Who knew that having a Whipples would impact upon the tastebuds of the boy. Apparently its quite common for foods to taste quite different after this procedure, who knew!

The boy is doing very well, the drain site has just about healed up now and he hasn’t been sick for a while and is maintaining his weight, mostly through a never ending supply of fruit juice, milk and sushi – he simply craves it, we are making our own this evening. Because of the change in his taste buds he has gone off eggs! Which has completely foxed the chickens who had between the three of them been doing a gallant job of keeping up with our families needs all summer. Normally as the days darken chickens go through their moult and have a few weeks of haphazard egg laying and then stop, and you won’t see another egg until well after the new year. But these being a hybrid called White Stars, well it looks like they are determined to keep going, at present we are still seeing three eggs a day.

So, earlier this week I was sat looking at nearly 2 dozen eggs, just over a weeks supply and started to look through ideas on the net, a few ideas appealed, such as curds or baked custards or ice creams, but they would all take more effort than I really wished to put into preserving them at that moment, when I came across the idea of freezing hens eggs. I thought that was quite a brilliant idea, and then I can use them in my Christmas cake or a Victoria sponge. So I beat them and bagged them in batches of 3 eggs, they may not be as wonderful as fresh eggs, but come mid December when the hens will undoubtedly have stopped laying, they will still be more of a treat than anything I can buy in the supermarket, and you never know the boy may start to enjoy omelets again.

And later on in the day I heard some very good news. A friend of mine is having a baby, which was wonderful news, and as a knitter it is doubly good news, as we get to dabble in baby knitwear. When I first became a knitter I came across the pattern of The Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann. It all ended in tears, I simply couldn’t follow the pattern well enough, but this time there are tutorials on youtube from Lorilee Beltman at Knitting Nuggets and a Wiki Page on Ravelry which supplies you with more information than you could ever imagine possible for one little baby cardigan. And somewhere along the line in my knitting career I had already come across Dawn Adcock’s notes so printed those off. So I sat and watched the video’s, rummaged through my commercial sock yarn box, of which I found DK wanting, but then found a beautiful yarn from Regia and cast on yesterday morning.

I think I have cracked it!

(I would have tried this pattern for Kitty, but her Mum could teach masterclasses in this pattern, so I decided it would be best if I chose something different)