Bye bye, Bug

Amelia (Jarrahkatt Aimee)

4.9.01-11.11.11

Sadly, after a long hard year of vet's visits and a major operation in the spring, the vet's opinion last night was that it would be kindest to let the Bug go - her kidneys had nearly stopped functioning, she was anaemic and she'd lost yet more weight. It was a horrible decision to have to make but they were brilliant at the surgery. So there's another patch of turned earth in the garden, this time in the border she slept in for most of this summer, and a big empty space around the house.

It's going to be very strange living in a house without cats.

B is for... Books

(Before I go on about the actual theme, B is also for Bug - aka Amelia [Mealy-Bug], mentioned in the last post. She came home last night, about 24 hours before I expected her to, and seems pretty cheerful for a cat with a 5" incision in her belly. She's also, so far and touch wood, been very good about not attacking the stitches. We get the results of the biopsies sometime next week. She's sulking in the back bedroom, mainly because a) she can't go out and b) I attack her twice a day with painkillers and antibiotics, which are obviously The Enemy and I am Horrid Person. She has just come down and devoured half a very nice line-caught posh haddock fillet I'd originally put in the freezer for myself, though. [I'm sure she'd have had the other half if I'd let her.] I've been working from home today, will go in for the usual shorter Friday tomorrow, and am off on Monday - next appointment is Saturday for a quick once-over...

Thanks for everyone's good wishes.)

OK. Books.

As anyone who's read this blog over the last year and a half or so (since I started listing the books I've read) will know, I'm a bit of a reader. I cannot imagine a life without a heap of books to read. Sometimes this is slightly oppressive - even if I wished to play my severely out-of-tune piano, I can't because it has my "unread books" stacks all over it - but it offers a world of possibilities. So I thought I might give you my top 5 non-knitting books, and my top knitting book.

Non-knitting...

5. The silver pigs, by Lindsey Davis. 1989.

The first of the Marcus Didius Falco novels, and arguably the best - this sets up the series but is a wonderful historical/romantic/detective novel on its own. There are 20 in the series now and I wish continued health and inspiration to Ms Davis for many more.

4. TS Eliot: the complete poems and plays, by TS Eliot. 1969.

There's just something about Eliot. It might be his Catholicism and the use of biblical language to address modern subjects; it may just be his use of language, but I find myself dipping into this collection

3. Gaudy night, by Dorothy L Sayers. 1935.

For me, the best romantic novel ever written, and the detection isn't bad, too. Sayers cracks the ice on the Wimsey/Vane relationship quite wonderfully.

2. Gods in Alabama, by Joshilyn Jackson. 2004.

Jackson is just amazing. Every book she brings out is a tour de force of Southern fiction. I think probably the best thing I can do to describe this book is to give you the first paragraph. "There are gods in Alabama: Jack Daniel's, high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus. I left one back there myself, back in Possett. I kicked it under the kudzu and left it to the roaches."

1. To kill a mockingbird, by Harper Lee. 1960.

I can't explain why my top two books are set in the American South, but there you are. I re-read this book every couple of years or so. The combination of innocence and knowingness, and a society which is so different and so much the same, always enthrals me. I don't know whether I read the book or saw the film first, but I love both equally, for entirely different ways.

Knitting

This was a difficult one. So many books have excellent techniques, and beautiful photos. But the top one, just for the eye-opener and a personal connection, has to be

Unexpected knitting, by Debbie New. [Can't find original date, in print again though]

Not the cheapest of books - but it will get you thinking about knitting as the creation of a fabric, if you don't already. This book was written by a woman with 8 children who regards knitting a log-cabin quilt using a photo of her mother, which ends up the size of a barn, as an entirely reasonable activity. There are some recipes for knitting here, and the odd pattern, but really, it's the inspiration which is the key. I've never had such an eye-opener.

The strange thing was that I first saw it the day I met Rosie/caughtknitting, on a chance meeting at the Mill Pond when we were both waiting to go somewhere else and I was knitting. She came over and introduced herself and showed me the book; and I was pretty standoffish because I was waiting for friends to turn up, and thank goodness, she gave me her e-mail address and the rest is history. Joining the Cambridge knitting group was a bit of a lifesaver at the time, and has been lovely ever since. April 24, 2004. Not difficult to remember as it was also my birthday! Nowadays, of course, I'd know what to do if approached by a fellow knitter in a public place, but it was the first time it had happened to me...

I am sure that even without that, it would be my top knitting book...

A is for... Animals

I'm doing something a bit different this month, pinching an idea pitched on Ravelry by Tinks - she's going to be taking up a challenge of blogging all the letters of the alphabet this month on her blog. Some of the letters are going to be easier than others!

This one, however, has come to mind because of a couple of events this week. First, the little Circus Tyanna has come to live on the Green this week. For a spinner, the most exciting ones are obviously the llamas - wouldn't these two make a great sweater?

There's also this extremely cute white goat which is tethered just opposite my house
and a slightly less cute goat - there are quite a few ponies but this miniature one is probably the sweetest-looking...

I'm sort of glad to have animal distractions out there at the moment, as the Bug is in the veterinary hospital until at least Thursday - she had an enormous pancreatic cyst removed yesterday and they've sent off various bits of her for biopsies. I imagine she is not amused at the moment.

No knitting to sit on, for one thing.

Big irritation

I pay good money to McAfee for virus protection... and you'd think that would give you protection? Hmmnnn... Turns out, not so much. Spent most of yesterday researching something called XP Defender, which had sent a little message-thingy out onto my computer which was popping up every 90 seconds or so to convince me I needed to download a programme to check for viruses... So did a little bit of research and found out it was malware, made sure my McAfee was up to date, and got it to do a complete virus check, and after 4 hours it came back and said "shiny! all clear!"...

Managed to find a detailed set of instructions for removal, but this did involve editing the registry, which isn't something a non-techy person attempts without Extreme Trepidation. Thankfully, I used to be married to someone who is a techy person, and who very kindly came over yesterday evening and sorted it out. But I do wonder why McAfee didn't spot it.

In a continuation of foolishness, managed to set out this morning and got halfway to the station before I realised I'd left my season ticket in my other bag. So I have a few minutes to rant about viruses before the next train!

Also, a couple of pictures. I should really have chopped this japonica and this berberis before now, but it'll have to wait until the flowers-and-leaves combination is less breathtaking.

And in a Bug update... Outside, therefore happy...

Big sulk

Not that I blame it. It gets bitten, then it gets hurty, then it gets manhandled into a basket, taken to the vet and stabbed with a syringe, and then it gets shut in and forced to use.... shudder... a litter box. (I think it's more fed up with the final point than any of the others, frankly; but we go back on Saturday morning and maybe they'll lift the curfew then...)

The Bug is better today, though (limping rather than hopping); thanks for good wishes expressed on the blog and at I Knit this evening! And yes, Katie - my manager was very cool and I am grateful for that. Over two and a half years, I've not had to take a day's leave at less than a week or so's notice, including for things like funerals; so while yesterday was pretty inconvenient in business terms, I think I'd built up a reasonable record for reliability and she did realise that as far as I was concerned it was a genuine emergency! I'm sure being a cat-owner helped with the understanding, too, though.

This morning at work was fun - met with a fellow taxonomy specialist and had a good natter about common problems; it's always good to know you're not alone (or just a lunatic); and to remember how good it is working in an organisation which takes information seriously. The afternoon was less fun, getting to grips with the new Parliamentary constituencies ahead of the election, and recording what the boundary changes/previous constituencies were - surprisingly complex.

And talking of constituencies, I was leafleted-in-person by one of the Parliamentary candidates for mine at the station in the village, at 6:56 this morning as I headed in hoping to catch up with my e-mail before my meeting. I can only commend his industriousness.

BEST achievement of last year...

... was definitely taking the garden in hand. I went out there today, and although it's pretty desolate at the moment (and covered in the thin layer of snow which stopped me getting into work this morning*), at least parts of it will come back in the spring, and it won't make me feel guilty and ashamed, as it would have at this time last year.

Over the last couple of days, mainly clad in many, many knitted layers while waiting for the house to warm up, I've put together a Flickr slide show of all the versions of this shot in date order - some of them turned up on the blog but not all...

So if you don't have any paint you could be watching dry (or just want to have some reassurance that warmer days will come), or you're trapped under something heavy while reading this, do have a look.

While looking for all the versions, I found the photo below, which I made last year but never posted. It also makes a change from the current state of my small resentful house-mate, who is spending 22 hours a day sleeping next to a radiator in the bedroom at the moment, emerging only to eat or dive briefly into the garden to answer the call of nature...

Keep warm, all.

*Bet you were wondering why I was more positive. I'm not the most disciplined worker-from-home, but after yesterday, only wasting 90 minutes of my day dealing with trains, with the knowledge I was only 10 minutes from home at any time, was just fine and I got a fair amount done.

More spinning, and a plan...

I did more spinning last weekend - this time using a plait of merino from Limegreenjelly (currently at Woolfest along with the rest of the UK knitting population...), bought at the Brighton Knit Safari last year. I called this Agincourt, because of the colours in the pennants and sky of the Olivier film of Henry V; but I gather it's all been remixed and brightened up recently, so the lovely bright pastels I remember weren't actually in the original film...

In its unplaited state...

Split up for spinning...

Singles...


And all plied up...

It goes surprisingly well with the yarns I showed you last time - probably something to do with my purple fixation.


And a rare shot - the Bug and the wheel in any sort of proximity. She dislikes the wheel intensely. It could be because of Stackhouse, the Folkmanis lamb-puppet I won in a random KAL draw, which sits on the flier when the wheel's not in use, or it could just be because it's Something Demanding Attention When I Am Here...


The Plan... I've worked out what to do with these yarns and a couple of others. More tomorrow...

3:15 project update 2

It was lovely and warm while I was actually doing gardening today; unfortunately this didn't last until 3:15 and pictures!

I'm starting to wonder about taking this one every week - maybe I should just do it monthly!

Here's the other view of the side - which has become marginally tidier since last week, due to the drastic haircut of the passion-flower in the pot by the trellis (it was looking a bit motheaten and sorry for itself), and the removal of the two pots containing a rosemary and an acer which had been sitting there for 18 months...

The AoD shot - not much change from last week; as I said then, I filled the green bin with stuff last weekend and although I managed to squeeze another container-full of debris in there this afternoon, there wasn't enough space for Serious Slash-and-Burn.

The main change is in the paving here - which was previously pretty mossed-over.

And those two plants from the side-passage? Planted in the empty pots on the patio.

The Rosemary in front is Mrs Jessop's Upright; the maple behind (which looks dead, but does have leaf-buds on it) is acer pal. diss. Inaba-shidare according to the label on the pot (seemed easier to blog it than to have to remember it later...).

So, what else did I find out in the garden? Well, there was this little heap of self-satisfaction, squeezed into a shred of sunlight between a defunct barbecue and an overgrown box-bush:

And there were Brimstones, two of them, although they weren't going to stop for the camera - unbelievably daffodil-yellow at this time of year, and exotically large; always harbingers of spring. And a huge bumble-bee, out way too early and desperate for nectar... And someone pootling around in the sky in a light aircraft...

And the japonica's in bloom, looking amazingly exotic against the steel-grey sky... London's weather forecast is for 17C tomorrow...

Pavlovian

... but without the meringue.


I was intending to go to Ely to knit tonight. I got out of the house a few minutes earlier this morning, bought myself a ticket for the Waterbeach-to-Ely bit my season ticket doesn't cover, went to work (long old day dealing with an external contact rather than doing what I had on my to-do list), left on time, Tube on time, train on time (on the way home - the ones to work have been a bit horrible this week), got to Cambridge, train divides, left Cambridge, got off train.


Unfortunately, I hadn't got to Ely at that point.


I only realised halfway home that actually, I wasn't meant to be going straight home... And shortly after that I realised that I am, actually, a robot. By that time, if I'd turned round and waited 40 minutes for the next train, it would have been well after 8 by the time I arrived at Ely; so I stomped home.


And then I found that I was unable to locate the perfectly good photo I'd taken of last night's socks anywhere on the PC, or on the camera... So I went to hunt for the socks...


Oh well. At the weekend, maybe.

A bit of a sort-out

There isn't much visible organisation in my house, as anyone who's visited will know; but there are a few tiny pockets where order prevails - the CDs and DVDs go in alphabetical order (by artist for the CDs and title for the DVDs, with boxed sets in a separate sequence below, in the unlikely event you were interested); and the bookshelves have an internal order of sorts. My knitting books were reasonably organised, but my knitting patterns were all over the place. About a month before Christmas I realised I'd downloaded and printed the pattern for the Serpentine Mitts not once, not twice, but four times... I exacerbated the problem at about the same time by vandalising my Interweave Knits, Vogue and Knitters pile, and scalpeling out patterns from those where I only wanted to make one or two of the patterns, but then didn't have anywhere to put them, so they sat in those loose-leaf plastic things, periodically avalanching from the bookshelves onto the floor in a slick puddle...


When I was in Tesco yesterday, they had extra-strong (and wide-enough-for-US-letter-paper, as it turns out) pocket protectors, and files at three-for-two-quid. So behold, the four coloured files on the right of the "tall" half of the books... "Accessories and Home", "Hands and Feet", "Lace" and "Sweaters and Kids' Knits".



The remaining mags now fit onto the second shelf down along with my notebook collection...



The other half is here, on a shorter shelf...




(I'm saying 'half'. In fact there are another couple of feet of knitting books and magazines upstairs, old Rowan books, 80s Phildar collections I can't bear to throw away, that sort of thing... but this is the presentable bit of the collection...)

And these are the new ones from Christmas. I haven't really had a good look at them yet, but am looking forward to having a very good read.

I did manage to get photos of one of the knitted and both of the crochet items I received for Christmas, but will take pics of the remaining one for tomorrow's post.

Meanwhile, I have finished the first sleeve of St Brigid. This is momentous as I think I last knitted on it in 2007. I'm determined to finish this this year... It's not a particularly difficult knit - but it does involve sitting down with a series of charts which don't lend themselves easily to remembering (the large ones, anyway). I turned away to get the camera to photograph this event, and when I got back...

This is the Bug's "what could you possibly want?" expression...

But I shall have my revenge. She was sitting under the daylight lamp (which gives off a welcome shred of heat in the otherwise unheated dining room). As I snapped the shutter for one shot, she stared directly up at the light, and her ridiculously luxuriant neck-ruff startled the camera...

Portrait of a Lady

Sometimes you just need to post a picture of your cat. Particularly when your Dad has done some very cool image-processing-type-things to it... Full-sized version here.

Thankyou, America...

... for living up to the ideals of possibility and progress many of us in Europe admire you for, and had almost forgotten in the events of the last several years ... *


And the speech was wonderful. I fell asleep at 1:30 with the radio on when everything was in the balance, and woke at the roar before the acceptance speech sometime before 5 - I had to go back this morning and look at the language again to see whether I'd been dreaming or not.


But this is a knitting blog and there's been hardly any knitting here for a while... So, on the first day of the New Era, I went to buy beads. And forgot to take my camera. Which was a shame, because Trafalgar Square had a huge group of very tired and emotional American youth who were still wearing their Obama gear and presumably had been up all night at one of the many bars and pubs which were hosting election night parties; and there were men on ladders cleaning pigeon poo off the Cenotaph in preparation for this weekend's wreath-laying; and one of the horses at Horseguards Parade was way less happy than usual about having its picture taken with flash and was getting a little fractious (there are now health and safety notices about horses being big kicky bitey things on occasion, right next to the horses, which must annoy them no end...); so it was all quite amusing. I walked up to Covent Garden to the Bead Shop (getting out with only £2.23 of damage for 100g of #6 beads...), and back, and had lunch, all in my designated hour - and bumped into an old college friend on the way back along Whitehall...



Oh yes; knitting. Anyway, the beads are here - with the yarn - and completely fail to illustrate the total perfection of the colour match. Yes, the beads look way too blue here - but they are right, honestly.

This is destined to be a shawl for my mother who has requested one - which is great. While it's a time-consuming thing (laceweight silk/cashmere and a reasonable size for keeping out draughts) it's also a much more pleasant use of time than wandering forlornly around shops hoping to spot the Perfect Thing... I'm still looking for a pattern, but she suggested the beads and the yarn colour. I spent an hour or so of my fretting-at-the-radio time last night in dyeing the yarn and I'm pleased with the way it turned out - it's a proper grey rather than being overly pinky or bluey or whatever. To my eyes, anyway.

(And to finish up, you have to admire a cat who muscles her way into a photo purely to look affronted; naming her Amelia Peabody was possibly a mistake.)

*Although, California, what do you think you're doing with Prop 8?

P.S.

We reached an accommodation of sorts, the cat, the chart and I...

(Yes, that's the rest of the pattern underneath her. You need to choose your battles wisely with the Bug...)

Helping...

For those not fond of cat pictures on knitting blogs, move away now, nothing to see, etc.; but this is the view from my knitting today:

Also known as "oh, was you trying to read that little chart thingie? Never mind... I is prettier..."

Gah. Can't blog the project as it's Christmas knitting...

7, and medals...

Happy 7th Birthday, Bug (AKA Jarrahkatt Aimee, AKA Jarrahkatt Amelia Peabody, AKA Mealy-bug, AKA Bug...).





This is an old photo but a good one... (the book is here....) I'd have taken one tonight, but she gobbled down her birthday-treat tuna and sauntered out of the cat-flap while I was still hunting for replacement camera batteries and is now out prowling the world and seeking things she may devour...


Another lovely night at I Knit. Including Wye Sue, in town for the I Knit Day. I hadn't seen her since... well, we never really quite worked this out but we thought it was probably best part of 2 years...




And a pic of Hypoteneuse. I was cursed by two separate people on the same evening for setting them off on this track....! One of them can be named; I don't know the name of the other person I infected with this stole/shawl; but she's not enjoying it and she definitely knows me now! That's it folded in two - worn over a shirt and jeans, it comes to mid-calf on me without looking too much like a horse-blanket, but I'll doubtless need to wrap it round myself more times in the autumn...


And because I'm ridiculously proud of having done both things in the period of the Olympics, here are my medals...

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?)

End of an era

This should really have been posted earlier - as it happened last Friday - but I'm on holiday this week between jobs and it's making me even more inclined to procrastination than usual...


About a month ago, when I first gave notice, I made the mistake of telling another cake-maker at work, Leah, that I'd thought of making a fairy-cake for each month I'd been working for the company, but then realised that would be 165 fairy-cakes which might defeat even our workplace's phenomenal appetite for cake... At which point Leah said it was her birthday the day I was leaving so she'd share the work... and a Plan was Hatched.



This slightly strange photo (taken without flash, so blurred - it looked as if the cakes were in a cave with the flash on!) is a first and last one of my former office with five of the eight plates of cake in situ... Maddy, on the left, is taking photos of the other three plates... From the front - poppyseed and apple-pie spice with lemon glace icing and choc sprinkles; coconut with coconut icing; cherry with rose icing and Barbie sprinkles; unadorned choc chip; vanilla with vanilla icing (Leah used a recipe from here, which was absolutely delicious...) By 4pm when my leaving presentation took place, there were a couple of dozen cakes left, and people were swooping in with sandwich-boxes to take some home to their families...


The speechifying and so on went better than I'd feared - nobody dredged up anything too horrendously embarrassing, I didn't burst into tears (just as well I left reading the very sweet comments in the card till the next day) or say something inappropriate. The colleague who did the gift-choosing was pretty inspired too... raiding my Amazon wishlist for this and this; when it gets to me, one of these; and then finding this lovely mini chest of drawers...





I'm still not sure whether he's seen me vanishing into The Pier every week and looking at their pretty things, but this is great. And I realised when I put it up there that it really reminds me of The Luggage, which I've always thought was more like a merchants' chest than the pirates' treasure chest in the Wikipedia illustration... I'm choosing to believe it has the rest of its legs retracted. Cadet is enjoying lounging around on the top of it for the moment, anyway...



Even the Bug got presents - Whittard now do a Catnip tea. Theoretically, you make the tea and give it to the cat to drink once it's cooled. But I couldn't resist just giving her one of the bags and seeing how long it lasted as a cat toy. Quite a long time, as it turns out. Here's a picture no dignified cat could be proud of...

... she is indeed pushing the bag as far up to her nose as possible using both front paws, and giving herself Mickey Mouse whiskers into the bargain... She still hasn't managed to destroy the first one though!

After work went to the pub, where lots of present and a couple of past colleagues came along... I know a few people from work read this, so thanks, guys, for everything...

Happy Birthday, Bug

The Bug (officially Jarrahkatt Aimee, unofficially Jarrahkatt Amelia Peabody, Amelia, Mealybug or Bug) is 6 today. Which means, I believe, that she's (just) overtaken me in cat-years... She wears them well...

The fun thing about Norwegian Forest Cats is that they change so much with the seasons. Here's Amelia in full winter fig in early March ...



... and here she is in the Summer Short-Haired Version, this evening.


Some of my neighbours are convinced I have two similar cats...

Happy Birthday, Bug.

The kindness of (relative) strangers

So, I taught a course last week, and in the main it went very well... If I'd had the energy over the weekend to unpack my bags, I'd have some samples to show you; another time... Here - look - pretty cat!

I had to advertise for lifts to and from the college at short notice, but thankfully I'm a member of CamLETS; and Judith and Anna stepped up and were wonderful about not only driving me around but also helping with boxes and bags... And my neighbour Ian was on a drawing course and gave me a lift back on the Thursday; and completely beyond the call of duty, drove me there on the Friday despite his course having finished...

Meanwhile Sue has good news on her prospective new flat/house (Sue needs a blog; she's crocheting up a storm these days...) and I went to London and ticked another box in my Unbloggable Non-Knitting Project...

(This is the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament - there's something of the Snape about him...)

And these arrived from Art Van Go

in the usual good time, for this Saturday's second KTog dyeing session.