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.
I had a quick dip in here to look for something, and thought I'd make a brief post to say that it's all as usual while I'm here.
Bear has Covid. Poor kid is really poorly with it, but better to have it now than when he is away at university. He's been huddled down with throat sweets and painkillers and generally suffering. DH and I have also been affected but not nearly as badly as we have had vaccines in the past and bear, being young and healthy, hasn't.
By the way, if you drink most of a bottle of water, crumple up the bottle, add some soluble painkiller and put the lid back on, the gas escaping from the tablets as they dissolve will expand and push the bottle back into its original shape - with sound effects. The men have been suffering but they are still curious about the world and love gimmicky tricks.
And I managed to scrape my elbow falling downstairs. This is an improvement on past falls as I have a shocking track record of dislocations and torn ligaments, but this time I found it kind of funny. I was carrying an armful of flimsy carrier bags to return to the Morrison delivery driver (10p back for each one) and they flew up and sort of drifted down like dingy, ragged snowflakes. Poor bear came rushing and then just sighed as he saw that I was not only unhurt but surrounded by chaos.
Here are two of the replacement chilli plants.
And a recent score
But the battle of the bugs continues. They have sticky traps, they have been sprayed with fancy soapy stuff and they have been left out when it finally rained. Efforts ineffectively continue.
I have been entertaining myself by watching the extremely stout woodpigeons swaying and flapping wildly as they perch on thin elder branches as they try and feast on the berries. I'm sure that they're using more calories than they're getting, but they look like ruffled, old fashioned, elderly bank managers that have slipped on a wet floor and are losing their dignity. However undignified, the woodpigeons obviously think that the elderberries are worth it.
I've also been watching those 'build a cabin in the woods' type videos on YouTube as in theory they couldn't possibly tempt me to try something new and shop for another hobby. I am thousands of miles away from the wilds of Canada and the jungles of Vietnam and I cannot be trusted with something so technical as a saw or a hammer. All I need to do is watch. I have some doubts about the constructions, though. After a few sessions, I feel that Alaska must be almost knee deep in hastily built log cabins, all with immaculately black stoves and a lack of bathroom facilities. There is also no disclosure about where the builders are sleeping in between long days of chainsaw wielding and I find myself wondering if some of them are actually in a luxury motorhome, just a little off camera.
I've been watching the videos while knitting this.
I'm knitting the jacket, and while it's an easy knit, it's not an easy knit. I'm a larger lady with an over ample bosom, and the body is knitting in one piece until it splits for the arm holes. I have over 220 stitches in chunky and the piece is currently around 18 inches or 45cm long. It's heavy, bulky and evil to manoeuvre and I had to get an extra long circular needle to manage the number of stitches. I'm looking forward to wearing it. I'm not looking forward to the last few rows on the body when I'll be holding a lot of weight on just a few stitches. Still, there's not too much making up to do and that is a bonus for me.
We have a leaking pipe and the most likely source is behind a pile of junk so I'll be sorting that out tomorrow. What with one thing and another, we haven't really been paying attention and now we have damp patches on three floors.
Another thing that I spotted on YouTube is that you can make soapy water from ivy. I am currently refusing to try it on the ivy running rampant in a corner of the garden, and I'm fairly safe from a random attempt at bushcraft in my garden because I think that it's the wrong sort of ivy. I know a few easily accessible stands of suitable ivy, though, and if I give in and try something, I'll share.
I'm doing a little better in myself, and I'll probably be back in a few weeks.
Bear got his A level results today. For those not in the UK, these are nationwide, standardised tests typically sat by those who are 18 or nearly there. It's the final exam of secondary school and the marks are used to determine whether the student is accepted into a particular university or not. Those wishing to go to university will have already applied and been told which grades they need to achieve to be admitted. Some courses at some universities don't require high grades and some demand excellence. Bear got A* in Maths and A in Further Maths, Physics and Computer Science and is going to his university of choice. He is disappointed that he didn't get all A*. I'm incredibly proud of him.
I'm trying not to overshare about bear. He's a legal adult now and I don't want to make him uncomfortable because of my posts. No doubt I'll share about his university later, but he's going to an excellent university with a really good reputation for the sciences. I've been hoarding Tesco Clubcard vouchers which I've used to outfit him with basic kitchen gear and bedding, which he has graciously approved, and I think that he'll do fine. Bear has voiced concerns that when he leaves, there won't be a responsible adult in the house. I can't really argue with that, but it's only for 70 days for the first term and I'm sure all of us will survive.
I finally got my car back. The airbags were replaced and she's good to go. The car is now fine and seems to be feeling particularly feisty. Her natural driving preference is 90mph on the motorway in August. My natural driving preference is 30mph on a side road in February. I'm sticking to familiar roads at the moment until I get a little more into the swing. So far I've accidentally run a red at a road works - sort of, as I went past the light but stopped at the crossing until it changed before turing, then nearly clipped an ongoing car when swerving to avoid a bunny, well, not very nearly but it was within 500 yards and then I fishtailed all over the road when I swerved to avoid an owl sitting on the road. Bear is still asking for lifts so he can't be too traumatised, but I'm watching the speedo like a hawk because my normal driving is taking me a lot faster than I'm used to. I'm shooting out of the traffic lights like a whippet and I'm surprised that I haven't got a speeding ticket. Given my normal caution, if I get a speeding ticket then I'm going to frame it.
I've finished a scarf.
And started another one for brother/his partner.
And I have some extremely poor pics of the replacement chilli plants.
I'm hopeful that we'll get a harvest quite soon and be able to keep pickling. I'm obsessively watching them for pests but so far, they're clear.
Perhaps it's just as well that I've failed in the garden. We are in the middle of a drought and there's a hosepipe ban. I could go out and water the garden with a watering can, and the garden isn't that large, but perhaps it's just as well that there's nothing to see so nothing to suffer. I managed to kill all the herbs with neglect.
You know how I say that I'm going to do something and then almost immediately do the opposite? I could post, for example, that I'm going to concentrate on my knitting and the next day I will be doing almost anything else. So take this with a bucket of salt, but I mean it as I write it. My mental health is pretty poor at the moment, and I'm struggling with practically anything. I'm feeling worried and stressed about not posting on here and then worrying even more that I don't know what to post and feeling that I ought to be posting something interesting and the oughts in all aspects of my life are crushing me, so I plan to take a step back from this blog for at least a month. As I said a few sentances ago, that's barely worth the pixels that spell it out, but in theory I'll step away, take this tiny bit of pressure off, and come back and post triumphs, should they happen.
There were two reasons I came here to post today. One is to boast about bear's results. The other is to remind everyone that I think that the people blogging in our community are amazing, wonderful, brilliant people who have done so much to help me over the years and that I'm profoundly grateful. I may currently be erratic but that doesn't mean that I don't value everyone who's been kind enough to stop by and everyone who's blogs have enriched, inspired and improved my life.
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.
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.
