The Votes are IN!

Today is like glass.

It is like crystal - ready to shatter if you shout. The air is so clear and crisp it acts like a telescope - you can look at distant hills and feel almost that you could put your hand out and touch the trees and rocks. The sky is a pale winter blue, without a cloud. The grass is so green it almost makes your eyes hurt, and breathing the air makes you feel alive and full of energy.

This of course means that last night was so cold and the frost so hard, the pipes froze and it took ages to get water to run at all, let alone heat up for a shower. I really don't mind the frost, because it means that the days are so beautiful.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the new look. I'm not sure that it makes me look 23 (but thank you anyway, Madmad), but it is cleaner and fresher. After blogging for however long (I really can't remember - although I have a feeling it may be two years), the place needed a spruce up.

In addition, knitting is going well. Kim (the jumper) is finished in the divine Fleece Artist River (an alpaca/silk/wool mix). I swear, I was tempted to knit myself sheets from this, as it felt so soft and gorgeous. Instead, I chose to knit Kim, a knitted-in-one-piece-but-folded-like-origami number. It is not quite a cardigan and not quite a jumper, joined at the crossover, but nowhere else. It is warm and gorgeous and I like it very much.

I am hoping to have the red Flair finished before Bendigo (which is only next week! Squee!) as I suddenly feel that I have no warm clothes at all. Stop sniggering, you down the back.

The wonderful Taphophile sent me a parcel of fleecy comfort, because I was practicing my spinning and ran out of prepared fleece to keep practicing. There were also other goodies in the box - some lovely fibre for when I get better, some books for the children and some cards - but they seem to have scattered quickly to the four winds before I could take a photo. Thank you, Taph.

In other happy postal news, on Monday I received these fun things. Finally, two pattern books I have been craving for ages - Heartfelt and Thrown Together, and some Fleece Artist Somoko from the lovely Ladies at Knitting inspirations. This colour is called Forest Fairy, and is utterly delectable.




There was also a case of Sangiovese. I am very happy. I am off to enjoy some more of the day, before we return to our regularly scheduled winter weather programming, which involves grey skies, wind, fog and drizzle.

Ciao!

Golden Apples of the Sun

In honour of Amy and her wonderful blogging of a poem a day, I thought I would share one of my favourites, by W B Yeats.

I love Yeats' work and visited his grave when we were in Ireland - forcing the Accountant to drive miles out of our way so I could go there.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Of course, the `golden apples' of mythology were thought to be quinces, which came from possibly Persia, and perhaps even further afield. The picture above is of our quinces, just now ready for picking. In fact, just after I took this, I picked them and baked them with port, white wine, a cinnamon stick and some honey (and a little water) and we ate them with clotted cream. Yum!

I decided to give the Knitlotto tm a miss for a few days after I finished the Lighthouse Gansey socks (and told Anne Hanson of Knitspot how much I liked them - she says she may be coming up with some more gansey type sock patterns) and monogamously knitted on these.




These took 6 days - can you believe it! They are BlackRose socks from Knitty.com, and inspired by how gorgeous Bells' were, I cast on some Blue Moon Fiber Arts STR in Thraven. The bottom pic shows the colour better, I think. These were such fun to knit and grew so fast because I would be waiting for something or standing still for a few minutes and think`Oh, I could do a quick pattern repeat'' and I would. It was also Easter and not much was going on, so I could actually knit a bit during the day!

They were a lovely knit, perfectly matched to the yarn and I may make some more because I loved them so much!

In other news, I have organised my flights and accommodation to the Bendigo Wool and Sheep Show, so I now, with Zephyrama, the Knightly Knitter and Donyale, form part of the Hustler Street Posse (Hustler St is the address of our house in Bendi). So exciting!

This morning there was a mammoth storm, with wind gusts of up to 114kmh (that's 70mph in the old money) and much lightning and thunder. And rain. Lot and lots of rain. This is the first decent rain for a long time and the first thunderstorm. There are likely to be one or two more before winter.

We have had Easter and I did eat some chocloate, but was reasonably restrained. We took the kids to the nearby National Park, Narawntapu, and visited the bird hide which is usually on a lagoon, but there is no lagoon. Hopefully, some reasonable winter rain will bring back the lagoon and swamps. Currently, kangaroos are grazing where the lagoon usually is.

We were lucky enough to be there for a snake demonstration and talk. Tasmania has only three types of snake, all venomous and occasionally difficult to tell from each other. In fact, if you are close enough to undertake accurate identification of species (from a single scale between the eyes) you are almost cetainly too close.

The Tiger snake is the 4th most venomous snake in the world and the Copperhead the 10th, but the White lipped snake is small (and just as venomous). Tasmanian snakes should be treated with great respect. They are also protected, but killed nontheless.

It is only 10 days now until I finish work. I have lots of plans, and am quite looking forward to my approaching unemployment. I have decided to try and have spinning and sewing days once a week, and to do some small moves towards further decluttering, and making the house look less like a bomb site and more like a place where people can actually live, and find their possessions!

Off to play snap with Destructoboy, and attempt to wrangle him into some clothes....