Friday 2 February 2007

I is for ill

I'm not a big Katharine Tate fan, although I do think the 'bovered' thing has hit a national chord even more than 'yeah but no but'. However there is one of her sketches I do likie and that I think of often and that is the one with the old lady who invariably at some point in the sketch will say "Whhhhaaaaaaat a f*cking liberty." You see I've put the asterisk in there in case anyone is feeling as feeble as me. Of all the days to come down with a cold friday has to be the worst. Worse even than the day before a big deadline because at least then you can struggle womanfully on regardless. On a friday you have your own free time ahead of you. Your own hard earned weekend. You've slogged the other 4 days so far and you've earnt your fricking two days off and yet now you're ill and so you'll have to spend your own time.....your OWN TIME.... being ill. It's so much more satisfactory to get ill on a Monday, Tuesday or even a Wednesday.

Goddammit.

Anyway, my lunch with John yesterday filled me with lots of riteous zeal and so have come up with a business plan, although the unenlightened might call it a spider diagram on the back of some junk mail letter. I have also made the bold decision to go into podcasting.

It was britknitcast that inspired me. I mean, she talked mainly about what she was knitting and what she had been doing and all the jazz as well as interviews with others and snippets of this and that. That sounds like the kind of thing I could enjoy doing and so I can reveal now, exclusively on this blog, that I have already booked a special guest for the first show. Hold on to your hats people - it's Pooch. That's right. Long suffering wool widow Poochard is going to be joining me on the airwaves at a speaker near you. Not right now though. Am too yucked up to talk properly at the moment.

So anyway....I won't be completing the alphabet today since I'm too pissed off with the whole ill-on-friday-thing but I do have some photos. It will however transpire that one of these objects has made me feel slightly worse.

One thing that has cheered me up is the arrival of my clippykit bag. Yaroo.
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The moment this is posted I will commence planning a foolishly complicated lining bag that I will never actually get round to making.

These are the finished socks that from tomorrow will be gracing the feet of sister 2.
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And this, miserable object, if a sideways knitted sock where I followed the pattern faithfully. FAITHFULLY!!! Is it a sock for a kangaroo? I can not imagine it ever fitting a human foot. Not unless the person in question was a severely undernourished clown. I spent time knitting that thing. Fricking patterns.
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So anyway, there you have it. I will remain on this sofa with my tissue mountain and feel sorry for myself. Send chocolate.

Thursday 1 February 2007

A you’re adorable, B you’re so beautiful….

You know that song? I was having a random train of thought that led me to it having started off with a simple concept which we will refer to as ‘Project J’. But before one gets to J you have to go through a tonne of other letters so to begin…

A is for awfully long blog post, which I have a feeling this is going to be. Because I haven’t updated for a while and I will tell you why. I have been having a fit of the RIHL’s (rabbit-in-headlights). I am a bit stymied in a couple of the two aspects of my life and this has led to a bit of a freeze on the thinking front. Fortunately I met my mentor (all the best people have them dontcherknow) for lunch and in between talk of knitting, The Chap magazine and diets he did what he always does which was to shake things up a bit and generally inspire me.

B is for not getting Bogged down (see what I did there) which goes for life as well as for blog posts which look like they might start running into several pages. B is also for BritKnitCast which I am ashamed to say I only just discovered. It is one of these podcasts all the young people are listening to nowadays and is really fab. And I’m not just saying that because she mentioned my zine in the last one. She has made me return once again to the idea of doing one myself although it is the editing side of it that puts me off. First of all I don’t have any software and secondly the sound of my own voice makes me positively…

C is for Cringe. I’ve never got used to it and still don’t recognise myself on answermachines. Why am I leaving messages for myself on answermachines? Well C is also for Crazy although that isn’t actually why I was leaving messages (they were for Pooch in case anyone is still wondering). On the crazy side things are going pretty well with me firmly in the Care of the Community at present. The bummer side effect of the old mirtazipine was the increased appetite which has sadly led to…

D if for Diet. Not just any old diet though peeps, this is the Slimfast Plan, mentioned in my previous post. You know what I mean “A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and your normal dinner”. Small print reads ‘where usual dinner doesn’t mean a sara lee gateau’. I’m actually doing pretty well although this is entirely down to the fact the shakes are chocolate flavoured. I mean, is this a no brainer or what? All those who have met me will have noticed I am seldom far from a chocolate orientated product, hence the fricking diet in the first place, so a chocolate orientated diet is guilt free bliss!

E is for Ermmmmmm, because I can’t think of anything to do with E. Ears, eggs, easter, elephant. OK, we’ll go with elephant. A colleague of mine – we will refer to him as steveyweevy since this is what I call him in the office – has recently started checking in here and has been bombarding me with information about an appeal to knit warmers for elephants. I kid you not. During our last conversation about this particular topic he told me he’d been in touch with them for the pattern which he would then pass on to me. I am yet to work out whether he’s joking or not. He told me he went to a Fitty concert last year today with a straight face and seemed genuine so it could all be true.

F is for Fitty, or 50 Cent as all of us of a Gansta nature will know. Just thought I’d slip that one in there.

G is for Gommel, which is the word I use to describe Pooch. He gommels or can be found gommelling around. He is my gommel husband. (Anyone thrown up yet?) Getting onto more serious territory G is also for Git, which is a word I also use to describe the Pooch when he is on top of his game. The G (choose your own meaning) has had a bad cold this week and so has been feeling very sorry for himself. I have frequently found him curled up in bed with his laptop – using it as an auxiliary hot water bottle. Cue computer virus jokes….

H is for Holiday, which as we all know is SkipNorth fast approaching. There are two places left on this all things to all people holiday in Yorkshire. Knitters, spinners, crocheters – all are welcome. I’ve previously described it as 35 knitters doing a kind of wacky-races type event round the last remaining mill stores consuming wine and sandwiches in equal measure. I am sooooo looking forward to it. Although god knows I really don’t need any stash enhancement.

I is for…I need to come back to that one.

J is for jumper. Obviously. This is still pretending to be a knitting blog although J is also for Project J which was mentioned a month or so back in the first paragraph of this post. If I tell you that J stands for ‘job’ then all should become clear. To make it even clearer I am a sober, upstanding lady of determined character looking for a position within suitable distance of London. My key talents come under the heading of ‘making things happen’ plus I wield a mean knitting needle. Anything considered, as long as it is interesting. Challenges preferred. I will of course let you know how Project J develops…

K is for, what else, Kabbalah. No, not really – Knitting of course. And yes, I am actually still doing some contrary to appearances. I’m carrying a sideways sock around with me at the moment which is interesting as I don’t have a decent picture of the finished project so am not sure what I am knitting towards. Plus the pattern was translated from German so I’m not even sure if it is correct. It’s looking perfectly acceptable though so I’ll keep pootling along.

Those of you who have grown facial hair while reading up to this point will be relieved to hear that I am going to end it here. Or rather I was. I’m getting error messages from blogger telling me there is a server error which seems to have been happening rather a lot lately. Am seriously considering a move to typepad or something like that. If anyone has any advice then you just let me know.

STOP PRESS - blogger has let me in to post (fingers crossed) so I'll complete the alphabet during the weekend.