This week I...

• Knitted the test square for my throw (pattern originally from Rowan Mag 33 and reprinted in Simply Knitting no. 15, May 2006). This is using James C. Brett Kool Kotton, sent to me by Anne
  to test out. I am now going to be generally abusive with this square to see how it holds up. I was very impressed with it knitting up, nice and soft, came out well on 4.5mm needles, now I'm going to see how it wears. The idea then is to make the throw for my new house (which might be quite an old house by the time I get 48 squares made!) using 25 balls of Kool Kotton (it comes in really nice colours too, but I'm not choosing that until I've moved in and seen how the light and furniture etc work). 48 squares sounds a bit intimidating but I made this one in one evening at the B and B . It's worked across the diagonal which I think helped it to grow faster.
  
  
  

• Took my tonsils off on a visit to ENT. I am now on the waiting list for a tonsillectomy, which will probably happen around September/October time. It might be sooner as I've said I'm prepared to go in at short notice if they have a cancellation. It also turns out my tonsils can go and join something called the NHS Tonsil Archive, which I thought was just too funny! At least they'll be doing something useful then...
  

• Took Hedera walkies (see my previous post). Hedera is also going well. The pattern is simple but fun and looks great (it looks better on my foot when it's stretched out a bit!). The yarn is Trekking XXL on 2.25mm Surina needles.
  
  

• Joined the Stashalong blog (where I must remember to post next!). I've signed up for a month, so I'm not meant to buy any yarn for 30 days, from 8th June to 8th July. I'd also like to keep going for longer than that, but I'll see how the first month goes! My stash isn't as large as a lot of people's, but I am well aware that there are numerous projects I've been meaning to make and haven't got round to yet, and that I don't want to acquire more yarn whilst I've got a house move in progress. This is a third of my stash below:

• Knitted 1.5 bits of the front of Eloise (I made the back on holiday). Again, this is going well, I love the yarn (it's very soft and cuddly) and the colours are so fab!
  
  

• Oh yes, and I became the proud owner of a house!
  
  Above is the back of it, from the bottom of the garden (I mean, boring bit of gravel and patio).Monkey got settled into the kitchen, I think he thought someone might bring him some bananas if he hung around there for long enough:
  
  And my car, Oxo, discovered that she will be able to watch TV through the living room window at the front!
  
  
  

At the moment, I'm pondering moving my blog onto somewhere else (possibly Typepad?) as Blogger is driving me dotty. I won't be doing anything for a while though as there is too much else going on at the moment!

I'm not quite going to take a blog holiday, but I may not be around much for the next few weeks. I am working away in Norfolk, Kent and London a lot of the time so won't have internet access and my house move is scheduled for 3rd July. I have also just discovered a job I'm thinking of applying for - my line manager is looking for a job share partner and I'm thinking about applying. It would mean being responsible for the whole of the North of England (put like that, it does sound a bit scary!) but it would only be 2 days a week, and I could carry on freelancing for the other 3 days every week. I think it would be interesting, a bit more challenging than what I do now and there would be the other nice things like job security, paid holiday, sick leave, pension which I don't have at the moment! So I shall see, I'm not sure if I've got enough experience to apply but I might give it a shot to see what happens (I could do with some interview practice too as I haven't had one for 4 years!).

I am also very behind with reading other people's blogs. I'm sorry, I will catch up sometime! Although I will have quite a bit of "thinking space" over the next few weeks, as I've got a lot of train travel and nights in B & Bs for work, I won't be able to blog, or read other blogs due to the lack of internet access. And I don't know how long it will take to sort out my phone line at the new house!