Ok, so I am not going to say anything about blueballs, I just couldn’t stand not using it. I accidentally typed in blueballs the first time I tried to type bluebells. What can I say, that’s where my mind goes! So, I’m sorry if you found this post hoping for a cure for blueballs or thinking that it was a porn site of some ilk. No porn here unless you get off on yarny and flowery stuff!
Today the hubby and I went to Leighton Buzzard. Saturday is market day and the LB market is a tad bigger than the Tring one. Since I am leaving in a day, there were also some supplies that we needed to pick-up. The hubby was nice in taking a couple of photos of the market for me. It’s really hard to get the entire feel for the place since it is down both sides of a street and there are lots of folks wandering around. We were both wishing that there was some way to record some audio as the sound of it was really cool. The vegetable sellers trying too woo shoppers in at the top of their voices with deals that change by the minute, the music coming from some sellers stalls and the general din of a market day.
Leighton Buzzard Market
Lots of spring plants for sale
We went home and dropped off the things that we had picked up and loaded the dogs into the car and off we went again. This time to the top of the Beacon for a look around. First we stopped and got some pictures of the fields of rapeseed blooming on the hills.
Is this not the coolest commute view you've ever seen?
What an amazing day!
Then we meandered on up the hill, huffing and puffing much to the amusement I am sure to the much more fit Brits on the path around us. Hell, even the dogs weren’t winded!
The Whipsnade Lion in all of it's glory.
Sitting enjoying the view.
Ivinghoe Aston from above
From there is was just a short drive to the closest bluebell walk.
Is this not REALLY cool?!?!
It smelled as good as it looked as bluebells are in the same family as hyacinths. It sort of smelled like being in a room where some laundry was drying that had been washed with some very posh washing soap.
The dogs behaved the best that they have towards other people and even other dogs that they have, well, ever. It was sort of amazing, they just walked right on by people not paying them the least attention. Normally, Meara wants to KILL! KILL! KILL! everyone, especially if they have a penis.
Tomorrow I fly to the US for my graduation and then on to Maryland Sheep and Wool. Oooooo, Maryland Sheep and Wool…….
P.S. Here’s a little teaser for a finished object that I just got done today…
Milo MUST inspect all packages upon entrance to the chapel!
It is from the British Wool Marketing Board. I placed an order with them for both some posters and some wool for spinning. Today, I got my posters, as well as a few other goodies. I ordered the posters to help decorate my attic yarn area. A chandelier just doesn’t do it all for me you know. Anyway, I got the British Sheep Breeds poster, a bunch of the posters of individual breeds and a rare breeds poster.
(did you really think that I would unroll them with Milo around?)
They sent along a bunch of the fact sheets about processing the wool as well as about some individual breeds of sheep. They also sent me a cute bookmark and a calendar for this year as well as a booklet on British Wool for Handknitting.
Sorry about the flash splotch. Trust me, the ram is plenty handsome!
The fleece hasn’t come yet and there was a nice note enclosed in the package saying that she wasn’t sure when that part of the order was going to be processed so she sent out this part first. I love getting things in the mail. In fact, I know of few people who don’t enjoy that. Well, the exception may be my dogs, who hate the mailman and any delivery folk with a vengence that is usually reserved for rapists and people who have a full cart in the 10 items or less line at the grocery store.
Today was market day in Tring and since I missed it last week, I was determined not to miss it today. I’m glad that I didn’t as the plant and flower sellers had streptocarpus for sale. I adore these plants as they are related to the African Violets that I enjoy so much. These plants were quite nice looking and reasonably priced so I got one of each kind that they had.
I somehow mentioned to the seller that I collected African Violets and he said that he would bring a bunch of “unusual” ones for me the next time that I was there (I had mentioned that I was going to be in the US the next week). When I told the hubby of this on the phone he groaned and said that the whole house was going to be full of plants before he knew it. Well, what did he expect when he married a horticulturalist? I mean really, it would be like marrying a photographer and not having any pictures on your wall! But it did get me to looking around and I realized that we have an awful lot of plants blooming around the house (and that isn’t counting outside!).
The little lemon tree. Doesn't look like much but the flowers perfume the entire lower level of the house.
A gardenia plant
Stephanotis in bloom
Bose soundock with blooms
The upstairs landing
Yesterday I ventured out to Milton Keynes as I knew that a lot of my yarny magazines were on sale by now and I needed more potting compost. I went to Hobbycraft to get some yarn for a gift and then across the road to Borders for the magazines. I sort of fell off the wagon and got a couple of books as well. One is Loop-d-Loop Crochet, which I had wanted for a while and, well, just couldn’t resist anymore. It isn’t any cheaper in the US so I just got it. The other book that I picked-up was Knit Knit which had also been on my want list for a while. Right now with the exchange rate the way it is, books that were priced when the rate was 2 to 1 are actually a bit cheaper here in the UK than in the US. This is unusual and I am going to take advantage of it:-)
I am getting ready for my trip to Florida. I have my graduation dress all ready. It was nice as I had shoes that matched it perfectly already in my closet. I’m trying to get the house ready for us to be gone a week. I have been busy potting up plants so that they don’t dry out as often as they would if left in their little pots. Right before I leave I am going to move all of the houseplants downstairs so that they are centrally located for watering purposes.
I also made banana bars this week that I am very proud of for how they turned out given the fact that I had no time nor temperature to work with. Also, going from a standard oven to one that is convection. I think that they turned out ok:-)
This week I started a project journal. I want to be able to look back and see what it was that I made and what kind of yarn it was and where this object ended-up. Since nearly all of my projects are given away, this is a thing to track. I have my “things I’ve made” bit up in Ravelry, but pixals just aren’t the same as having samples of the yarn stuck in it. We’ll see if it sticks. I’d like to have something to pass down to my children’s children (and since I have no children at this point I guess I’m being optimistic!) to show what I worked on that is written in my own hand. One of the things that I have always had a problem with in regards to computers is that you only can hear my voice, not see it too. I remember the first time that I came to England. My mother had the travel journal that my Grandmother had made as a teenager on her first trip here in the very early 20’s. Reading her thoughts on England in her crisp teenaged hand was a different experience than had it been typed up. This is part of the reason that I like writing letters so much. They become a part of the history. It just isn’t as nice to dig up old e-mails to re-read them as it is to pull a letter out of a trunk or a bundle tied with ribbon.
The weather here has been fantastic this week. Today I went outside and planted my 3 tomato plants in very large clay pots in the courtyard. I need to get all of my little plants planted before we go back to Florida for my graduation as I don’t want whoever is looking in on the cats to have to spend a ton of time watering. Hopefully, it will rain the entire time that we are gone!
I also finished crocheting the flowers for the commissioned blanket. I may actually finish these things in the time left for me!
Today I found the local boarding kennel. I say the as there is only one that is, what I would call, nearby. It’s in a small village (about the same size as Ivinghoe Aston) called Horton. Every time we drive through it I think or say, “Horton hears a what!!!?!?!“. It’s an illness, I really can’t help it. I am however really glad to have found a reasonably priced place that seems nicer than some hotels I’ve stayed in in the past. One in Washington DC stands out in particular. It was a Days Inn and the carpets were sticky! Sticky carpets! And that was just the beginning, but I’m not going to go into it. I wouldn’t make my dogs stay in a place like that hotel room. Anyway, this kennel is great and I hope that the girls are as pleased being there as I am to have found it.
Today we also had a visit from the electrician. He fixed a few small issues that we had quickly and in a professional manner. However, the curiosity in the house was not the dogs trying to nip at his ankles rather, well, me. He had never met an American and had several questions for me. One of them was, “Are you really scared of gun violence like they say on the TV?” It was sort of a hard question to answer honestly. Here you so very seldom hear of people getting shot that it is a big, huge deal when someone does. I had to answer him with a qualified, “Sometimes.” I mean, there are areas of the little town of Apopka that I wouldn’t drive down after dark if I could avoid it. There are parts of Orlando that I was nervous traveling through even at noon on a Tuesday. He then asked if guns were as common as they seemed and I had to answer yes once again. Here, most farmers have a gun for killing varmints and possibly livestock if they are needing to be put down. There are some people that have guns for hunting but there are very few guns that fall into the “self security” or “people hunting” guns. It is so non-gun here that they are actually trying to make it so that no-one under 18 can buy a knife (as that is how thugs here try to kill each other). Coming from a place where 12 year-olds have guns, the idea that knives were restricted sort of blew my mind.
I’m really starting to look forward to coming back to Florida. The list of things that I want to pick-up is both long and eccentric. Just a sampling of the list: Magic Erasers, Squeegee from Target, Fabric from JoAnn’s, Chocolate Chip (seriously, there aren’t fraking chocolate chips here!), Good Ice Cube trays, a pounder bag of M&M’s (they only sell them in little bags here), snack sized plastic baggies (the plastic baggy culture is about as developed as their yarn store culture) and cardboard cat scratchers from IKEA for the cats (as the IKEA here doesn’t carry them!). Another thing that I would add to that list if it wasn’t so damn heavy is Tidy Cats cat litter for multiple cats. I would never have imagined the dearth of affordable cat litter options here. Had I, the whole damn back-end of that container would’ve been a big yellow wall of cat litter buckets!
This was a busy weekend. On Saturday we went to Leighton Buzzard for some supplies. We decided to to go to the downtown area of the village rather than the sort of outlaying area that we usually do. I had heard rumors of a yarn shop there and the market was going on. So, we found a place to park (usually the hardest part of shopping here) and set out. Come to find, Leighton Buzzard is positively choking with yarn! I found yarn in the shop that sold fabric, a person was selling it in the market, there we yarn in a store called Wilkonsen’s that is sort of like the old Woolworth’s with a little bit of everything in it, and a very fun store with a very retro vibe to it that seemed to sort of sell fun fabrics and a few yarns and LOADS of buttons. And then there was the proper yarn store. It was located at the end of a rabbits warren of small shops. When I say rabbits warren, I am very much not joking. This little cluster of shops had a walkway that twisted and turned and dead-ended in a seemingly random manner. It was mildly creepy and I was glad to not be seeking the shop after dark. The shop was just as rabbity and claustrophobic as the entire cluster of buildings. The yarn selection was decent with a nice batch of Noro. However, the shop was so very random and small that it was hard to turn around, let alone peruse the stock especially since there were other patrons in it. I really missed all of my small, but not that fucking small!, yarn shops in the US. I want to be able to choose to smell the yarn, not be forced to by proximity!
One of the things that I think I moved here thinking is that since there are a lot of sheep on this island, that there should be lots of wool and yarn. I think that this is a fairly common misconception, especially when the word “cheap” is added to the mix. Yes, it would make sense that there would be lots and lots of luscious, 100% wool yarn tumbling out of every nook and cranny of this very nooked and crannied country, but alas, it just isn’t so. I have had better luck finding good yarn shops in FLORIDA than here. Now, I know that I haven’t been here all that long but geeze. Locating your shop in a place that is so hard to find that you practically need a treasure map (or iPhone) and a secret password to find it? Come on!
We also found a new home for our lawn mower that we had brought from the US when we moved. You may wonder why we bothered packing a lawn mower when we have no lawn, just a paved courtyard. Well, when the container got packed, we still didn’t know where we were going to be living so it just seemed smarter to play it on the safe side and pack it. Well, it was taking up space in the courtyard and we sort of wanted that space, at least wanted that space to not be taken-up by a lawn mower, so we gave it to one of the hubby’s coworkers. We drove out to St Albans to meet him and make the drop (that sort of makes it sound as though he is cutting another kind of grass [which he is totally not]). It’s about a half hour from here by car and we passed at least 3 large garden centers, one had the “Village of Conservatories” in it. I am definitely going to have to head back out that way in the near future! Anyway, on the way there we passed a sign for Potters Crouch. Now, as we are driving to St. Albans I was reading the last Harry Potter book again (you get a lot more from the books when you are actually feet on the ground here) so of course my mind went straight there. The Hubby and I spent a good many minutes making up how that….place….got the name Potters Crouch. My darling husband decided that it was to commemorate the marriage of a Potter and a Crouch. My stories were all a little more, well, profane usually involving someone taking a dump or hiding from an irate father. I’m not going to go into them, I think that y’all can get the drift from that:-)
Today I got a visit from the Yarn Fairy. He came in a red truck with yellow Royal Mail lettered on the side. Actually, I got the package that wonderful Lily sent me from Florida.
Manna from mailman.
Lily zipped this off to me as soon as she got the yarn S.O.S. that I sent out.
See, the Yarn Fairy!
I opened the package up and immediately started making yellow flower centers. I have never been happier to see two skeins of Vanna’s Choice in Honey.
It is a rainy afternoon here in the not so lovely (currently) English countryside. Actually, I don’t know if rain is exactly what I would call what it is doing outside currently. It’s very misty and really closer to a drizzle than a full-on proper rain. Let’s just put it this way, the dogs look at me as though I’ve gone daft when I ask them if they would like to go out. They know what that sound on the conservatory roof means, they aren’t stupid!
So I thought that today would be a perfect day to sort out the attic. We threw a bunch of random stuff that we had given-up hope of finding a home for up there before we had our guests this weekend and it was rather a mess. We also had both lightbulbs burn out at the same time and a bunch of internet problems which meant that we were up there a fair amount, in the dark. So, while I was at Homebase yesterday, I picked-up a couple of el-cheapo energy saving bulbs and put them up there. Anyway, we had also decided to put the iPod player that Chris had picked-up cheaply while living here before I came up there as well for me to listen to when I go up to commune with my stash. Thus, on this soggy, boggy day, I sorted the attic. I know, my life is just riveting.
The field across the road with the ewes is getting actually pretty thin of sheep. The day that the ewe has the lambs the farmer comes and moves them to another pasture. This daily ritual is actually pretty fun to watch as the farmer will pick-up the ewe and put her in the back of his pick-up/landrover. As you can imagine, the sheep isn’t too keen on being picked up so some pretty hilarious struggles ensue. The best, however, is the lambs. For only being but a few hours old, they can be quite wily and quick. It’s fun to see just how good of a struggle some of these wee little things really put up. I’m sure that the farmer wouldn’t appreciate me cackling away in my 2nd story window at him trying to catch the little buggers, but since he probably doesn’t read this then I’m not going to sweat it too much.
I am nearly to the point in my commissioned blanket that I cannot go any further without the gold yarn. I await the postman every day but he just keeps shoving bills and junk mail through the slot. That is actually one of the things that I have been amazed at since getting here. The amounts of junk mail and the level of sales calls. It’s been so long since we had a landline telephone that I had completely forgotten just how many damn telemarketers really can call!
Cast on, a podcast made by an American that is living in Wales, has become my newest obsession. Terri from Yarn Therapy mentioned it to me, ok, more like told me that I should really give it a listen. So I have been and she’s right, it is a really great listen even if it is about knitting and not it’s fairer cousin. Check it out for yourself. It’s available for free at iTunes.
Today I also made a very grown-up decision. I am not going to go to Wonderwool Wales even though I really, really want to. Did you know that Wales has the highest density of sheep of any country in the world? Neither did I until quiz night at the pub! Anyway, Wonderwool Wales is the weekend that I am traveling home to Florida to graduate from college (not collage). I could go on the 25th of April as I fly on the 26th but that just seems, well, fraught with possible serious calamities. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a plan that involves me driving, more than likely, alone all the way to Wales and back the night before an international flight? So, Wonderwool is now on the list of things to do in 2010. Sigh. Oh well, can’t bitch too much given that I will be going to Maryland Sheep and Wool! (I know, I know, I suck. Love you too!)
Yesterday was a pretty major shopping expedition to Leighton Buzzard. I got there ok (which is noteworthy as I feel that Leighton Buzzard is a suck of roadsigns and unnecessary traffic circles) and did the big Tesco and Homebase and then I decided to check out the Aldi. Normally it is closed when I am there but since it was the middle of the day I was good to go. I hadn’t been in this store before, and the stores that I had grown-up with in Iowa only really had frozen or canned items, so it came as a huge surprise that it had stuff! Stuff like clothes and plants and cut flowers and toys and well, you could feel this coming couldn’t you? Yarn. Yes, the Aldi had YARN in it. Just plain acrylic, but it was good quality (think Vanna’s Choice) and cheap. 3 pounds for 5 balls. 500 grams of yarny goodness. Of course, I had to buy it! We need to encourage more grocery stores to carry yarn don’t you think? It is part of our quest for world domination….
Yarn! Aldi! Who would've thought?
See, even CHEAP!! I think I love Aldi now.....
Another random factoid for you today. The Union Jack is made up of the crosses of the patron saints of England, Ireland and Scotland but not Wales. Interesting no?
One of the things that you learn pretty quickly when you have taken as many tests as I have is that the question with the word never in it is usually not the right answer. The reason for this is pretty simple; there are very few things in this world that are without exceptions. The English language is rife with them, science is full of them and human emotions seem to be made from them. So when a test writer asks a question, especially in true/false questions, with never (or conversely always) in it you can generally guess false. There are very few things in this world that I would say that you cannot apply this to.
So I guess that it isn’t any real surprise that as I get older, my list of things that I would never do has gotten quite a lot shorter. Most of the items on that list are now things that are grossly illegal or really immoral. For instance, I think that I can safely say that I would never murder a person. Mind you I didn’t say kill as I have ongoing nightmares about hitting a person in a cross walk, but that isn’t on purpose. In the past few years I have done a number of things that I never would have thought that I would do, starting with the person I married. I never thought that I would ever marry, let alone date, someone with hair longer than mine. I never thought that I would be the type of person to crochet, let alone want to learn how to knit socks. I never thought that I would have something like a blog (I tend to be sort of anti-techish, somebody that was tired of trying to get me to get a computer finally made me one and sent it to me so that I would have the e-mail). I never thought that I would move to another country let alone drive in it. I never thought that I would go to a sheep and wool festival. This list could go on for a while, but you get the point. The hubby has been pretty amazed at my restaurant ordering in the past year or so. I have tried to let go of my tendency to order safely, and try something new in each new place that I go. I’ve learned that I’m not fond of some foods while I actually like a much greater variety than I ever thought possible.
So, the next time that you find yourself saying, “I’ll never do ……” just remember that our lives are constantly changing, and hopefully, so are we.
(P.S. Just to let you know, we are experiencing serious internet issues here at Casa Chapel. So if you are trying to get a hold of me via e-mail, I’m sorry. You might have better luck using snail mail at this point!)
I have been making flowers today in a couple of different forms. I spent most of the morning and a lot of the afternoon sitting in the shadow of the conservatory on an upturned former cat litter bucket wearing a t-shirt and jeans and my birks. I filled pot after green plastic pot with potting compost that we had purchased last weekend while in Milton Keynes then lugged them over to my makeshift potting seat and proceeded to pot-up about half of the violet cuttings that I brought from home.
My potting station
I had checked the cuttings a few nights ago to see how they were, as I say, cooking along, and found to my happiness that it appeared that most of them had roots on them. This of course caused me to stop the worthwhile project that I was working on and immeadiatly sort thorough all 300 or so of them and put them into “done” piles and “still cooking” piles. My done pile was quite large so I decided that it was time to start the potting insanity. However, I couldn’t start it yesterday as we were having houseguests out from the city and my dear sweet husband, saintly as he is with my rather interesting whims, was not in the mood to have a mud covered wife tracking soil and wet all over the house.
Lots of pots!
So, I sat on my hands (or more realistlcally, I crocheted with my hands [oh, and helped to clean and cook and drive and all of that too]) and waited until today to start potting my violets. I’m glad that I did as it is easier to get into a rythym when I am alone in the house. I have my own quirky ways that I like to do certian things and though the hubby would easily oblige me if I asked him to do something different in how he is helping me, I hate to ask it of him, especially when it is just a matter of weirdness on my part. I didn’t get to finish potting up my violets as I ran out, not of compost/soil but rather trays to put the potted-up plants on. I will need to go to the Homebase in Leighton Buzzard to get some of the nice black, plastic trays with no holes in them. (Homebase is much like a HomeDepot in the US for those who hadn’t already guessed it.)
Potted violets everywhere!
For some reason, these are nearly impossible to find anymore in the US but they are everywhere here. I think that at least part of that is because of the gardening culture here. The hubby and I were sort of talking about this the other day as we drove home via the seneic route and we went by a bunch of really pretty gardens of some terraced homes. He mentioned that the Brits, “give good garden,” and I had to agree. When discussing this with someone else they asked if it weren’t the same in the US and I had to, much to my chagrin, say that no, we don’t give good garden in the US. I think that we give good lawn there. Anyway, my plans to pot-up the whole lot of them are stymied by the fact that I cannot put them anywhere currently.
Weezy soaking up the rays..
So, I decided to go up and work on the comissioned blanket. I am nearly out of the gold needed for the center of the flowers despite the pattern saying that there should be more than enough in the ball of yarn I picked-up to make all of the centers. I don’t know who is crazier, me or the pattern (or posibly the ball of yarn, but they are usually pretty sane….) but I am looking at a seriously collapsed yarn ball and a LOT of little yellow flower center yet to make. I have already sent out a yarny S.O.S. (thank you again, Lily!) so now I am just working on some of the petals for the centers that I have already made.
Flowers for Pam
I feel like I should really be using more specific terms for my crocheted flowers. I mean, I am going to be graduating from college (not collage) with a degree in horticulture for God’s sake! But there really isn’t any stamens or pistals in these representations of flowers, only yellow center bits. So should I just call these the “sexy bits” of the flowers? Isn’t it odd that we humans put the sex organs of plants on everything? I don’t see anyone else putting the sex organs of us on a t-shirt or anything. Then again, who would do that? Aliens? Maybe they do, for all we know, put diagrams of uteruses and testicles on their clothes…..
Tonight I finished my final term paper as an undergrad.
There was no blare of trumpets or very official man in a suit to shake my hand, yet it is done. All I have to do now is walk, and let’s face it, I don’t have to do that to graduate (I would only get killed by my mother, but that is a different thing).
I have been in college since 1995 with a few years off in the middle. (edited by author to say college rather than collage. You gotta admit, that’s pretty damn funny!)
Sarah Jane Humke 