Cricket

The wet weather we're having cleared long enough for Ryan's cricket game on Saturday, and he christened the Perfect Cricket Sweater, i.e., got it covered in mud. So I washed it. Note to self and other knitters: always check the colour fastness of contrast yarn!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Cleckheaton Country I used for the red and the bottom black stripe was fine. the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino I used for the black at the neck bleed horribly. I'm not impressed. It's ok, still wearable, just a bit smudgy.

I'm aiming to get the pattern up very soon. I was thinking a 6, 8 and 10 (this is the 6, designed to fit loose). Do I need a 4 as well? Seeing as it's the season for giving I want to make this a charity knit (Pakistan flood relief feels appropriate), but haven't quite sorted the logistics of it. Do I make it a free pattern with a suggestion people make a donation themselves (put a link on the pattern), or do I make it a pay pattern and donate from the proceeds myself (and do I donate all or some?), and hope people trust me to do so? How many people actually follow through with suggestions to donate to charity instead of payment? Must stop thinking so much!

First week of the school holidays...

Well, at least the farmers will be happy.  During a break in the rain the kids and I had celebratory end-of-year ice chocolates at our favourite out door cafe, the Greasy Spoon in Newtown.  You'll never guess why it's a favourite with the children, could it possibly be the actual real car you can play in? 

Ryan bought a Harry Potter wand from the Coin Save, the packet had pictures showing "Function" glowing lights and sound! Turns out the one Ryan bought was the model "without Function", but he's still pretty happy with his functionless plastic stick.
 

Christmas is coming as they say, so we've got a tree.  A real one of course, in spite of the sneezing.  I'm not entirely convinced about Ryan's addition of red tinsel, and look, it wasn't raining that evening.

And went to see Santa.  Santa was having some trouble with his padding, and had to keep a tight hold on it.  He must be miserable in all that Santa gear in this humidity, at least Kirk's has air conditioning.  The kids loved their windows this year :-)

Zoe's been reading Phillip Pullman lately, and it seems to have made a bit of an impression.  She wears that bag constantly, inside it she carries her alethiometer that came in a cereal packet.  She's been whispering to her daemon a fair bit as well.  How cool to be 9 and 3/4s and totally immersed in your imagination!

Noooooooooooooo

Bitten by the yarn chicken.

You'd think the world would be full of boy's cricket vest patterns, but I couldn't find one just right so I've made my own.  8ply, in the round, simple cables.  I'm really happy with this vest, hoping to get a (free!) pattern up soon, just need to find a smidgeon more yarn to finish this one off. 

Three Days in the South Island

Found in the Sea turns tourist, and the only knitting is Zoe's Olearia cardy that we lost in Nelson.

An early morning ferry out of Wellington.

What the heck is in that slushy stuff?  Lucky it was a smooth crossing, I'd hate to see that come back up.



A vineyard lunch, floating lemon leaf boats. 

Allan Scott in Marlborough, a favourite stop for us on our trips out to Golden Bay.

The children approved of our accommodation.

Guests are encouraged to forage in the garden!

 SO many rabbits, we saw dozens every day.  Not a good thing, rabbit numbers are getting completely out of control again (now they're all immune to RCV), but still they are so darn cute.

 If it looks hot in these photos, it's because it was. 

I retreated to the bedroom to play with the Hipstamatic camera on my iPhone.

Next morning we drove to Nelson for my Grandmother's funeral.  Hymns, bagpipes, tea and sausage rolls in the church hall.  I do wonder who's going to make the tea in a few years time - those church ladies are all getting very old....

Afterwards we took the kids to the playground at Tahuna beach.  I love all the old equipment that's been there since I was a baby, but I was not happy to find the rocket slide has been taken away!   The Hipstamatic seemed the way to go, because I swear it's permanently 1973 at Tahuna beach.

Ryan's sulky because he wants to sit on the big seal.

It was stinky hot again, and I just couldn't keep the kids out of the water.  Warm water!  The sea where we live is always freeeeeezing, but the shallow Nelson Bays are gorgeously warm.

Driving back to Marlborough should have taken about an hour and a half, but there was an accident on the road over the Rai Saddle, and we were stuck in the heat for about an hour.  Very sobering, it was a head-on collision by the look of the wreckage, they had to bring in the rescue helicopter, and cut the roof right off one of the cars.

Back in Marlborough it was 32 degrees so we retreated to the shade with a bottle of wine and took photos of each other ;-) 

Cats apparently, not sheep.

I (foolishly and against all experience) hoped the summery weather might last forever, but this week my daughter has gone on school camp, so of course it's cold and wet.

Cute, cute, cute

Busy, busy in the run up to Christmas, and the summer holidays only 2 weeks away.  so much I wanted to get done before I get the kiddos home fulltime - so much I am not going to get done!

But indulge me 2 lovely booklets I picked up today:

Another Stitchcraft publication from the late 40s (authority standards still being conformed to).  Bunnies, squirrels...  how cute are these? 

And a real surprise, No.2 Viyella Knitting Book!  Missing its cover, but these are lovely (I already have No.3).  I love the 1920s style illustrations.

Look - schematics!  How modern.

How sweet and old-fashioned is this?  We've been watching Boardwalk Empire and these books put me right in that era.

Back to real life now.

A Poem Today

The Explosion
by Philip Larkin

On the day of the explosion

Shadows pointed towards the pithead
In the sun the slagheap slept

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke;
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins,
Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon, there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun
Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.

The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God's house in comfort,
We shall see them face to face -

Plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said, and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion

larger than in life they managed -
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,

One showing the eggs unbroken.


RIP Pike River Miners

My Grandmother....

My always knitting, often reading, Coro watching, Doric speaking, cake baking, thimble collecting, wool spinning, berry picking, lemon growing, cat owning, goat owning, Morris Traveller driving, hat and glove wearing, church going, picnic organising, beach combing 90 year old Grandma died yesterday afternoon. 

She was my rock, my love, and always my inspiration.  Her journey took her from Aberdeen in Scotland, to the North of England, and finally and permanently to Nelson, New Zealand.  She had the coolest swimming togs ever, a university education (majoring in mathematics, she wanted to teach high school maths but the authorities of the time decreed a young woman could only teach infants), had 5 children (4 of them girls, my mother was the eldest), supported her GP husband and worked herself, and was always, always knitting (and sometimes spinning and dyeing as well).

I remember a busy, never quite tidy house full of young adults and children, family and friends, books and wool and records and cake tins and cold cuts and salad and hardboiled eggs, and the magnets on the fridge holding up our drawings. In the garden cats and dogs and goats and guinea pigs and lemon trees, tricycles and tennis rackets, Grandad watering his roses and Uncle Rod having a smoke.  And in the middle of it, knitting with a cat on her lap, I see my lovely Grandma and I just want to snuggle in her warmth and feel that uncontrollable smile that would creep over my face as a child when I knew I was about to see my Grandma.

So, tonight I shall knit.  A cat may or may not condescend to sit with me, but I think I'll be happy all the same.