mumblings

As soon as I got home from Broadstairs I picked up my needles, the lovely Rowan Cashsoft Aran I was given as a anniversary gift by pao and started knitting this February Lady. It was quick going and addictive and I enjoyed knitting it. It was only when I’d finished the body and was halfway down one of the sleeves that I realised that I had been knitting with two different needle sizes. I told myself at that point it was a design feature rather than a failure as there was no way I was going to rip it all out.

I’d been knitting quite a bit at my desk at home on which some vintage buttons by Lionel Nichols were sitting on and I thought they would make a nice contrast so I took the plunge and sewed them on.

I’ve really enjoyed the roses in my garden this year and here are two of the last ones in an old teapot I picked up at an antiques fair last year.

The kittens are keeping themselves busy although the lure of the knitting does call to them from time to time.

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Thank you very much for all of your lovely kind words about Merlin. It has been a very hard time and very sad too so blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit. I thought it would be nice to share some lovely joy now and here is a lovely package friends Chris and Jeanne sent for my birthday. Thanks, Chris and Jeanne – you’ve really brightened up a very bleak time.

Lovely yarn, a light-hearted book (already devoured), a stitch marker (always handy) and a HUGE bag of Bugles. Joyous

Sirius has been doing his bit to cheer us up by doing some amateur acrobatics. Here he is at the top of the doorframe chasing spiders.

He’s a funny boy.

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Merlin was put to sleep just before 11 this morning. He was purring right up until the end and the vet said that he had had a massive tumour on his liver. I will miss him

but pao will miss him the most as he was pao’s cat. Merlin made it very clear which one of us he preferred and if he had a choice he would choose pao’s lap to sit on.

He was pretty grumpy and not really much of a knit-wear model but this photo of him wearing a preemie hat is certainly a one-off.

He was a champion sleeper and he loved lying next to you when you were in bed. If you went up to bed, he’d be there ready to sleep purring away. He had such a deep purr it would send you off to sleep. pao has been known to have had to have the odd afternoon off work because Merlin had purred and sent him off to sleep. He was a good companion when you were feeling low or ill because he would lie on the bed with you for hours and hours.

Merlin and Ophelia came together and it is sad that both of them died this year together. Merlin started to look a lot older right after Ophelia died in March. This photo was taken just before the cancer really started to affect him taken in early July. We never imagined that just a month later we would be saying goodbye.

Merlin spent a lot of time at the vet and much of his life with us with a lampshade on his head. It was amazing as we thought he was going to die a lot sooner but his stubbornness meant we got three years longer than we imagined as he was diagnosed with a tumour back then. Even this morning, he was fighting not to get in his basket even though he was quite tired. He let me hold him which was quite rare and carry him home from where he wandered to last night. For his vet, it is a double tragedy as Merlin was a favourite patient but please keep him and his wife in your thoughts and prayers as his only son died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage last Thursday. We were all crying.

This is how I’ll remember him in this photo pao took of him. Lying in the garden, basking in the sun.

Good night, Merlin.

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Happy Birthday, Sirius! One year old today Is he still a kitten or does turning one making him a cat?

Discuss.

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We walked up some steps near the harbour in Broadstairs to take a look in at a tiny gallery. This made me smile as I was reminded of the Bocca della Verità in Rome.

I was graciously allowed to take some photos of my own which was nice.

I really like this one.

I am really pleased as I have now finished my Stormwater Shawl – yay – but I wasn’t organised enough to take it to the seaside with me. Maybe next time

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pao very kindly made me a birthday cake for today

It is his first ever birthday cake so he did not have the intimate understanding of our oven that I have so I had to nip in and help him out a bit.

Cake overflow indicated that the final product would be delicious.

Some careful cutting

meant that the cake also looked beautiful

and ready for beautiful icing.

Thank you, pao, for such a wonderful cake!

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I was inspired by Rachel Eats to try making some pasticcini di mandorlo. They remind me of the ricciarelli my student days in Siena – a bit of a sad time as my mother had died earlier in the year but also full of good memories of big church meals together on Sundays and contrade parades. There was a shop on the Via di Citta where I lived the first month which sold these and I remember my first taste of these and marvelling at how different they were from the kinds of biscuits we had in England. Nowadays, we do have them almost readily available here in the UK but it was nice to find a recipe to make them myself and re-create that heady smell of cooking almonds in the house.

Here is my take on her recipe:

300g ground almonds
200g icing sugar (plus more for dusting and rolling out)
2 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp Amaretto Disaronno
Flaked almonds to decorate

Preheat oven to 180C.

Mix ground almonds, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and Amaretto together in a bowl. With your hands covered in icing sugar, roll out mix into balls.

Press an indent into each ball and place a flaked almond into the indent.

Bake in oven for about 15 minutes until brown.

Rachel says they should keep in an airtight tin for a few weeks but round here a few days will suffice

particularly when there are kittens who might be really attracted to the mix.

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Our dear friend Stuart died just after 11am this morning. He was only 39 and had cancer. He loved Dr Who with the same degree of passion as pao does and long conversations ensued about different episodes and technical details for many happy evenings. Stuart loved cooking and particularly making desserts and one of my favourites was the lemon marmalade ice cream with ginger biscuits. You could tell if he really liked something as he’d watch out of the corner of his eye to see if you really liked it as much as he did. We had lovely times with him on his birthdays – it was on Christmas Eve and he was always a bit uncertain about having a party because of the proximity to Christmas but when he did it was such fun. One year, we were running late and bought him a pheasant dog toy from the pet shop as his gift and he loved it. The pheasant made a honking sound if you squeezed it and we spent hours that evening honking out Christmas carols and other songs for people to guess.

He was the only person to great us saying “Hello, Osbornes” and we just loved him. He sang so loudly and enthusiastically in church and we loved to have him over just to watch DVDs or go over to his house to do just that. Often we three would all fall asleep and wake up as the title sequences were starting up. It isn’t often that you know someone so well you can feel comfortable with falling asleep in their presence.

We were so glad of the opportunity to spend a last few precious moments with him on Wednesday night when we made him giggle when his mum left the room when I said “Now your mum’s gone, we can have a party” and his last words to pao were “Not now, maybe later” when pao said he had a load of Dr Who DVDs they needed to watch together still.

He was a real friend – so precious to us – he used to moan like mad about various things but despite that we loved him. pao and I miss him immensely and are glad that his pain and suffering are over and that he has been promoted to glory. He was a Christian and believed in heaven and I am glad that he has been able to join his Heavenly Father. God bless you and good night, Stuart.

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I finished off a pair

and a single sock (unsurprisingly I can’t find the other ball of yarn) on my way to Tenby and started another pair in some Schoppel Wolle Zauerball which I finished a couple of weeks ago and will post photos of tomorrow. I do love the colours of Schoppel Wolle.

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It seems like quite a while ago now but I thought it would be good to share some of my holiday photos from when we were in Tenby next stop after Cardiff.

It was such a lovely spot by the sea

utterly freezing being the beginning of May

but utterly gorgeous.

It was nice to have a few days to switch off from every day life. Just what you need from time to time.

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