counting down to Christmas

the Advent calendar is on the wall and the pockets filled with choccies- Jen is being very good and only taking half each day leaving the other half for Jack for when he comes home from Uni (which should be on the 9th).

We've had this calendar since Jack was 4. One year, I carefully choose 24 little toys to put in the pockets for him (Jen was just a baby and didn't get anything)- he was furious- didn't I know it was meant to be sweeties?? I haven't made that mistake since!

The advent tree is up too, and Jen gets to put up the daily deccie until her bruv comes home and then they can fight over them! This is from an Alan Dart pattern in Simply Knitting a couple of years ago. These will be the only decorations on display until mid Dec (why yes, I am a meanie!)

In the meantime we are watching the weather as it steadily gets worse and wondering if we will get away on Monday at all. There's 20" of snow here now and the schools are closed till Mon 6th at the earliest.

Oh well, at least the power is still on and I'm still making progress on Karin.

christmas catch up

having a jaunt in the sun is good for my general health, but is not so good for my Christmas timetable- the cards were only posted yesterday (and those for Australia may get there by Easter!) and the decorations went up yesterday too.

Up until now the kids have only had the advent calendar on the wall and the knitted toys advent tree to enjoy. (poor lambs!!). I did say to D that if it all got too much for J2, she could put up the tree while I was away. But she didn't and I haven't had time this week.

So, she took matters into her own hands yesterday and set to tidying up the living room and putting up the tree and the deccies, and I have to say she did a good job!

We have an artificial tree as J1 is allergic to pine resin (which is not good for a violinist, we've had to get him so nonresin roisin for his bow) and J2 sorted out the lights and deccies herself and had a great time putting them up.

Maybe I'll get her to do the Christmas cards next year too! (then again she did make a lot of them, so maybe that would be pushing it a bit!).

Heavens only knows what it would be like if I'd had tons of Christmas knitting to do too, but I'm too disorganised/sensible/mean (delete as appropriate) to produce lots of lovely knitted stuff for friends and family. But I have offered to teach people to knit if they so wish!

So lots of tidying up to do this week before the inlaws arrive and maybe a little bit of knitting/crochet time for me.

so long, farewell,

auf weidersehen, goodnight...

it's time for the Christmas decorations to be packed away till next Christmas. Although of course, traditionally the deccies come down on January 5th for Epiphany, it's back to school/work tomorrow and it's so much better if everyone helps out!

The advent tree pattern by Alan Dart (in Simply Knitting magazine) came with a chart for the order of putting on the tree deccies and a label for the box file! so now they are all packed away in their box, alongside the fabric advent tree and carefully put in the cupboard under the stairs so that I have no excuse for forgetting about them!

At least next Christmas I wont be knitting like crazy to get the little decorations made on time, although I'm sure to be making something else at the last minute!

secret santa

my secret Santa from the Let's knit! forum sent me this lovely scarf and tree deccie. The scarf has a loop at one end to thread the other end through, making it snug and warm round my neck. I wore it for church this morning and very snug I was too. Thank you secret Santa!

There was also a lovely crocheted snowflake for the tree. I love all the handcrafted deccies that I've received, there's some very talented people out there!

I've nearly finished my deccies, there's one bell left to make for the advent tree and then I'm done . Woohoo! I'm desperate to cast on something else, a sweater or socks,anything! the kids are having a lot of fun putting the deccies on the advent tree though so it's been worthwhile.

Christmas Fair

yesterday we went to the Church Christmas fair, which is always a good place to stock up on home made baking, decorations and for J2 to get little presents for her grandparents.

I also bought a knitted tea cosy, aran gloves, a peacock blue scarf for J2, and some baubles on dogwood stems.

I've made some more progress with my knitted decs, this is the second batch a Santa, a holly bauble, a satsuma and some toadstools.
Apparently fungi are traditional European deccies. (they grow in the pine forests, reindeer eat them and become intoxicated and dance around! who knew?).
My kids are enjoying putting a deccie each day on the little tree, and I have now got a lever arch file to put the deccies in. The Alan Dart pattern pack from Simply Knitting was really well put together, with a label for the box included as well as a calendar for the deccies. One day I will finish the knitted tree!!

I was delighted to get my Secret Santa parcel in the post today, its like being a kid again, I've squeezed the parcel, but I haven't opened it (nerves of steel, that's me!) .

Advent..

more than a calendar*, for me.

The countdown to Christmas has begun, the tree calendar is on the wall with chocolate in each pocket for my two kids. One year I spent ages in Jenners' toy department getting tiny toys (power balls, toy soldiers, crayons, magnetic bugs all kinds of things) to go in each pocket for J1. He was not impressed. So, for once I caved in to pester power and now they can have a small sweetie everyday.

This must be the 10th year that we've used this calendar and the kids love to see it go up. The full-on decorations won't go up till the 14th-ish. (I'm so mean!)

The knitted advent tree wont get finished this year (no, really?), so I'm using a small artificial tree to put the deccies on. The kids are taking turns, J1 gets odd numbered days and J2 gets even. Even the main tree is artificial, as we found out when J1 was small that he has an allergy to pine resin, which is not good for a violinist, so, I had to get him some special non-pine resin roisin for his bow. Thankfully this type of allergy is easily dealt with.

I love the build up to Christmas, I love hearing the kids practise their carols, I love seeing the Church nativity play, I love the feeling of hope and generosity in the air. Most people do seem to be kinder to others at this time of year, which is wonderful. It isn't the most important occasion, Easter is more serious and meaningful. Christmas is more about hope and promises, amazing acts of generosity and kindness.

*the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has said that people have largely forgotten what Advent means and think of chocolate calendars instead of the coming of the Christ-child. He has a point.

The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith..

..is the BBC at its best... top quality drama, and for kids too!

While we wait for the Dr Who Christmas special J2 and I enjoy watching The Sarah Jane Adventures. Its well written, well acted and quite moving. In today's ep SJS went back in time to meet her own parents whom she hadn't seen since she was 3 months old.

Of course, it was a trap set by the Trickster so that he could prey on her sense of abandonment to gain access to Earth.

.. and while we watched it I managed to get a bit of knitting done too! I must catch up on my swap knitting, I didn't get much done at the weekend, sadly. I don't think that there's any chance that the advent tree will be completed by 1st Dec, so I might have to fish a mini tree out of the cupboard and use that to put the deccies on. Oh well, there's always next year!

it's a start..

.. I've made a few deccies for the advent tree while listening to the football commentary.

Here we have a gingerbread snowflake, a pear, a penguin, a bugle and a woolly hat; 5 down, 20 to go. Now that I've made some decorations I'll feel happier getting back to the advent tree for a while.

Football news : I was stunned today to hear that Spurs has sacked Juande Ramos and appointed Harry Redknapp in his place.

Last year, the Tottenham board had destabilised Martin Jol, who had been their most successful manager in a good while, because they wanted to appoint Ramos. Ramos won the Carling cup last season, but this season has been a disaster: Spurs sold their two best players, Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov and Ramos was left with a demoralised team struggling at the foot of the table with 2 points. So, Magic Juande had to go, Flash 'Arry came in at a trot.

But what of the people who make these decisions? They are still in the boardroom. Today Spurs beat Bolton 2-0, so the players who couldn't play last week turn in a decent performance... It beggars belief. Footballers earn shedloads of cash but they need someone to hold their hands and tell them how to play.

I'm a bit bemused by Redknapp too: he constantly swears allegiance to Pompey and at the first whiff of an offer he's off (he was approached by the Toon in January). I would be a bit aggrieved if I was a Pompey fan. Sunderland seems a model of stability and sobriety at the moment. ( except for the idiots who threw bottles at Joey Barton on Saturday... what a way to show someone that you disapprove of his violent behaviour... pots and kettles!!

Sunderland stay 9th after today's fixtures, Chelsea were finally beaten at home by Liverpool ( Chelsea had had an unbeaten run of 86 games at home. I had hope it would be Hull who would end that run for them!)

...and Andy Murray retained his St Petersburg title by beating Andrey Golubev 6-1, 6-1.

I love listening to 5live, I get some much knitting done!!

red & white x 2

The North East derby went the right way ( for me), with the red & white army beating the black & white army 2-1. this is the first time that we've beaten them at home for 28 years!

Cissé scored first, Ameobi equalised then Kieran Richardson got the winner which made up for last weekend when he had a goal disallowed.

D is worried about the Toon's perilous position but as the Baggies were beaten at home today by Hull, then the Toon should be able to take them on on Tuesday night.

Sunderland are now at the dizzying heights of 9th in the table, but this could change as most of the PL games are played tomorrow.

After listening to the commentary on 5live I took J2 and her pal M to see High School Musical 3. The cinema was packed with mothers and their daughters with maybe only 5 brave Dads taking their girls to see it. The singing and dancing was great but it was a bit story-lite.

However I'm sure J2 will be wanting a copy of the DVD pretty soon! I did like the fact that the wildcats basketball team played in red & white though- a classic colour combo!!

I've started making some of the deccies for the advent tree and I'm finding them very fiddly. I'm sure it will be worth it when I'm done but they are driving me nuts at the moment!

JFK? not quite..

What happens when the richest club in the PL takes on the struggling Geordies who are being sold (down the river Tyne) by the dippy owner and are managed by the least likely man in the world?

You wouldn't have bet on it but last night the Toon fought back from having Beye sent off & conceding a penalty to draw 2-2 with Man City.

Shola Ameobi was the unlikely scorer, the man is a random event generator, no one knows what he will do, least of all himself. The second goal was a gift from Man City's Richard Dunne.

D and J1 travelled down the A1 out of duty rather than with any hope of any seeing football being played but were heartened to see the team stick together and refuse to give up. The crowd was behind the team rather than howling for the owner to go, and a point was gained rather than 3 lost.

And who is JFK*? the new manager Joe Kinnear got a lot of stick from the press when he was first appointed: he hadn't managed for 4 years, he was from London and a lot of rubbish was printed about him. Then at a press conference he laid into the press, called them all the names under the sun, and the poor delicate flowers that make up the hacks from the Mirror et al printed his words (with a few strategically placed asterisks) to show what a meanie he was for picking on them. Boohoo!

Oddly enough everyone else (on forums almost everywhere!) thought this was quite funny and it seems the Geordie faithful have started to warm to him. And whatever he's doing with the team seems to be working as they have stopped losing and started scoring goals again.

This is where I am torn : I loved living in Newcastle when I was a student and it's hubby's team so I want the Toon to do quite well, but it's the Wear-Tyne derby at the weekend so, of course, I want Sunderland to win that match and get the full 3 points.

Ah me, we'll have to maintain diplomatic relations at the weekend! Still the radio commentary will be excellent to knit to!


* Joe doesn't have a middle name beginning with F as far as I know, it's a ironic joke on the swearing... I'm sure he takes it as a compliment! & good luck to him too!

Murray mint!

Andy Murray won the Madrid Masters today, beating Gilles Simon 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) in the final.

Perhaps it wasn't a classic final, both players had had hard-fought semis yesterday (Murray against Federer and Simon against Nadal), but you have to beat the person on the other side of the net, not who might have been there.

I was thoroughly enjoying listening to the commentary on 5live for the tennis and the football as I did a few more rows on the advent tree. I am fed up with the yarn that I'm using : I feel like I am eating the stuff, the fibres are flying everywhere and its hard to correct my mistakes.

Still, its good to do while listening to sports commentaries, although yesterday I threw it on the sofa in disgust when the Black Cats' goal was disallowed (for no good reason in my view) and we only managed a draw against Fulham.

In the brief interlude of dry weather today I swept up some leaves in the garden, lifted some gladioli corms and planted more spring bulbs and picked the apples from our trees.

One tree did very well, it had been laden with blossom at the time when the bees were out and so the fruit was set (the pears flowered too soon).

The apple is nice to eat, quite crisp, not quite as tangy as a Cox's Orange Pippin but not as sweet as a Gala. My cheap apple trees from Woolworth's produced the green apples.

Next to the fruit bowl is my entire tomato crop! Despite the plant getting a lot of flowers only one fruit set.

I kept trying to chase bees from the lavender into my mini greenhouse to set the tomato, aubergine and capsicum flowers, but they weren't having any of it. So one solitary cherry tomato was produced, and J1 scoffed in a nanosecond!

So this year we have successfully grown rhubarb, potatoes, apples, raspberries, herbs and a little bit of broccoli, but the runner beans, broad beans,cabbages, tomatoes, aubergine courgette and capsicum have suffered from inadequate sun, too many slugs or indifferent bees.

Still, its better than in my old garden where I could only get herbs to grow.


..........and I was thrilled to find out today that I'd won the yarn on Lixie's blog. Woohoo! That wollmeise is going to make something for me and no one else!!

footloose

the first square for the Discworld blanket is done!

Here we have, in all its/his/her glory is the Luggage running from the Bel-hamoroth octopoddy monster shedding gold as it/he/she goes, the flames in the bottom right are the flames of Ankh-Morpork as the good burgers find out about inn-sewer-ants and set fire to their buildings and the Broken-Drum ravens are in the top right.

The rusty red background represents Rincewind's battered old magician's cloak, the purple/aqua frame is Octarine, and dark blue edge is the Multiverse.

I was pleased to be able to find some tiny feet charms at The Bead Shop in Haddington, what a treasure trove that place is!

And now on the needles is an angel for the advent tree. I think the way to get through the tree is to make a deccie, knit some branches, make a deccie...

couldn't wait any longer..

... the advent tree has been put to one side so that I could cast on my square for the Discworld blanket KAL on Ravelry.

I've enjoyed re-reading the first of the Discworld novels, although it wasn't the first that I read, I started with Weird Sisters. It has been great looking back seeing where Pratchett's adventures began. His love of word play is there at the beginning with his jokes on inn-sewer-ants and echo-gnomics and the amount of action he packs into a story.

So on Saturday I sketched out a plan for the square, Sunday & Monday I focused on the advent tree and today I cracked, dashed off to Woolybacks and bought some yarn to make a start.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do for the feet of The Luggage, possibly embroider some pink loops. Some of my fellow daftees/enthusiasts on the KAL are using shrink plastic to make feet(akcolon), or buttons ( Spinnerin).

I had quite a time at Woolybacks and got some yarn to make a sweater for J2 ( but she doesn't like the colour, so that's for me then) and some more sock yarn, this time bamboo.

Lucky Black Cats, High flying Hull, and Toon turn the corner

Grant Leadbitter took the lead in the 86th minute against Arsenal yesterday. It was a sweet moment for Leadbitter, 21 but looks 15, who lost his Dad in the summer.

Fabregas equalized in the dying seconds of the game but Arsenal were the far better team, and were unlucky to have a goal disallowed.

However, I'm happy to have a point. Last season we had so many decisions go against us, ( goals ruled offside when they weren't etc) losing us at least 4 points that it seems only fair to have a few decisions go our way.

The team looked more disciplined than in the past, but it will be a while before we can take Arsenal on at their own game.



Hull beat Spurs at the Lane with another screamer from that man Geovanni. Spurs languish at the foot of the table whereas Hull are 3rd. Third! Its wonderful. After Derby's woeful performance last year the general feeling is that the new boys are going to flounder but Hull don't want that role at all. Good luck to them ( still, I hope we can take some points of them!!)



The Toon turned the tide by coming back from being 2-0 at Goodison to drawing 2-2 with Everton. At the end it could have gone either way but they hung on, got a point and move one place up the table. Joe/Roy Kinnear is doing his best to calm the ship despite the hostile reception of the press ( print & media). He seems to be a bit of a character and, to be fair, did a good job at Watford with little money and few star players.



I got on with my advent tree while listening to 5live. It's not really an enjoyable process, it probably will be better when I start on the decorations but at the moment it seems like a slog. The first layer of branches have been done. I've sketched out a design for the colour of magic, and maybe deep down I want to get on with that, but there's more of a time pressure on the tree, so the tree it has to be.

Pan's Labyrinth

I enjoyed watching a grown-up film last night on Channel 4 Pan's Labyrinth. Its ages since I watched a film with subtitles, and as this was in Spanish I was doubly enthralled.

This is a wonderful mix of dark fantasy and historical drama showing the suffering of Spain under the civil war.

The imagery is very powerful, the reflection of what is around Ofelia at the mill with Francoist soldiers and what she experiences with the faun.

I enjoyed a glass of wine with this but did not pick up my knitting, as I wanted to enjoy the whole Guillermo del Toro experience ( I'm so glad I didn't have a tot of whisky with me as I would have felt very uncomfortable drinking this along with Captain Vidal.)

The advent tree is coming along, once I'd realised what the branch shaping was doing: it's like a series of toecaps that I made on the Lorelei sock, but as the yarn is so fluffy it was difficult to make it out until the first cap was done. It was fine to do while we were watching Merlin on Saturday and Strictly Come Dancing ( c'mon Heather Small!) but not for something as wonderful as El laberinto del fauno.