EDINBURGH!!

We went to Edinburgh on Thursday and returned today. We stayed with our friends Pete and Lynsey, and their sons, Nathan and Jason. Hagos had a meeting in Glasgow on the Saturday and I thought I may as well take the opportunity for a wee holiday.

I had hoped to visit Coco and Handknit but Pete and Lyns have moved from Bruntsfield so I only managed to view the shops wistfully on the way into town on the bus.

On Friday night we went out to dinner along with Rik, our other friend who now lives in Edinburgh with his girlfriend Jenny.

Above is Rik. He is also a live sound engineer, touring the world.

And this is Pete and Hagos. Also known as Fuselage.

I think we were all rather drunk by this point, looking at the faces! By far the prettiest was Lynsey:

It was SO nice to see everyone again, and to meet Jenny for the first time, and to spend time with Nathan who is obsessed with dinosaurs, superheroes and pooh, and Jason who smiled all the time.

Valentine's Day Chocolate Cake Massacre

I made a Valentine's Cake, based on Nigella Lawson's Easter Egg cake, for Katy who I work with. Instead of scattering the eggs willy nilly, a la Nigella, I formed them into the shape of a loveheart.

Katy made coffee for everyone at 10am, and asked the room if they thought it was too early to have chocolate cake.

A resounding NO, of course.

Everyone had a reasonably-sized piece, and ate half of it before unbuttoning their belts and exhaling loudly.

The ingredients are mainly CHOCOLATE, with eggs, sugar, butter and cream. No flour whatsoever, so it's very mousse-like.

I should have taken a photo of it, but it was devoured before I got my camera out.

I'm home alone tonight as my husband has gone to do a gig with his band in London. Meg has been following me around the house and sitting on me at every opportunity since I got back from town. She'd got very close to my husband recently. She doesn't like change!

I got an email today from Meg's previous owner, Wendy. Meg started acting strangely over a week ago and we finally figured out she was on heat. Wendy confirmed Meg has never been spayed because they wanted more ginger cats. I emailed back to say I'd drop off the kittens in nine weeks' time.

I'm off to bed at 9.30pm tonight as I really need to sleep. I'll read a bit of The Moonstone before I drop off. Until then I'm knitting more of my purple beady socks, and watching, what else, Pride and Prejudice (BBC version, of course).

Purple Beady Socks

I've started on my next pair of beady socks. Not sure if I'll keep them for presents or for myself. I'm impressed by how quickly they knit up. The photo is a little blurry but is truer to the colour than the photos I took using flash.

I'm in my shed again today (Monday is shed day - I have a desk and lamp and books and electric fire and my laptop). I had acupuncture done on Friday and I've slept so well the last three nights. I last had acupuncture done about 15 years ago, and that was just a taster session. I really liked it. When I was leaving the shop (had it done at Neals Yard in Norwich) my balance had been affected and I fell against a wooden stand holding a book but I didn't feel unbalanced. Kind of felt like I was on a ship.

Anyway, between sleeping well and being disturbed by my little cat during the night (we think she's on heat!) I overslept this morning and got into my shed late so I've had trouble getting going today. And now it's time for lunch :)

Hasta luego.

Isn't She Lovely...

I figured out how to use my camera on Macro and practised it on my little kitty. She's been very aloof the last couple of days. Before that she was affectionate and friendly. Yesterday afternoon she and my husband shared the couch for a little snooze:

I've decided to do less knitting and blog-reading and more of something else. I've become too obsessed with knitting and reading other people's blogs lately. I particularly like Scandinavian knitting blogs, whether there's an English translation or not. I've always been drawn to snow and Scandinavian/Icelandic landscapes. I miss Scotland very much for the mountains and hills and lochs. The Norfolk landscape does nothing for me at all. The churches are lovely but I dislike the flatness. I like relief and movement and splendour and perspective.

I have one half-finished jumper, the fiddlesome 'Gemma':

I'm knitting it in the purple and red in the photograph, as shown in an earlier post. I also have the wool to make this:

I've put my wool in the photo too. The main colour will be dark purple, the contrasting colour will be green. I KNOW THESE COLOURS TOGETHER MEAN I WILL BE KNITTING ANOTHER PURPLE AND GREEN JUMPER. I bought the wool for this ages ago. There's just no getting away from the fact that purple and green go really well when knitted together :)

I also have the wool for three pairs of socks. And I want to make my Tapestry design. So I shall still be knitting but intend structuring my time better so I get other stuff achieved too!

Saying that, I did, of course, purchase the new Rowan magazine on Saturday and I believe it is a return to form. The last couple of magazines have been bizarre. More to do with the styling than the actual designs, possibly. Layers upon layers, making it difficult to figure out what it was in the photo that had actually been knitted. I LOVE KNITTING AND I LOVE ROWAN:

Altruistic Socks

I decided to give my beady bed socks to my mother for her birthday on Saturday. I'm not sure whether she'll like them, I hope she does. I've wanted to knit her something for ages but she can't wear wool on her hands so I thought socks might be the thing! For some reason feet and legs always look stumpy when photographed with socks on. I thought this was the best shot, though you can't see the beads so well.

I did a very quick embroidery of 'MUM' on the sole in blue wool, which probably won't last very long as I did it AFTER I'd sewn up the sock so it was very difficult.

I also got her some notecards.













And wrapped them in blue tissue with pink love-heart ribbon.