Limecat

Maggie

2011-04-16T23:56:00.001+01:00

October 7th 2000 – April 5th 2011

Maggie facts;

Maggie didn’t mew. She squeaked. Like a little mouse.

She never scoffed her food like her brother. She would take a mouthful, turn her head away from her bowl, and nibble delicately.

When she walked, she wiggled.

When she ran, she bounced as if on air cushioned soles.

She was named after my aunt, even though my aunt is not a cat and has no idea that one was named after her.

She could leap onto high surfaces like a prima ballerina. Her grace was astonishing.

If you held your hand over her head, she would stand upright on her back legs and nuzzle your palm with her cheeks and whiskers.

She could hold her own against a brother twice her size.

Her favourite things were walking (illegally) on the kitchen surfaces and sitting (illegally) on the flat top of the oven, especially if it had just been on and was nice and warm and toastie. I asked her not to do this, but she decided to ignore me. As you can see, from the picture above.

She would climb onto your shoulder, grip your collar, and sit there like Long John Silver’s parrot, surveying the world below as you walked her around the room.

She could deliver a crushing look of disdain if the mood took her.

On her first day in her new home, she was straight out of the cat box exploring, whilst her big brother cowered behind her.

When play fighting she didn’t use her claws, just her soft pads.

She would sit by the window on the wireless router because it was warm, and she could see you when you got back from work.

She broke the router.

When she was curious or intrigued by something, her eyes would grow so wide in her tiny little head that SmallCat would call her Saucer Eyes.

She had a number of other names – Maggie, Mags, Madge, Marge, Magaluf, Margils, Margils of Society, Living on the Margils of Society, Little Lady. She answered to them all, obviously – she wouldn’t want to miss out on anything after all.

She liked eating flowers. I told her not to do this, but she decided to ignore me.

She became ill after christmas, and died just as the flowers started to blossom.

She is buried in the back garden, in the brown blanket she is kneading in the picture, which was taken the day before she died.

There are forget-me-nots and catmint where she lies, not that we would ever forget her, but the catmint might come in handy.

She was the gentlest, sweetest natured cat we have ever known.

We miss her.

Guillotine Gaffe

2010-09-19T22:58:00.001+01:00

Look, we wanted some neck of lamb, right? And we knew the word for lamb. And we were in Bayeux, and there was a butcher close to the war museum, so we went in to get our dinner for the evening.

Unfortunately, there were about, oh, I dunno, at least SEVERAL different cuts of lamb in the window and we hadn’t the faintest idea which one was neck. We thought we knew, but it could have been collar and that would have been a DISASTER.

So MrCat, being the designated French conversationalist on our trip, was pushed forward through the door. There were three or four customers in there and, as luck would have it, they were all French (wouldn’t you know it!).

“Bonjour”, said the butcher (that’s French, that is. It means “hello”. I am FLUENT, me).

“Agneau” said MrCat, who had “I AM ENGLISH” written all over him. The shop went silent and I swear the butcher had his hand raised with the meat cleaver in it, expectantly, like something out of Delicatessen. (It is quite possible, however, that I’m saying this for dramatic effect and it bears no relation to the truth. That’s for you to decide).

Anyway, MrCat gathered himself to make his point and at that moment, for reasons I cannot explain, I inexplicably did this chopping motion with my hand across my neck.

What I was trying to say was “neck cut”, but I realise now that it could have been misinterpreted as some typical English mockery of La Revolution, and that unspeakable unpleasantness with Madame Guillotine, and Robespierre and Desmoulins and all that wig wearing nonsense and lace cuffs. And heads rolling down the Place de la Revolution, pursued by mad Gallic personages.

Why does my entire life always come round to lace cuffs and fops?And in this case, a potential diplomatic incident which could have totally destroyed Anglo-French relations.

Anyway, the butcher had the good manners to smile, and gave us a splendid dinner, and for what it’s worth I would have supported La Revolution although I draw the line at beheading.

To be honest, I draw the line at mild punching. Actually, make that a very hard stare and a look of disappointment.

In our next installment we shall verily expounde on the diverse variety of war memorials and suchlike, with a brief detour to Honfleur which is a town very pleasing on the eye, but well packed with tourists, for shame!

Life’s Rich Patisserie – Bayeux Pt I

2010-09-11T23:41:00.001+01:00

No, no, I mean tapestry, sorry.

Bayeux was great. Abso-bl**dy-lutely great. And we didn't forget the sandwiches this time, which made it even greater. Mighty, in fact.

When I was a wee slip of a girl, an entire academic year was taken up in a tutorial room with lovely Mr Hodges and slightly less lovely (borderline insane if you ask me) Dr Edwards. Lovely Mr Hodges was everything a stereotypical history lecturer is supposed to be - quiet, comforting, a bit sleepy, cuddly like a small bear (large bear in his case, but never mind). He also wore clogs. There you go.

Dr Edwards used to run about at high speed and tell us off. On one memorable occasion he stopped a lecture after 5 minutes and told us all to get out, just GET OUT, I REFUSE to continue this lecture because not one of you has bothered to do your assignment (I had, as it happens, but he wouldn't listen and anyway, the prospect of an afternoon off made it not worth arguing the toss about).

You’re not allowed to take pictures of the tapestry, so here is some wool in a shop in Bayeux

The point is (there is one, yes), that both of these intellectual giants mentioned the Bayeux Tapestry with tedious frequency as a primary source to the point where we'd all doze off at the mere mention and wish to goodness that Queen Matilda had never gone to needlework classes, or had stuck to embroidering sequinned pants (as mentioned in another post). But I was so wrong.

The tapestry "in person" is awesome. You can get a wee bit blase if you've spent your life looking at history things, but I could have spent all day in there. Which would have gone down like a lead balloon as it would have caused a pile up and people would have either fallen over in a heap, or pushed me headfirst out the exit. It's a bit like seeing the Crown Jewels in the Tower, you have to move along and try not to hold everyone up.

Here is a little sainted person in a church in Bayeux. Gasp in awe at yet MORE ARCHES!

Best of all, the audio tour was most definitely not rubbish. No made up nonsense about shiny swords, Matilda's lingerie or what William had for breakfast. Not unless these things were actually on the tapestry before your very eyes. Just facts. FACTS FACTS FACTS. Sparkly facts. You walk along, each panel is numbered, and the beautiful RADA trained voice in your ear tells you what's going on in each segment. Perfect.

And the best bit? The smiley horses. I loved the smiley horses. In order to highlight the fact that everyone, even the animals, were convinced by the rightness of William's invasion expedition, the industrious tapestry ladies sewed in a whole boatload of hooved characters, grinning away as their ship took them to certain death, or at the very least a very tiring and uncomfortable afternoon near Hastings with no time for oat breaks. And there they were - cartoon horses, embroidered centuries before, someone taking the time and trouble to give them smiles which are still visible to us all in 2010. Did the seamstresses all laugh about it at the time? Was it a private joke? Was it done to amuse a child? Did someone tell them to do it to impress the Duke and upset the Saxons, or was someone trying out a new stitch? I don't know, but it was beautiful. Just...beautiful.

And that, my friends, is why I love history. It is real and it is human and it is about people who are the same as us, just with longer frocks and less bandwidth.

Imagine getting that kind of finish on a garment from Primark? I don't think so, ladies.

In our next installment we really will (yes, verily and trulye) visit the French butcher that we didn’t have time to scribe about this time because we are verily disorganised and in a bit of ye olde rush.

InterNot

2010-09-06T10:38:00.001+01:00

I have been on holiday (yes, again. It doesn't happen often so don't begrudge me). I come back and what do I find? A dead phone line and no internet connection. And there I was, ready and eager, nay GAGGING, to update you on the rest of my highly exciting cake tour of Normandy.

I tried to build my own modem using a tin can, a selection of coloured strings, some glue and a pair of net curtains but, as you can imagine, this isn't really working out. I'm not terribly good at electronics. Using a mobile phone to blog will only make me angry, mainly because my mobile was designed by Satan himself for the sole purpose of annoying me. So best wait for the engineer to call, whenever that might be.

I shall sulk in the meantime. You see if I don't.

Normandy Day III – Mont St Michel

2010-08-23T23:52:00.001+01:00

Well, this day started as an utter, utter disaster. In fact, it was possibly one of the WORST days of my ENTIRE LIFE!

We forgot the sandwiches.

Even now, the memory makes me shudder. We also forgot our cameras as they were both in my rucksack – WITH THE SANDWICHES – and the rucksack was not in the car with us, but on the kitchen table in the Gite, severalty billion miles away.

Much slapping of palms on foreheads followed, but technology being what it is, we had our mobile phones. And in France, you can always find food.

Never mind the monastery – where’s the flippin’ cake shop!

Mont St Michel is mighty fine. It’s a veritable layer of historical slices, like an angel cake (oh Lord, the food trauma is still with me). From the Norman arches to the 18th Century facade, from the crypt to the cloisters – it is a beautiful, architecturally intricate building. You would be hard pushed not to find something to appeal.

In a post from many months ago I pointed out (quite correctly, as it happens) that 18th Century history is a complete and utter waste of time, so there are no pictures of the main doors into the monastery. This is because they were no doubt built by bewigged fops and powdered dandies, the sort of wasters who totally failed to turn up and show their support at the Battle of Culloden in 1745 and thus left England in the hands of the wicked Hanoverians. So I have NO TIME FOR THEIR ORNATE DOORS! I give you, instead, the rather beautiful arches of a previous (and far more interesting) era of history.

I am a Norman Arch and I don’t care who knows it.

And here is St Michael, who seems to be in something of a foul temper. He has obviously just realised that St Gabriel has raided his rucksack and run off with his sandwiches. We’ve all been there, believe me.

I’d put brie in and everything.

For my next blogging installment, I shall describe the lovely and picturesque town of Bayeux, the treasures of the tapesterie, an encounter at the butcher which produced much mirthe and gaiety with the local inhabitants, and a thought provoking and interesting diversion at the war museum.

Please do not put knitting needles in your eyes

2010-08-08T00:31:00.001+01:00

Normandy Day Two – Caen.

Caen is lovely. Really, it is. You’d never know it was horribly destroyed during WWII because it looks “just so”. There are the obvious things, like the Norman churches and castle, but aside from that it’s pretty and elegant anyway. It all fits, and it is all lovely.

But let’s get something out of the way first. I’m on holiday, right? And this woman I don’t even know has said that she likes Orangina. I have a holiday to enjoy here, things to see, people to eat, and what do I do? I take a photograph of a sexually provocative zebra wearing a swimming costume and drinking from a bottle of Orangina. I do this because Silverpebble – as I’ve said, a woman I’ve never met – has said that she likes that particular drink. BLOGGING MAKES YOU DO DEMENTED THINGS.

How many levels of wrong is this? Five? Six? I’d say about twenty at the very least.

These things are all over the place. If it’s not a zebra, it’s an antelope, a polar bear or a disgruntled gnu. Truly I say to you – the French are bonkers.

Their ancestors, however, knew how to build. My goodness, didn’t they just.

This is Abbeye Aux Hommes, where that big, fat dingbat William the Conqueror is buried. Or rather, where his femur is buried. Amazing that the only thing left of him is a slender bone, considering the fact that he literally exploded when they tried to ram him into the space reserved for his cadaver. I love an exploding monarch. Henry VIII exploded as well. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, really.

And here is Abbeye Aux Dames where Matilda (remember her? She of the lovely silver frock, damask corset, emerald encrusted knickers, ruby studded bra and basalt lined 15 denier tights), is buried. Yes, that’s Matilda, the poor woman forced to marry said big, fat dingbat. For that selfless act alone she should have a massive church with flashing lights over the bell towers. But wouldn’t you know it? She gets a smaller church than he does. And yet – I prefer hers. The simplicity and clean lines are less spectacular, but there’s a quietness and calmness about her church which I preferred.

In between these two ecclesiastical delights, we visited the Chateaux where, to my absolute joy, we encountered a man wearing a T-Shirt bearing the legend “I STILL HATE THATCHER”. Well, frankly, had I not been carrying a camera and a bottle of water, I’d have shaken him firmly by the paw. But perhaps that’s just me and most normal people have let that one go, moved on, dispensed with any traces of bitterness, gnrrrrrrr…….

Oh, hang on, I forgot the food. After we left the Abbeye Aux Hommes we ate some delicious sandwiches that MrCat had prepared. For those of you interested in these things they contained brie and rosette, and, in my case, traces of cucumber. The bread had been bought fresh that morning from our local boulangerie. I say OUR local boulangerie but it was MrCat who got up early, went down there and purchased the goods (along with the obligatory pastries), so in truth it was HIS boulangerie, not mine. But never let it be said that I let facts get in the way of a good sandwich. We ate them on the side of a busy road, paying no heed to the glances we received.

In the grounds of the Castle, there is an art display. Several rather disconcerting sculptures were poised on tall wooden poles and suspended over the art gallery. It was only when you got close that you realised they’d been designed by a LUNATIC!

I mean, what on earth is going on here, I ask you?

To my eyes, that is a pig with a man’s head. Pardon? I said, PARDON? And it’s no good saying it looks a bit like something by Bosch (whom I like, by the way). That simply makes it more, not less, demented.

And if you WILL insist on doing Fair Isle with small knitting needles then what do you expect?

Either read the pattern more closely or use a knitting machine, I say.

Normandy

2010-07-31T23:17:00.001+01:00

If I was clever and literary, I could do a fancy travelogue, but since I am neither, you’ll get pictures, a few words and be grateful for it (as my mother would say).

We stayed in a little village called Clinchamps-sur-Orne, notable for it’s rather excellent boulangerie, which MrCat visited every morning to provide me with numerous delicacies while I waited in bed for my tea and whatever cake it was he brought back. Which makes me sound like some kind of hideous Queen Bee. Urgh.

Anyway, our first excursion was on the Sunday after our arrival. We trekked up to Falaise, the birthplace of William of Conqueror, a man I studied at GREAT AND PAINFUL LENGTH as an undergraduate and for whom I developed an utter loathing surpassed only by my dislike of pineapples.

Hi, my name’s Matilda, and as you can see, I am wearing a lovely gown

Things to note and of which I am proud.

1. I did not bore MrCat with history.

That is the only thing to note of which I am proud. But that’s pretty good going, since I’m a notorious history bore. Especially since I had to bite my tongue throughout the rather fatuous audio tour which consisted of illuminating comments such as “Matilda wore a lovely gown and had some pearls in her hair”, while I stood there thinking “yes, yes, but when was the castle built, what materials did they use and – hang on a minute, who CARES if Matilda had a lovely gown, what on earth does that have to do with the price of fromage and it’s impact on the economic development of Norman England and, more to the point, how do we KNOW it was lovely? Name your sources, or keep your silence, fools”.

View from the donjon of Falaise

The castle has been seriously renovated, with a new glass floor and some rather nice, albeit somewhat pointless, giant sized chess pieces which look like they were made from the origami kit you bought from your local craft shop and actually bothered to open.

Line up your Audio Cassette and Fire at Will – drawing from the exhibition at Falaise

Don’t be put off by this cynicism. I get a bit killy when history is dumbed down and in a way I was interested to see that the French are as bad as the English for this kind of foolishness. Falaise itself is lovely, there is some beautiful architecture, lovely churches and at least TWO boulangeries (in case you’re interested we bought a giant sized apricot pastry). A very pretty place to sit in a town square and while away a half an hour with a beer and a cafe au lait. And the castle is magnificent. Ignore me. I’m just playing it for laughs.

For my next blogging installment, I shall describe many and varied events in the City of Caen, including a trip to the burial place of William the Conqueror, and diverse and colourful passages regarding sculptings of a very interesting and unusual nature.

Swishy flowers an’ ting

2010-07-24T00:07:00.001+01:00

I did this. Oh yes, I did this. FEAR ME AND MY GARDENING SKILLZ!

Actually, the picture makes it look better than it actually is, but I’m all for removing double chins in head and shoulder portraits so what the hell.

The garden project is a long and protracted affair and shall be blogged boringly anon. There’s only a few of you here anyway (as mentioned before, the probation officer, the bailiff, the tax collector and a selection of hangers on from the pub) so I can bore for England unhindered.

As of tomorrow I am off to Normandy with MrCat. I gave him a list of places I’d be happy to go on holiday and left him to it. At one point I was packing my walking shoes and sou’wester for a trip to the Peak District and was quite surprised by the “right, we’re going to Normandy” email I received about an hour later.

Splendid stuff. And it was with great joy that I was able to inform MrCat that my first year as a history undergraduate was spent studying “The Norman Conquest”. This was not, as one might expect, fixated on the year 1066. It was about the whole Norman thing from the time of Rollo right through to 1066 and beyond – the ecclesiastical, administrative and military revolution that the Normans brought about once they’d booted the Saxons into touch (cue lots of booing from the back of the lecture room – that was me, by the way).

Funny really – his face fell when I told him this. I thought he’d be delighted by the prospect of listening to me rabbit on ad nauseum about the development of the motte and bailey castle. I can’t imagine why he wasn’t leaping for joy.

Men. Huh.

Words fail me

2010-07-19T18:44:00.001+01:00

I mean, really, what can one say? Did people actually MAKE this stuff? Ever?

Flowers

2010-07-12T21:43:00.001+01:00

It seems that nearly all the blogs I read will, at some point, feature flowers. This is not a bad thing. But I’m feeling left out and want to do it too.

So for the benefit of my loyal blog followers (all half dozen of them – 2 cats, a couple of probation officers and the bailiffs), I give you some pictures of my new garden.

The herb patch was, literally, covered in ivy and convolvulus when we moved in. My sister came round and told me she could see a fuchsia under the carnage. I didn’t believe her, but I set about the weeds with a hacksaw and a flamethrower and LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!

And breathe, ladies…..

And look at this here little treasure…

Ta-da!

I hope you chaps are halfway competent at identifying and naming plants, as I’ve some unidentified flora I’ll need some help with. Oh, and any tips at garden design will be very, very, very gratefully received.

-------------------------------

This week, I have been mostly trying to look as if I know what I’m doing in the garden. I have failed valiantly.

Knickers and pies

2010-07-03T11:46:00.001+01:00

That got your attention!

It certainly got mine.

Here are some knickers. What intrigued me about these items is that their existence came to my attention because I know of someone who actually bought – and therefore wears, yes WEARS – these things. What madness is this? To be fair, she’s only got the Anne Boleyn ones, but I don’t really want to dwell on the implications of someone wearing a pair of pants with Henry VIII’s bloated face on them.

In case you’re interested – as I’m sure many of you now are – you can get them here - historical knickers

On a more entertaining note, these knitted pies are the best thing ever. Just – well, click on the link and look at the sad little faces on those poor wee bunnies….

Pork and Bunny Pie

I so, so wish I’d thought of this!

The link says knitted, but they look like crochet to me. Good old Guardian, getting it wrong!

Week end better than Week start

2010-06-19T22:32:00.001+01:00

Last week was a ‘mare and I’m glad it’s done. Having been put on “those” tablets to stop me having bonkers thoughts, things are a lot better. Almost positive. Almost, dare I say it, content. And then I found a lump where no woman wants to find one, so off to the doctor I go.

There are targets nowadays. You can only wait 2 weeks TOPS, no longer. Thus I was whisked off for scans last Friday. This Tuesday, after fretting all weekend, I got the results. "”Hmmm, there’s a shadow here. Look, I’m 90% sure you’re ok but….you need more tests”. Oh poo. Oh pooey fooey. And of course a hypochondriac like me will focus on the 10%, not the 90%. Oh yes.

But yesterday I had more tests and (oh the relief) – “YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY FINE”. From start to finish all done in 10 days. Of which more in another blog post. Possibly. I may prefer to forget, to be honest.

So I’ve been enjoying the weekend I can tell you, even though it’s mostly involved painting walls and other sundry decorating.

Winchester in the sunshine

And “those” tablets. Sometimes they cause odd feelings of euphoria, extreme ones which take me unawares. I think this will settle down, but at the moment it’s nuts (in a good way). Walking back from work along the towpath, for instance. Spinning around (yes, SPINNING AROUND like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music with arms outstretched) and shouting “WOOOT!” because I saw a moorhen, and then a great tit, and the sun was shining and I thought of the Smallcat and the Catman and how much I love them and how lucky I am. Spinning right round, like a middle aged record.

The moorhen has scarpered. She’s obviously not a fan of Scritti Politti.

Can I bottle this feeling? It would make me a fortune.

One word of advice – do not sing out loud whilst plugged into your MP3 player on said towpath, assuming there’s no one else around. Because there might be, and they might be startled by your appalling rendition of “The Word Girl”. Oh, the embarassment.

I am an agent of social decay

2010-06-12T21:44:00.001+01:00

Hopefully this is a gentle, cosy blog. A blog about attempts to crochet toys which mainly go wrong and end up looking like aliens. A blog where I sometimes mention a lovely little boy and a gorgeous man, and planes plunging at 1000mph into active, exploding volanoes in Iceland, exacerbated by the songs of Bjork. You know – everyday stuff.

It’s not really about issues, or heavy duty topics, or politics, or the end of the world. Even during the election one tried to keep it, you know – light.

But today I am angry. Very, very angry, and I’m going to use this blog to rant.

Frank Field. Yes, you. You have suggested that pre school clubs, which enable mothers (note – never the father, always the mother, for we are the ones to blame for social decay, obviously) to get to work by 9am are somehow a signifier of maternal failing. We don’t love our children, or care about our children, enough to make them breakfast ourselves.

How DARE you, how absobloodylutely DARE you suggest that working mothers are somehow lacking in parental skills and parental love. How DARE you suggest that because we send our children to pre school clubs - because we have work - that we are somehow failing them, ruining their lives, contributing to this tedious, oft repeated load of old TRIPE commonly known as “broken Britain” (and I swear, if I hear that phrase one more time I will put my boot through someone’s head – and I don’t even wear boots).

I have breakfast with my son before he goes to school. We get up a bit earlier you see, Frank. D’oh! And do you think I want to work full time? Do you actually think I want to get someone else to pick my son up at 3.30pm while I’m out there earning the money to pay for the roof over my head? Affordable housing would help, Frank. Affordable bloody housing.

And you always refer to the feminine, Frank. The “she”, the “mother”. Never the father. Never the man. How does a single mother cope, Frank? How does she pay the bills if she doesn’t work? Tell you what, love – how about I become a stay at home mum and get YOU to pay my welfare bills, put me in a council house – or, you know, not, because there’s a shortage of council housing, a shortage of childcare provision too, so I’d find it difficult to get a job once I’d given up work. Hey – I’d plunge my child into poverty, and then you’d be calling for my head. But at least I’d be at home, living hand to mouth, stressed, depressed, unable to afford the mortgage, but doing the traditional thing, the way you people want it. The way it is in la la land, inhabited by none but rich people, people who have something the likes of me don’t have.

CHOICES.

So I can’t give up work, can I? Because then I’d be a feckless, single mother, spending the taxpayers blessed money on gin and fags, wouldn’t I? Way to go with the moralising, you out of touch loon.

Catman tells me to calm down and wait for the budget on June 22nd. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Even if they don’t cut my child benefit, or cut my child tax credits, the words are out there now. Frank can’t take them back. They’ve been printed on the BBC site (although at the time of writing, the stuff about parental failings has been removed – wonder why that is?). You want signifiers? I’ll give you signifiers.

The man that David Cameron has appointed to look into “tackling poverty” has signified to me, very clearly, that woman are to blame for all the ills in society. No word of single fathers (and yes, they do exist, and work as hard as any other single parent, but are somehow exempt from being agents of chaos it would seem), no word of men who walk away from their responsibilities and leave women, quite literally in my case, holding the baby with no job, no money, no support and but two alternatives – throw yourself on the welfare state, or go to work and magically find the vast sums of money for decent childcare (which is scarce, believe you me). And either one you choose, you will be criticised and condemned. Simply for being a woman.

Welcome to our Coalition overlords

I would swear copiously at this point, but this is a cosy blog.

Old and New

2010-05-30T22:27:00.001+01:00

My mother is 87, my son is 7. Since we don’t live conveniently close, we rely on the phone to keep in touch.

I can hand the phone to the Smallcat and leave them to it while I get on with household chores in peace. If anyone can explain to me just what this conversation was about, then answers on a postcard please.

(Obviously, I only heard Smallcat’s side of the conversation).

"I am in charge of the whole world, because I decided what lives there and what shape it is. There are also baby mushrooms".

"Only trees grow. Which are completely immobile".

"Derek, the teenage mushroom, is pretty much unconscious".

"I painted my papier mache in a colour called "Party World". It was as GOLDEN as the SUN!"

"There's an evil swamp of death, but the oil went into it and made it pretty much oil toxic"

<pause>

"No, that was only the first bit, Nan. Obviously."

Hmmmm……

Call this a political protest?

2010-05-24T21:43:00.001+01:00

It started near the A33 Junction. A big field. A massive great Tory hoarding. “VOTE FOR CHANGE” it said, for days. Every time we drove past it, I shook my fist. Until one day, I heard Smallcat giggling in the back. “CHANGE” had been replaced by “CHIMPS”.

“I’ll vote for chimps!”, he said “I want chimps in charge!”

Two days later the chimps had gone and the farmer had replaced them with a new hoarding before I’d had a chance to take a picture. Honestly. Some people can’t take a joke.

It wasn’t to last. Following day, same handwriting. The anonymous chimp supporter had upped the stakes.

(I made poor Catman drive along a busy dual carriageway and pull in – probably illegally although he claims not – just to take that picture).

“I’ll vote for pants!”, said Smallcat, who’d clearly vote for anything that amused him.

The farmer retaliated with ANOTHER hoarding, which he sneakily hid round the corner, away from the main road, near a tree. It was so cunningly hidden that only the sharpest of Smallcat eyes spotted it. This led to unreasonable demands on Catman, who had to pull in at a convenient spot where I handed him the camera and said “no, YOU do it. I’m not doing it. Go on – you do it. You’re better with cameras than I am. I don’t want to be seen! Ok, I’ll buy you a drink, then”

Quite right too

I don’t know. The quality of political protest isn’t the same as it was when I were a lass.

Though I say so myself

2010-05-18T22:17:00.001+01:00

I’m dead chuffed with this. It made me go “squee!”. The intended recipient may have to fight me for it, quite frankly. Or be subjected to a Paddington Hard Stare at the very least.

This is what the character actually looks like in the cartoon. He’s the little blue chap.

And here is my version.

SQUEEEE!

Technorati Tags: amigurumi,totoro

Ash Death Doom Plane Plunge AAAAARGH!!!

2010-05-16T11:05:00.007+01:00

People who know me will tell you that I have quite a nervous disposition. So imagine how agitated I am this morning. The Catman is in Athens at the moment. He went there for a big, fat Greek wedding and he's due home this evening. However, this has just gone off again;

Belch - "pardon me".

I've just checked the BBC website and airports in the South East are open, but the rest of the country appears to be closed. Am I pleased about this? It does mean that Catman can come home after all. Well no, no I am not. That ash is far too close for comfort. I would rather he stayed in Athens all year until every single particle of ash has been hoovered up by a magic, flying Dyson.

Is Catman of a similar opinion? No. He'll probably be irritated by the delay, not refusing to come out of his hotel room until the sky over Europe has been wiped down with a clean cloth. Because that's what I'd be doing. Oh yes.

I’ve not been entirely honest

2010-05-15T19:14:00.001+01:00

I wasn’t REALLY trying to create a woollen version of the Prime Minister. I was making a Totoro for a friend.

For those of you who don’t know who Totoro is, I urge you to buy the DVD “My Neighbour Totoro”. I did so on recommendation and thought I’d hate it, not being a great fan of Japanese animation ( and I cannot STAND Pokemon). I also felt it might be just a tad too young for SmallCat. But from the moment I put the disc in the DVD player, to the moment it finished over an hour later, the pair of us had not moved from the sofa and were enchanted from the word go.

If you look closely, you can see the little fella I’ve been making on the spine of the cover here…

And as luck would have it, the wonderful Lucy Ravenscar produced a free pattern, which I’ve been working on this week. I strongly advise that you scroll down that link to her Star Wars characters. If they don’t make you hoot with laughter (in a good way, the woman is a genius), then you have a HEART OF STONE!

Anyway, I’ve got his bib pinned on now, and there’s string everywhere, but he currently looks like this.

How absolutely DARE you accuse me of being a Tory!

Well, quite. He’s much cuter than that Cameron person, and he’s not currently threatening to cut Child Benefits.

This is what Elections do to people

2010-05-12T22:11:00.001+01:00

In order to avoid biting my nails down to a frazzle, I picked up a crochet hook to divert my hands. There was so much excitement in Westminster, I thought I’d produce my own woollen representation of the incoming PM to pass the time. Bear in mind that until the last minute, no one was sure who it might be, so it was all guesswork. I like to think that I got a fairly accurate representation of our new leader in the picture below.

Oh, come on. At least I got the colour right.

If only it were not so.

Sundry Discontent

2010-05-10T22:44:00.001+01:00

Absence caused by much upheaval. The unwanted house move has finally come to pass, amidst many tears from all three of us, because we didn’t really want to go and only left because we had to.

SmallCat and CatMan seem to have settled in now. We’ve been here nearly two months, but most mornings when I wake up there’s a split second when I think I’m still in my old house. Or home, as it was. This isn’t home yet and may not be for some time.

The move has done strange things to what passes as my brain (I think there might be a cell in there, but I’m not sure). At some point last month the panic attacks started, which gradually got worse and worse, and were closely followed by – well, even worse than that. It was like being taken over by mental ivy – it got everywhere and I couldn’t pull it out. Rather like the stuff which is currently growing in my herb patch and ruining the oregano, (only I’m not a plant and I don’t normally make stews taste nicer, and I’m making light of it now but it wasn’t funny at the time).

Well. That took me unawares. But it is gradually getting back under control, slowly and with assistance, but getting there all the same. And in the meantime, one good thing did happen, which is that I finally finished the monkeys for Speechless, Mostly. I expect she’s given up on them, but wonders never cease.

There are three boys, of which two are pictured here…

…and one girl, who is very pretty, and has a bracelet, and is ever so sweet, and is JUST like Lynne I’m sure. However Ms Monkey, alas, has terrible trouble with her skirt and it keeps falling down.

I think perhaps someone needs to have a quiet word in her ear.

I Hate Barclays

2010-02-05T20:00:00.001Z

I have not blogged for ages due to housemovenewjobnotfeelingwell syndrome. And still it continues, but I think it best to write this down, if only for myself, as one day I’ll need to look back on this and recall the horror. In detail.

I can’t even remember, now, the offers to buy that fell through and the offers from myself that never happened, or were not accepted, as these things happened before Christmas, and that was 100 years ago. So I cannot really describe the series of events which led me to this point. However, here is this point.

I have an offer on my house. I have put in an offer on a house.

Simples.

Or not.

10th January – checked my credit file. All debts were wiped before Christmas, so why are these debts still showing up? Phone the building society arranging my mortgage. They tell me “those debts must GO. You cannot give us letters from the card companies telling us they are paid. They must be removed from your file or we will not give you a mortgage. No, no, no”.

12th January – I phone Mint and MBNA. “Please remove that nonexistent debt”, I say.

“No. We only upload our data on 29th of each month, so you’ll have to wait another three weeks”.

“Noooo”, I wail, “the people selling me the house will get anxious if I sit here doing nothing for that long AND THEY MIGHT SELL TO SOMEONE ELSE AND THEN I WILL CRY”.

“Oh, ok then, since you put it like that…”.

12th January (later that day) – I phone Barclaycard and make the same request. “Oh, ok, but you have to sign a form first. We’ll put it in the post. It will take 10 days”.

“TEN DAYS! I can’t wait that long. The solicitor, the Estate Agent, and the sellers will think I’m taking the pee”.

“Sorry, them’s the rules”.

15th January – letter arrives. Yay! I sign it and post it. Yay.

19th January – I phone Barclaycard. “Did you get my letter?”.

“Yes”.

“Can you clear my file, then”.

“Yes”.

21st January - “er….why is my file still showing a debt? People are getting angry”.

“We can’t do it. We only do it at the end of the month”.

I am on the phone to the complaints department immediately.

“Sorry, we can’t do it. They shouldn’t have told you that”.

“But they did, twice. And now I could lose this sale, you numpties. Even worse, I have TOLD PEOPLE THAT IT IS IN HAND AND NOW THEY THINK I AM A LIAR AND A KNAVE!”.

24th January - “what are you doing about this. I am getting anxious phone calls from the Estate Agent and solicitor. You told me you could do this and you haven’t. Why did you lie?”.

25th January. Parcel arrives. It is the biggest bunch of flowers ever. It is from Barclaycard. There is a note attached. “Sorry for the inconvenience”.

I check my credit file. The nonexistent debt is still there. I shake my fist angrily at the flowers, but it is not their fault so I apologise to them almost immediately. They are too big for the only vase I have left and water spills everywhere. I have to remove MrCat’s lovely posy from the nice vase to fit them in. MrCat’s nice flowers are now in a horrible vase and the Barclay flowers are in the nice vase. This makes me more angry.

26th January – Letter arrives. It is from Barclaycard. “Sorry about the inconvenience. Here is £30 towards the cost of the zillion phonecalls”.

I check my credit file. The non existent debt is still there. I am mildly mollified by the £30, but still shake my fist aimlessly at the sky.

I phone the mortgage company. “Barclaycard are evil. Can you do something about it?”.

“Ok, get them to fax us a letter, telling us that you have paid the debt and we’ll see what we can do”.

3.00pm. I phone Barclaycard. “Please write a letter. It is the least you can do”.

“Ok. Give us the fax number”.

I give them the fax number of the building society.

“No. We can’t fax it to them. We have to fax it to you. You have to physically be there”.

“WHAT?”

“sorry”.

I pace around angrily.

3.30pm – I phone again. I get a different person on the line. I have decided to lie about the fax number and pretend it’s mine. I fear that I will be struck by lightening if I tell this lie, but I am now desperate to get this thing moving, and immolation seems the easiest option.

“Hello, can you fax that letter”.

“Yes. Can we have the fax number”.

I gulp. “Yes, it’s 98798798798798798798798”

“Ok, it’s on it’s way”.

I am shaking. They didn’t ask me where the fax was actually situated, so it’s not really a lie, is it?

4.00pm. I phone the building society.

“did you get the fax”.

“yes. Everything is ok. We can proceed”.

“hurrah!.

27th January. I check my credit file.

Barclaycard have cleared the non existent debt which they said they couldn’t do until 31st. But now they’ve done it after all.

For at least two hours I am unable to speak, or even move, so great is my rage and so high my blood pressure.

(You’ll be pleased to hear that this is not the end of it. I am currently waiting for a spectral letter from the Tax Office. More on this later…)

A month condensed

2009-12-09T13:27:00.001Z

(please don hyperbole detector when reading this post)

This is the past month in precis. It will thus omit to highlight the number of times one has had to retire to the parlour to lie on the chaise longue in tattered crinoline, holding a lace kerchief to one's fevered brow because of the sheer TRAUMA of it all.

October to November in a nutshell - house offer, job stops, claim benefits, get new job, hate new job, change mind about house offer, still hate new job, change mind again about house offer and annoy everybody including self, "dream house" comes on the market again (and unlike last time I'm in a position to actually put an offer in, but it seems there's something wrong with it which is why it's back on the market, stoopid, so I have to sit there looking at it on Rightmove like a kid at the window of a toyshop and DO NOTHING whilst getting enraged), the passing of time does not alter my hatred of job, start looking for new job, fill in forms for solicitor and get maudlin about leaving home of past ten years, watch as price of "dream house" is reduced and still DO NOTHING, develop grudge about workplace which doesn't do wonders for motivation, wake up to a blood spattered sitting room after "playfight" between felines goes all Tarantino on the laminate, take MrCat out for the first time in AGES and celebrate this fact by ordering a spicy poppadom. NO EXPENSE SPARED!

I ate most of it. Was that wrong of me?

There'll be more of this dross along soon I can assure you. And there’ll be more detail, so leave now.

My OId Man’s a Dustman

2009-10-25T22:44:00.001Z

Only he wasn’t. My father, that is. He didn’t wear gor blimey trousers or a dustman’s hat although occasionally, it has to be said, he looked a proper narnar. For which I can only blame the brylcreem.

Anyway, this evening SmallCat did an impersonation of me. It wasn’t so much what he said, it was HOW he said it that alarmed me. It sounded like Michael Caine, (don’t get me started on him, just DON’T). In other words – Cockney. Like I was born within the sound of Bow Bells. Like I’m some kind of Pearly Queen, for heaven’s sake.

Let me get a few things straight here.

1. I was neither born within the sound of Bow Bells and nor have I even HEARD them.

2. Yes, I was born and brought up in London but everyone in my house had Irish accents and not once were the words “blimey”, “leave it out, mate”, “you’re avin’ a larf” or “geezer” heard over Sunday lunch. Which, incidentally, was dinner. Not lunch. We never had lunch. Lunch was only introduced into my vocabulary when I went to college and I still feel uncomfortable using it. In reality, there is no such thing as lunch.

3. I detest Michael Caine

4. I do not watch Eastenders.

Having established the ground rules, I think we can move on now. Me old china.

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This week I have been mostly still not employable

Facts, figures and backsides

2009-10-18T22:17:00.001+01:00

Days away from blog – lots

Amount of days left before unemployment - 12

Job applications made between 15th August and 5th October – at least 30.

Interviews – 0

Offers on house – 3

Offers withdrawn – 3

Number of chest infections SmallCat has had since July – 2 (yes, he’s had another bad incident since the pneumonia, hence the absence)

Number of inhalers in house – 3

But figures can also be good.

Number of interviews since 5th October – 4

Number of interviews lined up this week – 2

% morale boost achieved by said interviews - 100

Catflaps successfully installed – 1

Mortgage offers agreed – 1 (hurrah!)

Children now much better – 1

Lovely boyfriends – 1

Number of young men exposing their bottoms to your erstwhile bloghost this year – 1.

Well, really. I have no idea what that was all about, but whilst at Hardwick Hall this summer we took a tour of the older, ruined Hall which was replaced by the jaunty number in the previous blog post. As we were ascending a set of stairs to look at some precariously placed plaster decorations, the young man ahead of me suddenly, and with malice aforethought, dropped his pants without so much as a by your leave. It was all done so quickly that MrCat didn’t even notice, and the youngsters ahead continued on their progress with the merest of guilty sniggers to give them away.

The view from the top window was unexpected to say the least

I had two options. Express shock like the middle aged, middle class, middle of the road woman he no doubt took me for, or make some kind of nonplussed comment in the hope of embarassing him in front of his friends.

I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which route I chose.

This week I have been mainly frantic and on the phone

What would Bess do?

2009-09-13T23:42:00.001+01:00

This is Hardwick Hall. It was built by Bess of Hardwick who was good mates with Elizabeth I. MrCat and I went there this summer during our Peak District-Yorkshire Moors-Northumbrian Hills “sort of walking” holiday.

The cost of curtains alone would bankrupt a Duke

When I was a history undergrad, we heard a lot about Bess. Any woman who was mentioned in lectures more than a couple of times and who was not a) an executed wife b) a decorative mistress or c) Elizabeth I, had to have something going for her. The only people who did “stuff” back then were men. Women doing “stuff” were a bit out of the ordinary, and Bess certainly did a lot of “stuff”.

Bess was mentioned so frequently because she built Hardwick Hall, which had a lot of windows. We had a guy who specialised in Architectural History, and apparantly the windows of Hardwick Hall say a zillion and one fascinating things if you’re interested in that sort of mullarkey. Sadly, I did not attend his lectures. He wore very odd suits which put me off so I chose a different course (Papists and Puritans in Elizabethan England, since you ask).

Anyway, I say “sadly” because if I’d done his course I’d have gone on a trip to Paris to study Louis Quinze chairs. It wasn’t the lack of chairs which bothered me, you understand, but the lack of moules marniere and steak frites. The best I got was a video of “The Life and Times of Philip II of Spain” one afternoon in the history department. Hey ho.

Bess married several times and was almost as rich as the Queen. She probably invented the pre-nup and as a result, did rather well and held on to just about everything she gained despite her sex and the fact that she didn’t start ahead of the pack.

So, perhaps I should learn a lesson from Bess in the midst of my current woes. No job? Can’t afford your home? What would Bess do?

Yes, that’s right. I have to marry the Earl of Shrewsbury. I can send him a proposal through theyworkforyou.com.

Sadly, I fear his political affiliations are likely to make this a somewhat rocky relationship.

But needs must.

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This week I have been mostly proposing marriage to Tory Peers.

Five little monkeys jumping on my self esteem

2009-09-09T22:29:00.001+01:00

It is a fact universally acknowledged that when a lime coloured feline is in a funk, then the whole world turns to pants.

The post which follows is a self indulgent, self pitying rant. Please don ear muffs and sturdy shades.

Here are some reasons not to be cheerful.

I probably don’t have a job anymore, and there are no jobs out there.
My house is for sale, but I don’t want to move.
I am in debt up to my eyeballs – indeed, as I write this I’m waving my hand around ABOVE my eyeballs only you can’t see that.
And I am so very tired of worrying about money and not sleeping properly, it has been going on for the past few years, and has aged me. The foundation and powder is beginning to accumulate in the scowl lines around my eyes of a morning (I don’t have laughter lines). When people look at me closely, they can see Maybelline products with alarming clarity. They can probably even name the shade. Hell, the label is PROBABLY ON MY FACE!

But, as MrCat always says “what’s the worst that can happen?”. And he’s right. Let’s be resilient here. Beans are cheap and nutritious and I am also really rather fond of Autumn.

So to cheer myself up this evening I decided to think seriously about updating my rather tired Etsy shop and adding something new to the product line. Surely I can come up with something original but most importantly SIMPLE TO MAKE, which people want to buy? We’ve had enough of bunnies and bears and samey looking dogs and cats.

And then I saw this. Five little monkeys, jumping on the bed.

Frankly, I think this is a work of genius. But, but…….

WHY CAN’T I COME UP WITH SOMETHING LIKE THIS!

>sob

PS – if you click on the picture, you’ll go to her shop. It’s very good.
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This week I have been mostly growling

Headless on my Window Sill

2009-09-02T21:58:00.002+01:00

Here is the progress I’ve made with three of the four creatures I am crocheting for Speechless, Mostly.

I now wonder if it was a bit cruel to place the heads of these monkeys directly opposite their dismembered limbs. They are giving their body parts slightly beseeching looks. There is genuine anguish on the face of the (ever so slightly bosseyed) pale lilac monkey as it realises that it won’t have a stripe on it’s sweater like the other two. The green monkey is turning away as he can’t look at the scene of carnage any longer. The brown monkey is simply appalled.

I think I ought to go downstairs right now and apologise.

Technorati Tags: amigurumi

The Kraken will awake soon

2009-08-31T21:53:00.001+01:00

Nearly blogworthy again. It’s been a bit of a month, though. Child gets pneumonia, then I go on holiday, then I come back, then I get told I don’t have a job any more, so I go on holiday again, then I come back and get told I might have a job for a teensy bit longer but how long that is remains unknown. All this whilst trying to sell a house without really knowing for sure if this is the correct course of action (a course of action which requires constant tidying and clearing up the whole time to boot) and contemplating the vast weight around my middle, about which SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

I wish I’d stayed in bed

However, on the plus side, Mr Cat DID take another lovely photo of one of those comical Cadw signs when we were in Wales, so you at least have that to look forward to when I finally get round to distilling all this frantic activity into a sensible blog entry.

And I have completed three monkey heads for Speechless, Mostly, which are not attached to bodies yet so are rolling around in my craft bag like I’m Henry VIII’s chief executioner or something.
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This month I have been mostly sagging around the edges.

Yet another pause...

2009-07-31T19:15:00.002+01:00

In yet another exciting non blog update, I'm off on hols for a bit. Much needed, as SmallCat has had pneumonia which was horrible and scared everyone, mainly me. He was as stoic as he always is. I could learn a lot from him.

In the meantime, some more piped music while you wait. This time, I'll leave you with a playlist.

Rasputin - Boney M
Shaddup Ya Face - Joe Dolce
Funky Gibbon - The Goodies

I trust that will keep you entertained for a few days.

I should have known he was a wrong ‘un

2009-07-21T21:58:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, Mrs Speechless expressed a rather foolish interest in one of my monkeys (oh will you lot stop tittering). So I went to my stash box, realised it was a complete mess, and upended and reorganised it. Not as thorough as Coffee Lady but I am a slattern after all. So now, I can see which lovely wool I have available.

As I packed the wool into some kind of order, I realised that the box had become a microcosm for my past and present life.

At the bottom - wool which was a mistake right from the word go but you bought it because it said REDUCED and was all shiny and tinselly and you are a fool because you know that after about 5 minutes you will hurl it across the room with a heart full of disappointment saying "I wish I had never been fooled by that shiny glittery stuff. It looks lovely but it is impractical and I can do nothing with it".

(I used to go out with a ball of wool just like that).

“‘ello darlin'! You come ‘ere often?”

Next layer - wool which looks like it might be interesting, but you daren't use because it's posh and made of alpaca and you're scared of destroying it.

(There was a ball of wool like that at college. He never gave me a second glance and I could only gaze at his well bred 100% pure fibres from a distance).

Next layer - Cheap and cheerful acrylic in lots and lots of bright colours which is good for testing patterns on and giving the resulting heap of poo to SmallCat because he thinks it's funny.

(Ok, he was very nice and all that, but he was only two ply so it was never going to last).

Next layer - chunky wool which you don't use very often because it's so damned chunky.

(This is my waistline).

Top layer - cotton yarn. Oooooh, lovely cotton. It’s firm and holds it’s shape well although it requires a bit more effort than your average cheapo brand.

(Well obviously, this has to be MrCat. He is sharing the top layer with some lovely babysoft, which has to be SmallCat because it is so lovely and cuddly and cheerful).

If MrsSpeechless looks very carefully, she will see five balls of cotton in mauve, rose pink, brown, pale yellow and russet. With those, I shall make her some hideous creatures.

Craft your head off

2009-07-20T21:35:00.001+01:00

Considering this is supposed to be a vaguely crafty blog, there’s scant little evidence of any crafting going on. So while everyone in blogland appears to have disappeared for the summer (or are in the pub, or possibly prison), I thought I’d delight you all with some truly hideous examples of my “work”.

First up, Small Cat insisted that I made a “thank you” present for his poor, beleaguered teacher. As if her life isn’t hard enough without receiving THIS abomination, masquerading as some sort of “gift”. She’ll probably think I’m really angry with her when she gets this tomorrow.

By the way, it’s suppose to be a monkey – I need to tell you this as it won’t be obvious. It was based on one of these lovely creatures (and yes, I know mine doesn’t have a mouth), but since the designer didn’t make the pattern available, I had to guess. I should have known.

I’m going to pretend this isn’t happening

From the front she looks a bit like a deranged tellytubby

Monkey hear, monkey see, monkey speechless

To compound this error, I made SmallCat a Super Mario Mushroom out of scrap yarn. I have no idea what a Super Mario Mushroom is when it’s at home, but apparantly, it looks like this.

Keep that garlic away from me

If I found this in my risotto, I’d be asking for my money back.

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This week, I have been mostly grumbling

Room with a View

2009-07-14T21:11:00.001+01:00

Remember that hideous room, which only convicts and deranged madmen would consider habitable? Yes, that one. Well, after years of ignoring it, keeping the door closed on it, never going in there and allowing only the cats to wander in – and even they had reservations and they’re hardly fussy beasts at the best of times – we finally made it look normal. It was done on the cheap, by two DIY idiots (yours truly and Mr Cat), and a professional who came in to do the flooring (the dad of one of SmallCat’s friends. Yes, he has trade contacts already. At his age).

This is like Gok Wan at the end of “How to Look Good Naked”, but here goes….

fear my awesome collection of maps and walking guides

Ok, there are still bits of wood lying around, the guitar only has five strings at the moment and we can’t eat in there yet as WE DO NOT HAVE A DINING TABLE. So it’s just the Welsh dresser and a guitar. I suppose you could eat off a guitar at a push. Couldn’t you?

Please note – the ornamental cat collection is not my doing. Most of them aren’t even mine. I suspect they belong to the convict.

To celebrate this triumph, here is a picture of some craft I did a while back. It is a rabbit. I am the only person in the world who doesn’t think it’s rubbish. My own child laughs at it. Openly. But believe me, this is like a Michelangelo compared to the thing I made on Sunday. Even thinking about it brings me out in hives. So, you know, be grateful. It could be worse.

If I hear so much as a titter, I’ll bring out the carrots.

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This week I have been mainly losing my glasses.

Not waving, but drowning – which is hardly surprising since I can’t swim

2009-07-03T21:27:00.001+01:00

I see from my blogroll that quite a few other people are quiet at the moment, so I don’t feel too bad. However, this isn’t even a proper blog post, just a pathetic, nay FEEBLE, excuse for absconding. Here are some bullet points (see, I’m insulting you further by not even writing proper paragraphs now).

an almost-but-not-quite gratuitous picture of lovely Captain Jack and lovely Gwen. See 6.

1. You know that cliche “emotional rollercoaster”? Well, I’m on one at the moment, so, you know – I forgot the blogcakes, ok?.

2. AND I have to decide whether to sell my house, or not. It’s been coming for a while because (as is the way of these things), the break up with SmallCat’s dad left me up a very large creek with a faulty paddle because I can’t afford a proper one anymore. It’s been quite the Sword of Damocles. But “things cannot go on like this”. As they say. Well, as I say. But if you looked out my window right now, right this very minute, on a perfect English summer evening in a perfect English village…well….the chances of me making a SENSIBLE decision are looking pretty slim at the moment.

3. I have planted a lot of things in the front garden but I don’t know what they are. I really need a magic botanist like MrsMagpie to come over and explain to me what, exactly, those pink things are. Ok, ok, stop shouting at the back. I’ll take some pictures, so quit your moaning.

4. Slattern no more! The dining room has finally been “done”. What? You want pictures of that as well? Ok, stop heckling me. I’ll do it.

5. I’ve decided to continue novel number 2. Novel number 1 requires an ENTIRE blogpost to itself and when you read it you will all laugh at me and rightly so. But 2 needs to be picked up once more. After a 6 year break. I would like to point out to MrsM (she gets everywhere, doesn’t she?) that it is nothing like the pile of nonsense I once forced her to read. Nothing like. Oh no.

6. Torchwood is back next week – hurrah! Well, I had to justify the picture of Lovely John Barrowman, didn’t I?

7. Celebrity Masterchef – if any of my UK blog friends are watching this programme can you answer me a question? Does anyone actually cook food like that for their family, because if they do, I’m just going to feel really bad about myself. Actually, if you do cook like that, can you please just lie to me? Thanks.

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This week I have mainly been very confused about life and wondering whether that plant is a harmless Hollyhock or, in fact, a Giant Hogweed.

Spirit Levelling

2009-06-22T19:12:00.003+01:00

I have paused for a while to recover my equilibrium. It appears to have flown the nest, hopefully temporarily.

Until then, here is some piped music....

Counting Crows

2009-06-09T22:44:00.002+01:00

The gripes of last week haven’t entirely gone away, but some things have improved.

For your information, I reckon there are now about 5,000,000 assorted crows, not to mention their friends, nesting in the trees next to my house. And yes, I know exactly how many zeroes I’ve put after that 5 and no, I’m not going to delete any of them. It is not hyperbole – it is what my ears are telling me is an accurate figure.

This morning I found a fledgeling crow hopping about in the garden (no doubt SPYING on me on behalf of Crow Headquarters in the tree opposite). I told it, in no uncertain terms, that I had purchased a four pack of ear plugs from Boots. Hopefully this message has now been passed on by the juvenile secret agent, and my feathered tormenters will realise that their evil plans have been foiled.

In the meantime, to make up for the loss of the Stinking Billy crop, my little helper has assisted with the planting of the most garish dahlias I could find in the shop.

Dahlias with built in crow repellent

And unbelievably, one of the plants I set last year has actually blossomed. This is an almost unheard of event. I was so shocked I could barely hold the camera, but felt it important to get the evidence before the whole plant is eaten by killer slugs overnight.

Help!

On the craft front, things are going less well. The alpaca has not progressed. His legs are willing, but his body is totally deformed. I’m going to give it one more week and then advertise it as a stunted mule. What’s the worst that can happen?

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This week I have been mainly getting used to having foam in my ears.

Everything’s Coming Up Henbane

2009-06-02T22:01:00.002+01:00

Over two weeks since the last entry. Admittedly, I rarely have anything interesting to say, but a fortnight of being quite grumpy has passed so why not spread the joy, I say.

Reasons to be grumpy.

1. I have had a sore throat for 6 weeks. It is not much in the scheme of things. I’ve had worse. But it’s relentless, pretends to go, and then comes back the next day just to wind me up.

2. When I caved in and went to the doctor about it, he told me that in the old days, people had to cope without antibiotics “and just got on with things. Or died”. Yes, he really said that.

“Well in that case, let’s just send children back up chimneys, down mines, reintroduce workhouses and stop women voting!”. I didn’t actually say that, but I thought it nonetheless and I bet he was secretly scared of me.

3. Having spent forever setting up a game of Mousetrap with SmallCat, one of the family pets (a real cat), decided to join in, leaped onto the table and ruined the board layout. Have you any idea how long it takes to connect the toilet to the sink, the car to the box and the net to the pole? No? It’s like Dante’s seventh circle of hell, I tell you.

“I’d like the orange mouse, please”.

4. My Stinking Billys died. And before you ask, I refuse to call them Sweet Williams because of what happened at Culloden, 1745*. Yes, it was that long ago and no, I’m not even Scottish. But had my mother lived in Edinburgh I MIGHT WELL HAVE BEEN!

5. My local pub has stopped running a quiz on Sunday night. They will pay for this. I’m not sure how, but I’ll think of something.

6. The dawn chorus. As the sun rises earlier, so do the feathered fiends. Every morning about 5,678 assorted birds start singing the ornithological equivalent of Status Quo’s greatest hits. For about THREE HOURS.

7. My dining room has looked like this for the past 9 years.

GAH!

Admittedly MrCat has done a lot to alleviate this over the past two weekends, but how can one just leave these things for NINE WHOLE YEARS?! I’m not a Domestic Goddess, I’m a Domestic Slattern and I shall be writing the companion handbook post haste.

*Sweet Williams are named after William, Duke of Cumberland. In Scotland, however, he’s known as Butcher Cumberland because of his disgraceful behaviour after the Battle of Culloden. To show their annoyance, the Scots were rude to a plant.

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This fortnight I have been mainly reading Ariana Franklin novels and shaking my fist at crows.

A meme? Is that all about me me me me me?

2009-05-17T22:22:00.006+01:00

I appear to have been tagged by Eurolush, and now I have to answer questions. Being a generally uninteresting person, the answers will be as dull as ditchwater and this will serve Eurolush right!

What are your current obsessions?
Sleep. I am obsessed by the fact that I hardly ever get any. Normal obsessions require energy and effort, and I don't get enough sleep to put any effort or energy into anything. Oh to be obsessed by something! It would mean I was fully awake for once!

What's for dinner?
I don't care so long as it's quick and someone else is cooking it. Preferably MrCat. I wouldn't want to risk cuisine a la Small Cat. Small Cat would give me a very badly constructed jam sandwich and a packet of monster munch. Every day. Forever.

What's your greatest fear at the moment?
Is my permanent state of bewilderment down to the fact that I don't get enough sleep (see question 1), or is it because I'm losing my marbles early?

What are you listening to?
I haven't bought a CD for ages. I download stuff (LEGALLY, Thank you!) per track. On the way in to work on Friday I listened to Tricky, Tim Deluxe, Rufus Wainwright, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Judie Tzuke, June Tabor and Lemon Jelly. On the way home I listened to Schubert. Categorise that if you must. Small Cat forces me to listen to the Sugababes and Scissor Sisters over and over and over and over again but you know this. I posted about this a few weeks ago. Didn't I? Sorry, what was the question (looks around for marbles).

If you were a goddess what would you be?
I would be the Goddess Somnambula-Mascara. I would bestow sleep on the downtrodden and accursed. And nice cups of tea. And I would have the ability to apply make up so it looks "sexy and alluring", as opposed to "that woman who looks like a cross between Robert Smith and a clown".

What are your favourite holiday spots?
What is a holiday?

What are you reading right now?
Oh my, it's dreadful. It's some godawful nonsense about the Princes in the Tower and it's making me want to gouge my own eyes out with a plastic spoon. I won't tell you what it is because you should be spared.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Pleasure shouldn't induce guilt, surely? Unless you enjoy putting eyeballs in peoples sandwiches, or something equally awful. Which I don't, I hasten to point out.

Who or what makes you laugh?
Small Cat. Every single day. He is hysterical.

What is your favourite spring thing to do?
Skipping through the fields singing "la de la de da, I aint gonna wear socks no more".

Where are you planning to travel next?
To work, and then back again. Until I die.

What is the best thing you ate or drank lately?
Er, whatever it is that Mr Cat cooked last, OBVIOUSLY (desperately tries to remember. fails. picks up marbles and shoves them back into ears). No, I recall now – he did a rather splendid new potato salad this evening with mozarella, spinach, wholegrain mustard and roasted red peppers and (get this), he ROASTED THE PEPPERS HIMSELF. Me? I would have put them in a) raw or b) got them out of a jar, pre-roasted by the slave from the red pepper dungeon.

When was the last time you were tipsy?
The more accurate question would be "when was the last time you were NOT tipsy?". Ha! That's taken you by surprise!

What is your favourite ever film?
The Lion in Winter. This will not please Coffee Lady as no one gets shot or blown up, and Bruce Willis is (fortunately) nowhere to be seen. I say fortunately because he has a face I could never tire of slapping and were I taken to see any film in which he appeared I'd have to be dragged from the local Odeon having been repeatedly pelted with popcorn by an angry horde for causing a general fracas. No, none of that. Lion in Winter is the best film ever, beautifully acted and shot, fantastic dialog, great music, stunning scenery. Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole – come ON people! Clearly I am a cut above. Oh yes.

What is the biggest lesson you've learned from your children?
Preserving ones dignity is not always possible. In some situations, it's best to just put the banana outfit on and quit complaining about the effect it is going to have on your hair.

What song can't you get out of your head?
There's nothing in my head at the moment. It's too full of stuffing and old bits of wool.

What book do you know you should read but refuse to?
Anything on my Literary Theory reading list. I didn’t read it 20+ years ago when I was actually supposed to, so I’m damned if I’m going to read it now.

What is your physical abnormality/abnormal physical ability?
The little fingers on both my hands are completely bent. This terrible affliction stopped me from stretching to more than an octave on the piano. I could have been a world class pianist, travelling far and wide, to public acclaim and large bouquets, breaking the hearts of handsome violinists the world over. As it is, I've had to make do with a tin whistle and a pair of bongos.

What is your favourite candy?
I love a ripple with a nice glass of cava.

What is your favourite body part?
Please. This is a family site.

I now have to tag someone else. So I’ll tag my lovely friend Kevin over on HotRunes because he never updates his website so this might focus his mind. And I shall also tag Roman Sock as she spends far too much time slaving over a hot crochet hook and this might give her a break.

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This week I have been off work a fair bit due to feeling like poo, and also reading a very bad book which is making me want to remove my own eyeballs (see above post).

Please Close the Gate

2009-05-11T00:06:00.004+01:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging. I have had a variety of distractions and irritations keeping me otherwise occupied.

So, MrCat and I went for a walk last weekend. It was around the environs of Blenheim Palace, ending up with a splendid view over the Capability Brown landscaped gardens and lake. With lovely vistas. And cute wee newborn lambs. And electrified fences which were so low you could just walk over them and barely break your stride (not that we did this, I hasten to point out). And gates with no purpose. Gates which just sat there looking slightly embarassed. Embarassed gates, and shamefaced stiles.

Let me give you an example.

move along, nothing to see…

Is this some kind of joke?

The park keeper is behind that tree and he is going to laugh at you, yes YOU, if you climb over this thing. Do not fall prey to this outrageous piece of trickery. WALK AROUND THE STILE, people. AROUND. That’ll show ‘em.

And what in the name of holy haddock is going on here…

I’m not embarassed. Not even a little bit.

Please close the gate? WHY?!!! Is there something I should know? Is there an invisible forcefield on either side of the wooden frame which will twang me backwards across the path and into the other field, where I and all other transgressors will be savaged by nursing ewes?

Best not risk it, then. I’ll go through the gate and close it behind me.

Blenheim Palace looked rather lovely. We didn’t have time to go in, but it looked splendid from the other side of the lake. All I know about Marlborough is that he fought at Blenheim, Oudenarde and Malplaquet but I neither know nor care what he was doing there. Or what particular year it was.

I know very little about the 18th Century. My interest in history stops dead at midnight, 31st December, 1699. However, having pondered it for a while, I managed to come up with ten things I do know about one of the least interesting periods of history on the syllabus. Oh, quit moaning at the back, you bewigged fop. You know it's true. Everyone wanted to do the Wars of the Roses and Henry VIII at school, and who can blame them.

Mind you, one or two of these items do redeem the period a tiny bit.

The Aristocracy wore wigs with powder and looked ridiculous
Mozart. For this, the century gets mega brownie points.
The French cut Louis XVI’s head off.
People drank a lot of gin
Culloden. For this the century gets a MASSIVE deduction in points and a severe telling off.
The South Sea Bubble. Don’t ask me, I have no idea.
Nasty, nasty George I locking his wife up in a dungeon in Celle. Points deduction and two missed turns. Oh, and a slap.
William Blake, Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft born.
Nelson at Cape St Vincent and the Nile
Poldark set in 18th Century. Casting of Robin Ellis in leading role – 1000 points.

I think that just about covers it.

This week I have been mainly feeling poorly and reading “view from the foothills” by Chris Mullin.

STOP! Hammer Time!

2009-04-28T21:28:00.002+01:00

No, nothing to do with 1980's baggy trousers and bad dancing. I only wish it was. The truth is far more terrifying. A craft nightmare, in fact.

A few weeks ago, MrCat's mother lent me a 1970's craft magazine. Just looking at the pictures was a joy. There was all manner of fabulous, beautiful stuff, and also some lunacy, like a crochet bra and pants set. Itch-tastic!

Anyway, there were a few crochet patterns in there so I decided to try one out. I usually opt to downsize things slightly – a smaller hook or thinner wool usually does the trick - and it's just as well I did in this case otherwise the ensuing catastrophe would have been EVEN WORSE THAN IT WAS!

It was an alligator. Here he is, in the magazine, looking quite cute.

(cute-o-rama)

Halfway through making his body I began to feel slightly uneasy. By the time I'd sewn the head on and attached the eyes, I realised that I was actually in the process of creating a monster capable of destroying civilization. Small Cat was less dramatic, and far more succinct.

"It is a hammer. With eyes"

(sigh) "It's an alligator. Without limbs"

"Don't put legs on. I want to use him as a hammer".

"No. I can't stop now. It's already used up two balls of wool. I intend to see this project through".

"Huh!"

It is at this point that I have to 'fess up. I swore to the Coffee Lady that I would complete the monster COME WHAT MAY and then post up a picture. Well, I lied. I got as far as the back legs and couldn't take anymore. I sewed them on, rather gracelessly it has to be said as I just wanted the nightmare to end. No positioning, no alignment, no nothing. Stab, stab, stab with the needle. I wasn’t even looking at what I was doing, as is obvious from the evidence below.

Basically, I've let myself down, I've lied to another blogger and I've wasted two balls of wool.

if you grasp him around the bum, you can use his head to secure nails

At least the Small Cat was happy.

"It is a hammer. With legs. It's really horrible - I like it".

"It's disasterous".

"It's like the rubbish toys you used to make when you didn't know what you were doing. Can I have it?"

"Why? In God's name, WHY?"

"Because it's an alligator with hammer superpowers".

"Obviously. Here, take it. Take it from my sight, quickly".

"Cool!".

“Fear my DIY superpower! Rarrr!!!”

Sometimes, you make a cake and it's a soggy, sunken mess. A couple of weeks later, you make the same cake to the same recipe and somehow it’s wonderful. Following this catastrophe, I finished off a squid I'd promised to make for a friend. It turned out exactly as I'd hoped. I'm not sure what lesson I learned from all this, save that alligators might not be my forte.

Careful now…

2009-04-20T23:05:00.003+01:00

There is something immensely endearing about the hazard signs used by Cadw on their ancient monuments. I spend more time delighting in these specimens than in actually examining the monument I’ve allegedly paid good groats to visit. Here are some of my favourites;

Hazard One – The Backward Lunge

aaaaaaaargh!

Really, I have no idea what this person was thinking. Anyone attempting to scramble on those walls deserves everything they’ve got coming, frankly.

Hazard Two – The Osteopath’s Delight

Oooooooooh!

People who attempt this kind of manouevre have only themselves to blame. I’ve got no sympathy for this kind of slapdash approach to historical tourism. It lets everyone down.

Hazard Three – The Diving Fool

eeeeeeeeeeeek!

Hurling yourself backwards into a moat is pure exhibitionism, detracts attention from the monument itself and is the kind of arrant tomfoolery one shouldn't have to witness in a public place. I wouldn’t even bother putting a sign up – it just gives these people the attention they crave.

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This week I have been mostly not getting any sleep.

The Irishwoman who went up a hill…and nearly got stuck

2009-04-11T12:34:00.002+01:00

Hatterall Hill. We were on that bit where it goes all vertical and dangerous, the bit where no sane person would venture.

We’ve had another lovely, long weekend in Wales, which included a climb up Hatterall Hill (aka THE HILL OF DOOM!). After walking for some miles, the last one being almost entirely uphill, we were very nearly at the ridge. We were promised spectacular views of England on one side of the hill, and the dark, glowering Black mountains of Wales on the other. So when we finally got there (after a particularly exhausting and completely pointless detour which is where everything started to go wrong), I noticed that Wales and England had swapped places. I suggested this to MrCat, but he wasn’t having it, despite all argument to the contrary.

“No, really. England is in the wrong place. It should be on the right, not the left”.

“I don’t think so”.

“No. No really. Look – that is a patchwork of gentle, green fields. That is your stereotypical English landscape. See those whopping great mountains over there, the BLACK ones? That’s definitely Wales. That is not, most definitely NOT, Hereford or Worcester. Actually, I don’t even think this is the ridge path”.

(pause)

“Let’s carry on, shall we?”

So we carried on. And by now it was 5pm, and we’d been walking for hours. And all of a sudden, we were on the edge of what appeared to be a precipice, with no path, no shelter, and no clue where we were. The wind was so strong it was impossible to breathe. I insisted we go back, MrCat used logic and said all would be well. But it would have meant walking along this tiny little path, clinging on to the side of the hill, as the sun sank lower and lower, with no idea whether it would meet the main path again or not. And if it didn’t, and it was dark by then, it would have been horrible. So I got panicky (MrCat later said he was quite impressed, as my panic translated into walking very fast, and very vigorously, at speed away from the edge of the hill). I wasn’t walking. I was stomping.

Shangri-la at the end of a long walk

Half an hour later we were back on the wrong path we’d been on before, but at least it was sheltered. In MrCat’s rucksack we had all we needed to survive a night in the open.

1. A bottle of water
2. A big bag of satsumas
3. A box of fondant fancies which, as every fule no, is vital for outdoor survival.

Five mintues after this, we finally found the Offa’s Dyke ridge path. It was about 2 metres away from where MrCat had decided to take his random, and ill advised, detour through the gorse.

I didn’t say anything. I just gave him “the look”.

The path down Hatterall Hill drops into the grounds of Llanthony Priory, another one of those beautiful monastic ruins so beloved of your blog host. As luck would have it, part of the cellar of the priory has been converted into a teeny little bar, where cold beer can be acquired by shell shocked walkers. It would have been rude not to buy some. It’s what the monks would have wanted.

Llanthony Priory – you can see the entrance to the teeny bar just on the left

*******

This week I have been mostly making an enormo-alligator from a 1970’s pattern book, and reading Seance.

The Perils of Penelope

2009-03-29T21:27:00.005+01:00

After a late meeting in Romsey on Friday night, I started the drive home at about 12.15am. There were pockets of mist on the dark, country lanes, it was cold and a wee bit spooky, and I was in the car on my own. As I reached the village of Hursley, a man appeared in the middle of the road. I slowed the car down a bit, but he still didn't move. I veered to the left. He moved to the left. I veered to the right, so did he. I couldn't drive on without potentially hitting him, or mounting the kerb.

I didn't have much choice but to slow down to a crawl, at which point he loomed over the bonnet and then tried to open the car door. It was at this point that fear turned to bloody minded anger. I could literally feel a wave of it surge up from the pit of my stomach which only seconds before had turned to pure jelly. I bawled "no you don't!" in what I hoped gave the impression of a redoubtable middle aged lady in possession of a very heavy and potentially lethal handbag. I shoved the car in reverse and pressed the pedal as hard as I could. I expect I zigzagged across the road, but at least I did it at speed!

Because he'd had to move over to the side of the road to get at my door, this left the rest of the road clear so I got the heck out of there.

Now, I think the young man in question was the worse for wear. But even so. You don't expect to stumble across something not unlike a scene out of "American Werewolf in London". You know, the bit when they're on the moor, near The Slaughtered Lamb pub.

You don't get werewolves near Winchester and I jolly well hope it remains that way.

I was shaken, but not stirred.

(This week, in between defending myself from lunatics at midnight, I have been mostly reading The Aviary Gate and trying to crochet an alpaca).

Tintern

2009-03-20T19:42:00.009Z

A couple of weeks ago, myself and Mr Cat (who booked the weekend away in double quick time before I had time to display any signs of wavering) made the relatively short journey from Winchester to Tintern. On Friday, after work, it still only took a couple of hours. Why do I forget that it's possible to do these things, and still be back in time for when small cat is dropped off by his father on a Sunday? Tsk!

Lots of nice arches and stuff

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that I've decided NOT to give everyone a history lesson, as is my wont. I have to admit I'm struggling though. Tintern was one of the religious institutions dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530's...

Phwoarr! Look at that view!

...and your useless blogging host took this here course called "Papists and Puritans in 16th Century England" as a wee history student. So you can understand why I'm fit to EXPLODE!

More nice arches

But since I bore even myself on this topic, I won't overdo it too much. Save to say that the Abbey is located in a beautiful spot, and we got there as it opened on Sunday morning, with the sun shining. And it looked glorious. Although it is difficult to escape a certain sense of sadness that such a thing came to pass, that a whole way of life - yes, sometimes corrupt, but no, not always - and such an intrinsic part of the social and cultural fabric of the country, could be destroyed in such a short time. It was nothing short of catastrophic and possibly one of the most significant historical events on these islands. STOP NOW, WOMAN!

If you want to go to Tintern, it's worth the visit. You also have Raglan and Chepstow castle within easy driving distance. We went there on St David's day, and entry was free, which was rather nice. We ate the night before in the Royal George, just opposite the Abbey (which is lit up at night and looks rather eerie). Our meal was very civilized and pleasant and Mr Cat was most impressed by his lamb shank. It did make him walk a bit funny though - kerboom tish!

If you want to read something palatable about this period of history, but don't want a big old stuffy history book with cobwebs all over it, and dust and wafer thin pages which fall to bits as soon as you look at them, then I have just the thing!

Murder, mystery, suspense, and the dissolution of the monasteries - what more could you need. And he's a very good historical novelist, so hopefully you won't be disappointed.

Fame at Last!

2009-03-16T21:15:00.003Z

Well no, not really. Just a minor excursion on to a mainstream UK blogging site, but even so.

UK Handmade featured Cynthia the Squid on their front page on Sunday. Ok, she's not exactly a best seller is dear old Cynth, but I'm rather fond of her. She has angry green eyes and looks as if she's about to nut someone. I like that in a toy. Less so in a person, but in a toy squid I think it's probably just about ok.

Are you looking at me?

And having her as an example to illustrate an item about amigurumi has made me feel chuffed to bits.

Three cheers for the Squid.

No light at the end of the box

2009-03-11T21:05:00.007Z

As you know, I tried to make a lightbox recently. It appears that one of these things is essential for getting your craft wares photographed nicely for sale. They provide a clean, crisp background for your products, and capture the light properly. Well, anything which helps take nicer photographs is fine by me for the following reason;

I AM HOPELESS AT PHOTOGRAPHY.

So I looked up "Lightboxes". They're expensive. Too expensive for me. I saw one on eBay (gggrrrr!!!) which was about $10, but the p&p turned out to be something like $45,00000.

But help was at hand - some of my fellow crafters had made their own for less than a tenner, using only an old box, a discarded sheet, some scissors, tape and a bit of card. And apparantly, the whole thing would only take thirty five seconds to produce!!! And look, here are the instructions!!!

I got snipping. Several hours, a lot of debris on the carpet and a very red and angry face later, I produced this pile of rubble;

That badger is not impressed. Small Cat's plastic trees are pathetic. It looks like some stuff in a box which has been butchered by an angry woman with a red face and draped with badly cut fabric. But hang on a minute.... with a bit of fine tuning, you get this little beauty....

It's uncanny! You could almost believe you were in an ACTUAL FOREST!! Just looking at this I swear I can hear the twitter of birdsong and the distant sound of gunshot.

I think the main problem was the failure to establish the correct lighting. Daylight bulbs (almost impossible to find, but I did eventually track some down) are all well and good, but taking a photograph with one hand whilst waving a table lamp above your head with the other isn't how a professional is supposed to work.

This one wasn't too bad though. You can see a reasonable amount of detail. I don't remember him having red eyes when I took the picture. Blasting him with a flashlight and a daylight bulb obviously took their toll.

To end on a high note - the Gelati box in the picture belonged to Ex Mr Limecat. Cutting it to shreds was in some ways quite cathartic. Yes, childish I know. But I don't care.

Gang aft agley

2009-03-07T16:54:00.006Z

This weekend, as befitting any self respecting mouse or man, I laid some schemes. Small cat was with his father for the weekend, and Mr Cat had gone to a gay wedding in Newcastle. I had a whole day to myself, and lots and lots to do.

My plan was as follows;

Blitz the pile of ironing in the laundry basket
Finish off an unsewn, unstuffed badger and pop it on Etsy
Sort out the terrible mess created whilst trying to make a lightbox earlier in the week (don't ask)
Possibly paint some more of the tiles in the kitchen, or even strip some more wallpaper.
Sort out the mass of DVD's lying around without covers and catalog them (because I am anal like that)
Organise life.

These tiles are a mess and need sorting out...oh look - tea!

What actually happened was this.

Woke up at 9am
Made tea, went back to bed with danish pastry and laptop.
Read Guardian online
Remained in dressing gown until midday BECAUSE I COULD!
Went and had a hair cut
Browsed in Monsoon and stroked two blouses (but did not buy as I cannot afford £65 for a single item of clothing no matter how luscious)
Went into two craft shops and purchased some card and some daylight bulbs for the purposes of completing the lightbox (see! I did achieve something!)
Had cup of coffee and cake whilst reading Private Eye in cafe
Went home
Made more tea and blogged.

I did finish the lightbox, though. I'll be writing more on this in a later post. But until then, a word of warning. When someone says "oh, it's so easy to make this at home. All you need is ten minutes, a scissors and some card", tell them to go away and come back when they've learned not to tell lies.

The worst lightbox in the history of the world. Ever.

On a positive note, when I checked my mail I discovered that I'd had an order for a pattern all the way from sunny Italy, so it wasn't an entirely unproductive day.

Rugby = Octopus

2009-03-04T21:01:00.006Z

Every 6 nations team should have it's own octopus. And now, two of them do!

Sad to say, the attempt to make all six ended prematurely when I lost interest and couldn't be bothered anymore. Yes, I'm ashamed. So now I have Denis and Daffyd moping about the house and, after what happened at the weekend, they're not getting on very well. Daffyd has been weeping into his leeks whilst Denis has been insufferably smug and keeps shrugging nonchalantly.

Anyway, here's Denis, in the snow, looking insufferably smug.

"la plume de ma tante; le singe est dans l'arbre; Vous avez perdu, le Pays de Galles"

And here is Daffyd, the day after his defeat, threatening to hurl himself off Raglan Castle in protest. Fortunately a Cadw employee coaxed him down before anyone was hurt.

"Booo hooo!"

As a treat, we took Daffyd to Tintern Abbey on Sunday to cheer him up. It certainly cheered me up. A weekend in Wales was just the ticket. And yes, we did do a walk, around Tintern and up into the hills, but more on that later.

I think Daffyd is hiding behind one of the pillars. Sulking, probably.

Nothing Zen about me

2009-02-23T12:57:00.004Z

Limecat Junior decided that he wanted to be taken on a trip to "The Play Farm" yesterday. So after strapping him into the boot - er, back seat - I attached my Zen Stone to the stereo system and handed it to him so that he could control the playlist. I thought this would be preferable to having him request that I fast forward, or reverse ten times. Instructions like this can be confusing when you're trying to concentrate on the driving.

How wrong I was.

There were about 50 tracks available for him to choose from.

With the Zen in his hand, this is how Radio Limecat panned out;

Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Nothing sweet about me - Gabriella Cilmi
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Girls - Sugababes
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Girls - Sugababes
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Laura - Scissor Sisters

By the time we got to the carpark and I was, mercifully, able to switch off the engine, my ears were in shock. The effect of listening to the Scissor Sisters a zillion times without a break was, as Morrisey would put it "enough to make a shy, bald Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder".

I'll never make that mistake again.

Oh dear, not another one

2009-02-21T21:24:00.005Z

Another book review, that is. It's supposed to be walking and crochet but it's turned into reading.

I have an excuse, though. Mr Cat is in the process of doing something new fangled so that any walks I blog about can be highlighted with a pictorial representation of our every footstep. Thus, you can see where we get lost and double back on ourselves, fall into mantraps and end up in lakes. But he hasn't done it yet, so the walks are in a blog queue.

So until they're unleashed, I'm going to recommend The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. I was SCARED of this book. At least for the first couple of chapters, which are very creepy. It's another Victorian murder mystery, only a true one this time. This probably gives the impression that I'm interested in all things Victorian, when the opposite is the case (if it's possible to smash an era of History repeatedly about the head with a cudgel, I would choose the period 1714-1914, with particular cudgelling reserved for the Victorians) but this was the only book which looked remotely readable in the St Pancras International branch of Foyles. I had a long wait ahead, and a Danish pastry to get through. And it's really rather good.

As for crochet, I was in the process of making a character from Wall:E, but someone from Craftster pipped me to the post so I won't be able to start a new project until I've stopped sulking. Eve will have to remain in the craft basked, headless, until I do.

A good read

2009-02-10T21:23:00.005Z

Not having much luck on the reading front of late. Books are something I cannot live without, but recently I've found myself ploughing through a swamp of mediocrity.

Fortunately, a readable offering came my way recently when I picked this one up in Waterstones.

An historical novel by a person called Kylie Fitzpatrick filled me with trepidation (well come on - my old moniker was going to be Beatrix Canticle. You wouldn't read an historical novel by someone called Beatrix Canticle, would you? Would you?!), but it was just fine. It's never going to win the Booker prize, but if you want a few hours of pleasant distraction then this will be just the ticket. It's quite gentle, and what I'd term a ladies' murder mystery story, despite having a wee bit of a feminist message. Which is fine, really. After all, those action adventure stories that boys read can get a bit boisterous at times. They're enough to make you drop your cup of Darjeeling. And that would never do.

There's a peahen in my garden

2009-01-22T22:26:00.002Z

Just before Christmas, there was a thud outside the French windows. This was not quite what we expected to see when we went to investigate.

The ginger Tom was very perturbed and started slinking around, belly close to the floor, in that macho, catcho style they adopt when they're trying to look 'ard as nails.

Fortunately, we'd already ordered the turkey for Christmas.

Amigurumi hints and tips type thing

2009-01-22T21:43:00.003Z

Sorry about the gap. Long Christmas, lethargy, holiday, too much cake - you know how it is.

Anyway, there are a lot of amigurumi hints and tips floating about out there on the interwebnetsuperhyperspace, but I thought I'd add to them anyway. Specifically, the correct use of pins.

When I first started making ami, I failed to pin. Failure to pin is a very grave mistake. You've put all that effort into making the bits, so don't fall at the last hurdle and construct your ami so it looks like a lopsided car crash.

I use two type of pins. Long ones, like these;

and short ones, like these;

They're very cheap and not worth buying in a specialist craft shop where they're likely to be more expensive. Get them in a supermarket - Asda do the long ones, and you can probably get the short ones in Sainsbury and Tesco.

I made the mistake of using the long ones for limbs when I first started making ami. Because they're long, they seem more secure, yes? No. What happens is that the pin comes out the other side of the toy making it difficult to sew without stabbing yourself in the fingers. It also makes the toy top heavy and gets in the way of balancing the limbs properly. The best thing to use are the shorter pins, and use more of them. If you're placing a leg on a body, for instance, place the pins close to the top of the leg/arm and make sure most of the pin goes into the body. Don't put the pin through the bottom of the paw whatever you do. And don't be afraid to use 3 or even 4 pins for this purpose, like this;

When you turn the toy upright, the pins won't get in the way when you try to make the animal stand up, as is often the case with the longer pins.

So what about long pins? Oddly enough, long pins can also be good for siting smaller body parts, like ears. If you try and use 3 or 4 small pins on an ear it's almost impossible to sew the ear on as the surface area is so small. One large pin, straight through the tip of the ear and right through the head, leaves the sewing area clear.

Hope this helps!

Free bunny and cat pattern for christmas

2008-12-14T21:34:00.007Z

And why not. And even better, you only need scrap wool and it takes no time at all. Enjoy....

You will need a couple of balls of inexpensive yarn in contrasting colours. Any spare yarn you have lying around in your workbasket will probably be fine - this little critter doesn’t take up an awful lot. I used Patons Zhivago. You can opt for more expensive yarn if you fancy a pedigree mew, but cheap acrylic is fine for a moggy mew.

6mm safety eyes (or you can embroider the eyes if you choose)

A scrap of felt for the muzzle. You will need to cut the circle approx 2cm in diameter.

Black embroidery thread for the nose and mouth, and pink thread for the bunny nose

A 3.0mm hook

Stuffing

Abbreviations

Ch – chain
sts - stitches
Sc – single crochet
Sc-inc – Single Crochet increase (sc twice into same stitch)
Sc-dec – Single Crochet decrease (sc two stitches together)
FO – finish off

The body, head legs and arms are the same for both the Mew and the Bunny. Instructions for the Bunny nose and ears are included at the end. For the single striped bunny, I joined in the contrast yarn at row 7 and used it for two rows. On row 9, I went back to the main colour. For the mew, I joined the contrast for rows 4/5, and again at rows 8/9. You can join your colours however you want, or keep your body all one colour. Have some fun with different colour schemes!

Body

Using your main colour.
Row 1 - ch 2. sc 6 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Row 2 - sc-inc in each stitch around = 12 sts
Row 3 - *sc1, sc-inc. Repeat from * around = 18 sts
Row 4 - *sc2, sc-inc. Repeat from * around = 24 sts
Row 5 - sc around. = 24 sts
Row 6 - *sc2, sc-dec. Repeat from * around = 18 sts
Rows 7 to 9 - sc around = 18 sts.
Row 10 - *sc1, sc-dec. Repeat from * around = 12 sts
Row 11 - sc around = 12 sts
FO.

Mouth and Nose (mew only)

To give your mew the kind of face he has in the picture, you will need to cut a piece of felt about 2cm in diameter. Embroider the nose and mouth how you prefer and then sew your whiskers in place at the back before attaching the felt to the head of the mew. The back of the felt will look a bit of a mess – like this....

You can see where the mouth and nose are, with the whiskers taking shape at the sides.

When you turn the felt over, you will see something much nicer, like this...

Make the whiskers longer than you need them to be so that you can cut them to size once you've secured them to the back of the felt.

Head

Row 1 - ch 2. sc 6 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Row 2 - sc-inc in each stitch around = 12 sts
Row 3 - *sc1, sc-inc. Repeat from * around = 18 sts
Row 4 - *sc2, sc-inc. Repeat from * around = 24 sts
Row 5 - *sc3, sc-inc. Repeat from * around = 30 sts
Rows 6 to 8 - sc around = 30 sts

If you want to attach the eyes in the same place as on the pictured cat, you can do so now. I put them between rows 6 and 7.

Row 9 - *sc3, sc-dec. Repeat from * around = 24 sts
Row 10 - *sc2, sc-dec. Repeat from * around = 18 sts

If you have made the mouth out of felt, I would attach it now before the hole becomes too small to sew it on comfortably.

Row 11 - *sc1, sc-dec. Repeat from * around = 12 sts
Row 12 - sc around = 12 sts
FO

Arms x2

Row 1 - ch 2. Sc 7 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Rows 2-7 - sc around = 7 sts
FO and leave a long enough thread to attach to the body

Legs x2

Row 1 - ch 2. Sc 8 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Rows 2 to 3 - sc around = 8sts
Row 4 - sc-dec, sc around = 7 sts
Rows 5 to 7 - sc around = 7 sts
FO and leave a long enough thread to attach to the body

Ears x2 (see below for bunny ears)

Row 1 - ch 2. Sc 6 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Row 2 - *sc1, sc-inc. Repeat from * around = 9 sts
Rows 3 to 4 - sc around = 9 sts
FO – leave enough yarn to sew ears to head.

Assembling the mewcat

Stuff the head and body and stitch together. There’s no need to stuff the limbs – simply sew the top of the legs and arms flat before attaching to the body. If you want the mew to sit down, sew his legs about three rows up from his bottom. If you want him to stand, place the legs closer to the base.

Sew the ears on to the head.

Bunny

Bunny body, head, legs and arms are the same as for the mew pattern.

Bunny Ears x2

Row 1 - ch 2. Sc 5 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Row 2 - sc-inc in each stitch around = 10 sts
Row 3 – *sc-inc, sc 4. Repeat from * around = 12 sts
Rows 4 and 5 – sc around = 12 sts
Row 6 - sc-dec around = 6 sts
Rows 7 and 8 - sc around = 6 sts.
FO. Using the tail of the yarn, pinch the bottom of the ears together and put in two or three stitches in to keep them looking “curled”.

Bunny Nose

Row 1 - ch 2. Sc 5 sts in second ch from hook, or use the magic loop method
Row 2 - sc-inc in each stitch around = 10 sts
Row 3 - sc around = 10 sts.
FO leaving a tail long enough to attach the nose to the face.

Embroider on the mouth with pink thread.

Assemble the bunny as described for the mew above.

How to cheat at games and be a bad mother

2008-11-27T22:00:00.007Z

Limekitten likes playing a computer game called "Monster Mash".

The object of the game is to stop a series of slightly ridiculous monsters from reaching the village and eating the inhabitants. You do this by constructing cannon at strategic points on the path to the village. Put them in the wrong place, and your chances of success are reduced. Upgrade them incorrectly and you're simply asking for trouble. I control the gameplay, but Limekitten gives the orders.

Limekitten's favourite adversary

We don't play every day or even every week. But when we do it is a source of much giggling. However, there came a point one evening where the monsters got the better of us, and we had to give up.

There's something to be said for being a bit technically aware. Not too technical, but just technical enough to know how to hunt down the .ini file and reduce some of the values. Like, well, the amount of points you need before you can upgrade those weapons to maximum firing capacity.

A few days later and Limekitten was amazed. "You've got really good at this, mummy. Have you been practising?".

I'll admit to feeling slightly shamefaced.

He must never know.

Extreme Crochet Pt II

2008-11-21T12:39:00.007Z

The Extremeties of Making.

Specifically for the Parent Teachers Association, who like people to make things. So a lot of us made a lot of stuff.

Here is some of that stuff in a basket, waiting to be taken to school.

I was expecting my own room...

It's been crochet hell getting this lot done in time.

Some things were more popular than others, but the badger, I am pleased to say, went down very well and it's a shame I only had one.

whatever you do, don't look round..

There was also a request for some pigs. I didn't have any pigs, and have not really concentrated on porcine creations so far, so who knows what manner of pork scratchings are going to be created before perfection is achieved.

Pardon? Do I know you?

I am glad it's over, though. It now allows the time to stock the shop and get the badger pattern online. There's also a free pattern coming for the blog. Soon, hopefully. The hands need a rest, too.

I also need to reintroduce myself to the limekitten. He's been as patient as it's possible to be for a 6 year old, but I think he's had enough.

A Nightingale Sang in East Wellow

2008-11-11T23:19:00.008Z

Last weekend, the large cat suggested a walk around East Wellow because "it's where Florence Nightingale is buried". This is a man who shows scant interest in history, so I was shocked by this sudden conversion to the finest of academic pursuits. Sadly, my delight was short lived. This "Florence Fact" had come to his attention because Miss Nightingale, as well as being a nurse, was also a statistician. This was a complete revelation. I had no idea that she was numerically famous although I did know a reasonable amount about the Crimean war (and obviously, everyone has heard of Cardigan, Raglan and Balaclava, the latter being a particularly nasty form of torture inflicted on children during cold spells in the 70's). But he, being a mathematical sort of person, did. Who says maths and history don't go?!

King Alfred woz ere

Anyway, we set off, having not really had a decent walk for a few weeks, only to be met by a steadily increasing drizzle. It was just about tolerable in the churchyard of St Margaret of Antioch, where Florence is buried. I only found out this evening that the founding of this church goes back to the time of King Alfred and that the building itself contains a rather splendid medieval wall painting. So perhaps we shall be going back to have a closer peek.

Having taken a photo of the grave, which does rather stand out from the rest of the burial plots, the drizzle began to turn nasty, and on following the waymark for the beginning of our walk, we were confronted by this...

"You shall not pass!"

Well, I wasn't prepared to walk through that little lot. Having survived the infamous "Pea Field Fiasco" just outside Petersfield last year, I wasn't willing to risk a reprise with an even more menacing crop. Navigating Fangorn would have been preferable. So we returned to the car. And to be fair, it was absolutely chucking it down by then.

East Wellow is pretty and the church, even in the drizzle, looked interesting. With more time I think it would be worth exploring further. The roads are very narrow, though, so if you fancy visiting the Lady of the Lamp in her final resting place and having a walk afterwards, you may as well leave your car at the church as there's nowhere else you can safely park unless you have a motorbike or a very thin vehicle.

Etsy Observations

2008-11-09T00:12:00.012Z

There are a few nice things about opening an Etsy shop.

Firstly, someone might actually like your stuff. For a generally non creative person like myself, that's an extraordinary turn up for the books, believe me.

Shop til you don't drop

Secondly, the experience so far is that the other sellers and buyers are very encouraging and constructive individuals. They genuinely seem to want to help you out.

Thirdly, even if no sales are made, people can show their appreciation through "hearting", which means they can let you know if they either like your shop, or your items. I had a new shop heart this very evening, which is always a nice and uplifting thing.

The bad news is - there are a lot of very successful sellers on Etsy, who seem to sell about 400,000,000 items per second. If you think this is hyperbole, you'd be right. But it gives some indication of the mountains which need to be climbed for a small, snail-like crocheter.

What this means is that every time those big sellers sell, they relist. And relist. And relist again. So your individual, hand crafted labour of love is on the front page of the search engine for about 3 seconds flat (during which period you are rather disproportionately excited) before being knocked onto page 2 (during which period your excitement is extinguished and you gnash your teeth and weep).

The Craft Bag of Possibilities - there is a compass and protractor at the bottom. No, really, there is.

So I'm just going to have to make more things, which is going to be a tall order, what with being a creative dullard. But there is a craft bag full of stuff in the kitchen. And some grey, black and cream wool in the yarn box. It is quite possible that a badger may well seek refuge under the dining table, point out that mountains are there to be climbed, not shirked (badgers are notoriously obstinate like that), and suggest that I give him a new set of legs and put him in the shop front.

I may well take him up on his offer.

"Careful with those pins, woman!"

Extreme Crochet Pt I

2008-10-29T19:34:00.007Z

It has been rather a tough few days on the fingers, but the results are finally bearing fruit. These little critters have just gone on sale and though I say so myself this isn't too bad a picture for a notoriously rubbish photographer. You can see enough detail, and they look quite jolly, sitting out there in the garden on a crisp October day.

10p for a cup of soup, anyone?

Although it would appear that the rabbit is a tad camera shy, or maybe he senses the shortcomings of the portrait artist.

"I can't be expected to work in these conditions"

Anyway, there will be more posting on the extremities of crochet and the perils of opening an Etsy shop. I have things to say on these matters. Oh yes.

Washing Machine Maintenance

2008-10-22T19:29:00.003+01:00

Domestic Tip #1 - always attend to the maintenance of your washing machine. Failure to do so may result in an infestation of bears in the drum….

This is Waldorf. At one point, he was driving a lego tractor around the coffee table, so his ultimate containment in the washing machine was something of a relief.

The Wanton Burden

2008-10-12T23:04:00.006+01:00

Keats is everywhere at the moment and it's becoming rather tedious. Autumn, which really is a splendid season, is invariably accompanied by mass Keats quoting to the point where you just want to stuff your ears with dead leaves and squirrels so you don't have to LISTEN to the wretched stuff anymore. It's a nice sonnet and all that, but it raises the foppery quota to unacceptable levels.

So just for a change, we'll go with Shakespeare's Autumn - "Bearing the wanton burden of the prime." It has a fruitier ring to it. And it's not Keats.

To celebrate the wanton burden, here are a couple of autumnal pictures taken on some of our recent walks. First, we have Ham House, a super Jacobean building near the Thames which I rather like even though Mr Horse was underwhelmed.

Ham n' Pineapple, please

It's where Charles II was famously presented with a pineapple. I quite like Charles II but pineapples give me the fear, so fair play to the Merry Monarch for giving it a whirl.

And here is lovely, lovely Winchester cathedral which has featured on this blog before but you can never have too much of it, I say. It was a lovely, crisp day, the water meadows were on top form and the pub wasn't too full. Bingo!

Squids In

2008-09-18T22:56:00.005+01:00

It was supposed to be a shrew, an "Animals of Farthing Wood" type shrew. There was no pattern, but how difficult could it be, after all this practice?

Well, in much the same way that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects a shrew to turn out to be a squid. But that's what happened. What fell off the hook was not a small, fluffy woodland creature, but an underwater menace by the name of Squirtle.

I am not a shrew.

So onto shrew mark II. So confident that nothing aquatic would occur this time, I even risked using some posh wool (a merino/alpaca blend). The result was almost a shrew, but really, when you examine it closely, it's an anteater. And he's wearing a stripey jumper. But that's fine. It's close enough.

I am not a squid.

With his talent for innovative naming conventions, the small horse christened it "Anty". It took him all of 2 seconds to come up with that one. You can't buy genius like that, folks.

People who know about these things always recommend that you use the cheapest available acrylic wool to make ami. It cannot be denied that this is a wise strategy for both budgetary and aesthetic reasons. However, that Rowan Felted Tweed WAS awfully nice on the fingers, and the end product is much softer and far more "au naturelle" than anything you'd get from acrylic. It was £1.50 for three different coloured oddments in the bargain bucket of my local craft shop. And it will not last long.

(all Donations to the "Rowan Felted Tweed Fund for Blogging Horses" gratefully accepted).

And a walk...

2008-08-27T22:25:00.017+01:00

around Wensleydale, since you ask. Rather beautiful too, the high point being the diversion to the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey.

part of the ruins of Jervaulx

The "of history" part of this particular horse is the 16th Century bombshell known as the Henrician Reformation. This, of course, covers the dissolution of monasteries such as Jervaulx and Fountains, which we also visited.

view over the grounds - the sheep on the left is a spy from Lancashire

Fountains was beautiful, if a bit busy for my tastes, but Jervaulx was nothing if not tranquil. You pay if you want to, the leaflets and guides are left in a wooden porch with an honesty box, and then it's just you, some sheep and a fabulous ruin....

Jervaulx Wall

... and a tumbling riot of wildflowers, including white achillea (Yarrow), which I rarely see growing wild in Hampshire.

No doubt the monks would have used achillea for medicinal purposes as it was a common ingredient in dayes of yore, and judging by the amount of the stuff growing on the roadsides near the abbey it would have been a fortuitous place to incur a paper cut. Or scroll cut or whatever the medieval equivalent might be.

The walk continued on from the Abbey, with another diversion in the direction of the tea shop (nice Tunisian Orange cake slices, by the way), and away up into the Wensleydale countryside.

Pretty much this very walk, in fact. Or one which resembled it very closely. And one which I would recommend most heartily.

Lions and Fish

2008-08-12T19:44:00.005+01:00

What a useless blogger, wandering off for over a month. But it's been a busy month and since it included both "random crochet threads and a walk or two" it at least lived up to the byline of this blog. And frankly, that's the main thing, eh?

Anyway, on to the random crochet threads. This is "Growly".

He doesn't look very growly at all. More like a slightly depressed pincushion. With bouffant hair. 2 out of 3 of those surveyed said he was a lion, although it took one of those two some moments before she made a positive identification. The third respondent thought he was a hedgehog. I felt ashamed.

Meanwhile, washed up on the shingle, we have "Mr Fishburger".

We did have "Captain Fishbones" as well, a splendid purple creature, but I think one of the cats has dragged him behind the sofa. If these are the sort of jolly japes they get up to when I'm out, I think I might have to ration their biscuits.

It's a Prawn!

2008-07-01T21:32:00.033+01:00

Apparantly. Or so I've been told by some undiscerning savages. It looks like a completed nautiloid to me.

I've got permission from Beth to post up the adapted pattern for her nautiloid. She was pleased that the pattern would be available to crocheters as well as knitters, so many thanks.

The directions below are based on Beth's original knitted pattern (which is here) . To a large extent, I winged it, so the crochet instructions are much more of an inexact science. However, the nautiloid is very forgiving - the odd mistake here or there, like forgetting to increase, increasing on the wrong row, or increasing two stitches instead of one, as I did several times - will be difficult to detect, so don't worry too much about trying to achieve 100% accuracy.

I opted for a variegated yarn rather than going for stripes and am glad I did - the first few rows are quite fiddly owing to the fact that you have to work SC with so few stitches on the hook. Trying to introduce alternate colours would have made my head explode. It's not impossible, though. You could try adding your contrast colour after you'd increased up to about 5/6 stitches - it gets much easier then. Then again, a lot depends on your hook size and the deftness of your fingers.

SHELL

Magic ring 3 sts, (or ch 2 and work 3 sc into the second chain).
Row 1 - SC around
Row 2: sc-inc, sc to end - 4 sts.
Row 3: sc around
Row 4: sc around
These four rows are tough on the fingers, but it will get easier.
Rows 5-8: Work as for Rows 1-4 - 5sts.

COILING THE SHELL

Add a little stuffing at this point and roll the shell towards the hook. Once you get the shape you like, you basically need to SC into one of the shell stitches to keep the coil in place. It really is up to you where you choose to pick up the stitch, but try to keep to the centre of the shell as far as you can, and don't pick up too low down or you don't get much of a coil.

Now, you started this process with 5 sts in your round. Now you have 6. What you should do is SC the coil stitch with the stitch on your hook (sc-dec) to return to 5 sts again, but if you forget and end up with 6 sts, it's not the end of the world. As I said, the nautiloid is very forgiving and so long as you keep more or less to the number of stitches, it will look ok.

So, that was row 9.

Round 10: sc around

Round 11: sc around

Round 12: sc inc - sc around. 6 sts.

Round 13: coil shell, sc around.

And again;
Round 14: sc around

Round 15: sc around

Round 16: sc inc, sc around. 7 sts

Round 17: coil shell, sc around.

Just continue working in these blocks of 4 rows until you get the shell size you want. I went to about 28 sts, but you could make a mini nautiloid or a monster nautiloid if you felt like it.

HEAD

I kept increasing by 6 sts each row until I had a half ball shape which more or less fitted into the neck of the shell. So,

Magic ring 6 sts

Row 1 - 1 sc inc into each stitch - 12 sts

Row 2 - 1 sc inc, sc - repeat to end of row - 18 sts

Row 3 - 1 sc inc, 2 sc - repeat to end of row - 24 sts

And so on until the circumference is about right. Then sc around for as many rows as it takes to get the head the right length. I think I did about 2/3 extra sc rows, but it's up to you. Don't close the head, just leave the end open and once you start to attach it to the shell, get the stuffing in.

A word of warning - if you make the head too big, it will look ever so slightly phallic when you sew it on!

To attach the head to the shell, make sure the head fits inside the shell so that the shell gives a sort of collar effect. Either add safety eyes before attaching and stuffing, or sew the eyes on afterwards as in my example.

The tentacles are dead easy - just make a set of chains as long as you like. I made 8 chains of about 19 sts each and sewed them on.

And voila!

As I was taking the photographs, I stepped backwards and stood on a snail, coiled shell an' all. I didn't feel too bad about this as he had just been chomping through my campanula.

Poetic Perspective

2008-06-21T22:30:00.010+01:00

A nice walk was had last week around a village called Hawkley. The church roof is very distinctive and looks slightly skewed, like an optical illusion. I forgot my camera, but found this picture on flickr. The owner, Luptonn, very kindly gave permission for me to borrow his photograph and post it here.

Each diamond shaped segment looks as if it's a completely different size to the next segment along, as if the panels don't actually belong on the same roof. You can't see the four individual quarters on this picture, but you can sense something slightly off balance about the architecture, and a lack of symmetry which compels you to keep looking up.

The time on the clock is somewhat ironic, as we discovered on our walk that there's a memorial to a WW1 poet (Edward Thomas) up above the valley. The path was too muddy to risk the detour so I had a look at some of his poems when we got home. This one was short, but poignant.

In Memoriam

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.

Patternless Plankton

2008-06-18T20:16:00.006+01:00

This is Sheldon Plankton, the evil and diminutive enemy of Mr Crabs. If you don't watch Spongebob Squarepants then shame on you.

There isn't a pattern for this as I made it up on the fly, and it kind of worked apart from the uneven antennae. The arms are missing because it was "claimed" before I had a chance to sew them on. Once the small one takes things as his own, it's very difficult to persuade him to let me finish them. Sheldon currently resides in the kitchen, inside a tagine. He's no doubt hatching some kind of devilish plot as I speak. Involving preserved lemons, I suspect.

If anyone is interested I'll try and remember what I did and write a pattern. The chances of this happening are low, however, as I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone a few months ago. It was worked in a chunky, seagreen aran mix that I found in the remnant basket of my local craft shop, and I probably used a 4.0mm hook.

Told you I was useless at remembering things.

Pooh Sticks

2008-06-15T23:35:00.008+01:00

You take them all the way up the A34, show them the sights, drag them around the Ashmoleon to look at Egyptian Mummies (what small boy doesn't like Egyptian mummies?) but when it comes down to it, all your average 5 year old wants to do on a day out in Oxford is play Pooh Sticks with his friend.

More Circular Things

2008-06-08T01:03:00.006+01:00

This time a nautilus. It's supposed to be a knitting pattern, but the thought of grappling with four double pointed needles was too horrific to consider for even a moment. Converting the original pattern to crochet was not difficult. Just do everything it says, but with a hook instead of the pointy things. It is working ok so far, but I worry about the face and tentacles which will have to appear at some point. However - it's quite definitely a shell, and it's coiled, and it looks like it's supposed to. I should stop at this point and leave it as an "unfinished project" to avoid future disappointment.

The original knitting pattern was featured in knitty.com and is by Beth Skwarecki. If you have a penchant for the pointy needled craft, then you can find the pattern here. One of my Ravelry friends found it. So thank you, Clare.

Fair Circular

2008-06-02T23:15:00.004+01:00

We don't do the Court Circular down here. It's the Fair Season in rural Hants. There was a near decapitation during the welly throwing event, but it wasn't fatal and thus didn't merit the appearance of Inspector Barnaby. There were tractors, though, and boys do love their tractors.

One of the fearsome machines was named after the cat, which was a bonus.

Photographic Toys

2008-05-31T12:05:00.000+01:00

Nice! Some layout toys to play with. Here's a dragon collage - the dragon isn't finished yet. It's been unfinished for weeks, in fact. Hopefully the scales and ears will go on before the dragon gets totally cheesed off and torches the kitchen. But anyway, the collage option on Picasa is quite nifty, and with luck the dragon isn't so vain that it minds being displayed in this state. The one annoying thing with this new google blog configuration is that you may have to go back to the original blog page and click on the picture again before you can see it magnified. Uploading pictures seems to work slightly differently since Google took over, and so far, it's proving irritating.

Credit for the pattern goes to Angry Angel, and it can be found here on the Craftster site.

Sleeping Cats

2008-05-30T19:29:00.000+01:00

This cat is supposed to look like one of my own cats. In terms of colour, it's fairly accurate. In terms of intelligence, the crochet version wins paws down. It was the last thing I managed to finish this week before falling prey to a stomach bug, passed on by the small one. And now the cat is leaving for a new home. He looks suitably concerned, as well he might, considering where he's going.

The pattern for the cat can be found here. It's the Amineko pattern, and is in both Japanese and English. The copyright of the translated pattern is reserved by Nekoyama.

Evil Farmer

2008-05-11T22:18:00.001+01:00

You know who you are. You ploughed up two fields on the Test Way, and obscured the exit out of one particular field which caused a needless detour.

I hope you suffer from a surfeit of ear wax which causes bees to nest in your ears, causing much irritation and discomfiture. That'll teach you.

Despotic bears

2008-05-11T22:04:00.001+01:00

The appearance of the creature on the right is slightly alarming. He looks like a well known Teutonic psycho and despot. This is what happens when you try to crochet without a pattern and rely on fortune and wool supplies to dictate the end result.

Which in this case is hideous.

Google ate my blog

2008-05-11T22:01:00.000+01:00

The previous blog appears to have been eaten by administrative stinkies. So the reason the subject matter of the earlier posts bears no relation to the date, is because I got lazy and cut and pasted. Halloween and Christmas don't normally take place in May, not even in Hampshire.

Normal service resumes now.

Up the Hill Backwards

2008-05-11T21:57:00.001+01:00

Well, this was a fun thing to do after a month of self indulgence. A vigorous climb up Beacon Hill, just outside Newbury. It's a hillfort, it's got nice views, and you can climb up it. Bingo!

Here are the boys on the way up

The smaller of the two isn't being dragged up, even though it looks that way. It's more the reassuring hand of guidance, there to prevent slippage (it was a bit muddy).

And here is the summit. Note that soft toys are also permitted to walk up Beacon Hill - indeed they are mandatory items. If you don't place soft toys on the summit marker, you are actually thrown off the hill by the (invisible, obviously) hilltop monitor. Consider them a kind of votive offering. It's a good job we had some handy.

And on an unrelated note, I would give my right arm for eyelashes like these..

Winchester Bollards

2008-05-11T21:53:00.000+01:00

The weekend before Christmas is a good time to get toothache. Or not, as the case may be. It also happened to coincide with what felt like the coldest weekend of the year so far. The coldest weekend since the 1660's probably, so it increased the level of dental discomfiture. A pity, since the ice rink had returned to the Cathedral square, surrounded by a festive (albeit expensive and overly esoteric) fair. The small one enjoyed his French Raclette. Mr Horse shivered a lot. But the teeth weren't up to the fun although the dentist did an efficient job of annihilating the troublesome abscess 2 days later. Still, the Cathedral looked fabulous as always, and someone has painted the bollards in the market place. Which was nice.

A view I could never tire of - pound for pound, one of the best cathedrals in the business

After the Norman Conquest, most French bollards were destroyed by disgruntled Saxons. This one, in the Market Square in Winchester, is the last surviving example of it's kind.

Pumpkin Envy

2008-05-11T21:35:00.000+01:00

This was our attempt to menace the neighbourhood with pumpkins on Halloween. It's not bad, but on our perambulations this afternoon, on a rather pleasant autumn day of textbook quality, we found this outside the manor house.

It is superior in every way and I am absolutely devastated.