Flibbertygibbet

Are you out there?

Anyone having techie issues with Typepad?  I'm experiencing some bizarro things - like I don't always get emails to say that there's been a comment - never for some people and only occasionally for others.  Also the stats for last week are a bit wierd, with peculiar peaks and troughs.  Is this happening to anyone else? If you do pop in here can you leave a comment so I can see if your visit shows up?  Ta muchly!  Will try to get this sorted out!

WIPs

Hoping to have either one of these two projects finished by this evening...

Although it's unlikely to be this one - I reckon it's got another couple of months to go...

Snippets

As I'm temping I'm out of the house all day, of course, plus I have a reasonably steady stream of freelance work to get through too. I yearn for crafting time, though could entirely sympathise with a friend who today bemoaned the fact that all she's doing all day is crocheting, as she's working on a book about the craft.  That's overkill I guess - variety is the spice, eh?  Though I've been crocheting quite a bit just to chill out - as I do keep screwing up the Clap and Pauline has knitted more of it than me at this stage.  Who knows where I keep going wrong.

There are a couple of UFOs on the go at the moment, most notably the first quilt for my brother's friend (I'm rather pleased with it though we'll see how the quilting goes as I'm considering doing it by machine) and a few more baby gifts for my friends.  Still have to decide on a blogiversary prize for Sarah and send out some swap packages to make up for unreliable swappers in the last round.

On that subject, a couple of people have asked if I am running another round of the swap.  I wasn't going to, but possibly will reconsider in September.  Drop a comment if you'd be keen.  The last one required a hell of a lot of mostly fruitless chasing after people that I didn't really have time for then, and certainly won't be able to do this time around and it kind of put me off.  I'm still not sure that everyone who notified me of problems eventually received their two packages which makes me cross and a little embarrassed.   I know that's not entirely fair on those of you who sent out gorgeous bundles of goodness on time, halfway around the world, but I'm being a little grinchlike.

You might notice the sidebar page about Harry Potter.  It's full of spoilers so if you have any interest about the series, don't even consider clicking there it if you haven't read all the books including Deathly Hallows.  You can't say you haven't been warned.

I think I've finally had it with Bloglines.  It either tells me all of my feeds have 1,844,293 new posts or doesn't bother to update me.  What content aggregator would you recommend?

There's a lot of waiting going on and that probably accounts for the slightly brow-furrowed air of petulance about this post.  Yes, I do know I'm doing it and no, I can't stop myself.  Waiting for the flat, a job, other stuff.  I know everything will fall into place eventually but until I find out what's happening with certain things everything else is subconsciously and literally on hold. 

Yesterday I was dreaming about opening a fabric shop.  What would your fantasy pass-the-days occupation be?  Say you won the lottery - what would you do?

I'm so over knitting...

That's what I've been thinking in the past few days. It's not true, of course.  Only a little bit anyway.

I realised I've completely effed up the socks.

Firstly the tops have completely different amounts of rib, because I didn't take the first one with me when I started on the second. 

And then I realised that on the first one, somehow I just went a bit mad and did the heel flap on 30 stitches instead of 32.  Not insurmountable I suppose but annoying.

When I got into the second one I did count to make sure that I had the right number of stitches on the heel flap needles.  But neglected to count the remaining ones, so didn't notice that I only had 30 left there. That's right, two dropped stitches, now marked by the extra DPNs stuck in.  So basically I think I'll rip the second back and get it all right, from rib onwards.  Mutter, mutter.

Pauline helped me with the Clapotis the other night, she ripped it back and fixed it, while Helen wound up the reams of frogged angora.  Pauline persevered in getting me to try the purling-instead-of-using-stitch-markers route, and sat beside me to make sure I had it right, and lo, it seemed to be working in spite of my lack of prowess.

Until the end of that section, anyway. 

The next day I moved on to the straight sections and just couldn't get it right.  When, if I ever go back to it, I think I'll be using markers, sorry P, I just can't seem to get it.  Now I've ripped it back quite a few rows and can't get the stitch count right.  Bah.  However I guess the other members of the Clap along may think it's a bit odd if I don't stick with it.

We're finally getting some long-wished for sunshine in London (Obviously it's two days in and we're already hearing complaints about the heat) so the Innocent fete yesterday was a big success.  There were fifteen of us there for my friend's hen do.  We eventually retreated into the shade under the trees.  The knitting tent, run by Buzz of All the Fun of the Fair, was actually the coolest place to be but I didn't think they'd take kindly to all of us piling in there, although there were two knitters amongst the group - I just about count myself as one of them. 

It was rather more sedate than most hen dos (didn't manage to find Claire in the crowds but she thought she'd spotted our hen, dressed in a veil and L Plates - no, not us, our hen had no identifying features) but great fun.  We went back to the B2B's house for champers, facepacks and Dirty Dancing though some of us had to leave a little early before the movies started to get back into London.  Early on the in the day, I was introduced to one of the other guests and was told that her ex-husband was a colleague of the groom.  I said I got divorced recently too and she immediately said 'Thank god!' because it is a little surreal when it seems like the entire world is married and/or pregnant, which pretty much summed up the demographic of the group.  We ended up catching the train back to town together and it was interesting talking about our situations.  She's doing the match.com route at the moment and I have to say, it sounds hellish and I'm now 150% happy with not doing anything like that. 

What I am trying to do instead is to concentrate on other stuff which is gaining momentum  at the moment.  The flat-purchasing, obviously.   Job-hunting, still on the lookout for the right permanent thing.  Baby quilts, I've got two to make plus another two (baby's sex as yet unknown) on the list.  That's without considering preserving fruit , finishing the dress that Dolly's been wearing for two months or getting the letterpress working.  I'm going out with a new running club tomorrow because it's time to make more of an effort to improve my health, sort out my back and lose some weight.  Ting and I were  talking on Friday after seeing 'In Conversation' and I said that I need to get myself together and she kindly said that I wouldn't want to lose too much weight, because when people do, it often makes them look older.  Bless her for thinking I'd get to that point.  However as two people have put my age at 25 this week - how flattering! - I reckon I've got some leeway there...

The world's smallest violin

...is playing for Mr Potato Head.  (Formerly known as XH).

Not going to go into it, but I saw him last night and he tried to nonchalantly throw in what I felt were carefully crafted comments about how hard it all is for him. Breathe in, breathe out.  I can't take issue with the fact that the marriage ended, if he felt that it was never going to work out then that's the way it is.  That doesn't excuse him for starting an affair while he was still married to me and leaving me to draw my own strangulated conclusions about the demise of the marriage without ever communicating anything to me, making me elicit every sad strain of the story out of him. So sympathy is off the menu. 

Moreover I've been musing about moving on, and no I don't mean about buying a new flat because although I hope that's all going through, there are some niggles.  Like the lease specifies that you can't have pets.  I mean, what would I do without my feline paperweights?  It's house-hunting all over again if this can't be overcome.

I've been thinking - no, musing still, because musing suggests the appropriate amount of trepidation and commensurate caution - musing about meeting someone else. 

It's almost like a seven year relationship never happened, mainly because I'm blanking it I suppose but I look back and think how the hell did it all start?  I used to firmly believe that you meet someone when you are happy and least expecting it.  Which was what happened last time, more or less.  A holiday romance that turned into more.  So now I'm relatively-happy-comparatively-speaking and how do I go about meeting someone.  Do I go about it at all? Do I just wait to see who I meet, or who Fate throws into my path.  Or go down the mysinglefriend route, on a campaign.   Get out there, start 'dating'.  Holy crap, I think I am too scared for that. No, I know I am too scared for that.  What about seeing if any friends say 'I know this great guy' - at which point my inner cynic comes roaring to the fore screaming 'Freak! Freak!  Why the hell is he still single?'  And how do you say 'Oh dear god. I like your taste in yarn/restaurants/clothes so sweet dear lord why would you think I'd ever have anything in common with this troglodyte humpbacked  misogynist taxidermist?'  You know, it's not that I want a new relationship.  I think I just want some fun.  Maybe a frisson of excitment...

Gah.  A lot to think about.  Or maybe don't think about it at all.  It will be interesting to see what happens next...

Hair on fire...

That's what it feels like at the moment, that I'm running about the place with a barnet aflame.  In actual fact, I'm getting quite a lot done, just that there's an extremely long list to tick off.

Lately it's been all about the music.

Friday last week:  Amy Winehouse at Somerset House.  We were taking bets as to whether she would even turn up, and when she tottered out on her spindly little legs, heels, there was a collective sigh of relief.  In between musing what she had hidden in her beehive (Bottle of vodka?  Her stash?  No, a helium balloon, Claire decided) and smiling benevolently at her gently loony musings ("I was really worried that it might rain tonight but I thought that maybe there would be a cover or something that they'd pull over the top..." - no, Amy, when the venue said the gig was going ahead despite the rain, because it was "under cover", they mean that you, the artist, was under cover and all us schmucks could drown in the torrents, for all they cared) the crowd wholeheartedly showed their appreciation for  a tremendous set.  She was just brilliant, looked amazing - beautiful complexion and ok, so she's the width of a ruler but hell, she was glowing - and we had a mighty time.

Saturday and Sunday last week - off to Lovebox. 

Horrendous weather on the Saturday (the dance tent had never been so popular) but Sunday brightened up, great weekend with lovely people.  And evil finger puppets.

Never mind the biggies, like the B-52s, who were great, most of the best bands were in the Clash tent on the  Saturday, including my new favourite band, Who Made Who.  Crazy Danes.

On Friday night, rather than taking my mama, I took my uncle to the Scissor Sisters at the O2 arena, which was a very cool venue and an outrageously good show.  Yeah, I am a huge SS fan, but this was the finest performance I've witnessed yet.

I've been working, just temping, so that's eating up a lot of time.  Slightly surreal as my new boss has gone off on holidays for a forthnight. 

Still making some time for knitting, and I'm glad to say that when I went home last weekend, Dad loved his socks as his 60th birthday present.  Despite looking quite big (I did knit them on 3mm rather than 2.5s and with a slightly looser tension than normal) they fitted perfectly.   His are the not pink ones.  Those were supposed to be for me but may go into the present stash, because yes, I am starting the Christmas knitting now.

I'm working on socks, two other pairs in progress and then there's some quilting to be done.  Oh, and flat buying and job hunting though I'm still kind of burying my head in the sands.  I'll pluck it out sometime soon.

And then there's the Clap too.  Have made a mistake with it, need some help to fix it so it's been cast aside
until I can get back to some knitting group who can help.  I had started the second section, when you start to drop the stitches, and I did something wrong on the second or third row after the first dropped stitch.  Bah. 

Did I tell you that I finished HP7?  Not going to say too much about it yet, not wanting to issue spoilers, but I liked it.  Didn't love it, but liked it and was glad I read it.  Still have a few questions which may necessitate another go at it. 

Has anyone else's Bloglines gone mad?  I know it's been a few days since I checked it, but it seems to be listing about 10 new posts for all the blogs I watch, and when I check them they only have one or maybe two new entries.  I will try to keep posting more regularly myself but somehow there doesn't seem to be much time at the moment...

Saucy

HP plus more HP - not lashings and lashings of brown sauce but two bum-numbing excursions to the cinema.   On Friday night I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with friends, loved it, loved chatting about it afterwards.  Yes, I've already bought the book and I'll be picking it up as early as possible on Saturday morning.  Mind you, by the time I collect Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I'm sure lots of people will have already have done it cover to cover.  Like Leslie...

The greatest thing about the film is the female cast.  Luna Lovegood, Dolores Umbridge, Hermione Granger and Bellatrix Lestrange, they're just brilliant.  Though I'm slightly disconcerted by the fact that I may sound a bit like Evanna Lynch who plays Luna.  There was a collective knowingness in the cinema when Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna are flying to London, as they zoomed over Canary Wharf and everyone thought - that's where we are!  Right now, in the cinema! 

Plus there was an almost mind-boggling array of knitwear (mostly sported by the Weasleys, of course).  In fact Harry seems to get off quite lightly. 

On Saturday I met up with old friends around Broadway Market, by accident and as arranged.  Sunday was delightful - visiting Abi's lovely house , singing along to and marvelling at costumes in 'That's Entertainment', with yummy cake to eat, in great company. 

Still job hunting.  Still flat-hunting.  Some crafty stuff on the way, photos later.  But I've been too blah lately to get it together to get the camera out.

By the way, if there are any knitters out there who fancy it, Jenny has forced me in this:
Come on,  Clap-Along.  Do come along.

Finally

Finally my solicitor got around to writing to tell me that indeed, my divorce was granted on the 29th of June.  Nice of them to let me know at last.

So in other words...

Hurray!!!

Must sort out the party...

Been offered a job too.  But I am not going to take it because it's on the other side of London and will be even further once I move house - on a good day it would be an hour and a quarter each way and you know what?  Life is too short.  Particularly with the current state of London transport.

There's another potential interview tomorrow and a test to do for another job. Prospects, as they say.

Meanwhile I'm watching a programme about Paris and lusting...it's another one of those places to be reclaimed.  Can't wait!

*Edit - been getting a little bit of odd spam so comment moderation is back on.  Sorry for any confusion - some people though typepad was rejecting their comment!

When life gives you lemons...

...make this cake.

Nigella's Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake

Cake:
125g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
175g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons milk

See here for conversions

Syrup: 
Juice of 1/5 lemons (about 4 tablespoons)
100g of icing sugar

23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin, buttered and lined, preheat the oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 4.

Method: 

• Cream the butter and sugar
• Add eggs and lemon zest, beat in well
• Add the sieved flour and salt, folding in gently but thoroughly
• Add the milk, mix in
• Spoon into loaf tin and put cake in oven for 45 mins, or until golden and a cake tester comes out clean
• While it's cooking, dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice, over a low heat
• As soon as you take the cake out, puncture holes all over the top and pour the syrup on to let it soak in. Make sure there are lots of holes in the top so it doesn't all go down the sides.
• Wait until it's completely cold to take it out of the tin.
• Devour.

Nigella also suggests putting some Limoncello in the syrup.  I used to have an automatic reaction to the word, which came from being offered a shot of something that approximated Lemsip mixed with vinegar after an Italian meal - you know, as soon as you hear the word, your face screws up so tight that you develop a tick in one eye.
But way back when, part of my honeymoon was spent in Capri, here.  (You know it's ludicrously posh when it's the sort of place that has 5 Star hotels, and 5 Star Luxury hotels)  One of the things that they do rather well on Capri is the local Limoncello.  Of course looking back now, I have Limoncello memories of that time - bittersweet, but better than you might imagine.  No word from the divorce solicitor last week but hopefully good news on that front soon. Waiting is driving me nuts.

As always, I'd recommend Nigella's first book.  My only quibble with the many recipes I've made from here, is that the quantities given for the Dense Damp Chocolate Loaf Cake are too great for the tin specified, so a lot of it spills over the side.  Not such a bad complaint, really. 

My favourite four-letter word

is, of course,

S A L E

When I was out and about in Fulham the other day (Oh, how the other half - of London - lives) I noticed some rather good sales.  No, not clothes, because I'm not in the market at the moment, but for crafty supplies.  Things that I am allowed to buy.

Cath Kidston has a decent selection of fabrics on sale, at discounts of up to 50%, plus other gifty ideas in the clearance sale.  Though I must say that I think that since they went more mass market, I'm not sure that the quality hasn't suffered a little. 

The Designers Guild also has a sale on, though most of the fabric on the bolt, even if it's reduced by up to 50%, is seconds stock.  They have a huge table of remnants too, including, ironically enough, a lot of Cath Kidston classic prints.

When I was over on the dark side, I also went into Peter Jones (the Sloane Square outpost of John Lewis).  More bargains to be found, again in Debbie Bliss Pure Silk.  This time it was the buttery yellow and the lilac.  I know that this is somewhat extravagant but the fact is, I have the pattern book and there are lots of garments I fancy making.  And now I have the yarn to do it, at 50% off.  I also bought some Cotton Cashmere for T, but I hear she then 'popped into' John Lewis in town - so dangerous - and it sounds like she purchased her own bodyweight in yarn. Again.  Apparently she blames me for this, I've no idea why...

Who's still waiting for swap packages?  Hopefully most of you are sorted by now but please do let me know... this particular swap seems to have gone on for ever.  To answer the question that some people have asked, if there is another round it won't be until the late autumn as the chasing up is taking an eternity and I think I'll take a break from it.

So I did the draw for a little something to celebrate my long-gone blogiversary, and the winner is Sarah.  Email me your address, and you'll have a wee gift in return.  Hopefully before we reach the second anniversary.