Salmon fishing

I have bits of half-written blog posts around. I haven't blogged for aagggggeeeessss, life got a bit in the way. Weird how when I had loads of time there wasn't that much to blog about, now that there's LOADS of things to blog about there isn't any time to blog...


Anyway, I was going to review some books, but instead I'll just mention them a bit:
August's reading group book was Paul Torday's Salmon fishing in the Yemen
which I highly recommend. It really is as crazy as the title suggests - who in their right mind would think of going salmon fishing in the Yemen is the whole premise of the book. The story is told from a number of points of view, using a variety of diary entries, email conversations, narrative, letters etc, which I found straightforward to follow but I suspect some readers might not like the jumping around? It's about daring to believe that the impossible can really happen, with some swipes at politics and mad corporate worlds thrown in too. That also makes it sound deadly serious, which it isn't. It's highly amusing in parts, and also very sad in parts. But I think you have to read it for yourself!

I've also read:
Maggie Sefton A killer stitch another of her knitting mysteries. Not serious reading but a lot of fun.
Patrick Gale The whole day through Again, highly recommended. I love Patrick Gale!

Knitting-wise, I've finished one nephew jumper and nearly finished the other one. Still part way through the Owen socks, then I started Iron Knitter, at which I proved to be a total failure due to lack of time and didn't even complete the first round! Plus my knitting got exterminated by a dalek, which didn't help...

I haven't blogged for so long Blogger has changed the way you upload photos!
This is the yarn I bought at Norfolk yarn on holiday - 900g of Araucania Toconao at half price. It's gorgeous, 100% wool aran weight, all squooshy and soft and I'm thinking about making Amused by Jordana Paige with it.

Then I discovered that FOUR people I know are expecting babies in February or March. Is there something in the water? Haven't started any baby knitting yet but I'm going to have to soon.

A lot of time suddenly disappeared when I discovered that Bloglines, which I've been using to follow blog updates for the last five years was closing on 1st November and I had to shift all my blog subs over to Google Reader. It did give me a chance to go through them (and realise how many people have stopped blogging!) but it seemed to take forever....

We have been doing a lot in the garden. The huge and diseased buddleias have disappeared...

 To be replaced with a nice bit of empty space. I am gradually working my way along the raised bed with the "no dig" method I read about - you put some cardboard on top of the soil, pile compost from the compost heap on top of it and spend the winter drinking tea and eating chocolate in the warm whilst the worms do all the hard work of breaking down the cardboard and mixing the whole lot together.

And a friend of ours gave us two apple trees as a (deliberately) belated wedding present as it is only now the right time to plant new trees. They haven't been delivered yet, but this a picture I took when we went to choose them at the plant centre at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley. One is an espalier to go against the back wall, the other a standard shape to go in the lawn.



I think that's all for now. Hopefully it won't be so long before my next blog post, still haven't blogged about more of the books I've read and some of the knitting! I got horribly behind with reading people's blogs whilst transferring all my blog subs over but have been trying to catch up with commenting.