mumblings

It’s been one of *those* days.

Thank goodness it is the weekend because :

• I still have to finish the chapter - yes, I know I gave myself a deadline for today but things have happened.
• British Gas still haven’t sorted out my bill
• A whole heap of software failures have resulted in corrupt files etc which drive me mad
• I think they are going to ruin the car park outside by concreting it. It used to be green plastic squares so the grass could grow through it. It used to be pretty.
• I’ve listened to a lot of moaning today.
• My patience quota is at an end.

As I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our extremely fun-filled trip to the US last year, I thought I’d cheer myself and you up with a photo of one of the many beautiful sights we saw on the road to Wisconsin. Breathe in- breathe out. Isn’t it lovely?

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First pair all knitted. Yay! It was a first as I’d used the groovy new Noro Kureyon Sock yarn for these. I love the colours and the nubbliness of the yarn. I’m looking forward to when Silk Garden sock hits these shores. A perfect distraction from what I was meant to be doing though.

Although it took me a while to cook up some cat food on Sunday whilst I was making some vegetable soup for dinner. Yes, I was cooking Ariel some cat food. She’s been on a chicken and tuna diet but recently she seems to be a lot hungrier so I figured it was time to introduce some carbs. I tried mixing chopped chicken into some rice but she’d snuffled out the chicken and left a pile of rice on the kitchen floor. Not one to be defeated by a small ginger creature, I blended the rice and chicken with a bit of chicken stock and she is happily wolfing down the lot. She definitely seems a lot cheerier and is definitely enjoying her new diet.

I did write a little - not much but I was feeling a bit crappy when I left work on Friday and knew the only way I’d beat the bug was a bit of rest. I worked a little on Saturday and then took the whole of Sunday off to make soup and cat food and have a very long lie in. I missed church because I didn’t wake up until 10 but I think I must have needed it particularly since I’m going to have to fight with the gas company again. Sigh.

I started on the TTL Socktober mystery sock yesterday - again another first as I’ve never participated in a mystery knit along AND I’m knitting with my first ever skein of Brooklyn Handspun Signature yarn. Yummmmm…

Right - I’m off to stroke my happy full up ginger kitty.

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Carrie K and I have been doing a coffee swap for the last couple of years and it is one of my favourite swaps during the year. Carrie K, you’ve excelled yourself this year. The box which it all came in was massive! There were lovely soaps, a cake candle, yummy snacks, cute tissues and a very funky “S”. I love the mug : “Today is a gift. That is why they call it the present.” Wonderful!

The fleece is amazing so soft. Carrie K kept it in her freezer until she mailed it - I would have had a hard time not getting it out and stroking it lots. There is even information about the sheep who wore it first, her name was April Thank you so much, Carrie K - it is absolutely wonderful!!

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Peach - recipe given to me by Kristi. Go look! She’s got scones on her blog at the moment. Mmmm….

I just don’t get students. You tell them they have to do something and they start shouting about how they weren’t told before. Funnily enough, we gave them a handout where it was mentioned yesterday and besides I am mentioning it now. I asked the group who came along afterwards if they would also shout at me and they sweetly said they had read the handout and were clear on what they had to do and of course they knew they had to do this task. Phew! It will be interesting to see how they get on with the other things we’ve organised for them. Don’t you just love people who diss you straight away saying that they have already been in work so they don’t need to meet employers or find out about improving their skills. Rant over.

British Gas. Well, I’m having a night off from them. I got home too late for the Escalations team to call me. Cobblers to them - the lot of them. I’m eating peach cobbler tonight, watching crap telly and trying to relax a bit whilst I’ve got the house to myself.

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Those people sent me a letter saying that my new monthly electricity payment will be £594 from the 10th October.

What have those cats been up to in the day times? Anyone want one? Maybe if we split them up, they’ll only cost £120 per month for electricity. Otherwise, I’ll be eBaying them if their electricity consumption doesn’t change soon.

Gah!!!!!

PS Gas still not sorted. Apparently I am going to get a call from the escalation team within 48 hours.

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Today’s saga is gas. I received a gas bill which stated I was almost £500 in credit. Yippee - thought I.

However, after yesterday’s experience, I sent pao out to check the meter. Just in case. Another long wait on hold: I was prepared with sock knitting, cordless phone and Ophelia this time. Just under the 20 minutes they claimed I might have to wait, I got a person and asked how I got a bill today saying I was £500 credit today and yesterday I got one that said I was £200 in credit but the numbers for the readings were completely and utterly different. Today’s reading was 3900, yesterday’s said something like 5700. Our actual reading is about 6200 so I was very puzzled.

After hearing our reading, I was told: “Oh, madam, you have to pay us £500 not the other way round.”

“Grrrrrrreat,” said I, “so how much will I have to pay a month now?”.

After a very long wait whilst she went off and did some calculations, she came back on the line stating an amount that was double our current payment. I asked how today’s bill could be so wildly different from the one I got yesterday in that there was a 2000 unit difference between the two. (Oh, and to confuse matters all the more, I got another bill saying that they were writing off my £1.15 bad debt, ????? and it was a Final Bill). The new, not quite right bill for today said “First Bill” at the top, confusing really since I’d been getting bills quite regularly since we moved in.

There was a long silence after which we came to the conclusion that I would endeavour to find my meter reading from when I moved in plus the 7 or 8 bills that I got from them right after we moved in with different meter numbers on and they would ring me back tomorrow. We have asked our next door neighbours to have a look at their meter as I have a suspicion that the mythical meter reader actually read their meter and not ours.

But who knows? I need to lie down now. They are hurting my head.

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• I got home today to find I had an electricity bill for £2009 and some pence on my doorstep. Somehow we had managed to use £1800 worth of electricity in 5 months. I knew those cats have been up to something. Obviously they been baking all day and had all the lights on again.
• After being on hold for 15 minutes feeling a tiny bit anxious, I eventually spoke to someone who was puzzled by my name in that I was listed on their computer under my married name despite the huge bill being in my unmarried name.
• They think the meter reader had read the meter for the house next door.
• That is because former owner listed address under former stupid house name and took the plaque with the stupid name on it away with them when they moved. When we moved in, we asked for the energy company to change the address to what the Post Office had it listed as and ordered a plaque with the house number on it instead
• No, I am not telling you what the stupid name is.
• I shouldn’t really be surprised that they’ve messed up considering the last time I had to phone them.
• A meter reading supplied by pao soon brought my next four monthly payments down to a manageable amount rather than the £500 per month they were suggesting. Thank goodness.
• I know energy prices have gone up but really!
• I’ve just been sent the rough edit of a video I’m involved with .. and I’m all ‘what were they thinking?’
• At this point, I realise that I badly need a holiday. A proper holiday with no degree work looming or sick people to look after. Somewhere far far away with yarn shops.
• But this isn’t likely to happen this year.
• But that is down to doing a degree course and looking after poorly people.
• Or ever again if the gas bill is like the electricity one.
• Besides I managed to write another 250 words of the book chapter this afternoon. That takes me up to 1000 words - woohoo. Only another 5-7000 words to go before my self-imposed deadline next Friday.
• Will I make it? Well I used to write 3000 word essays overnight when I was an undergraduate student. So two and a half nights might suffice.
• People keep saying I look tired and I respond that I’m overly busy. This is just before they ask me to do something else for them.
• I bought 90 Berocca tablets yesterday to get me through this period of bleurgh. Well, more accurately, there were a 145 but I gave away my free pack to a friend who needed some defeating the object of 3 for 2.

Ok, rant over but seriously - what is going on! I need some sort of good vibes for the next week, please please please. Thankfully I got over my painful writer’s block today but I need to get a move on with the chapter and kick my co-authors up the posteriors as they are supposed to be sending me material for it. Particularly since one of them is going to Minneapolis next week. Jealous, me? Of course I am.

On a happier note, I did have a lovely time at the Eurofair this weekend. I forgot to take my camera so you can’t see a photo of the musicians who reminded me of this Monty Python song from the Meaning of Life. Mrs B and I didn’t get to sample as much lovely food as normal but we did come away with some bargains and pao and I now have some artwork in our bedroom.

I finished my Teatime cardigan late last night - just in time for the cold weather!

I love it. It fits nicely but sheds like mad so will have to investigate what on earth I can wear it with so I don’t look like I have half a cat permanently attached me.

Talking of cats,

Perdita seems to have been impersonating a bag lady. Hey, Perdita - things really aren’t that bad. Yet.

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The only good thing about feeling a bit urgh on Sunday was that I was able to finish off the arms of the Teatime cardigan. It had a lovely soak and now is blocking happily in the dining room to Ophelia’s intense curiosity. I employed the technique of knitting the two front panels and then the two sleeves at the same time on the same needle I saw Sarah doing with her sister’s Central Park Hoodie and it was really quick. In particular, it saves me from misremembering what I’m doing. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish it off quickish now - just a case of sewing up, putting on the neckband and button-band and I’m away.

I’m am astonishingly tired at the moment but there are a lot of icky bugs going round so I’m taking the euthanasia** tablets and crossing my fingers for the best.

** my special name for echinacea tablets. I once slipped up and called them euthanasia tablets and the name has stuck ever since.

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I had a plan. I had even brought the whole box of information I needed for writing the chapter back home with me on Friday night but I remembered with horror that I didn’t have the files I needed - they were on the work server and I hadn’t got VPN fixed up because I didn’t want to be that accessible at home. pao reassured me that he had VPN so off we merrily went to grandma’s for tea and a flake out on her sofa.

On Saturday, I noticed that the forecast said we were going to have two whole days of sunshine so knowing this week was going to be full of adrenaline-sucking scary training sessions, I thought I’d kick back and do some fleece washing before it becomes too cold and wet to hang around in the garden fr long. So I gathered my equipment together and got started:

Two kettles.

Washing up liquid and vinegar. I haven’t used vinegar before but believe me when I tell you it does wonders for the smell. Once you have a snifter of vinegar, the sheepy odour is a lot less pungent.

I’ve got two of these big trugs for washing fleece in. I got this blue one from Mothercare of all places when pao and I had concluded that one baby bath was not sufficient for washing fleeces in and had gone to buy a second when my eye fell on the trugs for keeping toys in. The trug was also much cheaper and much more practical for pouring away stinky water. I also have a pink one because I’m equal opportunities with my trugs.

The baby bath we got given in exchange for our old washing machine by pao’s Aunty Lindsey works well as a place to do the cold rinse. The sledge-like aspect is perfect for tipping the water away into the flower bed.

This is what the fleece looked like before it was washed. Phoebe was purring and kneading like mad when she encountered it again.

See what a difference the washing makes! I had pao rig up a make-shift drying line with some string and it is perfect for drying fleece.

I still have two fleeces left to wash - one black, one white. I have come to the conclusion that the white fleeces were much better cared for as they weren’t left to get wet in the rain like the black ones as they don’t smell as pungent. I could have carried on but I’d been at work for five hours and the kettles had worked in over drive. In case you are thinking - why on earth didn’t she just boil some big saucepans of water. We did this last time round but pao was also taking advantage of the good weather and varnishing the outside window frames so it was easier to work with the kettles than disturb him whilst he was working on the only door between the kitchen and the garden.

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Well, you see, I had planned to blog the day after I said I was going to last week but in my defence I’ve been ultra busy with those training sessions. I’m about halfway through now and the two big groups I talked loudly and enthusiastically to about their tasks this week seem to have understood and are getting on with them. It was a little weird to be complimented by real teachers and one of the students said she is coming back again for the same training tomorrow because she enjoyed the class today (???). I even got to go out for lunch today with MrsSJT which was really rather nice as I’d skipped it altogether or cut it short quite a bit lately but it did mean I could get a gift for pao’s birthday which is rapidly approaching. As far as writing goes, I’ve written 700 words so far so really not too good going but I’m going to try and get on with it during the weekends and evenings after work. Enough rambling - I bet you’re really here to see the swag.

I promised last time I’d show you the gorgeous birthday gifts that Lynne sent. She has an excellent memory and remembered that I’d been surprised at the idea of milk yarn so she sent me some Vicki Howells milk yarn which has quite a lovely texture. I’m interested to see how that knits up. Look at that gorgeous hand-dyed she sent with it - it is such a beautiful colour. I love it!! Lynne is a very talented dyer indeed and she is starting up shop again - hooray! Thank you, Lynne!!

But the gifts didn’t stop there. Last night, pao handed me a rather large box with a smile on his face. It was from Sarah (if you click on her blog - make sure you check out her most awesome Hemlock Blanket)! She and pao had been doing some plotting and she sent me this amazing gift. Not only did she send the cutest kitty box bag and some really soft and gorgeous fibre from Sweet Sheep (colourway Harmony if you are interested) but one of the drop spindles her dad makes. I really really like her dad’s drop spindles because they are so beautifully made but they also have a very neat little groove which will definitely make a difference when spinning. Mine is made of cherry wood which is so warm and beautiful. I found some photos of other spindles he has made on Flickr - what an amazing talented family. Thank you so much, Sarah (and pao the plotter)!

Ophelia’s been desperate to get my attention lately because I’ve been so busy that I had trouble trying to get a photo of my lovely gifts without her.

But she is pretty cute for a distraction.

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