Swappsies

I have as shown above, one large 400g ball of Aran Acrylic and 20% wool. It's a marled grey flecked with black fuzzy bits. I made my brother an Aran jumper for Christmas out of it and he loved it.

The other picture is the banana silk. Four 100g skeins of it. It's quite a messy yarn in that it's fairly bitty, not at all smooth, but feels wonderful and is very heavy. Not sure on yardage of these.

I'm currently after a wide range of colours of size 11 beads. The patterns I have are for Delica 11/0 which I'm assuming means they are size 11. Project colours range through black to white and every colour inbetween. Especially blues, pinks and purples for some reason. Also shades of brown and green for 3D lizards, and gold for accents.

I've probably got loads more sitting in my stash but they're hard to get to at the moment :) I need to knit my way to them.

Spring has sprung a leak ...

and the local Napoleonic canal has burst its banks because some twit has forgotten to open the sluice gates to let the excess out. It's really strange seeing the trees at the side standing in the water :)

I've finally plucked up the courage to start a weight loss and healthy eating club at work - and I was amazed at how many people have expressed an interest already. Even more so as some of those who expressed an interest do not have weight problems specifically, but were very interested in the healthy eating part. We are lucky at our council, because they employ an Environmental Educational Officer in the form of a lovely lady called Alison Wood. She runs all sorts of health schemes in the council and out in the district, including cheap vegetable schemes for local schools and what have you. She has been working with me for some time because of my ongoing health problems, and when I mooted the idea of the club she promised to give us a talk on healthy eating along with various leaflets and tools to help us make informed choices. She is really enthusiastic about the subject and manages to enthuse everyone she meets with the same enthusiasm.

I've also found a fitness expert at work, who's agreed to give a talk, and a lady who is a qualified aromatherapist and reflexologist who has agreed to give a talk. And that's all in three days !!!!

I am also hoping to be able to give a talk myself, on the benefits of learning to knit and crochet - as we well know there is nothing more relaxing and stress busting than messing with lovely yarns. And I do think that knitters tend to be the most generous and kind people around.

After my 12 days off work dying of various infections, I feel on top of the world again. The last lot of antibiotics were lump hammer strength and certainly have sorted me and my unwanted bugs out :)

My dining table has disappeared under all the knitting and other projects I've got going at the moment. I've just finished the fourth out of five blanket squares for February and am ready to cast on number five. Have to get a move on with that as the others will be here soon. I've still got my own design scarf sitting there waiting to be finished - think that one is going to get onto etsy or folksy next winter somehow. Somewhere there's a box of blanket squares to be knitted for another project, and a cardigan for me ..... I've also done the back and am on the left front of a dinosaur jacket for Alex - which is knitted in Freedom spirit 100% wool and will be felted before sewing up - so I hope the dratted thing doesn't felt too small or I will cry. By the way does anybody know how to prevent the edges from rolling over and felting to themselves?

I've also got my C&G module 2 work on the table - doing the colour work bit at the moment and loving it - making mess with paints is not just for five year olds :)

Talking of five year olds poor Alex has got four bad teeth - two need to be filled and two pulled - and the dentist has referred him to somewhere else as she says they can't do him in the chair as he needs to be put out for it !!! Then she said it could be up to six months before we get an appointment. I hope not, poor little chap has been having terrible toothache and we have to keep dosing him with Calpol. I feel really guilty as I know I haven't pushed him as hard as I should have to look after his teeth - but his Dad has bad teeth and apparently it's hereditary. On the upside he's a lot more keen to brush his teeth regularly now.

And it's now getting on for 11.20pm and I've got work in the morning - can't burn the candle at both ends like I used to be able to, so night night everyone and let's keep talking :)

Here we go again.

I've been feeling very sorry for myself since last Thursday morning. Actually last Wednesday evening to be precise. The story starts at work Wednesday watching the most incredible snow blizzards I've ever seen through the windows - in-between processing benefit claims. Now our international sisters (and brothers) especially in America, will probably be thinking - well that happens all the time here. But for us, in the very South-East of England, snow blizzards are .... well non-existent. Until recently. So a bizarre and unusual event indeed.

So all day long we had these blizzards and gradually we were getting something like 5 inches of snow building up. It was powdery and drifting badly as well. Come five o'clock and colleagues who had left previously were phoning in to say get out of there quick as the ice and snow is making the roads increasing impassable. So I left a five to find my car under it's impressive cap of snow. Having located said car and verified that it was indeed mine I set to with my hopelessly inadequate scraper to remove some of the drift off it. My other half, meantime, had given up waiting for me at the college where he works just down the road and round the corner, and walked round to the council. Good thing he did.

Now normally it takes 20 minutes tops to get home - it took three hours most of which was spent within a stones throw of the council buildings stuck in the traffic. To make matters more interesting, the radio sheepishly informed us that the roads had not been gritted !!!! What Kent County Council caught napping??? Again and again and again ... So we'd sit there for ten minutes, someone would get fed up and turn round and we'd all shuffle forward. But while we were waiting our tyres froze to the road, so when we moved off the car jerked and skidded with the effort - adds to the fun I suppose although when you're trying to avoid sideswiping a very expensive looking Jaguar that someone has inconsiderately left parked at the side of the road, it tends to redefine fun :)

Then I managed to flag down an army officer on a pushbike who told me that nothing was coming up or down the hill as a bus had skidded sidewards and blocked it. So we had to turn round, go down a slightly more lethally icy side road and find another route home.

Now the problem with Folkestone is that which ever way you go to get out you have to go up or down a steep hill as some clown decided to build the place in a valley by the sea. So we shuffled through the roads skidding and ricocheting off the kerbs, until we found a hill to go down. No one was coming up - they were trying but getting nowhere. We went down one car at a time, braking gently and crossing everything in the hopes that we'd get down at least the correct way up. Several vehicles had already overturned in other parts of the county.

Suffice to say we did make it down in one piece, and actually facing the right way, which I considered to be a bonus under the circumstances. The rest of the journey took three quarters of an hour and was made with a visibility of pretty much nothing - good job I know the route so well :)

Thursday morning I woke with the mother of all sore throats and aching shoulders and arms which I put down to stress from the previous evenings gentle drive in the country. But it didn't go away, and it got worse. Then my temperature soared and I spent the next two days in bed trying to get a doctor to come and see me. But they will only come out if you're elderly or terminally ill. I told them I was feeling elderly but apparently that doesn't count. So eventually I managed to drag myself to the nearest out of hours GP who diagnosed Tonsillitis, upper respiratory tract infection and infected glands - and then gave me some antibiotics. So I'm taking these and the temperatures have evened themselves out. I no longer feel like I'm constantly swallowing a box. But now I've got a cough you could clean drains with - and everytime I lie down - I cough ..... and cough and cough and cough ... until I sit up again - which is slightly disturbing my sleep. So now what?

Problem is I'm diabetic, so I can't just go out and buy myself a cough medicine which will help me to sleep. Way things are going, I'd better take my pillows to work with me on Thursday :) But I'm going to see my GP later on this morning so hopefully she will give me something strong enough to knock an elephant out - then maybe I'll get an hour or so sleep tonight :)

OK so now it's later on today and I've been to see the GP, bless her cotton socks. First thing she told me was not to bother buying any of that over the counter rubbish - as it doesn't work and is overpriced. Then it turns out that the antibiotics I was given on Sunday aren't quite man enough for the job and although have started work on the Tonsils and the glands, have quite forgotten to close the back door with the result that the infection has sneaked off down into my chest - hence the drain cleaning coughing. So meatier he-man antibiotics have been prescribed to kick the blessed thing out of town for good - and I'm signed off for a week.

Oh well I suppose I can force myself to knit and do some .... knitting and leave the housework to the daughter of the night and the old geezer. It's a hard life.

Got some more gorgeous poshyarns not last Sunday but the one before. It must have arrived while I was at work on Wednesday and the postman - unable to squash it through the letterbox (weakling) carefully stashed it behind the lid of the recycling box next to the front door. Only none of us noticed it until Sunday when Ivan was shoveling snowdrifts off the drive - one of them was the car. And I happened to stagger to the front door and spotted it right there. Thank goodness she uses plastic bags. The yarn was undamaged but very cold so I got it into the warm and had a coffee for it's shock. Merino/Silk mix Aran weight although I'd say it tends towards a chunky, in a colour scheme called Chinoiserie. Muted tones of lilacs, maroons, pinks, yellows. I must get the dratted camera out and take a picture - so much easier than trying to describe it.

And the only thing to help me sleep is hot milk apparently - so I'd better get some.