2014

Well hello from Bali.

The end of 2013 was overwhelming so I am looking forward to 2014. Life will return to normal when my mum, who has been here since 14th November, goes home to the Uk on the 13 Jan. I love my mum but with working, studying, being a mum and trying to be positive having a 74 year old to look after as well has been tough. Don't get me wrong, my mum is easy going but always there and she moves silently. We have stated calling her Stealth Granny, silently moving around and then suddenly being there. It's 24 years since my dad died and mum has come to us 23 times. I have a brother who lives around the corner but she always comes to us.  I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility.

I am not going to whinge I am using this as a way to plan for next year. Mum can come of course but for 4 maybe 5 weeks and we need New Year to ourselves so we can have a holiday and relax and do what we want.  I just need to work out how to manage that. I will be in the UK this summer so she will have already seen us.

Other news is that I have bought myself a Hansen minispinner because although I love my spindles I want to spin more and quicker. So excited. It may be there when I get home. Hand in hand with this, 2014 is buy no yarn year. I have a large beautiful stash and I am going to use it this year, obviously not all of it, that would take years. However, I had a bit of a splurge at the end of the year so no indie dyers should go out of business as a result of my decision. And of course I will be buying (may already have fallen down a few holes) fiber.

I have some lovely pictures of Bali but for some reason can't access them so will post those when back home.

Happy New Year

More please

I know, you want more pictures of London.  Well here are a small selection of the shots daughter no1 took which are much better than mine.

And these from the Harry Potter studios were taken for me, because they are knitting

the needles move by themselves - if only!

We have pictures

Yeh, husband has returned.  Now the whole house has jetlag instead of just me and the kids.  Return of husband means return of the camera - although I was a little peturbed to discover it was in the pocket of his golf bag rather than in his  luggage!  I should just be happy he didn't misplace it. I had a phone call at 1am as he was boarding his flight asking for reading glasses on his return as he lost two pairs last week.  This is why we now buy the over the counter readers for $50 instead of prescription at $400!

A selection of photos. The cupbaord under the stairs at the Universal Harry Potter Studios

 The Great Hall and headless costumes. The level of detail on the props is amazing, hogs heads on top of the water jugs and so on.

Diagon Alley

The wand room,

And then Ravenscourt Park.  I used to take Daughter  no1 here all the time when she was little, before the move to Singapore.  Here is daughter no2 looking the happiest she did on the whole trip

Swings always mean smiles

The Glove Theatre, please say this in a suitably theatrical voice - thank you.  It's made of 800 oak trees from the Queens estates

And how much fun we had with stick on mustaches at Pizza Express on the South Bank.  The smallest, cheapest things are always the most fun

Just a small glimpse.

Re-entry to life

I know I have not been here for a little while but I am back.  My exam is done with and I will not think about it until the results come in.  At this point I just want to pass so I can move on.

Excitingly (is that even a word?) I have been to London. Yes, all the way to London to be a tourist in my own country.  The last time I was there I had a broken hand and had a rather grim pin and a nasty compression glove to contend with, this time I only had an overly ambitious husband and two children.

How much can you cram into 9 days you ask?  Here is the quick list:

• Tour of London on an open top bus (red of course)
• Chinatown - including aromatic crispy duck (not available here in Singapore really, they have Peking which is just so fatty!)
• Covent Garden
• Soho
• A Tour of the Houses of Parliment
• Westminster Abbey
• Big Ben
• Downing Street
• Les Miserable
• Chiswick
• The Science Musuem
• Warner Bros Harry Potter Studios (awesome)
• Chiswick
• Ravenscort Park (the kids just love the swings)
• Matilda the musical
• Churchills War Rooms
• Chiswick
• The South Bank
• Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
• Borough Market
• Liberty (the mothership - I used to spend so much time there)
• Hamleys
• The Natural History Museum
• Patisserie Valerie (yum - but I still prefer Betty's)
• Liberty (who can make just one trip?)
• Hamleys (Hell on a Saturday)
• John Lewis

This does not include everything but this seems enough. DH has the camera (he is in Scotland golfing) so I can post some pictures when he returns.

There was knitting though:

On the plane

The progress

And then this pair

I think I prefer them to be slouchy like this:

And then a little progress on this

It's the palessie-shawl in some Twisted Fibre Arts Warlock colourway.  The rows are already very long.

Right, the kids are due home any minute. TTFN

Pink sparkly rainbows

When stressed eat chocolate ( and also wasabi peanuts but not at the same time) and cast on.

It helps if it's a pink sparkly rainbow.  I love this yarn, it is from the amazing FabFunkyFibres on etsy.  I have a few skeins of her yarn including the infamous 15 colour rainbow.

And I got mail from HD Yarns again on Etsy and then a surprise parcel from the lovely Louise at CaithnessCraftCollective - you really should listen to her, very funny and crafty.

Tomorrow the exams will be over until next year.  And on Thursday.....watch out London, here we come!

Just when you need a curve ball

So, assignment was done, I started my revision.  I always pour over past papers and work out was is likely to come up.  I think I can get it down to 3 topics.  I start revising the first topic and then.... daughter no.2 isn't well, she is "hurty" and needs to go to the 24 hour walk in clinic.  So at 11pm off we go.  DH has just arrived back from a trip to Australia and New Zealand so he is frankly useless.  She has a urinary infection and needs antibiotics.  That means the dance competition she's supposed to be at the next day from 12 - 8pm needs notifying first thing on Saturday.

Oh well, at least that means I don't have to be in 3 places at the same time and we don't have to sit through 2 hours of dance competition on a Saturday night.  Saturday a.m. DH goes to see his doc and they decide he needs a small, delicate operation before Christmas.  But we are all OK about that. Saturday evening daughter no. 1 suddenly takes herself off to bed because she's not feeling well.  So this morning at 7am she staggers in, burning up, sore throat, sore neck.  Of I go to the 24 hour walk in clinic at the hospital again.  She has mycoplasma, also called walking pneumonia, and needs antibiotics for weeks and no school for a week.  She is really unwell and I have spent a large part of the day rinsing her down with cool water, when not looking after daughter no.2 and taking DH to the airport for a trip to Korea.

My revision is now a little behind.  I still have 2 topics to revise and then need to look at all three again before my exam on WEDNESDAY MORNING!  Oh, and we are going to London on Thursday morning for a week,so I have packing to do, for 4 people (DH is really crap at packing!) and we don't really have cold weather clothes as we live in Singapore.

Time to cast on a new project I suspect.

Chocolate was required!

Yes, the assignment is done. Woohoo. It took staying up until 4am and a packet of chocolate eclairs, Cadbury of course.  I need to find a way to write assignments without the drama and the late night. Now, I have to start the revision.

I'm going to have a break though and finish DH socks.

Actually, I'm almost at the last toe, so close to being finished.  I love the feel of the Lorna's Laces Soulemate but the colour is .......boring to knit with.  I have another ball but I think I'm going to have to put a neon strip in the rib or something to make them more interesting. I need colourful knitting, the penny dropped this week.

LAst week I made the mitts for Emily and they made me happy.

So this week I will continue to work on mum's cardigan but I need to cast something colourful on.  I'm thinking I'll use my Twisted Fiber Arts Tasty in Warlock.  I was thinking a Citron but it wasn't doing it for me.  So I think I'll go with  the palessie shawl which I think will be lovely. Airy, light with a colour change.  Yum.

Now, I better get out of my pj's.  Maybe I should reward myself with a little cast on action.

Bye