Beloved

I grieve privately. I tend not share my big sorrows or worries, unless it's absolutely necessary. This is necessary. Because she was something else, and you should know about her.

My Aunt Diane, my wonderful, vibrant, Auntie Di Di, passed away this evening. She raised four daughters, ironed hundreds of altar cloths, canned thousands of quarts of tomatoes and other vegetables, made hundreds of pints of jam, bottled gallons and gallons of home-made wine, baked and frosted several hundred cut-out Christmas cookies every year, and cross-stitched god alone knows how many projects, at least four of which adorn my house. She built great bonfires, taught me to swim, and how to put a minnow on a fishhook. She painted my skinned knees with iodine, greased me up with sunblock, and sprayed me with Off before she'd let me out to play in the summer.

Her love was something, as a kid, it was easy to take for granted because it was so obvious you didn't need to think about it.

She buried her parents, her twin brother, and her husband, and then, before she'd really had time to finish grieving my uncle, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I am not a violent woman, but the first person who asks me if she smoked may well get their teeth knocked out. Yes, she smoked. She smoked and drank and knew how to throw a hell of a party. She had a great, big, dirty laugh, bright auburn hair, and a delightfully crude sense of humour. She was awesome. You would've liked her. I loved her so much.

My husband is a GOD.

I've been sniffling and coughing my way through the early stages of a nasty head cold. The weather today is lovely, and but for one quick trip down to the shopping precinct to pick up some micro meals from Marks & Sparks and various cold supplies, I've mostly been poking around online, or sitting in my chair next to the window in the conservatory, making granny squares, drinking apple juice, and feeling sorry for myself. My coldless streak has come to an ignominious and mucosal end, and at this point, I should probably just be grateful the sore throat is mostly gone. (I spent most of yesterday in deep denial, insisting the tingling sinuses and sore throat were obviously allergy-related. Or maybe I slept on my back with my mouth open. But it definitely wasn't aaaaaaaaa-CHOOO! Oh fuck.) I really, really hate sore throats, a legacy of a childhood spent getting one Strep infection after another. As an adult, I've mostly had the robust immune system of a sewer rat, but every now and then, some virus will fell me, and I just have to ride it out.

And do you know what that man did? He went out into the garden, mixed up a bunch of fertiliser and compost and spread it out over the rose beds. All by himself, without any help from his whinging, sickly wife. AND HE WEEDED, TOO. And when I thanked him, he said, "Aw, love, you already do so much around here. Just try to feel better."

If only I could breathe through my nose, I'd thank him properly.

holiday planning

Well, the first two weeks of June will be our summer hols this year. Phil booked the time off, but of course, we haven't decided where we're going or what we're doing. We'll spend part of it at home, probably just hanging out and doing some work in the garden, by which I mean, "sitting on the patio, swilling Pimm's or mojitos." We definitely do want to get away though; our long weekend in London last autumn was the first holiday we'd actually gone somewhere in years. I suspect I'm basically a homebody at heart, but I truly am all in favour of going away for a bit, to let somebody else do the cooking and cleaning. I'm not very good at letting things go at home when I'm supposed to be relaxing.

So far, discussions have centred around Edinburgh, York, possibly London again, maybe Brighton -- although Brighton in early June sounds kind of nightmarish for crowds -- or, as an outside possibility, renting a cottage somewhere in Deep Wales. Cornwall or Devon sound tempting as well, but Phil and I are very, very bad at dealing with touristy places in tourist season (this would be why our holidays usually take place in autumn or winter) so we'd like to minimise that as much as possible. Everywhere you'd want to go in Britain is usually thronging with tourists, alas, so probably we should just decide where we really want to go, and then just suck it up and deal with the crowds.

At the moment, surprisingly, I find myself leaning to York. Phil did his undergrad there, and lived there on and off for about a decade, so he has loads of friends there and knows the place well. It's also where we went on our honeymoon, which I really couldn't enjoy at the time, as I was both ill and suffering from post-wedding nervous collapse. Possibly the least sexually-charged honeymoon ever, but I did love the place, and I'd like to see it when I'm feeling well.

Even though I love Brighton, I am not really a beach person, so crappy weather doesn't bother me a bit when I'm on holiday. I can't think of anything more boring than having to slather myself in super high SPF sunblock and then just sort of sit there in the sun. So in Brighton, we walk on the pier, because I must have my candy floss, wander up and down the hills and through the Shambles, and spend a lot of time sitting in nice pubs. Which, minus the pier, candy floss and hills, is probably exactly what we'd do in York, with a trip to the Minster and a walk along the city walls instead. See, now I'm getting very warm to the idea. The fact that I know for sure there is a good yarn shop in York has nothing to do with it.

Naturally.

I found my camera this morning. Which is OK! My phone camera is only 3 megapixels, and thus not the kind of thing I'd use for anything other than a convenient snapshot device, and I really do like my elderly Lumix, so it's good to be able to put off buying a real camera for a while. I can always use Phil's D200 if I need to go superfancy or all macro, like with garden photos.

Speaking of the garden, I am dying to get out in it, but the weather just isn't quite there yet. We get the odd beautiful day, and the rest of the time it seems to be either raining or on the verge of raining, and if not actually cold, still decidedly chilly. In spite of my gardening jones being so far thwarted, I am feeling a hell of a lot better in general, due, I am certain, to the increased sunlight daylight. This winter was dreadful for me, in terms of depression and anxiety. It's not the cold, it's not the damp, it's the darkness. I've this bad tendency to think of depression, in myself, as self-indulgence and whining. Other people are depressed? I am very sympathetic. Me? I'm a whinger. I'm not sure why I hold myself to tougher standards than I hold others in this respect, but I definitely do.

This winter really, really sucked, with family issues (illness & injury, mainly) and the crappy weather, and this awful feeling of general malaise, much of which I attribute to how hopeless the news feels. I'm really not capable of being one of those people who can blithely ignore politics and current events, but sometimes, I think it would do me good to unplug from it for a couple of days, just because I reach a point where everything gets viewed through my Oh God, We're Dooooomed filter, and that is just no way to live. For one thing, it's annoying to others. I really don't want to be that horribly negative person who brings everybody else down. Well, yeah, things suck, but they aren't going to stop sucking just because I've got this perverse need to make myself unhappy. Because, you know, something bad might happen if I ever slipped up and allowed myself to be happy and enjoy my life for a minute or two.

So I'm working on that, and the end of winter is very helpful. I can open up my conservatory pretty early most days (the conservatory is unheated, has no electricity and is unusable in winter. It really needs double glazing at a minimum), and being able to sit out there, first thing in the morning, drinking coffee, knitting, and watching the little birds hopping about, does me a world of good. Everything is in bud, or putting on new growth. The daffodils, tulips and grape hyacinths are in bloom, the bluebells and lilacs are coming along, and it looks as if the wisteria we planted our first summer here is finally going to give us a proper show this year. And, oh god, there is so much to do out there. Weeds are everywhere, we need to mulch and turn the compost heap, the patio needs a good cleaning, the bramble is very close to out of control, and that goddamn ivy is making me mental. But those are all things I can do something about, and I will, just as soon as the weather gets a bit better. I'm looking forward to planting my tomatoes and herbs and sweet peas, and tending my little patch of the earth.

The technology report

Given that my mobile phone is ancient, and I've misplaced my camera, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a camera phone today. It is very shiny and sexy, and I cannot wait for it to finish charging so I can start taking pictures with it. I hope I like it, because I assure you, unless it gets lost, broken or stolen, I will have it for a very long time, not because I'm cheap or dislike spending money (oh, how people who know me would laugh at that idea), but because I get weirdly attached to things, and am not very keen on change. I mean, I love the shiny, sexy laptops and cameras and mobile phones, and I would probably enter into a bigamous marriage with my iPod, if it were legal, but I find the process of changing over from, say, one computer to another, to be incredibly tiresome. I make a very bad geek. I run my cars into the ground, I will baby a failing appliance until it actually up and dies on me, and even if the sky above me suddenly started raining money, I doubt either of those things would change.

Phil's a great geek, because he loves that shit. And because he enjoys the whole setting up/tweaking process, I usually can talk him into doing the stuff I regard as tedious gruntwork. I'll be replacing my elderly Powerbook soon, which I am frankly dreading, even though mine is just about knackered, and I've mostly been using his for a couple of months now. I've got so much stuff on mine, and the idea of moving it all over sort of makes me want to cry.

The good part, though, is that I've recently discovered that once I do make the switch, it's done. The old object in question is now dead to me, and I do not wallow in nostalgia. The mobile phone is dead, long live the mobile phone!

Why, hello there!

Dear god, I have had to make so many upgrades and changes between Google/Yahoo/Flickr/Facebook mail accounts that remembering which account is associated with what has driven me to mostly ignore all of them.

I think I have it now. This is mostly just a test post. Still knitting, still running 3WA, still on Ravelry, in a moment of madness joined Twitter, and, oh, taught myself to crochet.

I am still 40.

40

I turned 40 earlier this week, and it did not kill me. After all the Drama and all the Angst, on the actual day, it didn't bother me at all. The wine, jewelry and fawning attention from my husband may have helped somewhat, but I suspect my relative calm has something to do with the commencement of a new decade. If my 40s go anything like my 30s did, I probaby won't give my actual age much more thought until I start creeping dangerously close to 50.

Besides, a couple of weeks ago, I was standing in the queue at the offy, and saw one of those old lady magazines with Joanna Lumley on the cover and the headline JOANNA: 60 IS THE NEW 40. Which, by that logic, makes 40 the new 20, and if it's good enough for Patsy Stone, it's good enough for me.

Psssst...

I'm over here, with my funny, snarky, super-smart new co-bloggers.

I can also be found here, at the fabulous Ravelry. Get on the list, if you aren't already.

This place isn't going away, though. It'll probably just revert to being mostly about stuff other than knitting. But knitting will doubtless creep in, because it always does.

omg! a post!

Boy, have I been busy knitting. And other stuff too, but the knitting is the interesting part. OH SHUT UP IT IS TOO.

I finished the never-ending jumper of torment and pain and stockinette, aka Fenway:



And for all the pain, I'm really glad I did it. It's been about a year and a half since I first knitted this pattern, and it was my first jumper ever, so at the time, it was pretty exciting, since I had only the vaguest idea of what I was doing, and it felt like quite an adventure. It came out really well; Phil loves it to death, and specifically asked for another one just like it, only in a different colour. (The first one is blue.) He is especially keen on the yarn, the oft-mentioned (and discontinued) Rowanspun Chunky, which knits up into a really lovely, soft, yet very durable fabric.

On the second go-round, it wasn't so exciting. It was, frankly, a tedious chore. The pattern is mind-numbingly boring and simple, and since it's a big jumper with plenty of ease, and Phil has a long torso, big shoulders and long arms, IT WAS FUCKING HUGE. And since I wasn't constantly fearing I was going to totally screw it up, the excitement just wasn't there. I'd done it before. I've done a half-dozen jumpers since. I'd now class myself as a solidly intermediate knitter with a fair amount of experience in knitting a wide variety of garments. This was cake.

But it was still valuable, not only because he loves it, but because by going back and knitting over the first major garment I ever made, I got a really good idea of how far I've come. My gauge has loosened up considerably, which is a very good thing, indeed, my confidence in my own judgment is much better than it used to be, and probably most important of all, I've got pretty bloody good at finishing. It took me hours to set in the sleeves on this jumper the first time around, and this time, I set aside an entire day to sew it up and knit on the collar. I didn't need it. I slid the sleeves into place and stitched them in on the first go, and it took me less than an hour, and that was the hard part. Closing the sides and the sleeves in mattress stitch took up another hour. Everything went fine, I didn't have to stop and do anything over. It was simple. Picking up stitches and knitting the neck was easy, too. Last time, it took me something like five attempts. This time, I picked up exactly the 68 stitches the pattern called for on the first try (that bloody log cabin blanket taught me how to pick up stitches, I tell you what) and knit the twelve rounds while watching a Law & Order re-run.

Like I said, this is a stupidly easy pattern. But this time, I knew that, and I was still surprised at how well it went. Due to the looser gauge, it's a bit bigger than the original, but that works for Phil just fine, since he wanted plenty of ease. Which is no excuse for me having not knit a swatch, simply because I was using the same yarn and needles. Lesson learned: gauge can change over time. Knit the bloody swatch.

To break the soul-destroying ennui of the sleeves, I paused and knit up a couple of ball-band dishcloths:



And oh, wow, slip stitch patterns are SO MUCH FUN to knit! My looser gauge made knitting with cotton much less painful than I've previously found it, and the slip stitches are just a total blast. I made these out of two balls of Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton, which is lovely and soft, and then I ran right out to John Lewis and bought six skeins of Rowan Handknit Cotton to make more. (Better, brighter colour choices on the Rowan, I think.)

With all that done, I sat down and started another pair of socks:



My first time using Lorna's Laces, and I am deeply, deeply impressed. Not only is the yarn incredibly soft, but wouldja look at that? Absolutely no pooling or flashing. I'm now done with the heel and on the last few instep decreases, and still, no pooling. Another yarn for me to love and crave. Just what I needed, eh?

catching up

Right. So that was a long time. I think it's become obvious, to me at least, that Holidailies sucks the life out of my desire to write, makes me horribly self-conscious about it when I dowrite, and is just not a good idea for me. So I probably won't do that again.

Christmas was fine; Phil got me a pair of the most beautiful pearl and diamond earrings, I got him a fancy-ass new lens for his camera, the food was good, and the company pleasant. And then came a long, dull winter. Oh, my, was it long and dull. I totally jacked up my shoulders and wrists, so knitting took a backseat to recovering from knitting, but now everything seems better, and I may finally be learning to pace myself. I finally finished my cashmere socks, which had been languishing in the bottom of my handbag while I did the Xmas knitting, and oh my, they are gorgeous and soft. They're made from HipKnits 100% cashmere, and I can very highly recommend it. The yardage was stunningly generous; I have big feet and I made a fairly long leg and cuff, and I still have a good-sized ball left that I am sure I will find some way to use.

Here's a photo that totally does not do the yarn justice:



I went with plain stockinette because I love the colourway so very much and wanted to let it shine, unembellished with a fancy stitch pattern, and also because I find knitting stockinette in the round to be incredibly soothing. I can't recall what the name of the colourway is, but it's all pink and green and cream and reminds me very much of my garden in late May and early June, when the hybrid musk roses go into their first bloom. I have another skein of HipKnits cashmere in a blue/grey colourway I will doubtless knit up soon, except I kind of like having it in my sock yarn stash, where I can gloat over it. This is a persistent problem with me when it comes to cashmere sock yarn in beautiful colourways. It's almost too lovely to knit.

My stash is an entry in itself. I've moved most of it out of Ziplocks in wicker baskets into less attractive, but more secure Rubbermaid tubs, safe from the depredation of my cats. I don't know what it is with them, but there is little they love more than licking and chewing on plastic bags, and while they seem largely uninterested in the yarn itself, content with sucking on the bags themselves, I don't need any ancillary cat spit on my fibre.

I cracked open the Rowanspun Chunky stash (colour: Fern) to make Phil another of his beloved roll neck jumpers. He wears the original (my very first jumper!) constantly, and it's holding up beautifully. Well, other than me having to re-knit the neck and put leather patches on the elbows. Compared to the accursed Cashmerino Chunky jumper (pills! my god, the pills!) it's wearing like iron, and therefore I do not resent the idea of making another one identical to the first in all but colour. Which is a good thing, since I've got another bag of Rowanspun Chunky in grey, which I have every confidence will, in the fullness of time, become a third roll neck jumper. It's a stupid easy pattern that would probably be mind-numbing in its tedium for most people, but I do like that kind of brain-dead knitting from time to time, and while I'm not exactly cranking it out in record time (I'm only about halfway up the back), it does make a great project when I have no desire to count or do yarn-overs. I think I'm done buying chunky yarn, though. The thrill of near-instant gratification no longer outweighs my preference for the look of smaller gauge knitting, so I'm highly unlikely to buy anything heavier than worsted in the future. I've never been a novelty yarn lover, so seeing them slowly diminish in number in my LYSes is a very good thing.

ah, right...

...so that's what my Blogger password was.

Just as soon as I finish knitting this pair of socks, I will be back with a photo and a post.

ornaments

With cookie dough to mix up and a few other things that need to get done before bed, this will be another photo entry.

This is the first Christmas ornament we ever acquired. It was a first Christmas ornament from my mother, I'm not sure where she got it, (but it does scream "Hallmark!" at me) and it sat in my jewellery box for six years before we had our first tree:



This is a (dark) photo of our newest Christmas ornament. I like to buy a couple new ones every year, and dispose of the boring, cheap-o plastic balls I just bought to fill space with during our first year. Behold, the little tin horsie:



And this is my favourite ornament. I just love it because it's so silly looking. It's a floorwax! No, it's a dessert topping! It's a reindeer! No, it's a moose! Hard to say, but it's definitely made of gingham:



And I love it so.

one hall, decked

Well, the oven works, but the broiler is fucked, and after the £35 service call telling us the grill is fucked and replacing it, if they even can, would cost, oh, almost as much as a new oven anyway, we've decided we can do without grilled cheese on toast for a week or two, and we'll buy a new oven in the January sales. My advice to you, without even requiring a £35 service call, is DO NOT BUY A BELLING OVEN.

Eh, screw it. I'm in a good mood, since my Xmas shopping is done, done, done, and I will be able to bake my cookies this weekend in my crappy, doomed oven, so I'm just going to post some photos of my house and be done with this entry.

A better photo of the entrance hall than the one I posted last week:



Going up to the lowest landing:



And going up the stairs:



(You would think, after three-and-a-half years here, I'd have more stuff on my walls, wouldn't you?)

Looking down from the middle landing:



And here's my cat, looking like an idiot:



He does it well, doesn't he?

more bad appliance karma but good stuff too

In one of those freakish coincidences that make me believe that god hates me, my oven broke today, the day I was planning to start baking cookies. It broke at exactly the same time last year, December 20th, just as I was about to bake cookies. This could be god's way of saying LAY OFF THE BUTTER AND SUGAR, FATASS, but I suspect it's mostly divine spite and meanness. Or I would, if I were a believer, but whatever, my oven is broken, and I am so pissed I can hardly stand it.

Fortunately, the guys who repaired it last year are coming tomorrow to fix EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM tomorrow, but you know, I don't blame them, especially since, as it turns out, the "manufacturer" of my oven stopped actually manufacturing ovens a few years ago, and went into the business of putting their badges on cheap, shitty ovens instead. My oven is a piece of crap, and this is the last time I'm going to put any money into it. Next time it breaks, we get a new one. I just want to get through Christmas on this one. It's just the heating element, and it was cheap to fix last time, so I'm not that worried. Phil is going to stick around during the morning tomorrow, since he's waiting for his Christmas present to arrive, and I won't be tied to the house waiting for repairmen, so I'm OK with it.

He's getting a new lens for his camera, which he picked out himself, because we are old married people and long past the point of trying to surprise and delight each other with our holiday presents. He's surprised and delighted that I'm willing to let him buy yet another lens this year, and that's good enough. I will be getting jewellery, not sure exactly what, but I showed him a bunch of stuff I like, so he has the general idea.

I finished up my Christmas shopping this afternoon. We went downtown, I pointed to some pretty, sparkly things I liked, and then we split up. I went to get what I needed, and he took his camera up the hill to take photos of Liverpool. Liverpool has quite a beautiful and interesting waterfront, and he spends a lot of time photographing it. Things weren't too dreadfully crowded downtown, it being Wednesday and still not quite the final, panicked rush point for most people, so I had a relatively easy time getting what I needed. We hooked back up after about an hour, had a cup of coffee, and then went to dinner at our local Italian joint. We haven't been there in a while, and given how good the food is, and how nice the people who run the place are, I have to wonder why. There was an error in the wine order; they brought me a full carafe instead of half, and as this drunken rambling probably indicates, I opted not to send it back, but to drink it all. And now I am merry and mellow and not all that bothered by my crappy oven's inconvenient breakdown. because I've just spent an hour and a half enjoying good food and my beloved's company, and damn, forgive me for being semi-drunkenly sentimental, but I really do love the guy I married. He's sexy and smart and good-looking, and he makes me laugh by quoting Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics to me while I'm trying to drink too much wine, and there is no Christmas gift in the world I could ever receive that would be better than him, not even a pony or Barbie's Dream House.

smells like home

I've finally reached the point on the scarf I'm currently making where I think, wow, I've done quite a lot, I'm really getting there. All knitters reading this (and really, who else would?) will know that this means I have now entered a timewarp, and I will be knitting for seven thousand years or at least two days (they will be indistinguishable units of time, trust me) before any more conspicuous progress is made.

This point where time and progress merge and stubbornly stand still is particularly noticeable with this project, which is a scarf knit flat on a 80cm circular needle, so I can stripe many colours of yarn and make a fringe at the same time. 300+ stitches per row, folks. Zzzzzzzzz. Its sole redeeming feature (besides the fact that I think it's gonna look great) is that at least I get to change colours every row. The yarn is lovely, I adore the colours, the fibre blend (50/50 merino and silk) is one I'm inclined to think is the most enjoyable for me to knit with, and it's my favourite weight (DK, how I love you), so it's not total torture or anything, but I will be very glad when it's done.

I had a fair amount of time to spend knitting today, because I had to stay in the house for at least eight hours while the pudding steamed. The weather's been crappy, surprise, surprise, and while there are things I probably should be out and doing, I can't say I regretted losing a day of running around to quietly staying home, with husband and cats, in a house that smells of fir tree and spices. I like this life.

pudding

The whole Christmas season thing really hit me today, and I suddenly realised, hey, there's a lot of shit that needs to get done. Phil is likely on holiday until January, although he might have to work a couple of days next week, and once he's off for the year, it starts to really feel like oops, yeah, here's Christmas.

I went downtown and faced the gruesome crowds; for all the papers are screaming about sales being off, you'd never have known it from our shopping precinct today, because it was absolutely heaving. I managed to get one gift and scout out a couple others, so the trip wasn't totally wasted, but after about an hour, I'd had enough and went to Sainsbury's to buy the stuff to make the Christmas pudding. Last year I did a whole (stupid) photo essay about making the pudding, but it, like oh, FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE, went poof with Diary-X, so I kind of had to wing it. I used Delia Smith's recipe as a guide, but because I sort of loathe dried currants, I reduced the amount to five ounces, and made up the difference with dried cranberries and cherries. I'm not exactly sure why I bothered, since all the dried and candied fruit in a Christmas pudding sort of melds into one big, sticky, yet oddly tasty indistinguishable mass of enamel-scorching stodge, but it will make me feel better about the whole thing to know I'm eating fewer nasty dried currants than I might otherwise. And since I'm the one making the pudding, it's all about me. I also cannot imagine what the hell I'd do with a bottle of barley wine minus 75ml needed for the pudding, so I bought green ginger wine instead, because that I can use.

So that stuff is glopping away peacefully on the kitchen counter overnight, and tomorrow I will put it in a greased basin and steam it for eight hours, then stick it out in the conservatory until Christmas Day, when we will steam it again, cover it with brandy, set the fucker alight, and then slather it in brandy butter and cream in order to eat it. It's way better than I make it sound, honest.

After mixing up the pudding, I baked a loaf of bread, wrapped some gifts, and considered starting on the cookies, but frankly, I'm not quite ready to start the major baking yet. I may mix up the cookie dough while the pudding steams tomorrow, and then stash it in the freezer for a few days, but that, too, might be a bit ambitious. It's not panic time quite yet on the cookie front, but it is getting damn close to panic time on the knitting and other gifting fronts, so I'm not being lazy, I am prioritizing. In fact, I am going to prioritize my way into a comfy chair with a glass of wine and my current knitting project right now.

a petty victory, maybe

Guess what arrived in the post today?

I put it together and spun it around, but my current project is being made from Louisa Harding's Grace, which comes in pre-wound balls, and thus has no need for a swift, so I have yet to properly use it. But I am looking forward to it. I am a simple, happy yarn geek, and my needs are few and usually made from all-natural materials.

Oh, I lie. It turns out there is quite a lot of stuff involved in feeding a fibre arts habit, but unlike, say, a smack habit, the stuff you need is perfectly legal. Even the hemp! Not that I've bought or used hemp yarn yet, because we are falling deep deep deep into crunchy granola hippie territory by even mentioning it, and anyway, as I have moaned about extensively before, plant fibres make my hands hurt. So no hemp, or at least not until I see some I like. It reminds me way too much of some of the truly obnoxious people I used to know back at university, people who loved to wear (ugly) clothing made from (scratchy) hemp, and who enjoyed telling anybody who could handle the body odor long enough to listen that Hemp is good stuff, man! It's so much better for the environment than cotton, man! And they are right, and I am totally on their side with the Legalize It! movement, but after the fiftieth time listening to the same lecture, I would find myself thinking, Dude, you're a burnout, and you really don't need to justify it to me, so enough already.

I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've used the word "burnout" in at least a decade, incidentally.

Anyway, in a petty triumph on the consumer rights front, I finally got a reply from Bodum, after one polite e-mail and one mildly irritated follow-up asking why they hadn't answered my first e-mail, and the reply was worth waiting for, because all I was really hoping was that I'd be allowed to purchase a new "unbreakable" carafe for my electric espresso maker, and instead, with absolutely no proof of purchase requested, they are sending me a brand new one next week, when they're back in stock. Now, assuming a) they really do send me a new one and, b) it doesn't disappear into the gaping, thieving maw of the Royal Mail, I will be one very, very happy little consumer. I'm already very pleased, because I actually did something about it, instead of, as usual, just assuming I was screwed, and because a company whose products I generally like very much has not ended up on my vindictive never-ever-again-I-hate-you shitlist without a chance to redeem themselves. This, all joking aside, is a really big step for me, because I am usually such a total wuss when dealing with stuff like this. I provisionally love you, Bodum, thank you for eventually trying to appease me. I look forward to being heavily overcaffeinated again very soon.

now with more crazy parenthetical asides

I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of my new yarn swift, and because the Royal Mail, which recently BOASTED of a 80% customer satisfaction rate (Only 20% of our customers want us to eat shit and die! We so rule!), has fucked me over twice this year by losing packages, the fact that it didn't arrive today, when all other things being equal, first class post should arrive the day after being sent, is making me nervous. And that 80% might sound OK, if, you know, everybody weren't totally dependent on them and their monopoly. But no! We are. And I proudly count myself in that 20% of their customers who poisonously hate them. Or maybe it's just because we're less than two weeks away from Christmas and they're really busy, I dunno. They have accrued no goodwill with me this year, so I am assuming the worst. They never even bothered to reply to my many, many complaints, either, the bastards.

And the worst part is that I got one of the last two swifts the place I ordered it from will have until after Christmas, so if it's lost or stolen, I am just plain screwed. But! It could just be the time of year, oh please, oh please, I want this swift so badly, and I want it now, and also I want the other stuff that was in my order, because I truly do need two of those balls of yarn like yesterday, so I can finish off a scarf I'm currently making. Which I then have to entrust to the...Royal Mail. See? They've got me coming and going, and I swear to god, I take back every mean thing I ever said about the USPS, because they never dicked me like this. They dicked me in tiny little ways that never included losing my packages twice in a two-month period. I can live with a lesser dicking, really. (Please, please give me my swift, Royal Mail!)

I will not feel silly for expressing my hatred and angst either, even if it does show up tomorrow (please oh please), because they do suck. They'll just suck slightly less if I get my package tomorrow.

rest

Our little town certainly does get bleak and ugly this time of year, so it's a good thing we've got all the fairy lights to distract us. I hate these short days, when the sun isn't properly up until after 8 am and it's back down by 4 pm. Roughly eight measly hours of sunlight a day, and it's not exactly quality sunlight, either. In fact, most days it rains, or at least it seems that way.

We still have a few hardy roses hanging on in the back garden, and whenever I happen to glance through the kitchen window, I see them and feel better. From a distance they're lovely and remind me of those glorious weeks in June and July when the garden just explodes with roses and sweet peas and lillies and jasmine and honeysuckle, and when we open up the conservatory windows and the French doors the fragrance is so strong and sweet it fills the whole house. When freshly washed white bedsheets hanging on the line reflect back that beautiful sunlight. The still, hot afternoons when the lavender is thick with honeybees, and the blackbird sits up on the uppermost peak of the rose and wisteria arch and sings out his claim to our garden.

Up close, of course, the roses look tatty and the garden smells of damp earth and leaf mould, and I need to remind myself that this season of quiet decay is inevitable and not a bad thing, it's just part of the cycle, and soon enough the first crocuses and snowdrops will be popping up and the days will be getting longer. The long nights are good for sleep.

bad appliance karma

So both of our overpriced coffeemakers are currently out of commission. I've got a service call on the fancy-ass Italian espresso maker, the most beautiful piece of REALLY BAD design you've ever seen, and I'm still waiting to see if Bodum will ever respond to my e-mail asking them how in the hell I can get a replacement for their unbreakable polycarbonate carafe, which broke on Thursday morning. A few months ago, I boxed up my old French press and buried it deep in the cupboard under the stairs, and can't find it. A Monday morning without coffee is not to be contemplated, and as I am so very tired of being burned by pricey coffeemakers, so I went out to Argos -- utter madness before Christmas -- and found a very cheap and ugly drip coffeemaker for the amazing low price of £4.99. I predict this coffemaker will never, ever die or give us a moment's trouble, which is why I passed on the extended three year warranty for £1.99:

Cashier: Would you like an extended warranty for only £1.99?
Me: On a five quid coffeemaker?
Cashier: Four ninety-nine, ma'am.
Me: I think I'll just go ahead an live dangerously, thanks.

God, I'm an asshole sometimes, but I don't buy extended warranties anymore, because when I do, it seems like whatever inevitably takes down my expensively warrantied appliance is the one thing the warranty doesn't cover. I think I just have bad appliance karma. The Italian Job does actually work OK, as long as you don't mind a a completely unreliable thermostat and some leakage, and the need to turn it off immediately after making a shot of espresso, because of that completely unreliable thermostat. It cost enough that it's probably worth fixing, and having a back-up drip coffeemaker for people who, unlike my husband and me, prefer a mellower cup of coffee, instead of the heart palpitations that come with five shots of espresso before noon.

Argos was horrible. I don't really like the place at the best of times, but it was a zoo today. I actually had to queue to use the electronic catalog, and then ages to get through the payment queue, where I charmed the doubtless very tired and stressed out clerk with my snotty riposte about the warranty, and then into the queue to pick up my cheapo coffeemaker. All told, about half an hour, and every minute of it was totally sucktastic.

But then I got to come home to this:



And this:



Flash loooooooves the Christmas decorations, and spends a lot of time making me nervous by looking as if he's going to eat them, although all he actually does is rub his cheek pads against them, while making munching noises. Forunately, he doesn't seem hugely interested in the tree, although it is a stop on his patrolling route. He stops, he sniffs, he moves on, unlike Pix, who enjoys sitting under the tree, just out of reach, and batting at the ornaments on the lower branches. The cheap, plastic ornaments on the lower branches, because I am on to her. She hasn't knocked one off yet, but she will. When she's determined to be irritating, nothing will stop her. Just like her mommy.