Here’s me looking awful with Pudding the Python.  Suggestions for a new hairstyle welcome.

Lots to write about.  Where to begin?  Been knitting Calorimetries like they’re going out of fashion (where they ever in fashion?  In my opinion they’re above fashion). There’s two of them here but I’ve made three. All different sizes, I took the Goldilocks approach to making them.

The annoying thing is, they won’t stay on. I think I need bigger buttons. It’s a damn shame because I wear my hear tied up in a ponytail so I need something to keep my ears warm. I’ve looked everywhere for earmuffs, but nowhere seems to have them, except a couple of shops that have ridiculously large, fluffy ones. Earmuffs are intrinsically daft anyway, I don’t want ones with extra added daft.

Still going to the knitting group. Last week Alison from p2tog was there and not only brought some amazing yarn to lust after (need some of that Lang sock yarn) she gave me a Ravelry badge! Check it out!

Currently on the needles is Woolly Wormhead’s Mystery Hat KAL. My first mystery KAL. S’good. I had a really hard time finding any aran yarn anywhere, so I’m doing it in some cheap 30% wool stuff. Still enjoying it though. I think I’ll spare you the photo right now, seeing as it’s just a band of 1×1 rib at the moment.

Last night I went to Sainsbury’s, and saw these:

Innocent Smoothie Help the Aged hats. Two years ago I made about 25. Last couple of years I’ve completely failed (there’s 1 and a half floating around in my knitting bag somewhere). But seeing them on the shelf for the first time was really awesome. Need to get my Save the Children hats sent off. I’m a bad charity knitter

Life on the boat and at uni is all going well. Going to have to reassess some stuff though. I’ll admit one of the reasons I bought that boat was as a man-magnet, and sure enough at the beginning of term I met a guy who thought it was awesome so I let him come back. Unfortunately, I or the boat obviously impressed him too much as the next night I was woken up by him jumping on the stern and knocking on the windows. And again the next night.

I know I can hide by moving the boat but I was in a pretty awesome location next to a pub and the bus stop so I was too lazy. But from now on, I’m not telling anyone where I live until I’m sure they’re not a crank, or they’re the kind of person I wouldn’t mind being scared out my wits for at 3am. I need to meet guys who live on campus, and have a tv and some sort of X-box or preferably a Wii. Cynical, moi?

Oh yeah, YEY FOR OBAMA!

I got the yarn back the next morning. I’d left it in the shop like an idiot. As you can see, I’m not letting go of it again. It’s a Brigantia Luxury Yarn in double knit, not aran and it’s lovely.

So I’m settling into my new life in Lancaster pretty well. I have my course, which I love, a job (which I’ll come back to in a minute) and a knitting group. Yes, I lost my knitting group virginity (well, you can’t really count that beautiful but fleeting one-day-stand in Paris on WWKIP day). I found the group on Ravelry, and they meet here…

… an indian restaurant, which has a gorgeous cafe in the cellar (or should that be crypt?) that serves tasty pots of tea and ridiculously indulgent hot chocolates. There were a couple of members of University staff there - one visiting from Spain - and a woman from Hawaii. I’m so relieved I’m meeting people other than Freshers. Not that I haven’t been meeting some awesome students but I’m used to having friends who have a wide range of ages.

So - to the job. I’d just arrived in the Lancaster area and I was filling up my water tank at the marina. A guy stopped to chat to me for five minutes. Told me he was an animal behaviourist and had lectured at another university and stuff. A couple of days later I bumped into him on the towpath.

“I was just coming to look for you,” he said. “You said you were a student - I’ve got some work for you if you’re interested.”

“Go on…”

“I go around schools with something called the Creepy Crawly Roadshow…”

“Wait, I have a terrible phobia of butterflies and moths.”

“That’s ok. I just need a snake handler.”

“I’m your girl.”

And so, I shall be topping up my student grant by being a snake handler. I am going to be a snake handler. My job is snake handling. No, it never gets boring saying that.

It did make me briefly question the point of going to university for four years when someone can just walk up to you and offer you an interesting job just after a five minute conversation. But I love my lectures. It’s like live, interactive documentaries on your favourite subjects, and I only have 9 hours of ‘contact time’ a week. And I’ve signed up to the Labour Party Club and the Snowboard Society now to keep me out of trouble. Tout va bien.

x

Then I found the craft shop in Lancaster that has a wool section upstairs - not too shoddy at all, Noro Silk Thaw which I’ve not seen before, Debbie Bliss… and this gorgeous, variegated 100% wool aran yarn. And everything was 20% off. So I grabbed a squishy skein of this mystical yarn and paid £4.79 for it instead of £5.99 (100g). I also went to the yarn shop in the market and bought a pair of needles, and the girl was nice and chatty. Then I went and had cheesy chips in the pub.

All sounds good?

(This is where it gets upsetting - sensitive readers may want to look away). I just got into the library and thought I’d have a little fondle of my new yarn… and it’s not there. I’m guessing I left it in the shop. I feel like I’m grieving for it. So stupid. But I can’t even remember the brand name so I could look it up on Ravelry and at least drool at the pictures. Fingers crossed I’ll be reunited with it tomorrow if the woman in the shop is more on the ball than me. My good mood is shattered though. Gah. IT’S ONLY YARN.

Anyway, I’m getting along great with my Nine to Five socks. I’m doing them top down and with the heel flap, just like in the pattern. I was even going to use dpns instead of magic loop just to test my nerve but I only had a set of 4 not 5, so magic loop it is. I thought I’d left the heel flap behind, I usually think it’s ugly compared to the short row heel, but this with this one the pattern carries on down the heel so there’s actually some point to it.

Yes, hot pink. Rawr.

I’m going to try and cheer myself up now by posting a pic of my ukulele, which I drunkenly customised the other night. I’m going home know to learn how to play ‘Instant Pleasure’ by Rufus Wainwright on it. I can already rock out ‘Someday You Will Be Loved’ by Deathcab for Cutie on it. If I ever do an open mic with that set list people will know I’m an emotionless whore.

In the end, after the cowboy motherfuckers had pronounced a premature death on my engine, I arranged to get towed across by a local boater.  This guy boosted my confidence a lot - he was an older, grey haired sailor type in a navy woolly hat.  The hat made me trust him implicitly.  He looked like he was at home out at sea.

Another turn up for the books was that after weeks of rain, the sun came out on the day we were crossing.  But it had been a cold night.  When my dad arrived I made sure he had a waterproof and a fleece.  He humoured me by bringing them along, but this is Scotsman we’re talking about here, and immediately stripped down to his shirtsleeves.  Me, I had my mittens at the ready.

So I was really worried that he’d be bored or tired or seasick. Pah. He loved it. At lunchtime I told him there was stuff for sandwiches in the kitchen and he looked at me incredulously and said, “I’m not going inside! I might miss something.” He’s always liked boats - apparently when he was younger his dad dragged him out of the queue for signing up to go to sea. And I think the story of the adventure will go down well with his pub and dogwalking buddies.

The tugboat dropped us off at the entrance to Savick Brook and there was a James Bond moment when I had to walk along the side of the boat to the bow and unhook the tow rope. We then had to go up 9 locks to reach the Lancaster Canal, and because we were the only boat that day, two lockkeepers from British Waterways did all the work for us. We moored in a really nice, safe speck in Preston and got the bus back to our cars in Tarleton. Then we had a well earned and very delicious pub dinner.

The next day when I woke up in Preston, everything seemed to be falling into place. I was moored a short walk away from not only a Booths Supermarket (best selection on real ale, delicatessen and tea cakes in the country!) but smack bang opposite was also a yarn shop! I was able to get a third ball of Sublime Cashmere/Silk/Merino to finish my dad’s scarf. I spent the day cruising up to a place called Bilsborrow, where there’s this crazy ‘thatched hamlet’ which has a pub and gift shops and hotel in all these olde worlde thatched buildings and I watched Everton’s thrilling 2-2 draw with Standard Liege.

Next day I cruised to Garstang. Ok, good bits first. YARN SHOP! With Noro Kureyon! So I bought a ball in colourway 220 for my Lizard Ridge, even though I have more than enough on the needles at the moment. I really need to start thinking like a student with no income. This yarn shop (Stitches) was super-friendly, and when I explained to the lady what Ravelry was, she seemed really enthusiastic and wrote down the URL. Most people I speak to sound interested but immediately say they can just about send an email.

Ok, the bad bits. I knew there was something up with my water pump (no, not the one I’d just paid £180 to have replaced, the one that pumps fresh water to my taps and shower) because it was running constantly. Then as I was about to go to the pub, I picked up my bag from the floor and realised it was wet. The carpet was wet. So I opened the hatch in the floor and saw exactly what you don’t want to see in your living room on a boat - water. Full to the brim.

So I spent over an hour on Saturday night bailing out. Bucket after bucket after bucket. Then I went to the pub anyway and treated myself to a steak sandwich. You can see I’m in some sort of economic denial here. I’m optimistic that this problem won’t need a costly repair, I may well be able to do it myself when I locate the leak. But I’m pretty sure locating this leak will involve dismantling a big part of the interior of my boat. Ah well.

So here’s my water feature in my living room. I was pissed off when I took this picture because it was keeping me from the pub, but I’ve grown quite attached to it. It’s equal parts feng shui/booby trap/foot bath.

Motherfucker shows up at 9am this morning (by which time my dad had shown up so my plan to reproach him with a blowtorch and hot tar were cast aside), spends two hours bodging in a new water pump so I miss high tide, then declares he can hear a clatter which means OMGFZ MY ENGINE COULD DIE AT ANY MINUTE AND IT WON’T GET ME ACROSS THE RIVER UNLESS I GIVE HIM HUNDREDS OF POUNDS. Charges me £182.50 (paid by cheque, which I may well cancel). Luckily the other boaters (who’ve been my neighbours the past few weeks but I only got to meet yesterday) told me he was probably full of shit, and sorted me out with an escort to tow me across the river to be on the safe side.

I’m fucking bummed. I’d been really nervous about sailing this river, and at the same time really eager to do it, because I love doing things I’m scared of (which is why I let some slimy millionaire take me horseriding last week… don’t ask). Now I won’t be doing it under my own steam.

But anyway… you got to accent-u-ate the positive as some old smoothy sang. I had my buddy Mike visit me yesterday, so when all this shit with the engine wasn’t happening we were gorging on cake and curry, re-enacting the Like a Virgin video and getting incredibly stoned. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have committed murder by now. A friend with weed is a friend indeed.

Also, on Saturday I visited Chorley because I’d heard about a yarn stall in the market. At first I was really disappointed because I found one that just had a few bags of acrylic, and thought the owner must have been working at a show that day. But no! There are two yarn stalls in the market and the other one, DKY, is *awesome*. She has Colinette Jitterbug and Noro Sock Yarn (Noro Sock Yarn! In England! In the North West! In real life!) for £9… she happily told me it should be £9.95 but she knocks the 95p off. I was tormented because I’d just spent £8 on some Sublime Cashmere/Merino/Silk to make my dad a scarf for his birthday, and didn’t want to spend too much, so I put the sock yarns down but couldn’t resist some Colinette Giotto - a sexy ribbon yarn for £5, and some Patons 4 ply cotton in hot pink for only a pound - I made my super shiny spiral socks out of the same stuff, can’t wait to have shiny hot pink socks. The lovely store owner even threw in a couple of free leaflets on how to knit and crochet in the bag. Motherfucker engineer is from Chorley too, so she’s gone a long way to restoring my opinion of Chorleyites.

I’m on dial up internet at the moment and laptop battery, so instead of spending forever trying to get a nice layout, I’m just going to spew some yarny pics here. I’ll try and add one of Mike being Kate Winslet in the Titanic soon too.

Chorley Market: Jitterbug and Noro Sock

Big fat unspun wool in fit colours

Sexy drool-icious Giotta. When it’s all got to much for me lately, I cuddle this.

Hot pink sock yarn and free leaflets!

xxx

Nothing to see here. Either they realised how fucking offensive putting Hitler in an avatar is, or they got their arse kicked. But worth remembering who thought it was a good idea.

So far I’ve queued Camden, cos it’s so darn sexy… but I think that might have something to do with the waspy waist of the model, and Kinetic, a Norah Gaughan shawl that I want to make as a scarf for my dad. As I was saying to the owner of a yarn shop recently, I want to make him a cashmere scarf because it will look like a mega-generous gift, but also I get to play with cashmere. And I just realised his birthday is only 2 weeks away. Looks like I need to buy some yarn… mmmm….

Still haven’t posted pics of my super sexy tank top yet, have I? That’s because I was waiting for a sunny day to take photos and it’s rained pretty much non-stop since I finished it. The sound of the rain on the roof of the boat keeps me awake at night sometimes, so I got earplugs. Now I’m kept awake by the sound of me breathing

Gawd I’ve had knitting diarrhoea lately, what with unemployment and the rain and stuff. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been good enough to take pictures of my ULTIMATE project, which I will show off in all it’s glory soon. In the meantime, that thing up there is what I call my Tiller Condom. I just put it up on Rav and within seconds got two comments, which must be some sort of record. I made it out of the Kureyon Sock I had left over from the credibilty-killing socks. There was almost enough left for a whole third sock, if it hadn’t been for the inevitable colour-leaping knot.

OK, how awesome is this hat? I found some Sirdar Click Aran (previously only ever seen it in DK and chunky) from a new yarn shop I found in Ormskirk, when I was supposed to be looking for a job agency. Ah well.

I told someone I was going to wear this hat to chase hot 18 year old boys when I go to university. They asked if I was really going to do that. I said, “well, they aren’t going to chase me“. I fancy myself as an alluring, mysterious Mrs Robinson type… but in reality I’m going to be some terrible gender-reversal of Benny Hill.

The pattern is Ziggy by the stupendously awesome Woolly Wormhead. I discovered her when I was looking for a pattern for a simple hat with earflaps, and instantly fell in love with her crazy hats and her beautiful hats which are crazily constructed. A lot, like Ziggy, are knit sideways with lots of short rows and then you kitchener-stitch up the edges. This makes for a great, challenging knit with awesome results. Have I said awesome enough yet?

I discovered yet another little yarn shop in a town called Longton. I find it odd that to me, the resurgence in the popularity of knitting is being led by the Yarn Harlot and Ravelry and Knitty and Twist Collective (if you haven’t seen that last site yet - google it. Then wipe the drool from your keyboard), yet most of the proprietors of the yarn shops I visit confess to being technically illiterate when I ask them/start eulogising about Ravelry. Anyway, it’s not stopping them finding good yarns. The one in Ormskirk stocks Mirasol Hacho and in Longton I picked up some Kaffe Wassisname Regia Sock Yarn. I started making Bellatrix in the Regia but I found the colourway and the pattern didn’t like each other much. I may make Charade instead.

Phew, I’m all blogged out now. I shall leave you with this picture of Sirdar Click Aran I took on a hazy evening, just cos I think it’s lovely.

So I treated myself to some Ravelry swag, and it came in a mere 6 days. The disagree(1) t-shirt couldn’t have come at a better time, I’ve been mashing that button furiously lately due to a grievance with a self-appointed authority figure… but meh. Who gives a shit. I also got a Bob sticker for my laptop (and there was a sheep sticker stuck on the parcel which I peeled off and stuck on there too) and a little logo badge.

I may very well wear the t-shirt for my first day at university. Oh didn’t I mention? I got a place at Lancaster University, a four year degree in European Studies with French and I’ll be spending the third year abroad (in Montpellier most likely, my favourite place on the planet). I can’t fucking wait. Four years spent working for me, all for meeeeee, not for THE MAN.

So things are kinda awesome at the moment. For every inconvenience, like breaking down in the middle of nowhere with a full toilet, there’s something awesome, like a visit from a dude I’d not seen in years, an owl flying past, a mouse sitting on a lily pad, saving a hedgehog from drowning, kick-ass sunsets and misty mornings.

And I’ve been knitting like a maniac.

I have two Lizard Ridge squares done (there’s a horrendous shortage of Kureyon stockists on the canal network), a made a pair of Jaywalkers out of 6-ply Regia in about 4 days, and I’ve started a vest out of some gorgeous Super Doux that I bought a while back in not-gorgeous Toulouse, but I’m making that up as I go along so I haven’t added it to Ravelry yet as I may rip it out and start again. Hope not though, it’s looking promising.

On my cruise I visited Lichfield, which is fricking AWESOME. It’s steeped in history and I visited the cathedral, Dr Johnson’s birthplace and Erasmus Darwin’s old home. Er, then I went and snorted some cocaine and had a threesome*. I also found a yarn shop, and bought two balls of this yarn called Mary, which were the last two balls in the sale bucket and I thought they’d be perfect to make the fantastic Ziggy, which has been in my queue since the moment I laid eyes on it.

Ziggy is knit sideways, you repeat the pattern to make around 11 panels. Unfortunately, 1 ball was only enough to make 4. GUTTED. So I tried googling the yarn, but it’s not for sale anywhere. I should have known something was up when I had to enter it on Ravelry because no one has added it to the database yet. Pain in the arse because it’s a beautiful, squishy yarn and I love the colourway. Fucknuts.

* May not be factual and only added to enhance credibility.

I’ve lost track of time right now, what with not working and spending every night in a different place, but about a week ago I was cruising up the canal somewhere between Gayton and Braunston and saw a sign on a bridge advertising the ‘Heart of the Shires Shopping Village’. Seeing as I was miles away from any other kind of civilisation, I decided to stop by in the hope of buying a newspaper and maybe some sausages for lunch.

Well it wasn’t the type of place where you could get a newspaper, it was full of giftshops selling incense, windchimes, candles, that kind of crap stuff. I had a mooch around (I’m actually in the market for some incense and windchimes) and then had a heart-stopping moment when I saw - yes - NORO in the window of one of the shops. The door was shut but luckily before I started slobbering on the glass the shopkeeper came back and opened up. It was a real treasure trove - a few different types of Noro, Debbie Bliss, Opal, even some Mirasol. I managed to leave with just one ball of Kureyon after a few minutes of blabbering on about Ravelry.

Back to the boat, then a visit to Daventry library to use their printing facilities to grab the pattern from Knitty and this…

became this…

I’d already decided that I need (NEED!) a Lizard Ridge blanket for the winter, and the panel was as fun to knit as I imagined it would be. The only problem was this was the same colourway (170) that I used for my felted bag and I should have known that this could mean a LOT of purple and blue and pale purple and pale blue, so I went against my urges and chopped that bugger into bits. This meant I got nice contrasting stripes.

So now I’m going to collect balls of Kureyon on my travels and will hopefully have enough for a blanket by winter. I’m thinking of frogging one of my Short Row Hats, because even though I really, really loved making them, I doubt I’ll ever wear them and that’s two balls of Kureyon in awesome colourways just sitting there unused…

Boating news: I went through two tunnels recently, the first one at Braunston was FUCKING FUCKING SCARY S to the C to the A-R-Y. It was 2km long and pitch black, except for two shafts in the roof where you could look up and realise that you were a few hundred feet underground. You may know that I have absolutely no belief in anything supernatural at all, but I admit that I pulled my hood up in this tunnel in case any goblins tapped me on the shoulder.

This tunnel, however, was frickin’ awesome. It had a light show inside (which they turned off at night to let the bats hunt - yey!) and an ace pub at one end of it that does cheap food and had a big screen TV where I watched the Euro 08 final.

Oh, I also finished my dad’s socks (at last) and next time I see him I’ll see if they fit or if my suspicions are correct and I’ve got my gauge a bit wrong again. I’ll post pics next time I have power.

I bought a bike for £25 from a nice old lady in Rushden (home, fact fans, of Rushden and Diamonds) and even though I had resolved not to buy a bike unless it was in ride-away condition, she was very nice and she sat down on one of her garden chairs and didn’t realise it had been raining so she was sitting in two inches of water and got a wet bum and we had a good laugh and so I bought the bloody thing even though it had a flat back tyre and squeaky breaks.

Three trips to Tesco and they STILL didn’t have 26″ inner tubes in stock and I finally had to pay FIVE ENGLISH POUNDS for one in Halfords, as well as some allen keys because the seat needed raising. I managed to cadge a pump off another boater, but when five young, strapping lads moored up next to me and all took bikes off the roof and went for a ride, when they came back NOT ONE offered to help me as I had my bike upsidedown on the towpath. I’d worry that I’m starting to smell like a boater or the sunburnt-with-unshaved-legs-and-unwashed-hair look doesn’t suit me, but honestly, I’m telling myself that they were probably intimidated by a single woman with her own boat fixing her own bike. Probably didn’t want to show themselves up as technically inferior. Yup, that’ll be it.

So while my bike NOW has two pumped up tyres and working (but still squeaky) brakes, this morning it didn’t so I decided to walk the three miles back to my car after last night’s cruise. I planned my route - 3 miles - one hour tops - and set off. But cos I’m still such a naive townie, I got immediately seduced by signs that said ‘footpath’ and pointed to lush, tranquil cornfields.

Three hours later, I was well aware that I’d passed this same hedgerow four times now and jumped out of the way of that same combine harvester twice. Canals aren’t easy things to find. And Northamptonshire thinks it’s a good idea to just put ‘footpath’ on their signs, not ‘footpath TO Gayton’ which would be fucking USEFUL because any dickhead can see that that well worn path after that stile is a fucking FOOTPATH. I did come across a gate with a sign on it telling me I was on a conservation walk and it had a little map on it, but that was useless too as it didn’t explain if you should go left or right after the gate. There was an arrow on it signalling which way was north, but guess what time it was? Yeah, midday. I was in open fields, getting even more sunburnt and raising my fists straight up to the sky in frustration and casting no fucking shadow.

I’m nearly finished on my dad’s socks now. Need something tricky to get my teeth into next because I have no telly and limited internet to keep my mind occupied.

Here she is.

She’s currently in Northampton and I’m going to move on there properly when I get back from Paris next week (I know! life is such a bitch!) but I spent last weekend there. I took her for a cruise up the canal and back and managed to only crash once and get beached twice.

It’s a 33ft narrowboat, built in the 80s with all the mod cons. And I made sure it has all the essentials, as you can see…

Beer and broadband.

Oh and here’s my brunch on the bow…
Not too shabby, eh? She even has a pump-out toilet, hot water and a shower. It’s going to be like luxury compared to living on Sigh’s boat, no disrespect to the Captain Morgan.

I got a load of knitting done at the weekend due to limited laptop power. Still don’t think I’ll have my dad’s socks done for Father’s Day though. Heck, I haven’t even entered them, or the cardie I’m crocheting, on Ravelry yet.

Finally, I participated in a Pastie Swap on Ravelry recently. I got this AWESOME package from laceysquirl which included pasties, bamboo dpns and a stitch marker. There’s pictures of them being modelled, along with the ones I made her and many, many more if you know where to look for them

Basically, Knit Picks, who don’t ship to the UK… or Scotland, sell ready-knit,double stranded, rectangles of undyed yarn, which you can then easily dye into a stripe pattern of your choice, and then knit up your socks straight from the rectangle - no winding of balls.

Genius.

I love stripes. I hate winding balls. I love making socks. I hate Knit Picks. Terrible carrot-dangling teases. They should just make their site invisible outside the US if they’re not going to share their booty with the rest of the world.

I have some BIG, AMAZING, SUPER-HAPPY news, but I’m too tired to write about it now, and it’s still not a completely done deal so I don’t want to jinx anything.

Big news and pastie swap info soon, promise.

FAIL

So I immediately rearranged my flights, for an extra cost of £40, but I’ll still miss Jenny for three days. There’s also a great literary festival on at Shakespeare and Co, but I miss Jung Chang by one day too. So now I have to book a hotel. My favourite cheap and chic hotel is booked up. I booked another one and TripAdvisor has reviews that are split 50/50 between ‘clean and friendly’ and ‘bedbugs and mould’.

POTENTIAL FAIL

I went to look at a boat on Monday, it was pretty nice - not perfect, but very cheap, but I dithered for too long and when I tried to call the guy back it was already sold.

ALL ABOARD THE FAILBOAT

I’m working in St Helens at the moment, and to my surprise I actually quite like it. The town centre has TWO yarn shops and on Friday there was a continental market and I bought a crepe from a cute French guy… who short changed me…

… but then I instinctively swung around and said, “je vous donne dix! DIX monsieur, pas cinq!”, which means ‘I gave you 10, not five’… or actually ‘I give you ten, not five’ because the passé composé didn’t spring automatically to mind… but still, I’m calling this one a WIN.

I have some news from my knitting life that is hot, red hot… but I suspect from my blog search stats that I’m being stalked by a certain twat I know in real life (actually there’s a shortlist of 2 suspects) and I’m going to have to take measures to protect my privacy. More soon, I hope.

Images from http://failblog.org/

1) What was I doing ten years ago?

I was 19, I think around that time I would have been living with my 31 year old boyfriend, rapidly losing all respect for him due to his inability to pay rent while eating all the food I bought.

2) What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today:

I’m in a complete state of inertia at the moment, my life is measured in weeks and months rather than days. If I complete one thing a fortnight, it’s an achievement.

- Complete my online application for university.
- Go and look at some boats and buy one. I’m really aiming to do that this weekend actually, but don’t hold your breath.
- Finish my Brea Bag, which will mean frogging the entire gusset so far and doing it again thinner, cos I’ve ran out of yarn. Need to find a nice strap too.
- Buy a fishing licence so I can go dangle my rod in some canals and lakes. Calling what I do ‘fishing’ would be misleading.
- Go outside. Is that one too outrageous?

3) Snacks I enjoy:

I don’t really snack much, I prefer to take my junk food in meal-sized portions. Big plate of Doritos smeared in chilli, or a king size Galaxy (I let myself eat a whole one in one go the other night because I’d skipped lunch. Although I didn’t wake up until 11.30am).

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

That would freak me out, with money comes responsibility and that’s something I’ve been trying to shirk for the past few years (see university application, above). So once I’d given most of it away to Amnesty International or the NHS or something, I’d:

- Buy a reasonably old, scuffed up houseboat and put a shiny new engine in it, and get some kind of service agreement that would mean they’d come and fix it for me if I broke down at 9pm on some remote stretch of canal.
- Put myself through university so I’d only have to work a few hours a week in a bar, so I’d still have friends my own age.
- Buy my folks the house they deserve somewhere with a view, far away from crazy neighbours and relatives.
- Get a dog. I know that doesn’t take much money, but I’d need to pay a dog sitter while I was in university.
- Go to Las Vegas. Hmm. Actually I might need the rest of that billion back…

5) Places I have lived:

Liverpool, Paris, Montpellier, Reading and a load of little villages along the Thames and the Kennet & Avon canal: Henley, Thatcham, Pangbourne, Theale… yaaawn.

6) Jobs I have had:

Library assistant, bar maid, knicker seller, train passenger counter, au pair, translator, tele-interviewer for people with premature ejaculation and low sex drive (but not constipation. I refused to do the constipation interview on account of the giggles), every type of office job on Earth. I think I must have had in the region of 30 jobs now.

7) Peeps I want to know more about:

Natalie Wood
Startare
Swanky Knitter (I must start to use the word ’swanky’ more)
Any of the funny peeps who’ve commented on my blog recently (thanks!)

I feel this post is lacking a picture. Here’s a picture of Montpellier, my real, tangible, French happy place.

Me and my gothy pals used to spend a lot of time on our appearance, trekking all the way to Manchester for specialist shops, scouring charity shops for 80s throwback fashion and spending inordinate amounts of time waiting for the dye to develop on our hair. Our make up was immaculate. I used to call up my friend Carla to see if she wanted to go out for a drink, and her answer would be ‘give me two hours, I need to draw my eyebrows on’. I remember being on the train to a concert in Manchester with three friends and a drunk insisting that we were a famous rock band, and to be fair with the amount of leather and sunglasses on display we probably did veer a little too close to looking like U2.

So with my outer wardrobe being so, you can imagine what my lingerie draw looked like. Although this often crossed over into my outer wardrobe. I wore fishnets whatever the occasion, or stockings and a garter belt. Curiously, my mum quite enjoyed bringing home lacy bustiers from car boots sales and charity shops and watching me happily trot out to the Krazy House in them and not much else.

So yeah. Sexy and cool. Even when I stopped listening to the music and going to the clubs, I couldn’t get out of the habit of wearing nothing but black. In fact, I remember getting a new pair of baseball boots and feeling really self concious about my shiny white toes. Over the years I’ve relented quite a lot and have even made the full transition from black to blue jeans. You wouldn’t give me a second glance if I walked past you in the street these days, I’m quite boring.

But what the hell possessed me to make these?

Answer: knitting. These socks are the antithesis of both ‘cool’ and ’sexy’ and yet I love them, I’m proud of them, I will probably wear them in public and even roll my trouser leg up and plant my feet on the table to show everybody.

RIP Credibility. 1995-2008.

More technological genius to follow, hopefully…

A couple of the yarns in there I bought while I was in Kendal at the weekend. This weekend we actually had weather in England, for the first time in over a year I think. I acted accordingly:

The internet/my computer/my brain is playing up something woeful tonight, but I have a lot to blog about. I have a pattern in the works, and some kick-ass FOs to show off. But for now I’ll just tell you about the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in beards… I foiled an attempted break in.

I was taking a sicky from work (what?) and was awoken at 12.30 (what???) by young lads knocking on the door and shouting through the letter box. I thought it was a bit suspect, so I dragged my lazy arse out of bed.

Half an hour later, just as I’m digesting my first coffee of the day, they come back. But this time they don’t knock, they just try and open the door. Cos, yeah, being a stupid dickhead I’d left my keys (including my car keys) in the lock from the night before. In my defence, I had walked all the way from the train station in the blazing heat carrying tins of beer.

So anyway, I race to the door and let out a full-on scouse “EY!” and by the time I’d got the door open I could only see the backs of the three little twats in their black hoodies legging it down the street. And just to confirm my suspicions that they weren’t being helpful and returning my keys to me, they left in such a haste they forgot their getaway vehicle. One of these:

A scooter, nay, a tricycle. They really do start them young around here.

Anyway, I toyed with the idea of either loosening the wheelnuts and leaving it for them to retrieve, or riding it around the streets and seeking the bastards down, vigilante-style. But to my surprise, the police actually showed up, and offered to take it away. Even stranger, they didn’t seem to be in a car so I have my suspicions they rode it back to the station. Gutted. Didn’t even give me time to take pictures of it with me doing crime-fighter poses, honest.

*which then died on me, like every other shitty piece of technology I come into contact with today.

My nan taught me to knit yeeeeears ago, and until a few months ago I knitted like her, in a really slow, English throwing style where I pretty much dropped the yarn, walked out of the room, made a coffee and read the newspaper between stitches. I mostly knit continental know, which speeds up stocking stitch a helluva lot but I’m still nowhere as fast as some of those videos. Yet my nan used to turn out huge fair isle and aran jumpers and even dresses at a rate of knots. It would be cool if some of the knitting women in my family were still alive or not crazy twats so I could ask them questions…

All ten of my nails are now buffed to perfection, you’ll be pleased to hear. I’m currently suffering with toothache, so I’ve allowed myself to skip my main meals today and replace them with cold beer and chocolate. Do you think, for cosmetic purposes, one could buff one’s own teeth?

I also finished my second shrug, but I must have still been grumpy when I was finishing it, because I cast off a bit too tightly, and it’s a bit small.  I may try to palm it off on someone with narrower shoulders than me.

There is one thing that’s bugging me at the moment.  I went shopping in the Trafford Centre yesterday, and as I was walking through a big make up department, I got accosted by some shill with a fancy accent who wanted to play with my fingernails.  He sat me down and started buffing away at my fingernail, not once, but THREE times, with various different grades of sandpaper.  I hated it.  I bit my tongue, my knuckles turned white and my butt cheeks clenched so much I nearly swallowed the stool.  As soon as it was over I got as far away from him as I could, sweat pouring down my face.

But you know what?  My fingernail is FABULOUS.  Seriously.  I have this one, gleaming, smooth fingernail that I can see my reflection in.  And I was never aware of this before, but all my other fingernails are extremely drab and frumpy, and I’m getting a complex about them.  So now I have to score me one of those buffers, and torture myself another 9 times.

I took pictures of my amazing fingernail, but I forgot to upload them and now I’m in ‘work’ (manning a reception desk, I’ve answered the phone all of 3 times all morning), but maybe that’s just as well as I know a lot of people are icky about fingernails like me.  And I wouldn’t want to offend anyone, would I?

• knitting blog fucking
• illicit pleasures
• gatwick sadist
• can some one get me a picture of a nun w (it cuts off there!  I need to know what the nun is with!)
• “seemed like a good idea” simon cap
• fuckity fuckity
• online peanut ark

and my favourite…

• fucked on small boat

I also keep getting clicks from a French skiing forum where I was inexplicably mentioned.

I’m taking active steps to deblandify my knitting life.  I’ve joined the Bad Knit Girls group on Ravelry and I’ve signed up for a swap that promises to be the unblandest knitting project I’ll have ever undertaken.

I went for a great walk this week, along the canal in Parbold. Spring is definitely here, and the lambs were lazing in the fields… Since I caught the knitting bug, I no longer see a sheep and think of mint sauce and roast potatoes. I’ve started to look at them as yarn machines. So when I saw huge big tufts of fleece caught on barbed wire, it called out to me - FREE YARN! I took some home and I’ve been examining it. Before I can spin it, I need to card it, so the interwebs tell me. I’ve looked on eBay for a cheap carding brush, but they’re all a bit pricey right now. I reckon I can make my own drop spindle no problem.

I’m so relieved I didn’t go to all the way to Wales this weekend seeing as there was a Stitches & Craft fair right on my doorstep in Aintree racecourse. Alas, they didn’t have any spinning equipment but I did get to see the knitted HOUSE that has been in the newspapers…

It was damned impressive. The display which intrigued me most was the Extreme Knitting one. Using huge needles and 6 or 7 balls of wool at the same time, they made big, sturdy rugs and throws. I’d have liked to have bought some needles but I don’t have that much yarn to play with. One day…

The only thing I bought while I was there was some Regia 6 ply sock yarn, from the Web of Wool stall. I picked it because it reminded me of muppets.

Off topic: I ordered a film in error from LoveFilm - ‘Ma Vie en Rose‘, thinking it was the film of the same name about Edith Piaf. It’s actually an amazing film about family and childhood. If you get the chance to, watch it.

I was thinking of throwing my tent in my car and heading down there.  Not only did I want to be surrounded by miles and miles of yarn, since I joined Ravelry I’ve been curious about meeting other knitters.  When I first joined I was so pleasantly surprised by all the cool (mostly) women who knit.  I barely know any knitters in real life, and I still can’t picture all these PhDs, lawyers, lecturers, punks and funny bitches with needles in their hands.

I was also really impressed by the level of intelligence and civility on Ravelry.  I’m an old-timer at them there internet things, and I’m used to ‘flame wars’ and as a result have grown a pretty thick skin.  I thought I might come across as too blunt, and there were a couple of times I actually went to bed worrying about something I’d posted and whether people would miss my attempt at humour or be upset that I’d disagreed with them.  Every time, I’d get up and log into Ravelry (yeah, before breakfast… sad) and there’d be a really friendly reply and my worries would vanish.  When people disagreed with me (or vice versa) they’d always say something like, “I see what you’re trying to say, but…”.  It felt like a community, and the stuff we had in common (knitting and atheism, crochet and feminism, love of Noro and never reading Harry Potter) outweighed whatever differences we had.

Lately, it’s got ugly.  There’s been a couple of - frankly - juicy threads, that I’ve alluded to here before.  Due to the size of Ravelry now, people leapt on them.  Who can blame them - who wouldn’t want to be a part of a drama that included someone faking their own death?  But it quickly got ugly.  To the point that someone actually posted the full address of the ‘dead’ person, and people who had no connection with the companies involved or any of their customers throwing their 2 cents pretty forcefully at someone’s head.   Secondly, there seems to be a vocal minority of people who cannot resist screaming ‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT!’, be it about the topic of a group, the language that’s been used, or scandalous pictures of knitted genitalia.

The way I see it, the way you behave on the internet should be the same as you behave in real life.  If you were in a store and heard a customer complaining about something they’d bought in there, would you weigh in?  Or would you just remember that information and think twice about shopping there next time.  Would you tell all your friends about it the next time you saw them, or would you bring it to the attention of total strangers who may never set foot in that store anyway?

If you were in a large group of people, and someone used the word ‘fuck’  once in an sentence, would you let it drop?  Or would you change the subject of the entire conversation to say, “I think that language makes you sound stupid, from now on I shall ignore you.”

Fair enough, some people are consistent in their online asshattery in real life.  Kudos to them.  Me, I swear, I stand up for myself and others, and sometimes I’ve faced the consequences for doing so.

Before I joined Ravelry, I used to describe myself as a misogynistic feminist.  I was a feminist in principle but had just had too many first-hand experiences of bad feminine behaviour.  Ravelry turned me around.  The conversation was intelligent, funny, mature and, most of all, friendly.

Sadly, I find myself again wondering if it’s possible to be in a female-only environment and not be deafened by bitchiness, driven insane by cliques or hold a conversation like an adult, without the risk of someone crying to teacher.  In particular I tried (and failed) to lighten the atmosphere in a thread about WonderWool and got tore a new arsehole for daring to disrespect the feelings of others.  Well, that’s the reason I was told.  I felt like I wasn’t treated with much respect because I didn’t toe the party line.

So, in addition to the fact I don’t fancy the drive to Wales on a Friday night in my dodgy Fiesta, and that my lovely friend Danni has proposed shopping and booze in Liverpool, I’m going to give WonderWool a miss.  Maybe I’ll make up for it by getting my arse to one of the knitting groups in Liverpool and trying again to have an open mind and find knitters that I’d like to be around.

p.s. I realise anyone not on Ravelry will wonder what the hell I’m on about.  And also, I’m not doing a big, flouncy cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-my-face… there’s still Woolfest

Very poor quality plastic but I’m short on bigger sizes so they might come in handy.  Paul’s Place surprised me by having the usual huge stock of cheap and nasty 100% acrylics and then some quite nice Sirdar Click for only 99p.

That’s all I have to say really.  Going to the Strand doesn’t really give you many amusing anecdotes.

Did I mention I went to see Against Me! this week?  Well I did, and they were awesome.

And I’d always heard that yoghurt was supposed to be good for yeast infections of your hoo-hah but I was never sure if you were mean to eat it or, er, apply it.  I think this thread provides the answer.  And some other stark lessons.

•  There’s a thing called ‘Elimination Communication’ where parents learn how to tell when their kid is going to pee/shit and act accordingly, thus doing away with the need for nappies.
• ‘Elimination’ is another word for pissing and shitting.
• One of the first ju-jitsu teachers in the UK was a woman, and a suffragette.
• Americans pronounce the word ‘twat as ‘twot’.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Actually I learnt that two weeks ago but it still shocks/amuses me.
• The power of the Rick Roll has been used against the Phelps Family/Westboro Baptist church.
• In other parts of the world, ‘pasties’ aren’t delicious meat-packed (heh) pockets of pastry, they’re little bits of fabric that cover up one’s nips.  Dogs can wear them.
• Finally, something slightly knitting-related.  Magknits is no more :(  Interweave Knits has removed a lot its web patterns (not arsed, got the pdf of Veronik Avery’s short row hat safe on my hard drive).  Some yarn dyer by the name of ‘Mystical Creation Yarns’ has gone bust, because the owner got sick with leukaemia.  Then died.  Then appeared in Walmart and talked to someone on the phone.  Then appeared on Ravelry insisting she was dead and that her business had always acted in a fine upstanding manner (depending on what you believe).  All of these issues have been debated to death (literally?) on Ravelry and it’s not always been pretty.  I’m not linking to any of the bun fights cos I’m kind like that.
• Oh yeah, there was some massive fund raising on Ravelry lately, then the owners went and blew all the cash on a stupidly high tech litter tray.

Conclusion: must get out more.

← Baby hat in Everton colours. Big enough to fit a 29 year old.

→ Monoprix Super Doux, bought in Toulouse. OMG this stuff is TEH SEX. Its the softest, smoothest thing to knit with. I started making a tank top with it while I was staying alone in a cheap hotel watching BBC World, then realised it was shaping up to be maternity sized. I still refuse to swatch.

← I felted something! Kureyon-chan bag, from the now sadly defunct Magknits site. This turned out to be a really shitty skein of Noro, I got past 2 colours, came to a knot, then had the same two colours again, I feel robbed. I’ve now added a button which I spent a whole £1.16 on, and the bag is sat right next to me, but I can’t be arsed taking and uploading a photo.

→ Hats for Tibetan and African newborns. Cos I’m a wonderful person. Knit three so far.

← Socks in DK. I found this amazing 100% wool in Branthwaite Wools in Kendal, £3.50 for 100g. These socks knit up in a few hours and go amazingly under my new hiking boots. I swore I’d never knit another pair of socks on 2.5mm needles again. Then of course, my Noro Sock Yarn arrived…

Places I’ve been in descending order of awesomeness: Montpellier, Lake District, Toulouse, Reading. Montpellier made me realise I didn’t want to spend to live in Toulouse, the Lake District made me realise I don’t want to live in Reading. Here’s a picture of my amazing socks and new boots 1000 feet above sea level.

I got a fishing rod for my birthday. I still haven’t caught a fish yet.

Yes, that’s Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn and it’s mine! All mine! And there’s a story about how I got it.

I logged into ebay for the first time in ages to look at campervans (the wanderlust is getting stronger) and I found I had a message from ebay saying I had a £5 voucher to spend on anything over £10. So after about, ooooh, 30 seconds I decided to treat myself to the sock yarn (it’s my biffday next week and no other fucker will have the nous to buy me it). I found it being offered by an American seller, so double and triple checked the terms and conditions of the voucher - it said it was available to use on ebay.co.uk and ebay.com. Nevertheless, even though the yarn was in the US it was still being sold on ebay.co.uk.

So I click, I buy, I try to pay. But the voucher code wasn’t being accepted. And I clicked one button too many and my payment was taken without the discount. So I spent FOREVER looking for a way of getting in touch with eBay/PayPal, eventually found a phone number, called it about 12 times before I discovered the correct combination of numbers to dial to get through to a person, and had a lengthy discussion about my £5. The lady from PayPal told me my voucher didn’t work because it wasn’t on ebay.co.uk, but I had the answer, and the screen shots, and the quotes from ebay FAQs to put her right on that one. She agreed I was right and told me she’d re-activate my voucher so I could still use it.

But it was too late, I’d already paid for the yarn. All that was left for me to do was bitch about it on Ravelry, which was when someone a lot less fuckwitty than me pointed out that $17.50 is LESS than £10, which is why my voucher didn’t work. Meh.

I feel kinda conned because that ‘free’ £5 voucher lead to me spending about £15 I wasn’t planning on spending. But I have my yarn. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Still deciding if I’m going to make socks or some sort of scarf/shawl. Thank the Lord for Ravelry project galleries.

Anyway, just waiting for Simon to arrive in the van, then we’ll explore the medieval city and tonight we head to Montpellier aka my favourite place in the universe. Last night I walked around the ramparts as night was falling, it was incredible, really empty (except when I made a girl scream by turning round a corner to quickly), bats fluttering around my head…

The first two are just some acrylic/acrylic mix for a baby hat I’m making in Everton colours. The second photo is of some Noro Kureyon in 170, because… just because. I will either try out a square of Lizard Ridge or experiment with felting. The last one, Debbie Bliss Rialto is to go with the Mirasol Hacho I bought last week in Reading, because I started to make a hat, then ripped it all out because it seemed to be too big, and I’ve realised that if I want to be sure I have enough yarn to make anything that fits a human being I’ll probably need to make something stripey with it, hence the black yarn.

I’d actually left the shop when I remembered I wanted that black yarn, so returned only about 5 seconds after already leaving. The girl behind the counter said it was good I’d come back, they’d forgotten to tell me about their knitting group on Tuesday, and gave me a flyer. Now, I’ve never been to a knitting group before, I’ve always been apprehensive because the only thing I know about other knitters is that they have something in common with me, and that’s no recommendation. But the place was nice and the people seem friendly… so I’m leaving this one up to you… whoever you are…

Friday night, I clocked off work at 5pm (nary half an hour after finishing Simon’s Christmas Valentines socks with a hastily improvised needle made out of a paperclip and some sellotape), went home to change and then jumped in my car and drove down to Reading. I was going to spend the weekend with Simon and actually stay on his boat for the first time in a few months.

Because Simon is working in France at the moment, he’s keeping the Captain moored up at a boat yard on an island in the middle of the Thames. So when I met him in the Riverside pub, he had a little row boat, with a 1945 2-stroke outboard clamped to the back, tied up outside to take us back home.

So it was about 10pm, and the plan was to head into town for more booze with Mark (receiver of the cunt hat) and fellow boater Hugh. To get there, we decided to drop my bags of at the Captain and then carry on downstream to Hugh’s boat and walk the rest of the way into town. This seemed like a good idea to me, and seeing as I was with two full time boaters and a marine engineer, I didn’t give a second thought to the feasibility of this mission. But I hadn’t yet seen the boat, nor was I aware that all three had been in the pub since lunchtime…

The boat was about the size of a bathtub. And I might have stayed drier in one. After we’d got the engine running and started putt-putting up the river someone helpfully mentioned that this boat *lets in water* a little. Although I regretted the fact that my wellies were locked in the boot of my car and I was wearing a very holey pair of baseball boots, this turned out to be useful because when I asked if my feet should be *that* wet, we realised we were sinking and so began a desperate scramble for the bilge pump. We made it to the Captain after some scary hair-pin turns, dropped of my bags and made it to Hugh’s boat with Hugh frantically pumping the whole way.

Like I said, these men all have years of experience and expertise in boating and I trusted them implicitly and so didn’t panic and found the whole thing quite fun. It was only when we were back on dry land and they all started exclaiming, “fuck! I can’t believe we didn’t go in! Especially on that turn! We’d have drowned or froze in s