Les alignements de Carnac
Today has been a day of megaliths. Standing stones, tumulus, and dolmen dot the landscape here, with the large fields of Menhirs just down the road from the campsite. An interesting day exploring.
AAAIIEE
Stupid vowels.
Jaywalkers! C’est tres joli!
Postcards, cafe au lait, and an almost finished Jaywalker. A lovely day exploring in the sun. Not pictured: delicious crepe. It didn’t last long enough to be a part of the tableau.
Je suis in France
Not quite packed and ready to go, but getting there. I should really be sleeping right now, so this’ll be brief.
I have the scrabble packed - travel scrabble for when we’re travelling, and the normal scrabble for when we arrive.*
I also have the knitting packed. For my 2 week holiday, which includes two 18 hour overnight ferry trips, I’m bringing 6 books, plus the following:
Pinwheel blanket, for easy round and round mindless knitting.
A lace scarf, which will probably be Ziggy from Magknits. I was admiring this pattern, but wondered why so few people on Ravelry were making it - then I went and looked at the chart, and it’s pretty much unreadable. So, I re-did the chart in excel for myself, and if it goes ok I’ll happily send it on to anyone. I have a back up pattern too in case I’m not mad on this one.
Now, to the socks. I was hoping to have my Jaywalkers finished before we left, but that’s not happening - I have about half of the last foot to do, so I’ll be taking them along to finish before I cast on for another pair. I’m trying to stick to a one sock at a time rule.
The final tally for the votes for which socks to make next:
Monkey:6
Pomatomus: 4
Both: 1 (thanks Sara!)
Plain sock: 3
So, the Monkeys have it. They sound like what I’m looking for - something with a bit of interest but not too complicated. I have the pinwheel blanket for my mindless knitting and the lace scarf for my thinky knitting, so these will hopefully be just right for in between. I’m bringing the pomotomus pattern along though, just in case, and think I could knit a plain one without a pattern if I needed too anyway.
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I think I may have blogging from my phone sorted out, in which case I’ll be posting now and then over the next couple of weeks, otherwise things might continue to be a bit quiet for a while longer.
Anyway, now, holiday time, bring on the relaxation.
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*Not really, it’s from Father Ted. I just have the travel scrabble.
Right then. What have I been up to that’s been keeping me off the internet?
Well, work mainly, and lying exhausted on the sofa from work. There’s been sleep too.
However, there have also been plenty of bloggable things that I just haven’t got around to typing up, and a couple of posts from my phone that just disappeared into the ether. Hey, maybe I was unknowingly guest blogging on someone else’s blog. Hmmm. There should be a term for that. Actually, I think I need to re-jig the settings on my phone to use my gmail account instead of the yahoo one. Yahoo have gone odd. And annoying.
So, here’s what I’ve been up to:
I spent a lovely evening that just flew by having coffee and passing on my copy of Harry Potter temporarily with Laura and David.
I had a very traumatic encounter with the biggest spider I’ve ever seen that tried to attack me while we were recycling the glass. I’m still a bit shaken up from it. It was huge. Seriously. The only thing I’ve seen that’s come close was a huntsman spider in Australia, and the one here would have come off better in a fight. (I just tried to find a picture of a huntsman on wikipedia, but couldn’t stay on the page long enough to get the link. It gave me a flashback).
I’ve knitted a little, but I’ll update on that properly on Friday, and make final, final decisions about my holiday knitting.
I’ve had tea and cake over at Linus’s new apartment, which was very lovely, and a taster of many more cups of tea and nice times to come over there.
I’ve spent two very lovely evenings in the company of great friends, including Brian who’s over from the states at the moment. Brian brought gifts. A t-shirt from his theatre’s production of Pride and Prejudice which is really great and I was really touched by, and a 1/2 pound bar of Hershey’s chocolate. I daren’t open it yet. I know that at the moment if I have just one bit the whole bar will go. My holiday starts Friday. I can attempt moderation Friday. Anyway, yes, very thoughtful gifts, excellent company, lovely food, lovely pubs, good times.
Hmmm, that’ll do for now. I’m still a bit upset from looking at the picture of the spider and re-living Sunday’s trauma - time for a soothing cuppa I think.
I just heard an ad on the telly. I was looking away, making dinner while watching Greys Anatomy, so didn’t see if it was animated or real actors.
The ad was for (I think) Calvita cheese, which is processed cheese sold in slices, and is marketed at 2-10 year olds.
The ad had a small boy and a small girl talking about what they wanted to be when they grow up, and finished with the message that they could be anything they wanted to be if they ate Calvita cheese.
OK, fair enough. Dubious, but ok. What did they want to be though?
Small boy: “When I grow up I want to be a footballer.”
Small girl: “When I grow up I want to be a WAG*.
Seriously?
Seriously?
This is what we’re encouraging little girls to aim for as they grow up?
I’m speechless. And annoyed.
~~
*If you’re not familiar with the term, WAG stands for Wives and Girlfriends, the d-list celebrity partners of overpaid footballers, whose main activities include shopping, drinking, and trying to turn themselves into anorexic oompa loompas. Victoria Beckham is their leader.
Just popping in on a rare free 5 minutes to ask for opinions.
Planning holiday knitting. (We leave on Saturday for two weeks, and I’m a bit disorganised. At this point I would usually have everything planned with military precision, but I don’t even have the ferry booking printed out yet. Stiil, you know, the priority is working out what knitting to bring.)
I’m taking along a lace scarf, an easy stockingette rounds and round project, and as I’m almost done with the jaywalkers, some socks.
The yarn is decided:
Trekking Pro Natura from my lovely Tea Swap pal, Kathy
However, I can’t decide on the pattern. Do I want easy? Complicated? I don’t know. I do know that I’d like top-down on dpns.
My options:
Monkey
Pomatomas
Plain simple socks.
Any thoughts?
In my small circle of friends, on our birthdays we have the pleasure of inflicting an activity of our choice on to the others, usually ending in a few drinks. (Fibre related activities are forbidden, sadly.)
This year I made my friends sit through an overly long and not particularly good Pirates of the Carribean 3. This was an improvement on last years play, Hysteria, which was awful. Shockingly, laughably (now, looking back) awful.
For Linus’s birthday we went to see Die Hard 4. I hadn’t seen Die Hard 1-3, so I admit to being a little ‘meh’ about the whole event beforehand. A couple of weeks later we settled down to watch Die Hard, and an allegation was recounted that a person who saw and enjoyed Die Hard 4 before watching Die Hard would prefer number 4.
I would like to refute that.
Die Hard 4 was great. Absolutely ridiculous and stupid and over the top but heaps of laugh-out-loud fun and I was really glad I went along.
And that’s the thing. Die Hard is great too, but not absolutely ridiculous, stupid or over the top. Well, ok, that’s not strictly true, but there’s a lot less disbelief suspension necessary. It just kicks ass as an action film. Alan Rickman is the baddie! It’s hard to get better than that, really. Plus, and I know I’m really showing my age here, you can see what happens in the action sequences. They don’t move so fast that you can’t make out what’s going on and have to shut your eyes because you’re all giddy. And Al! All knows the score. He knows McClane is good. Not like that stupid chief.
Anyway, yes, both fun, but Die Hard much, much better.
Don’t say there’s never discussion of high culture on this blog.