Month: August 2014

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Plum soup, roast plum, steamed plum, braised plum in plum sauce, plum in the basket with sauted plums, plum meringue pie, plum sorbet…

We have plums.

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So far we have eaten loads of them just as they are, the caterpillars have eaten a fair proportion too, I have made at least ten pounds of plum jam, a huge plum crumble and a large soggy plum cake. And the tree still looks like this. And that is only one side of it. If anybody would like a bag a of plums and a cup of tea just invite yourself round so I can inflict some on you too.

I have been learning to take deliberately blurry pictures so I can show you this without giving too much away:

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That’s my excuse anyway. It’s the secret baby knitting for my friend. I am nearly halfway through it which means I have to work out how to make the colours match going the other way soon. I don’t know whether they will like it but I love the colours, I’m really enjoying knitting it, I’ve got a thing for rainbow colours and the wool is gorgeous. The sheepy smell is starting to wear off now too which is good, either that or I’ve got immune to it. I would be getting on quicker with it except I keep stopping to make other things in between. I did finally finish these socks which I began in March.

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The single best thing that I am finally getting better at after twelve years of knitting is unravelling (although I still haven’t worked out how to get a decent picture of my own socks). I restarted these at least twice and had to do various bits of serious tinking (to tink is to knit backwards i.e. unknit, if you haven’t come across that word before) and drop various sections of stitches to fix cables that were the wrong way round but the result is socks that fit me properly. I did get past the heel at one point being in complete denial that they were too small before I caved in and ripped them back but I did it rather than wear them wrong so that is definitely progress. The next thing I need to learn is that stripy wool doesn’t really show off cool cables properly. The pattern is Circinus (except I worked out how to do it backwards so I could make them from the toe up) it has loads of little twisty cables that made me think of waves on a beach and the colour of the wool made me think of the sea which is why I put them together.

Right. Back to the secret knitting. Although I have just seen this on Ravelry. Oooh!

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In which there is mostly woodwork

It’s the summer holidays!

“It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in “It’s a nice day,” or “You’re very tall,” or “So this is it, we’re going to die.” His first theory was that if human beings didn’t keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably shriveled up. After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this–“If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.” (Mr. Adams)

We have been to visit the Man in the Shed’s parents.  Last year he told them he was going to build a tree house in their hazel tree, I’m not sure if he got their permission first but they haven’t dismantled it yet. We didn’t quite finish it before the weather got soggy again and mostly ignored it all winter (except for the bit when it might have been going to snow and they added extra reinforcing to allow for heavy snow on the roof) so last month we finally got around to put some finishing touches on it and learnt how to tie net knots to that we don’t have to get the big ladders out every time someone wants to go up there.

Click on the pictures to enbiggificate.

Some crazy person (can’t imagine who) suggested to Small that he could sleep up there if he liked so the Man in the Shed and I spent one night up there each with him (mental note: bring camping mat next time), after first sweeping very thoroughly and checking and double checking that we had swept out all our eight legged friends with the dustpan and brush.

Both Small and Tiny managed to climb up there ok with a bit of help and had loads of fun playing with the bucket and pulley. I should probably explain that the Man in the Shed’s Dad is the person out of all the people I know who has the most sheds with the most useful things in them like spare (until he wants to use them for something) pulleys, rope and buckets, oh, and most of the materials and tools to build a tree house.

It also means that when Small says, ‘Can you make me a bed for Fred?’ (Fred is a small and furry creature of ursine nature who is living up to his name by being not as fluffy as he used to be) they can vanish into the shed for half a day and return with this:

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Two things you should know: One, it is not finished (Fred has lots of abilities but he has not yet mastered levitation) – they ran out of time and two, there is another one but it hasn’t been assembled yet – they decided to make it bunk beds. Oh and somebody probably needs to knit him a bedspread. Three things you should know: it is not finished, is bunk beds, needs some bedding and  has nice red uniforms…ah, no, wait, that’s something else.