Two down, one to go, and Blog Day

You know that the other day I started whipping up a red scarf. Yes indeed. I got some red yarn out of my cupboard and started seed stitching away. Well, I ended up with a scarf about 2 feet long. It was one of those projects where the little voice was nagging me from the start. "There's not enough yarn. You don't have enough yarn. THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK." Well, the little voice was right, but it took me some time to realise.

Arthur, of course, thought that if I wasn't going to give it away, he would take it to wear with his red winter coat! But my knitterly pride would not allow me to pretend that this thing was actually a scarf, so I started at the other ends of the balls, and reknit it, on 21 stitches instead of 31, unravelling the wider one as I went. Here it is, almost down to the final multicoloured bit.

I took it to Lettuce Knit's SnB last night, and someone admired it and said, "You should publish that pattern!" Oh, it's seed stitch... But here we go, anyways: Cast on an odd number of stitches. *K1, P1* to last st, K1. Repeat ad nauseam, till you have a scarf. But, of course, the fun part is the 2-row stripes. I think they look very cool in seed stitch, because of the purl bumps showing, I guess. You do get a lot of bang for your buck with 2-row seed stitch stripes. So the instructions for that would be, change colour every two rows. There, a pattern.

So I still need a red scarf, don't I? Well, lucky me, I was at a yarn store last night, and got me some. It's cotton, but since the only places I've ever lived in the States, where this scarf is destined to end up, are southern California and Texas, I can't imagine the need for a woolly scarf there. Actually, it's so lovely and soft you could wear it snuggled real close, and it will keep you warm in any weather. That's my story... I got two colours -- not exactly red, but in that vague red family; actually the brown is close to a perfect brown -- but I'm not (I hope!) going to knit the same damn scarf over a third time. I'm thinking of a slip stitch pattern, but I do like scarves to be reversible. Maybe just a zigzag rib pattern or some such thing.

But first, really, I must get back to those other abandoned projects. This spur-of-the-moment quicky scarf has already taken too much time! School starts next week, must have jazzy socks done! It's getting chilly in the evenings, must get my cardigan done!

And because it's Blog Day, I will share with you some blogs I like.

Lisa the Knitter -- She's a nut, and I mean that in the nicest way. She even knits sometimes.

Life is a Banquet -- Jan's look at all sorts of things. She made her own bacon last year!

Pixie Post -- A quilter with a great eye, I think, and a 9-year-old son.

Kentish KT -- A Canadian living in Britain! With a 9-year-old son. And she stalks postboxes!

Fleagirl's Fine Cooking -- Oh, my, she has a 9-year-old son, and she writes lovingly about food!

And all the Cambridge knitters, none of whom has a 9-year-old son: Very Otterly, Anne, Knitting on the Green, Pig Wot Knits, Caught Knitting .... who did I forget?

August finale

It looks like August has whizzed past us, just about. In those odd hours when my stoopid internet connection was not working, I made these photo collages of neutral colours for Project Spectrum. I wish I could knit 'em up. I have been wanting a brown sweater for some time, but it's hard to get that sun-on-old-leaves rich colour.


First we have some sun on old leaves! These sort of hedgelike trees were by the river in Cambridge. Then a scarf I did knit, in some nylon ladder yarn and a strand of Matchmaker 4 ply wool. It's kind of a goofy looking scarf, in fact, but not bad colours, though too much gold metallic for my taste. Bottom left is a wintery tree in the park, and bottom right is Punt With Bird.

Then we have Raccoon Asleep in My Tree in the Middle of the Day! Woodpile, Henry VIII with chair leg (scroll down to Bicycles and Chair Legs, in the Traditions section), and chimneys on Trinity Lane.

Did you know that August 31 is Blog Day? One is meant to post links to 5 different blogs, to spread the bloggish word... I don't think I know 5 blogs that aren't about knitting, at least in some part. I'll work on it.

Garbage picking in the 'hood

Our neighbourhood is great for garbage picking. We used to collect printers that people discarded, and Arthur would take them apart to collect parts. What he ever did with all these parts, I'm not too sure, but it was sure fun taking the things to bits. We've also found many planters, candle holders, books... and got rid of lots of stuff, including an old barbecue, by just putting it out at the curb. It's Freecycle without even needing a computer.

The other night, Arthur and I delivered some boxes to friends who are moving. They were the gigantic ones, suitable for throwing a few quilts in, but hard to lift if they're full of books! Since they're awkward to carry, we took them in our wagon, and then, on the way home, we passed several piles of yardsale leftovers.

(I have to interject here: we too had a yard sale that day. Arthur built a booth out of two big boxes for a lemonade stand, and we put out a few books now deemed too "babyish" for Arthur and Elaine, and then, since it was a pretty crappy day and no one was out walking around, we called our friends with kids and coerced them into coming over and buying stuff. When asked for a price for the books, Arthur hemmed and hawed, and although Daddy was frantically signing "FIVE CENTS," somehow our first buyer paid $.50 per book, and then she told the next person that was the price, and so actually we made a bundle! The kids are a bit vague on economics generally, but when Arthur had a $10 bill in his hand, he knew he should just rush upstairs and squirrel it away! Elaine made a sale, too, and although it was for $2, and I had to go find change for a fiver, she managed to run off with the $5 bill! Our yardsale leftovers are going to charity forthwith, but we still have some lemonade...)

Anyways, when I see a bag of yarn and a "Free" sign, I quickly kick Sonny Boy out of the wagon and replace him with yarn! (Carefully chosen, indeed -- I got some mauve washable wool, and 4 balls of various blue cotton/wool/acrylic blends, and left the pastel baby acrylic behind.) Also a couple of soup bowls! And on the next block, some of those foam squares that fit together -- Arthur is a master builder with them, and although they are marketed as toddler alphabet-learning toys, they make great rocket ships and boxes to put your sister in and all sorts of things! Good thing we had the wagon!

But the score of the evening had to be the Better Homes and Gardens Handyman's Book, circa 1957.


It's a ring binder with sections and dividers and all cool stuff, and pages about wrenches, or screwdrivers, or how to fix a toilet! And look at little wifey on the cover, devoted to her handyman! (I hate to say it, but this is a true representation of things around here. How do people live without a handyman in the family?)

We shall all have hours of fun with our finds! Thanks, neighbours!

Eye candy Friday

This past week Stephen was out in BC, doing some work stuff and some play stuff. This is obviously from the play part! Taken from a plane flying from Vancouver to Comox, some islands for you. I wanna go!

Oops, a new project

The astute among you will have noticed a new section in the sidebar, Projects on the Go. This is supposed to keep me on track with a small number of projects, so that I actually finish something before starting something else. Right now I have the green cotton cardigan, which is still in the very-long-row stage, and although I sat in a waiting room yesterday for 2 hours, I seem to have got nowhere. It's that black hole thing. And I have the gaudy socks, which are coming along fine, and should be finished ... soonish...


But then I read Norma's blog about the Red Scarf Project, and thought of some red wool I have, and started a scarf. I have 2 bits of multi-coloured reddish stuff, and 2 balls, which may or may not be full, and are different colours of red, and I'll just toss them all together into scarf, right?

It'll be all seed stitch, I think, with the multi-coloured stuff at each end, and 2-row stripes for the rest of it. Of course, if I don't have enough yarn to make a decent scarf, who knows what'll happen...

And I do knit that green thing every night before bed, honest.

Summer in the city

One more week of camp, one week of hanging around, then school starts! The kids and I have been in serious preparation mode. Last week I went to my favourite secondhand joint, Value Village, and, while looking for girlie T-shirts for Elaine, found her a pair of brand new hot pink snow pants, for $8. They'll look like heck with her pale lilac jacket, but for 8 bucks, who's worried?

(Um, yes, I also picked up 4 balls of dishcloth cotton and a few vintage patterns. The cotton will be great for gifts for those people who don't like to mess up their nice handknit dishcloths, since it looks like it's been used for washing dishes for a year, and I haven't even taken the ball bands off yet. It's called Potpourri ombre, for those who like to know. The pattern selection was not great, but I got a book of shawls for 69 cents. Shawls are apparently only for wrapping babies in, and not for flinging over your adult shoulders, but I think we can work around that.)

Then we ventured into the men's shoe department at Payless Shoes, because Arthur's great galumphing hooves are now too big for the kids' shoes. He's set now, just has to practise tying laces. A stop at MEC for pants, and a jacket for Arthur (Mom found a T-shirt for herself on sale, too!) and we're more or less done. I hope it snows a lot this winter. Arthur's new jacket doesn't have a hood, so, although the house is full of hats and scarves, I'm open to the possibility I'll have to make him something. And all agree that while knitted mitts are fine in England, here we need waterproof ones. Didn't think of that till we were on the streetcar home from MEC, but we've a few months to remedy that, I think.

Sunday we went to the subway station to buy a new pass for me for this week (since I take the kids to camp, come home, go get them and then come home again, a weekly pass makes sense!) and decided to get on the subway and go to High Park. Walked past the animals, played on the giant castle-like play structure, had a hot dog, walked in the woods to the streetcar loop. I took pictures -- one of a moulting peacock, and this one of Arthur's new shoes. Then my battery died, so you don't get to see the llamas (which of course made us sing the song for the next few hours) or the yak or the mountain goats, or even the castle. But, you can see all those things, in the winter, on someone's Flickr page.

On the subway there we met a woman who was crocheting a blanket. I know, roll your eyes, what could be worse than a crocheted blanket, but no! It was all one colour and a nice roundy-flowery pattern and looked really fine. I showed her my sock... Then I was sitting on one of the grown-up seats at the playground (all good playgrounds have a place for the parents to sit and watch, but not actually get in the way) and a kid came by, maybe 4 or 5 years old. "What's that? Are you knitting? Is it a mitten?" all at once. See, you meet the nicest people, knitting in public.

This afternoon, the dentist...

My inner what?

You Belong in Brooklyn

Down to earth and hard working, you're a true New Yorker. And although you may be turning into a yuppie, you never forget your roots.

Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

Hot, hazy and humid

The sky out my front door. Not very blue today, but that hazy summer look.

Project Spectrum in August

A collection of floors (the Louvre, Ely Cathedral, a chapel [St John's?... Actually, we now believe it's Clare] in Cambridge), the beach at Great Yarmouth, and some walls... somewhere. Mostly stone, though I think the reds and golds in Ely must be tiles.

According to plan, I did take my camera out today when I took the kids to the ROM for their summer camp.


There's a big conference on AIDS going on in town here, and this sculpture is just on the streetcorner outside the museum. Stephen Harper is, of course, our prime minister. He didn't show up at this conference, blowing a big chance to be seen doing something, anything...

I also took the camera to the park, where, as usual, the kids tried to run away from me, but with limited success:

Wild socks

I'm almost down to the heel on the second of Arthur's jazzy socks. As you can see, the pooling is completely different on the two socks! I guess it doesn't really matter that they won't exactly match -- they'll be the wildest socks in grade 4 in any case, I bet. (That's my dirty front step they're lying on.)

The green cardigan is coming along, but with more than 300 stitches in a row now, it's slow work. But, if I just keep going, I'll get to divide the stitches and work on a smaller number for just the body or a sleeve... Must keep reminding myself of that...

I was saying to the kids today that I've got out of the habit of carrying my camera around, since I'm not anywhere exciting anymore, just "at home." But there are things going on in the familiar world of downtown Toronto that I could well take a picture of, so I will get back into the habit, I hope.

Streetknittin' on Saturday

Sometimes you just want to knit a hat, know what I mean? Use up some Lopi scraps, have something to knit at the kids' swimming lessons... And so you do, and you look in the hat drawer in the front hall and see a dozen other hats you've knit, and then what do you do? Well, I put them somewhere else and wonder who would like one for Christmas, and then forget about them, and then leave town for a year, and then finally rediscover them... And then I find out about Streetknits, and give them my hats! So my hats will do someone some good, and won't just fill up my hat drawer. Knit on!

And a Saturday sky!

Eye Candy Friday

See what happens when one sits down with a bit of time to spare and cruises blogland? One discovers things like Eye Candy Friday! Post a pretty picture on Friday. Simple enough.

This could lead into Saturday Sky, who knows?

But since today is Friday, we'll start with an eye candy shot. Hmmmm.


This is from the Albert Memorial in London. There are 4 of these large statues representing different parts of the world. Here you have Asia. All our pictures get mixed up once they're downloaded to the computer, and I think Stephen took this one. Yes, pretty sure about that.

New book, no new projects!

I made my way up the hill to Knitomatic the other day and finally found a copy of Norah Gaughan's new book, Knitting Nature. (If you look at it here you can see some of the designs.) I see there's a knitalong! I really like the Vortex Street pullover, and the chemical waves mittens. Her explanation of how basaltic columns form is unfortunately wrong, but we can't have everything. I'd like to show her my spiral defect chaos sweater, so then she'd say, "Oh, you are so clever, we must write a book together!" Right now, though, I'm not starting any new projects, no-sirree!

I've got my second pooling sock, which seems to be pooling a bit differently from the first one (we went to Ikea yesterday, which is a loooong subway ride, so I got a few rows done on that, first in a while) and my Rockpool green cotton cardi, which is getting into the really-long-rows stage. Here's a corner, where back meets sleeve.

And, just in case anyone is thinking of dishcloths for Christmas (only 136 days to go) you can get Sugar n Cream yarn by the cone or ball at Mary Maxim. My old fave store here for such things was Lewiscraft, which has gone belly-up. I've heard that Mary Maxim may be opening some of the old Lewiscraft stores (including the one at Yonge and Eglinton), which would provide us with loads of Sugar n Cream, plus all the tacky plastic canvas kits you'll ever need. But, I repeat, I'm not starting any new projects right now!!

Oh, and about that Ikea trip. Never take small children to Ikea! All through the store we heard miserable kids being dragged about by parents trying to choose between birch and beech without going loopy. We were on our own, and managed to find several things, all of which were more or less in stock (we did have to get a grey chair with a beige slipcover, but that just allows us to have either a beige or grey chair, right?). A lunch of meatballs, hand over the credit card, ride the little shuttle bus back to the subway, and await the delivery truck. And if they say they'll deliver between 4 and 10 pm, they just might show up at 9:58, just telling ya!

Lacy cardigan on its way

I have been working on this green cotton cardigan. In fact, it's a few pattern repeats longer now than when I took the picture. I started with a top-down raglan pattern, using their numbers to get the width across the back and so on, and just increase 1 stitch at the raglan edge of front, sleeve, back, sleeve, front on the knit rows, and increase once in a while on the neck edge for a sort of deep V-neck. I do have to sit and look at it whenever I pick it up, to see where I am, and I have to think about the lace pattern at the raglans -- once I get the sleeves separated from the body, I can just zip along doing the pattern continuously around. It's great fun and I think it'll look good, if I have enough yarn! Perhaps short sleeves with some sort of dangly border?

I've also done a bit of stash sorting and ordering, and it looks like I have enough sock yarn to last me a while! Note that not many of these 50g balls have mates, but who needs matching pairs of socks, anyways?

You may remember the spikes. One day I sent an e-mail to the Victoria and Albert Museum metalwork folks, because I figure if anyone knows, it's the V&A. And I got a reply, which said in part, "Our ironwork expert agrees with your suggestion that the purpose of the grilles was to keep animals or vagrants from sleeping in the corners of fine buildings overnight. We do not have a name for the grilles, but they appear to be 18th century, and most probably English." Still no picture in an 18th-century book, but I think I'm satisfied.

And when I was in England, I showed you things from around town. So here is my view from my Toronto bedroom (one day we will have a deck from which to enjoy this view, but right now we have a doorway out to the roof...). That spiky thing is the CN Tower. Okay, I used a long lens to get it this big, but we can see it!

Moving into August

I have lots of great ideas about Project Spectrum's August "colour" of neutrals/B&W. Seashell colours and rocks galore... I could make a fine felted bag with black and white like this.

But, I am probably not going to get around to any of those cool things! I am blazing away on my Rockpool green cotton cardigan -- top-down raglan V-neck in a diamondy lace. Will show you when my blazing actually produces more than an inch or two of knitting. I'm all set to get this done for September.

I'm so glad the weather has cooled down a bit. I got caught in a torrential downpour yesterday, but really couldn't complain. I had just bought a giant plant pot, which I discovered was no good at keeping the rain off, since it has drainage holes around the bottom, but I did, for a moment, put it on my head a la Devo 1980. (Did you know they still exist as a band??) Mine was way bigger than a Devo energy dome, too!

Well, this is getting silly. Perhaps you can tell that I am not sitting on the porch in my dressing gown today, but inside at a desk! Whoo hoo! My signal strength is excellent! Must be the residuals from the energy dome...

Drop everything and make a sweater, despite the 35C temperatures!

I must admit that I made a second trip to Romni Wools, and got in on the last day of their sale. I was looking at some Jo Sharp cotton in a lovely chartreuse called Parakeet, but it had 35 % microfiber, which I think means polyester, doesn't it? And there were only 10 balls, and it was $7-something a ball (which, especially with another 20% off, is not that much -- And, oy, why didn't I stock up on Rowan in England, because as expensive as it is there, it's way worse here!). Then I found this 100% cotton, in a colour called Rockpool, and it was $6.30 a ball, there were 13 balls, and it seemed an all-round better idea. So now I'm looking through all my old magazines looking for the perfect DK weight cotton sweater that needs 13 balls or less, and I'm having a heck of a time! I'd kind of like to have it for "back to school" time, if I can stop my hands sweating in this weather!

I thought of this lovely from a 1987 Vogue Knitting, but it would be so boring to make! Each row of the netty bit is just yo, p2tog, and then there are the 8-stitch stockinette stripes with a twist every 16 rows! Not very engaging, but don't you just want to do your shopping like she does?

So now I'm thinking of this, from a slightly more recent issue, which I thought was too bed-jackety when it first came out, but now, if I made it longer and generally bigger, I think it'd be cool. It's written for a completely different gauge, and the size large is 37 inches around! So there's some swatching to be done for this one!

Or I might just figure out a nice lacey pattern, start at the top and work down till I use up all the yarn.

And some local updates: Arthur and Stephen both came to Mama Mary's barber shop and got the summer buzz cut! Very stylish, and a good way to beat the heat. Yay for the Deluxe Home Barber Kit! Yes, we did this outside in the twilight...

And some of you in the 'hood know KT, who has gone to England for 6 months. Sheesh, why couldn't we have coordinated that a bit better?? Anyways, she now has a blog, Kentish KT. Check it out, folks.

Well, it's taken most of the day for me to get this done. I'm still getting the wireless from the neighbours, off my front porch. And it pops in and out, so I get stalled in the middle of loading pictures and so on. Friday we should get our very own connection, and then you shall see some action. I have a few big stash bags that I'll sort out as soon as the temperature drops below 30 or so, and several projects to make rash promises about! Found some handles for the denim bag, for instance. But now, it's down to the cool basement for bedtime...

Back to our regularly scheduled program

I think I can stop whining about unpacking now. Well, I'll be unpacking and rearranging for some time, but I'll try to talk about something else! And I really don't want to complain about the heat and humidity, but it's hard... My forearms are sweating, something that doesn't happen just anywhere. Yesterday a bunch of parents went to watch 6-year-old gymnastics camp in a gym, and my, talk about hot! The kids had fans on them, but we grown-ups were just sweltering. It's too hot to do anything, except perhaps go to an air-conditioned shopping mall!

Okay, let's see about some knitting. I did make it to Romni the other day, during their 20% off sale, and I got some stuff. Cheap dishcloth cotton (and really, with these colours, who would pay more?), some garish striping sock yarn for Arthur, and a few balls for the big old wool sweater.

I'm not finding this dishcloth as engrossing as some people do. It's okay, but I'm not going to make a million of them. Perhaps if I had a better colourway, it'd be more fun! I did unearth some more of this cotton in some good greens, but it's too hot to sort stash right now...

I will one day work on the unfinished sock pairs. I have 2 socks done, but different patterns. And another started, but it doesn't match either finished one! These turned out quite odd. The pooling on the leg is on 68 stitches, and the foot, where the colour pattern is much different, is 66 stitches. I toyed with ripping the whole thing out and redoing it with 66 on the leg, but Arthur likes the lightning-bolt look, so we'll stick with it. Just need to graft this toe, then I can use the needles to make sock #2.


And, I know some of you are wondering about the post box situation. Indeed, I shudder when I think of it myself. Look at this, a typical downtown Canadian mail box. Graffiti'd, postered, but at least upright. This is not always the case, as, despite the large weight in the grey base, these can get tipped over. Victoria would never allow her boxes to be tipped over. I think this may be the last postal pic for a while!

On the new-name front: Stephen tells me he will make my life more wonderful with some Mac thingy that he will get. It'll practically write the blog, it'll be more beautiful and easy and all that. But we don't have it just yet. So, instead of setting up new blog #1 and then having to switch again, we'll just all pretend we are still on the Cam for a while longer.

Not cleaning anything

I'll just sit here on the porch, catching the neighbours' wireless and taking a break from cleaning. I just washed all the cutlery, and the drawer, and soon I'll go back in and rearrange it all. Since I try not to gripe on the blog, I'll not go into all the grrrrrs and arggggggs about moving back into the house. But really, worse words than that were flying around the place as we discovered the extent of the carelessness of our tenants....

I have rediscovered some stash. I have some lovely felting projects in mind for my Patons Classic Merino, and I found some nice pinky cotton for a top for Elaine, and I found my one poor ball of Kidsilk Haze -- I was making a lace scarf with it, and making too many mistakes, so I tried to rip it out. It wasn't quite in a tangled mess, but somewhere along the line the yarn got broken and it looks forlorn, a few inches of lace off the needles.

Sometime next week I plan a trip to Romni Wools, a giant shop with everything a girl could want. I need more colours for my many coloured Lopi sweater. I know I said I'd finish it in England, but I didn't manage. It's destined to be a gift, but the grand occasion isn't coming up any time soon, so I'm not really in a rush.

Okay, must go dry dishes and put things away. Next time, perhaps some pictures!

Some choice pictures

Here are the kids on the platform at King's Cross. You can see how thrilled they are to be sitting on a pile of luggage.

And here's the chopsticks and knitting. I got Elaine to take a picture or two of me in the airport getting started, but I had bad hair and looked too fat. This happened when we got to the Ed VIII post box, too -- I looked at a picture Arthur had taken and then asked him to take another, with me looking more fit and trim, and he still had me looking fat! These kids... Anyways, my new get thin regime involves moving from a two-storey house to a 4-storey house. All the junk is in the basement or main floor, and has to get to the bedrooms on the top floor! So, thin thighs in 30 days, for sure....

And while we were in London we went to the Geffrye Museum and took this picture in the garden.

Wow, three pictures and a link! Soon I'll have my own network connection, and a mouse would be nice, too. Hmm, a desk?? But from a laptop actually on my lap, I think I'm doing okay!

Home again, at last

We've arrived... We spent most of yesterday sitting at Heathrow, glad to be rid of our huge amount of luggage, and fretting about how we would deal with it all at the Toronto end. Flight was uneventful. Terrible Harrison Ford movie -- I hope that he was supposed to look miserable, because he sure did. Of course, it might have been better if I'd listened to the sound.... I asked the woman at the check-in about knitting, and she said I could take wooden needles. But I didn't have any wooden needles, so I stuck with plan A, which was Rowan Chunky Print on chopsticks. I made a narrow but long scarf, but finished it over the middle of the Atlantic.

Got to our house. The tenants left a rather large amount of junkola. Recycling in a pile. Spent candles all over the place. Furniture not where we left it. I think they ran out of dishwasher soap shortly before moving, and so ran the dishwasher without soap a few times, so everything is sort of mucky. Nothing devastating, but lots of little cleaning up to do, and of course, we have to unpack our 7 bags, 1 box, 2 carry-ons and whatever, plus the basement pile we left.

Sorry, no pictures. Where is the camera-to-computer cable? Which neighbour's wireless shall I use? And all that jazz. Haven't unpacked the stash yet, but Arthur will help with that!

Oh, and I hope to have a new name for the blog soon! Did you know that "Mary Knits" backwards is "Stinky Ram"? But I don't think I'll use that...

Last day!

Things have calmed down a bit here. We are amazed at the number of tourists... Foolish us! We went to Greenwich Saturday, and yesterday the boys did some exploring and the ladies had a leisurely afternoon in the park and so on. I went to Loop and got some summer knitting magazines for the plane ride. Today, we'll go back to the Diana playground and then pack our last bits up. We have a giant cab booked for tomorrow, so I guess we're all set.

One step forward

I am here at my friend's kitchen table in London, with a pile of bags in the living room and the rest of the family still snoozing (sort of).

What a day yesterday! We got up, ate the last of the bacon, with a can of creamed corn to use it up, and started the laundry business. When you put all your stuff in a truck and move across town, you can just toss your dirty laundry in the truck, too. But we had to leave all the bedding clean for the next tenants in the house, and there was no truck involved! So, we set to work, and we managed to wash the floors, deliver other bits of leftovers to friends and were ready to go at 1 pm.

Call a cab. "We'll need a van, because we have lots of luggage," we said. They sent a station wagon, which was cheaper, but Arthur and I in the back had a large duffel bag across our legs.

We managed, with teamwork and clever planning, to get all the bags to the platform, get tickets, get a sandwich. Then we had mere seconds to get on the train with 7 million other people, who all had a suitcase as well! We finally just blocked the doorway with our bags, and I got to sit down, with Elaine on my lap, on the one remaining seat, and when we got to London, we just shoveled everything out the doors and made a pile. Stephen went off in search of a baggage cart, and returned half an hour later, with three! Lucky, since they were small! Don't people usually move 7 bags, a box, a car seat, 2 carry-on suitcases, 4 backpacks and lunch?? Sheesh.

Elaine and I settled into a cab, where the luggage was packed in around us, and Arthur and Stephen walked, and we all got to Katherine's house where we had a cuppa tea and settled down a moment. Plain old pasta for supper, watch a movie, all is calm.

Then, Katherine was going to put things away in the garden, and noticed a dead rat on the grass. This distracted her from her job of covering up the patio table, and while she was ducking under an overhanging tree, she banged her head on an open window, and blood poured from her head. Really. Then I used the electric kettle to rinse the blood off the pavement and when I put it back on the base, it blew the power in the house.

Finally, the blood stopped flowing, the rat was disposed of, the power was restored, and we all went to bed. I even got the patio table covered!

I hope today will be uneventful...

Edited later: Kath's husband came home late at night and whisked her off to the emergency, where they glued her head back together. She's fine, but can't wash her hair for a few days!

Full speed ahead

Arthur and Stephen went to the airshow at Duxford last weekend, and saw this. I saw the picture this morning and thought, "That's the kind of power we'll need to get all this stuff outta here!"

Are we there yet?

We have a houseful of boxes and bags. We have to show the landlady the house tomorrow, and it'd be nice if she could actually see the floor. Stephen and I keep going back and forth about "We can fit it all in, easy" and "Go get more boxes, we'll have to mail a ton of stuff!" Right now, he's on the fit it in side, and I'm on the "we'll never make it" side. I'm sure that'll change several times over the next few hours, as we unearth and sort more stuff...

We had a bash here to say farewell, except I think I'll be seeing most people one more time. Anne blogged it all here. I love it when I can make one dish and have a party with loads of good food!

And since no one wants to see a picture of my house of bags, I'll just show you Arthur, then and now. We've not quite been here a year, but I started fiddling with the blog before we left Toronto, so I've actually passed my blogiversary without noticing. One day in June I thought it was July, and thought then that I'd passed the date, but now, really, I have. Happy belated blogiversary to me.

Hey, I just figured this out

Some pictures of kids, and the occasional adult, on holiday. As you can see, they sometimes try to evade me...

A swift look at Cornwall

I'm going to show a few pictures and tell a couple of tales, but I can't do the full show and tell here, folks. We're having a party tomorrow (haha, welcome to my home, don't trip over anything, and you'll have to wash your own dishes...). Yesterday I did about half the laundry, and it took all day. Jeez Louise...

Anyways, let's see how quick and succinct I can be here. First, a complaint: On their web page, Ryanair does not list knitting needles as forbidden items (but no crampons, darts, harpoons or ice picks, please) but the security folks at Stansted won't let them through. A whole hour each way with no knitting. (And then I checked the Air Canada page and they do have a little picture of dangerous knitting needles! A whole flight across the Atlantic with no knitting!? I'll figure something out! Pencils will do!)

But, okay, I'm being succinct. Succinctly, we shoulda taken the train! Flying seems cheap, when the tickets are 14p each, but with all the extra charges, and with the savings of our family railcard, I think it would have worked out about the same. And it seems fast, except that you have to hang around at the airport for hours before the flight and get to the airport and all. When we were leaving Penzance to get back to the Newquay airport, we figured that the train we started out on would get to London at about the time the plane was taking off from Newquay.

Ah well, let's have some pretty pictures...

These are some shells on some beach. I'm all ready for August, when Project Spectrum goes neutrals! Great colours here. The infinite variety of Nature and all that.

We went to lots of beaches, and I believe this is Fistral Beach, the surfing beach in Newquay. (They've been surfing here since "1966" as it says on the van!) There are plenty of beaches on this twisty turny coast. In the morning we did the "swimming beach" which had a mysterious tunnel with a locked door at the end, presumably once used for smuggling barrels of brandy in. Now, judging by the debris found, it is apparently used for drinkin' beer and playin' cards! This was also the beach where a seagull flew right up and snatched a baguette out of Elaine's hand! Practically right out of her mouth! Then, of course, that seagull was pursued by every other seagull on the beach, and who knows what happened to the bread.

But later that first day we went to this other beach covered with surf dudes (please tell me that in California, the surf dudes do not have 3 inches of Calvin Klein underwear sticking up out of their saggy-baggy shorts!) and dudettes. Arthur got wet, and then lay down and made an angel in the sand. Lovely. There were not only stretches of smooth sandy beach, but also some cool rocks to clamber around on, with tide pools and hiding places.

Day 2, Tintagel, birthplace of King Arthur and spectacular rock. Apparently there was a fire on the site about 20 years ago, and then archeologists started looking around more, finding expensive imported wares from Africa, dating back almost to Roman times. So someone big and rich and important lived here. Since the castle now looks like nothing more than a few piled up rocks, Elaine was miffed, to say the least. "It's not a real castle! They say it's a castle but it's nnnnnoootttttt!" It is, however, very steep and high and covered in wildflowers and there's a cave and a great coastline and really, it's very impressive.

Next day, off to Falmouth. The harbour is full of big and small boats. There was a Russian "tall ship" in. We spent the afternoon at the Maritime Museum, which was great. Go there! There were lots of actual boats to admire, both in the water and out, and little toy ones to sail on a windy sea, and a lifeboat to pose in! There was an exhibit about endurance at sea, telling the stories of people who, intentionally or not, found themselves stuck in the Pacific in a dinghy or something!

We managed to plan our Cornwall vacation to take in a friend's wedding. It was in a wee little church, in a wee little town. A bat flew out of the belfry when the bellringers started up!

After the wedding, we headed to Penzance. More beaches, pasties, caves for smugglers. And no report would be complete without a posting box! I took lots of postal pictures on this trip, but I'll spare you most of them.

We went to the Admiral Benbow, the pub which figures in Treasure Island. It was full of nautical stuff, like figureheads, bits of sterns, ships' steering wheels, ropes and pirates and things all over! And good burgers, too.

We spent our last day on a bus trip which took us to Land's End. Really, Land's End is a bit of rock that sticks out a bit farther than all the other bits of rock along that coast. But in case that is not thrilling enough, there's a hotel there, amusements of all sorts, audio-visual displays and tourist traps galore. And "talking telescopes" which tell you all about the lighthouses, shipwrecks, birds and whatever. We could still see part of a ship that ran aground here in 2003, carrying tonnes of scrap plastic from cars. Ick.

I wish we had had more time to hike around, but we had to get the bus in time to get the train to get to Newquay to get a cab to get to the airport to get our plane to Stansted where we got a bus to Cambridge, and a last cab ride home.

But really, I just wanted to show you these flowers!
Not very succinct, but now I've done my duty to my faithful readers. And can return to my real life as a laundress....

Home again

We are back. I've never had such a huge pile of such filthy laundry... And the house is full of end-of-school papers, unsorted and spreading rapidly. Pictures of kids up to their armpits in sand are being downloaded as I write this. Clean underwear is in the dryer. Stay tuned to see how it all works out....