Friday Frenzy

I love to barter/swap/trade: before now, I've traded tarot readings for reflexology treatments (can we say 'fab-u-lous' ?), scented handmade candles and melts, and I've traded my own handmade soap for tarot decks. Recently I traded a tarot reading for some bath & beauty goodies, all the way from sunny Florida; Celeste, who must be one of the very, very rare people without an online selling site of some sort, also known as The Soap Pedaler, sent me a super box of yummy-smelling stuff:




I'm using the Linden soap right now: small, tight bubbly lather, and again, a great fragrance; Mini-Diva already snitched the organic peppermint lip balm; and I think the Lavender & Rose shampoo and conditioner are really great: the shampoo is harder to lather than the commercial stuff I'm used to, but the conditioner feels lovely and goopy, yet rinses out easily, leaving a fantastic scent that really hangs on, so that you get whiffs of it all day. Thanks, Celeste.

I have completed the front of the SoD2,which I feel is not bad going:



It's actually charcoal grey, not that blue-ish as it looks; but it's about to pour down, so the light today is dodgy. As proven by the also-rubbish photo of my Harebell Stitch lace scarf, which I've made as a Xmas present for our neighbor, Su, using a steel blue shade of Kidsilk Haze on 5mm needles:








































I know knitting a scarf for a woman who wears flip-flops in the winter snow might seem a bit odd, but it's just her shade, and very light and fine, and thus may fool her into thinking it's not actually for warmth ...

Now I have to go run round and do lots of things - not least of which is the reading for Celeste - plus, housework; go to school for a scheduled talk with Mini-Diva's teacher, which could be interesting given that the Ofsted report sent home yesterday shows the school has dropped a grade, down to a mere 3; cook dinner, because it's Friday; collect Destructo Boy from his friend's house after tea; buy tickets for tonight's fireworks .... as long as it isn't raining: memories of last year's debacle are still all too clear, and even the promise of hot spiced cider is not enough to get me out in that again.

Half-term Slobbery

The kids and I have had the most lovely, relaxed half-term: they've had friends round to play most days, yet the house only got trashed once - note to self: of Destructo Boy's friends, only ever have ONE at a time to play.

We stayed up late at night, and got up late in the morning. We averted the crisis (but not the drama - she isn't named Mini-Diva for no reason) of unexpected glue-lessness by an emergency trip to the pound shop. We ate junk food (I can only eat hotdogs if I don't think about what's in them). We left our hair unbrushed.

We sloughed around in our scufty clothes. We had a magical film marathon: every DVD we watched involved magic of some sort, although Destructo Boy doesn't understand why (a) not all witches are bad (b) I don't have purple eyes.


Anne Lambton in 'The Witches'


Juice was spilt all over the floor only once - and, for a wonder, not by Destructo Boy - and nothing is broken except for me: but the amitriptyline should take care of that.

And right now I am feeling very positive about the Sweater of Doom Mark II: I made a start almost as soon as the yarn was delivered, and after 1 ball, I have this to show for it:



It takes nearly an hour, I think, to complete the 8 rows of the pattern repeat. I don't know whether I might have bitten off more than I can chew, in terms of size .... I'm so much more used to baby and children's knitting, that this seems a giant, mehusive project, even if we don't factor in that I'm knitting the 48'' size - the largest. I just need a place to hide it, and something else to knit that will be convincingly slow so that he won't comment on the lack of progress on it during the week.

It's just over 6 weeks until the Xmas school holidays ...