I have an embarrassing confession to make. When I was growing up and reading everything I could get my hands on in the public library, I was intrigued with this British concoction called "porridge." I was convinced it was the essence of British character and was jealous that I didn't have access to it. So now I live in an Anglo country, albeit one caught between English and American languages, and I learn that porridge is just oatmeal. Very disappointing, altho I love oatmeal. My mother had a long list of cooked cereals I was fed on cold mornings: cream of wheat, cream of rice (always lumpy), Ralston, and oatmeal. Today with temps here in the morning of -5C I am glad for quick cooking oats and I always have them with honey, because honey is another of my vices and Australia makes wonderful honey. I am currently working on a jar of white box honey from Beechworth. I was listening to Bush Telegraph on my iPod at work and they interviewed the author of a book about honey. I must find a copy of this and read it with a selection of honey at my side.

While I was sick, writhing in bed with my gut tied in knots (and I'm not 100% healed yet), I read Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, which rates a big thumbs up from me. Part sci-fi, part love story, it is masterfully written and the characters as well as this future world really grab you. I was thinking about Tyler Dupree for days afterwards. While I like a good mystery, they are harder to find these days, so I generally stick to known authors. Sci fi I usually buy in book stores where I can read the cover matter, reviews (are they from the Podunk Daily News or a major reviewer?), etc. I liked Spin enough to check out his other work, so I will troll used book stores, which where I usually buy known-title older books.

Haven't been knitting, been plying, so I can take a skein of hand spun alpaca to BFLB. There were a lot of lost ends in one bobbin of the singles, so there was much muttering and even some scissorwork. While plying I watched Code 46 on DVD which was very entertaining near future science fiction and a love story. Tim Robbins is an actor I have mixed feelings about; Shawshank Redemption is in my Top 10 movies, but other films I haven't found his acting believable. Code 46 was believable even if Samantha Moreton sounded very much like a prima donna in the interviews. I didn't even recognize her as Mary, Queen of Scots, from Elizabeth. I am a movie fanatic but rarely view them in cinemas, because I can't pause them to go to the loo, or find the end in a bobbin of singles,.

I have reluctantly decided that when I have the money to pay a surgeon, etc., I will have to have my knees replaced. Even with losing weight, they hurt, especially in cold weather. If I could get them done both at once and get it over with...

First off a couple of book reports.

Color : a natural history of the palette by Victoria Finlay. If you are a textiles person you surely have heard of this book and I'm a bit behind the wave on reading it It is truly a fascinating book, which mixed her hands-on experiences with finding the original sources of natural colours with the history and science of pigments. Her basic focus as is indicated by the subtitle is art (painting), such as an unfinished Michelangelo that is unfinished because he couldn't get the ultramarine needed for Mary's dress. On the other hand the details of her trip to Afghanistan to find the real source of ultramarine dragged it down a bit. There were also crossovers between dyes and pigments; I don't know that ultramarine (a rock) was ever used as a dye but she she has a whole chapter devoted to indigo. Admittedly it would be difficult to write a book about colour without mentioning indigo. I think this book is a must for any person interested in the history of color in (mostly) Western art. I feel a great need for education about colour. It's a very important central feature of all my textile crafts going back to which fabrics I chose for the quilts on my dolls' beds. There are some colours I thinks just don't go together but don't ask me why. Which is exactly why I need to learn more, see more etc.

L.E. Modesitt. No relation (I think) to the famous knitting guru. I have been reading several of his sci-fi action thrillers. While they are real page turners and always seem to have a deep current of environmental awareness and ethics, I just wish he wrote better. He does so many of the things I marked down student essays on, that I wish I could send him one of his books with my editing. However, he seems to be selling well, so I guess it doesn't matter. Very violent but in a stylized and "we are the good guys" way. The Ecolitan novels are the ones I most recently read but The Ethos Effect was also very good. But I am always left with a guilty feeling like laughing at an Adam Sandler movie.

Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson. This writer is one of my all time favourite sci-fi writers. Admittedly I just couldn't penetrate The Years of Rice and Salt, but his early stuff and the Mars trilogy are at the top of the all time great fiction. The current trilogy which I am almost halfway through is about plausible, maybe not too future at all, sudden climate change. A few tipping points are reached and there are floods, and severe weather events world wide. The first was Forty Signs of Rain. (BTW I cannot understand the only 3-star ranking on Amazon) As some of the front blurbs have quoted reviewers, every politician should read these books. It can happen to you and what would you do then? The added plus for me is that they all are set in Washington so I can see every place he mentions.

The bathroom is finished, the painters are gone and I can start moving furniture so I can put my studio together and free my dining room table of loom and accessories, many cones of yarn, etc., etc. I do need an electrician to put an additional powerpoint (electrical outlet) in the guest bedroom because there's only one and when the wardrobe (closet) is installed on Wed. there will be power for a lamp etc. by the bed. Yesterday I overdid in a major way by 1) going the the National Gallery to meet up with one of the Bear's old friends who told me many interesting things, 2) going to Pialligo to try and find cider only to find they had already finished for the season (what apples do you pick at the height of summer? why were they always open before at this time of year?) 3) going to a garden centre where I bought veggie seedlings and 2 natives for the front desert, 3) drove to Spotlight and looked at drapery materials without buying any and buying new towels and accessories for the new bathroom which turn out to be exactly the colour of the Imp, 4) stop by the markets to get more fish and a few more pears (I had the choice of 7 different varieties if pears which boggles my mind after growing up with pears being the blah white cubes in fruit salad), 5) stop by the chemist to get a script filled. This morning my legs are very unhappy and my left knee hurts a lot. While I would love to rush out into the garden, I know I would not be able to go to work tomorrow if I did that. It is also very windy and supposed to rain.

I am on the last bit of the Sakiori vest, knitting in the collar. Had I this to do over I would not construct the collar this way, but we shall see. I have a full bobbin of plied heathered purple wool, which is really Bendigo Classic colourway Damson. I am 3 rows into the colourwork on the Komi hat. I see in Ravelry that many people said the had knit as written was too big which is good because I have a big head so it might actually fit. The second sock has about 4" knit.