Lincoln adventures

Well, now I've calmed down a bit from the BIG Lincoln adventure - the getting engaged bit of it, which was definitely the MOST exciting part. And got fed up with answering questions about dates (no idea), wedding dresses (don't care, but I do want to knit a shawl), where it's going to be (not in Lincoln) etc, it's time to blog about the other bits of the Lincoln adventure. Thank you for all the comments on my previous blog post - I think that was a record number received! I *think* I've managed to reply to everyone I had an email address or a blog address for.

Ever been back to the place where you grew up, and viewed it as a tourist? This visit to Lincoln was a bit like that. We did lots of things I'd never have done on my own, like wandering up to have a look at the cathedral at night.

And wandering around Castle Square. And going for a drink in one of the pubs around there - can you believe I've never done that? I didn't go to secondary school in Lincoln, so I've never really socialized there at all, despite living there for about two thirds of my life.

One day we went round the Castle, something I haven't done since I was a kid. This is the cathedral from the top of the Observatory Tower.

And the view from the entrance turret into the castle, with the Crown Court in the centre and the old prison buildings to the left.

Another day we went round the medieval Bishops' Palace, again, something I haven't done since I was extremely small. There was more to it than I remembered, and it was once an incredibly important building, bearing in mind that Lincoln diocese, until the mid-19th century, stretched all the way down to the banks of the Thames, close to where I'm living now.

Above is looking up what was a hallway towards the entrance tower, with the cathedral in the background. Below is the inside of the Lower East Hall, at ground floor level, which was built between 1186 and 1200.

Another trip we made was to Belton House, near Grantham, which is where some of the BBC Pride & Prejudice was filmed (Belton starred as Rosings Park) and is also where I once worked. I actually got the phone call inviting me to the interview for my current job whilst standing in the cupola on the roof here - the only place I could get mobile phone reception!

The OH enjoyed all this immensely - he'd never been to Lincoln before and is even more history-obsessed than I am so he had a whale of a time. This is him looking at the fountain at Belton. We also enjoyed visiting Jew's Court in Lincoln, where the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology have a bookshop stocking loads of local history.

Another view of Belton, the lake, which was always a little bit too far away to reach on a lunchtime walk!

And the Arboretum, where we went for several walks.

Oh, and on the way back from Belton we had a slight run-in with a 4x4 after a moped appeared out of nowhere at a junction and I couldn't stop in time. If we'd hit a normal car nothing worse than a dented bumper would have resulted, but as it was a 4x4 Oxo's radiator was punctured by its tow bar, the bonnet and bumper damaged and the number plate smashed. And we hit at less than 5mph as the airbags and seat belt locks didn't activate! Poor Oxo had to be loaded onto a truck and returned without us to Staines (we still haven't got her back from the garage over two weeks later!) and my Mum had to transport us south the next day with all of our stuff. A bit of a pants end to a lovely holiday.



We've managed quite successfully without a car for the last two weeks. Fortunately we both go to work on the train, and there's a supermarket within walking distance, and my church is only 15 minutes walk away. But it will be nice to have her back again!

I'm off to Cambridge for some of next week, attending a conference, so not sure when I'll next be posting. And next Saturday is the Iknit Weekender!!

Staines

The house move has been accomplished.
Between us we had three lorries. The Other Half had 63 boxes of stuff, I didn't have quite as many, but still quite a few. We had boxes stacked everywhere. We had to have a one way system to get round the living room.

Thanks to the Herculean efforts of the Other Half, all the boxes have been unpacked and removed by the removal company. Oh, and Monkey's Herculean efforts too, obviously.

(note to Other Half: did you actually see Monkey unpacking anything? He looks totally knackered in the pic but all I ever saw was him lounging around?)

Once the boxes had disappeared we were free to enjoy the comforts of the new house:

The garden. I washed all my handknitted scarves and hung them out to dry. It is VERY nice having a garden again. Yes, that is a train in the background.

The garage. Which is VERY narrow, and our road is, ahem, popular for car parking, so it can be very tight getting into the garage. So Oxo got scraped. Oops. Sorry Oxo.

Walks along the banks of the Thames.

The posh kitchen.


We have a dishwasher in the kitchen. I am in love with the dishwasher. I think it's great. It's so clever. No more washing up! I am also in love with the washing machine, which didn't come with the house, it belongs to the Other Half. It's a very posh washing machine, and much more intelligent than me. I have reassured the Other Half that I don't love the dishwasher and washing machine as much as I love him. (and anyway, he's very good at loading and unloading the dishwasher and washing machine, as well as doing ALL the housework. So all I have to do is cook! And a little bit of ironing. Cool or what?!)

The commute to work. Which is very cool indeed. It's a short trot to the station, then 13 minutes on the train, then a 10 minute trot to work. In fact, 13 minutes is proving a little too short a commute to get much knitting done. Plus, commuting OUT of London means that there are loads of seats. The trains have air conditioning. Apart from one day, the trains have all been on time or early so far. This is SO much better than driving through Slough to work every day...

Walking in Windsor Great Park:

And I've even got some knitting done. The Rib Fantastic socks are nearing completion! I'm trying to get a few projects finished off before I start anything new.

Lent

After much cogitation I decided to "do" Love Life Live Lent this year. I considered giving up chocolate, but decided (charitably) that this would be unfair on my work colleagues, who would have to work alongside me in a chocolate-deprived state for several weeks. Last year's carbon fast attempt was fairly disastrous - I ended up having so many accommodation problems in Windsor that I went away every weekend and drove between 200 and 500 miles every weekend for the whole of Lent! Oops.

So Love Life Live Lent seems much more do-able. I've also signed up for the daily updates on Twitter, which are a good reminder...

So far, I've successfully accomplished:

• Give up your place in a queue to someone else. (I let cars in ahead of me at various Slough junctions. This is causing pandemonium - Slough drivers aren't used to people being nice).
• Say something nice about someone behind their back. (This was quite easy as everyone is so flipping nice at work that we don't go in for being bitchy).
• Say a prayer for someone who is unwell or is in need. (In theory easy, but I did try to spend a bit more time actually doing it).
• Give a homemade gift to a loved one. Easy peasy for a knitter. I posted off a dishcloth for the Happiness Swop on a Ravelry forum for Christians with depression.

but have had a few problems with:

• Skip a meal and give the money to a charity working overseas. a. I'm skinny. I don't DO skipping meals b. My daily food budget is £4, which is going to make a massive difference to some charity, hmm. I decided to eat the meal as normal but donate a bit more than normal to charity this week .
• Take things to a charity shop, recycle or Freecycle. I have piles of stuff waiting to be sorted (a large wodge of clothing, and there are currently 3 computers sitting in my living room waiting for files to be transferred before I recycle/Freecycle 2 of them), I just haven't had time to sort them yet...
• Have a TV-free evening and do something with your household instead. TV-free evening = easy. Spend evening with my household? Less easy. My household is me. So I thought I'd write this blog post instead and then read my book ("The Road Home" by Rose Tremain).

More snow!

Just when the snow had mostly begun to disappear and we were all lulled into a false sense of security, the trains began to run on time again etc etc, it snowed again last night. I'd managed to get into work every day this week, but this morning one of my neighbours got his car stuck in the car park at the flats as he returned from the night shift at 4.30am. It couldn't be shifted with that much ice around, so my car was blocked in for the day. (you can't see the stuck car in this pic, but that's my poor little car shivering in the snow).

I contemplated walking to work. Which is do-able. It's about 4 miles on foot, so about an hour and a half. But it was raining, then snowing, and slushy and slippery and horrible. And I didn't really fancy it. So I put on a ridiculous number of layers, my merino long johns and walking boots and slid down to the train station and hung around waiting.

This is the view towards London. No trains in sight. One eventually showed up after half an hour, took me into Slough, where I had to change onto another train to get to Windsor, then walked to work. I was not impressed. Although my alpaca socks were very toasty and warm.

The radiator at work was swiftly covered in cast-off clothing drying out.

And what I was going to blog about this time, was much more interesting things! Like my parcel from Sara, who used to go to Knit Lincs, but then had to return home to the US last year (well, technically the year before that now).

She sent me this yarn:

Mirasol Samp'a, which is a gorgeous soft cotton.

And this book:

"Favorite Socks" from Interweave. Which is just plain cool. And two copies of Interweave Knits magazine, which she knew I already had, so they came with instructions to pass them on. I've passed them on to Nic. Thank you!!

I can't decide where to start. I haven't got any socks on the needles at the moment, but I am working on the Suri cardigan from Mirasol Collection One:

and really enjoying it. The lace pattern makes it much more interesting to knit, and I love the feel of the yarn, and the way the colours work out.

I'm off on holiday next week, so I'll be taking Suri with me (both sleeves still to go) and then try and choose a sock to start as well.

SNOW!!

If you live in a country that does snow properly (Switzerland, say, or Sweden, or maybe Canada) you're going to wonder what the fuss is about. But, yes, the UK has ground to a halt. We have the most snow we've had in 18 years, apparently. Boris thinks people are skiving off work (how are people supposed to get to work if the buses/trains aren't running?!).

I went to work. It took me an hour to drive 3 miles.


At work things were very pretty:

A small child belonging to someone or other even constructed a snowman:

But then the snow got heavier again and we decided to close up at 3 to go home before it got any worse!