Flibbertygibbet

Just in time...

...to wish you all the very merriest of Christmases, or whatever particular holiday it is that you celebrate at this time of year. Still working on the decorations, just a little done so far - but will be doing some updating over the next few days, and of course on here too. But my first Christmas present-come-early is the return of broadband - yeehaw!  xx

Drowning AND Waving

**Edited to put in the photos!**

The drowning part refers to the tides of mucus that have been threatening to overwhelm me (yes, yes I know, far more information than you could ever have wanted but frankly I'm through with being stoic about my lurgy - 10 days and counting -  as I'm BORED OF IT by now) and the waving is 'Hello. I'm not actually dead.' Not physically anyway.

Would you believe that there were approximately seven minutes of clear light on Sunday afternoon in murky London town and I had my camera to hand albeit with a dying battery which nevertheless lasted through about twenty shots and there was actually enough clear space by the window to pile up yarncakes and finally take photos?

If BT weren't such a shower of shits I could possibly show them to you.  Basically even though they have now removed the 'tag' from the line which would enable me to get broadband, (after the requisite two weeks that they are 'allowed' to take) or will do tomorrow, it can take another two weeks for my chosen broadband supplier to get my service up and running, because BT can prat them around, as far as I can make out.  Of course, if I'd chosen to go with BT, they could have connected me straight away...  I told the woman I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.  All so very very dissatisfactory.  Hence no photos so no blogging.  At some point this may revert from being a whinge-misery blog back to something with a little relevance past my navel.  Well, you can only hope.

So: so far we've got about 70% of the Christmas crafting done. [Imagine the pictures. You're creative.].

Dad's specially requested bedsocks - long and stripey and fun, just need the Kitchener stitch treatment. Oh who am I kidding, it will be a three-needle cast off, most likely.  These were - ahem - created in two different Lana Grossa yarns because one kept splitting - annoyingly, once I got to the heel of the second sock.  I've probably mentioned that I usually knit both socks to the heel flap stage and then turn both heels together so was really peeved about this.  I thought I'd have to start over - then decided to join in another ball which actually works quite well as they have a marled blue and white stripe in common.  They are bedsocks so I don't think he'll object though they do look like they should have a satsuma and a 50p piece in the toe, as is traditional with Christmas stockings.

Maternal Granny's Clapotis - I bought Louisa Harding Kimono Angora in the orange/pink/purple-grey colourway to make a clap for my aunt.  This was before I was informed that orange is her favourite colour (WTF? Seriously, what happened to the passion for pink?) and it all kept going horribly, horribly wrong and though everyone was trying to rescue it, it wasn't get any better much faster. 

So rather than beating that particularly dead horse, I started on one in Debbie Bliss pure silk in that perfect pumpkin colour, in the second lot of yarn that I bought specifically for my aunt. Using stitch markers and the fact that you can clearly see the drops etc in the silk seem to have clinched it and it went swimmingly. The angora one is now finished too, and will be for my granny. 

Paternal Granny's bedsocks - toe-up, no less, in scrumptious plum coloured Blue Sky Alpaca Silk.  I'm cheating and doing an afterthought heel.  They are 70% done.

 

After that, it's a simple lace scarf in Colormart cashmere for my mum.  She asked for something light but warm so I think this will fit the bill.   However I think it's going to have to be presented unwashed and unblocked - i.e. still oiled - so it won't have the full cashmere bloom until after it's been washed, though knowing my mother she'll be 'ooh now don't be bothering with washing it...'

Then something for me - possibly the feather and fan scarf in the Knitwitches silk and mohair (bought at the I Knit Stitch and Bitch Day - the yarn is lovely but luckily I didn't hold my breath waiting for her to put the patterns she was touting up on the web, as they're still not there) that we wound together when the girls all descended on Tash's for the Bloc(k) Rewind party some weeks ago now.  This was before I got my own ballwinder and swift, the procurement of which is another story altogether...

I also have great plans to make little gifts for my friends - everyone getting pretty much the same thing, though of course I have now lost some confidence in that idea and so may have to head out next week to go shopping instead.  Urgh.

Still job hunting, still battling to get a working washing machine.  The latter may now be in situ, thanks to my lovely friend Helen who camped out for a couple of days, pretty much, so that I could pretend to be waiting for the service engineer yesterday when I was actually off on job interviews, and when the engineer screwed up yesterday she came back today to wait for him so that I could go to work.  Little star that she is.  I did make her supper including dessert as a small thank you - still loving the new Nigella cook book. Still slightly bemused by the tv programme.

There's some jewellery on the go; Christmas presents; a make-swap with someone whose work I adore; and the letterpress needs to be cranked up.  And a baby quilt and a baby present-yet-to-be-determined.  And then someone tells me that apparently it's mid-December? Cancel Christmas.  I can't quite get my head around it this year.

Damn you, BT

Yeah, another post with no photos, but firstly I'd need to be home in daylight to take any photos of the flat, and my currently duller-than-Newsnight job is keeping me out of the house all day; and besides I have no damn internet! 

First phone call to BT: "Yes, you look all fine to go. I just have to check the line. Can you give me a mobile number to call you back on?"  Silence for five days. No phone line.

Second phone call to BT: "Whoops, oh yes, I don't know what he was thinking. You need to pay a £25 deposit because the previous tenant has an outstanding bill.  But this is your new number and you'll be good to go."  Oh, ok then.  I pay the cash.  Nothing for a week.  Still no line.

Third call to BT: "The previous occupants have told us that their service should be shut down on the 27th so you should have your line connected five working days after that."  WTF?

Fourth call to BT: far too dull to relate. At time of writing I'm still on hold (35 minutes and counting) for the servicing department. 

As no phone line generally means no broadband, I'm now looking around for another provider. It slightly scares me how much I have come to rely on the internet, for banking, communication, shopping, the lot.  I feel like something is off-kilter without an invisible cyberstream connecting me to the outside world.

This partly means that I've been getting out in the world again, meeting up with real and virtual friends (the ones you meet randomly through t'internet) and shopping (Knitwitches silk and mohair, maybe to be plied together and some sock yarn from Easyknits who's just the nicest and most bashful yarn dealer I've ever met - as Claire said, he couldn't even look up "ego" in the dictionary,) all at the I Knit London SnB day - in fact if you look on their blog, there's a picture of some of us on there.  After that we went to White Mischief which was also very enjoyable, even if Claire and Lucy did have to guide me past the Skin Orchestra (piercings, strings, blood, bleurgh) with my eyes closed (quite fitting for the event really).

There are a ton of things that I want to do at the moment - finish off the last quilt, the clapotis #2 and start on two pairs of socks (how will that ever happen for Christmas) and then I've decided rather than making something for my mum, I'm buying her some really lovely yarn so that she can knit her own Clap.  She is working on knitting something for me but she thinks it's far too big so we'll try on at Christmas. I am just glad that my crafty - in all ways - plan has worked, which was to get her knitting again.  Then there are little Christmas presents for lots of other lovely people that really need to get off the bloody drawing board as it's midway through November... given that I started my Christmas knitting about April this year, this is shocking.

A rash promise made after quite a few glasses of red wine means that I have committed myself to emptying the flat of cardboard boxes by the 18th (a nominal date, the birthday of one of the people who was present) so there are a few to go.  These are the niggly 'what did I bother bringing that for I guess I'd only end up buying a new one next Easter does that even fit any more I only took it because I wasn't leaving it for him' type boxes.  But I'm getting into nesting quite nicely.  Most things are unpacked, there's just some reorganisation to be done. It turns out that there is so much fabric that it takes up almost the entirety of the spare room, and the yarn has had to move to the sitting room, on its little yarn legs.  It occured to me that I have made the cake but not iced it - all the ingredients from my life are there but the embellishments are still waiting to be attached before it gets served up - curtains to be hung, a table to be assembled (with dinner guests around it, soon hopefully) and paintings to be galleried about the walls.  So I guess I just need me a drill.  Oh Jesus.

Back soon

Thanks for all the lovely comments - we're in the new flat, hurrah!  No internet connection though - boo! No heating either but I'm more worried about the lack of web access.  Great fun on Saturday, to see Lucy's blog for more details. Back soon! x

On the cusp

Firstly the good news is that it wasn't a stroke, it was a brain haemorrhage.   The really crap news is that in Ireland if you get sick on a bank holiday you don't get any treatment until the bastard consultants come back from their holiday.  Anyway, she's in and out of it but apparently has stepped back from the edge.  Thanks for all the good wishes.

Today has been such an intense day.

Up very early.  Phone call to the wonderful kitchen fitters which wasn't quite what I was hoping for - there's been a miscommunication and I found out that they weren't coming today to replumb the radiators.  So a chilly weekend in store.  It all got a bit much and I burst into tears (after I got off the phone) and then regained a sense of perspective and remembered I have an electric heater.  Must make sure I pack it near the top of a box.

As some of you who know me well will have realised, I have been stretched quite thinly for the last while.  Not physically (unfortunately) but there's been a lot going on - partly my own doing, my own fault let's say -  and keeping your head above water isn't the same as 'dealing' as our cousins across the pond might say.  I have a soft spot for Halloween, the night when the veil is thinnest...exactly a year ago I was thinking about embarking on Nanowrimo, and then over a mediocre last supper, MPH finally confessed to what I'd suspected all along - that he was having an affair.  Basically, it's been a surreal year.  I am so glad of lovely friends who've subtly held me together and continue to do so - and this mainly refers to the kindness of knitters who've propped me up and continue to organise me (and assemble flat pack furniture - thank you Claire, Ian, Gruff and Ting!) and be utterly sympathetic.  You're right, he is a big silly bastard and I am wonderful and deserve better.  (that's the gist of what you all tell me and I choose to believe you're right!)

I find it rather fitting that the year has come full circle and 365 days after my world fell apart, it's been reconstructed and expanded and has become that much richer and more colourful and I think that somehow I am more me.  A year ago I wouldn't have been coming home from lunch with a publisher, an author and four talented aspiring writers, invigorated and inspired to write (and starting over but that's news for another post), although I'm simultaneously scared silly about all sorts of things.  I have some regrets and some sadness but lots of hope and optimism.  Anyway, thanks to all you lovely  people (virtual and real friends) for keeping me on my toes.  Both alert, and upright. 

Better keep packing the boxes.  Jesus, there are a lot of them and I'm only about 80% there...cross your fingers that it all goes ok tomorrow!

Mwah mwah to you all....

I love Lucy

I'm just back from Ikea where I dropped a grand.  Eeek. But as the lovely Lucy, who accompanied me said, I have just furnished a flat. Lucy, you're a star, thank you for coming with me.  She not only schlepped four flat trolleys around with me, she also stopped me from going too mad or forgetting things.  I also saw Lucy for lunch as we work around the corner from each other, and we were expecting to be joined by Caroline but she had to run off to what turned out to be a successful job interview (hurrah!)

That was the good bits of today.  On the way to lunch I bumped into my boss - who'd just found out he didn't officially get the job he was offered verbally on Monday.  He's understandably pissed off.  (And when I was leaving the office this evening, he was uncharacteristically shouting at our chairman over the phone during a conference call so I'm not really expecting him to come back after his holidays next week.)  I got a text from my mum during lunch to say that she was in the hospital with my grandmother who's had a suspected stroke.  It's a bank holiday weekend in Ireland and apparently it was carnage in the hospital, my granny was lucky to be on a trolley as some people were in chairs.  She was found by her art teacher yesterday who came to collect her for class and saw her collapsed on the floor - she hammered on the door and my gran actually stood up to let her in. But now it's a waiting game.  Somehow, though I feel as if she will be ok.

My mother has ordered me to not even think about going home - I am very, very glad that lots of lovely people had already volunteered to help with moving and furniture and whatever because my parents had initially offered to come over and I want them to be over there now with her.  It's weird as I have to admit that I'm not particularly close to my maternal grandmother, which makes me feel almost a little guilty, but naturally I am worried.  Still, there's not a lot I can do right here, right now.  The angora clapotis is her  Christmas present.  I'm going to do a few rows before bed, and send her good thoughts.

No news really

But it's all good really - usual shenanigans from MPH; battling away with the last of the freelance job; dying to see all of my lovely friends again.   It's been waaaaay too long, though I did sneak in a lunch with the lovely Lucy on Friday, as we work near each other and I saw Ting for a bit of a giggle last week, very briefly. Or was it the week before...  But the kitchen is mostly done, apart from the fact that the incorrect extractor fan which I ordered was broken when it arrived, so the wonderful kitchen guys are supplying one, and coming back to fit it along with new valves on the radiators.  When the fitters slept in the flat the other night (fine by me) they worked out that the rad in the sitting room didn't switch on and the rad in the bedroom didn't switch off.  They're coming back with new valves.  The decorating continues apace and after all the ruminations about what colours to choose, I went with (wait for it...) magnolia. I have my reasons.  Photographic evidence to follow.  Decisions to be made about how to finish the kitchen (not sure I want it tiled, I think that might make it look even more 'compact and bijou') and the flooring, which the brilliant decorator can also take care of.  Obviously, I am hoping that it all turns out like this.  I have to say I've been incredibly lucky with the tradesmen I've found so far - they are really going beyond the call to help me out.  I think they've realised I'm not exactly a DIY genius, to say the very least.

Really looking forward to doing some crafty stuff again too. Had a bit of a disaster with Dad's Christmas socks - the yarn keeps splitting, so have to unearth the bag of sock yarn and figure out what to do there.  Possibly join in a different yarn for the heels down.  I have started packing up - and I'm following the rule of packing the most important things first.  So there's one box of books and one box of fabric packed up.  The latter even has 'precious' scrawled across it, in case anyone should treat it with less than the respect it deserves.  The movers are booked for the 1st.  Aaarrggggghhhhhhhh!

I'm about to do some creative writing, as I think I'm about to be unemployed so it's time to get the CV out again.  Though I'm not participating in Nanowrimo this year, because in theory I want to press on with what I've started, I do want to settle into getting some writing done so a group of us are joining together to spur each other on.   The Misses Almost Write meet with the Cosmo/Little Brown/Waterstones people on the 31st - we're all trying to decide whether we wear jeans or get dressed up. Will lunch be at the Ivy or the local McDonalds (I know which one my money's on...) and how will the feedback go.  Of course, depending on the discussion, I may decided to trash it and start over...

Oh, get over yourself

We have a moving date.  Hallelujah.  And as of last night, half a kitchen and one room almost decorated.  Who knows what it will look like by this evening! Lots of lovely people are helping me with the move which is great.  I am coming down with all kinds of option paralysis - funny, because if it was someone else who was moving, I am sure I would be able to be more helpful!

I've done a lot more wallpaper stripping (the woodchip was a walk in the park compared to what was underneath) which took 5 man- and woman-days to shift and also meant that I missed out on Ally Pally.  Yes, I know I don't need any more yarn, but there were lovely people having fun, and there was yarn, and cake, and I missed it...though my lovely big brother did help me with it.  (But Lucy did purchase something for me...)

I'm freelancing and temping though the latter may dry up quite soon so I have to start looking for alternatives.  That's a little bit terrifying but we're not going to get too worried just yet.   Especially as that does is make everything else seem gloomy.  So I'm getting my CV out to agencies instead.

Not much time for writing or socialising, so roll on November - when I should be in my new house and maybe even getting to do some writing.  I am very tempted to try NaNoWriMo again, but think that this might be a bit too much...

Yes, I'm still alive

Seems like a long time since I've been around here.

Lots of stuff going on, as usual. 

The parental decorating team came in and worked little miracles. Or in the case of the woodchip, acts of god.  The lovely Caroline, bless her, thought that the picture in the last post was the woochip coming off in beautiful bold swathes.  Sadly not the case, that pic was of the bedroom.  It's horrible, horrible stuff.

Can you spot the differences in the pictures below?

The last one, of course, features a newly skimmed ceiling.  Hurrah for my lovely plasterer Bradley.  He'd said that he'd come over to take another look after we cut away part of the plaster around the cracks, to see what we were dealing with.  On Tuesday I called him and told him that the 'labourers' had removed it all... on Wednesday  I get a call from Bradley to say that the plumber on the job he was at had screwed up, and that he had a free day the next day, did I want him to come over.  Oh hell yeah.  (The waiting for most tradesmen in London, reputable or otherwise is about six weeks during the quiet time - which isn't this time of year as apparently everyone wants their places decorated for Christmas).  Now I've got to take off the last yellow layer of lining paper, according to the two decorators who came around today.  Here's hoping it won't take too long - last thing I want is to loosen the new plaster either but it will have been up there two weeks when I get to steaming the last lot of paper off.  Who wants to come and help?

Have been spending money like a loon - on kitchen appliances and cupboards.  Cross your fingers it all turns up next week when it's supposed to.  My lovely brother is taking a couple of days holidays to come over and accept goods, assemble flat pack furniture etc.  What a little star he is.

Some wallpaper samples have turned up and it seems as if I'm definitely going for robin's egg blue in the hallway.  With gold, perhaps.  Some of the samples baffle me - the one on the left in the picture has about 1/5 of the repeat on the sample, so not that useful.

I adore the Colefax and Fowler Honeysuckle Trail paper, on the right.  Now it just remains to be seen whether (a) I would still love it in six months' time, and (b) whether it could be procured quickly enough.  Though I won't hear for a few days when either decorator would be able to fit me in, or indeed what the quote is which will dictate just how much decorating I can afford (I'm sort of wondering how to bribe Abi into helping me hang this stuff next year...).

I'm trying to be uncommonly sensible in terms of how much I am doing to the flat and what I can spend.  Going for flexible options, mindful that it's more than likely that I will be getting someone in to share the flat in January.  So while the dream of a writing/craft room lives on, it might have to be repurposed (rerepurposed?) as a bedroom in due course - so it's a no to the fixed wall of bookcases.  A room divider

that can be moved into my bedroom if necessary seems a more sensible option.  As I'm sure I've said before, I am going to have to be very disciplined in terms of what I can tote with me to the new place. This makes me break out in a cold sweat as I'm both a hoarder (keep everything) and an accumulator (get the whole set/fabric range/one in every colour/every skein they have on sale) and now is the time to start getting really ruthless.  You know, as soon as I typed that, my head started to hurt. I think I'll need some help with that...

So what are the priorities?

[A] room to write.  A suitable desk.

 

The moggies. I was thinking about a house-warming party on Friday, wondering about dates.  Then I literally stopped in my tracks, as I stomped through the park, as I thought 'WTF am I going to do with the cats if I have a party?'  On previous occasions they hid outside or upstairs.  That won't be an option now if there's people in the house - I'm a bit scared of how they will react.  Soft in the head, I know.

Crafting.  Sewing machines, fabric, notions. Yarn and needles including UFOs that take up bags on their own.

Cooking.  I have such an extensive collection of Le Creuset that it makes me think 'Maybe I should invite some people over for lunch soon and use some of this stuff'.  To justify keeping it all.

Lots of books will be left behind, or hopefully sold.  Only the most precious nick nacks will make the grade.  Clothing selections will be severely scruntinised and shoes will be culled without mercy.  I'm still dithering over the second dinner service though I do expect to take the three tea sets.

Blast.  Do you see the sort of dilemma I'm going to have?

The Liberty 'event' last week was fun, especially as lots of lovely ladies were there - Caroline, Lucy, Jenny, Ting, Pauline, Tash and I'm so sorry I missed Adrienne's knitting afternoon today but I was working, freelancing.  Can't say no to the extra cash at the moment.

Lovely Helen called me last night with an impromptu invitation (beware of the sound) and it was such tremendously good fun!  Amazing how many of the songs we all knew too. 

There's been a little crafting. Another baby hat, but no pics (cat-modelled or otherwise) this time.   Below is a gift for a my bro's friend's son, this is the top.  I can barely say I quilted this, as it's only got the minimum of ditch quilted seams,  Something else to be finished during the next two weeks, along with packing up, moving, working and writing.  It may be a while before I'm back... x

Progress?

Yes, this is progress, I promise!  There's nothing so satisfying as ripping down wallpaper, particularly when it falls off the walls like a starlet fainting onto the casting couch - whoosh - like this stuff did.  Nor is there anything as soul destroying as trying to remove woodchip wallpaper.  Apparently it's still all the rage in Germany (really?)

Woodchip, or Devil's Decorating, requires a lot of elbow grease, and a steamer (thank you Claire!) but it eventually comes off.  It seems that the trick is to steam the perforated paper for quite a while until it resembles the moment in the horror film when the baddie pulls of his latex mask - the gloopy glossy top part of the covering comes away like mozzarella off a pizza and then you have to resteam the gluey-paper-with-wheat-stuck-to-it for another age.

The bedroom is all done, and the hall is 95% there.  The second bedroom is just getting a facelift with new paper, I've decided (the Flib matriarch and patriarch are coming over this weekend to help) so just need to choose it.  One wall of the woodchip is gone from the sitting room, so there's quite a bit of wall to uncover in there.  The kitchen surveyor is coming tomorrow to make sure that the kitchen for which I've signed on the dotted line will in fact fit.  Hurrah!

There has been a little writing and a little crafting.  Twiggy is rekindling her modelling career:

I know, I know, I am a cruel woman.  I seem to remember Crazy Aunt Purl having a competition for knitting cat clothing - do you think it's too late to enter?  Actually, this is for a friend's baby - and will be triple washed, honest!

And so is Denise. I should have know better than to try to read her post on the clap-along blog without laughing, while at work. I was so busted...