Faux Fair Isle Fail

I was very taken by the idea that I could use a wool

that would knit Fair Isle all by itself,

according to the lady in the shop.

I have attempted the real thing and it's time consuming, fiddly

and rather too warm with the double layer of loops at the back of the work.

I needed a quick project that would be off the needles before

grand-daughter went away on her holiday.

Planes can be chilly even though her destination isn't.

So I embarked on a hooded jumper with pom poms

excited to see how this would work.

Hmm. Nice stripes with the merest suggestion of alternate stitch colour change

but Fair Isle it ain't.

For the real thing you could do no better than to visit this clever person.

Luckily grand-daughter likes it a lot

and wore it with the hood up on quite a warm day

until we both agreed that she was getting a bit too hot.

Desperate measures

As winter renews its grip

I have resorted to bringing indoors the 

 hopelessly optimistic blooms and blossoms

which have been repeatedly bludgeoned by snow and icy winds.

In a bid to entertain a housebound three year old

I started fiddling with some loo rolls and a taller inner tube from

some tinfoil which had a slighter smaller circumference.

Et voila, the Twisty Loo Roll Dressing up Girls© were born.

So far there are four interchangeable heads,

two tops, two skirts, and two leggings per girl.

Grand-daughter, rearranged the body parts to her own satisfaction

and to my slight distress, but she's gone home now

and I can play with them to my heart's content

refine the design and add to the wardrobe.

I had boys.

I've waited a long time for this.

Busy bee

Having a three year old around

is good fun.

We cooked up some pancakes

when I might not have bothered otherwise

and did an experiment with bicarbonate of soda and 

vinegar mixed with food colouring.

The internet is full of good ideas for things to do with children

(all I had recourse to when mine were young was Child Education Magazine

and a book called Something to Do)

and the means to carry them out is available at the click of a button.

If anyone needs a plastic pipette or 20 litres of white vinegar

I'm your woman.

Something went a little awry with my order.

My phone was requisitioned for these rather arty shots.

Rest cure

 Nothing to read here.

What a relief.

No signs.

No instructions.

No advertisements.

I find myself incapable of ignoring any lettering

however banal.
These days we are bombarded by messages,
but the habit of reading them all started young.

I remember feeling obliged to decipher the words

mesembryanthemum criniflorum

on the back of the loo door at home.

I can't have been more than five years old.

My father had pasted up some pages torn out of Amateur Gardening to

the panels on the door.

There was another sign in his spindly writing taped

to the geyser that heated the water for our baths.

It read,

Remember. Before lighting remove paper from chimney.

We read this nightly and eventually set it, somewhat bizarrely, 
to the hard-to-scan chorus of

In a feeble attempt to stave off this madness

I peel the labels from appliances

and products that cannot be mistaken for anything else.

This may yet be my undoing but so far it offers a little merciful respite.

How do you cope?

Insufficient fuss?*

 I failed to note that the blog turned ten sometime in October.

I think my 3 year old guest photographer

had something to do with that.

I spend quite a bit of time at the computer,

but these days I find I am searching for

entertaining songs and clips from her present
and my past,
 to suit her very catholic tastes.

Enjoy!

And this of course.
She knows all the words.

* Barbara Skelton, socialite, noted in her diary June 26th 1952,

'My Birthday today. Insufficient fuss made.'

Quandary

Delete. Delete. Delete.

If anyone wondered where I was,

I have been Kondoing my Inbox.

I had to because my computer said it was full

and could neither absorb nor discharge any further information.

I understood how it felt.

There were 8835 messages there going back eight years.

Of course there must have been many more.

I certainly do delete as I go, but for some reason

these had resisted the routine culling.

It was, and is, a sobering experience. 
All life is there,
from the mundane to the momentous.
There is no easy way to approach this task.
I cannot risk taking out the box wholesale.
I have found some vital documents and some useful contacts.
I have been reminded of happy times and sad.

The computer has dropped a couple of dress sizes
and is feeling more comfortable, but I must press on.
We're aiming for a size 8.
People send funnies, and each of these links was opened and examined.
Mercifully many of them had expired.
Here are a couple that were brought blinking into the spotlight.
You'll notice a common theme:

 Retiree Bathtub Test

During a visit to my doctor, I asked him, 

"How do you determine

whether or not a retiree should be put in an old age home?"

"Well," he said, "we fill up a bathtub, 
then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the retiree 
and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," I said. "A normal person would use the bucket
 because it is bigger than the spoon or the teacup."
"No", he said. "A normal person would pull the plug out.
Do you want a bed near the window?"

                    

If it goes quiet again, you'll know where to find me.

Also - 32,544 photos.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Late summer jollity

There's no doubt that summer is winding up.

But the fine weather is holding up

and the colours are intensifying.

So there's still something to bring a smile to our faces.

We went to see a show at the Camden Fringe last night.

My very first new-mum-friend's son, Thomas Joyce, was performing.

He didn't have an easy start in life thirty years ago

but now has a PhD and a thriving sideline as a stand up comedian.

There's one more show tonight in London

and then a late night performance in Edinburgh on the 25th.

Made me laugh. 

I couldn't resist. . .

. . .the dust jacket on this book,

this celadon jug on the bric a brac stall,

a go on this swing.

Summery summary

From Soulemama came this idea to knit a hat,

The Happiest Hat, in the round, in Fair Isle using up oddments.

Not something I've ever done before.

I cast on the requisite number of stitches,

because surely I can count,

and found to my horror,

 several ticklish rounds later, that I was five short.

Never mind I thought. I have made a start.

I will carry on and it will just have to be for a smaller head.

I had just such a one in mind.

From Cornflower came this book recommendation.

I lay down on the grass directly. No rug.

Not something I usually do.

It is that sort of book.

From Laughingkidslearn came all sorts of craft ideas

for entertaining granddaughter last week.

 And from my correspondent in India quite coincidentally, 

came a video demonstrating the art of rangoli

which gives me an idea for all that rainbow rice

now that the grandaughter is on tour again.

A little memento left by my computer.