Not blogging, but living.

Or, what I did on my holidays.

Visiting Old Sarum for a ‘reindeer’ hunt with my cousin, who I have not seen for nearly two years, his wonderful wife and three sweet chitlins, including their newest, Baby G, who is the quietest child I have ever met.

Hunting reindeer can be a strenuous affair, so the English Heritage mince pies and mulled wine on offer to the successful hunters were very welcome indeed.

Of course, much photographing of cute children was undertaken by yours truly, currently the world’s cluckiest female.  Unfortunately, out of respect for my cuz (and in the interest of family relations), I can’t show you any of the pictures, except for this one of W, who managed to procure an anonymizer at the local pub (yes, that is a cocktail stirrer.  Poster-child for underage drinking).

I made sure Tim got some practice in with the pram.  After all, we’re getting married soon, so you never know…;)

Thud!

That’s the sound of my fat arse falling off the NaBloPoMo bandwagon AND the NaKniSweMo bandwagon simultaneously.  Why?  Because I decided to get the funk out of Dodge city at the weekend and head out to the country to do something that did not involve knitting or computers.  If nothing else, the posting every day thing has reminded me that while it may be incredibly exciting to see my blog stats hitting treble figures on occassion, the time spent preparing photos for posts, finding links, writing, etc. is, for the most part, stolen from my very limited knitting time when I get home.  Blogging has not been that fun these past few weeks, and on more than one occassion I reached the point where I felt like jacking the whole thing in.  But I won’t, because I do love my blog very much.

So, that’s the BloPo part explained away.  And the EvKniAvFiaYaddaYadda part?  Well, as the knitting fairies are currently on strike at my house, there isn’t a gnat’s chance in hell that this is going to be finished by Saturday.  But you know what?  I don’t care.  I cast on and have knitted well over half a 44″ chest cardigan, and am actually on track to getting this done by Christmas as promised.  I am bloody proud of myself for getting this far.  Ok, so it would have been nice to finish up in the 30 days, and I will likely need reminding of this when I try to knit, ooh, say, this sweater, for the next Knitting Olympics, but for a girl who has a permanent case of startitis, who has never knitted anything larger than a short scarf in her life, I think I done good.

November 23: Fun things for grown-ups

I received my partner for the Holiday Traditions Exchange the other day, and have been thinking alot about a tradition that I can share with Aimee and her family.  Our family did not really go in for Christmas crafting when I was young, or not that I can remember.  Rather we did things, like building snowmen, or baking.  As I start my own family with Tim I relish the chance to take what I know and what he has known and to create our own traditions.  One of the things I am really keen to start this year is an advent calendar of activities for us to do together (the cheaper, the better, as I am stoney broke this year).  However, although there are several good resources out there for kid-friendly advent activities, I could not really find anything for adults.  Here is my offering:

1. Put up and decorate the Christmas tree (free!)

2.

3.

4.

5.

6. Candlelit dinner in the kitchen

7. Go see the Christmas lights in town (free!)

8. Rent a movie and watch it together-no knitting, no computer.

9. Make Sunday lunch together

10.

11.

12.

13. Dinner and a movie

14. Go to Frost Art Fair (free!)

15. Go for a bike ride (free and healthy!)

16. Bake biscuits to take into work

17.

18. Make hot chocolate with all the trimmings

19. Go to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park after work (free!)

20.

21. Have pancakes for breakfast

22.

23. Go for a walk in the countryside (free!)

24. Go to midnight carol service (free and good for the soul!)

As you can see, there are a fair few gaps.  So, please, please help: what can a childfree couple with limited financial resources do for fun? (And dudes?  I thought of that one, but this is a family-friendly blog after all  )

November 22: Bright lights, big city

The only thing that will entice me onto Oxford Street during the run up to Christmas: the lights.

Sorry about the mediocre photos, I forgot the tripod.

November 21: All over bar the sewing

Secret Santa Present

Pattern: Seriously modified Badcaul by Anna Bell

Yarn: Posh Yarn Helena in ‘Saffron’

Needles: 2.5mm Addi Lace Turbo, bastardised for magic loop knitting

Modifications: Ummm, turned socks into mittens…

Thumb displacement notwithstanding, these were a fairly quick knit. The Helena creates a wonderfully firm but smooshy fabric, and I am definitely looking forward to knitting with this again. There was a dark smudge on the skein, which I think came from the tie that was used during the dying process, but you can’t really see it now the yarn is knitted up and it will likely come out once washed.

November 20ish: Overheard at Lunch

Chugger: Do you have a spare minute to talk about [insert worthy cause here], sir?

Man: Why would I give you my bank details and home address for your company to sell on?

Chugger: No need to worry sir, the government has already done that for us.

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I was going to title this post ‘Double D’oh’ after missing yesterday.  That said, I figure two posts today should see you all right. That’s me, little Miss Spirit-of-the-Law.

November 19: Thwarted

 

Hmmm, I wonder if my Secret Santa recipient has two right hands.

November 18: Progress

Twelve days to go – oh, boy.

November 17: Less Crap, More Craft – Etsy Holiday Ornaments

Inspired my the arrival of my swap buddies’ names for the Holiday Ornament Swap, this issue of Less Crap, More Craft focuses on tree decorations and other dangly things to be hung with gay abandon around the home.  It is a mammoth task, and I sacrifice myself to the decorative gods gladly for you, my dear ones: Canvas reindeer from bubbledog :: felt birdies from paperbluebird (also check out the baby tees – very sweet!) :: fat ornaments from the sweetest pea :: wooden trees from Wood Recycler :: stabby snowman from lulu’s stabby critters :: french snow holiday tree from Gloaming Designs. When we get home tomorrow, I promise to take some pictures of Avast to show you how delusional I really am.  Of course, I now realise that insisting that T put me on the car insurance was a huge mistake, as my knitting time has been considerably slashed. 

November 16ish: D’oh!

Damn, damn, double damn.  Missed a day.  Oh well, rules are made to be broken, are they not?   Well, I know you are all going to forgive me because…Da, d’da Daaaaaah!…we have WINNERS!  I don’t know how to do a screenshot on a Mac, so you will just have to trust me when I tell you that I used this random number generator to pull the following names from my metaphorical hat:  The Yarn Yard sock yarn and Cookie A. pattern go to ………… Olga! The Posh Yarn laceweight and copy of Folk Shawls go to……….. TJ! The fabric and Denise Schmidt Quilts book go to………………….Noehlesse! Please send your snail mail addresses to esmereldaDOTspAThotmailDOTcoDOTuk (you know what to do!) and I will endeavour to get your parcels out next week.    Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone that left a comment: thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I have loved learning about your lives, if only a little.  I have heaps more blogs on my reading list too!  I really hope you keep coming to esmerelda knits… and that I continue to entertain you with my amateurish waffling.    ETA: I hate Macs – wtf is up with this thing not allowing me to edit this blimmin’ post?  Stupid-ass Steve Jobs.