Thursday 31 December 2009

Socktopus club socks


Over Christmas, I have been dealing with some rather rubbish stuff, which is why I haven't been making Christmassy blog posts. However, I have also been doing some knitting, and I have finished the Socktopus





club socks. So here they all are!

Saturday 19 December 2009

Wrapping

Just realised that it's over a week since I posted. Oops! Today has been quite productive, although I didn't exactly get up early.

I went to the garden centre and bought a tree, a holly wreath and some mistletoe. I had to repot the tree (tricky since it was frozen) as it was very wonky. How is it that you can buy a tree with roots attached and it will be far from upright. Surely when the tree is in the ground, it's upright? I have also wrapped all the presents I currently have - this does not mean, however, that I have finished the wrapping! And I have blocked Ulmus and my Socktopod socks (piccies to follow).

The Socktopod socks were fun, although I did end up knitting three socks to make the pair. When I was knitting the first one, I noticed that the M1R wasn't working very well and was loopy. When I knitted the second one, I realised I'd put the M1R (and the M1L) in the wrong place - magically, if you put them in the right place, the loopy bits improve! So I finished the second sock and then knit a third. I think the first one is going to turn into a crocodile puppet.

Guess what though - the ironing still needs doing!

Friday 11 December 2009

Walking in ...


...Winter Wonderland. This is where I was yesterday evening - Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. I went there to meet with some of the other Socktopods to do some knitting and then we wandered round, and some members of the party tried out the Helter Skelter. There were also Curros - Spanish donut things, which I hadn't tried before.
I then got home to find a husband. In fact not any husband but my husband returned from Algeria. It was lovely to see him - although I may have planned my evening differently if I had known that he would be there.
On the knitting front, having finished the Socktopus club package number 4, on Saturday I started number 5 'Socktopod'. They are a lovely shade of green and a fab pattern by Cookie A. - it's just a shame that my M1R as soooo loopy. Nonetheless, sock number 1 is complete and I've done most of the ribbing on sock number 2 - all good, since package 6 is due out in the next week or so. Then I just need to get on with the never ending Ulmus.

Sunday 6 December 2009

Afternoon tea

Yesterday I had a lovely afternoon meeting up with the Socktopus gang. The 'purpose' of the meet up was to exchange Secret Santa presents - but actually, there was little exchanging and much knitting, eating and drinking. We went to this place where we had a delicious afternoon tea:

There was much disagreement (with the staff - not between us) as to how many cakes we should have versus the number we had. It ended with us being brought more cakes that then didn't get eaten. Various husbands and sons were set to benefit.


We did a fair amount of knitting and I finally finished the Scadenza socks from the Socktopus club. These have been OTN for ages - although actually knitting on them seems to make them go faster. The first one, I struggled with the bind off. I tried it twice and it was still on the tight side. On the second sock, I tried a much loser bind-off. It worked really well, so I had a third attempt at the first sock - I undid the bind-off and the last round, rejoined some fresh yarn and tried again. Much better.

Having finished Sockotpus package number 4, I have already started on package number 5. I think they're going to be quite....long. But they should still fit inside the new boots I ordered yesterday in Duo. This place does calf-size boots which should fit better. You can't take them away from the shop, but hopefully they'll arrive soon.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

A little early

Just a quick post as it's been a long day, I'm tired and my elbow aches. But here is our Christmas Cactus. It's a little early, but it's looking lovely. This is the sort of plant I like - the sort that produces beautiful flowers with minimal maintenance!


Sunday 29 November 2009

Or not

I didn't spend the day in bed yesterday.

Being so fine, the shawl dried very quickly, so by lunchtime I was able to unpin it. So this is it - about 1 km of yarn and nearly 1500 beads that can't actually be seen. I wore this to church this morning - it shows up well over dark clothes. I just don't dare do too much while wearing it- it's so delicate, and being single ply yarn, I suspect if it catches on anything that will be it done for.

It's pretty chilly here today and the sky is a distinctly ominous colour. I don't want to put the fire on yet, as it's only lunchtime, so I have bundled up in my Spiraluscious Mitts,
the matching cowl (which still needs blocking and photographing but keeps me warm in the meantime) and my Shawl that Jazz. I also have a blanket (not knitted) wrapped around my legs and knees. It's raining outside but I can snuggle inside which is lovely. I probably ought to warm myself up doing some of the jobs that are taunting me around the house, but it's much nicer to sit and knit, watch old Inspector Morse and Poirot (I love ITV3) and play with Mildred. Ah yes, Mildred. I wanted to name my laptop (sad, I know) and despite my efforts to find a sleek, elegant name for her, she wants to be Mildred!
I'm loving the fact that I can use her all around the house, and that she links to the Internet effortlessly. I did have to re-install the mouse yesterday (I don't know why) but apart from that it's been great. I also discovered a built in SD Card Reader. This is slightly irritating in that I had recently bought a new external card reader, the old one having died, but it means it is just soooo easy to get photos from Camera to Computer. Hmm perhaps I should name the Camera 'George'. Not a programme I have ever seen, but I do know that George and Mildred go together!
Right - time for a cuppa and Ulmus.


Saturday 28 November 2009

A day in bed?

I awoke very early this morning (at least it was early for me on a Saturday). Once I'd realised that I wasn't going to go back to sleep, I got up, made a cuppa, and put Samhain to soak. That's right - I finished the knitting and darned in the ends yesterday evening. I let it soak for an hour or so, and then got to work - with the result that the living-room currently looks like this:





















(also, my knees hurt). This, I think is the largest area of clear floor space in the house, and so I got to work - but even so, part of the knitting is under the sofa.

I think this was one of my longer blocking efforts - it took me about an hour of pulling; stretching; pinning and repeating. I find that it is really helpful to have guidelines to block to. I don't have 'proper' blocking mats that have a grid marked on them. Instead, I use these foam playmats that I got from Amazon for a fraction of the price. As guides, I use strips of black ribbon that I can pin where I need them for each project.

The ribbon comes from my favourite lingerie shop, Pudding - where they tie it around the boxes that they put your purchases in. The ribbon is assorted lengths and thicknesses, and over the last few years I've built up quite a collection.

I think the designer intended this shawl to be blocked as a half-hexagon. However, mine really didn't want to - so I let it do what it wanted. Instead, I have a square with a quarter cut away. I think this will really show off the lace well, and will also mean that the shawl stays on too. I blocked pretty hard to get this; I think it's just under 5' square. I was trying to strike a balance between pulling too hard and breaking something, and getting it really well blocked. The advantage of the latter is that the couple of slightly dodgy bits now don't show!

Anyway, the result of all this is that the living-room is fairly unusable at the moment. I need to wait for the shawl to dry, and given that towards the end I was spraying to re-dampen (old cleaning spray bottle filled with the water/ euclan that I had originally used for soaking the shawl pre-blocking) it's going to take a while. And so for now, I'm going to go and find a cup of coffee and then spend the morning in bed with the new knitting .....

(A gratuitous unblocked picture of the shawl, modelled by Hermione.)

Thursday 26 November 2009

Realisation

My excitement has been realised. After a couple of minor glitches with the delivery, I collected the laptop this evening. I can't believe how easy it is to use. I have installed the bluetooth Skype (I haven't spoken to anyone yet as none of my contacts is online); and I have installed MS Office. I have been online and set all my favourites - and it just whizzes to websites. Now, I really ought to do some tidying up as I seem to have left quite a lot of packaging lying around the living-room floor. But I can sit on the sofa and blog while watching the television (or listening to the radio) - so far so good.... it's doing exactly what I wanted.
Tomorrow - back to regular programming (knitting progress or the lack thereof) - which reminds me, there's handknits soaking in the sink. Better go and do something about that!

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Excitement

Yesterday, I did something very exciting - I ordered myself a laptop. This may not sound terribly exciting to many, but I have never done such a thing before. This purchase has been brewing for a while for a few reasons.

The desk-top we have at home is elderly (9+ yrs) and temperamental. Particularly, it periodically refuses to talk to the outside world for no obvious reason. It doesn't have in-built Wireless so operates on a dongle which is hard to access if something goes wrong. In addition, when hubby is in the country, he has first use on the PC (after all, he bought it, he maintains it, and he knows better than I do what to do for it when it's poorly). So, for some time I have been thinking about getting a little laptop.

This has come to a head following the work secondment I recently undertook. Being on secondment meant I had to take my work laptop to and from the office every day (when working at base we are encouraged to leave our laptops locked up at work unless we have a client meeting or whatever) and having the laptop at home meant I could use it in the evenings. I discovered that it was entirely happy to connect to the wireless at home, and it didn't keep falling over. I could also sit in the living room to use it rather than being relegated to the top corner of the house.

And so the deed is done. At some time in the next couple of weeks a shiny new red laptop/notebook (not sure what 12" qualifies as!) should be coming to live with me. Then I will have all the fun (?) of getting it set up. As I said - excitement!

Saturday 14 November 2009

Blowing a gale?

.... Well, it isn't yet, but the forecast is terrible. At the moment it's a bit wet and the trees are moving a little but the sky is less grey than it was. Even so it strikes me as a good day for hibernating. Hubby has gone into London shopping and so I could spend all day in my dressing gown knitting and reading. Unfortunately, I do need to pop into town later so it isn't to be.

Progress this week on the knitting front has been slow. However, last night some work was done and piccies were taken of Samhain. In order to take the piccies, I first put in a new lifeline that was long enough (but more on that later). I then attached all my spare knit picks cables to the one I was using, and then pinned out the centre section on my blocking mats. Because it was dark anyway, I acutally turned the lights off and then took the pictures using the 'Night Portrait' setting on my point and press camera - with some rather surprising results:


Hubby caught me doing this, and while I was standing on a stool in the dark taking photos, he decided to make his own addition to the composition. I saw this as the flash was going off but by then I'd committed to the picture! It is only a toy lizard, not a real one ....

I did also manage to get some proper pictures, and this whole 'lights off' thing worked pretty well as the colours aren't bad - in some lights the yarn really does look this purple. I was also pleased that it is just about possible to see the beads in some of the picutres. Given that the work was nowhere near as stretched as it will be when it is blocked, I am hopefully that in the end the

beads will show up. It would be a shame if they don't since they are adding considerable to the time taken in the knitting. The section I'm on at present has relatively few beads per row, and I managed two rows in 45 minutes last night.

The problem with this (and the second Scadenza sock is that they require constant reliance on the pattern and are quite slow going - I have nothing really quick and easy otn at the present. This is leading to the onset of a case of startitis - we'll see how well I can resist!

Thursday 12 November 2009

A slow (knitting) week

This week has been slow for knitting. This is at least partly because my 'main' project at the moment is Samhain and it now takes about an hour to do two rows. I have also been out every evening this week, and when I do get home it's all a bit late.

Monday, I had music practice at church. I did manage to get home and cook beforehand but didn't get back till well after 9 and then didn't knit but spent some time chilling with DH instead.

Tuesday, I did go to knit night, and managed 4 rows of Samhain, which means I am now over 40% of the way through!

Last night I met up with a couple of former clients and a former colleague. We went out for drinks (we were all very abstemious only drinking soft drinks) and I got home at gone 9 again - at which point I had to set to and make dinner. We didn't eat till nearly 10 o'clock. I did then do a couple of rows on my Ulmus, but not much progress.

Tonight I have another work do, which means hubby is feeding himself again. Still, I made a big pot of soup on Sunday and he's been working his way through that for his lunches. He even commented that it was nice, which is high praise indeed. Tonight he gets left over chilli from last night, but it's one of his favourites and he chose that rather than cook anything himself.

Tomorrow, I should actually be home for the evening - hurray! Don't know how much knitting I'll manage but it will be good to spend some time at home, given that hubby is off overseas again on Monday....

Sunday 8 November 2009

November in Norfolk

The last week has been busy but relaxing in a mad kind of way.

Last weekend my sister, BIL and nephew were in the UK for a few days, so I went to Mum and Dad's to see them. It was lovely to spend some time with them (don't know when it will happen again) and I also took all their birthday and Christmas presents. M loved his 'Take Along Thomas' toys - and there are more in the parcel for his Christmas present. M actually calls me 'Auntie Fred' and was more than happy to spend time with me. I did quite a lot of potty trips - the only accident was my fault!

Then on Tuesday, Dad took me to Peterborough where I caught a train to King's Lynn where MIL and FIL collected me. They were house / dog-sitting in Brancaster and we went to join them. Hubby's sister and her family were all staying nearby. We went for lots of walks on the beach with dogs and children and I did quite a lot of work on Samhain. This picture is from last Tuesday:

I think at this point, I was at the beginning of chart 2 (of five). I have now started chart 4, but this still only makes me 37% of the way through (I just made a spread sheet....).
I'm slightly disappointed that the beads aren't showing - I chose some that tone so well that they can't actually be seen. They may pop a bit when the shawl is blocked - we'll see.
I managed to pack the wrong crochet hook to go away - and there was no way that a 2mm hook was going to go through 8/0 beads. To start with I managed with a needle threader although it was very slow, but then I got into Wellingborough and bought another 0.6mm hook which is far preferable.
While we were away, we went to a 'Rare Breeds' farm. I'm not sure how 'rare' Alpaca are (perhaps just in the UK), but they were very cute. There were just the two of them in an enclosure with some sheep, but I'm afraid the sheep got no attention whatsoever!

Saturday 31 October 2009

Going away

Ugg - I finally got home at quarter to one this morning. However, it's done and I'm on holiday - hurray. Also, my packing is nearly done and there are still two hours until the taxi arrives to take me to the station. So obviously I am blogging.
Actually, I have been taking photos and doing battle with computers, but this means that I am now able to bring you these:

Rachel (or Hannah's) hat, knitted out of Bowmont Soft Spun DK from Devon fine fibres. I got this from Socktopus when it was still open - so hopefully Stash will stock it in future as I don't know where else you can get it. The decoration is crocheted in DK silk from the Knitting Goddess - I had it sitting around as a left-over in my stash and it worked really well.

And to make sure that no-one is left out, here is Hannah (or Rachel's) hat. I should explain that the photos were taken on the lid of a cake tin because it's pretty wet outside and I didn't want them to get grubby.

Talking of Rachel and Hannah (my goddaughters), I saw them on the box last night (although the programme was at 9 am - I had sky+'d it). I had a message from their Mum on Facebook and discovered that they had been taking part in a programme called 'Family!' which is a series of short episodes abouts families from around the country. They were representing Wales. It was lovely to see them even on the telly, given that I don't get to see them very often for real.

The final picture to show you is this one.

This is all the bits I have ready to start my Samhain shawl tomorrow. The colours aren't great since it's such a grey day, since the yarn is actually purple-ish (quelle suprise!). It's Angel 1ply Laceweight (Alpaca / Cashmere / Silk - yum) from The Natural Dye Studio in, I think, Heather 30. I got the beads from Aluisa Beads in Guildford. I've put two bags of beads into that tin ready to be used, and I have a third bag in reserve so that should be plenty. I'm very looking forward to starting this!
Anyway, I really should do some ironing and finish the packing - then perhaps a little more work on Ulmus (which isn't going with me) before I head off out.

Friday 30 October 2009

Even sleepier

I thought it was bad yesterday!

It is half past 11 and I'm still at work. At the moment, there is nothing needing doing, but something may come up and so we can't go home yet. The thought of driving home for an hour nearly isn't great.

Tomorrow I am going up to Mum and Dad's - and still no packing done. I have written a list of things to pack so I guess that's a start. Fortunately, I'm going by train, so I can sleep on the way... I did do a quick trawl this morning, and I think I have at least got enough clean undies to pack.

On the knitting front, I actually picked up my Ulmus yesterday evening. I don't really know why I lost the will with it, as it's a very straightforward knit. My only worry is the length of the floats. The pattern is knitted in stripes of two yarns, and each stripe is just two rows, so you are supposed to float the yarn up one side. I just wonder how this is going to work when I come to block - I can see this becoming very lop-sided if I'm not careful (and not being very big if I am).

On the knitting front, I am seriously wishing I had brought some to work today. Usually, I do but today I didn't and yet now I have the opportunity actually to do some. Grr. I could have got a fair few more rows of the Ulmus done while I have been sitting around this evening. Still, this is my last day of this secondment. Holiday next week and back to my own office the week after. I have enjoyed doing the secondment - it's been good to get to know the folks and mostly I've enjoyed the work. Having an office canteen is also a bonus. On the downside, I'll be glad to be able to print documents and to reduce my commute (distance if not time) by half.

Thursday 29 October 2009

Sleepy

It's 7 o'clock, I'm still at work and I'm sleepy. I'm not looking forward to the drive home.

It's one of those evenings where the work is intermitent so there will be more things needing doing but I am currently in a lull. On the upside, a Thai takeaway has already been ordered :-)

On Saturday I'm going up to Mum and Dad's for a few days so that I can see Sis, BIL and Nephew while they are back in this country, and then on Tuesday I'm going to Brancaster to join the in-laws house sitting. Hmm - haven't finalised arrangements with them. I should do that...

I am slightly concerned that I have my knitting all sorted to take away with me but not my clothes: tomorrow evening could see the inaugural panic-ironing event, where I waving a steaming iron around, get the clothes looking a bit flatter and probably burn myself. I'm not even entirely sure what I need to pack for a few days on the north Norfolk coast in November.

Exciting news is that last night I finished the Christmas knitting. No photos yet, as I haven't actually had a daylight opportunity, but I've finished the hats for R&H. The original plan was to sew buttons on as decoration, but then a cunning plan was developed and these were replaced by crocheted silk flowers - I happened to have some appropriately coloured silk DK sitting in the stash. The majority of my Christmas knitting has been done from stash so I feel like I've made good in-roads.

Not sure when I'll get to post again but hopefully it will include piccies. I'm almost tempted to take the work laptop away with me so that I can keep on line, but that's really not what it's for!

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Testing testing

Just a quick test. The lovely RuthieD told me how to hyperlink last night, so I thought I'd try it out....!

Tuesday 27 October 2009

A lovely surprise

When I got home last night I had a surprise.

To start with, the chubb lock on the front door wasn't locked. I was surprised because, although I had left in a hurry, I was pretty sure I'd locked it. Then I noticed the living room light was on. And again, I was surprised because I'd turned the lights off before I left. Before I could get into panic mode, though, a voice said 'Hello'. It was the Hubby - home a few days early from Algeria because his visa ran out.

It was lovely to see him but quite a surprise - and there was very little in the house for him to eat. The place I'm working at the moment has a canteen, so I have a main meal at lunchtime and a snack in the evening.

On the big upside - the house was tidy. I am not a tidy person. As my mother has said, I am good at tidying up but not at being tidy. This means that usually when hubby is away, I slob for a while and then have a major clear-up just before he comes home. However, the last couple of weeks I have been making an effort to keep tidy. This meant that when he arrived home:
  • There was no knitting strewn all over the sofa
  • There was no dirty washing up - at all not even hiding in the dishwasher(this is truly shocking)
  • The bed was made
  • The kitchen was tidy

This experience has proved to me that it is worth trying to keep things tidy.

Sunday 25 October 2009

Timezone?

I don't know what time zone I'm in. The clocks went back last night, and usually this is an excuse for an extra hour of sleep. But no. I awoke at 6.30 - and I was wide awake. So I decided to do something useful (ha ha). Did some bits on the PC and then decided to wrap some presents. This was all well and good until suddenly it was twenty-five to ten and I was still in my nightie. Given that I needed to be at church shortly after ten, this wasn't good. Now, it's just coming up to eight pm and I'm all ready for bed. It feels much later. What is going on?!


Anyway, more interesting stuff. I went into Guildford to do some Christmas shopping yesterday and also bought the beads for Samhain. At some point there will be photos..... Then I went to see my friend Mel, who lives close by. We hadn't seen each other for ages, and I also got to see all the work that she and her hubby have been doing on their house and garden, so it was really fab to catch up. We went back to Guildford to have a look at vacuum cleaners, since mine apparently has died, and I also had a look at laptops. I am fed up with home PC (it's alright - it isn't clever enough to know I'm being mean about it). It's elderly and is getting unreliable. I haven't absolutely decided, but I am more and more thinking that I would like a home laptop. This would mean that I could sit on the sofa to Skype, blog, and generally play on the net (when the net is working) rather than being tucked away in the study. It would also mean that when hubby is at home I would still have PC access. The point is that I don't need a laptop. I'm very aware of how fortunate I am, and the fact that I could just go out and buy a laptop doesn't mean I should, however I try to justify it to myself.

I have also continued to knit, and on the FO front, I have these:




Pattern: my basic bobble hat

Yarn: Knitting Goddess DK Merino in semi-solid lime


These are the hats that were actually requested for Christmas. The niece and nephew asked for green hats, and green hats they have got. However, for the sake of their mother's sanity I decided on different coloured bobbles. I have also completed this:




Pattern: improvised as I went along

Yarn: Knitting Goddess bfl sock in Indian Summer


This is knitted from a lavendar kit sent by the lovely Knitting Goddess, Joy with one of her parcels of yarn. It has been festering in my wip basket for a while, but I finally got a move on and finished it. It has now been wrapped up as part of my sister's birthday present - I can say that because at the moment she doesn't know I have a blog .....


I do also have another bobble hat completed (although it isn't going to have a bobble). It was only completed this evening, so no piccies yet. It is one of a pair for my twin god-daughters, R and H. The completed hat is the second attempt because the first one was way too large (using different yarn and needles from the green ones). Photos of those will follow in due course, and then that will be my Christmas knitting done! Yay.


My other big achievement today was clearing my desk. I actually did the filing (rather than just leaving it in a tidy-ish pile). There were about five months worth of credit card bills in the heap, so I guess it had been a while. The upside was finding a missing piece of paper. I am taking part in the Unicorn quest being run by the Natural Dye Studio and Fyberspates, and I had lost the September clues - but I have now been reunited with them, and they have been reunited with the rest of the clues. I put them all somewhere safe .... I also rediscovered the pattern for Ulmus, which is another festering wip - so now I have no excuse for letting it linger.

Friday 23 October 2009

TGI Friday

Oooff. Another week done and a lie-in tomorrow morning. I did more ironing yesterday evening, but figured that you can have too many ironing photos (some might argue that two is too many) so instead here's this evenings picture:





Merlot and knitting - what could be better? The knitting is the second green hat and is a much better likeness for the actual colour - I wish I'd taken note of what camera setting I used for it! I'm planning a shoping trip into Guildford tomorrow. Partly to buy Christmas and Birthday pressies for my sister and her family (who are in the UK next weekend - they live overseas) and partly for beads for my Samhain shawl:

http://www.bopeepswoolshop.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=54.

I'm going to knit this as part of a KAL on the Knitting Goddesses (and Gods) group over on Ravelry and I'm very excited. The excitement did dim a little though when I calculated how many stitches there will be per row by the end (it's over 600). We're due to start on 1 November so I'm collecting everything together now. Meantime, I'm not letting myself cast on anything new except Christmas hats. Once the current one is done, there are just two more to go and that will be the Christmas knitting done. "Six pairs of socks, five woolly hats, and a stripey scarf for Jane". You can sing along - you know you want to! There will be proper piccies eventually.

I am hoping to take some FO piccies tomorrow, and I think there's some stash that hasn't actually made it on line yet but the weather forecast isn't great so we'll see. For now it's back to the lime-green hat and the glass of red wine .....

Wednesday 21 October 2009

The wonders of IT

I tried to post before I left for work this morning, having woken silly early again, but the home interweb was misbehaving again. However, I did manage to get these on line:


This is about 1/4 of my ironing and took about 50 minutes - that's not a good statistic! Once again, I didn't get home till gone 9, so this was all I was up for!

After that, I did manage to do about four rounds on the second green hat. It hasn't progressed very far, but here's the first one:

The colours are rubbish here, but hopefully I'll get some daylight photos at the weekend. By then I might have actually turned part of the ball of yellow yarn into a bobble too! The second (larger) hat is going to have a turquoise-ish bobble. I know the kids wanted matching hats, but I think being able to tell one from the other at a glance when they are different sizes is useful!





Tuesday 20 October 2009

A new day - a new blog

I was thinking yesterday (shocking, I know....). There are various blogs that I read, and people always seem to have interesting and/or amusing things to write about. I thought to myself 'the reason I don't blog is that I have nothing to write about'. It then occurred to me that I could do something about this! I could (and should!) make the effort to do more than go to work, go home, sit on the sofa and knit, and then go to bed. So, I decided to start a new blog. The aim of this is to force myself to do something blogable - even if it's only working my way through the ironing mountain.

In this respect, yesterday was a failure. Start as you mean to go on - I don't think! I'm currently on secondment to a client. Having worked late and then had a longer than usual commute, I didn't get home until nearly half past nine. By which time it was a snack for tea (client has a good canteen so I can get a main meal at lunchtime), a bit of knitting, and bed. Unfortunately, I then woke up at half past three this morning, and never got back to sleep. On the plus side, this means that the knitting part of one of the green hats ordered by the niece and nephew is completed - just needs a bobble.

I did get to speak to hubby briefly yesterday evening. He's in Algeria, and communication is tricky with email working about one day in three, mobile phone periodically connecting, and the landline having a swarm of wasps inside it (or at least - that's what it sounded like!). Still we did manage a brief chat. He is stuck in the desert so hasn't done much to talk about, and I had emailed him during the day with the latest news.