2009 books, #6-9

Just catching up a little here...

Pobby and Dingan, by Ben Rice. London: Vintage, 2002.

This was one of the February books for the Kniterati group; unfortunately it met on the 3rd February, when my main effort was concentrated on getting home at the end of the day; so I missed it. I got this from the library, and it was a strange little novella - lots to say about 'illusion' and 'reality', within the setting of an Australian opal-mining town. I really enjoyed it while I was reading it, and it certainly wasn't something I'd have picked up otherwise... A couple of weeks later though, I'm having a hard time remembering anything other than the general impression.

Maxwell's Point, by M J Trow. London : Allison and Busby, 2008.

The Maxwell books are always wonderful, but I think Trow's excelled himself here. "Mad Max" is a history teacher of the old school and detective meddler extraordinaire; his trusty bicycle White Surrey and cat Count Metternich and his model army of Light Brigade figures might be enough to consign him to the realms of whimsical eccentricity. However, Trow's language and humour are superb, the plot's always extremely well-crafted, and Max's relationship with Woman Policeman Jacquie Carpenter and baby Nolan is tenderly done...

Blind faith, by Ben Elton. London : Black Swan, 2008.

I've always liked Ben Elton's novels. [OK, there, I've said it. I would say that's an unfashionable view, except they don't half sell well, so however snooty people are about Mr E's output, someone's out there buying it]. This one gives the reader a terrifying post-global-warming dystopia in which the urge for privacy is a sin, watching the neighbours' sex lives on wide-screen TVs is obligatory and failing to emote constantly and in public is a sin against The Love (made up of a duumvirate of Jesus and Diana). Elton picks up very well on the worst excesses of contemporary popular culture and runs with it to a nightmarish extent - blind religious faith harnessed to mindless sex and a diet of infomercials and propaganda. As with Brave New World or 1984, you can tell where it's inevitably going from the beginning, but it's a fascinating ride.

The suspicions of Mr Whicher, or, the Murder at Road Hill House, by Kate Summerscale. London : Bloomsbury, 2009.

There was a lot of fuss about this one when it came out, and I wasn't sure I wanted to read it, but after re-reading the afterword in The Moonstone which connects that book with Inspector Jack Whicher, I thought I'd give it a go. And it's a fascinating account if you like well-written true crime and the history of the detective novel - Summerscale weaves in historical account, contemporary speculation and literary influences. It's extremely readable - I started reading it on the platform on Monday morning and realised when I got home at the end of the day that I hadn't pulled out my knitting all day! I seem to remember the story of Constance Kent from something I watched as a teenager, but couldn't remember anything other than the name.

Next, some Rumer Godden and some Bob Woodward.

Washington's Day

I was having a conversation (or indeed convo, as they have it over on Etsy), and the person I was talking to mentioned it was a holiday for her in California tomorrow; so I went over and looked, and it's Washington's birthday/Presidents' Day. Which is a fine reason for having a holiday in the deep dark days of February.

Washington's Day, however, reminded me of the very good song by the same name from The Hooters which I have kicking around on my iPod. (Unfortunately, launching any sort of internet search using the word Hooters really doesn't work all that well unless you're a breast-maniac... rather like innocently starting a search for the film Free Willy, really...)

There doesn't seem to be anything on YouTube for "Washington's Day"; but there is this very good one for "Karla with a K" (can't embed it because of copyright...) The intro to this was definitely used for some BBC footy programme or other sports programme in the 90s... And, as you might expect, Serious Mullet Alert. And also a wonderful video for "Satellite" which I'd always assumed was an attack on the Prosperity Gospel from the lyrics, but 20 years later I have visual confirmation... (and while we're doing this particular walk of shame, let's not forget "And We Danced"... )

Anyway, happy Washington's/President's Day for anyone who does have a holiday tomorrow!

Believe it or not...

... some knitting has actually been going on around here (apart from the Lady Sweater which now has one arm which is long enough!); finally got round to taking some photos.

But first, the Eye all redded up for Valentines...

They had the Now Voyager quote "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars" across one set of wall panels, which you can just about seen in the photo above; and another quote "You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how" across the other set. I was pleased when I got home and looked it up that I'd correctly identified it. Anyone want to hazard a guess? (Answer at the end of this post...)

OK: the knitting. Two Helter-Skelter Scarves (my own pattern, which I'm looking at putting up on Ravelry after Textiles in Focus is over...)

Although if you know about short-rowing, the photos above and below will tell you exactly what I did without need for a pattern...

And one which looks even better photographed against my kitchen floor...

The yarn for both of these is Lang's Mille Colori - lovely stuff for decent lengths of colour. The only stockist I've used for this is RKM - colours 0057 and 0068 respectively (although my colour balance and RKM's are very different - there is some burgundy in the balance, which doesn't come out in my photo, but perhaps not quite as much as in RKM's sample...

I also made a little blue cowl. The variegated stuff in this one is Araucaria's Quellon; the solid is Regia silk sock yarn (4-ply weight). It's lovely and soft and for the first attempt at a cowl, I think it's come out very nicely. It's just feather-and-fan, 6 18-stitch repeats, random number of rows, random rows of knit and purl...

Some dyeing also happened last weekend; a kilo or so of aranweight wool, now reskeined... I need to price this up for Textiles in Focus; but I think I'm reasonably well set-up for this year's show. Next, finalising the instructions and samples for the classes I'm teaching on Friday and Saturday (there are places left, particularly on the Friday!)

And the answer to the mystery, or not-so-mystery, quote? Rhett Butler, in Gone with the Wind. The full quote goes "No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how." (Although possibly not by someone with that moustache...)

The glory of rail

If I'd written this on Friday, this would have been an entirely ironic post. However, hang on to the end for some pretty pictures...

After 19.5 hours just sitting on trains between Monday and Thursday while the UK capital totally failed to cope with half a dozen inches of the white stuff, I was not feeling enamoured of rail, the rail authorities, and First Capital Connect in particular.

(My absolute favourite moment this week was Monday afternoon when, having battled my way down to work and found the weather getting worse by the moment, I attempted to get home again in the early afternoon with some project work - only to find that the shuttle from London to Cambridge failed to connect with the hourly shuttle from Cambridge to King's Lynn by THREE MINUTES. Both emergency timetables, both run by the same company, meant to join up; left hand, right hand, etc., etc., etc.

Although that was nearly eclipsed by my second favourite moment on Wednesday night, when, having foolishly gone knitting, rather than telepathically working out that the overhead lines would go down at Hitchin in the intervening 90 minutes, I was sent from King's Cross to Liverpool Street because there was going to be a special 20:58 service directly to King's Lynn. I really shouldn't have believed the FCC worker, but after the preceding three days I was gullible and desperate enough to try. On arrival at Liverpool Street, predictably, this train turned out to be some sort of cruel fiction; but I did manage to get home an hour earlier than the alternative bus-and-train service, so even being lied to has its uses)...

That's nearly it on the snow; except to say that when you get concerned enquiries from friends in Toronto and Chicago, both cities which regularly laugh in the face of severe weather, you might as well create possibly the first LOLtrain image

HOWEVER. The trains did let me get down to Hove to see Jan, and to Brighton for the ICHF show. Yvonne and Fred were both there, as was Ness from I Knit. Purchases were made (particularly when offered Sublime angora/merino for £20 a bag...), very good Indian takeaway was eaten, and the trains back worked fine yesterday. Being a Bad Blogger the only photo I took was this one of Flossie...

And then to cheer me up still further, I had half an hour to spend and went to St Pancras station, which reminded me of what rail travel ought to be.

See this departure board?

I love this. You can go to Sheffield, or to Paris or Brussels. It's like the departure board in other proper stations in Europe, which laconically advertise local services alongside the Grandes Lignes to Milan, Vienna or Berlin...

The ground floor is utterly modern; but once you head up in the very efficient lift, or up the escalators, you get to the Eurostar floor and a wonderful combination of the ancient

... and the modern... in this case the John Betjeman bar facing the Eurostar platforms (note the blankets...)

A Eurostar train coming in...

The man himself...

And some of his words.


And that's why Trains Are Good.

I'll try and remember that this week..

FLS again, and some advertising...

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments on the FLS. I am going to make the sleeves longer, because I get really old-fashioned about having a cardigan with shorter sleeves than the top I'm wearing underneath it - it seems like having your slip showing would be for an older generation (or exposing your bra-straps, for mine, but that ship sailed a long time ago). Totally personal opinion... Most of the cardigans I'd be able to buy in the shops in my size would also be three-quarter-length sleeves, which is why I don't buy them... (I'll just have to remember not to wash up in this one - but as I generally get changed when I come home from work, I'm hoping that won't be too much of a problem). Jayne, the buttons came from Peter Jones. I gather they have them in other colours at John Lewis in Cambridge...


In other news, I've been dyeing up a storm for Textiles in Focus. Blatant plug here. I shall be sharing stand-space (as Knitstuff) with two other local Ravelers and one not-so-local. It's a really nice smaller textiles event - about as much knitting-to-everything-else balance as there is at the Knitting and Stitching show (i.e. about 10% knitting, but when that means Woolly Workshop and 21st Century Yarns, it's good company to be in!), but they're all proper stands - you don't get all the papercrafts-and-miracle-cleaning-products stuff - the exhibitions are always very good, and there are probably workshop places left! The details:

Textiles in Focus

Cottenham Village College, High Street, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire

20-22 February 2009

10am-5pm (Friday/Saturday), 10am-4:30pm (Sunday).

£4 entry fee on the door

I hope to make a post with Actual Pictures soon!

2009 books, #5

When will there be good news? by Kate Atkinson. London : Black Swan, 2009.


"A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen", says Jackson Brodie towards the end of this book, and coincidences abound here. As ever with Kate Atkinson's fiction, the simplicity of her style contrasts with the complexity of the plot and the intertwined lives of a cast of wonderfully quirky characters. Many of the people in this book are living quietly tragic lives, but there's great humour here too, and not a moment when the story flags. The previous books featuring Jackson Brodie, Case Histories and One Good Turn, were excellent, but this one is at a different level entirely...

First in a while...

Posts (apart from last night's John Martyn one, anyway), and finished garments. I think that actually it might be about 4 years since I last finished a sweater for me. I knitted most of a sweater in this yarn in October 2007 - in fact, I knitted all of it, but it looked utterly catastrophic when worn... I like to think this one's better.

February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne. Yarn: Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (12 balls so far, probably 13 eventually - see below). Needles: 5mm. Cast on January 9, cast off January 29 - the quickest sweater I've knitted for a couple of decades...

I am probably, however, going to lengthen the sleeves - the "just above the wrist" measurement I thought I had when I tried it on (repeatedly) has retrenched to the dreaded fat-lady-three-quarter-sleeves in wear, now it's been washed and blocked... Thankfully as they're top down this is easy peasy. And let's have a closer luck at these buttons...

Yumm... Bloody expensive, but exactly The Right Thing.

And while I'm typing this, the news is on and another of the Good Guys has departed. Bearded Wonder, seriously funny man, cricket geek and statistician extraordinaire, Bill Frindall, you'll be missed...

May you never...

Farewell, John Martyn.

This was the one I loved first; but May you never was such a beautiful, tender thing... even for a heavy metal girl..

Rest you well.

Portmanteau post...

Well, all that NaBloPoMo stuff went out of the window last week, what with the Inauguration brouhaha, and being completely knackered, and all that - and then this weekend Sue and I went to Hove (actually) to see Jan. Sue brought the weather on Saturday

so it was fine and lovely (I had my usual WeatherGoddess effect on Sunday and it hurled it down all day); and after lunch at Hove Museum we went off to the seafront for a walk. The sun descended pretty quickly as we did so, and I got this photo

which has also been stuntblogged at the Hove Daily Photo site today!

In other news - Neil Gaiman has won the Newbery Medal for the wonderful Graveyard Book! This is just about the best award you can win for fiction for young people - and he's in extremely good company. [And any author who tags a blog post GOD I LOVE LIBRARIANS needs a mention on any librarian's blog]... Definitely one of the best books, if not the best book, I read last year - Terry Pratchett's Nation might just have edged it out at the time, but I find myself remembering more snippets from The Graveyard Book. Interesting that they're both YA titles.

I also got my copy of the new Springsteen CD through the post today - haven't listened to it yet because that'll be a treat for tomorrow morning's train journey... I don't know, a new US administration, a new Springsteen production and a new Newbery winner in one week - it's all seriously testing my British sense of moderation... And there's knitting tomorrow night at the Blue; my cup runneth over.

Finally got the prizes out in the post today to those people who won things in the blog contest. That was another reason for not blogging - I really needed to spend the small amount of time I had at home packing parcels etc. - but instead I did Bad Things like sleeping and feeding the cat instead...

Reprieve

Well, the Bye George comedy night was marvellous - even the Telegraph seems to have sort of liked it, as did thelondonpaper. Marcus Brigstocke, Shappi Khorsandi, Rory Bremner and Mitch Benn were highlights, but there was also an introduction from Reprieve's director, Clive Stafford-Smith, who's been a bit of a hero of mine for a long time, and was also very funny and articulate...

Quick London shot, too - I walked along the other side of the Thames to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and took this photo of the Royal Air Force Memorial in front of the London Eye.

The night was somewhat marred by FirstCapitalConnect's decision to take the last train out of operation this week and replace it with a bus, meaning I got home at 1:30am and logged an impressive 4 hours of sleep before getting up and doing it all again; but it was worth it.

In town tonight...

Marcus Brigstocke, Rory Bremner, Mitch Benn and others are seeing off the Bush administration with a fundraiser for human rights charity Reprieve...

Camping on the Southbank Centre's site the morning the tickets were released got me a seat in the second row...

That's if I ever get down to London today, of course - the plumber is currently 20 minutes late... Ah, here he is!

2009 books, #4

Everything is miscellaneous : the power of the new digital disorder, by David Weinberger. New York : Henry Holt, 2007.

Reading books on information management theory for fun isn't something I'd usually admit to, but this is a marvellous, un-put-downable read. Weinberger starts with an interview with the manager of a Staples store to discuss organisational principles in retail; and moves on to discuss the randomness of alphabetisation, Aristotelian definitions, "lumping" and "splitting", Linnean classification, the periodic table, the Dewey Decimal system and Ranganathan and faceted searching, all in completely comprehensible terms using (frequently amusing) real-world examples; before moving on to tackle the (dis)organisation of the second-generation Web.

Weinberger has a positive outlook on the "third order" of information, seeing great creativity in the apparent chaos of the web; but is not entirely in the camp of people who believe that more advanced machines will create an organised utopia.

If you have any interest at all in how knowledge is organised (whether as an information or computing professional, or at the level of wondering why Amazon is suggesting these books to you, and what ads Google decides to position next to your search results), this book is fascinating and immensely readable.

Results, and winners, and prizes!

Thanks to the nine people who sent in answers for the competition - really nice to hear from you!

The questions and the answers and the winners... As there were a few questions with no winners, there are a couple of questions with two winners...

1. How many metres of yarn did I knit up this year?
18,624 metres. Or 0.96 miles a month. I'd like to do a mile a month this year, just for my own satisfaction... The nearest guess for this one was SusieH at 15,000 metres. Well done, Susie!

2. How many grammes of yarn did I knit up this year?
6,525 grammes. Or 544 grammes a month. Best guess on this one was Anne, with 5,361.

3. What was my best month (grammes)?
It was July... Nobody got this one, sorry. It's a weird month to be knitting that much, but I finished a couple of Big Projects and the summer was so miserable that you could knit all the way through...

4. What was my best month (metres)?
That was December. It usually is - high-speed knitting for Christmas... Nobody got that one either...

5. What was my least stash-reductive month (grammes)?
March. Two people got this one, Yvonne and Bekki - so both shall have prizes...

6. What was my least stash-reductive month (metres)?
That was also March. Maybe it was a trick question - no takers for that one either...

7. What was the longest-metreage project I knitted up this year, and how many metres of yarn did it take?
Nearly everyone guessed the Mystic Meadows stole, which came out at #10 in this year's meterage-chart. Probably because I droned on (andonandonandonandon) about it during the Ravelympics. Actually, it was the Peacock Feathers Shawl I made for Sue's birthday (it was one of those with an 0 at the end of it...) which clocked in at 904 metres... I only blogged three times about that one, because she occasionally reads... Mystic Meadows came in at 640 metres, if you're interested...

8. What was the heaviest project this year, and how much did it weigh?
Several people got the answer to this, the Hemlock Ring Blanket. But two were quite scary in their accuracy. Take a bow again, SusieH, who guessed 400 grammes; but Bekki was quite astonishing in guessing to the gramme what the weight was (402 grammes). Both get prizes (and Bekki has been informed about quite how scary she is)...

As I have an extra, I'm also sending a prize to Mary for showing up, as the only entrant for a whole week - it felt rather like one of the early KTogs several years ago where you (and by 'you', I actually mean 'I') got there first, and were wondering whether you'd be drinking alone all night, so I was so glad to know that there was one person there with me! That's worth a lot.

I shall be mailing the winners to let them know (and with a request for an address where appropriate) tonight; and finishing up the prizes tomorrow for posting early next week...

If you're interested, I produced graphs. (OK, OK, I know, but it's fun with Excel...). The meterage one is here, and the grammage one is here...

2009 books, #2-3

I'm working in the library tomorrow morning, and at knitting tomorrow afternoon - competition results when I get back... But some books.

The moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. (Collector's Library edition). London : CRW, 2007.

This is the third time of reading, but the Kniterati were discussing it this month, and it's a favourite. I bolted through it quite quickly as I didn't pick it up until the weekend before, but it was as good as I remembered... The first 150 or so pages drag slightly, as the narrator is a bit of a pompous old fool, but as soon as Sergeant Cuff appears, the plot takes off like a rocket and it's a great read thereafter. The interlocking narratives work as well as they ever did (and there's a nice self-consciousness about that which makes you realise it's all artifice without actually minding it!), and the foundation for a thousand detective-novel clichés is laid.

The thing which struck me forcibly on this readthrough was how much scientific method is dominant, to the detriment of religion. Checking the dates, The moonstone was published in 1868, nine years after The origin of species. Solving the mystery surrounding the moonstone hinges on two discoveries, one forensic and one medical - we're led to feel that if only hard facts and scientific method can be used, any problem is solvable. Conversely, the figures representing religion are shown to by hypocritical, insensitive and stupid. Miss Clack, one of the narrators, came over in this re-reading as a horrific figure, pushing religious tracts at a dying woman, rather than the slightly dotty spinster I'd had in my memory.

An old school tie, by Andrew Taylor. London : Hodder, 2008

Andrew Taylor is the master of the slightly sinister; this one was odd because it felt as if he were holding himself back; and also because the picture of "Rosington" on the cover was clearly Ely Cathedral, when the books in The Roth trilogy didn't ever really identify themselves, despite being set in a small Cathedral city in the Fens. It's a good book, but probably one for Taylor enthusiasts, or people more interested in the pure form of the Golden Age detective novel; it has a curiously old-fashioned air to it. It was only right at the end, when I read the dedications and so on, that I realised that this was Taylor's first novel; so interesting for that alone.

Last call...

I've been completely shattered the last couple of days - lots of people evidently came back to work last Monday feeling Keen and Brisk, and determined to kick off new projects. Which is great because some of them are really interesting; but exhausting...

I'm hoping to post again later this evening, but just a reminder that the competition finishes at midnight my time tonight (7pm EST) - so if you were thinking of entering, please go ahead!

Exasperation... and bandwagons

For the first time in years and years, I went out without my purse (cash, cards, etc.) today. I had my bag, which had all my travel passes in it, so getting to and from work wasn't a problem. I was on an all-day training course, and had some small hopes that lunch would be provided; but when I found out they hadn't even arranged for coffee, I took advantage of a colleague being on the course and asked him to buy me lunch. Bless him, he obliged...





But it did mean that when the course ended a whole hour early, and I could have escaped to get to the KTog at the GradPad tonight, I couldn't, because I still had no cash/cards/busfare... Gah! Not that I was intending to make it anyway, as we're in term-time, but it would've been nice...





Anyway. Enough of my uselessness.





Having said I wasn't a joiner, I have jumped on the enormous and highly-populated bandwagon that is the February Lady Sweater. I've made this for a baby, as intended in EZ's book, but the adult version has gradually grown on me. Just after Christmas I saw the very-nearly-finished-but-unloved Tahoe cardigan lurking under the armchair in the living-room and decided to pull it out and knit this. The intention was solidified when I measured myself and realised that I've lost 5.5" round my bust, as well as the 8" round my waist and hips I knew had gone, and that therefore I should probably knit myself the L rather than the XXL...

So; here it is, in Debbie Bliss Rialto. It's meant to be a DK yarn, but it's a really smooshy one, and I knit loosely, so I'm hoping it will work OK. The colour is nice - and I'm hoping that after a wash, the unevenness of texture because of the ripped-out yarn will work itself out...

Making up...

I was a bad NaBloPoMo-er yesterday - no post from me! It was a busy weekend, and I'll try and take a couple of pictures of what I was doing; and somehow I completely forgot I hadn't blogged last night, and proofread a friend's short story instead.


Today, I phoned the boiler-installer/plumber to report the final demise of my hot water supply (I have been procrastinating since just after Christmas on this, so entirely my own fault it died over the weekend); good news was that he's coming to fix it and is reasonably sure of what the problem is; bad news is he can't come till next Monday. (So it's going to be cold showers here until then! Thankfully the heating is still working fine; and if it gets cold again at the end of the week, I'll go into work a bit early and use the shower there!) Another bit of good news is that my lovely employer gives leeway for the fact that nobody lives anywhere near work and everyone has a "domestic emergency" from time to time, so there's a small amount of annual discretionary leave for this sort of thing...


But the cold water, the time-of-the-month, the rainy weather and the prospect of a repair bill have taken a toll on my willpower; I am about to heat up the first frozen pizza I've had since June...


But it's not all doom and gloom... things could be an awful lot worse... And look, pretty things!

I made the humbug pincushion a couple of years ago when I was teaching embroidery, but the lovely Fimo pins were a Christmas present from Jan. I originally intended to use them in the pinboard, but it seemed that you needed way too much pressure to get them in there, so the pincushion now has suitably eccentric pins.

I think the one below, half Arts-and-Crafts, half Murano-glass, is my favourite... Thanks again, Jan!

Socks Show

Thanks for comments, and competition entries, on yesterday's post. It really wasn't meant to be a maths thing; although I enjoyed working out the sums. Maths was possibly my worst subject at school. Apart from Art. Which was sad, as they were two of the subjects I enjoyed most and have used most.

Still time to have a wild guess - original post here...

But, this post is about socks; and specifically Socks that Rock from last year's club. First of all - I Knitted All the Yarns Within A Year. I think that deserves recognition... I didn't knit all of them to the designated pattern though... But here they are....

So, top to bottom and left to right;

• Yarn called "Dragon Dance", and pattern called Serendipity, by Adrienne Fong (with club);
• Yarn called "Lucky", didn't go with the suggested Leafling pattern by BMFA because I'd been looking for a long time for a leafy green yarn for the Embossed Leaves pattern by Mona Schmidt...;
• Yarn called "the incredible shrinking violet"; didn't go with the Cleopatra pattern by Yarnissima because I'd been looking for a while for a yarn to go with her "Firestarter"
• Yarn called "Goody Goody"; pattern called "Gumdrops" by JC Briar (with club). This was both the nicest and the worst package of the club; up to then I'd reconciled myself to having to sign off Ravelry for a couple of weeks after the packages were mailed out - this time I was spoiled the day after US mailing, ON the club blog, BY the DESIGNER!. And that was sad, because they are gorgeous socks... But that was the point at which I thought, no, this really isn't worth the money if they can't be bothered even getting confidentiality from their designers.. .
• Yarn called "Tide Pooling" - lovely stuff. Pattern also excellent, by Team Blue Moon (with club)... Lightweight again; I think that's 4 Lightweight, 1 Mediumweight and nothing else...
• Yarn called "Muddy Autumn Rainbow". Pattern "Holidazed" by Anne Hanson. That and "Tide Pooling" definitely my favourite colourways of the year, and this one's Mediumweight, but not enough to get me to sign up again...

I love these socks; but I'm looking forward to the Socktopus club this year!

Cold, and possibly silly

This is sort of in the nature of a reminder of the competition I announced with such a flourish on New Year's Day. I genuinely thought people would be on for some guesses. But only one brave person has done so (and THANK YOU; you know who you are because I sent you a 'thank you for entering' e-mail).

I don't want to sound too pathetic, but the competition e-mail is waiting for you!

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.