Back to the Plague House

Yes. It is still winter, and around here that means lurgy time.

I have been ill. I have been aching all over, unable to swallow, running a fever of 39 degrees (that's 102.2 for Fahrenheit users) ill. I have been exhausted, dropping asleep in chairs ill. And let's not mention almost nodding off while driving the car yesterday, shall we?

It's been two weeks since I posted. I have been alive (just) and have organised 2 further birthday parties since we last spoke. On the weekend between the children's birthday, we have the grandparents to a party for both of them, so they don't have to travel twice in two weeks.

Then we had the seven kids from kindergarten for a PJ party after school on Monday. We had fairy bread, sausage rolls and little red sausages. We had pass the parcel and musical cushions. We had a supervised trip to the top of the tower and a birthday cake with bright blue icing and sparklers. It was lots of fun, and I was totally knackered afterwards.

You really can't have a party without fairy bread. In case there are people reading who don't know the glories of fairy bread, I'll explain.

You take really good quality, really really fresh white bread, spread it with butter or margarine.

Then you tip 100s and 1000s (a type of multicoloured, tiny, round sprinkle) into a plate and press the spread side of the bread into it. Then you cut it into 4 triangles and stack onto plates. Every self respecting Aussie kid loves fairy bread. I've been at a 40th birthday party where the crowd demolished 4 loaves worth of fairy bread at 1.30 in the morning - and asked for more.




I've even had a couple of days when I was too sick to knit - despite being home alone. Now that's sick. I have also been a very bad parent, and stuck on a 150 minute Spongebob DVD and instructed Destructoboy to watch it while I dozed in the chair. A very poor mother indeed.

I've also been avoiding buying yarn. I counted my indie sock yarn stash and what I discovered made me put my head between my knees and breathe very deeply for several minutes. In fact, the next project ready for my needles is the Vine Yoke Cardigan from the latest Twist Collective, and the yarn was shopped from stash (it's green Naturally Sensation - a merino/angora mix I bought while on holiday for $2.50 a skein).

That's the next project though. Before that I need to finish the second sleeve on my Tempest, do the bands and sew in a million ends.

Other than the plague (or 'tonsilitis' as the medical profession call it), the most exciting thing to enter the house has been this:
The first fibre and yarn sampler pack from Ewe Beaut. Lots of pretties in there for a convalescent to play with.

I'll get back to more regular posting soon.

Return of the prodigal

I’m Baaa-aack!

Hurrah, the month has ended and I’m back on-line – I’ll try to ration myself this month and not chew up so much broadband – mind you, a lot of that was, I think, Black Dog Knits fault – I mean, you find the site, you find the yummy designs and you – download them, and print them out and start knitting them and planning for them – what do you expect!

This morning, I had a look for a cardigan pattern for Daughter’s Ladybird jacket and think I will use The Childhood jacket from Knitty.com. In red and black. With a hood – Daughter loves hats and hoods.

We had a great weekend, despite the lack of broadband – Saturday we took a drive up to the Central Plateau, for the kids to see snow. Remember, Tasmania has the same climate as Tuscany (except no-one says ‘Wow, Tuscany, it’s freezing there’), so to see snow in winter we have to drive into the mountains. We found snow – not a lot, maybe 4-6 inches deep (10-15cms), enough to build a small snowman, for daughter to make a little snow angel on a clear section and enough to throw snowballs at each other – also enough for daughter to put a handful down the back of my jeans – brrrrr!

Very occasionally – maybe once in ten years it snows at sea level in Tassie – I remember a flatmate’s birthday being distinguished by lots of snow in Hobart many years ago – we made snowmen in the park at midnight and buried bottles of champagne to chill. People skied down the main street and little old men threw snowballs at passers-by. Almost everyone had the day off work, except me – I lived 2 blocks away, which until then I’d considered an advantage! The next day it was all gone, but it was fun while it lasted. That day there was snow on the beaches over the whole state.

I have also been in Florence on New Years Eve when it was snowing – so Tuscan climate here, not Scottish!

Sunday was our first ever Birthday Party at a fast food restaurant – not the M one, the other burger place, and I was quite surprised by how much fun Daughter had – loved the playground, ignored the food (except for Lemonade) won the prize for the best costume of the girls – it was Pirates and Fairies and she went as a Pirate Fairy – think Pirate – with sparkly wings. Lots of loot, and a wonderful time had by all.

We are not fast food and takeaway junkies. When on holiday I adore takeaway, but it tends to be of the Vietnamese, Thai, Italian, Japanese variety, rather than fast fast food. The children have been to burger restaurants maybe 3 times each – mainly because they are near highways when we are driving long distances and have toilets and undercover playgrounds. Small country towns don’t often have much fast food – we have a fish and chip shop, and I understand there is a pizza place open on Friday and Saturday nights – but hey – I make better pizzas than we can buy round here – and they have all the stuff we like on them!

For those who asked - here is the progress on the swing jumper. I have finished the back and am up to the armpits on the front. I am enjoying just knitting away with easy increases and decreases and hope to finish the front tonight and start on the first sleeve - after I've done the ironing!

Thanks to Bells, have also discovered a new blog – Rachel – also known as the Mad, Mad Housewife – read her most recent posts this morning and almost cried laughing – that is a woman who really knows the joys of family life – check her blog out if you haven’t already.

I also caught up with Bells domestic blogging – why is it that even when women work outside the home that somehow cleaning up the inside of the home becomes their responsibility? I tried to remember the last time a man (any man any time) cleaned a toilet in a house I was living in – and I couldn’t! Even when cleaning duties were (apparently) split evenly (I do the dusting, you do the vacuuming, I change the sheets, you wash the floor, I do the bathroom……) I always ended up with the toilet!

I will ponder this fact!