fun in the sun

the sun has been shining so brightly today-it's been glorious- I keep thinking "it is March, isn't it?".
I had another wonderful walk with the dog by the river, was amused by the frogs, saw a butterfly down in the woods (a cabbage white) a bumble bee in my garden, and when I was tidying up last year's perennials, I found a ladybird! It must be May!


I had a lovely time sitting on the decking in the sunshine doing some knitting too. I've started listening to the SF classic Dune by Frank Herbert.

This is riveting stuff, so riveting in fact that I missed row 12 for the cable twist in the Twist sock and had to rip back 6 rows. (buggrit!) so instead of being riveting, it became ripit-ripitting stuff (although UK frogs don't make that noise apparently, its only the species of frogs near Hollywood who are immortalised on film soundtracks and are now the voice of the world's frogs. Thanks to QI for that one!)

Hope the warm weather stays for a while longer- I could get used to this!

halfway there

the first sock is finished and fits J2 beautifully.

Of course now I have to knit another one otherwise she will have to hop everywhere!

There was a slight delay in finishing as I needed some 2mm dpns for the rib and I had to send of to Create & Knit for some . They look like cocktail sticks!

While I was waiting a did few cms of passionflower but the back is still not
finished. I can't believe I managed to knit J2's Candy sweater so quickly.

I also got some Peaches and Cream cotton from C&K to make some face cloths and wash cloths, this is the first for the kitchen. I'm going to make some fancier ones for J2 as she loves using face cloths.



The wet weather is back although we did have a few warm days and the butterflies were out in full force, although I couldn't manage to take any photos of the peacocks, even though there were 3 on the same flower branch of the buddleia.

I did see this butterfly though for the first time, I think it is a dingy skipper which is under threat in Scotland, but if anyone can properly identify it I would be grateful.

The recent events at Newcastle United are thoroughly depressing, I can't understand how the board managed to make such a hash of their relationship with Kevin Keegan. It's just as well there is no home match this weekend as the mood in Newcastle is ugly.

welcome visitor

This is what a want to see in my garden: butterflies feasting on the nectar of a buddleia bush. I think its been a bad summer for butterflies, its been too wet and cold and I've hardly seen any.

I've seen a red admiral in the garden once or twice this last week but not been able to take a photo, until today. the sun was out and so were the butterflies: this red admiral, a peacock on the buddleia in the front garden, and a cabbage white flitting about unable to decide where to land.

Oddly enough I see plenty of moths at night time, but its been a very bad year for butterflies.

I'm sure if slugs looked prettier and didn't destroy everything in their path then they would be welcome visitors too, but they don't, they do and they aren't.

I found four in the beer baited slug traps this morning, so I bought some more cheap beer ( Tesco's Value Bitter @ 41p per can, at least half the price of branded labels!) so hopefully some more will meet their drunken end tonight.

I'm enjoying knitting Lorelei now that I've got the hang of ssk . I think I have about 4 cm to do before the heel. I can see how knitters get absorbed with lace patterns, as its interesting seeing the pattern develop after a few rows of ssk, s1, k1, psso.

After I finished listening to The Spanish Game I started on " A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini , which is a heartrending tale of life in Kabul under the communists, the jihad and the Taleban. At times my needles have stopped with shock as the violence explodes. The domestic violence is just as appalling. Its a tremendous story and gives a lot of insight into ordinary Afghanis lives. I enjoyed his first novel " The Kite Runner" too.

The footy is going well, Sunderland beat Notts Forest ( just) and Newcastle beat Coventry ( again, just) to go through to the next stage of the League Cup. I hadn't realised Roy Keane had played for Forest as a young'un, so it was quite special for him to be going there for a cup-tie. I had forgotten that Cloughie had been a Sunderland player once, scoring 54 goals for the Black Cats.

A lot of the Forest fans were wearing green sweaters in tribute to their former manager Brian Clough ( Ole Big 'Ead, as he called himself). He was quite a character, passionate about football, incredibly knowledgeable about the game , massively successful as a manager and a thorn in the side of the establishment. He was beaten by stomach cancer in 2004.

He was a marmite kind of person, you either loved or hated him, there was no middle way. I thought he was tremendous, and the people of Nottingham & Derby do too, after all he won the European Cup twice with Forest (79 and 80) which is an amazing achievement for an unfashionable provincial club.

of shoes and ships and sealing wax

and cabbages and kings..

Today was the Spring Fair! What a glorious sunny day after the rain and cold of this week, it was lovely to sit and eat fruit kebabs, strawberry& cream scones & listen to the Boroughmuir Big Band in the sunshine.

Part of our haul is here, books, plant pots, cakes, ballons, a tombola prize and a butterfly that's floated by. And I caught up with friends and chatted about all manner of things ( shoes were mentioned, not sure about the cabbages though). I wanted to have a shot of the sumo wrestling , but the suits were only kid sized ( shame!)

Great fun had by all, and lots of money raised by the PTA!