Harvest

Please be distracted from the fact I haven't blogged for 2 weeks by the lovely photo of todays harvest from the lottie. There in all their magnificence are 4 small courgettes, a lovely little round courgette, some broad beans and some radishes. That was all I managed to collect before the heavens opened and I had to make a dash for the car to avoid drowning.

The weather has been conspiring against us - whenever we have a bit of free time it has been raining - not just a little bit of namby-pamby rain that you could garden in but full scale SAS strength torrential rain where you would need scuba gear to do any weeding. Hence the lack of allotment updates on the blog.

I have no excuse for there being bo other sort of posts other than that I've had nothing to write about. I did knit a pair of socks for a work colleague as a leaving present, but I've forgotten to photograph them. Duh. Hope you liked the socks, Bex.

I finished reading The 19th Wife which I did enjoy but I thought it lost it's way a bit towards the end. Now I'm reading A Darker Domain by Val McDermid. I seem to remember not being overly impressed with her previous book (Beneath the Bleeding) but this one appears to be good so far. I've also been reading Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years - Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times, which is a fantastic social history of women and textiles right back to neolithic times. Because textiles have very rarely survived from those periods the writer has used language and the specific words which refer to weaving or spinning or to clothing which have survived and spread across Europe, plus the depiction of women working with textiles on ceramics and in pictures, to trace the evolution of the various types of textile work, almost all of which was done by women. I found it totally fascinating.

Still not knitting...

But of course, even in the almost complete absence of knitting from my life, there is still crafting of one kind or another.

I have finally completed the Civil War Crossing quilt - you may remember that I bought the fabric for this way back in last September when we were in Florida. Today I finally finished quilting it and did the binding. It had spent a long time in limbo while I pondered on a pattern for the quilting. I could see that it might become a UFO so I made myself a quilting rule - I couldn't start a new project until I'd finished this one. In fact I've decided that will be a general rule in my quilting - one project at a time. There is the exception to this of course (hey, I'm still me, what did you expect?) The block-by-block quilt doesn't count as a project until I start to assemble the blocks -that's only fair because at the current rate of completion I will be 167 before I finish it and that seems like a long time before I start another quilting project. The block-by-block quilt was always going to be a long-term thing given that I am teaching myself a whole lot of new techniques as I go.

This quilt was pieced using the Garden Trellis pattern from Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam & Nicky Lintott and a jelly roll in Civil War Crossing by Barbara Bachman for Moda. The border is not part of that range, but was bought from a US supplier who specialises in repro civil war prints, to be authentic. (Sorry, I can't remember who it was.) I used some of the same fabric in the quilt to balance the fact that it there was a bit more pink in the jelly roll than I had anticipated. The backing is a bit of fabric I bought on eBay and it was this fabric that decided me on the quilting pattern. The backing fabric has long snaking vines with stylised roses - I just followed the path of the vines and added a few swirls to pick out some of the roses. It seemed obvious when I'd thought of it - I can't believe I spent all that time dithering.
So, what's next? You can be sure that I have another project lined up - how else was I going to get the push to finish this one?

Here's a hint -

A Grand Day Out

Yesterday we had one of our increasingly infrequent days out. We went to Gloucestershire for reasons I will tell you about later in the post but it was a day of ups and downs.

We started off in Cirencester where we turned the corner from the carpark and Pete said "There's a wool shop over there." Never one to miss a wool shop I headed straight over. First thing I saw was this sign in the window -

Now if there's one thing I like better than a wool shop - it's a wool shop with a sale on.

Then we saw this -

Aaaagh! A wool shop with a sale on - that's closed for the day! The fates are conspiring against me. How am I ever going to get inspired and recover my knitting mojo.

The charity shop gods were not on our side yesterday either and pickings were slim in Cirencester and later in Gloucester. We enjoyed mooching round though and had a cup of coffee or two.

The main purpose of our visit to Gloucestershire was to go to an auction. Those of you who have been long-time readers of the blog may know that we used, in a previous existence, to be second-hand bookdealers. In those days it was not uncommon for us to go to three or four auctions in a week. Now that we're not dealers any more we hardly ever go to an auction. Yesterday though the auction was so special that we really just wanted to go and look at the stuff that was being sold. We thought we might buy a couple of bits if the prices were right - it was Pete's birthday this week and he collects British comics and comic art. Dominic Winter are primarily a book auctioneers but a good proportion of yesterdays sale was British comics, artwork and related books. It was the sale of someone's collection - his life's work by the look of it, and what an amazing collection it was. There were thousands of beautiful comics, and many many lovely books and a couple of lots that we really wanted to buy (including one that included a couple of boxes of Textile History journals that I had my eye on). Sadly we came away with nothing. It seems that the secondhand book and comic market is not suffering from much of a recession. The prices that some of the lots sold for were astronomical. We were astounded. We came away a little sad that we hadn't managed to buy what we wanted, but also relieved that we were no longer competing against all that to try and make a living.

Bear with me

I'm still finding myself curiously out of sorts with the world. I just cannot settle to anything, be it a book, a bit of knitting, sewing, spinning. You name it I've been picking it up and putting it down again recently. I am bored with my current knitting projects but cannot summon the inspiration for something new. I have started several books and not got any further than a few pages with any of them. I have a lovely quilt-top finished and waiting to be quilted but I cannot decide on a pattern to use. I am feeling flat and listless, which is most unlike me.

I have nothing of interest to report from the allotment either, bar that weeds are growing faster than anything I planted.

Please bear with me. I'm hoping this will pass soon and that normal service will resume shortly.

Knitters in the Rain

I haven't told you yet about the Ravelry Day last week.

I went with Maggi (Ravelry link) and her Mum and we had a great time despite the rain.

And it really did pour down - all day which was a shame and it did detract from the day a little. It would have been a much nicer day if we'd all been able to sit outside the hall on the lovely wide stone benches and knit and chatter. However the good old British summer let us down as usual so we had to make the best of it - as only knitters can.

It was so cold and wet even the alpacas were shivering.

There were lots of great stalls with some great indy dyers and yarn producers, and although a few had been put off by the weather there was still plenty to choose from. I was quite restrained and just bought a couple of bits -

So, here we have a carded batt of unknown composition (my fault not theirs) from Fyberspates at the top. It's mostly pale turquoise with strands of blue, yellow, green and purple with sparkly stuff through it. Only about 40g so it won't go very far but it looks lovely and I'm sure it will be fantastic to spin. Also from Fyberspates is the skein of laceweight superwash merino & nylon called Faery Lace in colourway Java. I'm planning a shawl with this. The fibre is an alpaca/silk blend in colourway Stormclouds from Krafty Koala. Very soft and beautiful. I'm hoping this will help me find my knitting mojo which has still not returned. I'm blaming the stressful last few weeks and the fact that I've been ultra busy but I just can't seem to concentrate on anything at the moment. I'm even struggling to find a book that I really want to read. I've picked up several and put them down again because they're not quite what I wanted. I suspect I'll be the same with knitting at the moment - lots of casting on and lots of frogging again when I don't like what I've knitted. I'm sure it will all come back to me eventually.

Anyway, apart from the stalls there was lots of stuff at the Ravelry Day - workshops, demonstrations, spinning, knitting. We met up with some of the knitters from the Birmingham Stitch n Bitch group which I haven't been to for absolutely ages. It was great to see them all again. I was wearing my Astrid shawl and it was very much admired. One lovely lady even went as far as to say it looked better than the one in the photo in the pattern book. As you can imagine I was well chuffed.

One of the odd things about the blogosphere is the way you read other blogs and you feel you know the person behind it and you forget that they don't know you from Adam. I may have surprised Jo from Celtic Memory Yarns a little by leaping out of the crowd at her saying how nice it was to see her, totally forgetting that she doesn't actually know me. I read her blog but I'm not a big comment-leaver so of course she doesn't know me. It was still nice to meet you Jo. Loved the Noro waistcoat.

I'm at home today having a well-earned day off and grumbling about the weather - it's sunny outside which is not at all what was forecast. Today's forecast was for rain all day so Pete has gone off to work with all the gardening tools in the back of his car and there's no point me going up to the allotment with no tools - it's very frustrating. The sooner we can get a shed up there the better.

Allotment Photos

It rained all weekend here so we didn't get to the allotment at all but I've been up today to check everything was Ok and I've taken some photos.

The potatoes are growing well - they'll need earthing up again this week. These were the very first thing we planted so I'm pleased they are doing fine. We have another bed of potatoes just starting to come through as well.

The Little Gem lettuces, radishes and beetroot are all coming up in their rows. Soon be time to sow a few more of these.

The sweetcorn is doing well - I still think they should be further apart but I was overruled.


The courgettes seem a bit on the spindly side but a couple of them have lots of flowers so that's OK. In the cage behind the courgettes the salad leaves, rocket and lollo rosso are getting better after a ropey start.

The broad beans (to the left of the courgettes) are a mixed bunch - some look good but a couple are very sad and one's been very eaten by something. I have more broad beans and several different varieties of other beans to plant out this week. I'm hoping the weather will be dryish for the next couple of days (not a big chance of that) so that I can get some planting done.

Has anyone seen my mojo???

I've been really, really busy over the last few weeks and there have been all kinds of other stuff going on and it seems to have resulted in the loss of my knitting mojo. I completed the intarsia project I mentioned - it was a baby jumper with fish all over it. I was so out of it last week that I forgot to take a photo of it before I parcelled it up and gave it as a gift. Anyway it looked like this - Sorry for the really bad picture, taken in the pub. I don't blog about work as a rule but it's been a stressful time lately and we were in the pub together to mark the end of an era. Our lovely manager was going on maternity leave and we have lost four member of our fantastic team through redundancy. It's been a tough few weeks and I'm glad it's over - happy that I still have a job, but sad that everything is changing.

I've not had a lot of reading time as you can imagine but I finished the Charlaine Harris and enjoyed it. I'm not sure it has converted me to the evil ways of Paranormal Romance but as a one-off it made a pleasant change.

I've given up on The Sweet Smell of Decay - it just wasn't doing anything for me at all.

I then read The Property of Blood by Magdalen Nabb. When the Evilpixie was small she was a big fan of Magdalen Nabb's children's books, about a girl called Josie Smith and I think I've read all of those (over and over again as you do when your kids love a book), but this was the first of her crime novels that I'd picked up. I liked the character of the main policeman, Marshall Guarnaccia, but I thought the plotting was a little weak.

Allotment news will appear later in the week - if I actually manage to get some photos taken.

Monday Update on Tuesday

Hey, I'm getting better...only one day late and it was a bank holiday yesterday so I'm all behind with myself.

We had a busy weekend, with many car boot sales and a trip to Villa Park to watch Aston Villa beat Newcastle, so we didn't get up to the allotment until Monday. The lettuces that the Evilpixie and I planted last week are surviving, though something has had a nibble at them.

We built another veg cage and dug over another section and we planted sweetcorn. I have no photos of this as it seems I am incapable of remembering to take the camera (or even my phone) to the allotment.

Today (still with no photographic evidence) the Evilpixie and I have dug another small section and sown some lettuce, radish and beetroot seeds. We've also planted up some leeks we were given by a passing fellow allotment holder.

The Evilpixie is really enjoying the gardening, much to our surprise. She's even planning to transform the miserable plot beneath our front windows at home, currently hosting many stones, lots of ants and a couple of very straggly lavender bushes. I'll let you know how she gets on.

I am almost finished one of my secret deadline knitting projects - photos later in the week providing there are no disasters in the meantime. It's been my first foray into Intarsia since the 1970s. It was never my favourite style of knitting even then.

I am really looking forward to knitting something else but I still have to finish the MIL's waistcoat, and I really ought to do that before I knit anything for me. I'm sorely tempted though so I've been keeping off Ravelry in case I see something I can't live without.

Books update later in the week hopefully.

Wednesday Update

Hey, only two days late this week. I'm getting better.

Not much happening at the allotment over the weekend as it was rather wet, but the Evilpixie and I spent most of the day there today and got a lot done.

We built a compost bin -

And we built a cage to keep the pigeons off the lettuces -

In front of the cage there you can see my newly planted courgette plants and the broad beans we planted on Sunday (in the rain). The beans were a bit of an unplanned planting as they had been doing very nicely at home in large pots with plastic bags over the top. However on Saturday we had a chicken and bean related incident which resulted in one of my pots being reduced to a few sad stalks. The chooks then started to eye up the other pot and we had to take emergency action and relocate the beans to the allotment. If they ever figure out how to open the zip on my little plastic greenhouse (home to all my tomatoes, squashes, and other types of bean) I am sunk. Given that chickens are incredibly stupid - I should be OK. I did try pointing out to them that if they wanted to avoid the pot then stuffing themselves with beans was maybe not the best way to go about it.

Dovegreyreader alerted me via her wonderful blog about a project the Poetry Society are running. They want knitters to each knit a letter which will become the world's first giant knitted poem. It sounds like a good idea to me so I've signed up. The details are here if you'd like to take part too.

I'm progressing slowly with my various deadline knitting projects. One must be finished by next week which should be OK. The other is already overdue but must wait till the first is finished before I can get going on it. More details once they are safely with their respective recipients.

I've read a bit though. I've been horribly remiss about book blogging but here's what I've been reading. Lee Child's Nothing to Lose. Jack Reacher wanders into a small town in Colorado and gets promptly run out of town again charged with vagrancy. Jack of course wonders what they have to hide and there's nothing anyone can do to stop him opening that whole can of worms. If you've read a Lee Child before then you know what to expect - crisp plotting, a conspiracy or two and a bit of love interest for old Jack. It's all good stuff and this one is no different. I wouldn't want to read too many of these close together but now and again they just hit the spot.

Then I picked up A Letter of Mary by Laurie R King, the third in her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. By all reckoning I ought to hate these - historical crime novels, set in England, using a fictional character created by someone else, written by an American - but I love them. Sadly some of the series are out of print in the UK but I understand that Laurie King is working on a new one so perhaps we will see the backlist reprinted. I hope so, I've been picking these up in a piecemeal fashion as they are not easy to find here but I scored mightily over that weekend in Wales and bought three. I will have to ration myself and try not to rush on and read them one after another. Anyway this one is about the strange death of an archeologist friend of Mary, just after she has been to visit Mary and Sherlock in Sussex and has given Mary a mysterious scroll of papyrus. It's good strong stuff with plenty of period detail and a really authentic feel.

Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves is one of her Northumberland novels, which I've not read before. I'm waiting for White Nights to come out in paperback (it does seem to have been a long time coming) and this is one of my Crime Reading Group selections this month so I thought it would fill a gap for me. It took a little while to get into this, in fact I nearly put it down about 20 pages in as it just hadn't grabbed me, but if it's for reading group (or a review copy) then I usually try and persevere and I was really glad I did in this case. Once I got involved with the plot and the characters I really liked it. I thought that the main detective Vera Stanhope was wonderful and although I wasn't entirely convinced by the plotting or the resolution, overall it was a hit. Certainly I would read another of the Northumberland books, though I still think I preferred the Shetland series.

I'm struggling through The Sweet Smell of Decay by Paul Lawrence. From the jacket and an initial quick scan of the first few pages I thought I would really like this but it has been tough going. The main character Harry Lytle is an odd fish and I can't seem to quite warm to him. It's a historical novel set in 17th century London, just after Charles Stuart has claimed the throne. A woman is brutally murdered in a church and Harry Lytle gets a letter from his father to say the woman was his cousin and he must find out who killed her. I'm just over halfway through now and I'm really not at all convinced. I'm not even quite sure why I don't like it, other than that Harry is a bizarre young man with some very odd ideas. I'm still trying with it but I'm not sure if I shall get to the end.

The other reading group selection for this month was not at all a book I would have chosen otherwise. It's An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris. (I think our theme this month must be serial killers). Anyway this is about a girl, Harper, who was struck by lightening as a teenager and as a result can find dead bodies. It seems that they talk to her, so if the body is missing she can find it, or if she knows where the body is she can find out what killed them. I don't do paranormal as a rule, but one of the reasons for joining the reading group was to read different books so I've tried to approach it will an open mind. And actually, so far I'm enjoying it. Obviously it involved the suspension of a little bit of belief but the character of Harper is engaging and the relationship she has with her half-brother Tolliver is well-drawn. She is called to a small town in North Carolina by the local sheriff because several young boys have gone missing over the last few years and they're concerned that there might be a connection. Harper is attacked and injured just after finding the bodies all buried together on an abandoned property, forcing her to stick around while she recovers and so involving her in the investigation. I've not got to the end yet but so far it's been an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to reading what happens.

Somewhere back in the mists of time just before I was ill I think, I also read Singing to the Dead by Caro Ramsay and I don't remember ever blogging about it. I did send a review over to Eurocrime though and I can report that the book was really good, that I thought the characters were all plump and well-rounded and that the plot had me fooled almost to the very end (which hardly ever happens). I believe I may have likened Caro Ramsay to Ian Rankin - she really is a good writer and I have very high hopes of this series.

Busy, Busy

I said to my self at the start of the week that I would do a regular Monday update about the allotment, which makes sense as Sunday is the day we are most likely to get a lot done. However, here we are on Thursday and I haven't written it yet so I'm off to a good start.

Progress so far - when we got the allotment 2 weeks ago it had been roughly rotovated and looked not too bad on the surface. There are 3 large tree stumps however that the association say they will take out for us. These aside, the ground was fairly clear. So we started to dig. We got one corner dug over and planted a few potatoes just to get something going while we worked on the rest.

One corner has the remains of an old greenhouse under the surface, so every spade uncovers more bits of broken glass - this will take some clearing. There's an old concrete foundation from a shed - not a problem, we'll just site our own shed there when we get it. The rest of the plot, it turns out, was a bramble patch. Rotovating this has probably cut the roots up and distributed them everywhere, but since it had already been done once, we bit the bullet and rotovated the whole plot on Sunday. The soil looks quite good but is very stony and of course it's full of roots which all need to be dug out. So now we're in the middle of digging the plot over, section by section, and pulling out all the roots and stones - backbreaking work but it will all be worth it in the end.

The first weekend we had the plot Pete and the Evilpixie dug over a small section by the back fence and I have finally got some strawberry plants in there. That's all we have planted at the moment but here at home I have some peas and beans growing on in pots, so they can go up to the lottie when the ground is ready. I also have too many courgette plants and some squashes waiting to germinate. Rain is predicted for the next few days so progress will be slow this week - the ground is a bit on the clay side so it's almost impossible to dig when it's wet. Shame, as I have three days off in a row this weekend and we could have got a lot done if it was dry.

Another update on Monday (ish) and I'll try and get some photos - though bare earth is not terribly exciting!

Not Swine Flu but Still a Pig

I have been laid low this week by a hacking cough and flu-like symptoms. I've not been to Mexico, or anywhere further than Wales recently so you can rest assured that it's just an irritating and inconvenient virus.

However said virus has robbed me of all desire to knit this week. I couldn't read either, found myself on the same sentence several times over. Over the weekend I lost my appetite (so unlike me) and, more disturbingly, my usual appreciation of a good cup of coffee (horror!).

I'm feeling better today thankfully and have managed a little light Lee Child (nothing too complicated) and some pasta bolognese. I may try some simple knitting later while the football is on.

I came round from my fuzzy state to find 53 unread posts in my Google Reader account which I am still catching up on. I am horribly behind with some of the reading I need to do this week and have some knitting with fast-approaching deadlines.

And then there's the allotment - news on this next post. Got to go - playing catch-up here.

Look What We've Got.....

Here in all it's glory - our new allotment. It's just half a plot which will be plenty for us - more than enough work for the moment anyway. It already has a big apple tree and a gooseberry bush so we're on a winner before we've even started. I'll keep you posted with pics of our progress - first big digging day will be Sunday. We can't wait.

A Welsh Weekend

We had a lovely trip to Wales last weekend.

Started off on Saturday in Hereford (yes, I know that's not in Wales), where we trawled the charity shops and had some coffee and I bought a couple of books on quilting in a secondhand bookshop. Then we proceeded westwards and landed in Hay-on-Wye, book capital of the universe, where we spent the rest of the day happilt mooching around, dodging the showers. The good thing about Hay is that when the rain starts there's always another bookshop you can pop into until the rain stops. We didn't buy much in Hay but we saw some lovely books. I did buy a copy of The Moor by Laurie R King, the next one I wanted to read in the Mary Russell series. We spent the night in Hay, had a good meal and a couple of local beers.

Sunday we went to Wonderwool in Builth Wells. I thought that the whole show was a little less inspiring than last year, but Wingham Woolwork were there, which was a first for them, and there was plenty to see, and plenty to buy. I was quite restrained and just bought a few things...

There's some Rainbow Merino and some Merino/Silk in lovely turquoise shades which I'm going to card together with a bit of Angelina (also in the picture) and spin some sparkly blue socks. They were from Wingham as was the space dyed green yarn on the left which is destined for weaving with some plain greens I already have. I also bought some Olive soap as I'm planning some felted wall hangings. In the middle of the picture is a bag of Corriedale from Freyalyn. I wasn't intending to buy this but the colours caught me unawares and I bought it by accident - beautiful shades of orange and green and purple and red which I'm going to card in a random way and spin for more socks. Top of the picture is some boucle loop mohair in three slighly different shades of blue/black which will also be woven into something, probably a scarf. That's all the fiber goodies but I also bought some buttons - fantastic silvery ones which I just love and had to have - I can't believe they were only a pound! And some wooden ones in natural and red and green, and some stitch markers - I don't know if you can see in the picture but they have chickens on them!

There's also a pack of miscellaneous plain buttons in oranges and greens which will be made into some jewellery when I have time. Last but not least I bought some sock blockers to replace my sad old coat-hanger ones which blocked your socks to different sizes. I have no excuse now with my lovely new wooden ones with sheep on the top.

That pretty much sums up my purchases. I did enjoy the show, but I think we might go to Woolfest instead next year. Pete was very disappointed in the Mid-Wales Mouthful Food Festival which was very small compared to last year and not nearly as interesting.

Back later this week for a book update and some interesting news!

In Which I Make a Terrible Confession......

.......I've been doing this in secret for the last week. I am so ashamed. I didn't want to have to admit to you all but....I've been reading translated crime. What's more I've been reading translated Scandinavian crime. Even more shocking - I have been enjoying it.

Now is the time to come clean. This week I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

And liked it.

A stray copy came my way so I thought I'd have a little browse to see what all the fuss was about. Fifty pages in and I was totally hooked, couldn't put it down. Now, I know that I swore I would never touch a book in this genre ever again, but you know, I think I might just have to read at least two more - I'll have to finish the trilogy now won't I?

Astonishing Splashes of Colour

I've been having a crafty week and I've been busy with the dyepots.

Most of the fibre is still damp - too damp to plait and photograph, but I also dyed some commercial yarn - some Aran weight stuff I had lurking in the stash.

The colours are a little washed out in this photo - they're much more vibrant in real life. I'm very happy with the colours - I'm calling this The Way Through the Woods. There are two identical 50g skeins here and I also have a couple more skeins using the same colours but a bit more of the green - there's more yarn in the skeins too - photos and weights etc when it's dry. I think they will be thick wintery socks.

Please note that I have actually tried to get some decent photographs today - instead of just throwing the yarn/knitting/book on the nearest worksurface and snapping away, today I have actually got the light-tent out and tried to get a decent shot with no clutter/mess/drying underwear in the background. I did vow to myself (though possibly not on the blog) that I would try and improve the standard of my pictures on the blog this year, something I have utterly failed at so far. Given that I have an excellent camera, a light-tent and some pretty good software I really ought to take better photos than I do.

While I'm on the subject of colour here is the next Simple Yet Effective shawl, started last week and progressing nicely -

I know it doesn't look much but the colours are fairly accurate in this photo and you really can't see the shawlyness until it's finished.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that my wardrobe was in dire straits and desperately needed an input of a few new things. One of them will be an incarnation of this -

It looks like the type of garment that will cover a multitude of occasions and could be dressed up with linen trousers or dressed down with jeans. Now I just need to decide on a fabric!

Booky Update

I've been doing a lot of reading this week - I've been back at work for a few days now - and I've finally finished The Given Day by Dennis Lehane which fulfilled all it's early promise and was a really good book with a fascinating storyline and interesting characters, plus as you would expect from Lehane it was very well written. I took my time reading it as I wanted it to last. It's the story of a young policeman, from a family of policemen, in Boston just after the First World War. It's a time of strife in Boston with riots and strikes and much poverty and Lehane weaves a lot of historical detail into the plot. It's just wonderful.

Meantime I've fitted in A Thousand Bones by P J Parrish - a serial killer crime novel in the Northern US - Illinois or Michigan I think it was - almost Canada but not quite. It was one of those books that I picked up on a whim, not expecting anything great. I'd actually picked it up because I thought it was set in Florida, but it turned out that, though it had book-end chapters set in the Sunshine State, all the main action took place Up North. The main protagonist was a rookie female cop, desperate for a chance to do something other than make tea and hold hands. The plot revolved around some bones found by a dog in the woods - did they belong to a particular missing girl or did they come from multiple skeletons? Was there a murderer in that small Northern town or had a hiker got lost and died? I liked it. In addition to being well-plotted and carefully written it posed some interesting ethical questions along the way and didn't solve everything in a trite or obvious way. I'd certainly read another of these.


I moved on to The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett. He'd been on my mental must-read list for a while. Customers in the shop kept raving about him and he's now on his fourth (or fifth?) novel so I thought I'd better try one. The Chemistry of Death is the first one and I have to say that I found it a bit clunky in places. There was a little too much emphasis on the back story of Dr David Hunter - former forensic anthropologist, now humble GP in a little village in Norfolk. There was also a tendency to try and educate the reader just a little too much about all the "Chemistry". It just felt a little heavy-handed in places. Still, it was his first novel and he very nearly had me fooled about the identity of the murderer, I only just cottoned on right at the end, so I'd certainly try another one and see if he managed a slightly lighter touch as he gains in experience.



I've been dipping in and out of Sherlock Holmes in America - an anthology of short stories by leading American writers. As with all of these things there are some that work better than others, but mostly these are pretty good so far. More on this as I get more read.



Just as I finished The Chemistry of Death, what should flop onto my doormat but a review copy of The Death Maze by Ariana Franklin. You may recall that I raved about it's predecessor Mistress of the Art of Death and I've been looking forward to reading this one which is out in paperback next week. Looking around the blogosphere opinion appears to be divided about whether or not it's better than the last one, but all I can say is that I think it's great so far and I've only got a hundred or so pages to go so it's keeping me pretty hooked.

Astrid and other shawls

I promised you all a photo of Astrid, now that she is finished, so here she is in all her glory -

And in greater detail -

The techie bit - this is Astrid from Norah Gaughan Book One, knit in Jaeger Alpaca, unknown shade (from the stash). I love this shawl, which is just the right size to sit around the shoulders and fasten with a pin on one side. I might knit another in a different colour / texture.

Before I do that though, I accidentally cast on and knitted a Simple Yet Effective Shawl - I couldn't help it - they were all over the web tempting me. Here's mine. I don't know what the colourway is but it's in Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn, bought in Florida last year.

And because this turned out to be just the perfect no-brain knitting project, suitable for knitting while watching TV, talking, drinking wine etc, I finished it and went straight out and bought some more Noro to knit another one.

That was on my day out to North Staffordshire yesterday when I visited P2Tog, fine knitting shop near Newcastle-under-Lyme; passed briefly through Newcastle and on to Stoke on Trent where they have a fantastic independent book shop - Webberleys, and a great fabric shop - Abakhan Fabrics and a number of charity shops (which were sadly disappointing in their wares) and a new Starbucks which wasn't there last time I was in Stoke. I came back via Stone for more charity shops but the charity gods were not shining upon me and the pickings were slim.

Today I have a cold and am feeling very rough - hence there has been very little gardening done, which was today's allotted task, and just a little bit of knitting because my head aches and my fingers are stiff. Hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow. The spare parts for my spinning wheel have finally turned up so I shall try and get it back up and running tomorrow, so I can get a bit of spinning done before the end of the week.

Sunny Sunday

Don't you just love a spring Sunday when the sun's shining?

For us it meant a trip to a car boot sale, on the way to visit the MIL. Sunny mornings are just made for excellent booty and the good people of Oxford were very obliging with their loot.

Today's little haul is pictured above and comprises a cone of wool/alpaca blend 3ply yarn in a pleasing heathery beige, 25 vintage silvery buttons and a necklace of unidentified black stones strung on black cord.

The books are Practical Knitting Illustrated (undated but published by Odhams in the 1940s) - full of wonderful patterns for everything you could think of and then some more; Pulp Frictions - a collection of hard-boiled detective stories from the likes of Chandler, Hammett and MacDonald, edited by the sadly late Peter Haining; Good Housekeeping Knitting - a pocket guide to over 90 beautiful patterns - and just the right size to slip in a knitting bag for when you're out and about; Depths by Henning Mankell - not a Wallander but a thriller set in 1914; and finally there is Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting Handbook. When you take into account the three pots of herbs and the pile of bamboo stakes for the garden it all adds up to a very successful morning's bargain hunting.

I've finished reading The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths, proof kindly supplied by Karen at Eurocrime. I shall be sending her a full review this week but in the meantime let me just tell you that I thought it was great. Fantastic characters, good plot, wonderfully atmospheric setting. It was a great example of just what I was saying in my last post about how I don't mind not being fooled by the plot if the other stuff is good. I had seen the ending coming but I was enjoying the book and the company of the characters so much that I didn't care. Highly recommended.

Astrid is finished. Photos tomorrow (probably) but she's lovely and met with much approval when I wore her to spinning group on Friday.

I'm off work for a few days now so there will be much gardening, housework (yuck!) and probably a trip or two to report.

Canadian Literature and the Miners' Strike

My reading this week has been mainly based in Canada for some reason.

I started off the week with a crime novel - The Calling by Inger Ashe Wolf. A serial killer is crossing Canada preying on the elderly, "helping" those who are already dying. No-one even realises he's doing this until he makes a mistake in the small town where Hazel Micaleff is in charge of the police. I liked the main character in this - she's in her sixties, divorced and living with her elderly mother. This is not a profile that would fit most fictitious detectives. The book was only okay however - the plot was a trifle on the weak side. It seemed obvious to me where the story was heading but I thought that it must be a bluff and there would be a twist at the end. I was disappointed however - the expected twist never came, leaving me with a feeling that I'd been cheated. I know that it's difficult to fool me in a crime novel - I've read so much crime fiction that I can spot a misdirection or a red herring at twenty paces, so I can forgive an author who doesn't quite manage to blindside me provided the plot or the character or the setting is original enough. This, for all it's promising start, original serial killer slant and just-the-other-side-of-middle-aged detective, failed to impress me in the end.

I stuck with Canada however for my next read as I'd got hold of a proof of the first novel by a Canadian writer called Shandie Mitchell. Under This Unbroken Sky is about a family homesteading on the prairies in the 1930s, about children learning how tough life is, about how some people can take the strain of that kind of life and some can't. It's a wonderful novel. It's not due for publication here until August but I can heartily recommend it.

For a bit of a change, because I had been meaning to read it for quite a while, and because this week was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the miners' strike, I started GB84 by David Peace. It's typical Peace style - much jumping around between characters, different fonts, etc etc. It's harsh on the police, on the NCB, the government, Special Branch and the unions. I'm not finished it yet, I'm just about to hit the Battle of Orgreave, so there's a long way to go and Peace is just getting warmed up. I wonder if he ever gets the urge to write something fluffy.

Back to Canada then in the meantime for a bit of respite from at that eighties angst and violence. Three Day Road is set just after the end of the First World War. Niska, the last Canadian Medicine woman to live off the land, collects her badly injured and morphine-addicted nephew from the train which has brought him back from the Great War. It's a three day journey by kayak to get him home. I'm thinking I'm going to like this one just as much as I liked Through Black Spruce.

I've finally finished knitting all those circles for Astrid. Here are the final ones blocking, flanked by the pile of ready-blocked circles.

Now I just have to lay them out in the right order and stitch them together - all 52 of them!

I was slightly distracted mid-week by the sudden urge to knit a Simple Yet Effective shawl (Ravelry link). I blame my fellow bloggers for my failing - you know who you are.

The shawl requires a ball of Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn - well, there just happened to be one in my possession, though I had started to knit those Hypnosis socks with it. Gribbit. They were soon frogged and the shawl started. It's perfect TV knitting so this week it has been the accompaniment to Red Riding on CH4, to almost a whole series of the Sopranos on DVD and this morning to the final part of Being Human. So much great TV drama, so little time. Better get some more Noro sock yarn!

Serial Killer Fix

Much as I've enjoyed many of the books I've read over the lst month or so, something has been missing. I've been in need of a good serial killer fix. Now, some of you may disagree, but as far as I'm concerned no-one does serial killer fiction like the Americans. I like British crime fiction, I like a bit of European crime fiction now and again, but for a really good serial killer you need to cross the pond.


So, I picked up a little selection on Sunday at a car boot sale - all authors I'd never read before - and settled down for a good fix of serial mayhem.



The first book off the pile, though it looked like a crime novel from the cover, turned out to be a romantic novel in disguise. The Murder Ballad by Jane Hill (she's British!) was a sheep in wolf's clothing. It was about a woman who meets an American folk singer, marries him with undue haste and moves to the backwoods of North Carolina with him. Unsurprisingly he turns out to have a few skeletons in his closet. It wasn't a bad book, and once I was resigned to the fact that there was ne'er a serial killer in sight, I kept going and enjoyed it in a half-hearted sort of way. Having just watched and loved the BBC's Folk Americana series I was interested in the old ballads that were mentioned throughout the plot, but you never got all the words or all the story. If you wanted to read a better book about traditional music (though these are set in Tennessee, not Carolina) then you should take a look at Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad series, and in particular, The Songcatcher (which seems sadly to be out of print in the UK). It charts the passing down of a song though the generations of a family. Much better fare.


Still on my quest for sequential murder I picked up The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe. This is actually set in Canada, not the US of A, but at least it has a killer, and he's onto his fourth (and I'm not even half way yet) so that definitely makes it a series. I'm liking the main character who is, unlike most detectives in this genre, a lady in her sixties living with her ageing mother. So far so good. This is different enough to pass muster, but it has those familiar markers common to the genre - mysterious killer (probably a sociopath), experienced police chief, rookie cop. Suits me.