The easy bit done...

Sunday, 8:30 pm

The painting's done; and the furniture (barring the rest of the chairs, the spinning-wheel and skein-winder) is back in. And I really, really like the plain coloured walls at the moment. However, the point of losing the stripes was to make more of the stuff on the walls.


The sampler above the fireplace (to be found in detail here - I liked it so much I did it exactly as specified!) will stay. Other non-negotiable pieces are the piece of felt I made at Wingham 5 years ago on their big machine, which will go back where it was at the right of the door.


And this one, which has been languishing in a bag since it came back from an exhibition in Munich two Christmases ago: I spent 190 hours on this for my City and Guilds. That's destined to be the sole occupant of the wooden wall on the left (partly because pieces on that wall seem to hit the ground quite hard and with regular frequency when there are guests...)

Being able to put up this Christmas-present pastel from E-J was also a major reason for the redecoration.

But there are also these:

and a Nicholas Barnham winter-apple-tree which seems impossible to photograph... The painting was certainly the easier bit!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! I'd take a picture of the daffs I had in the garden yesterday, but their little yellow heads are all flat and snow-covered...

Sunday, 8:30 am




Second coat of yellow going on...

And - knitting!! Not the greatest of photos - beads don't show up too well in daylight... But here's the first end of the Flutter scarf with beads...

The reveal....

Yes, it's going to be yellow again... But without the stripes...

And as you can see, I've not done a lot today. The lurgy came up and hit me overnight, so having spent most of the night blowing my nose, hacking up green gunk and being generally completely unable to get warm enough, I did my library shift this morning and went back to bed at 1pm for a short nap. I woke up at 6 when the street light outside the bedroom window came on! Oops.

I'm intending to get the rest of this coat of emulsion on though - it'll need at least one more coat to cover the remnants of the stripes and the Polyfilla... I'm using a paint pad, which is quick but gives quite a thin coat.

Tomorrow, the reason for losing the stripes... Otherwise, it's a bit 'move along, nothing to see here...'

I may also get my Flutter scarf cast off - the first half, anyway. It's taken about an hour to cast off so far, because I'm beading every stitch using the crochet-hook method, and it increases to around 180 stitches towards the end... Probably utter insanity, but looking damn good, though, and the usual really easy-to-follow Mim pattern - written and charted directions. Photos when that half's done...

Almost invisible progress...

Friday, 10:30 am


Polyfilla in [note to self: Magic polyfilla in a tube is a stupid idea. Not so much the 'magic' bit, which turns the polyfilla from pink to white as it dries and lets you know it's ready for sanding, but the 'in a tube' bit. Which of course makes sure you don't get one of those nice little spatula things. Thank goodness for the City and Guilds hoarding habit - still had one in the printing/stamping box...]

Friday, 12:30 pm


Polyfilla sanded, all the walls and the floor sanded and washed. Lunch time!

Friday, 8:30 pm

And at that point, progress gets incremental... You can't tell from this photo, but the ceiling has had two coats, and the side wall has gone from the yellow of the stripes to the cream of the background... I had a guest for dinner last night, so no more progress was made between 8:30 pm and this morning; I'm blogging from the library on my Saturday morning volunteer shift...

With any luck, this afternoon there'll be some actual visible progress...

First progress pic

Friday, 8:30 am

Room cleared and swept, furniture out (apart from the table - which will move halfway into the kitchen); fasteners removed from doors... Alll looking very grubby and cobwebby...

The weekend project

I'd like to think this was putting up pics of the very wonderful KTog 5th birthday get-together on Wednesday night - and I'll get to that on the KTog blog this weekend too - but there are a lot of pictures to crop strategically...

But no, it's finally getting round to painting the dining room. To this effect, if you've not got completely cheesed off with the irregularity and non-knitting-content of this blog over the last few months, please cheer me along. I'm intending to take a pic every 12 hours over the weekend; at 8:30am and 8:30pm; and to blog on progress once a day...

So here's the first shot - as I walked through the door this evening at 8:30pm.

Thursday, 8:30pm



Most of the pictures are down, but that's about it. There's still a very large pile of yarn on the table, and on the floor... You will note the resentful feline apparition by the door at the left. This door is not often closed and is generally wedged open. It took approximately 20 seconds - the time taken to slam the door quite hard to get it to shut, walk through two not-very-big rooms, turn round and aim a camera - for Amelia/Bug to shoot through the cat-flap from the garden at the sound of the door, notice the Problem and start doing the distraught-cat-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-closed-door thing. You'd think she'd been locked away for weeks... But she's a creature of infinite curiosity and extreme patience... always a bad combination...

More tomorrow... if the lurgy that's been stalking me for a week or so doesn't get me first, anyway...

Tomorrow - sugar soap! and Polyfilla! (and does anyone know how to glue stray flaps of ceiling paper back down/up again?)

Around the block

There were signs of spring in the village this week:

Daffs at the Hall (thanks, Kate and family for planting those; they're really cheery for everyone walking past, and you can't see them from the house...)

Across the road, blossom on the tree by the church:

And some forsythia.

And here's some more forsythia on the same day, in a slightly different setting: the pods at the top aren't seed-pods - they're the topmost people-pods of the London Eye.

Wandering along the South Bank, you do see some strange things: yes, it is indeed a "living statue" in Charlie Chaplin/Hitler make-up, a policeman's uniform, a tutu and a truncheon...

Or Big Ben seen through the legs of a semi-skeletal Dali elephant...

And a photo I've been wanting to take for a long while - Boudicca, implausibly dressed in diaphanous robes, by Westminster Bridge and Portcullis House.

She looks great - three storeys high... Until you see her from a distance, and realise her relative size in the landscape. Which is, I guess, why the Iceni never stood much of a chance.

There's an urban myth that Boudicca is buried at Kings Cross; it's a nice metaphor for the hopelessness of trying to get from East Anglia to London on mornings like last Monday, when the process took 5 hours... A chariot with knives on the wheels would have been seriously welcome; and quite possibly quicker...

Writing in an Age of Silence

by Sara Paretsky. London; New York : Verso, 2007. ISBN-13 978-1-84467-122-9.

I don't normally do book reviews, but this was just tremendous. It's been a very, very long time since I read a book in one or two sittings, finished it and then started at the front again for a longer read.

I've loved Paretsky's stylish detective/private eye novels for a long time; I've waited anxiously for the next one to come out for the last 15 years or so - but knew nothing about the author apart from the fiercely liberal opinions she's given her character VI Warshawski. In the last couple of books, written since the events of 2001 and the US administration's reaction to them, Paretsky has nailed her colours to the mast more clearly, but in this collection and elaboration of five lectures - part (sometimes startling) autobiography, part polemic, part literary theory - she explores voice and voicelessness, and does it brilliantly. She presses all the familiar buttons - the Civil Rights movement, Roe v. Wade, the USA Patriot Act; but she brings her personal experience to bear. And she introduces some slightly surprising elements to the arguments - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Natty Bumppo, Beth March*...

You don't need to have read a Paretsky novel to enjoy this book - she's a fierce, compassionate, feminist, literate, liberal American voice at a time where such are scarce - but I can't imagine finishing this book without wanting to read one...

*and the arrest of Joshilyn Jackson, author of the wonderful Gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia...

Normal knitting coverage will be resumed shortly.