Not much knitting

My life feels somewhat taken over at the moment. Darn christmas! Every one at work seems to have decided that christmas is a good time to have deadlines. I have to have so much done by the end of next week it is untrue. On the plus side once that is done I have 2 weeks holiday, at home with my lovely other half. Then one week at work, then two weeks field work in the outer hebrides (I love it out there and my work involves looking at the beaches which are divine). I have booked a lovely cottage with sea views and a wood burning stove, which I am going to need because statistically it is a very bad time of year to be working out there

Yesterday was my first proper knitting time for about 2 weeks. Man flu was nearly deadly, then there was hall plastering to be done (one little bit of the ceiling left). We are trying to finish the hall and the spare room in time for our hoards of visitors at new year. It is going to be great to see some old mates but a bit tiring to get enough rooms sorted out to manage to find beds for 7 people.

But I have digressed from knitting - I about 1.5 balls of rowan 4-ply soft into a swiss cheese scarf, and having knitted the heel of my jaywalker about 5 times I finally am progressing up the end. But I had 6 hours on the train with only a little bit of work to do yesterday, so that was enough time to scheme and try different things out. It was definitely a learning experience and iI have come to understand a lot about how heels are made. Short row heels don't fit my fat ankles, I have a small gauge so there are no patterns to follow, but now I have a method and it fit's really well round on the foot, and I am made up.

My stash has also been enhanced - a couple more skeins of 4-ply soft to make a beret/sloppy garter stitch hat to go with my scarf, maybe some mittens too. A few skeins of sock yarn to go with certain new shoes in my possession, an order for some jamiesons DK in a lovely apple green so that I can make a tangled yoke cardigan, some really nice tweedy wool for something, and I have every intention of getting a large cardigan's worth of brown cashmere in the sales so that I can have a go at making a version of that gorgeous cabled cardigan out of the holiday movie.

Bring on those long dark evenings in front of the fire! I really need a holiday.