Where did November go?

Eeek, it's the end of November and I'm not sure where the time went!

We've been frantically busy at work this month. In fact, I've hardly done any of the Thing that is supposed to be the Main Part of my job. I've really enjoyed (almost) every day, there is so much happening and so much that's new to try out but it's only just dawned on me that the reason I'm no longer capable of staying awake after 10pm may have something to do with all this! Anyway, things should calm down fairly soon. One of my colleagues was off sick for 10 days so I've been covering for her. I also got to courier Something Large to an exhibition at the Bodleian. Which was also fun. I'd never couriered for an exhibition before and it was really cool watching them get all set up and watching my Large Object being installed. And I got to travel in the courier van (I was a bit sad it wasn't a lorry as I was hoping to up my street cred with the nephew sprogs by showing them pics of me in a lorry) . The exhibition is called "Hallelujah, the British Choral Tradition" if anyone has an urge to go and see it.

And I finished my portfolio! That's what's been taking up time in the evening and at weekends. It's currently being proofread by one of my colleagues so sometime this week I'll get it back, make some changes, print out three copies, get them bound, parcel them up with a cheque for a ridiculous amount of money and post the whole lot off to CILIP to be assessed! Does CILIP not realise that there is yarn out there to be bought with money, rather than sending it off for some stupid assessment?!

I'm very behind with blog reading (again), mainly caused by people doing NaBloPoMo, which appears to have been designed to make me feel guilty about keeping up with blogs (but then I have enjoyed reading the NaBloPoMo posts I've read, I've just got a lot to catch up with), but also by my laptop, which has taken to crashing at every possible opportunity, and not just when using Yahoo and Flickr as it did before... The laptop replacement fund is in action though, and I am busily working out the cheapest time to buy a new one. Fortunately, when I had my car serviced this month, it didn't need any new tyres, which I had been anticipating having to buy, which means the laptop can now be bought sooner!!

Unfortunately the two projects I'm working on at the moment are for swops, so I can't really post pics of them. I also haven't taken any pics of them anyway as the light is so bad. So there aren't any pics to see. I did just try to upload a picture of the basil growing on my windowsill (on the grounds that a pictureless post is boring) but the laptop crashed Again, so I'm giving up on pics for the time being.

Finishing things off

Yes, at last, proof that Slough really is on another planet. A planet that has eight day weeks...


I've had my Mum to stay for five nights and have been busily finishing things off (knitting that is, not my Chartership portfolio, which is still lurking in the living room). The problem at the moment is finding enough light to photograph things. It's now dark when I leave work, and pretty much dark when I leave home in the morning. So I have taken to using the table in the Reading Room at work as a photographic backdrop:

So exciting is this table that I managed to miss the yarn (almost completely) and take a pic just of the table. Fortunately my colleagues seem to have accepted that I am Totally Stark Raving Bonkers so they don't bat an eyelid at lunchtime when I spread knitting all over the place and take photos of it.

This is my finished Irish Hiking Scarf. I altered the beginning and end to three rows of garter stitch instead of launching straight into the cable. It seemed to give it a better border. That took 2 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted, as purchased from Get Knitted back in March.

And I finally finished my Greenbelt socks! I made quick progress on these actually at Greenbelt, but then got distracted once I got home so the final sock half took considerably longer! This is Welt Fantastic by Charlene Schurch, from Sensational Knitted Socks.

Thanks to blogs and Ravelry I've been doing some swops n' stuff. I swopped some yarn from my stash with Dee in the US, who very kindly went shopping for me and brought back 3 skeins of Wildfoote Sock Yarn. Michele first introduced me to this on the Monkey swop, and it's YUM!

Then Alex had used some Noro sock yarn, wasn't sure about it so offered the remains to whoever left a comment asking for it. There's enough here to have a trial go, which is great as I've admired it in the shops but wasn't sure how it would knit up or whether I'd like it!

And Kat sent me this skein of Lorna's Laces as a birthday present! Don't you just love the colours? She says I should be able to get a pair of trainer socks out of it.


Otherwise not much is going on here in Slough. Surely if we have eight day weeks here I'd have more knitting time? I'll leave you with a pic from a walk I went on with Mum last weekend. This is Burnham Beeches (yes, again, although I promise I don't live there) just as the leaves are turning. It looked absolutely beautiful, but was very squelchy under foot!