Random Monday Stuff

It's been a hectic weekend here at Casa Austin. (Like we ever have any other sort, really). As part of the great plan to run down the book-selling business and reclaim the house from the many assorted piles of books that lurk everwhere, we did a couple of car boot sales (that's flea markets to those of you over the pond). We sold quite a bit of surplus stock, which was the plan but I am absolutely shattered today as it involved getting up at 5am on both Saturday and Sunday. And I worked all day in the shop today.

Consequently I have no brain cells functioning coherently, so random posting is the best you can expect. Anyone looking for scintilating wit and sparkling repartee should move along now. Nothing to see here.

I have knitted though, in between customers at the bootsales I finished the first of a pair of socks for the Evilpixie -



They're just standard recipe socks knitted in some vintage Sirdar Random that I found in the stash. They look a bit bluish in the pic but they are actually pink and white with a little hint of lilac.


This arrived in the post -

Issue 2 of Yarn Foward magazine. Kerrie has had all manner of problems getting this issue published, so I'm glad she managed it in the end, all be it four months behind schedule. Thankfully she seems to have solved the problems now and the next issue should be on track for July. I like this magazine, it's much better than the ones available at the newsagents, if not quite up to the standard of some of the American ones. Still it's early days, plenty of time for it to get even better.

I got this book at the weekend too -

Lots of great ideas for adding beads, sequins, patterns etc to your knitting.

I finished Dissolution by C J Sansom, and liked it a lot. I was a bit unsure at first, not being a big fan of historical crime and nor being a big fan of crime novels featuring much religion. But once I got into it I did enjoy it, and shall read the next one fairly soon. I'm now reading The Reckoning by Sue Walker. I'll let you know how that pans out, not convinced yet - I'm on page 108 and very little seems to have happened so far, though there's quite a lot of back story. We shall see.

Anyway I'm off to veg out in front of the TV and I think there's a glass of wine somewhere with my name on it.........

Standing at the Crossroads

I find myself at one of life's crossroads, with big decisions to be made, and some already made, about where I go from here.

I've spent the last six years, happily working from home, selling books on the internet. We've built the business up together and it's been hard work but a lot of fun along the way.

Yesterday, we finally admitted that it wasn't working anymore and that the new changes to eBay mean the business is no longer viable. So, over the next few months we shall run the business down and sell off the stock.

I shall still have to find some gainful employment however. I've asked about extra hours at my part-time retail job, but I shan't know about that for a couple of weeks. So in the meantime I find myself in the strange situation of having to re-evaluate my skills and look around to see what else I can do.

I'm quite looking forward to some new challenges. It will be strange though to go back out into the world full-time after so long spent working on my own, being my own boss. Interesting times ahead. Anyone got any vacancies involving books or knitting?

In the words of President Bartlett..."What's Next?"

Other Stuff!

Just a few little bits I've been meaning to blog about.

I also read Triptych by Karin Slaughter. Very good. Just when you think you know what's going on she takes you off in a completely different direction.

Maxine, I can send you my copy (it's a large format PB) if you like, email me your address. Or if you want your own, it is published in PB this week and will be half price in Waterstones from Thursday as it's their book of the week.

A Fine Dark Line

I said in my last post that this book, A Fine Dark Line by Joe R Lansdale deserved a post to itself, so here it is.

I did suspect that I was going to like this book before I started it. I loved The Bottoms. In fact it's one of my all time favourite books, and this one is fairly similar in structure.

It's set in East Texas in the 1950s and is a coming of age story about Stanley, who's parents run the local drive-in. It's a simple tale about a young boy discovering what's important in life, learning about sex and death and friendship, about inequality and racism. The whole book is full of wonderful, beautifully drawn characters, like Stanley himself, his father, mother and sister, friend Richard, Rosa Mae who works for the family, and the projectionist Buster Lighthorse Smith. Lansdale has a delicate touch and he subtly draws you right into this thirteen-year-old's world. Before you know it you're completely hooked. It's a masterpiece of setting and pacing and he pulls it all together beautifully at the end.

It's a book that stays with you, that you keep thinking about after you've finished it and put it aside. And for me that shows how good a book it is. I read so many books these days, some because I want to, some for review, some for reading group, and it is rare to find a book that stays with me for several days after I put it down, as this one has done. Too many of the books I read now have no real impact. They don't stay with you. You read them and they are gone. Sometimes I go to comment on a book at reading group and realise that I can't remember what happened in it, though I only read it a week or so ago. This book kept me thinking about it all over the weekend and prompted me to go pick up The Bottoms and start reading it again.

A Fine Dark Line is a great book. Go read it!

Socks!

I'm really not sure where the week has gone. I'm having trouble with the fact that Friday seems to have sneeked up on me already.

I have finished the Cherry Tree Hill Crusoe Socks -

They were an absolute joy to knit. It was the first time I'd used that yarn (Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Brights #1) and I was very impressed. The pattern knitted up very quickly and I like the way it turned out - there is a little pooling of the colours but nothing very major - I can live with it. And I still have about 55g of yarn left - should be able to get another pair of short socks out of that.

In books, I have finished A Fine Dark Line by Joe R Lansdale and will post about it over the weekend. It was a book that deserves a post to itself - I don't read too many of those!

I started The Ambitious Stepmother by Fidelis Morgan but couldn't get on with it somehow. This is for reading group, and I had been looking forward to it. Everyone keeps telling me how great these books are. Perhaps it was just that I was so absorbed by the Lansdale (which is a very different type of book) that the contrast was just too great. I just found it irritating. Perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind.

Anyway I have passed it up and started Triptych by Karin Slaughter. Murder, mayhem and serial killers - much more my kind of thing.

A Walk in the Park

On Friday, we took Bubba to Sutton Park for a walk. It's one of his favourite walks.

Sutton Park is a great place - absolutely huge - one of the biggest urban parks in Europe, and even when it's the school holidays and the park is really busy it's so big that you can sometimes not meet anyone. It's a wonderful place for dog walking, cycling, riding or just walking among the trees. There are wild ponies -

And lots of rabbits for Bubba to chase. And there are miles and miles of paths to follow -

And then there's the lake, which is the main reason that this is Bubba's favourite -

Here he is doing what a retriever loves best - getting wet and muddy!

We walked round the lake to The Boathouse and had a cup of coffee while Bubba dried off a bit.

All in all a very good afternoon.

12 Green Books

This post was inspired by Lolly who blogged about green books earlier in the week. So I picked 12 green books at random from our shelves -

Before I did this I'd have bet on there being more fiction than non-fiction, as that's mostly what I read, but actually there is more non-fiction. I guess maybe green is not the most popular colour for crime fiction covers. If black had been one of the colours I could have picked twelve from the first shelf! I guess these are a fair indicator of our interests - book collecting, knitting, writing, Subbuteo and an odd management book.

I intend to continue this thoughout Project Spectrum so to follow will be yellow books (not much crime fiction there then!) and pink books - I may struggle to find 12 pink books on our shelves.

Oooooh, Knitterly Goodies...

Yesterday was my birthday and I got some lovely knitterly presents (and some non-knitterly ones too).

First of course, my main present was my carders, which I had a couple of weeks ago after our visit to the Threshing Barn.

But, yesterday on my actual birthday I got these too -

That's Two Sweaters for My Father by Perri Klass, a wonderful book of writing about knitting, Domiknitrix which is just stuffed with great, fun patterns, and the first season of The Wire on DVD. Bubba also got me the latest Snow Patrol CD (but it's in the car so there's no picture).

I had a lovely birthday, read a bit, spun a bit, did some knitting, watched England playing cricket (not very well, but at least they won), had a super Chinese meal for dinner. A really good day.

I do have knitting to show you - these are the Cherry Tree Hill Bright socks in Crusoe pattern from Knitty.com. This is the sock pattern I had trouble with last month with the lovely sock wool from Jill in Canada. This yarn is much better for the pattern, at least so far with no major pooling.

They are knitting up very quickly too, although I am a little concerned that they might not be wide enough. I shall have to see when I get to the instep.

Random Tuesday

Just some random thoughts as I get over the Bank Holiday weekend. The weather for once was just wonderful all over the weekend, so even though I did 2 days work in the shop I still managed to fit in a few car boot sales, a few books and some knitting.

I finished the Lee Child book The Hard Way and enjoyed it more than I expected. I then read Illusion by Daniel Boyle. Can't say that I enjoyed that, found it very irritating. Reviews of both of these will be wending their way to Karen at Eurocrime this week. I'm now reading A Fine Dark Line by Joe R Lansdale. Couldn't resist it any longer (I thought I did well to fit in the Daniel Boyle first - showing remarkable retraint!).

I've been knitting a lovely chunky cardigan - Sonnet from Knitty.com. I'm knitting it in chocolate brown pure wool. The great thing about this pattern is that it is easily adjustable (designed that way!) so you can knit it in any yarn with any gauge. It's a bit of a dull knit though, even if it does knit up quickly in the chunky yarn. And of course the weaher has turned warm so by the time I'm finished it, it will be too heavy to wear.

Anyway it is entirely the wrong colour for Project Spectrum so I shall be casting on the bright yellow and green socks as soon as I've finished blogging.

There was a fantastic program on TV last night about Jackie magazine - great nostalgic value for those of us who were teenagers in the seventies. The Evilpixie watched it with amused fascination - difficult for her to image life without iPods, mobile phones, computers etc.

Tonight is the final part of Life on Mars. I've enjoyed this series immensely, but I think they are right to end it now. I understand there will be a spin off starring the wonderful Philip Glenister, set in London. Hopefully it will live up to the high standard of writing on the original series.

Anyway, must go - socks to cast on!

Is this bright enough?

I bought some sock wool for Project Spectrum. It might be a little bright...

It's even brighter than it looks in that photo. Here's a close-up...

That still doesn't do it justice. It's Cherry Tree Hill Supersock and is called, not unreasonably, Bright 1. It's not kidding. I think if I went out after dark in these socks I'd be accused of light pollution and may attract moths.

Also, arriving in the mail was this -

It's about a million miles of beautiful shades of blue laceweight. You know I said, way back in January, that I wanted to knit something really challenging this year? Well, this is for that project. It's going to be a shawl, when I can decide on which pattern I want to use. It will probably take me the rest of my life to knit and turn me into a raving chocolate / red wine addict. I can't imagine what I was thinking.

I finished the Raspberry Ripple scarf for my MIL's birthday and it was delivered today. (I think she liked it!) However I forgot to photograph it for the blog, because I am an idiot.

I'm still reading The Hard Way by Lee Child. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. I guess as long as you take Jack Reacher with a pinch of salt and suspend disbelief temporarily then it's quite an enjoyable little book. But now I can't wait to finish it because I want to get started on A Fine Dark Line by Joe R Lansdale. I treated myself to this while in Borders in Oxford today and I really want to read it right now. I absolutely loved The Bottoms, probably one of my favourite books of all time, and this is in much the same vain, being set in the same time period and also in East Texas.

I spent quite a bit of time in Borders today as they had knitting magazines I never get to see in Birmingham, some different knitting books, although alas not the Yarn Harlot, a wide range of graphic novels, and many, many other books I'd not seen elsewhere, thereby re-inforcing my earlier rant about bookstores. I could have spent an absolute fortune today, just on books I'd never seen in my local bookstores. And they have a Starbucks, where we got a particularly good cup of coffee. Now I have three great weaknesses - coffee, books and wool (not always in that order), so if only Oxford had a decent woolshop I would probably never leave.

Mightily Pissed at eBay

I don't normally like to post about work, as this is primarily a blog about books and knitting. But I am so pissed off about this that I have to let off steam.

A couple of weeks ago eBay in their infinite wisdom decided that in future items listed on the UK site would no longer be automatically visible on the US site. Apparently, up to 20% of all listings visible on eBay.com were listings from the UK and it was making their site unwieldy for US buyers. For this they blamed the popularity of the UK Cheap Listing Days.

The conclusion they came to in order to solve the problem was not, as would seem logical, to stop having Cheap Listing Days, or to do anything about the thousands of dodgy products which flood the UK site from Hong Kong and China. No, no. It was deemed much more sensible to change the way searches work so that if Americans want to buy from the UK they have to now search Worldwide, instead of the listings just appearing automatically.

The most frustrating thing about all this is that having changed the way the searches perform on the US site, THEY DIDN'T TELL ANYONE! They didn't tell the UK sellers that there was this change happening. They didn't tell the US buyers that in future they would need to search globally (by means of a drop down box at the side of the screen). They apparently didn't even tell the people at Paypal (who are after all part of the same organisation).

The first we knew was when we noticed a steep drop abrupt halt in sales to the US. We haven't sold a book to the US for about 2 weeks now, where before about 20-30% of our sales were to the US. We even had a batch of American Civil War books, and none were sold to the US. If we had been forewarned about the change in policy we probably wouldn't have bought them in the first place. As it is, our very small profit on the books was considerably less than we had predicted.

It seems that Books and Antiques & Collectables are among the worst affected categories due to the change - and these are not categories which are swamped by the cheap foreign tat, with inflated postage rates, that fills other categories. The solution we are told is to list our items on eBay.com or on both sites - but as we sell individual, rare and one-off items which we can't list on both sites simultaneously, we either lose our UK trade or our US trade (oh and this affects Canada and Australia too!). Ebay say they will monitor the situation and will be running some tests "in the summer" which may help. I fear this will be too late for many bookdealers, who without the American trade will be driven out of business.

Now I don't dispute that eBay have the right to make trading decisions and implement them where they see fit, to protect the integrity of the sites. But don't they think that a little warning to the UK sellers would be just common courtesy. That way we could have adjusted our buying to reflect the fact that we will lose most of our US, Canadian and Australian trade.

Thanks a bunch, eBay. Whatever happened to the famous eBay Community Spirit!!!!!!! It seems that despite all their shouting about Community, eBay really have no regard at all for the people who use their site, for the businesses that helped them grow from small beginnings, or anything at all bar a fast buck.

I'm not sure this was what Pierre Omidyar had in mind when he sold his laser pointer.

Virgin Books?

I read this week that Richard Branson might be interested in the Borders chain. At first I thought that sounded OK. But then I remembered how he's just shafted all those NTL/Telwest cable customers by refusing to stump up for Sky One. Welcome to Virgin Books - but we don't sell books from Insertasmallpublisherhere as they don't offer enough discount. Hmmm.

I was delighted (not to say gobsmacked) to see that my little tirade about the state of bookselling was mentioned in The Guardian this morning. They quoted a passage in the Bloggy section of the Review. Welcome to anyone who's stopped by for a look!

Of course all the things I moaned about in my bookselling post are also very bad news for writers. If AnyHighStreetBookstore is only going to stock the top fifty bestselling authors, where does that leave everyone else?

I have been reading this week. I just finished The Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell. Now I like Bernard. He's probably never going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature but he can write a cracking plot. This is the third in the series about Viking / Saxon Britain and Alfred the Great. However I had it in my head that this was the final part of a trilogy and was expecting it to wrap up rather neatly at the end. Suddenly, however, I realised that I was only twenty pages from finishing the book, and there was still lots of plot developing, so there was no way this could be the final one. Duh! So, Bernard, if you should happen to be reading this, could you hurry up and write the fourth one, as I want to know what happens next.

I started Priest by Ken Bruen, but couldn't get into it, so I stuck it to one side in favour of Lee Child's The Hard Way. I've not read a Jack Reacher book for a while and it doesn't appear that he's changed much in the several books that have elapsed since then.

I have been frantically spinning and knitting a scarf for my MIL's birthday. This is some of the roving I bought earlier in the week. I spun the plain cream shetland with some pink shetland and it looks just like Raspberry Ripple ice cream. Photos to follow when I've finished.

I've finished the Knit Cafe Hoody but have still to put the zip in.

Today is the end of the first Project Spectrum section. So farewell to Grey, Blue and White and a big hello to Yellow, Pink and Green. I'm hoping to be a bit more successful with these projects than I was with the previous colours. I have some great pink and yellow sock wool somewhere that I've been dying to knit with. If I could just remember where I put it....

A Day Out in the Sunshine

Today, after three days, stuck inside doing the part-time retail job, I have been let out for a day.

First we went to Leek in Staffordshire where we scoured the charity shops and I found this -

Then we went here and I bought all manner of lovely goodies.

There was fibre like this -

That's not all for me - some of it is to make a birthday present for my MIL.

And I got my own birthday present a little bit early - Ashford Hand Carders -

And they had lots and lots of wonderful books ( could have spent an absolute fortune there!) but I was quite restrained and I just got two -

That's the Ashford Book of Carding (so I can learn how to use my new carders properly) and the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook (which I had wanted for ages but had never actually seen a copy of).

And then we carried on to Ashbourne in Derbyshire (only another 12 miles or so) a it was such a lovely sunny spring day. The Staffordshire Moorlands were beautiful and we saw lots of sheep with tiny lambs.

So we had a mooch round Ashbourne which was is a really nice town with proper little shops (bakeries and ironmongers and toyshops and all manner of things), the like of which you hardly see anymore. We stopped in a fantastic little grocers shop which smelt like a grocers shop should, of ham and coffee and cheese. We bought coffee beans and handmade Yorkshire Crisps (they taste great but you probably shouldn't eat too many of them), and free range eggs from a farm just up the road. It was just my kind of town. And then I found these in a charity shop there -

Rowan Magazine #4, a Noro pattern book and a Jaeger pattern book.

So we're home now and I am looking forward to reading my books and spinning the lovely fibre and doing a little knitting - not necessarily in that order.

Mansfield Park on ITV

I finally got caught up with some TV I'd recorded over the weekend including ITV's new adaptation of Mansfield Park. This is part of their Jane Austen season with 4 two-hour adaptations of the novels with Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Emma still to come.

I have to say that I was very disappointed in Mansfield Park. I thought Billie Piper (good actress though she is turning out to be), was far too feisty to be Fanny Price. Fanny should be extremely shy and reticent, almost insipid. Ms Piper was raucous and self-confident (not to mention far too striking) and showed none of the self-doubt and insecurity that should lie at the heart of Fanny Price. Aunt Norris, who is fairly central to the books, seemed to have no role in the TV drama and I rather wonder why they bothered with her. Really, two hours was not sufficient to do justice to the story, and contraints of time and, I imagine, budget, meant that there was no visit to Portsmouth and virtually no mention of Fanny's family, barring the sailor brother.

This does not bode well for the rest of the season. Northanger Abbey is a silly book at the best of times and the trailer makes it look like it will be a rather painful watch. Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel and I'm dreading what they will do to it. I don't suppose my trepidation will stop me from watching them though.

The BBC on the other hand is doing excellent work with the new series of Life on Mars. This series has produced some of the best lines I've ever heard in British TV drama. More stuff of the same caliber please!

The new series of Doctor Who starts next Saturday and is rumoured to be the last featuring David Tennant. I would like to put in a little word here in support of John Sim as the new Doctor. He does apparently make an appearance in the last two episodes of the series. I guess I'm asking too much for the return of Christopher Eccleston, currently appearing in Heroes. He is almost my favourite Doctor. No-one will ever replace Patrick Troughton for me though. Apparently it is possible to tell someone's age by their preferred Doctor. I couldn't possible comment (or admit to a slight hankering after William Hartnell, I'm way too young to remember HIM.)

Heroes, to my utter dismay, does not air again in the US until the end of April. I am getting withdrawal symptoms.

Sundays are for Spinning

This is my second attempt at posting - when I tried to upload my last post Blogger said I had a HTML error and lost the post somehow. AAAARGH!

Anyway, to repeat what I said earlier -

Today I have been spinning.

This is the fruit flavoured coloured Corriedale I bought from Forest Fibres a couple of weeks ago. I've been working through it slowly and finally managed to get 2 bobbins full today. I've plied them together and am very pleased with the result although the pic shows a bit more of the blue than there is in real life. Some of the plying could be better too but I am improving slowly (I think).

Today is Mothering Sunday so Happy Mothers Day to all you Mums out there. The Evilpixie bought me this book which reprints the "Mother Tells You How" sections from Girl comic 1952-1960. Lots of useful info on how to make a bed, how to use old cheese etc plus some knitting patterns including a Sports Woolly and a College Scarf. Great stuff!

I got to SnB yesterday although I didn't actually knit anything when I was there. I swatched for a cardigan I'm thinking about, then decided I didn't have the right size needles with me. Then I cast on some of the turquoise handspun for a hat. But after a couple of rows it didn't feel like a hat. So on the way home on the train I frogged it and cast on for a short scarf. I'm being a bit of a butterfly knittingwise at the moment - flitting from one potential project to another unable to settle on what to do next.

Pete is much much better. he is able to walk, drive and cook now, although he still can't walk Bubba in case the naughty dog pulls on the lead on the way to the field. It will be a few more weeks before he can lift anything or bend properly, but thankfully life is slowly returning to what passes for normality round here. He's cooking me a lovely roast chicken dinner for Mother Day and the smell is wafting upstairs into the office and making me very hungry. I think I need to go and see if he needs any help with anything......

Just a quick one!

Just a quick post tonight as I'm off to Spinning Group in a minute.

Last night I went to an author event at Mere Green Library. The author was Roger Jon Ellory. I'd not read any of his books, but I have the first two, Candlemoth and Ghostheart in my TBR pile. He turned out to be a very interesting man with some intriguing ideas about writing and about life in general, so I shall move them up the pile a bit.

Tomorrow is a day off for me so I shall get to SnB in Birmingham. I think I'd better knit myself a woolly hat - looks like the weather is taking a turn for the worse at the beginning of next week.

Jill, thank you for your offer of more of that sock wool, but I've found a pattern for chequerboard socks that will use just the amount of wool I have and should avoid any pooling problems - and they look great in the photo in the book - hopefully they will knit up nicely too.

More posts over the weekend hopefully.

Pooling Socks

I have started some new socks in the absence of any other knitting inspiration. I've still not blocked the Knit Cafe hoody and I can't do any more until I have.



The reason for the delay is that I don't have anywhere to block it at the moment, so I'm going to make myself a blocking board. This might have to wait till the weekend till I can get somewhere to buy wadding and fabric. I already have a board I can use.



Anyway, yesterday (when I was feeling very tired and cranky) I started some new socks. Yes, thank you, I do know that I should have waited until I was less tired and cranky, but I needed something to knit right then, and I was bored with the dog-walking socks. I found the lovely ball of Sisu that Jill sent me in Ms Knitingale's pre-Christmas swap. I'd forgotten how wonderful the colours were. So I cast on and started to knit the Crusoe socks from Knitty. (BTW the new Knitty is out now in case you didn't know).



Now the main problem I have is that there is just the one 50g ball of this yarn (which is nowhere near enough to knit these socks), but I figured if I just knit the leg in the pattern I could knit the foot in some other toning (or possibly contrasting) colour. I was going to worry about that bit later.


The other problem is that I was tired and cranky (yes, I know, you already told me). So the first time I cast on I left too long a trailing bit of yarn and because this will be an issue later I'm sure, I ripped it back and started again. The next time the trailing yarn was too short. I actually got it right on the third attempt, but then I dropped a stitch on the first round and ended up with a big hole in the cast on. On the fourth attempt I actually managed to cast on correctly, and join without twisting, and actually knit about an inch and a half before I realised that the damn sock would only fit a very small child. I am not a very small child, though its possible I may have acted like one at this point.


Today, when I was not tired and cranky, I ripped it back and started again with more stitches. I love the pattern - it looks great and its easy to knit (though I am inclined to forget which row I'm on). And now........ the colours are pooling -

Which was not part of the plan.

I'm guessing that this is not the pattern for this yarn. I may go off and stamp my feet a bit.

In other news -

Today is our wedding anniversary. Pete and I have been married for fifteen years today - which is a very long time. I think he deserves a round of applause for putting up with me for all this time. And even after fifteen years it is still possible to learn new things about each other. This year I have learned that he is a better cook than me. And he has learned to avoid me when I am tired and cranky and armed with pointy sticks. I love him tons.

Normal Service Will Resume...

...as soon as possible, honest!

Sorry for the lack of postings this week. It has been rather hectic here as I will now explain.

Pete was in hospital on Wednesday for some surgery - nothing life threatening, a fairly routine operation. But he is now rather incapacitated in that he is unable to bend or to lift anything heavier than a cup of tea. So I'm having to do a little bit of TLC and running around. He's very fed up and bored and wants to be able to do stuff. I'm just plain knackered. He can't walk the dog, or cook or do any housework or even sit in the chair at the computer for more than a few minutes at a time as it gets painful - so I'm doing rather more work than usual as well as having done 2 days in the shop. Let's hope he gets better quickly!

Hence the lack of posting - I missed reading group and writing group this week as he was just out of hospital and I couldn't leave him on his own - and then I missed spinning on Friday, just because I was too tired after work to summon the energy to go.

Yesterday I went to an auction in Oxfordshire and didn't buy anything. I guess it's just not my week!

I've done a bit of reading though. I've finished The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. This won the Costa Book of the Year award and quite rightly too. I loved it. I am just amazed that a woman who is agoraphobic (sorry if that's spelt wrong) and who has never been to Canada could write so beautifully about the wilderness - perhaps it is because she agoraphobic etc. Anyway it was a beautiful book and I would highly recommend it.

I'm now reading Scared to Live by Stephen Booth. It's been a while since I read one of his so I'm keen to see what Fry and Cooper are up to.

Tonight on ITV we have the first part of Fallen Angel which is an adaptation of Andrew Taylor's Requiem for an Angel. Otherwise known as The Roth Trilogy. I really loved the books, and am a big fan of Andrew's in general, but this had a rather dodgy report in the Guardian this week so we shall see if it's any good or not.

There has been almost no knitting done this week - the combination of tiredness and a woolly head from sinusitus (again sorry if that's spelt wrong) is not a good mix for successful knitting.

I'm going to veg out in front of the TV and watch Crufts - did you see the Golden Retreiver Display Team on Thursday? Hilarious!

Hand-spun socks

I have an FO. I have finished some handspun socks that I started yesterday. They were incredibly quick to knit - I cast on while on the train into Birmingham to go to Stitch 'n' Bitch, and I finished them when I got home from work this afternoon. Just what I needed - Pete's new dog walking socks are taking forever - largish feet and fine sock wool are a bad combination, so a quick knit that I could finish in a weekend was called for.

I spun the yarn for these myself - they are the first things I've knitted with my handspun yarn and I just love them. They are 80% black merino and 20% white nylon which gives them a lovely charcoal grey mottled colour. Nice and thick and very warm for the toes!

You can see the colour quite well in this picture -

Now it's back to the slog of the Knit Cafe Hoody - I'm halfway up the sleeves - doing them both together to avoid second sleeve syndrome. (Hope you are impressed that I am planning ahead to dodge this!).

I still have to block Pete's cardigan and put the zip in but I'm waiting for some slightly better (ie less damp) weather to do this otherwise it will take forever to dry. It needs washing before wearing as the wool still has some oil in it from the factory, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and wash and block it at the same time. This may or may not been a great idea as it's a huge beast of a thing and will weigh about 10 tons when wet. I think I'll have to wash it in the bath!