather has turned up early this year and I'm sitting here with one of my knitted blankets around my shoulders and I've lit two candles to take the chill off the room. I can't bring myself to turn the fire on.
Incidentally, it's this blanket, which is ridiculously long and narrow for a blanket but a wonderful stole type shape and length to wrap around my shoulders, cross over my chest and leave a nice overlap for when I'm watching or reading something on the computer.
I called in to Tesco today to pick up salad for DH. They didn't have any interesting bargains, so I picked up the salad and some sweeties for the Foodbank to remember one of DH's family and dashed out. I noticed something at the Foodbank bin, though, that made me wonder. It looked like someone decided that those in need had to have bottled lemon juice and donated dozens.
I had a quick look and they are good until May next year. I wonder if someone had been planning a demonstration or a pancake feast and were left with an uncomfortable surplus that they decided to pass on.
I'm taking the chance of a new month and the new stage in my life to try and find a way to work with a planner. I've had success in the past when I've written everything down, and so I've decided to go with a variant of the bullet journal. Parts of it require using brief notes so I'll have to modify that part. I can't write brief notes to save my life - I can witter on for pages. I've used something similar in the past, so I'm optimistic that I'll get a little further with this. I'll share any successes, and if I have any amazing insights, I'll let you know.
Writing stuff - I like to mark October, so once again I'll be including a story a day from Kane's story. I won't say anything here when I post, unless it's a new story, but if you want to dip in, my blog is here and all are welcome.
Bear is off and away. He left yesterday and I think that he'll be fine. DH checked his room and he said that it was nice with plenty of storage and it's nice and quiet. I'm confident that bear will do well.
I forgot to give him the shot glass to take with him.
It measures shots but also tablespoons, teaspoons, millilitres and fluid ounces. I picked it up mainly because I thought it would be useful for measurements if he cooks. I don't know if bear will do many shots while he's away. I suspect he may but not many, as it's not really his style (though who knows). However his track record is being the responsible one in the friend group and I guess it would be helpful to know what a shot of liquor is supposed to look like. The standard measure is a lot less than it looks like on TV.
Today is the first day of a new chapter in my life. I spent a lot of it rummaging around some writing stuff and getting some washing done. I think Monday is when I'll sit down and try and plan out how to make things work. It's felt a little odd.
At least the plumber is coming tomorrow. I'm desperate for the leak to be fixed. It's staining the front of the house! I'll be so glad when it's sorted out and I hope that the plumber (who is lovely) can work something out.
When I signed up to Facebook under my pen name, they asked for a date of birth and I put 22nd September 1968. That is not my birthday. It's not that far off. I'll be hitting 60 years of age soon, but I'm an Aquarius (if you believe in that sort of stuff, which I shouldn't, but it creeps up on me). I just checked and those who are born on 22nd September are Virgos. As I said, I'm an Aquarius, the fruit loops of the zodiac. However... my mother was a Virgo. My father was a Virgo. My best friend at school was a Virgo. My first boyfriend was a Virgo. My bridesmaid was a Virgo. My husband is a Virgo. There are a lot of Virgos in my life getting extremely irritated by my lack of sense. One of the other sensible star signs (allegedly) is Capricorn. Those in my life with that star sign are bear (who has a lot to put up with), my late mother-in-law, my father's long term girlfriend, my husband's neice, his brother-in-law and his lovely auntie. Any other birthdays are well spaced out. It's just the expensive ones that group together.
I searched for 'Virgo' on Unsplash and this came up. Nothing more relevant showed and I thought that this was pretty so I decided to share.
Anyway if you're on Facebook, you may see a prompt to wish me happy birthday and ninety people already have. I feel incredibly guilty about that. I'll say thank you to them all, and I feel incredibly grateful that someone took the time to send good wishes, but I'll feel guilty every time I press 'thanks + post' even as I feel hugged. Besides, I'm still going through my Facebook friends. I wrote an explanation here, but it's my author page and I love accepting friend requests, but it got indiscriminate and I've been using birthdays as a way of slowly picking through my friend list. There have been so many inactive accounts and the birthday reminder is so useful for this. However I do wonder about how many birthdays are the real birthdays.
I called in to Marks and Spencer today. My walking is getting worse, but I managed a short walk while hanging onto a trolley and I noticed that the Christmas stuff had started to come out.
I kept meaning to take better pics but things got a way from me. It's been a lovely day here, really sunny and a welcome change after all the rain. I've been spending most of it with bear as we sorted out what he's taking with him to university. It's currently stashed in four bags for life, the packaging for a duvet, the packaging for pillows and a backpack. That doesn't include his clothes, but it includes all the kitchenware and a few bits of groceries to start him off.
There have been some fairly intense discussions about what he does and doesn't need. Bear is sticking with a minimalist plan, which I'm sure will be fine. It's driving me nuts, though I'm trying to hide it from him, and I'm sure that I'll keep worrying.
Of course I'll worry a little about bear, but I think that he'll be okay. Wherethejourneytakesme said that perhaps bear had inherited the numbers ability from my great aunt. From where I sit, he's inherited the ability to get on with absolutely anyone from father, but he's also inherited my maternal grandfather's ruthless intolerance to fools. As far as he's concerned, peer pressure happens to other people and he'll quitely and undramatically do as he damn well pleases. While it would be nice to be able to persuade him, for example, to at least take a dressing gown with him, it's reassuring to know that he's not easily influenced, or at all, really.
The next few weeks are likely to be odd for DH and I. I'm sure that there are many reading this who understand what I mean. Since I became pregnant, back in April 2006, DH and I have centred our lives around bear. I mean, we haven't tried to take over his life or force our way in, but our lives have been very much about what is the best for bear. Now we need to recentre a little. To be honest, I think it's going to be fun.
I saw this and I thought that it was important to share.
It's a scam that if I had seen it, I would absolutely have fallen for it. It's a reminder to be cautious about clicking on links from unsolicited emails. I love Atomic Shrimp for all sorts of reasons and I'm really grateful for their scam warnings.
All is normal for here. The chillis are still crawling and overrun with bugs. The leak continues and bear is on pins ready to go to university. Term starts at the end of next week and so we have blocked out Monday to make all the checks, confirm that he has everything, and pick up anything he needs. I'm still recovering from the wonky wheel - the car was bearing left. I spent from 9am to 6pm waiting at the garage while they tried to work out what was needed. I ended up going back twice and left with two new tyres (which were an advisory in June anyway), a new wheel and a car that still has a habit of drifting left as it's sort of ground in now. Still I had a chance to catch up on some knitting. This was good as while I was clearing stuff out to get to the leak I found a blanket that I had started knitting around, I guess, ten years ago.
You can see the division between knitting before and knitting now. I think the technical terms my mother used were 'relaxed' or 'dropped' but I think of it as more like 'sprawled' and have resigned myself to a fishtailed blanket. As it's far from perfect, I can't donate or sell it, so I get to keep it and it's lovely and warm as it's being knitted up, so that is a definite win. I've a few half knitted projects, but after this I've decided to unravel and start again rather than worry about the tension.
Speaking of yarn, I was in Aldi.
The pile is slightly smaller as I walked away with 1000g of aran weight that will be perfect for a pattern I have.
That's £12.90 for enough yarn to make a sweater for a larger lady like myself, which I consider a bargain! I picked up some crochet hooks as well as when the stitch holder on the cardigan I'm knitting, that was holding 110 stitches, failed, a crochet hook would have been a significant help recovering the dropped stitches. It's ended up as something of a dog's dinner on the shoulder and I'll take a pic later.
And further about knitting. Those who knit may have picked up on a row about a YouTube video from the SciShow of all people.
It's upset a lot of knitters, perhaps because it was quite condescending and wasn't 100% accurate about its images. It talked about knitters in history having to work things out by trial and error and with intuition. The reaction videos that I've seen have been pretty funny as well as almost unanimously scathing, but it reminded me about one of my great aunts.
She was terrifying. She presented as a sweet, innocent, helpless, unmarried and innocent old lady who couldn't possibly be trouble. This was a lie. She had a way of looking you up and down and utterly anihilating you with one, pithy, elegant sentance, leaving you emotionally devastated for weeks. She spent most of her life working for a family firm of furniture makers/importers, starting at age 16, retiring in her seventies and terrorising generations. She was a wizard with numbers. The story that was told was when the fast young men came around to demonstrate the new adding machines, she could beat the specially trained speedsters with pencil and paper. Mind you, knowing her, there was probably psychological warfare involved as well.
She was born in 1902 and while our family encouraged the women, she was never going to be able to go on to any sort of further education. I think that if she had been born in 2002, it would have been a very different story. She really understood numbers and it showed in her knitting. Because she was a demon knitter. She loved to make the intricate Aran sweaters and cardigans. I've only been able to find two pics that aren't copyright.
Neither reflect my great aunt's work. They were intricate works of art, with eye-watering patterns in panels with all types of cables, ribbing, moss stitch, bramble stitch - all that you could think of. Chris Evans' sweater in Knives Out is a good example of the sort of pattern she enjoyed - all panels and complexity and bumpy bits. While the very nice presenter of the Sci Show talked about physicists suddenly discovering the engineering in knitting, my great aunt had nailed the maths by the 1970s, if not before.
It wasn't just that she routinely finished garments that I would never even attempt to consider, it's how she approached them. For those who don't know, a panel of a particular knitting stitch pattern will commonly be described as needing a multiple of x number of stitches plus y number of stitches. The YouTube channel, iknitwithcatful, has a playlist of different stitches and will describe, for example, double moss stitch as a pattern with a four row repeat needing a multiple of 4 stitches plus 2. I'm adding the link to the channel here as I find her incredibly relaxing.
So my great aunt would decide that she liked this particular cable panel from pattern A with this particular raised stitch from pattern B and a panel of these criss crosses from pattern C and she would assemble them together from her selection, adjusting them so that the stitch counts would fit together. Then she would pick a pattern that she knew would come in at the size she preferred - and different sizes would need different stitch counts, and all the different parts of the aran pattern and all the sizing had to be adjusted and tweaked until she was happy with the result and would start knitting the fiendish combination which would end up immaculate and perfectly fitted. She did knitting for fun, with no sign of stress at all the number crunching, as a sort of side hobby away from her main passion of traumatising her family.
I miss her. She was, like many in my family, a strong character with her own view of the world and a happy disregard of whether anyone agreed with her or not. She grew frail at the end, as she outlived many sparring/feuding partners and ended up surviving on sweets, cigarettes and sherry. If she had been born in a different time, I'm confident that she would have had an impact, if only in the mental health of which ever institution of higher learning she attended.
Writing stuff - just a quick note that an old friend Finn Cullen released a roleplaying game which reminded me of how I met my husband and I wrote about it on my writing blog here. Finn is a genius writer and I wish I was half as good as him, but he's not as fussed about it.
I'll be back regularly once bear is off to university and I've settled down. Thank you for the amazing hugs in the comments.
