Project 365+1: Days 218 - 225

I've had another busy week at work and we've had a family friend up visiting us so I've not had much time for getting stuff done online. Most of my free time has been spent reading Lord of the Rings on my Kindle because I hate taking longer than a week to read a book (and I'd been reading this for three!) so despite nice weather I've not actually been up and out much. Though I did have Friday off this week so we took my mum-in-law and the visiting family friend off the island for a little day trip.

Oh, and we watched all three Lord of the Rings films; Friday night and then all day Saturday. My idea of a good weekend.

Most of my photos this week have been taken on my phone. I have no idea how this happened because I did take quite a few photos with my camera, it just seems that the ones I like best are the blurry/grainy iPhone ones rather than some of the other sharper ones. I must try harder to take some nice photos this week, especially if we have more nice sunny weather (though in order to do this I should probably remember to charge my camera battery otherwise I won't get many photos at all).

Day 218: Almost Done

This is my knitting as it stood on Sunday afternoon. The scarf that I had been knitting since the very beginning of the year was finally finished somewhere around 10pm last Sunday night. The fact that the first three photos of the week feature my knitting should probably give you some idea of exactly what I've been spending my time doing.

Of course, the scarf isn't done just yet. I still have to weave in the ends (and there are a lot of ends needing to be woven in, this scarf reminded me exactly why I don't like knitting stripes!) and also find the fingerless gloves I made, sew them up and weave in the stripey ends too. But then I'll have a matching set, just in time for next Christmas!

Day 219: A Big Mess

Having successfuly completed my scarf I moved on to a pattern I've been wanting to do for ages. I love the Tom Paxton song 'Englebert the Elephant' and for ages I've had this cute looking elephant pattern. I figured I would start on that next. Looking through the pattern I couldn't find anything that was beyond me, it looked simple enough.

It wasn't. The pattern called for double-pointed needles, which wasn't a problem, I've worked with those before, but generally at the end of a pattern, like a hat, when it becomes too tight to work in the round on circular needles. It was also asking me to cast on such a small number of stitches that a combination of the needle size and wool thickness sought to defeat me.

Not wanting to be deterred, I rewrote the pattern to knit flat, and all seemed to be going well... until my circular needle came undone and I lost half the stitches. At which point I through the lot down and took this picture, before sending Mr Click out to walk Tara so I could give it another go in peace. ;-)

Day 220: New Project

And so I kept on trying and managed to get this far (I've taken a break from it the last few days because I'm debating putting what I've got onto double-pointed needles to see if I can finish it off in the round now I've got it started because adapting the pattern to work flat is now getting a bit complicated).

This picture sums up one of the things I love about my Kindle. I can sit with it on my lap in bed, and knit whilst I read. No awkward bookmarks, clips or creased bits of duvet trying to hold the book open on the right page. No rereading the same paragraph three times because you keep glancing up from your knitting at the same place each time. Just whip the font size up a bit and prop it on your knees; knitting and reading, all I need to help me sleep soundly. (Here would be a good place to add that yesterday in a gap during out Lord of the Rings marathon film session, I volunteered to wash up while Mr Click walked Tara purely so I could read while I washed up. Good times.)

Day 221: Pocket Trumpet

One of the things I promised my husband was that when he got his degree, I'd get him a pocket trumpet. Now I didn't really have much of an idea of what one of these was, except that it was a sort of smaller version of a regular trumpet. Thankfully it's not too small, it's more compact though, the tubes for it are coiled much tighter than on any of his other instruments (though this picture doesn't really show it too well).

He's been practicing like crazy with it since it arrived, looking all cute in its little tiny case. It looks and sounds impressive and he's impressed me by playing the theme song from 'Band of Brothers' which is the next series we're due to watch since having finished with 'Tales of the Unexpected'. It's a piece of music which I love so I'm pleased to hear him playing it, and it sounds very good on his new pocket trumpet.

Day 222: Letter Writing

This week I had another letter from my friend Iona, so I spent Thursday evening penning a reply to it. This time I successfully wrote in large enough writing to make what I was saying actually visible without the need of a microscope, unfortunately I still waffled on for two sides of a card and two and a half sheets of writing paper.

Finally got around to posting it this morning though, so Iona will have a nice and waffly letter to look forward to this week. I've said it before but I really do like writing letters, there's something nice about having something handwritten and addressed to you pop through the door.

Day 223: Refreshment

We took my mum-in-law and our family friend off for a little charity-shopping trip on Friday and along the way stopped for some refreshments. When I asked for a hot chocolate with cream, I wasn't quite expecting this.

It was a very good day. For one thing on the way there I read a good chunk of The Lord of the Rings, but was too tired to read on the way back; we also found three DVDs that we wanted (Cold Mountain, Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill) and we each got a new top as well. All in all, a pretty successful day.

Day 224: Trilogy

This is the blu-ray box set that Mr Click (well, the girlie!rats and Tara) got me for my birthday. We had a marathon session on Friday night, then all day Saturday watching all three films (when we started I still had a little way to go of Return of the King on my Kindle, though I finished it before the end of the film).

Friday night we started late, having ended up having tea at my in-laws' house but still managed to watch the whole film and make it to bed by midnight. Saturday morning the rats were started to head towards whiffy territory so we cleaned them out (or rather, Mr Click cleaned them out while I shredded their paper and tried to figure out how to fix the shredder), vacuumed (Mr Click again), dusted (mostly me) and dragged washing outside to dry on the airer in the lovely hot hot sun.

I don't understand why they had to split the films across two discs on the blu-ray if blu-ray can hold more data than DVD, but it was quite convenient on Saturday. We watched the first half of 'The Two Towers', had lunch, second half, walked Tara and washed up, first half of 'The Return of the King', had tea, second half, walked Tara and went to bed. Couldn't have timed it better. And as always, now I've finished the book, I'm ready to go back to the beginning and start again (but I'm trying to control myself). I've still got all the blu-ray special features to watch though...

Day 225: One of these things...

I don't normally post any photos taken on the Sunday I'm writing this blog entry, but I don't think I'll take a more interesting one today so this'll be the one. Yesterday there was a wedding taking place on the estate and Mr Click told me about this sign. I was pleased to spot it on our walk this morning, see if you can spot the sign that doesn't quite belong...