naughty or nice

We are off early tomorrow morning to catch the ferryboat, and today I shall be mostly packing and shouting "where's my new camera where where where??" at Amazon. I hope you all have a fantabulous holidays xxx

relief

I have my course results at last and passed both (well 3 actually if you include the summer school course); for the geology course and its summer school I got a grade 2 (2:1 equivalent) pass for both and for the nasty course I got a grade 3 (equivalent to desmond). So that is all my Level 2 courses completed, next year I'm off to Level 3 chemistry hurrah eek

all done (nearly)

well I was just about to post about how the Xmas knitting is now all done (I even blocked those scarves) but I've just remembered that O's dalek still needs finishing. Ah well, at least I have everything else done, and in time to wrap and distribute to peeps in England before we set off to spend Christmas in Ireland

he doeth protest too much

I think we've taken O on too many marches, demos and protest events at an impressionable age. When he gets seriously cross with us, he barricades himself in his room and makes protest signs. After an altercation on Saturday, his bedroom door is covered with "Keep Out! No Groanups!" posters, and he also stuck one up in the living room saying "Then be crule!"

look at the beautiful blue cuttlefish

go here and look. S'lovely.

Once the Christmas knitting is out of the way I'm knitting some of Hansigurumi's cephalopoda. Or maybe I'll make some socks (these maybe, or these or these or these or these ...... so many socks, so little knitting time)

Meanwhile, I can't get past Level 48 on the free rice word game, let alone reach Grumblemag's 49. Boo hoo.

my one vanity

Well pretty much my only vanity, my only 'girly-thing', is my hair. I don't do much make up, don't wax or pluck, don't have manicures, don't buy many clothes and certainly don't do shopping-as-leisure activity¹. Even with my hair I am well short of the beauty ideal, rarely blow drying and never going near straighteners. But I do like to buy it nice products and now that R has a job (at least until June), I can afford to go to a good hairdressers and even have it coloured. So that's how I've spent my morning, sitting around knitting and listening to podcasts with bits of foil sticking out all over my head. Now my hair is a lovely festive red colour hurrah.

A conversatin with my lovely hairdresser:
her: so are you ready for Xmas?
me: actually I pretty much am, due to my "if I cna't make it or buy it on Amazon you can't have it" policy
her: oh yes CDs and DVDs make great presents
me says: mmmm / me thinks: books, books make great presents that's what i buy from Amazon, the papery things with words in.

Although, my son is a disappointment to me in the reading department. With a pair of bookworms for parents, I fondly imagined he'd grow up an avid reader too. But no. It's not that he can't read - when he has to he reads fluently and confidently for his age, he just doesn't much want to. There's always something he'd rather be doing. But at last, a breakthrough. I've been reading The Hobbit to him for his bedtime story and he has started reading on for a page or two after he's in bed. It's not the easiest book to read and the pictures are few and far between, but he is enjoying it. What with that and having to decipher the backs of his Yu-gi-oh cards, he may just be seeing the value of reading after all.


1. Wool and book shops excepted, natch

an xmas-makes update

• ammonite for T done
• hat for sis boyf done
• socks for mum done
• golf club covers for dad (not actually sure about this one, dad is incredibly fussy and not sure if he'd use them) idea abandoned, bought him a book instead
• socks for E (on the needles, 1 finished 1 to go)
  
• dalek for O (all the crochet is finished, I just have to do some modifications to incorporate a dalek sound maker before stuffing it)
• hat for R (on the needles, to be knit in seekrit when on train trips etc) I finished this but then fecked it up trying to attach iron-on reflective tape, will try and rescue another time, but for Xmas am now making:
  
• socks for R (on the needles, 1 finished 1 to go)
• felted tea cozies for various peeps (2 made and awaiting felting, more to make if time) abandoned in favour of
  
• cashmerino scarves for various friends all made but need blocking, if I can find time and space
  
• hat for C (to match her scarf)
  
• socks and hat for sis (done, actually I redid the hat as I wasn't happy with the chunky yarn, and redid it in cashmerino. Yes I am in love with cashmerino, a very high maintenance passion)
  

The Great Anniversary Impasse has not yet been resolved.