3 June: The garden

Many of the garden plants are doing well after the recent sunshine. This year we have some potatoes in bags on the paving -


and some runner beans that have not been wiped out by slugs and/or snails! This time the beans were planted in pots in the conservatory, and were only put out in the garden when they had 2 pairs of leaves.


The spring flowers have gone over, and the summer ones are showing up, like these dianthus -

and the Buff Beauty rose -


Not all in the garden is lovely though - those roses give me a rash; and the little oak tree has a problem too. In one area some of the leaves have these galls (?). This is the top of one leaf -


and this is the under-side -


Other examples are paler or darker. What, if anything, will emerge from these growths?

28 May: Seasonal knitting

Made in this season, but for the winter - another double cap, this time for me, to go with my peacock scarf.


I began to knit a hat from a pattern in a book I got recently, Classic Knits, Marianne Isager Collection. I have her book Knitting out of Africa, and although I like many of the garments in that, I have never actually tried to make one. (More of an inspirational book)

But Classic Knits has several patterns I would like to make more or less as shown. So I started on a hat, but had to abandon it - in a couple of places the instructions did not tally with what was on the needles, or clearly shown in the photographs, but that was easily corrected. When, however, I had enough work done to start to see how it was coming together, I realised that the instructions as written resulted in one side of the hat having only two-thirds of the stitches that the other side had, just in the parts where the earflaps should go. Lost in translation from the Danish, perhaps?

Ah well, the garments in the pictures still look good, and I can probably copy them from the pictures (schematics are included, which is helpful) - I would have to make adaptations for using my handspun instead of the specified yarn, anyway.

The first one will be a jersey for DH. He liked one photographed in Classic Knits, though my version will be in 100% wool, not linen and cotton, probably not the same thickness either, and the shaping will be a bit different, and the stitch pattern will be another one to compensate for the different fibre - oh, and the edgings will be different. In fact, a jersey with very little in common with the original picture, but that's where we started.

Last week I spun a bag of humbug Shetland fibre, bought on our recent trip to Winghams, with a view to knitting a jersey for me, but it's a suitable colour for DH, so I'll use that. There's about 900 gms - will that be enough?

25 May: Ashes

Something which has been very noticeable this spring is how late the ash trees are with opening their leaves.

These 2 trees almost looked dead at first glance, but there are little leaflets appearing in tufts at the ends of the branches. The sycamores on each side, on the other hand, are in full leaf.

I've been trying to remember the rhyme - If the ash is before the oak, then be ready for a soak; if the oak's before the ash, then be ready for a splash (perhaps). Folk rain forecasting.

Could be a good summer.

23 May: NGS

Today we succeeded in doing something I've wanted to do for ages, but somehow never achieved - we visited a garden open for the NGS, the National Garden Scheme.

It was interesting to see how the planting had been arranged, and how the rather difficult site had been used. Quite steep banks swoop down to a stream, and large trees stand in a group in the middle, shading the flatter part of the garden. On the other side of the house the bank has been made into a rock and gravel slope planted with alpines, and a lawn curves round to the little valley. Lots of unusual trees have been planted, and I was particularly checking out the shade planting for ideas to take home.

This colourful bed was in a walled area-


And these misty blue flowers, with a white birch behind them, were at the top of the bank down to the stream -


Other people's planting style is always different, and the plants chosen are always different from what you might choose, and this makes for fascinating viewing. We'll try to visit some more gardens over the summer.

20 May: RSPB Saltholme

A short visit to the new RSPB place at Saltholme, down near the mouth of the Tees. It is all brand new, the car park, the Visitor Centre, the paths, hides, even the lakes appear newly scraped out of the bare earth.

As we arrived, the wind whipped across the marshes - gulls and swifts were sailing about above us. After a brief introduction in the centre, we explored the site. Near the Centre is a "wildlife garden" - not quite Chelsea, but pleasant.

This is a view of the Centre building from the garden, with some of Teesside's more usual architecture in the background -


The water feature/pond in the garden (inside the low wall) has a fountain in the middle -


And this is the seat where the last photo was taken from, showing the up-ended trees which line one side of the path -


They are real trees, though dead, uprooted, turned upside down, and replanted.

The rest of the area was less photogenic, being very bare and windswept (though DH took photos of the Transporter Bridge, and some ducks, with his superior camera and lens). We visited 2 of the hides and watched some of the birds (though I was more interested in the cows which appeared to be walking on the water at the other end of the lake), had coffee and cake in the nice cafe, which has excellent views of one lake, browsed round the shop, and plan to go again.

18 May: Short Wait

Here is that stranded hat -

It's called the Sand Ripple hat, because that's what the pattern is supposed to represent. It's all the usual fine handspun yarn, black Wensleydale and oatmeal BFL, of which there is a good supply in my stash.

Perhaps the next project should be something more colourful. Or perhaps I should knit a lizard..?

16 May: Latest knitting

A very plain, jolly useful waistcoat -


-with pockets. It's made with 2 strands of yarn, one a soft and silky natural dark BFL, and the other a slightly rougher pale grey Suffolk (both handspun, of course); together they give a tweedy effect.

It's knitted in one piece, from the bottom edge upwards, then the pockets, neck edge, front bands, and armhole edgings knitted on afterwards. It seemed to take a long time to make, but it's only a few days over a month. It's probably all the thinking, measuring and calculating that seem to have taken a long time.

The button box had the perfect buttons for it - but only 3. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to find some very similar buttons in the market at Durham.

For a change, I haven't already got the next big project lined up, though there's a couple of small items on the needles - a stranded hat in a design of my own, and a scarf in an interesting double-sided stitch pattern. You can't wait to see them, can you?

11 May: Even more wildlife

It's a lizard shot, I'm afraid.

This little character, about 4 inches long including the tail, startled us by skittering across the track in front of us this afternoon, while we were walking in Hamsterley Forest. For some reptilian reason, it took cover in a big puddle on the track, with only its head above the surface. But at least it stayed still long enough to have its photo taken.

10 May: More birds

This morning the street at the front of the house is a-swoop with house martins. It's wonderful to have a nest under the eaves, and to hear the burbling of the inhabitants. The only downside is the tremendous mess they drop underneath the nest, on the porch roof. And we've only just got the remainder of last year's mess cleaned off.

9 May: Fledged!

The local pair of robins have successfully raised at least one youngster - it was foraging in our back garden yesterday evening, on its own, all round and bright and spotty - totally delightful!

7 May: Tweedy Yarn

The recent trip to Wingham Wool Work boosted my stash of fibre - on Tuesday I started to spin some of it.

This was a batt of 90% wool and 10% other natural fibres, which has spun up into 410 gms of lovely chunky tweedy yarn.

No, I have no idea what (if anything) it might become.

1 May: LOL

No, really, I laughed out loud.

One of the pleasures of a live bookshop, as opposed to an online one, is the small treasures that fall serendipitously into your hand while you're trying to find a worthy tome on, say, Red Tape Concerning Buying a House Abroad.

Thus it was that I chanced upon Mike Parker's "Map Addict", and, being one myself, had to have it. Very readable, informative, and highly amusing; I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in maps.

I was slightly surprised to find that a man so hooked on maps seems never to have become obsessed by orienteering (then he'd know why people turn the map round to point in the same direction as they're going) - is it too late for him to discover the delights of not only the competition but also the hours spent afterwards tracing the exact route taken on the map, and comparing it with the route that should have been taken?

In fact, now my mind is focused on maps, I have only to pick up the map of the 1993 British Orienteering Championships at Brown Clee to remember the echo features, the awful moorland, the boggy bits where the next control was, naturally, over that nasty hill up there; and read my notes on the back, and see that I came 65th out of a class of 70 (rather unfit after a year on the sick).

And the album of photographs from the walking holiday in the Auvergne, with all the maps of the area tucked inside the cover, unfold the sheets, and remember the heat that had us moving from one patch of shade to the next, the spots where we stopped to eat our lunch on different days, the little chapel in the woods, the wonderful place we stayed in Orcival, the politeness of strangers on the train, exactly where I tripped and fell, lacerating both knees and blacking my eye...

Even the family history research is peppered with maps, both old ones of the places where forebears lived, and current ones, to see how it's all changed. Like the family tree charts themselves, it's all so much easier to follow on a map. One of my own earliest memories is of poring over a map of the Festival of Britain site.

Beside the computer here is a small pile of new maps, preparation for the next holiday. The position of the cottage has been pinpointed, the terrain examined, routes for walks and bike rides discussed. What memories, joys and disasters will attach themselves to these sheets?

29 April: The bluebell wood

Though both DH and I have slight sore throats and muzzy headaches (it's either a bit of pollen fever or the fashionable swine flu), this morning we decided to follow coffee at the Botanic Garden cafe with a stroll round the woods.

It was reported that the woods were crowded with photographers at the weekend - they must have got the same e-mail as us, with the news that the bluebells were out earlier than usual. (Being retired, we are no longer limited to weekend trips to view the flowers.) Today there were only two other couples with cameras; one woman told us she had come all the way from Darlington to see the sight.

The sun was behind a cloud -


Then it came out -



Bluebells are notoriously difficult to capture with a camera, and none of these pictures really conveys the light, the air, and the glory.

Beside the path was this interesting dead tree - with holes possibly made by the woodpeckers that are often heard in the wood?

28 April: Just blink

It must be old age, but I have no idea where last week went.

There was a lot of sitting in the garden, knitting, and a pleasant walk (the first house martins are back at the local farm), some gardening and some bead-ear-ring-making; and a shopping expedition.

In the garden, the apple trees are covered in fat pink buds, the snakeshead fritillaries are mostly over, the bluebells (only ours are pink) are nearly out; there are violets, auriculas, comfrey, cowslips and hybrid primulas, bergenias, daffodils, lungwort, hellebores, two tulips and two hyacinths, one rhododendron/azalea, honesty, and about a thousand forget-me-nots - a bit of colour.

There are 3 sorts of potato in bags on the paving, all looking good, and some seedling lettuces on the windowsill in the conservatory.

And we have some birds coming to the feeders; the regulars include a pair of robins (their nest is probably in our neighbour's garden), a pair of house sparrows, a pair of collared doves, several blackbirds, the dunnocks, and recently a small band of starlings - entertaining when they try to hover, but also very untidy feeders. The sparrowhawk has visited, but not fed.

19 April: Venturing southwards

Yet another har this morning, so we decided to travel south, in the hopes of finding better weather.

To Yorkshire, in fact. Pausing only at Woolley Edge services for a M&S sandwich (how civilized), we zoomed down the motorway to Wentworth, near Rotherham, for our first visit to Wingham Wool Work.

It's amazing how much fibre you can get into a car - I might even have enough to keep me spinning till Woolfest. And there is very little chance I'll knit it all in the foreseeable future. No doubt some of it will be making individual appearances here in the weeks to come.

Then we drove to Nostell Priory, a NT property we've been wanting to visit for ages. And the sun came out.


In the grounds, the magnolias are looking wonderful, and the scent of the flowers was held in their sheltered corner.


There was a charming arch over the path.


This bridge had collapsed into the lake, and has been restored with much effort and expense. Of course, it can't actually be used; since it's narrow and has no guard rail, it doesn't comply with health and safety.


A cream tea in a loose box in the old stables, followed by a tour of the house (too much Chippendale for my liking, but an interesting building), and it was back northwards again. The sun through the car window was so warm that I dozed off. Fortunately, I wasn't driving.

14 April: Marketing

Somewhere on the interweb (probably Ravelry) I read something about fleece/wool for birds' nests. Yarn is not good, as it gets tangled round legs, but wool fibres seem like they should be suitable, as bits drop off sheep anyway about this time of year. And the purveyors of bird-related products sell small containers of fleece, so it must be a good idea.

It may be a bit late, as blackbirds have been gathering nest material for a while now, and the robins have been a pair for some time, but a handful of fluffed up fibre was easily popped into an old peanut feeder and hung on a tree in the garden with a couple of tufts sticking out.


And we have a customer!

Still on the marketing theme, my jar of 250 vitamin tablets, which has lasted for 250 days, was nearly empty, so I went to buy another. Huh?


The new jar is just under half full.

11 April: Work in progress, and stitchwort

Somehow I seem to have started 3 projects. Normally there's only one main one, and perhaps a small, simple one like a sock.

After several swatches, and knitting over two-thirds of the back of a waistcoat in one way, I decided I didn't like it, and frogged it. Started again, different design, different yarns, much better, about 3 inches of the body done.

Yesterday I spun 2 skeins of yarn, one of 50 grams and one of 80 grams, using 3 plys of BFL, coming out about 17 or 18 w.p.i. This is the latest attempt to spin yarn suitable for socks. Previous efforts have produced nice yarn and pleasant socks, which have felted and shrunk hideously in washing. It is possible that a 3-ply yarn may stand up to wearing and washing rather better. This yarn has not been dyed, as some plain white (natural wool white, not when-a-mother-cares-it-shows white) socks would be handy for the summer. Half a sock foot has been knitted already.

And the third project is a bit of a gamble, using some sock yarn that I don't want to make socks out of. If it works out, there may be more about this. It's only just started, about a dozen rounds worked.

And then, out for a walk this afternoon, there were a few stitchwort plants in flower!


The flowers may not be in very good focus, but the grass is OK.

7 April: Upper Teesdale

A glorious walk today in Teesdale, from Cotherstone to Egglestone and back, mostly beside the River Tees.


There were ruins - this farm for example. The sheep here had no lambs with them, as many others did.


The chapel at Egglestone Hall is ruined and full of plants -


There were several bridges on our route; this 17th century one at Egglestone -



a footbridge over the Tees, with varied materials -


and another over the Balder; this one has a metal parish marker by the near end -


A few April showers, plenty of sunshine, good company, and a sensational lunch. Brilliant!

3 April: The Amazing Spotted CronePants

After knitting hats, scarves, mittens, socks and jerseys, what else is there to knit? Why, trousers, of course.

Everyone needs a warm and comfy pair of pants to lounge around the house. And they are really easy to knit, there's just rather a lot of leg, if you're as tall as me.

To make them warm, they are stranded, but only on alternate rounds (knitted in the round to avoid seams), in a stitch pattern graphically described as "Lice pattern" - presumably it represents the bite marks!

This pattern also lends itself to colour changes whenever the knitter runs out of, or gets bored with, one colour. Ideal for the knitter with a low boredom threshold, especially on long legs.

The waist is fastened with a drawstring, made on a lucet, and tied at the side, as these are Reversible Pants (and vice versa, as we always say).


After the warm sunshine of the past couple of days, we have a suitable chill in the air today - just right for the new pants.

2 April: But I digress...

I was sitting in the garden, enjoying the warm sunshine, and idly knitting a sock, when I remembered that I have just missed a couple of anniversaries.

So, Happy (belated but Significant) Birthday, dear Bro!

And the other is yesterday's 17th anniversary of my bowel cancer operation. It's hard to feel you've actually had cancer when you didn't have any radiation treatment or chemotherapy and you still have and always had hair. Still, I am frequently reminded by my remaining bowel. Too much information?

So this all led on to musings about "where did all that time go?", and "what have we got to show for it?", and "does that really matter?" And that all very quickly becomes too deep.

Another happy half-hour wasted browsing through the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (I've been a fan of dictionaries ever since school, when a substitute for detention was having to copy out pages from the dictionary - I did a lot of that).

Never mind; "what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare", as W.H.Davis wrote. Herman Hupfeld told us "the fundamental things apply, as time goes by", and Bob Dylan "the times they are a-changin"", and C. Northcote Parkinson that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion", who of course is on the same page as Dorothy Parker, who gave us such gems as "you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think", and "she ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B", as well as "men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses".

And just over there is a most appropriate quote from Emmeline Pankhurst - "The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics".

As Cicero said - "O tempora, O mores!"

27 March: Dyeing

And here is Wednesday's spinning dyed.


The soy/BFL is orange, the soy/BFL/cotton is purple (except that cotton needs different dyes from wool, so hasn't taken the dye), and the BFL/BFL is green.

The green is an excellent shade; most green dyes are rather blue or greyed, and a good green is hard to obtain. This was a mix of Landscape dyes in the colours Tarragon and Mustard - a sort of "salad green".

26 March: Spinning! Texture! Spring!

At last a whole morning when I could concentrate on some spinning.

Diane Varney's book "Spinning Designer Yarns" has sat on my shelf for quite a long time, while I was focusing on spinning straightforward even (-ish) yarns for knitting. The time was ripe for trying something new. Three-ply yarn is quite simple, and offers possibilities of fibre mixes which will take dye differently - that's another exciting area waiting for exploration.

Yesterday spiral and boucle yarn was the objective. Here comes some technical stuff, so just skip to the picture if you're not fascinated by the details.

I failed to spin soy silk alone into a suitable thread, so carded soy with some BFL (Blue Faced Leicester - it's the breed of sheep that grows that particular fleece/fibre) for the core thread.

Next a loose and thick strand of BFL; when you've spent months trying to get your thread fine and even, it's terribly difficult to make it erratic, but I did my best.

The next step is to ply the thicker wrapping thread loosely and spirally around the finer core thread. Again, normally the aim is even tension and equal plys, but it was fascinating to watch the looser-tensioned thick thread spiral around the finer one.

And lastly a fine thread is used, wound in the opposite direction, to bind the whole thing together. There was enough of the core soy/BFL to do a small skein; then I used a millspun cotton thread to bind the rest of the bobbin-ful of spiral yarn.

As a further experiment, I spun a small 2-ply skein of BFL, one single finer and even and one thick-and-thin and looser, and just plyed these 2 together, spiralling the thicker strand around the thinner one.


In the photo, the top skein is 2 strands of soy/BFL each side of looser BFL; the middle one is soy/BFL, BFL, and cotton; and the bottom one is 2 strands of BFL.

They all have slightly different feels, and the different fibres should make interesting dyeing (in the next day or two), and different textures in knitting (some time).

Aside from the spinning, we have primroses, miniature daffodils, bees, and more birds in the garden. Hedges have blossom and hawthorn leaves. The lawn needs mowing.

And a great flowering of charity collection bags - 3 dropped through the letter-box on Monday and a 4th on Tuesday.

20 March: The Green Man smiles

The Green Man smiles in the spring sunshine.

New lambs are making their appearance, and the skylark has returned.

16 March: Getting out more

When DH was asked by a colleague what he intended to do with his retirement, he replied "Get out more".

With this in mind, we have got ourselves folding bikes, so that we can put them into the car and venture further afield for some gentle cycling.

So today was our first car/bike adventure. The bikes pack neatly into DH's car without having to take out more than the parcel shelf and the lid of the well in the boot. A couple of old bath sheets stop any scraping or rattling and protect the inside of the car.

We looked at the County Council's map of cycle routes in the area, and picked out a railway path that we have walked along, but never cycled.

The car park wasn't busy, apart from a couple of men lopping branches off trees and feeding them into a shredder. We got the bikes out, re-assembled them, found I'd got my cables tangled round my handlebars, untangled them, found my front brake wasn't working, re-aligned the cable, checked all connections were secure. Good. Trip to the toilets. Good. Drinks and snacks in the bum-bags. Good. Helmets and gloves on. Good. Off we go!

Rounded the corner from the car park onto the track, only to be faced with a mini-digger, men in hard hats and fluo jackets, and a big barrier labelled "Path Closed". All the way along. A couple of walkers were speaking to the man from the council, who smugly announced that it had been in the local paper for 4 weeks. A notice at the entrance to the car park would have saved us some effort, but at least we've had plenty of practice at folding and unfolding the bikes.

We folded them up again and took them to another railway track, where we enjoyed an hour or so of exercise. This afternoon DH had a little nap - I've been sitting on a soft cushion.

14 March: Gibside

As we'd been up to Newcastle on a re-cycling mission, we decided to go to Gibside (Gibside Chapel, a NT property) for a bite to eat and a walk.

The path we usually follow goes along by the River Derwent. Beside the stream, beneath the trees - those fuzzy yellow blobs are daffodils.

I love to find an interesting old tree to photograph.


And Gibside has its own Statue of Liberty -


A bit of a lizard-on-a-column* shot, but that was as close as we got to it this visit.

One tree had been "improved" - perhaps by a fan of Gonzo?


* we have (as you may also have) a number of poor holiday photos of the ground, apparently nothing in particular, which were almost all an attempt to photograph a small and indistinct lizard; we find "lizard shot" a very useful label.

10 March: Reliability of cars

It's a good job DH is now retired; no loss of working time taking his car back to the garage. And back again.

Last month there was a problem with the fuel leaking - a seal was replaced, but the fuel pump was mentioned. A couple of weeks ago, after coughing intermittently for for some days, the car simply stalled in the middle of the road, and wouldn't start again; the RAC had to tow it to the dealership, where the fuel pump was replaced.

Yesterday on the motorway it started to cough again. So it has gone back to the dealership again. How fortunate that I still have my little car! It's over 6 years old now, compared with the 15 months of DH's car, and I was thinking that we had no real use for it now, but perhaps that's not right. It's awfully handy for ferrying him to and fro to drop off and pick up his car.

5 March: The Tweedy Cardi

It seems like this project has been on the needles forever, but it's under 2 months.

Last June at the Woolfest I bought (among many other things!) a batt from Wingham Wool Works - it was simply labelled "Wool/Silk", and was rolled up in a plastic bag. Grey in colour, it felt wonderful to the touch, so I happily paid £15.50 for the nominal 800 gms - it weighed a bit more than that on the scales at home.

When unrolled, this batt was full of all sorts of colours and textures, and it was split up into sections for spinning so that the different bits in it were fairly evenly distributed. The spinning was very enjoyable, and the bag full of tweedy yarn demanded to be knitted into something quite simple to show its subtleties.

Barbara Walker's book "Knitting from the Top" provided a recipe for a plain garment in a fairly fine yarn - about 17 wpi.

Working out the pattern as I went along was a bit of a challenge; and although I made notes, I'm not sure now that I can follow exactly what I did! The sleeves were a disaster the first time, but easily remedied by unravelling them and re-knitting them. The buttons chosen were another Woolfest purchase, from an earlier year.

Here are the photos -


And modelled -


This is going to be worn a lot.

3 March: Exit slowly

That's the fourth time recently, when driving into Durham, that I've got held up behind a funeral.

Is there any sort of etiquette about roaring past a hearse and the following cars when you get to the dual carriageway? Should you raise your hat as a mark of respect? Or simply refrain from cursing the 25 miles an hour procession when you are now definitely going to be late for that meeting?

26 February: Visitors

This morning, just after 7.30, I was at the sink, washing the cat's bowl when I noticed a movement in the garden.

It looked exactly like the little bird that had been in the buddleia the previous evening, which we had taken to be a wren - tiny bird darting about looking for insects.

But then it came right up onto the paving and perched in the potted oak tree - a second one darted down from the clematis - too pale to be a wren, and the movement not quite right. A stripe on the head - but not a coal tit - a yellow stripe. Two goldcrests!!!

I have found a picture -

I know it's goldfinches that are a charm, but these little creatures were truly charming.

23 February: 2 seasons in 2 weeks

Ten days ago we were struggling through snow, today the garden has not only these -


but also these -


and even this!

21 February: Hamsterley coatless

At the third attempt, we made it to the forest. The first time, we forgot something, and had to go back, which was just as well, because the second time we set out, the car broke down at the top of the street!

Anyway, after the RAC had towed it away for the pump that was replaced a couple of weeks ago to be done right (we hope) this time, we took my little car, and actually got there.

Glorious sunshine when we arrived, though the wind got up and brought cloud across later. We started off on a different path from usual, made some interesting choices at junctions, and went off-path a few times. There are still plenty of places we haven't yet seen, and you can't really get lost - anyway we had both map and GPS.

Just as we were starting to feel hungry, we found a seat at a major track junction, where we munched on home-made bread rolls and fruit.

A bit later on we followed this stream down the hillside -


to the bigger stream. There was a lot of water coming off the moors above the forest and down the hillsides, and at the ford 2 mountain bikers were just about to cross. Neither of them made it with dry feet, but they did clean their bikes a bit!


The footbridge a few hundred yards further on was our preferred option, beyond this little waterfall-y bit, then we explored another path that was new to us, before returning to more familiar tracks.

As usual, there were few people about in the further parts of the forest, but there were lots of families nearer the car park. A good day to be out and about; the jacket, magic overtrousers, woolly hat and mittens, all stayed in my smart new daybag; a long-sleeved T-shirt and a good wool jersey were all that was required (yes, trousers as well!).

Heavens, at this rate, I may need to look for my shorts next month!

20 February: Durham hatless

How pleasant to be able to walk about without a woolly hat, scarf and gloves!

After a meeting in Durham today, I walked back to the car. Deciding against the riverbank path, I went up South Street for the first time in (possibly) years. As the trees are leafless, the cathedral is visible from the road.

Actually, I think I like the woodland bit better than the cathedral bit.

12 February: Still no snow photos

Happy (significant) Birthday, DD!

Just when it had thawed a bit yesterday, today it snowed constantly all day. DH, extremely glad he didn't have to go out, spent the day moving bits of furniture round, and setting up his hi-fi system in his new playroom study.

And for our tea we had comfort food - chips with our omelette, and then a tin of fruit cocktail. Do you remember when a tin of fruit cocktail was a touch of luxury?

And here are a couple of photos as a reminder that sometimes the sun shines warmly and the flowers bloom:

10 February: No snow photos

Well, I haven't had a minute.

It's not that life has gone into slow motion; more that now there's two of us doing not very much, it seems to take twice as long! (And getting at the computer during the day is now half as likely.)

And all this snow doesn't help. Living above the snow-line as we do, the street in front of the house has been thick with ice for what seems like weeks - in the shadow of the houses it takes ages to melt. The main roads, of course, are clear, but local pavements are still treacherous, and as a visit to A & E is unappealing any foray out of the house has to be carefully negotiated.

In fact I am thoroughly fed up with the snow and ice hampering everything we want to do, and would be most grateful if it would just go away.

2 February: 2 Pensioners

DH has now finished work, and we have been busy all weekend with making a start on re-organising the house. As I have a room for all my fibre stuff, it's only fair that he should have a room to potter about in as well. And there are only the 2 of us in this 4-bedroomed house.

And so there has been much moving about of furniture, clothes, junk, papers, and general stuff, of which we seem to have a huge amount. Some of it has been moved to the tip, and there's a big stack of stuff to go to charity shops.

This morning we woke to snow again, but of course nobody had to struggle through it to get to work [ :) ], so after a second cup of coffee we did some more sorting out of old papers, and some re-constructing of old photo albums.

Knitting continues, and the current project is well advanced, and a photo has been taken for its Ravelry project page. The recently spun wool/silk batt is slowly becoming a top-down raglan cardigan, following Barbara Walker's recipe.

And a few pairs of old hand-knitted socks have been tossed onto the "out" pile, so there's a bit of space in the sock drawer. And we all know nature hates empty space.