Bigger needles and tire swings

Once upon a time the other day I listed my knitting projects and said I would get them out of the way before starting anything new. Well, I stood by that for a day or so, and then realized that what I really needed was a big-needle project. Denim bits: 4 mm needles. Pink thing: 3 mm needles. Socks: 2 3/4 mm needles! So, no wonder I am poking along!
I have this big bag of wool (you saw it all spread on the floor on August 3 ) and I have a great vision of what to do with it, and it'll be knit on 6 mm needles, so I just had to get in there and start. I made a couple of swatches (or you could call them pocket linings) and made a shocking realization: all that scratchy Lett Lopi will make me and my family ill! I have had a tickly
throat and horky cough, and I think it's caused by sending scratchy wool fibers into the air! Grr..... I'll try knitting little bits of it outside or something. If I were in Toronto, and if I'd saved my receipts (har har) I could take back some of the Lopi and trade it in on something smoother, but I'm not, so I must soldier on. Will keep you posted.
I did manage to get the sock done, so we now have a pair! Cross that off the list. (Um, yes, the single ball of yarn was not quite enough for 2 full 8-year-old socks. I've promised Arthur at least one sock made of all scraps one day!)

In family news, we have found a few new parks! Yippee. The boys took a bike ride the other day and even went past the grocery store and found all sorts of stuff. A big common, which even has a cow or two on it, and a great playground. There was for centuries a fair on Stourbridge Common, and you can see sea shells in the dirt at the playground, because people would come up the river to sell oysters at the fair. The big thing these days is a sort of tire swing/zooming thing/cable ride. It's a bigger walk than to the other park on Jesus Green, but not by much. We also found another park on a big field, and a nice pub with grass by the river to sit on.

School is starting on Monday and we are all a bit nervous. They do school lunches, which I think is great, although I was not a big fan of school lunches when I had them. What I will do if I have to prepare lunches for them, I don't know. I have no microwave here, for example, and finding enough leftovers for 2 lunches would be a challenge anyways. So, I sure hope they will learn to love school lunch. And I've never had to get all of us out the door in the morning on a regular basis before! Last year Elaine only went to school in the afternoons so she and I lounged around after getting the guys off to school.

I am indeed looking forward to doing something (anything!) by myself! I hope to be doing a ton of laundry, actually. We got back from our holiday with a week's worth of laundry, and were just getting caught up on that when the #*&#$ washer broke. Or something. A guy is coming today to look at it, and since sparks and smoke came out the bottom last time we tried it, it doesn't look good. But we are now mere tenants and will have to see what the landlord says. We've been piling up the dirty clothes for a week now, so I sure hope it is resolved fast!

I also just got the new Vogue Knitting mag and will search the 2 yarn shops here for supplies for a sweater for me. I like the green cabled one, but would have to lengthen it somewhat. Also I like the big red Big Wool one, but without the floofy little KSH cuffs which do not mesh with my laundry-and-dishes lifestyle. We shall see.