I'm saying nothing to jinx anything...

There have been pictures of The Boss shaking hands with the Obamas all over the media, and I flashed back to his shaking hands with John Kerry last time; and I remember 1992 in this country so well. So, no comment on today's really important event... I'm not going to be Tempting the Wrath of the Whatever from High Atop the Thing, as Aaron Sorkin put it so well in The West Wing's first election episode.


So just for a laugh, on a day when people seem to be going to be dealing with extraordinarily complicated voting forms, I'm going to let you see my Christmas knitting list. Names of recipients have been blocked off. And this was the state of it on Sunday night.

You ought to be able to embiggen it; but even if you can't, the number of empty boxes in there is enough to tell you that I'm Extraordinarily Behind Schedule...

So, at the moment:

Items needed, 18
Items cast on, 6
Items cast off, 4
Items finished, 3


Hmmmmnnn.


I'm hoping to knock one off the list tonight - better get on with it. Not sure how late I'm staying up...

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...

Magic

Gosh, it's been a long time; I hadn't realised...


And all of a sudden, it's autumn... My veg. box has started arriving with interesting squash in it; and while I was heading off to Sew Creative after work on Thursday, I found five beautiful shelled conkers under one of the horse-chestnut trees on Christ's Pieces. Either I was never that good a conker connoisseur (very probable) or I can feel very old and blame Kids These Days. Either way, I couldn't resist bringing them home... (Who shells conkers and then just leaves them there? someone more public-spirited than me, anyway...)


My Knitting from Your Stash ended at the end of September. I must confess here that I started falling a month or so before, but it's been a very trying summer, and towards the end I needed Treats... But they still had Apache in the £1 stand outside Sew Creative, so I picked up the last half dozen balls, and some Sirdar Click DK to make up something for my cousins' baby Oliver for Christmas.


The trying time is, however, over. I've never blogged much about my job, and I'm not intending to start now; just to say that I'm about to go back to actual Libraries, and more specifically the one here. So I will become a Commuter with a Proper Job, and with any luck I'll get some dedicated knitting/reading time on trains too... It'll be almost exactly 4 months from the offer date to the start date, and I've been living in limbo between the two all summer... I'm intending to take a week's holiday between jobs; I'm still trying to decide between a couple of days away on a cheap flight somewhere, and a week at home knitting, drinking tea, reminding the cat of who I am before I take off again...


I've knitted a couple of things I can display (I've knitted quite a lot of stuff, in fact, but either I've failed to photograph it or it's still secret): a BSJ for my ex-boss Sophie's baby Linus (I had a very beautiful blanket in the wings, but somehow, giving a blanket to a baby called Linus?...) This is a ball of the rainbow Trekking with a couple of strands of a very fine navy blue machine-knitting yarn from a cone; makes about a 19" chest measurement when combined, and I had the buttons in stash...




and tonight while watching The West Wing with Sue, who was finishing the curly edging on another beautiful scarf, I finished the main body of the knitting on Fiona's birthday bag (Gryffindor bag from here).

Completely addictive. I started this at about 9pm last night, and cast it off about 24 hours later. I think I've got a two-colour circular knitting thing going on. Endpaper mitts next, I think - they've been in the queue for some time and I can think of a giftee... And I may need to revise some of the kids' Christmas present ideas...

But the title of this post is because of this which I picked up at the miraculously-revived Cambridge Fopp on Thursday lunchtime - and which is, in my opinion, extraordinarily fine, even by the Boss's standards. I was a bit scared when january one was a little lukewarm about it; but there are only three artists whose CDs I'll buy sight unseen, and I'm glad I went with my instinct again this time. It's got a new Big Sound about it, to be sure, but it's also got a combination of the out-of-season-walking-the-boardwalk-looking-at girls element; the slightly-scary-guy-Nebraska element; the I-wish-I-were-Elvis element; the what-the-hell's-he-on-about-here-I-need-to-listen-to-the-interviews element; the religious-sexual-imagery element; and overarching everything, some beautiful melodies; and the E-Street Band... so you've got Clarence's sax floating across it all at just the point you hope for it; and the mad keyboards, and even the bloody sleigh-bells sound appropriate... Oh well. It's been on autorepeat here for two days. I'm not sure the cat's as keen on it as I am but maybe there's just a colony of endangered tiny rodents nearby she's intent on wiping out... that'd do it...

Anyone doing Ally Pally on Saturday?

Some like it hot...

Ahh... Steve the plumber got the heat back on, courtesy one astonishingly, ruinously, expensive new circuit board. Have spent the weekend with the heat turned up way too high, knitting up a storm for the Textiles in Focus event at Cottenham next month. Some photos of FOs knitted over the last couple of weeks:

These are washcloths; they're about 11"/28cm square in different patterns from the first Barbara Walker book of patterns, in a Patons cotton blend which is washable and friends with kids tell me is hardwearing. Personally I don't use flannels, bath mitts etc. but these look extremely nice sitting in a basket, so I hope others will like them! They're also very nice to knit - take an hour and a half or so each and you get to try a different pattern each time... The Horseshoe Lace one (the red one at bottom right) is my favourite pattern so far - am currently knitting a bag in 9 strands of fine novelty yarn on 10mm needles with that one...

Then two scarves knitted on a circular needle so the stripes go lengthways.

I had fun with these two; all sorts of yarns picked up over the last few years; they're about 230cm long each so the Dr. Who effect is in full force. I'll have to make a couple of shorter ones too...

A felted bag. I have a few of these but this is the finished one so far... Rowan Magpie, Debbie Bliss Maya and some Lana Grossa metallic eyelash...

And then lastly a scarf knitted out of hand-dyed nylon ribbon; which would have been fine to knit in summer, but the various rough and broken skin on my hands meant I was pulling loops through on this one all afternoon yesterday... Pretty though and it's got a lovely drape. This photo doesn't do the colour much of a favour - there's more green in it then pictured.


Otherwise over the weekend

- while knitting I've watched 6 West Wing episodes (but only one new one as per self-rationing agreement - I only have 5 of the Sorkin-written ones left, sniff), listened to most of an Ann Granger audio book and listened to more Virgin Radio than the brain can comfortably accommodate.

- also watched 'The Fog of War' which was completely fascinating - I tried to see this a couple of years ago when it came out, then forgot all about it, and it turned up in the small but very quirky selection of films the Village Stores get from their suppliers. I know far too little about the internal US politics of the Vietnam War period, but it's given me the need to go off and read a lot, if only to work out why I came into the film instinctively prepared to hate Robert McNamara, and came away with huge admiration and respect...

- had a friend round for dinner last night, interrupted by a power cut when the pudding (apple cake) was halfway through cooking; it was somewhat... interesting... in texture when everything came back on an hour or so later, but luckily perfectly edible... Thankfully I could lay my hands on the mini hurricane lantern and gas canister...

- and tidied the kitchen and dining room properly for the first time since the Christmas holidays. A productive weekend...