I Finished Something!

I finished the blanket! I still need to sew in the ends, but it's finished.

It's very approximately 48 inches by around 90 inches (120 x 220cm) and it's done! I immediately cast on for the scarf with the left over yarn. I splashed out on the yarn, the blanket cost around £15 for 400g and there's another £7.50 worth of yarn to make two scarves. I'm knitting what I think is supposed to be DK on 6mm needles instead of the recommended 4mm and I think that it looks fine and feels wonderfully soft and warm. 

I'm posting a little early today as England are playing Spain in the Euros final and I'm not sure what state I'll be in afterwards. The men in my life have agreed to let me be. Bear has some reading he wants to do and DH likes to chill at the weekend. 

I feel bad about getting rid of the chilli plants, but from what I've seen and some google, it's whitefly and mealybugs, both of which can establish themselves in the soil. I've made a lot of mistakes with them. The pots are too small and I let the plants get too tall. I'm going to have bigger pots (use the outside of the self watering pots which should almost double amount of available soil) and keep a close eye on their height. I'm also going to give the window/windowsill a good wipe around with disinfectant. There are a lot of tiny cracks and crevices in an old house like ours where bugs could lurk so I can't relax. I just wish that I'd learned this lesson earlier.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Kind of Sad

I didn't post yesterday because I couldn't access the comments and I fell asleep before I could thoroughly enjoy Germany v Spain the night before. Perhaps it's just as well because I'm feeling somewhat sad. One of the chilli plants that had been badly infested with mites (I think) and that I'd cut right back had sprouted more leaves. 

It's not a brilliant pic because I was distracted by an enormous rat shooting across the garden. We've hardly seen any since we stopped feeding the birds, but I'm not surprised. There's been a lot of heavy rain and I know that the stream near us will have been a lot higher than usual and rising up the banks. The run off will have also got into the drains and sewers and I suspect that quite a few rats may have been flooded out. I still don't approve. 

Regardless, all the chilli plants are affected. I've recognised whitefly on them and the plants aren't doing well. After a skin-crawling search (I hate creepy crawlies), it looks like the infestation has dug in and is almost certainly now in the soil. I'm reluctantly going to get rid of the plants, even though they've given good service, disinfect the plant pots, windows and windowsills, put new soil in and plant new plants. With a bit of luck, I should be able to overwinter them. I've got some potassium soap, or insecticidal soap, and at the first sign of trouble, I'll spray around liberally. I am not giving up!

I am also a little concerned about the freezer. Earlier on, that sort of freezing ice-mist was pouring out of it when I was going in and out to make dinner. It looked like an overdone special effect. We've had quite an expensive time, replacing a lot of items like the washer, fridge and oven recently and I don't want to add the freezer to the list. It had calmed down last time I looked, but I'm keeping an eye on it. The Tesco Clubcard vouchers that I've been saving up have covered a lot of stuff for bear, but I'd rather keep an eye on expenses. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Made a Cake

I made a cake but I didn't take a picture. It was a little singed and slightly sad looking, so I took some pictures of Deirdre, the honeysuckle.

The berries are almost as pretty as the flowers and look quite Christmassy. I should perhaps cut off the berries to give the honeysuckle a chance to flower again, but I know that the birds eat them, so I'll leave them to look festive. 

I've been watching England v Italy and I'm a nervous wreck. England were behind 1- 0 for most of the match, equalised in stoppage time and then got, and scored, a penalty right at the end of extra time. I honestly thought we were heading for penalties again. I got a load done on the blanket but I'm not guaranteeing the state of the stitches!

I'm now off to hopefully calm down while watching the Great British Sewing Bee. 

Writing stuff - there may be advertising on my writer's blog. It's a work in progress. It makes sense for me to try and get money there, but I'm not entirely clued in. But there is another story, following on from last week here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Oops.

I forgot it was Sunday so picked up the blanket to knit. I'll go back to knitting for sailors next weekend, and I'll make it up by knitting for them on Saturday as well. 

The blanket's growing nicely. I've one more ball to go. It should definitely be finished at the end of the England game on Tuesday. The football is speeding up the output. 

It's never so straightforward. I noticed this. Sorry about the quality but the flash made things clear.

With the yarn being boucle with all the loops and curls on the yarn, I think that I may have accidentally picked up a stitch. I tried unpicking the rows, but the yarn did not want to play nice so I decided that if my brother asked, I'd tell him that it was a design feature. 

Otherwise, it's been a good day. I'm hoping that tomorrow I do plenty to blog about.

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Need to Commit

 Today's highlight - I picked some chillies. And I added a few rows to the knitting. And that's about it. I didn't do much yesterday either. 

I need to keep posting on here as an incentive to actually do something worth posting about. And that's my grumble of the day.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Still Here

With apologies to those who don't follow football/soccer and apologies for the notes to those who do.

I'm recovering from England v Sweden. 

Sweden were by far the better side in the first half, and were 2-0 up until the 79th minute (standard football match is 90 minutes). Then England scored two goals in two minutes which put them at a draw at 2-2 when they reached full time. Because the match was at the knockout stage of the tournament, the match went to extra time to find a winner, which is two 'halves' of fifteen minutes each. It was still 2-2 at the end of that. At this point, matches are usually decided on penalties, best of five. It's really hard for a goalkeeper to save a penalty, a direct strike at goal where the keeper isn't allowed to move until the striker has touched the ball. This time, however, both goalkeepers were heroic and saved three each, as both sets of fans approached nervous collapse. It was still a draw after that, so it became game + extra time + penalites + extra penalties and England squeezed through. I really felt for the Swedish team. They'd played like heroes and it's an awful way to go out.

I was knitting my blanket through this and I cannot vouch for the quality of the stitches. I don't know about the players, but I'm not sure that I'll be recovered by the time of the next match on Tuesday. 

Here's a pic from July 2018. There is no noticeable increase in sanity.

I also made to loaves of banana bread, one recipe needed three bananas, the other needed two bananas and I had a bunch of five bananas that wouldn't last another day. Naturally, I forgot the pic. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Untechnical

Nothing much has happened here today, hence the lack of pictures from me. I'm reduced to using a picture from Unsplash.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

And the reason I picked that picture is because the Big Thing for me today is all about the blog. 

I started this blog in 2013 and it's full of memories. It's not even just memories. I've looked back on here to find out if things were still in warranty or whether I've had something long or when something was due. There's also a somewhat dismal refrain of me promising to do better, then absolutely failing. I've just realised, however, that I could lose it. Blogs can get hijacked, like Facebook accounts, and I don't want to think about losing all the content. 

However there may be an issue and I have no idea what to do, or even if I have to do anything at all. Every now and then, I look at the stats. I'll go through phases of looking every day and then forget about it for months. So I was taken by surprise when I remembered to look and found, after some rather threadbare posting, that I have had nearly 2 million hits on my blog over the last 30 days instead of a few hundred. As far as I can see, the posts that are getting hit are random and often old, and it doesn't have an obvious pattern. 95% of the hits come from Vietnam and just under 5% come from Brazil with what I suspect are the genuine views trailing behind. 

I haven't got a clue what's happening, but if you are one of those new visitors and are well-intentioned and curious - hello and it's good to see you. Drop a comment if you have questions and I hope that you're having a good day. I suspect most of those new visitors are bots, but I'm always happy to 'see' well meaning people.

I don't have the tech know-how to do anything meaningful, or even if it's needed. I'm going to go through and possibly save the more important posts, but there are over 3,000 posts which is a lot to rummage through. I'm also going to cut down on mentioning bear. I know that he's an adult, but a lot of the newly popular old posts have mentions of him (probably because most of the posts talk about him - he is the light of my life) so I'd rather be safe. And if this suddenly disappears, then it's almost certainly either accidental or it's been ambushed. 

I may reconsider trying to get advertising if this keeps up. After all, I have a son that needs supporting. 

Hugs and good health to all.  

Tiny Steps

It's been a quietish day. I've got a few bits done, but I've had one of those 'don't drive or try anything complicated like walking' headaches which I think is because I kept forgetting to make a drink. I was definitely out of it for a bit but at least I recovered in time to watch the first in the new season of The Great British Sewing Bee. I very much enjoyed the sewing bee, but it looked like they were starting off with some really hard stuff. They were using patterns with pleats and gathers and my very limited experience says that they can be tricky to get straight and even if you're pushed for time. Still, some of the finished garments were stunning. 

I've spent a lot of the day trying to work out how to go forward with some writing stuff, so I've not had much to take pics of, but I did a little knitting and the blanket is growing nicely. I'm loving how the colours work out. 

And I've identified more yarn that I can get rid of, including this. 

It's a lovely soft cotton feel acrylic, and I'm a sucker for blues, and I'd no doubt enjoy turning it into a couple of baby blankets, but I don't know if or when thtat would happen. I'm absolutely getting rid of blacks and navy blues. I don't need the eye strain!

And that's about it. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Start of the Week

I've mostly recovered from watching England play Wales in the Euros. For those who don't follow sport, it's the European international tournament for Women's football (aka soccer). It's the first time that Wales women's team have made the international tournament and England won last time so it was unsurprising that the result was 6-1. Of course, growing up in England, speaking English and with a very English father, I still have a tie to the Welsh roots of my mother's family and it's no wonder that drink was taken last night. 

I've used a lot of pictures from Unsplash over the years. They have both free pictures and pictures that need payment, and I've taken ruthless advantage of the free pictures. I was feeling a little guilty and wondered if any of the pics that I've taken would be of good enough quality. I'm not saying that I think that my pics are any good, but they may be useful and it feels only right that I give something back. I've loaded these up so far.

I don't think that they'll get much use, especially as I don't think that I did a good job on the key words, but I hope that there's some use in them somewhere. I was somewhat surprised to see that they were accepted. I guess my phone takes pictures of the right sort after all. I think that I'll have a rummage through my old pics and see if there are any others that are worth sharing. They'll be dim in the company of some of the glorious pics on there, especially the pics of art from museums, but it's something.

I ended up with two deliveries today. Because the Morrisons order was due at 9.30, the cut off for amending the order last night was 5.20pm. Obviously the men in my life didn't tell me that they wanted some extras on the order until 7pm, and it was stuff that they genuinely enjoy, so the Tesco order that was due later in the week, and which could be amended up to 11.46pm, was brought forward. The Tesco delivery drivers are all sweethearts and this one didn't even blink when he was unloading ten tubes of Texas Barbecue Pringles. 

Bear has been awesome, putting away groceries, washing up without being asked, and generally being helpful. DH is a darling. I'm really happy to work around them. 

I'm so tired now that I'm making a lot of mistakes as I'm writing, so I hope that this all makes sense. 

Writing stuff - a short story is here. I suspect that it's a start to something, but I've no idea what. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Before I Forget

In haste...

I don't want to talk about England v France. Tonight was better.

There have been a few issues with the chillies. Something has been at them and their leaves are absolutely lacy. 

I picked the chillies, pruned off the worst affected bits and sprayed it generously with soapy water. Washing the gunk off the windowsill was completely yeurk. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it keeps going. 

I'm frustrated about the car. I've had the formal 'Stop Driving' notice so I can really only drive to get it fixed. I keep expecting it to explode like a special effect which is somewhat implausible, but I'm feeling quite frustrated. I have a delivery saver plan so I could get a Tesco delivery every day without charge if I wanted to - if I met the £50 minimum. If I don't meet the £50 minimum, there's a £5 surcharge. Right now, to keep up with fresh stuff and bits, it would suit me to get a delivery three times a week, although there's workarounds. I'm well stocked on candles, tinned food, dried pulses, rice, pasta etc etc so I don't really want to add more just to bump the total up.

Fortunately, there's always bear. All being well, and not tempting fate, he'll be away for university in the autumn so I can start picking up bits for him while bringing my total up to the mark. Today it was a rather nice single person frying pan which was a decent weight and non-stick. I couldn't get him to give me an opinion, as in his view a pan is just a pan, so I imagine that I'll be doing a lot of the thinking part of it. I've got a lot of Tesco vouchers, so I'm not worried about stretching too much. To be fair, he could take most of what he needs from home rather than buy it new, but I'll give him choices. 

Writing stuff - yesterday I posted the last instalment of the White Hart here. Today I posted a quick note about it here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Still Same Old

In a previous post I listed the priorities for my knitting. I can't believe that I was so deluded to think that I'd stick to that! That list has gone completely out of the window. 

Anyway I'm still feeling under the weather, but at least I've been knitting (although not with any sensible priorities). When I thought that the balls were 50g rather than 200g (the North American system for using how many yards/metres in a ball is so much better, especially with weird yarn), I bought rather a lot for scarves and this means that I hope to have a blanket for when my brother and his partner come back from their holidays. I've done this so far...

And I adore the colours. There's a genuinely non zero chance that I'll keep it for myself. The pic with the flash doesn't do it justice. The colours are a wonderfully glacial and, as with all hand knits, it's surprisingly warm.

And that's really all there is about my day. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Same Old Same Old

I think I've had a virus and I'm coming out of it. I've been flattened, and I'm still fairly flat, but I'm more or less ticking over. I've absolutely neglected the plants, though, and some have died so I'll have to play catch up.

This is a little annoying as I won't be able to take the garden waste to the tip for the next few weeks. We're not allowed to put garden waste in our normal bins though I may be able to request a 'pick up' of garden waste from the council. I can't take it to the tip because I drive a Citroen C3 and there is a worldwide recall of airbags on Citroen C3s. I read an article today on the BBC that said it was risky to keep driving it. I'd been making a few short runs (nearly passed out in Aldi, which was mortifying) but I told bear last night that I wasn't fit to drive and I'm quite glad that I did. He had to take the bus to his pub quiz, but was fine. However I can't take stuff to the tip if the car isn't safe to drive.

Bear is being awesome and has already cleared a lot of the garden, leaving a mound of cuttings and weeds that I can't get to the tip. Darn it to heck. 

It keeps coming back to not being able to drive because the halogen oven has given up. There's an unnerving crackle when I turn it on and a weird smell. It's around four years old and has been used most days, sometimes for more than one meal, and if I remember correctly it cost something like £34. It doesn't owe a penny and I'm going to miss it as it made the best baked potatoes. I can't take it to the tip until the car's sorted out. We've decided against replacing it and plan to use the airfryer instead, but we'll need to move the airfryer. We haven't been using it that much, which is perhaps just as well, as the only place it has fit has a cupboard over it and when I used it last night, the bottom of the cupboard got red hot. We're going to have to rearrange the kitchen and it's a great opportunity to get rid of a load of junk and check for out of date packets and tins in the back of shelves or to make a decision and donate food that's otherwise fit but that we'll never use. Which I won't be able to take to the tip or food bank because of the car issue. Some expired stuff will fit in the normal wheelie bin for the usual collection, but if I'm getting rid of a lot, it's going to be an issue. 

I've not been doing much, but I've managed some knitting and now that the football is on, I hope to reduce my stash. I've finished the scarves for my brother and his partner.

Though I may do a couple of others for them, depending on what I find in my stash. I started knitting the blanket that needed to have three strands held together, and I was fed up by the end of the second row. It didn't help that it started with dark grey and it was giving me eye strain. I've made a decision - I'm going to get rid of all the dark grey, black and navy yarn in my stash, including the yarn that I used to start the dark blue scarf. There's around 2 kilos of this in total, at a minimum, and I need to either throw it away, donate it or sell it. Of course, without the dratted car I can't drive to the tip, the post office (if it's sold) or a charity shop. 

In fact, I've decided that I'm going to be ruthless with the stash. I'm going to get rid of everything that isn't part of a project that I think that I'll enjoy or isn't DK that could be used for knitting for sailors. I'm also reluctantly parting with any idea of me doing any sewing. I'd quite like to do some, but it isn't going to happen. I'd rather spend my time with the knitting. This means that the fabric, notions and a lot of the tools need to be tossed/donated/sold whenever I can use the car. 

The car is booked in to have the airbags refitted on 29th July. I believe that I'll be doing several hundred miles in the few days after that!

Writing stuff - I published another instalment of the White Hart last week here.

Hugs and good health to all.