Tuesday, 8 July 2008

Reunited with my books

Two mammoth unpacking days later, I have been reunited with my all my books. They just about fit onto the shelves, and I am really enjoying sitting here looking at them and reading things I haven't seen for years. Two boxes have been put aside to be taken to a charity shop, and my spare recent stash fills the whole middle cupboard. Oops. My dear husband wasn't at all impressed with that.


Just to prove a point, I have totally tidied the sitting room. I even swept under the sofa!


This is by far the tidiest room of the house, but I am quite inspired to carry this through, so I think the dining room is going to be next.
And the sleeve is progressing in fits and starts - only another 2" to go until I have finished this one, and then I can start the next one. Then only 4" of knitting round and round the really long rows until the interesting bit!

Sunday, 6 July 2008

Revitalised

What a difference a holiday makes! We have been caming in the lake district for a week, and it was fantastic. I am feeling quite revitalised.

We went climbing:


We played pooh sticks:


We hid in the tent between the heavy showers and thunderstorms, that lead to fantastic photo opportunities:

We found mines to explore (this is Force Crag Mine - you can get in the top, google revealed a map):

And, I have started knitting again. This is an enormous relief, and mostly due to visiting woolfest. Actually, I had a lovely time at woolfest - I didn't spend much at all (my only purchase was a lovely skein of self striping sock yarn from Jen at Fibrespates) but just wandering round all those stalls looking at fantastic things and stroking wool and smelling sheep was just so insirational. So I got out my tangled yoke cardigan a few times, and have finished the body up to the armpits, and made most of the first sleeve. The I only have to finish 4" of body before I get to the 20 exiting rows. But it is good knitting to pick up when there are little kiddies running around and you can't concentrate that much. I'll save the photos for a while, because it doesn't look a whole lot different to the last time I took them!

And my main distraction at home is nearly finished:

This is the current state of the bookshelves in my sitting room. I have been putting gloss paint on these for quite a while now, but I am finally on the last litle bit. I am looking forward to the paint drying so that I can finally unpack all our books and put them away. The last boxes from when we moved - only 3 years late, which isn't bad considering!