I have a job to do today: I have to proof read Youngest Child's dissertation. As my brain is unused to anything more challenging than a good thriller these days, I am finding the responsibility burdensome and am employing various avoidance tactics to get away from it. It is amazing what you can find to do around a fairly cleanish house if you have to: I have cleaned the front room windows, scrubbed out the cats' bowls and washed down the kitchen floor. I still 79 more pages to go so the house will be immaculate by the time I get to the end!
So that is why I am sitting down to write a long overdue post. Northern Man and I have not been sitting still for the last few months. During October half term last year we went to Jordan. I have never been anywhere where the kindness of strangers was so evident. We lost count of the number of times we heard 'Hello, where are you from? What is your name? Welcome to Jordan!' . This was, you understand, always from men and children - women were silent and covered from head to foot. It is, however, amazing how they managed to reveal so much of their fine figures while wearing long, black, tailored coats!
We visited Petra and clambered around for hours over the huge site.
We shunned the offers of donkey rides up to the Place of High Sacrifice and The Monastery ...
.... choosing the satisfaction of completing the climb on foot. Many of the young sloe-eyed Bedouin men who make a living on the site offering donkey, horse or camel rides, were made up as Captain Jack Sparrow. I haven't yet been able to discover whether they were the inspiration for the Johnny Depp make-over or whether they have simply adopted the look from the film.
In February half-term we went to Dubai. As we sat on the run way with the plane rocking from side to side in the in-coming storm, we wondered whether we should have spent some time putting the furniture up on bricks before we left and how Only Son would cope should the water start coming up through the floor. As it was, we needn't have worried: the building up of the banks at Maidenhead and the wonderful Jubilee River (I won't hear a word said against the Environment Agency) saved us from the Thames. Although the house must have been almost floating, there was no ground water flooding and we stayed dry.
I found Dubai a strange place: being English and used to cities, towns and villages which have developed organically for over a thousand years it was odd to go somewhere so very new. The attention to detail and quality of the infra-structure are amazing: there are block-paved pavements everywhere despite the fact that it is too hot to walk outside and the flyovers are painted or have decorative motifs on them. Despite the huge number of road traffic accidents every month, many of them resulting in fatalities, we only saw one car that had a scrape on it. The body repair shops must do a roaring trade!
It was nice to see some old there amongst all the bright, shiny, new ....
These beautiful wooden dhows load up on the creek against a back-drop of skyscrapers. They carry everything and anything: cars, air conditioning units, American-style fridge freezers and childrens' plastic chairs.
In between, I have, of course, been knitting. I have mentioned before the lovely Osborne and Muir books of knitted dogs and cats. In an idle moment I picked one of these up again and had another go at a dog and, once again, I was disappointed with the results. I am very happy to believe it is me, but the patterns never seem to turn out as nicely as the photos in the book. I thought about it for a while and decided that my main problem is the gusset that most of the patterns have so I set about producing a pattern which had no gusset. It took me a while: I knitted the tummy first, then joined in the simplified legs, knitted the tail as a piece of the body, cast off the back pieces together to make a nice clean join and then knitted the head, again without a gusset.
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Now I have to wait for my next fair to see what people think of them. Unfortunately, I will not be at The Vintage Bazaar in Hartley Wintney on Saturday 29th March (it is Only Son's birthday weekend) but, if you are in the neighbourhood I recommend a visit. Good luck to Lizzie and all her stall holders for the event.
So that is why I am sitting down to write a long overdue post. Northern Man and I have not been sitting still for the last few months. During October half term last year we went to Jordan. I have never been anywhere where the kindness of strangers was so evident. We lost count of the number of times we heard 'Hello, where are you from? What is your name? Welcome to Jordan!' . This was, you understand, always from men and children - women were silent and covered from head to foot. It is, however, amazing how they managed to reveal so much of their fine figures while wearing long, black, tailored coats!
We visited Petra and clambered around for hours over the huge site.
We shunned the offers of donkey rides up to the Place of High Sacrifice and The Monastery ...
In February half-term we went to Dubai. As we sat on the run way with the plane rocking from side to side in the in-coming storm, we wondered whether we should have spent some time putting the furniture up on bricks before we left and how Only Son would cope should the water start coming up through the floor. As it was, we needn't have worried: the building up of the banks at Maidenhead and the wonderful Jubilee River (I won't hear a word said against the Environment Agency) saved us from the Thames. Although the house must have been almost floating, there was no ground water flooding and we stayed dry.
I found Dubai a strange place: being English and used to cities, towns and villages which have developed organically for over a thousand years it was odd to go somewhere so very new. The attention to detail and quality of the infra-structure are amazing: there are block-paved pavements everywhere despite the fact that it is too hot to walk outside and the flyovers are painted or have decorative motifs on them. Despite the huge number of road traffic accidents every month, many of them resulting in fatalities, we only saw one car that had a scrape on it. The body repair shops must do a roaring trade!
It was nice to see some old there amongst all the bright, shiny, new ....
These beautiful wooden dhows load up on the creek against a back-drop of skyscrapers. They carry everything and anything: cars, air conditioning units, American-style fridge freezers and childrens' plastic chairs.
In between, I have, of course, been knitting. I have mentioned before the lovely Osborne and Muir books of knitted dogs and cats. In an idle moment I picked one of these up again and had another go at a dog and, once again, I was disappointed with the results. I am very happy to believe it is me, but the patterns never seem to turn out as nicely as the photos in the book. I thought about it for a while and decided that my main problem is the gusset that most of the patterns have so I set about producing a pattern which had no gusset. It took me a while: I knitted the tummy first, then joined in the simplified legs, knitted the tail as a piece of the body, cast off the back pieces together to make a nice clean join and then knitted the head, again without a gusset.
