breispace

Seven weeks of glorious summer vacation. The gods know I needed it. This year I went to England and Wales with Kees for ten days. We had reservations for a car at John Lennon airport (great slogan) and got upgraded to a brand new VW Jetta Turbo Diesel because ours wasn’t ready.

The first days we went to Chester, Snowdonia (which was absolutely beautiful) and Portmeirion (which was a bit unreal because nobody actually really lives there). At the end of the third day Kees’ friend Geoff and his lovely wife Sarah put us up for a night and took us to dinner at a v nice pub.

We skipped Devon and Cornwall because the weather was going to be bad there. Instead we headed for London, visiting the White Horse of Uffington on the way. Within a mile after leaving the horse’s parking lot our gearbox blew up, and we were eventually towed back to Bristol Airport. This took the best part of the day, the upside of which was that I got a lot of knitting done.

London was excellent, and so was the weather. I indulged in some retail therapy at the British Museum, and bought a miniature Lewis chessmen set and a cookbook. We had excellent sushi (much cheaper than in A’dam) and other healthy foods. We enjoyed the splendid hospitality of Bryan,  Helma and Freki for three days, after which it was time to move on because “Guests and fish stay fresh for three days only”.

We stayed in Cambridge for one night (lovely free archeological/anthropological museum), and in York for two (scored some hand-painted Araucania sock yarn ((not to be confused with Araucana)) at “Sheepish”, yay!) and wallowed in  culture, history and Beef-and Stilton pasties.

After that we were quite close to Manchester, our final stop, where my friend Steve had arranged a room for us. We took the long route via the (again, beautiful) Yorkshire Dales and stopped for some Wensleydale in Hawes. I had a Yorkshire rarebit for lunch, also made with the local cheese of course. After settling in at the hotel we had a Balti dinner and a few pints with Steve and did some catching up. Good craic.

Our last day was a Sunday and our flight wasn’t until the evening, so we went to the Peak district for some more stunning landscapes. In Bakewell we had their famous pudding and visited a craft fair in aid of the local Scouts, and I spent my last pounds on various embroidery paraphernalia at a big car boot sale. Kees looked around for old cameras and militaria but didn’t find anything he liked. The flight home was uneventful and I was back home around midnight, welcomed by purring pookies.

I wanted to add some fun buttons to the blogroll from stuff I follow, listen to, etc., and I couldn’t get them in there so I prayed to Thor asked Kees. Alas, he told me, this format doesn’t allow for buttons so the blog isn’t going to look like the local ad rag any time soon. In the mean time I’ve got this one for yis, mateys!

Happy pillaging! Aaaarhh!

I am fairly up to scratch with my studies, and so the main part of this autumn half-term was spent on leisure and other forms of my own personal  benefit.

To begin with, I had ordered three Lundia bookcases to hide some of the chaos that is my study-cum-living room. I wanted to bring some order to my favourite sixteen square metres, and I wanted the possibility to continue the same look on the other side of the room in the future. I had ordered the planks, panels and worktops mid-August, and October 14th was the first possible delivery date. I had it moved to this week because it’s my Autumn half-term holiday. Good things come to those who pay through the nose wait, I suppose.

The before situation can be seen on Kees’ blog, and below is what I apparently looked like after Kees, Nantko and I had moved it all and I got supper on the way. Notice the emptiness behind me…

This is what things looked like a few days later, with the Billy and my comics collection moved to the left and after I had assembled everything and put most of my stuff back in. All the top shelves will be behind mauve-pinkish doors once the hinges get stolen from Ikea come in the post.

  

After two days  of marking tests and writing planning schemes for work I decided it was time to get some R&R before all school breaks loose again. Therefore this morning Marion and I took off to the textile craft fair in Rotterdam. It was held in a beautiful architectural landmark, the former Van Nelle factory.

I had just finished this cute amigurumi penguin the night before, and he seemed to enjoy his first view of the outside world while Marion and I KIPped on the train. He had made himself quite comfortable on my -also recently finished-  purple beanie with pink skulls. I decided to call him Pengurumi until his next owner decides on another name.

Saint Salarius had just visited me the night before, and after paying next month’s rent and various other bills it was now time to blow the rest on yarnabilia. I bought 9 skeins  pure brick-red silk tweed yarn (on sale) for a sweater to be knit next spring, various bits and bobs for making more amigurumi, a book on modular knitting and 700 grams of gorgeously soft BiFL roving (to be spun this winter and knit into yet another sweater next autumn).

Pengurumi was quite exhausted by now, and had a little rest in the Ravelry / Dutch knitters‘ corner.

Marion had managed to restrict herself to only one hank of hand-dyed sock yarn, although that wasn’t her only purchase; perhaps she’ll own up to blog about that herself. Or perhaps not.

One more day before school, and the end of daylight savings’ time tonight. Take a deep breath..

For those of you still not familiar with that addictive knitters’ online dwelling that is Ravelry, look here. As the Olympic Games have begun, so have the Ravelympics, and I decided to enter all my WIPs by way of a big stick (behind the door). The event is called WIPswrestling, and the idea is to have all my WIPs finished by the closing ceremony on the 24th. I’ve been invited to the Oddball group (Rav link) and I’ve also joined Team Hopelessly Overcommitted (dito). The fanclub is in position and ready to assist.

The weeks of my summer vacation are slipping like very dry sand through my fingers. It’s an enormous luxury not having to get up at the crack of dawn, taking time over coffee, not taking my shower before ten, letting breakfast slip into brunch, etc. etc. I try to spend some time on the to-do-list every day, leaving the rest for knitting, friends and other pastimes. For instance, I’ve (re-)created some storing space:

My nails have never been this long. They’re going to have to be cut down to normal proportions because I want to throw some viking cups and bowls next week (no, not that kind of throwing; this kind involves clay and a potter’s wheel).

Last week’s film: I went to see Hancock with Nantko. I give it one thumb up. Interesting plot twists, but most of the characters were a bit flat. Drinks at Mulligans afterwards, of course.

This week’s film: Wall-E , this time with Kees, and preceded by Japanese food at “Tempura”. Two thumbs up this time, very funny. An animated sci-fi rom-com; three genres for the price of one. I really liked the name of the mega-corporation responsible for the total pollution of planet Earth: Buy n Large. A good pun on mega-consumerism and on destroying the world by and by. Kees’ report and t-shirt of the day here.