We did go for our walk on the beach, following my last post, and this is what we found. A covering of ice. Part of the beach were totally frozen and the sand was hard to walk on. There was a definite high tide mark, where the salt water had melted the ice. I've never seen a beach covered in ice before. It was weird.

Further along where the river gets to the beach, a lake had formed, which was covered in ice. Here is proof that it is possible for mere mortals to walk on water.

The kids loved the things I'd knitted them. Here is Jamie sporting his digger jumper. You might notice that it has already been christened with snot and christmas dinner. A sure sign of acceptance.

The new camera G bought me is fantastic. Here are some snaps of the socks I knitted over Christmas

And the jumper I've been knitting:

We've now had a bit of a change of location and weather. G and I are both suffering somewhat with colds and are doing our best to support the UK tissue industry. Tomorrow we're seeing some of my relatives, including my little/big bro. Better get that third pair of socks knitted so I can concentrate on some urgent birthday knitting that needs doing on the same set of needles.

Thanks for all your kind comments. Hope you're having fab hols.

God bless us every one

Merry Christmas to you all!

I hope everyone had a lovely day yesterday. I certainly did. I've been having a relaxing time here in northeast Scotland. It's been cold, crisp and sunny most days. Ideal walking weather. There's been a bit of fog, but only at night. I've knitted two pairs of socks and am half way through a third. Father Christmas bought me some lovely presents and Graeme asked me to marry him. I now have a lovely amber and gold ring on my finger, which may someday morph into something more extravagant. Who can say. About to go for a walk on a long, empty, sandy beach in the sunshine with my husband-to-be. I am as happy as larry.

Apologies to anyone who thought they should have recieved this news personally. Computer time is limited and the phone signal isn't great. Santa brought me a new camera so I should be able to post some pictures soon. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your holidays. Normal service will resume from Thursday. :)

Jingle Socks

I finally finished my Christmas socks. They didn't take that much total time, but I got quite distracted from them when I was making lots of pairs of fetching. I wish now that I'd done the tops much longer. I had a lot of yarn left over. I was following the stupid pattern when I started so I did what it said. Maybe I'll use the extra to make something else.

I got my first Christmas presents yesterday. They were from my talented cousin Gillicious, who made this lovely crochet ornament too.

I haven't opened the presents yet. I'm saving them for Christmas day. I had my first mince pies yesterday too.

and today I had my first Christmas dinner with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and all that. I think this is the most Christmassy I've felt prior to the actual day in a long time. Hope it continues.

About Bloody Time

Well it's been a long time in the making but last night I finally finished Rufflette. I made it in Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk. I don't know what possessed me to do so. I certainly wouldn't do it again. It turned out to be nothing but a pain. The worst part was the edging, which I did on a circular needle. I don't like circulars and as a result it has taken me several months to finally stop avoiding it and get it done. At the end of the day I do quite like the look of it. I don't really think the camera phone does it many favours.

I still need to find some buttons for it. I think the fabric is sturdy enough to take some decent buttons, but I don't have any at the moment to put on. I wish I'd thought about it before going to the Knitting and Stitching Show. I think I could have got some quite nice ones. I'll have to do a proper search over the Internet. Here's another photo where my boobs don't look quite so huge.

Today, in an effort to empty the fridge and freezer, I did a bit of cooking. I started making the filling for a rabbit pie that we can have for dinner tomorrow. It's a pity I can't take a photo of the smell, because it does smell very appetising.

I finally used up the pumpkin from Halloween and made some pumpkin soup.

And I did the icing on the Chritsmas cake. I've never done one before. I'm not sure I like the finished product but I doubt it will last long and I'm sure it'll taste just the same. I'm afraid I can't take credit for the fruit cake. My mum made that.

As predicted I have begun sneezing today. It seems that the cold, which has been lurking for the last few weeks has finally got me, now I've relaxed. Oh well, at least I've got most of my Christmas shopping and my uni work done. Planning to finish it off tomorrow and give the house a good clean. Better go and sort out tonight's dinner.

Christmas Cheer

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
A finished digger jumper,



And some marzipan on a fruit cake.

New Knitty

Yey! There's a new Knitty.

Fetching

I've just finished the last of three pairs of Fetching that I've knitted this weekend. Even though I had decided last week to give up on all the presents I had planned to knit and didn't have time for I couldn't face buying rubbish for people when I could knit some lovely wrist warmers. Accessorise is full of wrist warmers which are mostly in acrylics and are overpriced. I decided just to knuckle down to it and get some knitted. I can now say I'm totally sick of the pattern. The muscles in my arm feel quite sore. They do look really good though.

Popped to Ring O'Rosie on Saturday and got some extra yarn to finish off the digger jumper. So that's next on my list. Better get on. Two weeks till Christmas!

Making things

When I lived at home I used to spend hours at a time sitting alone in my room, communing with rolls of card, pens, pencils, fabrics, glues, paints, threads and yarns. If anyone had asked me afterwards what I had been doing I would have said I was 'making things'. What was I making. I keep trying to remember but I just can't. I know I used to make my toys clothing because my best bear Tim is still wearing a pair of denim dungarees and a knitted jumper, that I made. I also have very vivid memories of making a 3D maze. You'd put a marble into the top and if you tipped the thing in the right sequence eventually it would come out of the bottom. I remember spending a lot of time on that. It was difficult to get the spaces inside just the right size.

When I went to uni I didn't stop making things. I remember making all my own christmas cards one year, with 3D christmas trees in them. That was a lot of work. One of the things that stood in my way was a lack of resources. That's when I started crocheting in earnest. I think that's one of the things that made knitting so appealing. You don't need that much stuff just to get on with it.

What I don't understand is, where does this need to create come from? And, what was I making during all those hours at home as a child? Was I just preparing myself for the making ahead? It worries me that I can't rememeber.

Pink

On Sunday Graeme and I walked up to Morrisons to get a few things. As soon as I walked out of the house I noticed something was different (the view is normally quite dull). One of the bricks in the wall opposite had been painted pink. No others, just this one.

I thought it was a bit odd. Further on, in Ouseburn park, I noticed that a kerbstone had been painted pink, and one of the metal fence posts at the edge. Round the corner, one of the red bricks of the bridge had been painted pink too. This is not your typical graffiti. There's lots of arty types in the Ouseburn Valley and it's not unusual to see arty graffiti around, but it never gets up to our street. Something weird is going on.

I was walking home from uni today when I noticed that one of the bollards on the end of our street has been got too.

The Monument metro signs have gone pink too. I understand that that is related to the winter festival. Is this pinkness something to do with that? Is it isolated pinkness or is this happening all over town? Anyone else seen anything?

Also, I managed to get over being miserable about my camera and took a photo of my first sock. Getting near to the toe now. I quite like them. They're in the sparkly Regia silk that Sarah gave me for my birthday. I think they will be my Christmas day socks.

RIP my digital friend

I took my broken camera to the camera shop today. It turns out that the standard Fuji repair rate is £99. Since I could replace it with a near-identical camera for that much money now it's not worth getting it repaired. I feel really sad about this because I love taking pictures with my camera and it was a birthday present from my parents last year.

Can't even be bothered to attempt taking a photo of the lacy socks I'm knitting with my phone camera. I don't think it would work. Hope you can all live with pictures for a bit. Hopefully Father Christmas will bring me a replacement.

Relaxing

I'm finding it hard to relax this weekend, although I've made some considerable efforts to do so.

My school friend Leanne visited on Friday night, on her way to visit someone else. It was really good to see her. She's the sort of friend who I can not see for ages and then as soon as I see her it's like no time has passed. We had a good chat. It's a shame it was a short visit, but hopefully we'll see each other before too long.

On Saturday I woke up at my usual time (grrr...) even though I could have comfortably had a 3 hour lie-in. I made a start knitting a lacy sock pattern from Knit Today. When I fist bought Knit Today, I was quite pleased with the way it seemed to be a bit more interesting than Simply Knitting and Knitting, even though it was made by the same people. It actually seemed to have patterns I might knit in it. I'm becomming more and more dissapointed with it as time goes on. The recent issue just seems to have become more like the other two magazines, with published letters almost exclusively from the over 70s. I don't have anything against the over 70s, but it would be nice to hear from more of a range of age groups.

The other thing which is annoying me is that the sock pattern I am knitting is really badly written.

• Firstly the sizes it gives are small/medium/large, with no indication of what foot/ankle sizes these might actually be for.
• Secondly, the pattern recommends 3 mm needles, with 54 stitches for small. That seems reasonable for stocking stitch, but the lace pattern is very open and it ended up absolutely huge, so I was forced to frog it and change to 2.5 mm needles.
• Thridly, between the top and the lace section there's a row which increases the number of stitches by two. There is not mention that this should happen in the pattern, which left me feeling like I'd made a mistake for ages, until I finally figured out what was going on.
• Forthly, the foot on the picture has stocking stitch on the underside, with the pattern on the top, however the pattern, just tells you to continue with the lace along the length of the foot.
• Fifthly, the heel is done using short row shaping. The instructions are slightly different from short row heels I've done before, but I thought I'd give it ago. I'm know finding that the second part of it (picking back up the stitches) makes absolutely no sense.

I think part of the reason for the crapness of the pattern is that the editors of the magazine assume that noone who reads it knows anything about knitting. The instructions would make much more sense if they actually gave their readers some credit and explained what was going on, instead of expecting people blindly to follow instructions. The only reason I'm still knitting the pattern is that I think the sock look quite good up to now. If I can't sort out their heel instructions I'll just make it up myself. Rant over (I think I'm making my not-very-relaxed point quite well).

Following knitting yesterday Glittr, Snaterkat and I went along to the turkish bath in the City Pool. I've been wanting to go for years. It's an old Victorian building and the turkish bath still has the old style chaging rooms, in varnished hardwood, with a bed in each to recline on. There's a steam room and three dry rooms of increasing hotness. There's also a spa and hot and cold showers. It's also possible to have a massage. We were only in the hot rooms for about an hour, but I felt like we'd been there for a long time. I felt so sleepy and brain-dead by the end of it I forgot to immediatly phone Lucy and Jen afterwards as I'd promised (sorry ladies). As it turned out we'd already missed them and ended up not going to Wagamama as a group anyway.

Graeme and I did go along for a late lunch. I enjoyed it along, although rather than relaxing I found the place quite noisy and hectic. I'm not very good with crowds, particularly when low on energy.

I'm ashamed to say I did hardly anything with the rest of the day appart from knit and watch TV, in a zombie-like state. We rented Pirates of the Caribean II from our local rental place. I enjoyed it, although the plot was quite complicated and didn't reach any satisfactory resolution at the end. It felt a bit like one of those dreams you have where the story goes off on lots off tangents and you wake up before the end.

I managed to sleep for 9.5 hours last night and am feeling much more awake today. The uni work I have to do is praying on my mind. I suppose I should try and get on with things. Hopefully I can have the evening off and have a less stressful week if I do that. I'm hoping be the Christmas holidays I'll have got everything I need to do done, and won't have any work to think about. I can always hope!

Last Day

Tis the last day of my teaching,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la la, la, la!

I was going to try and shoehorn this whole post into the song, but I don't really have the time. It's non-uniform day today, which I'm told is always a bit of a nightmare. But I don't care. I have two lessons left. Hooray! I'm still alive and everthing. Happy first day of advent to you all.

God bless us every one!

Middle Aged Weekend

Last night Graeme and I went to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (the long-running BBC radio 4 comedy) being recorded at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland. I've never been to the Empire before. It's unlike any other theatre I've ever been in. It reminds me slightly of the Lyceum in Sheffield, except that the interior plausterwork is painted rad and gold. It's less open than the Lyceum, giving it a very Victorian, music hall feel. Arriving at the theatre gave me a similar feeling to arriving at the Knitting and Stitching Show. Most people there appeared to be over 50 (at least).

Because I'd booked early, thanks to Rob's encouragement, we were sat in the middle of the stalls. We actually ended up sat almost directly behind some friends from uni (Sam, the famous pyromaniac from bonfire night and co.). We had a cracking view of Humph (Humphrey Lyttelton), the pannelists (Tony Hawkes, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer), Colin Sell and of course the lovely Samantha.

They recorded two shows during the evening, each taking around 45 minutes to record. The whole thing was quite entertaining and only slightly marred by the Captain Birdseye-a-like sitting next to us, who laughed raucously with tears streaming down his face for the entire performance. It was funny but it wasn't that funny.

The only low point of the evening was spending half an hour waiting to get out of the multi-storey car park. However since Graeme and I have been working like mad for the past few weeks it did give us chance to have a chat. (It comes to something when your only quality time together is spent waiting to get out of a multi-storey car park). I'm glad I went, though I'm shattered now. Better get on with tomorrow's planning if I'm even going to get some knitting time tonight.

Ran out.....

Yesterday I went to the Kitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate with Snaterkat, Pinkphish and Impressionist. We set off bright (well drizzly) and early at 8.30 am. Because I've been recently getting up to drive to school ever morning this was still a lie in for me. I woke early anyway and couldn't sleep because I was thinking about all the lovely things we would see at the show. We got there in good time and after a bit or argy bargy managed to find a carpark with spaces (we got one of the last few). We negotiated the crowds outside, eventually found the right door, paid and went in.

The place was massive with four halls of stands, each with a section devoted to exhibitions of textile art. There was a 5th hall downstairs with seating and food stalls and a 6th hall with fashion shows going on. Unlike WoolFest there was no straw on the floor or livestock to gawp at.
The whole thing was a bit commercial. There were quite a lot of sewing stalls in there two. As Snaterkat pointed out to me, it was a good thing we were only interesting in one craft or we'd never get round everything.

I was a lot less overwhelmed than I had been at WoolFest (my first experience of this type of event). But as time wore on the place got bussier and bussier. By the afternoon it was heaving. Elbows were out and the old biddies weren't taking any prisoners. Whoever said that the older generation is more polite has never been to one of these events. Whatever happened to saying 'excuse me'? I finally decided I'd had enough when I got myself into a mobbed button stall and couldn't get out again.

I didn't spend too much money. I got a couple of reduced books and some magazines. I was particularly glad to get Yarn Forward magazine as I've been wanting to have a read of it since it came out.

I got some nice 4.5 and 5.5 mm wooden DPNs for a small amount of money. I bought some cashmere (so soft), angora (uber-bargin!), some silky stuff in greens, enough hemp to make the Linda cardi from the House of Hemp book and some star shaped buttons to go with it.

I also got some tiny knitting needles.

The only bad thing about the day was that my camera wouldn't work. The lens wouldn't open and pop out like it's supposed to so I couldn't take any pictures. I'll have to take a trip down to Jessops next weekend. Anyway, that's why there are no pictures from the show and why these ones are so rubbish.

We were all feeling pretty exhausted by the end of the day. I got home at about six, had dinner and settled down to watch The Time Machine, which I'd borrowed from one of the teachers at school.

I quite enjoyed the film. I was desperate to play with my new yarn, but being a sensible young lady without much free time to knit, I decided that the best thing to do was try and finish my digger jumper. I got part way up the second sleeve and promptly ran out of yarn. My experience of knitting kids' patterns is that the yarn amounts are always underestimated. Who comes up with the amounts? I could understand it if I didn't knit at the right guage but I do. Grr..... I predicted this from the start, so I can take comfort in the fact that I was right!!! However it's annoying to have to order an extra ball just to do half a sleeve and the neck edging.

Still being sensible I decided to make a start on another knit for Christmas. It's meant to be for a little boy. I'm still not sure about the colour though. Is it a bit girly? He's only 1 year old. What do you think? I could save it for someone else.

It's my last week of teaching practice this week. I'm finding it hard to motivate myself today because I only have one lesson tomorrow. I should probably make an effort to get on though, because I will be grateful for it later in the week. I've enjoyed the experience, but I can't wait to finish and be able to relax a little. Right now all I want to do is vegetate and knit.

Diggers

I feel much more relaxed this weekend. I think it helps that I have a lighter teaching load next week. I'm also feeling more confident because I managed to deal with some behaviour issues last week that will make my life much easier this week and next. 3 out of 5 weeks of my teaching practice are done and the end is in sight. I can't wait for my lovely long 3 week Christmas holiday (can you imagine!!!).

I managed to get the digger design on my jumper finished last night. I just need to put in the french knots and tie in the loose ends at the back, but I'll do that once I've finished the stripes at the top. It's my first bit of successful intarsia using more than 2 colours.

Graeme's mum and dad have been visiting us this weekend. It was lovely to see them. They recently travelled across Russia and Siberia on the Trans-Siberean Express. They brought us this set of Russian dolls. The smallest one is just a couple of millimetres tall.

In case anyone was wondering, I did manage to make some monsters after my last post. Here they are sitting happily on the fridge.

The parental visit meant that I missed out on the Centurian and the planned post-knitting Turkish bath this weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I'm hoping to make up for it with a visit to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate next weekend. I will be following a strict budget while I am there. Can't wait!

Blogalog

I feel like I should start by apologising for my lack of blogging. Mostly its been laziness. I was waiting till I got round to taking some photos and that took longer than I thought.

I've had some lovely birthday presents from my fellow knitters. Including this Frog Tree yarn from Suzanne. It's so soft I could just sit and cuddle it.



And this lovely silky sock yarn from Sarah with sparkly bits in it. Very glamerous. Just the ticket for some lacy gloves or socks.




Sarah also gave me this fantastic Curious Yarns sock yarns, with an extra small skein for doing the heel in. Very cool.




Becca gave me this necklace and earings, which have already made the trip out to the pub on a Friday night. I'd like to say they were much admired but I was out with boys and they didn't even notice. I felt good in them though.



Becca also got me a monster making set with modelling clay and magnets for sticking them to the fridge. I'm planning not to do any work tonight, since everything is planned already for tomorrow. I think I might try my hand at moster creation.

On Saturday evening I started knitting this digger jumper from Lucinda Guy's Designs for Kids. I'm using Rowan Cotton Glace. This is the back. Hopefully I'll be able to get this section almost finished tonight.

Job Titles

I don't have much exciting stuff to talk about at the moment. The Forth has been very odd recently. I don't think I've been two weeks in a row where the same people have been there. I like seeing new people but I miss seeing everyone else on a weekly basis. Autumn seems to be quite a busy time for everyone.

One of the good things I've found about training to be a teacher is that you get a good response when people ask what you do. When I was working in research explaining my job to people led to a wide variety of responses. Some people say 'you must be really clever' (what do you say to that?) and some people say 'that's interesting' (meaning they have no idea what I'm on about), but most people just look at you a bit funny. Everyone knows what a teacher is and most people see it as a worthwhile thing to do. Also it makes people feel like that can talk to you rather than thinking they're addressing the next Albert Eintein (which they're not). I quite like it.

Bon Fires

Today has been a good day. I went to knitting this morning, picking up two birthday parcels on the way, that had been sitting in the post office all week. One of them turned out to be these fabulous slippers from Graeme's brother and family.


I'm wearing them now as I type and they lovely. Cosy and warm.

This afternoon we drove up to Druridge bay to meet up with some friends. One of them, Sam, had planned a fabulous firework display and barbecue. I love watching fireworks and I always feel a bit cheated if I don't get to go and watch some around Guy Fawkes night. I think I've had more than my quota for this year :) Photos don't really do it justice, so I decided to finally have a go at using you-tube. I couldn't figure out how to change it round from being sideways though.

We also got to see the sunset.

This week feels like it's going on forever. I'm so glad it's Thurday. I teach in the day and when I'm not teaching I'm talking about teaching or thinking about teaching. In the evening I'm preparing my lessons and then at night I dream about them. The only knitting I've done was on Tuesday at the Forth and then I was so tired I made a mistake, pulled out everything I'd knitted and had to pick the stitches up again. I ended up only doing couple of rounds total knitting. I can't wait for the end of Friday so I can come home, go to the pub, get all my teaching gripes out of my system and have Saturday off!!!

On a different note I went to the Forth on Tuesday to see Rachel Henderson (as advertised by PurlPower). It was meant to start at 6. I was late back from school (staff meetings and traffic, grrrr....). I got their about 6.30pm and there was a group of 7 people. Two regulars and 4 people I hadn't met before. The 7th I recognised as Rachel from the cover photos on her books, though she never introduced herself. After a while 4/5 more knitters arrived (including Sarah). The coffee table was covered in yarn and books though I wasn't sure whether they were for sale or use??? Rachel appeared to have lots to talk to people about on her phone. I sat their for a hour, making a mess of my knitting. At 7.30 I had to leave because Graeme was cooking me birthday tea. In that hour Rachel had moved seats but nothing appeared to happen. I put some money in her charity tins, announced to everyone there that we'd be there again next tuesday from 7 if they wanted to come and left.

I don't really understand what was supposed to be happened. I thought she was going to give a talk, or demonstrate something and take photos for her book. None of that happened while I was there. Did I miss it by leaving early? If anyone stayed and something exciting happened later can you let me know. I must admit that I was disappointed by the whole thing and sort of wished I'd stayed at home to open my presents instead.

Birthday

It's my birthday today. It's 6.45am and I'm absolutly shattered following a rubbish night's sleep, which comprised of lots of short dreams about the lesson I am due to teach in 2.5 hours time. It's been prepared and changed more than any lesson really deserves to be. I'm not sure how it's going to go. I have another one straight afterward which isn't so worrying because it's A level, with less students. In 12 hours time, all being well, I'll be sitting in the Forth (hopefully awake) knitting at the special Rowan event. I hope people turn up. Can't wait for it.

I'm making it all sound very miserable. It's not that bad. I had a lovely time on Saturday when I went out for Tepan-yaki with my parents and a random collection of friends. I'd been worried beforehand because most people coming didn't know the others, but in the end everyone got on swimmingly. Thanks to everyone who came. Right, I'd better go and get ready so I can go to school and panic there.

P.S. I was so worried about my lesson I forgot to carve the huge pumpkin I bought. :S

Dramatic Cloudscapes

A sunrise over Sandyford.

And clouds over Druridge Bay.

Knitting Update

I thought this blog was a bit lacking in knitting so here's an update on what I've been working on recently.

I've almost finished rabbit no. 2, who is a ballerina. She just needs a skirt and a face. I'm not sure whether I want to buy a large quanitity of netting just to make one rabbit skirt. Maybe I'll knit her a friend.

She hasn't got a face yet. I don't feel like I can do the face until she's properly dressed.

I've also been knitting a cushion cover as a Christmas present for a friend, who doesn't read this blog (I think).

It's from a pattern that was in Knitting Today, the new magazine. I'm a bit irritated with it at the moment because the pattern is fairly dull and because of this I got distracted and moved one of the stripes one stitch to the right when I was in the Forth on Tuesday. I can't blame anyone else for this because I was sitting by myself when I did it, before anyone else arrived. I only noticed last night and had to pull out a 3rd of what I'd knitted. Grrr....!

I'm also working on this glove, which is from a pattern in Odham's knitting encyclopedia.

I already knitted one pair for the secret swap parcel I sent to Snaterkat. The pattern uses straight needles, but it is a pain in the rear end to have to sew up all those little seams, especially because it has to be done as you're going along. I decided to knit it in the round instead (on some old size 10 DPNs that used to belong to my grandma and probably date from the same time as the pattern book). So far it's going quite well.

I'm sorry to say that I still haven't got round to finishing Rufflette (picot cast off of about 400 sts on circulars - my personal nightmare) or the baby alpaca scarf I started a while ago. I can't actually remember the pattern I was using for the scarf so I'm going to have to have a dig around on the internet and try and find where it came from.

I'm meant to be knitting more Christmas hats for school and I've also got a few Christmas present projects waiting in the wings. So many things to knit, so little time....

Post number 101: Fascinating Fungi

On Sunday Snaterkat, Graeme and I went along to the fascinating fungi event at Thornley woods, near Rowlands Gill. Some people obviously knew what they were doing and quickly went and squirreled away large quantities of edible mushrooms. We spent a long time trying to find different types. We'd take them back to the table and add them to the group collection. Here's one of our hauls:

We saw some fantastic bracket fungi,


and some cool orange jelly fungi:

All together we ended up with a fantastic haul and learned lots about fungi. This is just some of it.

I'm pretty confident I could identify one or two species of edible fungi. We ended up bringing a couple home and friend them in butter and salt. They were very tasty. I really must find some more some time. I had a look in Jesmond Dene this afternoon but there didn't seem to be any at all. Wonder why.

Fudgaster

While making my secret parcel for Snaterkat I decided to make some fudge. I know she has a liking for rum and raisin. I looked at several recipes on the internet and in books that I had. I eventually chose one (they were all pretty similar) and decided to have a go. I couldn't get hold of any condensed milk and so I also found a recipe for making condensed milk out of evapourated milk (basically adding a lot of sugar). I followed the instruction and poured out the fudge into a lined pan and after it had cooled a bit I stuck it in the fridge. The next morning I got up expecting it to be set, but it wasn't.

I admit I could have started all this a bit more in advance but I wasn't sure how it would keep and I didn't think I would have much trouble. I've made toffee and fudge before. So, I sent the parcel without the fudge, thinking I would be able to pass it on the next day. People at uni assured me it would take longer to set, but I'm sorry to say that it never has. So I decided to make a second batch. This time with condensed milk and adding the rum just before pouring it out into the tin. It worked a little better. The middle seemed to solidify quite quickly, but the edges never did.

I don't quite understand what I did wrong. I'm pretty sure I got it to a hot enough temperature (i.e. vigerously boiling for 10 plus minutes) and it looked like it was beginning to solidify just after I poured it, so what stopped it? Any useful advice would be helpful. Now I should go and make a start on using up some of this fudge sauce. ;)

Parcel

Today was the swap day for the mini-secret pals swap which is being run by my friend Kay. I managed to get the majority of my parcel sent off at once. I have had some difficulties which I shall tell you about tomorrow.

I recieved my parcel this morning in the post.

I hesitated in opening it at first in case it was a birthday present, but I didn't recognise the handwriting or address. The card said there were some halloween items so I opened the first parcel to find this. :(

This isn't the first time I've recieved broken pottery through the post. I think safely packaging it is a nightmare. Fortunately the important part, the chocolate, was in tact. I'm not sure what it was meant to be. I did try putting the pieces together to reconstruct it, but I think there's just too many pieces. The second parcel was this:

A lovely recipe book. Many thanks to Luise for sending it.