Fireworks and Comedy, with a Touch of Sadness

Last night was the now annual Maths Department Guy Fawkes fireworks on Druridge Bay beach (Northumberland). We arrived just before sunset to help with carrying wood, fireworks and barbecues and to help set things up in the light. After the frightneningly strong winds we've had this week the weather was relatively mild and the tide low. When it started to get dark we were treated to a fabulous sunset. Here is one of several photos I took from the sanddunes

Sam put on a fabulous display as usual, despite being hampered by the winds. For the past couple of years people have regularly been attending the pub quiz at the Lonsdale Pub in Jesmond. Every time the group has won the winnings have been put into a pot and that was used to buy fireworks and food for the evening. Here's a short movie of Sam's first explosions of the evening.

My camera keeps putting lines into shots when the light is low. Anyone any idea why? Is there something wrong with it. It sometimes puts darker lines in too.

We left the fireworks early to go and see Bill Bailey's Tinselworm show at the Newcastle Arena. It was a good performance. As you might imagine it wasn't a very intimate gig. Apparently it was the largest audience he's ever played to. Not entirely convinced that that was good for us. He is also playing Manchester and Sheffield to sold out arenas. Both those venues are much larger so we won't be staying the largest croud for long. Anyway, at least we got to see him.

The sad thing today is that my very good friend Cat's father passed away during the night. It wasn't unexpected but it's a sad end to what has been a very difficult and upsetting few months, if not years for the whole family. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Things like that really make me appreciate having both our sets of parents around and in good health. Long may it last.

Birthdays and Pumpkins

It's taken me nearly a whole week to get round to writing something about my birthday. While I didn't particularly enjoy having to go to work on my birthday it wasn't a terrible day. A lot of the kids remembered it was my birthday and one even gave me a card. Graeme got me a curry dinner and we had some nice fizzy wine.

I got some fab gifts from family and friends. Thank you everyone. My parents got me a wool winder and swift for which I am very greatful. I love the simplicity of wool winders. I've wanted one for ages. I have to stop myself from winding all my skeins into balls.

At the weekend I had a small party with some good friends. It was lovely to spend time with people. I feel like work is sucking up so much of my time at the moment that I don't get time to enjoy my friends. Before people arrived I had a go at carving three rather large pumpkins. I decided to shun the traditional triangular eyes and pointy teeth and go for some more interesting designs. The results were mixed. The bat ended up with a hole much too large.

But the spider and the cat turned out very well I thought (if slightly wonky).

Dawn brought along a 4th

And Graeme decided to carve a turnip, for the sake of tradition (up until a few years ago we never had pumpkins available for Halloween in the UK). It certainly smelt the scariest out of the bunch.

Only 5 weeks and 3 school days till our school's Christmas holidays. Yey!

Fetching for Me

Last year Glittr gave me two balls of Frog Tree Alpaca with a note suggesting I make myself a pair of Fetching wrist warmers. Though I have knitted 6+ pairs of them for other people it wasn't until it started to get cold that I realised I'd never made any for myself. So, on Saturday I cast on a pair at the Centurion and finished them on Sunday morning. I forgot what a quick knit they are.

Pigiphant?

After a trip to Hobbycraft on my way home from work I finally got to finish a couple of my animal creations. I can't help feeling a bit like Dr Frakenstein as I sew on the legs and head, cackling to myself. Mu, ha ha ha!

Firstly there's Lion, who is a present for the new baby son, Matthew of our friends Helen and Phil, born last week. I managed to snap a photo when he was out exploring the garden this morning.

"Roar!"

Then there's this beasty which I was referring to as an elephant right up until friday night, when I put on the ears and it took on a more piggy look. It has now been rechristened Pigiphant.

Pigiphant is made from the remnants of a ball of regia. Lion is made out of remnants of DB baby cashmerino (yellow), baby alpaca (off white), yellow handspun (not by me) and scraps of black.

On the bright side....

I've been feeling quite sorry for myself for the past week or so. I have a horrible cold. I've managed to keep going at work but I spent last weekend just sitting on the sofa, or laying in bed. I thought I needed something simple and chunky to occupy myslef with. I found this Drops pattern for a cardigan on Ravelry. I happened to have some yarn I bought a few years ago in Boyes, Chester-le-Street in the correct weight. The yarn was for the first cardigan I had ever knitted for myself and when I finished it it was huge and ugly, so I frogged it. The yarn has been in my stash ever since. I finished the cardigan last night (I would have finished it on Wednesday night if I hadn't misread the pattern). Here it is (apologies for the fuzzy photo taken at 6am on timer):

I used some elephant buttons I bought at the 2006 woolfest. I spent some time trying to decide whether the use of the elephant buttons made it look like a child's cardigan. I'm still undecided. I welcome oppinions.

Animals

I was feeling a bit off my knitting a couple of weeks ago and I've been having a serious urge to crochet for a while now. I borrowed some Japanese crochet books from Lucy and thought I'd use up some odds and ends. Here's the first of my creations. Graeme has cristened him Fiver.

I've since made a lion, a bear with a frog hat on and am half way through an elephant. Unfortunately I somehow lost my sewing needles this weekend and the poor elephant is in pieces on the living room table. I can't order any more and I won't have time to go anywhere that sells them during the week. Oh for a truly local yarn store.

I was listening to Cast On yesterday morning and Brenda was discussing how difficult it is to get dress making supplies in this country. This struck a chord with me, following the demise of Fenwick's craft section during the last few weeks. I've been thinking about how it happened. I don't think it's because there's no demand for that sort of thing. If there weren't places like Hobbycraft would go out of business. I think it's the perceptions of people higher up the company that it's not worth bothing with. They've been running the section into the ground for a while. No wonder the customers stopped coming so much. What makes me feel doubly sad about it this week is that because there's no post I can't get internet supplies at the moment either.

Presents

I mentioned I was behind with my posts. Two weeks ago, while Graeme was away at a conference, my mother and father-in-law visited and dropped off some lovely things for me. I was so excited and meant to write about them straight away but it's taken me this long to get some photos take and uploaded.

Some of you will remember how I was having trouble getting bobbins for my spinning wheel. Well Lorna and Bill arranged for a friend of a friend to make copies of the one bobbin I had as an early birthday present. They looked fabulous when they arrived, the bore was a little too small but Graeme widened it with the drill last weekend and they now work beautifully.

I managed to spin and ply some of my cheap generic sheeps fleece from WoolFest. I had to improvise a Lazy Kate but it worked fine.

I think the yarn has come out a bit overwound. I don't know if that's something I am doing or if it's to do with the ratio of the bobbin. I don't think it was winding onto the bobbin fast enough. I'll have to consult my spinning book when I get chance.

The next thing they brought was Lorna's friend Edith's old knitting stuff. There was a variety of old patterns (some good baby ones) and a lot of needles in this fab retro bag.

I now have a ridiculous number of needles and am wondering what to do with them all. Before that they all fitted into a metal jug.

The third thing was this fleece, which Lorna acquired on a Girl Guides trip to a farm.

I've forgotten already what type of fleece it is (I'm rubbish with names). Emily and I poked it when it arrived but I finally got it out this morning thinking I would wash it in the kitchen sink (I did this with the last lot). However when I unrolled it I realised that wasn't going to happen. I didn't realise how tightly packed it was. It's huge! I think it's going to need to go into the bath.

Lorna and Bill also brought some apples which I stewed and used to make apple and ginger scones, from my own made up recipe. What lovely in-laws I have.

P.S. Does anyone else find that Blogger now takes them to a german page when they post a comment? I only know what all the links are now because they're in the same positions as the English ones.

The Ladies' Bras

I'm really behind with my blog. There's been a couple of posts that I have intended to write but haven't got round too. Needless to say I'm working quite hard at school and sitting at the computer blogging seems far too much like more work at the moment.

To keep you going a little aside to anyone with a childish sense of humour. This song has the potential to be the shortest ever in the top 40. It's called "The Ladies' Bras", by Jonny Trunk and Wisbey.


Am I spending too much time with 13 year olds?

Brrr.....

This is officially the first morning of the school year that I've woken up and put off getting out of bed because it's too cold and dark. Urgh! The vernal equinox (equal day and night) is at the weekend on the night of the 22nd Sept. It's all downhill from here....

If my Nan were still here she'd say "Winter draws on" or "It'll soon be Christmas".

Memory

I forgot to mention in the post below that the Town and Country party was in celebration of the end of Dawn's treatment for breast cancer, which is something definitely worth celebrating. Why did I forget such an important thing? Well I have a good excuse that after two weeks of teaching my brain isn't functioning at normal capacity. Maybe I was partially blinded by hog. I think the main reason I forgot is because Dawn and Jim have done such a wonderful job in coping with everything that cancer treatment has thrown at them in the past year, the first of their married life. Dawn was back to her energetic self in the role of party hostess and I forgot to appreaciate what a fantastic thing it is to see. :)

Mmmmmmm....hog....

I'm getting a bit behind with my blog posting but I am surviving the school term. Things are going quite well. Last weekend I even managed to get myself to Jim and Dawn's "Town and Country" Party. I didn't manage the costume and I forgot the drinks and food I meant to take but since my brain has given up functioning it's hardly surprising. Here are Jim and Dawn in front of the spectacular hog roast. Lovely crackeling.

They had actually managed to pick a warm and sunny Saturday. No mean feat this year. I enjoyed sitting in the sunshine very much.

I'm ashamed to say that despite enjoying the party a lot I was in my tent asleep by 11pm. I think getting up at 6am every day isn't going to do much for my social life.

Back to school

As some of you might have guessed already I've been a bit busy for the last week ago. Schools in England are very much back in business and as an NQT in a new job, with my own form, I'm finding myself a bit overwhelmed and overworked. I can't complain too much. I'm at an independant school, and although it's not selective the majority of my classes are well behaved and eager to learn. I know many of my colleagues from my PGCE course last year must be having a much harder time that me, at challenging schools around the country.

So if you're a new teacher this week, of whatever kind, good luck to you. David Stancliffe's Science Army will prevail!

fall out

Tomorrow we'll have been married for one week. All is running smoothly. I am enjoying married life. In fact it is relaxing to have a break from all that planning. I've been getting into planning for the new school term this week. I felt pretty miserable to be getting back to reality at the start of the week. Though my geeky side seems to be finding it's way to the surface. I just spent a contented 3 hours sitting in the sunshine reading about Rutherford scattering and partical physics.

When we got back from the wedding reception, before bed on Saturday night, at about 2.30 am, Graeme gave me a Luckenbooth brooch. It's a Scottish symbol of fidelity, traditionally given on the wedding day, worn by the bride and pinned to the christening shawl of the first child for luck. It was a lovely surprise. I was touched by the gift. However after 20 hours of being awake my brain had obviously given up, because I completely forgot about it for most of Sunday and therefore didn't show it to all my friends and family who were visiting. So here it is for you all to see.

Another lovely gift we recieved this week was some flowers from Graeme's parents. It was a real surprised. In fact you might say I was as surprised as if I'd seen a 15" shell reflected from a piece of tissue paper (ha ha, sad physics joke).

Our wedding gifts from John Lewis were meant to be delivered today in one large delivery. Most of them have arrived, but it seems that some weren't brought out of the store in time to be loaded onto the truck this morning and so never made it here. I'm slightly dissapointed with Lewis' as they have been excellent so far, but after arranging a delivery window (1-6pm) it seems odd not to include all the gifts. The next window they can offer for delivery is in 3 weeks. Instead I have arranged to go and pick up the presents in person on Friday. Slightly irritating. However, the living room is still bursting with fantastic gifts. Thank you to everyone who bought us presents. All the Lewis' vouchers went together to buy the Dyson vacuum.

On a knitting note, now I am free of wedding related knitting I decided to concentrate of making myself a few much needed jumpers. The first is this Linda cardigan from House of Hemp.

A piece of cake

I thought it was time I let you all know how the wedding went. It was lovely. I think it was one of the best weekends of my life. We managed to fit in a family meal on Friday night, all of Saturday's festivities and a barbecue on Sunday. Everybody seemed to have a good time. I thought it was going to be scary to walk into the church in front of a full congregation, like giving a talk at a conference, but when I got there I was so excited to see all the familiar faces that I never even thought about it. I knew that if anything went a little bit wrong noone would mind.

As someone who routinely takes photos and blogs about events it was so weird for something big to happen and not have any photos of my own to show. Other people are slowly starting to send me theirs now and here are some edited highlights. I have started a "Wedding" set on Flickr which I will keep adding to.

And how did the shawl look.....

Eating my words

I just went to collect a parcel from the post office. It was the yarn from Jaimison's. I missed it by 5 minutes when I went to Emily's house. D'oh! Oh well, too late to do anything now. I don't want to risk messing it up.

I'm getting married in the morning.......

...well Saturday morning, but it's close. I finally have an FO to show. Here is my wedding shawl being blocked.

The pattern is Myrtle Leaf Shawl, with Willow Border, from Victorian Lace today, knitted with a variety of straight needles (I found the direction for circulars in the pattern totally unnecessary), mostly done in Jaimison's Ultra Natural White. I say mostly because on Tuesday morning I'd pretty much finished the border when I looked down to find only a tiny amount of yarn left. Horror! It was the last ball I had. I emailed all my friends to see if anyone had any and ordered a replacement ball as soon as Jaimison's opened. I have found their yarn a pleasure to knit with and would do so again, no question, but I don't think they are equipped to cope with urgent orders. I was told that the yarn could arrive "any time really", which was a little unhelpful.

I tried getting some similar weight yarn from the local stores but nowhere stocks anything that isn't bleached white or off-white. Last night I decided I had to do something. I had no idea how long it would take to dry while blocking and didn't want to risk it still being wet on Saturday. I've been spinning fine singles on my wheel with natural wool just for practice really and it seemed about the right weight and colour, so I finished off the 4" of border left with that. It isn't the most evenly spun yarn in the world but in the end it didn't look terrible. There's a slight difference in colour, but I asked Graeme to tell me which corner it was and he couldn't. It's probably obvious to another knitter, but I'm sure more muggles won't know or care.

I'm pretty happy with the results. I think I could have done with about 5000 more pins to kep everything in place, but there you go. I'll definitely be knitting lace of this size again. I thought it would be long and boring but in the end I quite enjoyed knitting it and once I'd got the pattern into my head it was pretty portable. You'll have to wait till next week to see what it looks like on (unless you're at the wedding on Saturday).

Hens and Table Decorations

I feel like this blog post is a bit overdue but this week I have been overwhelmed with what is possibly the final wedding decision to be made. What should we have as our table centres? Why is this question difficult to answer? Not because I have a fantasy about how the tables should look, but more because I don't care that much as long as they don't look terrible. Ufortunately this means explore various possibilities and see what they look like. On Wednesday we finally came to decision about it, so I spent yesterday buying supplies, punching out hundreds of paper petals, and tying silver thread round candles. This is the result:

So if you get the your table at the wedding and it doesn't look right feel free to do some rearranging.

I had a wonderful time at the weekend with all of my Hen's. I want to say a big thank you to Cat for organising it, to Sarah and Suzie for arranging for large quantities of yummy food and to Hairy Dawn, Laura, Gabby, Kay, Becca, Fiona, Michelle, Mum and Joanne for coming along and making it so much fun. I won't give a blow by blow account, but much sparkling wine was drunk and much food was eaten. Here are a few highlights.

Brief Stop Home

Well it's not that brief, but that's what it feels like. We got back on Tuesday in a bit of a daze after 24 sleepless hours. Passengers on planes who think it's ok to keep their feet up on the seats and kick the people in front of them in the back deserve to be punished. The holiday was great. We visited Boston, Cape Code, Rhode Island, New York and Washington. There's a large number of photos in a set on Flickr. I have put a selection of highlights below.

The main reason for visiting Washington was to attend the wedding of one of Graeme's university friends Sharron, who was getting married to Michael in a Jewish ceremony. Michael is Lebanese so the rehersal dinner (traditional the night before the wedding in the USA) was Lebanese themed with traditional food and dancing. This was my first experience of a Jewish wedding and the Lebanese culture. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and the reception was great fun. I've never met Graeme's American friend's before but they made me feel very welcome so welcome that I was sad to leave, knowing that we wouldn't see them again for a long time. Here are the Happy Couple.

To Sharron and Michael, Mazel Tov!!!

Now for the highlights.....

Eating lobster for the first time in the Summer Shack in Boston. I'll never forget the look on the face of Jonny's colleague, a recovering vegetarian.

Seeing our friends Jonny and Emma who now live there (in an apartment, not in the Summer Shack)

Visiting the site where Marconi made his first 2 way transmission between the USA and the UK. Sadly most of the site is eroded and only the bases of two of the transmitter towers remain.

Here's a model of what it would have looked like.

Seeing the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry.

Visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and seeing all the space hardware and spare parts. I feel a shiver down my spine to think that this tin can was launched into space, orbitted the Earth with a man inside it and made it safely back again. Humans are brilliant sometimes. Now if only they'd move out of the way so I could take a proper photo....

So they're my personal highlights. Well, we all know I'm a big geek. This afternoon I'm off for my Hen doo, which is taking place in Derbyshire, far away from night clubs and strippers (here's hoping).

Two weeks and a day left till our wedding. Only a few things left to do. Just the small matter of finishing a lace shawl and two bridesmaid's shrugs. It is starting to invade my dreams. Last night I dreamt that I was a female version of Harry Potter and I was inviting all the people from the books to my wedding. I was concerned that Graeme's family wouldn't get on with my magical friends. I didn't eat any cheese or anything. Just my strange brain.

I shall just continue to repeat my mantra. Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.......