Bonfire Night! and Monday Morning

We had a great Bonfire Night this year. We always try to celebrate with the Burnses and this year it was much easier living only 8 miles away. I wanted to keep it as easy and stress-free as possible, so we stripped it right back to: bonfire :: takeaway food :: fireworks.


During the afternoon we collected firewood with our neighbours and their kids (having a truck, a chainsaw and a mini-wheelbarrow really helps!), then the three wives did a dash to the fish and chip shop (and Tesco's for wellies and dry socks) while the husbands continued to build the bonfire. After food Pete and our other neighbour Hamish (who had turned up with his one mega-box of fireworks) disappeared into the darkness and from then on the rest of us watched the lovely colours and sparks and heard the bangs. We could just make out Pete and Hamish beating a hasty retreat from the occasional larger firework. It was great fun, and so lovely to be outside next to a warm fire. I missed lots of good photo opportunities by leaving my camera back in the house after we returned with food. There was a particularly good shot of three of the kids lined up with sparklers, which I missed. It was great to see the kids getting involved in the wood collecting with much gusto! Nate and Peter and Guy threw themselves into the adventure. JJ was struck, almost as soon as he arrived, with very wet feet and was out of action until the wellies came to his rescue. 


I also enjoyed walking back to the field the following morning (bright sunshine, crisp and frosty) to collect the spent fireworks and try to return the ground to its former state. Though I did think that if a woman had been setting up the fireworks she would have carefully laid the removed clod of earth next to its corresponding hole, for ease of return, rather than what looked like Pete and Hamish's excited frenzy of flinging the clods willy nilly across the field making them difficult to find :) But, you know, boys and their toys.

This was the lovely reflection above our fireplace this morning.

My jumper progress. I'm liking it more and more. Though I feel I should stop once I complete the front, and work on Christmas presents instead.

I wanted to capture the close-up detail of the stitches but I think I need a macro lens to do that.


I'm thinking of knitting more of the capped 4-ply jumpers to use as vests through the winter. I never really knew what to do with that jumper until now, but it really adds insulation to wear it as a vest (on top of my actual, cotton vest - one can never have too many vests in winter in Scotland). It only uses four balls of wool and is an easy knit. 


I'm also thinking of re-designing my new winter accessories range and going for charcoal and purple as the colour theme. I loved the charcoal base of Lynsey's mittens, and I think purple snowflakes on the mittens would be striking. I'd also knit my favourite winter hat pattern in Big Wool charcoal, and put purple pom poms on the bottom. Then I'd just have to decide on the design for the scarf. I like the idea of chunky cables somehow, though I also thought of repeating the snowflake pattern at each end of the scarf. Lots of winter knitting coming up!