3:15 project update 11

OK, not quite a week late this time - I might even catch up tomorrow! Have been teaching a freeform knitting workshop all day at White House Arts so I'm more than slightly brain-dead, but here goes... Photo 1, no real change. Photo 2, somewhat dramatic change!

I was halfway through removing some of the Enormous Shrub which leans over the side-passage and has started leaning on the gutter and making scratching noises when the wind blows... At the moment a big chunk of it is still lying on the patio...


Photo 3 - not much change - except that the wisteria, released from its trellis, is leaning out over the euonymus in the middle...


I also hacked back a fair amount of ivy at below head-height, mainly to make more of the washing-line visible...
Some dog-roses (really pretty, particularly as I really thought I'd killed it...)

And a clematis poking through the fence...

I have access to two green bins this fortnight, so will be making the most of it...

3:15 project, update 10

This is the update for May 17th rather than this weekend - I'll try and get that up during the week and catch up at the weekend!

Nothing going on with picture 1; not much with picture 2 but I did get round to sweeping up the blackbirds' leavings in the side-passage...

Picture 3 - I did a lot down the right-hand side, and have got quite near the bottom of the garden - it's all just taking a while!

It may not be immediately apparent, but there's a lot of box missing from the bush on the right - two big containers' full, anyway. Thankfully it all squashes down quite compactly in the bin...

So, here's the bottom of the garden, with the greenhouse - I'm only about 6 feet away but it's going to take several weeks because the bushes are so overgrown, and big enough that I need to use the rather fearsome tree-saw Sue lent me, which is a brilliant tool. Due to my overall wimpishness, however, I can only chop down a few branches at a time...

Some prettiness, poking through the fence. Due to being generally submerged, the peonies on my side of the fence didn't have flowers this year; but one of the ones from next door decided to make an appearance. I haven't enhanced the colours at all - this is what they look like!

And some pretty chive flowers. I love greens and purples together...

Seriously good cause

A friend sent me a letter asking for funds for a girls' school project in Nigeria; the author is a friend of hers, and it's an amazingly good cause.

The letter is here.

This is a knitting blog, and I know lots of people have an aversion to religion in general, and nuns in particular, but I'd suggest you scroll down to the "Services Rendered" section to see what they're actually doing; most nuns have a much more radical agenda than you'd think.

Edited to add - the link should actually work now - thanks Kathleen and Mary!

3:15 project update 9

... or, about damn time...

These are the photos from a fortnight ago - I was swanning round Vienna last weekend so didn't get any gardening done... I'll take the 3:15 photos as usual this weekend but probably won't put them up until tomorrow or Tuesday - I'd like to get some Vienna ones up later today! So - the view out onto the Green, where it's beginning to look very spring-like indeed...

The side - after the blackbirds had been at it. Every year at about this time, they ravage the gutters and roofs and hurl the accumulated moss all over the place; presumably in search of interesting insects for their young... but it is actually more convenient to have them do it than to have to clear the stuff off the roof myself!

Picture 3: the main difference is the right-hand side where I'm starting to make Serious Inroads into the honeysuckle at the far end and also chopped down a fair amount of flowering currant.

Not much change up at this end although everything's growing...

Next door's clematis is flowering in the rose-bush - sometimes they open at the same time but I'm not sure that's going to happen this year.

The best bit, though, and the about damn time bit, is this...

That there is wisteria. Flowering. In my garden. After FIFTEEN YEARS. We were given the plant as a post-wedding present by a college friend when she visited in 1994; and it's just grown quietly into a big plant, bare in the winter, pretty buds and feathery leaves through the summer - but no flowers; nothing. I couldn't even remember whether it was meant to be a white one or a purple one (yay for purple, but, you know, either would have been fine)! This spring I went out on March 1 to disinter the garden, and I threatened it with uprooting if it didn't flower by the end of next spring... and there it is. Sooo pretty. There are probably a dozen flower heads in total - not a huge number for a big plant but so very, very welcome.

As ever, click to embiggen the photos.

2009 books, #18-25

It's been a while since I posted one of these (end of March, probably!) so here's the latest batch of books. I'm pretty sure there was another one there somewhere, but I must have taken it back to the library...

The white tiger by Aravind Adiga. London: Atlantic, 2009.

I read this for April's Kniterati group, and really didn't enjoy it that much. As a colleague who'd also read it said, it's difficult to summon up enthusiasm for a book whose narrator is quite as repugnant as this one... I think the additional problem is that there's nobody in this book who elicits much sympathy... (I found this with the first series of 24, too, and didn't keep watching.)

Drunk, divorced & covered in cat hair : the true-life misadventures of a 30-something who learned to knit after he split by Laurie Perry, aka Crazy Aunt Purl. Deerfield Beach, Fla.: Health Communications, 2007.

This, on the other hand, is a wonderful book. Crazy Aunt Purl's blog has been a staple for several years, and she writes wonderfully, and movingly, about her life, and it's hilarious at the same time. Definitely not train-safe - not on a stiff-upper-lip commuter train, anyway...

gods in Alabama, by Joshilyn Jackson. London: Hodder, 2005.

Joshilyn Jackson's blog is also a must-read for me - the voice in her blog is different from the narrative voice in her books but the same sense of life, humour and absurdity flows through both... This was a re-read of a book I'd inhaled in a queue for folk festival tickets in 2006, and it was wonderful all over again this time round. Arlene Fleet, the narrator, is persuaded to return to Posset, Alabama, by her boyfriend Burr; but Burr doesn't know the secrets and lies Lena has left hidden in the kudzu, and Lena's racist family don't know that Burr is African American. Wonderfully observed with some seriously creepy elements, this is a Southern novel in the tradition of To kill a mockingbird or Donna Tartt's The little friend. All three of Jackson's novels probably go into an all-time top 20 for me and I can't wait for the next one.

In our defense: the Bill of Rights in action, by Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy. New York: Avon Books, 1991.

I picked this up in the 'for sale' rack at the library, without much optimism about finishing it, but I've always been a sucker for books detailing legal cases (from a book about Bernard Spilsbury onwards) and the structure of this, looking at the US Bill of Rights in the context of the cases which have tested it over the years, was fascinating and engaging. An updated version, in the light of the USA PATRIOT act, would be even more interesting; the date of this book means that many of the test cases for freedom of speech, assembly, right to privacy, cruel and unusual punishment etc. date from the Civil Rights era and the Cold War. But if you can get hold of a copy (or want to borrow mine!) it's a very interesting read.

Aftershock, by Quintin Jardine. London: Headline, 2009.

Half of my holiday reading, and another instalment in the Bob Skinner series - this one has the usual balance of character history and tight plot development, and rattles along wonderfully. I veer between liking Bob Skinner and really not being sure - in this one, he's one of the good guys - but that's always interesting in itself, and either way, the books are required reading as they come out in paperback...

Touchstone, by Laurie R. King. New York: Bantam Dell, 2009.

This is an amazing book - set in the Great Game era of espionage between the two Wars, and featuring cross-country chases, Fascist leaders, mysterious Bolshevik bombers, a shellshocked veteran of the Great War with extraordinary powers and the background of the General Strike. Laurie R. King has a lovely talent for creating sympathetic, three-dimensional characters while keeping a plot running at high speed, and both Bennett Grey and Harris Stuyvesant are nicely drawn. The theme of terrorism is handled deftly - King is obviously making points about the current world situation without hitting us over the head with it - and although there are one or two lapses into Americanisms in the mouths of her British characters (King is from the US but a complete Anglophile), she manages to capture the feel of the period as well as writers like Dornford Yates who were writing at the time.

Playing for pizza, by John Grisham. London: Arrow, 2008.

This is a very sweet book - a washed-up American quarterback can only get a job playing the game in Italy, where most of the players are amateurs and play for a couple of square meals a week after practice. He's a fish out of water, knowing nothing about Italian culture, and gradually warming to his new team-mates. I know nothing about American football - and know very little more having read this book; I did tend to skip over the play-by-play descriptions during the actual games - but this was a quick, light, heartwarming read, if a little schmaltzy at times. In the same vein, I'd recommend Grisham's A painted house.

The associate, by John Grisham. London: Century, 2009.

Another Grisham (I put a batch of orders in at the library and these all came at once), but much more his usual fodder - a graduating Yale lawyer is blackmailed to join a huge corporate firm and give up company secrets. It does have the same problems as a lot of the early Grishams in that after a really tense set-up and some excellent descriptions of corporate-associate life, the end sort of fizzles out; the last few books have had much tighter endings, so this one was ultimately a little bit disappointing. As ever, I could see it making a very good film...

In the next batch, some textile history, some more crime and maybe a bit of music criticism...

Tonight, Graham...

I will post Vienna photos tomorrow, promise; it's been a struggle sorting out 350+ pictures particularly as the normal weekend things like washing and ironing didn't happen last weekend...

But tonight was the Annual Kitchfest we call Eurovision, and Sue and I rose to the occasion:

Thought Graham Norton did pretty well as a commentator, given how good Terry Wogan was (favourite remark of the evening "We're told they're wearing traditional dress. Presumably they're from a village whose mayor was Liberace".) It was interesting that a lot of countries had brought in really well-known people; and we went for Moldova, Germany and Denmark rather than the countries which actually, you know, won anything. But Norway's winning entry had folky elements, and was written by the performer, and although the lyrics are pretty naff, certainly not a terrible song compared to some others which have won in the past... My personal favourite as an actual song has to be France's entry Et s'il fallait le faire sung by Patricia Kaas; it never stood much of a chance at Eurovision but the lyrics are beautiful; that's the one I'll be downloading...

Skippeting over to the Dark Side

This time round, I gave up entirely on attempting to board a plane with knitting needles; it's all just been too disappointing in the past. I actually think they'd have been fine on Aer Lingus, but I finally got round to asking for that remedial crochet lesson from Wibbo, and she obliged...

I've been "crocheting" for a while but it didn't bear any resemblance to actual crochet technique, and hurt my hands (and mystified crocheting friends who couldn't work out how you could possibly end up with a blister on the end of your left index finger)... So an hour or two watching Jan's hands and attempting it over the bank holiday weekend, and the loan of a crochet hook, and various trains and flights later... Voilà. Started just before Royston on the train to London on Thursday morning, finished just after Royston on the train back from London on Sunday evening...

The colours are actually better on the finished article - green rather than turquoise. But I don't really care - it's an Actual Bit of Crochet, done in something that approaches an orthodox technique... and although it could be made out of chain-mail from the general texture, that'll work given that it's a potholder!

Thanks, Jan!! (And just to let you know, I am tutting a lot less now so I think my fellow commuters are less likely to want to defenestrate me...)

Men at work

I haven't got all my photos straight yet - there are about 350 of them - so I think I'll be blogging in snippets for the next few days... Opposite a building I'd travelled across Vienna to see, there was also a guildhall/free trades hall of sorts - I can't find it on the Web, irritatingly, but here's their lovely monogram...

The plaques outside feature various trades being carried out by men in a state of undress... And in the middle - the textile workers! A spinner, some weavers...

But it's good that concern for health and safety was maintained - at least miners got tin hats to help out while they were doing nude hacking and hewing... Which is just as well, as the guy on th left appears to be attempting to bring down the roof...

AWOL...

I've been away. So no 3:15s (not that I've posted last week's yet...)

I've been in a city where they have doorways like this.

I'm still reeling... more photos very soon...

20 years ago today...

I'd listened to this song enough times, but in the rather tame form on Desire...

On 5 May 1989 I was walking in the 2ème arrondissement by the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, during my pretty miserable year abroad, on a beautiful summer day, and I first really heard this song, and in this version... It starting with "I married Isis on the 5th day of May..." was pretty arresting on the day and obviously aids the memory...

And - here it is... Enjoy. Whatever life hurls at you, it's a great song. And this does morph into the live recording...

As promised, the shiny...

So, knitting has been going on... I have two FOs but only one with photos at the moment... (the photo above doesn't embiggen, but the blocking shots do, and it's worth it...)

Aeolian Priestess Shawl

Yarn: hand-dyed by Wibbo (Christmas present); base yarn Patons 2-ply merino laceweight, dyed in colour High Priestess, 100 grammes (used 96 grammes)

Needles: 3.5mm

Beads: size 6 irridescent purple blend, about 1200 (85 grammes)

Finished size: 64" across the top by 28" deep

Started April 10, 2009; finished April 29, 2009...

Pretty, isn't it? The yarn was lovely to knit with and blocked out very well; I was glad I'd used the larger beads because it gave real weight... I even didn't mind the nupps too much once I'd started...!

Let's have a slightly better look at those nupps... Mmm. Shiny.

3:15 project update 8

A somewhat belated update from last weekend! I blame the fact I was having a birthday; and also that I didn't really make much visible progress - I had filled the green bin and four bin-bags by the end of the weekend before... (Thankfully by sneaking around on Tuesday evening and filling all the green bins outside with my surplus, I'm now bin-bag free...)

Picture 1 is worth showing this week - the lime leaves take a while to decide to come out, but once they do, they don't hang about!

Not much movement on picture #2, so let's not bother. Not a great deal on #3 either - most of this week's effort was concentrated in pulling up bindweed (which is immensely satisfying if you get a good big chunk of root...) and pruning/tying in the climbing rose.

#4 is chiefly notable for the fact that it was warm enough to sit out and knit for an hour or so, for the first time this year... The top of the bin-bag mountain can be seen just behind the chair on the right...





The Mystery Bulbs from the first week turn out to have been ordinary bluebells - but pretty enough...

The dog-rose, which looked to be dying but has perked up no end since the Death of Borage, seems to be setting itself up to flower...

... along with the climbing rose (a Blush noisette from David Austin) and next door's clematis...

As it's a bank holiday weekend and this is already late, I'm going to take photos tomorrow rather than today; I might actually blog some other stuff instead later today! I have Sue coming over for dinner and West Wing (we're up to Two Cathedrals tonight, for fellow fanatics), and the house is more than a little tip-like... Tomorrow I'm hoping for some slash-and-bin so there ought to be a bit more progress in view...