Little pink houses

With apologies to John Mellencamp (the video's up on YouTube and the lyrics, unlike the clothes and dancing, just don't seem to date, and I can't believe it's 25 years since I first heard that one on Paul Gambaccini's show...) ; but small-but-interesting structures have been a feature of this week.

On Thursday I had an all-day training course on Millbank; and finally had a good look at this amazing monument. Look, a shiny thing!

Here it is in context, with the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament in the background. The combination of pastels, geometrics and gilding have always made me think it must be a present from another country.
But apparently not. And even more interesting for that.

And then today, in complete contrast, I went to Hove to visit Jan. We had assumed the weather would be foul - I appear to be the Harbinger of Evil Weather, the Rain Faerie, whatever; usually it's brilliant the day before and the day after, and disgusting on the day I actually visit. In five visits, we had managed to walk along the beach... once.

This time it was forecast to be foul. The weather which rose up to greet me as I approached London was vile - thrashing rain, dark skies, the lot. But lo. A small selection of the beach huts of Hove.

Note blue skies. Also very pretty beach huts... Also delusions of grandeur for little pink houses. Which is as it should be...

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...

Cheap music...

So; I got up unfeasibly early this morning to do some work before my training course. Put it this way, I was already fully awake (for me) by the time David Cameron was saying nice things about my local MP on Farming Today...

Anyway. It did mean that I got a leisurely stroll down to the course, and despite having no camera, I thought I'd go round the outside. Which meant I walked past the somewhat distracting spectacle of someone who, from the back, looked exactly like Josh Lyman (in Tuesday-suit, bouncing-on-the-balls-of-the-feet-and-full-gesticulation mode) leading a bunch of students. As I got within ranting range, it transpired the guy was Italian; which gave me full licence to listen.

[Warning: if you speak a foreign language I understand and love, and are within my hearing, I'll be listening to everything. Even the details of your sister-in-law's mother's Doberman's gynae operation, frankly... ]

This was Civil War stuff. But they were just by this statue; and the guy threw out both arms in expositionary mode and said "Olllllliverrrrrr Crrrrrromwelllll". [Photo of Citizen C taken on previous occasion...]

So - conjunction of this (favourite/famous actor), that (statue) and the other (italiano)... I've spent the entire day at my training course with the phrase "Oliver Cromwell's Waiting (Talking Italian)" going round in my head... Thankyou, Bananarama, and goodnight...

Town and country, and a party for a book

Last weekend, I went to Brighton on Friday night, and failed yet again to get any pictures of Jan, her flat or the views therefrom, or the Brighton ICHF Show. I started off well, with a nice photo of sunset over Chelsea Bridge [please correct me; I'm an ignoramus; from the map we thought that was the most likely candidate];

and then left my camera in the bag which was propping up a basket of yarn all day... But it was lovely, and Jan and Yvonne and Annie and Fred were there , and although I wasn't in the main drag of the teaching, I showed a few people a few techniquey-type things, and purchases were made. One has already been gifted, the other will be handed over tomorrow; and then There Was Yarn. Most of it has been dyed for the weekend. But I'll blog the rest as I knit it up...

Since then, I've tried to pack a five-day week into a three-day one, mainly by avoiding unhealthy things like sleep; but as far as I'm concerned, it's Friday night now...

Now going back to the title of this, and not wanting to get all Beatrix Potter on anyone (I'm not sure I was ever that keen, although Jemima Puddleduck and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle spring to mind, mainly because of pretty bonnets and sprigged gowns; the only one I really loved was the Tailor of Gloucester with its illustrations - cats, needles, cherry-coloured yarn, utterly unrealistic Christmas deadlines, nope, no idea why I liked that one...) , until I got this job, I'd have counted myself as a country-mouse; happy to go up to town every now and then but basically content to be provincial. On mornings like today's, travelling from this (village station, 8:03 am)

to this (corner of Westminster Bridge and Parliament Street looking over Westminster Abbey, 9:37 am)

is really very pleasant. (I've no idea whether it cleared up in the village during the day - the fog had re-descended by the time I got home 11 hours later...) I'm doing the village a disservice, but the Fens in February are not, and have never been, my favourite place to be. And there is something slightly unnervingly Ruritanian about those propane cylinders right next to the track, firing off semi-controlled pop-pop-pop-pop noises in little explosions under the tracks to keep the points ice-free...

Another thing about being a daily town-mouse is that you can get to events like this

even if you can't stay very long when you get there! That's Woolly Wormhead, signing my copy of her book. There were hats galore, a full array of the glamorous models from the book (I was leaving as the last arrived fashionably late), presents flying around, and lots of knitters. MLQ was also there, but we just sort of waved at each other in the distance... This blogging business is sometimes really odd - I think I'd met MLQ before at Ally Pally; but I'm not entirely sure...

The photo above is really unflattering; sorry, Woolly - you were looking very fine when not exposed to a horribly harsh flash!! So I'm also going to post this one, which probably qualifies as a Heroically Bad Photo, but actually conveys the essence better - I tried several without flash, but there was some Serious Explaining (and therefore general animation) going on... But once I cropped this, I really liked it...

Pioneers

I was at a long meeting this morning; and had lunch there and walked back through Tower Gardens as I had my camera in my pocket. I'd seen London Daily Photo's post about the Emmeline Pankhurst statue so I thought I'd get a photo of it in the sunlight because it was really clear, pretty weather.

When I got there, there was a Photo Opportunity happening - the camera over at the left is taking a picture of Some Guy in a Dark Overcoat Wittering to Camera. The person mainly hidden behind the cameraman - you can just see her red coat - was holding a certificate - I think it may relate to this. And of course, the Lady in the black is Baroness Boothroyd; the first woman Speaker. And of course the conjunction of the statue and the reality was just... astonishing is the closest I can come to it...

I wished I'd got Madam Speaker's ankles in; she was a Tiller Girl, and you can tell... Then I realised I'd taken another photo before BB turned round because I was interested in the certificate...

I had a variety of slightly unnerving meetings today - but I love my job.

Week 1

Well, I did the first week, I survived and I enjoyed it. Even the commute, mostly. The fifteen minutes on the Victoria Line in the morning, not so much, but I got a seat on the train every day, and the people I sat next to were either nice and smiley, or just asleep... Here's a picture of a thing I found at the end of the road by work on the way to the Tube...*



Saw Yvonne and Sue at Libertys on Thursday night - Yvonne knitting the most gorgeous scarf of many colours, Sue ploughing round an endless frill... I took the Unbloggable Project which is, thanks to the increased train-knitting time, Off the Needles.

Otherwise the knitting's not been quite as successful! Took the second Serpentine Mitt off the needle, to discover




Not so much a ta-da!! moment as a ta-doh!! moment... Actually, this photo also makes one look much longer than the other, which isn't the case - but I have, indeed, knitted two left mitts by the simple expedient of following the instructions re: the gusset but also working the pattern over the opposite two needles, which has the result of creating two identical mitts (apart from the centre cable which I thoughfully twisted in the opposite direction for the second mitt)... Thankfully a) the yarn will make 4 mitts b) I already had a taker for a second pair... So all was not lost...


Still plugging away on the Tahoe cardigan - halfway up the second front, at which point I'll do all the finishing and give it a try-on with one sleeve...


I also forgot to blog my personal trifecta in charity-shop books, found in the British Heart Foundation in King's Lynn last Saturday - total cost £6.

From the left, a book of stories I nearly bought at full price the week before, as I'm currently enjoying Mr Gaiman's Fragile Things collection (I'm not normally a fan of short stories but these are great; more a series of little atmospheres...); a knitting book with actual content as well as the 1980s interpretations of the sweaters); and a cookbook which is both retro and practical. It's relatively unfaffy Delia (she does, for instance, assume her readers know how to make pastry), and very 70s in its nutritional values (I can't imagine today's Delia suggesting a recipe comprising six eggs and 12oz cheese to feed three people); it is, however, a great combination of the basic, the quick and the traditional, and I suspect it'll be used and re-used in the same way as my extremely battered copy of Fay Maschler's Eating In, also a collection of Evening Standard cookery columns but from the 1980s.

*Generally things found on the way home from work in the old job were interesting leaves, or completely bizarre pieces of litter...

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.