Quickie

This is a quick update from work. My week has been like this:

- gardening, done
- knitting, some more done
- some bastard stole my bank details so I can't do anything with my account except queue for hours to get money out over the counter - done!!

This weekend I am planning to go to Unravel Knitting Festival in Farnham. I've no idea what it will be like, but it's probably quite handy that I have limited access to money at the moment......

Anything for the weekend?

What are you planning on doing this weekend? Aside from the vague hearts and flowers stuff tomorrow, I really want to get some serious knitting and gardening in.

I know, it's been snowing and it's been cold for so long I've actually got good at accessorizing hats and scarves. But I swear I can smell spring in the air. My gardening fingers are twitching in the same way my knitting fingers twitch in autumn. I've bought some aubergine seeds, some sweet pea seeds and others that it's too early for. But apparently you need to start aubergines and sweet peas now, so I'm going to give it a go. I will get the right sort of seed compost and put them in a little incubator on the back room window sill and really try to remember to water them. I just caught the end of Gardeners' Question Time and Pippa Greenwood (my organic veg plot guru) said it's also time to start antirhynum, or bunny rabbit plants as they've always been known in my family. This comes from when we were children and we would pick the flower heads off and squeeze the sides gently to open. Thinking about it, I'm really not sure why that relates specifically to bunny rabbits, but the name has stuck, as befits families. 

I am imagining a long, hot summer with climbers all over my fences and a new rose in deep red and deeply scented. (A girl can dream...) But, I need to prep first. So I am going to prune what need to be pruned and dig what needs to be dug. I thought I would have to prune my roses that have been recently planted. I've got one rambler, one climber and one shrub. The rambler went in the year before last and the other two last year. But I looked up pruning roses last night and it seems that none of my roses really need pruning! Whohoo! I just need to get dead or diseased bits out. The shrub rose would have been pruned, but it's called noisette and apparently they specifically grow flowers all the way up the stems, so should only be pruned for shape. The clematis will have a bit of work done on it, really to experiment.

The big job will be preparing my very small veg patch. It's only about 2 square metres and I've used it for the last two summers I've been in this house. Because of that, it's quite well dug, but I've got compost rotting away that needs using. After thinking about how to get it out of the bottom of the bin, without having to dismantle the whole thing, I realised at about 3.00 am (hmm, yes, I don't sleep that well thank you) that I could take the top off the bin, fork the contents into my wheelbarrow, mix them and then get the gorgeous compost from the bottom of the bin onto the soil. Then put un-rotted stuff back in bin, place some carpet over the veg patch to warm it up and hey presto, my garden is getting more ready for spring and I've done some outside exercise.

What am I knitting right now? I am trying to be faithful to one object. My sister asked me to make her a cardigan for her birthday, which is at the start of April. She has picked out the pattern and the yarn. It's made by Twilleys of Stamford and is a swing jacket with small lacey holes running up the front and back. I have finished one ball of yarn on it and think I will need another 9 to get it finished. I guess that Ravelry progress report should say 10%. gah. So, I will knit and knit this weekend until I'm not quite so panicked about it. Thankfully, sis is quite short waisted so I have cut out some rows and some repeats to get it a whole 3 inches shorter than I would need to make it for myself. 

Pssst, I might also be doing a job application, I haven't decided yet.

Mid life, fast approaching significant birthday event this week: my first professional dye job. The grey was getting more and more and my lovely rich brown less and less, so now it comes from a tube. 

Another family word - Slumpy

Must go now - Eddie is seriously disrupting my typing. I think he's forgotten to check his food bowl again.

Time

It's a cliche, 'where does time go'? But I'm sure that as you get older, it seems there is so much more to cram in, more to get done whilst you can. More knitting projects - I've got so many planned, more gardening to do - my garden's looking pretty bare and more things to see, more places to experience. The plan for this year is Berlin for a weekend and also a girls' weekend away. That's a big deal for me; for many years I've not travelled far and definitely not without Mr HB in tow.

I think I'm possibly having a mini mid-life crisis with a looming birthday. Right now it's manifesting itself in me being dissatisfied at work, wanting to trade in my Honda for a Fiat 500 - they are so snazzy and deciding that damn it, I hate housework and I'm going to get a cleaner!! That gives me more knitting time, although I would be lying if I said that doing housework took too much time away from knitting hah hah!

Also, many people seem to be ill at the moment. There have been a few bereavements that have impacted people I care about. I'm getting to that age when you have to face mortality of parents and also that it means you are mortal too. As some one who's always been possibly unhealthily obsessed with the idea that people I love may die, this is quite difficult to deal with. But I'm trying. I hear of another bereavement and I say, that's sad and they had a good life and try to take that in and mean it with my heart and not just my head. I'm trying, I'm sort of getting there.

I think about things very deeply. If I don't have space to think things through I get terribly agitated. I think this blog may reflect more of those thoughts than I first imagined. Certainly at the moment there is a lot to think about. Life doesn't feel that happy for many people, but I still smile and laugh every day. So, to make me smile and possibly my one other reader, this is what's making me smile and laugh at the moment:

- Making up alternative car names with Mr HB (Toyota Chlamydia for example)

- Meeting fellow knitters in real life and online

- Buying aubergine seeds early - this year they will grow

- My catties - love them, love them

- Realising I can do my job

- The Virgin Atlantic Advert - brilliant

- Knowing winter is over and spring is tangibly close

- Listening to music and singing along

- Just a Minute - Sue Perkins and Liza Tarbuck ganging up on Giles Brandreth - fab

- QI 

I'm going to post my blog title to Knitty now. Welcome Knitties to my world.

Lessons learned

Welcome. This is my first post in my new blog. This isn't my first blog, but I hope it will last longer than my last one. If I remember correctly, I had the urge to publish a political blog when something happened with the government and the BBC. I know what it was, but time has moved on so I won't go over old ground either. Now I think I'll be using this blog (blog number two) to record my knitting throughout the year and also my gardening plans and results. It might change as I write more. Currently I'm working out how to load photos and put in profile pics. It was looking terribly bare though with nothing in it at all, so accept these words whilst I get the hang of it.

Right now I am thinking about siblings. One of my siblings has a blog. When I put up my first template I thought it looked pretty and original (given so many people have blogger!) Then I looked again, thought it looked pretty and... familiar. Quick jump to my sibling's blog and yes, I'd chosen the exact same template. So, here's choice number two. Really, at my age, I would hope to be over sibling rivalry, but it seems not. Never mind; the content will be very different.

I've also changed and added some words. People tell me they spend a long time mulling over exactly what to put in their blog. I can see this will become addictive. Not only that, I have a tendency when writing to think that the reader can fill in my leaps of logic. Re-reading this I have corrected that.

My next post will hopefully have photos and a bit of cattie information. There we go, cats, gardens and knitting in my first post. Yay.