I have just looked out the back window into the garden and saw a flock of about 15 silvereyes. They are so tiny and travel in flocks, so you can be surrounded by a dozen tiny twittery jewels. They are common in my back yard, but seeing them sitting in a row on the back fence is not common.



I now have a scanner that works and I have a bunch of old photos to scan and potentially to share with my unknown readers. This is the noble Haile Selassie, when he was still a kitten and not yet noble. He was my first cat and in some sense my favourite cat. He had a very grave and quiet personality, although he was good at cat soccer with a crumpled piece of paper. He lived first in ex-1's dorm room at my uni, then with my parents for a year until we found a place that allowed pets. He moved to Washington from Chapel Hill, and then to Ohio where he finally succumbed to old age at 18. He was loving without being demanding or clingy, a good lap cat and tolerant of the kitten we later introduced into the household. The kitten worshiped Haile so there was no conflict and Haile's nobility at having this small orange thing follow him around and sit next to him was charming. I though all cats were like that and I was very surprised to discover each cat has its own personality.

Here are the almost-Olympics socks, which I finished a few nights ago. I have since started a new pair, back to wool this time, in Opal Neon which is red, several shades of red but red. I am halfway down the leg on the first one. I have also been knitting on the Irish vest but one row is a very long one, since it's knit in one piece. Lots of seed stitch and cables. Unfortunately, I am discovering that after an evening of knitting knit/purl in either ribbing for the sock or seed stitch for the vest and my hands are quite sore the next day. They don't hurt while I'm actually knitting so I refuse to give up, but I try (even though it's excruciating) to do nothing for a little while at least while watching my evening TV. Doing nothing does not come easily to me.

To the left is the produce of my garden from yesterday's work day. I was digging up weeds near the potatoes and noticed they were dying back, so I dug a little further and produced about 8 potatoes, some of which I had for dinner last night. I thought that the eggplants had succumbed to the weather but they had produced fruit even if it is small. Likewise, I thought the beans had given up, but when I looked deeper, I found beans! And of course, a selection of tomatoes, from Black Russians to yellow cherry tomatoes.

Books: I raced through Sue Grafton's U is for Undertow in record time. I am beginning to bore with her style and this one I felt was contrived. You could tell from the way it unfolded how it would end, and Kinsey's chance of being at the right place at the right time was a bit too convenient for me. I am also tired of being stuck in 1988. I am now reading William Gibson's Spook Country, which is spare and elegant and makes you feel slightly off centre.

I am slowly getting the house ready so I can go off to hospital and then recuperate. I washed my bedspread today since yesterday's rain never materialized and now find the forecast for today is 40% chance of rain. I hope it will dry without another rinse. If is stays dry I may mow the lawn. I'm arranging to get my car repaired while I'm unable to drive. My Foxtel box is full of movies and other things of interest. I enjoyed Monarchy which showed the Queen as a very alert and energetic lady, although I still wonder what's in that ever-present handbag. She alone must support the millinery industry of the UK, not only by her own use, but by all the people she receives wearing hats as well.

Unfortunately, life is back to boring routine leaving little to blog about. The girls went blackberrying again this AM but the berries had passed their peak in the rain and we left with little to show for our efforts (and I fell once). The rain totalled 130mm in my rain gauge. I have lots of pumpkins and the lima beans are climbing vigorously. I had to mow the lawn for the first time in months due to the downpour.

The Imp had her annual vet check and has been put on a diet. I thought she looked a bit chubby and her weight has grown too far. No more "Fussy cat" food for her. Maybe I need to play with her some more.

I have been enjoying the figure skating at the Olympics. I am not officially in any knitting Olympics groups, but I have been charging along on the lime green socks because I can knit on them without thinking. I adore figure skating and we hardly ever see it here in Oz. To make up for that, I am watching all of the cable broadcast stuff, from Estonia to China, seeing all the skaters, not just the top ones which you'd see in the USA. Therefore, I have seen many pairs and men (so far) fall on the ice, which was practically unheard of in the 80's when I was seriously into skating. I have never skated myself, having discovered early on that ice is very hard. With my balance issues (I can't even use crutches) skating would be one big bruise.

I finished Nine Dragons and it was one of Michael Connelly's best. Where Harry goes from here will be very interesting and new territory. I have turned at last to the next S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God, in his series of The Change. I find them really engrossing and full of detail. The initial trilogy was top notch and I hope he can maintain the momentum. For my BBBB, I have also finished American Colonies and have turned for a change to Eleanor and Franklin, since I realized when visiting Hyde Park how little I really knew. To read in the first page that the Roosevelt ancestor started out in Dutchess County by buying Beekman Swamp, and my great-great-grandfather was born in Beekman, I felt a tie already.

Life is boring. At least most of the time. I do the same things over and over and sometimes am at a loss for content here. I get up and go to work (boring), come home either directly or via some other route (shopping, dentist, etc.), cook my dinner, watch TV while knitting or spinning or carding alpaca. Repeat. Now that I've got all my veggies planted, it's wait and watch them grow. We're in a patch of heat that is beastly late in the day. My rejuvenated weather station tells me it's been over 30C every day this week. I keep the house closed up and the drapes closed all day and turn on the a/c when I got home, just until the sun goes down and then open the house up again. One of the unfortunate features of the house is that it is surrounded on the north side by paving, plus a large area in the back (east). When all that surface gets heated up, it radiates heat back at the house for some time.

I've got all my plants in, the last being pumpkins (butternut). My yellow squash plants, loving raised from seed, have simply disappeared. Even left a hole behind. I planted some new seed but I may have to live without yellow crookneck this year. Aussies don't know them. My peas, the first planting at least, have pods. The second planting is blooming, and I'm running out of stakes for the third planting. I'm eating lots of asparagus. I should have some strawberries soon if I beat the snails to them. The bramble berry plants are in bloom, and my back fence neighbours have promised to cut their shrubs back, but not till December. My citrus is a fountain of scent and is surging with new growth.

Book report: Rebels of Babylon by Owen Parry, one of his Abel Jones Civil War mysteries. This one takes place in New Orleans where Mr Jones's nose is constantly out of joint about the laxness of the Union forces, the decadence of the natives, the plight of slaves, and practically everything else about New Orleans. But then, that city wouldn't be comfortable for our righteous Methodist Welshman in the best of times, much less during the Union blockade. I started reading these novels because the Bear did, and this one was left over after the big book clear out, since I hadn't read it. I enjoy them even if Abel's pious manner can be tiring. I know I need new reading matter like the proverbial hole in the cranium, but I had a gift voucher for Borders, so I got the new Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly, and Kathy Reichs.

My MIL sent me a clipping of Maggie Alderson's column from the SMH about tails, as in cats' tails and their expressiveness, and her own desire for a tail. I also have thought that a tail would be a wonderful method of expressing one's emotions, altho the logistics of sitting on one always bothers me. If you follow the anatomy of a cat, you'd be OK. The Imp gets into moods when she gets what I call the "windscreen wiper mode" when the tail lashes back and forth with great emphasis. Since I don't know what's going on in that brain I don't know why these spells occur or what she is trying to express. Since they can come on when she's doing nothing but standing on the basin in the ensuite, having demanded a drink straight from the tap, I remain mystified. She is getting more vocal but I can't decode "Mao!"

I am hoping Blogger will let me post some photos without losing them, which it often does. At left is my new front porch which replaced a very bizarre structure left by the previous owners. It had two levels, with a half-a**ed pergola overhead, was made with the wrong sort of wood, constructed poorly, and the steps were merely piles of bricks. The new porch has a handrail and only two steps and is all at one level so it makes getting large things in and out a bit easier. I was ashamed of the old one when the occupational assessment team came to the house post surgery; the bricks and no handrail were an accident waiting to happen. My back steps have also been replaced. And there is much sun because I am standing where my monster "pencil pine" or tall narrow juniper used to be. It was beginning to heave the pavers and causing a trip hazard. There is a pile of woodchips where it was. When I shift the chips to the front and assess the hole, I want to plant a deciduous shade tree (not too big) because the left window is the living room and it faces west without the shield that my street tree gives the rest of the house.

Next at right is a heap of clean brown alpaca that I washed
last night. I spent about 4 TV nights sorting out the nasty
bits and flick cardings the ends of the most promising locks. It's much shorter than the white, rarely getting over 2" in length. I have also been spinning the rest of the white batts I had made and filled up another bobbin. I have lots of white to card, and now brown as well. The brown was just as filthy as the white was; the first wash water was the same colour as the fibre. There is another 3/4 of a trashbag full to go.And lastly but never least is The Imp. She spends most evenings on my lap while I watch TV and has never interfered with fibre tasks. If I leave the comfort of my recliner and therefore remove her, this is what I am shown when I return. And do not think she wants her belly rubbed. She most adamantly does not and I have to wrestle her out of the chair so I can reclaim it.

I have spent my weekend ironing, shopping, gardening, sleeping, and yesterday suddenly was struck by a desire to work on my 4 shaft loom. I had to rethread it once more and sley the reed at the same time, but it didn't terrify me the way it used to. The studio is still a mess so no photos of that yet. My little furry assistant helped out by knocking most of what was on the table between the looms on the floor.

I mentioned before my love affair with rock. I have been watching a BBC series called "The Seven Ages of Rock" and I cannot get my head around what they are talking about. I know the Brits have a completely different view of rock than Americans do, and naturally the Brits claimed they invented it. The first show was the birth of rock and supposedly covered 1965-1969. According to this show The Who were the first real rock band, there were no American bands mentioned except for the black blues artists who influenced bands like the Stones. There was not even a passing mention of that band from Liverpool known as the Beatles. The second show was about art rock which supposedly included psychedelia altho drugs are hardly mentioned in either show. The bands covered were Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Velvet Underground, Roxy Music and early Genesis. That's it. When talking about the idea of concept albums or music being dramatic, nobody seems to remember Tommy by the previously mentioned band The Who and I distinctly remember the furor it sparked in the early 1970's. What about Sgt. Pepper? I don't know if I want to watch the rest of this series altho there are some wonderful interviews. Watching Jack Bruce describe how he came up for the opening riff for "Sunshine of your love" was worth the pain, also to find out that Ginger Baker is still alive.

At left is the Imp with her two newest possessions. I replaced the old scratching post that had gotten beyond repair and, wonder of wonders, she prefers scratching this post to the furniture. (The chair in the background has suffered through many cats) It has a pedestal to pose on and is all round satisfactory. The tunnel was a shot in the dark and it's the best $ I've ever spent on cat toys. She adores it: runs through it, grapples with it, pops out the holes on the side, just sits in it. It makes a wonderful taffeta-like noise as well. The catnip mice I tried at the same time were ignored.

In case you think I've stopped knitting, here is the first of D's socks. It's a Regia Kaffe Fasset colourway. I am almost finished with the ribbon shell (altho I found it on the floor this morning and I hope it just fell and was not subject to cat investigations). I am thinking about knitting a very cabeled Dawn Brocco pattern from my handspun but was worried that I hadn't enough. Today I dove into the stash and found 2 more large hanks of grey wool. The wool chosen for the jumper is similar in weight but is varying shades of grey.

Book report: I have finished Green Thoughts and, while it was interesting in the way serious garden writing is to serious gardeners, I found her extremely opinionated in strange ways (were American stawberries full of flavour in the 1980's? Why are tree peonies given such a bad review?) and in other ways very unskilled. How many years had she grown tomatoes without knowing they had to be pruned and tied to a stake? If it's not written in one of her reference works she deems it impossible. She wants some authority to give her instructions on grafting instead of experimenting. She might have considered her extension agency, or today one would Google grafting but she sits and waits for instructions (preferably from Europe because Americans are clueless).

I have also given Spin Control by Amy King more thorough read and found descriptions of some types of spinning I haven't had described much. Core spinning and plying with commercial thread or yarn is something that might be useful in the future. I think there is not enough attention paid to basic spinning, or rather intermediate level. Very little about how different fibres behave. I'd like to have some more about control of fine fibres. The assumption is also that you spin on a standard wheel. No bobbins or electric wheels.

Next in the queue is The Age of Homespun, which fits in nicely to my family history research, where I am trying to find Clement Cornwell's (b. 1798) father. Here I was sitting in the middle of Duchess County last October for Rhinebeck unaware of the family ties there. I should have gone to the historical society. I now know there was a town named Beekman in Duchess county but there's lots of work to do to tie little pieces of information together.

I was all prepared mentally for a day of shopping, groceries, markets, off to look at lighting fixtures and fireplace inserts. My body refused to come to the party and my planned brief excursion for groceries was pulled out into lots of standing and waiting and now my right hip hurts. So today will be spent on sedentary activities (maybe some genealogy!) and tomorrow I'll go to the other side of town to look at lighting. It has also gotten very windy which always puts me on edge. The Weether Pixie should have her hair tossing around.

I'm cheating by using Farmgirl's technique of the daily dose of cute. One reason there hasn't been much to say is I spent several hours on Saturday ironing with the Imp for company. These are a couple of her poses while I was ironing. When I get reborn I want to come back as somebody's cat. It's gotten cool enough that she sleeps with me all the time and I wake up to a tangle of feet sticking in to me. Last night I was sitting at thw kitchen table and heard her behind me very noisily chewing on something. Since there was nothing edible there, I turned around to find that she had pulled most of the stuffing out of one of her toys and was trying to eat it. I followed a trail of wet fluff back into the living room. Wha?

I am home today because I have no voice. I slept all morning and maybe knocked this on the head before it gets a grip. I have slept very little for several days which is dangerous as it lowers my immune system's ability to fight off random bugs. I cannot have the sniffles or an open cut when I go in for surgery.

The word for today is humidity. We have had a series of thunderstorms pass through and the last one left its moisture behind and the humidity went up to (for us) a shocking 60%. Boy, my joints hurt. I could barely walk. As I have been sitting here wasting time online the humidity has dropped to 42% and I feel much better. This is one reason why I love Canberra most of the time. The cockatoos that have been screaming since daybreak are not one of the reasons. I found out I was blaming the wrong parrot for decimating my pears; it was the big white ones who were eating them green, not the rosellas.

Since it has been too hot to knit anything but socks (Regia Bambu), I have been spinning and carding alpaca. I have a bag full of fluffy white clouds to spin, but not while sitting in front of a fan. I am plying Susan's Clematis Vine Targhee and will probably go back the the Bendigo purple after that, since it's out and waiting for a matching bobbin to ply. I do love spinning. Since the forecast is for over 30C for the next week, I don't think I will be knitting on CAW.

While I continue to be on a yarn diet despite the lovely fibre cast up on my computer screen, I have bought 2 books in the past 2 months. One is Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. All but a handful of her knits are top down, and if I weren't already consumed with top-down-desire, this book would make me want to jump right in. (not till it gets cooler) Every design also has some nifty and unusual kink to it, some are decidedly retro, others have unusual details. I am a big fan of Saddle A-line and Slinky Ribs. I haven't tried a scoop neck on and don't know how they'd look on me. The cover design is a Scandinavian style yoke sweater that's been steeked from the neck down and laced back up. Radical, babe.

The second book is Continuous Cables by Melissa Leapman. You know anything Melissa designs is wonderful and her last was Cables Untangled, which I can't remember whether I own or not. Anyone who has read this blog knows I am a cable addict. This book has both wonderful patterns and a stitch dictionary of cables at the back. I'd love to knit the Stowe Cabin Throw Rug but I have a feeling the Imp would disintegrate it quick smart (as she attempts to do with the cheap Oriental throw rug in the entryway on a daily basis). The Tweed Hoodie and the Swirl pullover are both yummy and the Tweed Boyfriend Sweater would suit me too, without a boyfriend to give it to.

The Imp nearly gave me a heart attack earlier in the week when I came back from picking blackberries in the back yard and found the front door blown open. I called and called and went all though my yard and next door's (who are away) and was about to write her off as lost. I sat down on the front porch, close to tears, and called and called. I heard a sound like metal scratching on something and there she was. I think she used one of the grills they place in foundations here to prevent dampness under houses to go to the dark side. What is it with under the house? She's now all excited when I try to go out the front and has to be sternly addressed, sometime pushed away and sometimes locked behind the bi-fold doors to the kitchen.

I did stay up to watch the inauguration Weds morning (our time) and was so blown away with the crowds on the Mall. One of the CBS commentators said the shot of the day was a wide shot of the Mall with flags waving vigorously. Whole families, people who wanted to be there because this was History which a very emphatic capital H. I thought Obama read his speech too fast for the audience to absorb it but he may have been cold. Fortunately the next day was an off day for me so I slept all morning. Certainly a more impressive spectacle than the newly formed cabinet being sworn in by the Governor General. Another example of the US being a nation of the people. Lots of folks I know here either stayed up or watched the replay, which was probably the first time most of them saw the process.

Later in the same day as I wrote my last post, we had a death in the family. Dear Miss Pink Nose, the Senior Cat, went to the great cat box in the sky. I took her to the vet for an assessment but she had been so frail lately and the vet said she was having difficulty breathing so I decided right then to end her pain. More tears over the little soul who had been with me almost as long as I had the Bear and only outlived him by a little over a year. I got home and went to clean the littler box and found that she had peed all over the floor yet again, I think just because her back end hurt too much to get it in the right position. The Imp doesn't see to mind, although she has done some looking around in corners and has been a bit clingy. I'll never be lonely with her in the house although I wish she wouldn't wake me up with kisses on my mouth. Ick.

The DNA Files is a really fascinating podcast. It's presented in a light way with one person playing dumb so everything is explained. I have recently learned that my dear MIL many have one of the genes for breast cancer. A relative does and they are now tracing it through the family. Her DNA test will be back in a month. I know from the DNA Files that this gene can express in other types of cancer than breast. I wonder if I have a gene since my mother and sister both had breast cancer. There are no other branches of the family to check as we are the last twigs. I supposedly have reduced my risk having had a hysterectomy (but so had my sister and my mother) and I had breast reduction surgery. After last December's scare who knows. I might ask at my next screening.

Random thoughts on a Sunday morning when my body aches from working on the berry bushes yesterday. This is the time of year to remove all last year's canes, untangle the new growth and tie it to the trellis, and fight against the evils of vinca, wild passionfruit and couch, which invade the growing area. I did over 2 hours at it yesterday (about 2/3 or what was left to do) and, while I am sore and stiff, there is nothing like the agony I would have experienced B.L. (before Lyrica). I want to finish it off but my hands are very sore. If the sun comes out, maybe.

The Imp amazed me the other night by demanding some of what I was cooking for my dinner. Since I eat mostly fish and she never cares about that, I was surprised when she demanded kangaroo. Roo is the only red meat I eat presently, and it's very lean yet very tender. This was the first time I'd gotten unmarinated roo, so I was wondering if it would be as tender. She told me loudly that she wanted some. I had a skinny fillet so I cut bits off the end and she inhaled that and asked for more. In the end she ate the whole fillet. Go figure that one out from Miss Fussy Eater.

I wound off the BFL I had spun to be sock yarn and it looks good (it and the new hat are drying off from their first bath). It's a dusty rose. I can't decide whether to knit myself or take to BFLB who has sent me so much sock yarn over the years and actually got me on the sock addiction. I want to spin more alpaca to take over to her because I can see it being lace. I pulled out a couple of hanks of grey handspun and wound them into balls yesterday. I think this was grey from Brown Sheep mill ends via Carol Lee. I know I spun a lot of it and I have other bits of other greys. Now to find the perfect pattern out of all the mess in the studio.

I must have been asleep (doubtful) or they didn't teach the reality of early New England when I was in school. I am reading Early Americans by Carl Bridenbaugh and found out that 25,000 Puritans emigrated in the 1630's. There were settlements at New Haven, Stratford, and Greenwich, so maybe I am connected on the Cornwell side as well. I had this image of a few hundred people huddled in the snow in Massachusetts, whereas the "huddled in the snow" part is right but the "few hundred" was wrong. It was what he calls The Great Migration and the Puritans who were organizing this exodus from England were looking for specific people who were morally and physically strong and alloted land regardless of social status, altho the larger the household (including servants) the bigger the plot. To a working man in the 1630's who hadn't a hope of getting land of his own in England, the promise of 50 acres free must have been a real draw. Maybe they did teach this but I don't remember it.

Finished Women's work, the first 20.000 Years and it should be read by every weaver, if not by every woman. It is a history of weaving and what I really found fascinating was that a tensioned loom (like a backstrap) wasn't invented much earlier than it was. Weighted looms were all the rage in prehistory, and linen was the most common for most of the Middle East and Egypt. Starting to make fabric out of linen on a weighted loom sounds all too hard for me. No wonder women got the job. My new BBB is Enough by Bill McKibben. which put me off at first because it begins by talking about genetically modifying humans. That couldn't really happen, I said to myself, then he led you down one of those slippery slopes where one starts by curing disease and ends with designer babies. He uses as an example human growth hormone which was derived to treat a rare medical condition and then was seriously abused for other purposes. As medical technology becomes cheaper, it becomes more possible. Would I like to eliminate the gene that causes kerataconus from my hypothetical child (Charlotte if a girl, Michael if a boy)? You bet I would. How about changing the body shape that I share with my mother and sister which leads us to constant fruitless dieting? Tempting.

I also raced through three Janet Evonovich novels in record time but they are like chocolates. I only wonder that Stephanie had survived so long with nothing more than singed hair, exploding cars, and torn clothes.

P.S. the Weather Pixie seems to be having hardware problems and comes and goes. If it has permanently gone I'll put another weath link on like the Bureau of Meteorology.

Today's dedication is to BFLB. Above is the shawl that you saw earlier in its unblocked state I especially like that it is designed so it wraps completely around me and is anchored in the back so I am not struggling with it all day and I can wear into the stacks where I may be either on a step-stool or standing on my head. The yarn is some hand-dyed handspun I bought at a guild sale that I knew I could never do justice to. It's not obvious from the photo, but it's a variegated purpley eggplant/dark blue. I love it and thanks again.

The next two are the result of yarn gifts from BFLB. I am so lucky when she wants to clean out her stash. Left is most recently finished socks out of Mountain Colors Bearfoot in lovely deep cerise, purple, blue. Right is Sakiori II vest from Chryl Oberle's Folk Vests knit from a variegated wool single from CMD. While it is superficially simple in construction, I didn't like how the neckband/collar was knitted in. I think I would have preferred knitting it separately and sewing it in so I could ease into squareness. The yarn I don't believe is hand/random dyed so you get some weird pooling effects.

Both cats are basking in the dining room. This too has a link to BFLB. When we brought the Senior cat home from the RSPCA in January 1992, the first thing that happened was a phone call from across the world, so BFLB was right there when we named the Senior cat, As a kitten the SC was adorable, and has a white tip to her tail which is very good for chasing. When I was attempting to do consulting work from home she wore me out demanding attention and preferably vigorous play. She'd chase a shoe lace forever and loved jumping; even as she grew up she preferred a vulture-like pose on the top of the china cabinet and thought nothing of jumping down in one leap. To see her so frail and creaky with arthritis is just another reminder of how time keeps passing, no matter what we would prefer.

I felt honored yesterday to subvert a novice into the dark side to spinning. We have a student doing a rotation through the Library and she somehow told my boss she was into knitting so of course, spinning lessons followed. I loaned her my Kundert drop spindle and gave her some wool and basic instructions, including pointers to the many spinning videos now on You Tube. Then I took her on a run to the Guild as I had books to return, where she bought more fiber. Sometimes I think I should get a commission. I was very pleasantly surprised to see young women with infants and even someone with a table loom, so perhaps there will be a generational change in the Guild.

As I type, I have alpaca in the washtub, but not the free stuff. This is one of 2 bags of raw fawn alpaca I bought online long before I knew I was going to be given masses. I am very very slowly re-arranging thing in the back bedroom to make it work as a studio and to find the top of my dining room table.

A few photos to prove I really am making progress on the knitting front. To the right are the Mountain Colors socks, down to the heel on the first. I am a little worried about yardage so made them a tad shorter than what I prefer. Yes, I know I could just have added different yarn to the toes, but the colours of this yarn are so pretty I hate the thought of tacking on something that doesn't match, and I have nothing that comes close to these. Here also is progress on the Sakiori II vest. I only have half of a side panel and the collar to go.

And here is some spinning as well. I got bored spinning yet more white merino. I thought it time I tried to spin some of that washed, carded and very fluffy white alpaca. I've never spun anything but various types of wool and some blended with a bit of mohair, so this is virgin territory. I know alpaca on its own can be very heavy, warm, and has no memory so I am aiming at something fine. I have no idea how it will behave once plied and washed but I hope I produce something usable. It seems pretty soft and the fibres are in the 3-4" range (not the really long stuff I showed before. I have masses of the shorter stuff to card.

LATE BREAKING NEWS: The Imp is missing. I have been having tradesmen in to remodel the horrendous main bath. The cats have been carefully locked up every day. Today the electrician came late, almost at 5. She had been with me to that point and she disappeared under the bed when a strange man entered the house. But he was in and out repeatedly, flipping circuit breakers etc. He always closed the front door but she can be so quick. Now it's getting dark and I've been out calling till my throat is raw and I can't find her. I don't think she's go far and I've alerted the nearest neighbours (who don't have dogs). I am distraught. I can't imagine her gone, she's with me all the time demanding to be petted. She is microchipped but where is she????

UPDATE: she is found!! She made it down under the house through one of the holes in the bathroom floor. Despite all our best efforts to cover every access point she must have found a hole. My dear MIL told me to sit down and eat something and she would come back and when I did I heard her under the house. Getting her out wasn't so easy but she will be incarcerated whenever there is an open hole. Just exploring, Mum.

I know I have mentioned in the past that one of the things the Bear promised me was parrots in my back yard but it seems recently that I have been overwhelmed by the life around me. A week or so ago I had a long eye to eye viewing of a male king parrot (left) whom I have been hearing around the neighbourhood. I think they are the most charming and dignified of our local birds. Aside from their call being a ear-piercing CHEEP!, they are rather large with long tails and are not known for the antics that some of the others do. When I get the opportunity to have a long gaze, I can't help it. We used to feed parrots in our former home but now I am not encouraging any into my garden.

The one who is chomping on my pears at the moment of the eastern rosella pictured at right. If I am in the yard bending over picking beans and don't move much, they go right on eating all of 5 meters away. I'll give them the fruit that's up too high for me to reach. They do eat each pear quite thoroughly and pears are the only fruit that attracts them.

The one species I could do without is the sulfur-crested cockatoo. Yes, on occasion they perform circus tricks by hanging upside down on the telephone wires, but mostly they fly around and shriek. The babies are out of the nest now and they are as big as the parents but not as nimble and have slightly less extensive crests. I watched a parent and child in the gum tree next door this week as the mother eyed me off and decided I wasn't a threat while the child demanded to be fed. The parent eventually regurgitated something for the offspring. These cockies are the ones that eat my plums, and can rip half the foliage off in the process. There is a flock of about 30-40 that call this little patch of Canberra home and, when they head out in the AM or come home around 8 PM, their combined screeching makes it difficult to carry on a conversation. This is one parrot I could do without in my backyard.


I haven't had a good week pain-wise. My legs kill me every morning no matter what I did the day before. My vertigo is worse and I seem to have a headache that has settled in permanently. This was not helped by my hitting my head on the corner of the dryer. Today I added irritated eyes to the mix so all I did was talk to a bathroom renovator and then lie down. I think the threading of my loom is ready to weave but I am having trouble getting even tension. My big loom (the 45" countermarche) is out of imprisonment in a storage locker and will soon have space in the back bedroom (to be rechristened "the studio"). Unfortunately, bringing the loom home also meant bringing home 3 bags of alpaca. I have been carding while alpaca again, trying to make a dent. The Imp was a slut with the plumbers this morning and I think one of them wanted to carry her off. When she is good she is very very good...

Well, I'm getting there, little by little. Here is my first warp ready to go on the loom. One book advised that new weavers to make lots of short warps in their early days so you get over your fear of warping and get the physical side of the process down so it's not so intimidating. This is only 5/2 (I think) cotton from mill ends bought on ebay and the colours do not match anything I own, but they're what I had the most of and wouldn't mind using as a learning tool. I spent this morning making a raddle but I think I will have to get a better one made using harder wood because this one threatened to split as I was pounding in nails and hoping I wasn't nailing it to my kitchen benchtop. We are supposed to have one more day of 34C which means I will try and do this early in the morning.

Today I got 3 parcels but one was an M bag addressed to me but containing Martha Stewart books for somebody in Malaysia. I wonder how Martha handled Muslim holy days. The other two were socks yarn (bad knitter, naughty knitter) but when I heard about Noro sock yarns, how could I resist? I also picked up a couple of lairy red yarns from On Line and Opal. More red socks are needed. The photo does not do any sort of justice to the gorgeous colours of the Noro; the left one is greens and blues with a shot of god and white, while the one on the right is purples and golds shading to red. I almost am afraid to actually knit with Noro because it costs so much. I nearly passed out laughing at a sweater patter knit with 20+ balls of Noro. My pockets ain't that deep.

In the AM I made plum jam, which made an exceedingly small dent in the bowl of plums I had picked. I foisted some off on my Tongan neighbour and the tree is still loaded. Use of bird netting means I have fully ripe plums on the tree for the first time, but it also means I have a bloody lot of them as well. Anyone in Canberra want plums? Will trade for sock yarn (no, naughty knitter).

I am halfway through the second sleeve of the red top so I may have it done to wear to work next week. Then I can go back to sock knitting and finish my wool vest and start my fair isle.

The Imp got out twice today. I have routinely taken to shutting her up in the guest bedroom when I go out the back but sometimes even after I think she is obeying at the front, she zooms out. The second time it was night and I had gone out to feed the possums and I said to her that I had half a mind to leave her out there. Them Mum & bub possums arrived and she was entranced and I think intended to jump them (that could only end badly) so I scooped her up and threw her back inside. The thing is, she doesn't really like it outside and makes it very easy to capture her. It's just her Burmese devil inside that likes running amuck.

You know you've got strange priorities when you buy a new bedside lamp because your cat doesn't like the one you have. My faithful halogen bedside lamp died (the base cracked and fell apart). The Imp loved the old lamp as she used it as a heat lamp and/or spotlight on her beauty. I replaced it with a squat table lamp from the guest bed room but she couldn't get the same effect from a lamp whose shade she could barely fit under, although she tried. She also seemed to believe she must go under the shade to get to the window sill. So I went to K-Mart today and bought a new lamp just like the old one and she immediately went and sat under it looking very pleased. The things we do...

I had a mammogram a couple of weeks ago and just got a call from the clinic and they want me back to look at some "small calcification" in my left breast. I will not panic. My mother died of breast cancer. My half sister is currently undergoing chemo for breast cancer. I will not panic yet.

I finished washing one bag of alpaca! The next bag has extremely long locks and I have questioned its breed. 8" long but just as dirty if not more so. I'd show a photo but pure white fibre is a bit difficult to photograph!

The Imp seems to get all the space in my blog so I decided to give The Senior Cat a chance to be centre stage for a change. She's 16 and the Bear and I acquired her as a RSPCA kitten when we moved into our first house together. She is getting arthritic and can barely manage to jump up on my chair and has a chesty cough that the vets can't diagnose. At the moment I can afford another 4-digit vet bill that resulted from her last visit. She is still very affectionate, loathes the Imp (for many good reasons), and after her brushing every Sunday morning, I put handful of her fur away for the day when I can blend it with some wool for a permanent reminder of her.


Some fibre content at long last. Sonny and Shear had some irresistible things available including Lorna's Laces rovings (why did they have invent this? I have no will power) at left and some lovely sock yarn at right called "Dream in color Smooshie" which it is and is superwash handpainted in coulourway "beach fog".


Lastly there is this beautiful bag which I think may become my default traveling bag, not just a knitting bag. It's from Scout's Swag and is messenger style, which I like both because it leaves your hands free and is more secure by going across your body rather than just over your shoulder or in your hand. While I have what I view as the perfect handbag, it does tend to fall off my shoulder if I'm carrying things. The bag was reviewed by Jennie and Nicole on Stash and Burn and when I looked at online I fell instantly in love. It's brown fine-wale corduroy with a not-too-loud lining. There is a zippered pouch on the flap, two flapped pouches on the outside, more on the inside and a divider to break up the inside. I could see the normal contents of your purse in one side and your knitting in the other side with those random but necessary accessories like scissors, crochet hook, stitch markers, etc, in the smaller pockets. It's big enough to hold substantial amounts of knitting. One beef I have with a lot of knitting bags is they are big enough when you start a project but when you get to the point where you have the whole front (or back) of the jumper, or both front and back if you need to match them up at some point, or if you want to carry more than one ball of wool with you, there's just not enough room. That's why I tend to use plastic shopping bags instead of purpose made knitting bags. My sock knitting bags are 1) a cheap make-up bag from K-Mart in a rather loud pink floral and 2) a cylindrical tapestry bag made of Laurel Burch cat fabric from Colorful Critters which both have room for 2 socks and all necessary things like tape measure, crochet hook, etc. My other projects, which up to now have rarely left the living room, they live in plastic shopping bags