Whizzzzz

I was catching up on some blog reading and read this post from Flossie Teacakes, which mentioned the new Village Haberdashery online shop. And it looks lovely. Not only stocking sewing supplies, but knitting too. And some lovely yarn at that, and flat rate shipping. I may have to indulge at some point.

Kind of reminded me of this sign - spotted on Staines High St outside our local haberdashery.

I have acquired a new toy. A Kenwood Chef. It's actually  my Mum's, and is about 20 years old (we think) but she wasn't using it any more, and I had been thinking about getting one, so the obvious thing was to take over hers! This was one of the reasons I took the car with me when I went to visit her before Easter.

This is an all-in-one sponge cake in progress - one of those easy ones where you just bung flour, sugar, eggs and marg. in a bowl and whizz it together, throw in oven and voila...

 a cake! The friends we had over for afternoon tea seemed to enjoy it.

 There were some leftover mushrooms from last week's veg box too, so I made a small quantity of soup and whizzed it in the blender attachment (remembering to put lid on so it doesn't go all over the walls).

Very tasty.
I've been busily knitting away on the nephew's Intrepid Jumper - it's in the round so hardly any sewing up to do, thank goodness. I've done the body up to the sleeves and have almost finished the second sleeve now. And amazingly I'm in good time for his birthday at the end of May. My other project is a secret at the moment, but I'll post about it once it's finished.

And these are two pictures I took last week on my way to a meeting in the City of London. They're the tulips at the end of Cheapside/ right by St Paul's Cathedral. I loved the colours, and the contrast with the fairly harsh City architecture alongside.

 I was also treated to a superb lunch in the restaurant at St Paul's, which I'd highly recommend.

The OH bought a copy of the BBC Pride & Prejudice on blu-ray this week and we've been enjoying watching it. Although I can recite chunks of the script from memory it was very different viewing - the colours are much more vivid and you can see more of the detail. It brought back fond memories - it was originally broadcast when I was 16 and I videoed all the episodes, and sat down to watch the first when I was "home alone" having been left to keep an eye on the house, the cats and my Gran whilst the rest of the family went on holiday. I'd never read it and didn't know the plot, ended up getting completely hooked and stayed up until 3am to finish watching it! Sadly, now being a middle-aged woman with job meant an all night viewing was no longer possible so it had to be watched over several evenings!

Stuff

Thank you for all the emails and messages I've had checking that I'm OK, whilst the riots were going on this country. I was really touched! It was all a bit bizarre really, as I saw all the riot footage on the news and some of my work colleagues had an unpleasant time getting home on a couple of days, but I didn't see any sign at all of any trouble. I saw a lot of the reaction to it, the upset when friends saw shops they'd used and loved for years burnt down. And the sense of unreality about what was going on.

I followed a link on Ravelry to this blog post about someone's commute to work - she walks across a fairly historic part of London to get to work, with lots of landmarks to photograph. My journey isn't quite as exciting, but these are the highlights(?). It isn't normally as quiet as this, but a lot of people are on holiday as it's August.

Cycle/footpath on the way to the station:

Walking through the town centre:

Empty seats (!) on the train. These usually fill up at the next few stations!

The station, first thing in the morning. Yawn.

Hordes of commuters at London Waterloo, waiting for the train to come in (we are such Super Commuters we know which platform it is, even before the train is announced!). Always entertaining when they change the platform at the last minute and everyone stampedes back the way they came...

 Trains racing out of Waterloo.

Hmm. That's not really very exciting at all.

More exciting was extracting my tent from the garage and putting it up in the garden to check it's OK for the festival I'm going to in a fortnight's time.

 Considering that I got it when I was 15 it's doing pretty well. Which reminds me that, now I'm of advanced years, getting an air mattress to sleep on might be a good idea. Really looking forward to going to Greenbelt. As usual, loads of great speakers I want to hear, and I seem to have volunteered for teaching knitting one evening too. I've taken a couple of days off work either side of the weekend to travel there and to sleep afterwards and do the washing (hmm, in my younger days I used to be able to stay up all night then go into work the next day no problem whatsoever. Don't think I want to try that now). I really am turning into an Old Fart.

And this is the OH's jumper. As you can see, I'm nearly there now, just one sleeve to go so I should have plenty of time to get it finished before I go to Greenbelt, as it's his birthday immediately afterwards! This has been a really enjoyable knit, nice pattern with clear instructions, and he's been able to try it on as we go because it's on circulars. And my interchangeable knitting needles have been excellent - I've been able to switch between sleeves and leave things on the cables using the end things whilst I waited to cast off until he could try it on.

I suppose I could have edited my foot out of the photo, but those are some of my sheep socks. And they're cool.

Speedy 4ply knitting

So the 4ply jumper isn't taking as long as I thought. I thought I'd be knitting forever, but the front is already finished:

and I'm well on the way with the back. I'm pleased with the way the colours worked out too - the front above looks like I got the two sides of the neck to match colour-wise, except I didn't, I just kept going and this is how it turned out! I'm pleased with the Noro Kureyon sock yarn too, not sure I'd want to knit socks with it and it's a bit thick-and-thin (the front took nearly a whole ball and it had a knot in it too) but I think it's great for a jumper. And it will even out a bit once it's blocked. I've added about an inch to the length (why have I started thinking in imperial again?!) as it seemed quite short in the pattern.

The OH and I had an afternoon in London last week too. We visited John Lewis on Oxford St to look for yarn for his jumper, and he chose some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, which I've enjoyed knitting before. Not sure I'd have chosen this colour myself, and I was expecting him to go for black or grey!

We had a really nice afternoon, including a trip to Foyles bookshop (so many books, so much better than Waterstones, I love it) where we had chocolate fudge cake in the café and a walk in Regents' Park. We also indulged in a few book purchases as well as the yarn...

And a friend of mine has started making cards to sell on my Fair Trade stall - not sure if anyone out there is interested, but these are some of the sheepy and Easter ones she's made for me so far. She does take commissions...
They cost £1.50 each, with 50p going to Traidcraft (a charity that works to promote Fair Trade, and improve conditions in developing countries). Let me know if you're interested!