everyone's a winner

this has been a great weekend for North East teams- Sunderland won at home beating Hull 4-1.

My big bro F was there with one of his sons (D)and was ecstatic after the match, texting me that our new signings are brilliant- especially Darren Bent.

Last season this match was a relegation dog fight but we seem to be doing much better this season, and it so enjoyable to watch and listen to , and we are 7th in the table ( 7th?? it's amazing!!)

Newcastle are leading the top of the Championship table, unbeaten so far, crushing promotion contenders Cardiff 1-0 at Ninian Park today.
Boro are playing out of their skins and beat Ipswich 3-1 at the Riverside yesterday and now lie 3rd. (West Brom are 2nd, so last year's 3 relegated teams are fighting hard to get back up, and I hope that they do ) .

I feel for Portsmouth fans though, as they are rooted at the bottom of the Premier league. They scored twice yesterday and still have no points. As a Sunderland fan I can remember that sort of pain all too well.


Over to cricket now (over??geddit ??) and Durham are League champions for the second year and this is wonderful news as my Dad spends most of his waking hours at Chester-Le-Street enjoying the cricket (much to my Mam's relief! He's 79 and he gets fidgety if he hasn't got something to do!).

And then, more locally J1 plays rugby for Ross High Colts and yesterday they notched up their first win of the season 44-5 against Portobello . I have no piccies of this, let's face I'm not allowed to go to the matches, but I was so pleased for him.

All this is great for churning out the knitting!!

I'm making good progress with J1's BSJ hat.

After the ribbing comes the first weird cabled part which is knitted onto a crochet cast-on and simultaneously joined to the hat.

There's only been twice so far when I've CF4 instead of CB4, so I'm happy with that! I made a mistake with the first cast-on thinking that was supposed to be a temporary crochet cast-on too, but then I realised that I might need to increase the ribbing to fit J1's head, so really its a useful mistake.... (when will I learn to read a pattern all the way through before starting, hmm?)

I'm using one of the football stitch markers from Erin to mark the beginning of the hat, and I've had to put beads on the ends of the dpn's so stop the stitches falling off while I'm doing the cable.

When I started the cable I was listening to Stash & Burn and also picked up another knitting podcast Doubleknit with the twins Erin & Jessica in Seattle. As well as knitting they talk about films and books and have an interesting mix of music too.

The football has been awful to listen to today: Sunderland were beaten 2-1 at home by Villa, after taking an early lead (and Villa's first goal should have been disallowed and they shouldn't have got a penalty either, mutter, mutter); the Toon were marmalised by Blackburn 3-0 (and they didn't help themselves by getting a man sent off and Joey Barton arguing with his own team, the idiot), and Boro lost 3-0 to West Brom. The bottom half of the table is so close: Bolton are 12th (23 points), ahead of the Toon, Sunderland and Pompey (13th,14th & 15th) only on goal difference, then Blackburn and Boro are 16th & 17th with 21 points, only ahead of Stoke & West Brom on goal diff. Spurs are currently bottom with 20 points but they play Portsmouth tomorrow (which could be very interesting as Harry Houdini takes on his old team and Tony Adams takes on his old boss, and both teams are desperate for points).

I enjoyed the football more on Wednesday when I listened to Southend take on Chelsea in the FA cup replay, and could just enjoy the game without the emotional trauma.

Sometimes it's just too stressful being a fan!

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake (1757-1827)

Hull's tigers took on Arsenal at the Emirates, and by jiminy, they won (2-1)! Geovanni's goal was an absolute peach, and Hull were organised they knew how Arsenal played, they blocked the channels and really took them on. They were great! To be fair, Arsenal weren't really switched on, and didn't play their best even though they took the lead early, but Hull took on the team that was there and they were great!!

It certainly made up for an awful day for the North East ( Phil Brown, the Hull manager is from South Tyneside, so we can claim him as one of ours).

D & J had a miserable time at St James', the Toon being beat 2-1 by Blackburn. The interim manager Joe Kinnear will have his work cut out. (I was a bit confused when I heard the name, I was thinking Roy Kinnear and wondering why he'd given up acting!).

Sunderland played reasonably well at Villa park took the lead but were beaten 2-1, and the Boro outplayed West Brom but were beaten 1-0!

Thank heavens for the cricket! Durham won the championship for the first time in their history, they've only been in the top flight for 16 years, so its a wonderful achievement. Dad will be chuffed to bits!