Good Things This Week.

Number 1.

Julia, aka Miss Frugality came to visit, bringing me gifts and an excuse to make pancakes.

Number 2.

We have flowers.

Number 3.

It was warm enough to hang the washing outside for the first time this year.

Number 4.

Magnus

Happy Valentines Day

Or as it is known in Mog Towers;

I Love You But I Haven't Got You A Card Day!

A little humility.

I've had such lovely things said about my photographs recently that I am in serious danger of getting a swollen head. In order to reduce the swelling, I thought I'd share what happens when pictures go wrong......

In other news, it snew! Finally my legwarmers are going to get some use, at least they will if we can ever make it down the steps. Today is a good day to settle in with some tea and a pair of needles. My knitting for Botswana has made it as far as America, to Knittah's house and I'm very glad to see it arrive.

A sow's ear and huge legs.

The rest of the UK has been smothered in snow with chaotic results. Flights cancelled, schools closed, roads covered. I thought I'd be prepared as only a knitter can be. So I am now the posessor of the largest legwarmers known to humanity. As a child of the eighties, I know my legwarmers and this pair are so big that all of the Kids from Fame could fit into them and still have enough space to dance on the tables. Large these legwarmers are. They are also very warm indeed which would have come in handy if the snow had amounted to anything more than the light dusting that appeared yesterday and then melted into nothing by this morning. Maybe I could send them in an emergency package to London, or Belfast. That's if the post can get through the snow.

I have also been engaged in the more delicate task of spinning silk after Lesley, one of the Angus spinning enablers very kindly sent me a little package containing a silk hankie. Lesley does this beautifully and I was keen to try for myself. It takes a bit of practice and as the silk sticks to any dry skin and I have the hands of an Arbroath Fishwife, I spent most of the time trying to prize the silk from my fingers. In the end I gave in and put on a pair of cotton gloves, looking less like a top spinner and more like the person on the TV who replaces the snooker balls. Here is the finshed result. Small, strong and beautiful if a little uneven. The cup is there to give a sense of proportion. It is one of the few remaining pieces of my doll's house china and is the size of two of Magnus' paws placed together.

Bird Strike

Last weekend was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which involves sitting still by a window for an hour and watching who lands in the garden. Sounds easy. It only works, however, if you have the cooperation of the birds.

In anticipation of the watch, I kept a close eye on wing activity over the week, many birds visited, ate and left. We even had a gang of Long Tailed Tits gracing our birch tree. They are a rarity in our patch, preferring the house three doors along which is bigger, has a better selection of trees and superior bird food.

Sunday found me perched on the kitchen worktop, feet dangling over dishes on the drainer to gain the best view of the proceedings. The first thirty minutes passed. Not a cheep. After sixty minutes a grand total of 17 birds had been counted. And about half of those were starlings. The Long Tailed Tits were a no show. I think the weather was against me with the wind so strong that it was tricky for little legs to perch on the feeders. That and the presence of Georgie Ginger, the cat from over the wall who chose that very hour to walk with menace across our lawn.

I have emailed my measly total to the RSPB and hope that it will help a little in their studies.

In other news, I made a hat and a scarf for Knittah's Botswana Project and bought a second hand book of embroidery stitches. Inside was this little pressed flower card. A note on the back dates it as 1975.

Feeling grey all over.

There has been so much rain these last few days that it seems as though the sun has gone for good. We are huddled under quilts, cat-snuggling and dreaming of wood burning stoves.
Update - in the time it took for the pictures to upload, the rain has stopped. Only to be replaced by soggy, wet snow.

A brief flash of sunlight appeared earlier on in the week and I rushed outside into the freezing cold to remind myself that there really is light in the world. I think I'll have to rely on the knitting to bring colour into my life until the Spring arrives.

So few opportunities for pictures have occurred, that I resorted to snapping some house DIY in progress. Oh that poor bear!

Respect the beans.

The weather is hurtling around Mog Towers, spitting at the windows and rattling old Coke cans up and down the street. At least it has warmed up a little, last week was freezing, frost and ice everywhere and little encouragement to leave the house. I did make it as far as the Farmers' Market where the purchase of some home made croissants and beautifully garlicky cheese cheered me up no end. Other than that nothing but reading, knitting and curling up in cosy chairs.

I have been playing with my balanced singles, knitting them into a simple shawl which changes from garter stitch to stocking stitch. The orange in the colour sequence is, at the beginning of the shawl at least, a bit over whelming. I had been aiming for something akin to kingfisher but the reality is more like a kingfisher on a building site wearing a high visibility vest.

The beans? This is what happens when you fail to accord aduki beans the respect they deserve. If you forget about them while distracted by luridly coloured yarn, they show their dispeasure by scarring the bottom of your best saucepan.