The cold virus continues, although I did get a straight five hours kip last night, which has improved things a little. Oooh I do so dislike these dark, damp days. Miserable aren’t they?

I was looking through my photographs this morning trying to choose a photograph to brighten up my blog. As nothing has changed very dramatically from yesterday there really is nothing to photograph and I’m just a tad bored. I could photograph a bag full of seeds and onion sets that hubby picked up on Sunday, but best not, I can hear the yawns from here.

When I came across this photograph, which is my absolute favorite. Its taken five years ago, so boy no.1 who is sitting down would have been just 13 and boy no.2 who is looking for pebbles for the dam they are repairing is 10 1/2. I love the atmosphere of this picture, a lovely lazy sunny afternoon. Sadly this place no longer exists, a very expensive golf course was created and it was deemed necessary to build a bridge over it. 😦

These are my new found best friends. Orange juice with lemonade, tea and paracetamol. Yes dear friends I have yet another cold and this one’s a good ‘un. I even have painful glands under my arms, which I haven’t had for many a long year, I sometimes squeak because it hurts when I move.

There are some good things to having a cold. One which I must tell you, which made me deliriously happy, or was that just the fever last night.. Is that in the middle of the night I was wide awake feeling quite unwell and I heard a pair of tawny owls calling for a good half an hour. They sound so hauntingly beautiful, its one of my great joys in life to hear them call.

Other good things, I finished a pair of fetchings. Not sure about this colourway, but as these are for the plot, it doesn’t really matter.

This is something pretty to keep me company. My wildflower socks are starting to take shape, albeit slowly, but thats okay.

I completely stripped our bed this morning as it was soaking wet from last nights fever. Thinking or rather cheating… that I would wash and then tumble dry to within an inch of the bed linen’s life and pop back on. (My mother has to air clothes/bedclothes for days on end..) Talk about best laid plans of mice and men, the washing machine broke… so I have sodden bed clothes hanging on the line and I will have to search out a fresh lot for tonight, which really wasn’t the plan.

So I think I will go back to laying on the sofa until son no.1 comes home and he can help me make my bed.

A fine pair of shifty looking characters 🙂

We enjoyed the Christmas light switching on ceremony last night. Its a nice little event in Kenilworth which many people turn out for. Warwick Road is closed and stalls and entertainment are set out for the evening. There was a fantastic performer playing with fire. Not a very good piccie but it gives you the idea.

Whenever I see an entertainer playing with fire, I automatically launch into, whether its in my head or even outloud, Fire by Arthur Brown. A one hit wonder in the sixties, it IS one of the true greats. So for your pleasure and mine…. 🙂

Fire

Arthur Brown aside, hubby would have stayed in a continuous loop for the freebie mulled wine/irish coffee so generously provided by Penman’s solicitors. I can vouch for the irish coffee, they (note the plural) were yummy. As a taxi was pre-booked we both got into the ‘spirit’ of the occasion.

It was a very nice evening, time spent with both boys, which was finished off perfectly with a delicious spag bol which hubby had cooked before we went out.

My Elfin hat turned into a rather lovely Santa’s hat. With hidden talents……

See the video.

Some people might call me a mad woman, I think I would tend to agree with them!! 🙂

Just for those that are interested I used Mission Falls in Poppy.

Look, pooling 😦 I so wanted this yarn not to pool. I had hoped (its that h word again!) that once I started to knit the flowers that the pooling would stop, but it hasn’t. I really wanted wildflowers springing up on a background of a summer meadow (if rather a pink one!), not looking like they were planted in concrete troughs.

One thing I have learn’t in life is that you have to live with what you’ve got and I know that I’m not going to make a bag or a scarf out of this yarn. I know it will end up as socks and that it will pool. I also know that Mum is not as critical as I and all she will see is a warm pair of comfy socks to toast her tootsies in. On a positive note, I mastered the “wildflower stitch”, it took me a while, but I managed it in the end. 🙂

I’ve been raiding my stash this afternoon and found this. It is Emily from Posh Yarn, its colour name is Hoyden. I’ve had it ages. Today, it was calling to me. So then to choose a pattern, because Emily is not very long, so you have to be careful and then there is my inexperience as well, so it has to be relatively simple.

I thought this pattern was lovely and would suit it completely.

Wildflower Socks

The slight worry is that the pattern calls for 2.25mm needles, yet the wool needs 2.75mm. So I’m going to try 2.5mm. They are for my mum, (thats if I can tear myself away from them) I knitted my mum a pair of socks earlier in the year and used a 60 stitches to 2.5mm ratio and they fitted very nicely. So hopefully, (I do alot of that!… hoping) they should fit well, if the materials not too stiff and you can’t bend your ankle when your walking in them.

So I’m just waiting for a person to walk through the door, any person, as long as they have two arms 🙂

Click Here

Wow, my first hyperlink. 🙂

Charlie rather enjoyed his adventure down to the Happy Fields today, aka the Abbey Fields. (before my boys understood it was the Abbey Fields, they always called it the Happy Fields, its kinda stuck) Many picnics have been partook, many afternoons whiled away whilst my boys paddled in the brook. We always went for the day, twice a week in high summer, rucksacks would be packed (we had one each) and off we would march, only to return early evening with two very tired little boys for a quick supper, bath and bed.

Charlie and I haven’t ventured very far since late June, for reasons which some of you will understand, so this was our first adventure for a while, accompanied by my elfin hat. What I really do like about the winter is that this beautiful park is deserted and therefore becomes ours, all ours.. especially on a Monday.

Such beautiful swans,

Such hungry ducks, the birds quickly demolished the loaf of bread I had taken to feed them.

I love this picture, to see Kenilworth Castle quite clearly from the Abbey Fields is wonderful.

A photo from the top of the hill…

Its been a sad weekend, as you might imagine from my previous post. Contacting friends with such news is not very pleasant.

Bizzarly my left kidney became very painful on Saturday and has remained so most of Sunday. I gave up in the end at about 5 p.m. and took some ibuprofen and that seems to have calmed things down a bit. It has stopped me in my tracks though and what was meant to be a good dig at the allotment, turned out to be a ten minute visit, during which pitiful cries of, “I don’t think I can do any digging” and “its getting worse, I feel really quite ill” before hubby bundled me back into the car and took me back to a nice, warm home.

I promise (she says through gritted teeth) that I will see someone if it continues. (she who does so hate going to the docs)

However, I did manage to photograph these little treasures to be..

Carie,…. remember perspective… 🙂

Personally, I am very excited about this. These are very tiny cauliflowers. We had a disaster with our summer cauliflowers. I had grown them from seed, nurtured them, watered them, fed them, they were very well loved cauliflowers. Just as they were nearing perfection, (although a bit small) I suggested to hubby, that we should pick them as I had a vision of jars of my home made sweet picalilli lined up for Christmas, which hubby adores. And hubby said “no … leave them for a week…” and then… you may remember…. It rained and rained and rained and we just couldn’t get onto the plot and when we did, two whole rows of beautiful cauliflowers had ‘blown’ (that means got too big and had flowered and were going to seed) and were going rotten because everything was so wet and they ALL ended up on the compost heap. These lovely little curds are only ping pong sized at the moment, but they do look very nice.

And the other exciting news is….

Some of our sprouts are developing, so we may get sprouts very soon and hopefully have some left for Christmas day. These are called Union and were given to us as tiny seedlings by an old boy three plots down. They are doing really well, the type I grew, Evesham, most of them haven’t firmed up into tiny button type shapes and have remained open like a flower, so no sprouts for us from that variety, although the chickens will love having a couple of stalks hanging in their chicken run to feast on.

Knitting news..

I’m nearly up to the arm holes for hubbys Cobblestone jumper. I think (with a bit of help) I can understand the pattern for the arms, but I have no idea what the pattern means on the yoke. I’m taking each stitch as it comes.

I’ve just received a phone call to say another friend has died. In my social circle its been rather a bad couple of years for losing friends. This is the fourth friend this year. We are not sure what happened to Pete yet, the last time I spoke to Pete, I’d missed seeing him on his last flying visit home in the summer and had promised him a steak dinner next time he was around, he’d joked about eating the biggest fillet steak he could find, along with a bottle or two of Chateau Latour. Bless.

Pete had everything to look forward to, he had found a lovely lady friend, was planning marriage and by all accounts was a very happy bunny. He told me during our telephone conversation that he had been a poorly boy with a kidney infection and had been in hospital for a week, but was recovering, I can only imagine that there was more to this than met the eye.

I feel very upset that I didn’t see him and his lady friend in the summer, I was at that time very upset about losing my hair and just felt unable to socialise very much. Pete had understand that and was very supportive to me both on the phone and through emails. If only I’d known.

Another friend who will be sadly missed.