knitonlybutalso

January

Well January is normally a month of the doldrums, nothing happens. Except January 2020 has been more interesting than that – I have met Deb, yes that Deb – THE Tasmanian Deb. Exciting or what? as in so exciting I didn’t take any photos, but very exciting never the less, but yes, Deb and I have met. We have known each other off and on for years – I’d hesitate to say it must be nearly 20 but it was an online knitting group and we just chimed – isn’t it funny how there are certain people you connect with and never mind the geographical distance. I’ve met one other knitter from that group and she is someone also very special to me as well so the idea of meeting up is exciting but also nerve-inducing – what if someone you really like and enjoy online doesn’t like you in real life??? Anyway we have met, we had a total blast, we really have so much in common and so much to talk over and it was a total joy. The relief is overwhelming.

hmmm its a map but Tazzy is missing, free stock images don't seem to include Tasmania

My other excitement has been renewing my (New Zealand) passport, the days of sticking everything about you into an envelope and trusting it to the RoyalMail are over – which is great as the feeling of sending your life and everything to confirm you are you away in a small brown envelope was somewhat concerning, now happily it is online so it gets zipped down to New Zealand House in London without you leaving the comfort of your sofa except to hunt bits of your life in the large amorphous mass of “official things that can’t be thrown out” stored in shoe boxes “somewhere”. Anyway because I am skint/tight I figured I’d go for the 10 day service and sent off my form and information on the 7^th of January after I got home and had my tea, the next day just before lunchtime I got an email to say it had been done and with an expected signed-for delivery of Monday the 13^th, except on Friday the 10^th I got ANOTHER message to say – it will be “delivered this afternoon” which is great-not great as I was in the office and the office is an hour and a quarter bus ride that leaves once an hour – cue frantic phone call to DHL and their lovely team and a breakneck run for the 11.10 bus and everything has been sorted. That of course now meant my British Residence Permit must be updated – this is also online but much more scary, you have to prove you have been continuously resident – to do that you upload documents such as bank statements/end of year tax certificates/doctors letters and/or utility bills as well as proof of previous permanent residence permits. EVERYTHING. Once you are suitably uploaded you get a terse and slightly threatening confirmation to bring yourself, your confirmation and ALL your documents to a UKVISA centre and you must book an appointment and you may not bring anyone unless they are an advisor or part of your application. It is all a bit like you are on life's naughty step just for being you.

Will I be deported without my knitting??? Worrying

So my UKVISA appointment was for 2.00pm on the 17^th in a converted warehouse near the motorway down “that” end of town and you MUST turn up at least 15 minutes early and you can pay £75 to get your documents checked or trust the gods of chance to smile upon you. I decide to trust the gods to be nice, but still walking the skeevy bits of Glesga to get to the converted warehouse with ALL my documents (bank statements passports, current residence permit, tax certificates…) felt a little uncomfortable – so much so, I am there 45 minutes early. I have extra tissues in case I start snottering during the “interview” and I have a fully charged phone to send goodbyes as I am marched back on to the boat home, I am prepared and nervous as heck.

In case of snotters actually I am a hanky woman pure and simple

I am to report to room 102/103 only there is no room 102/103, there is room 101/102 and room 103/104, I decide to chance 103/104 and enter to find row upon row of bright plastic chairs, empty and two desks at the front with a boy/child half strangled by his attempts at tying his tie and a man with a wonderful walrus moustache who looks like a throwback to 1980s detective shows, I decide the small boy is suitable to assist me and the less scary option, he confirms I am in the right place and invites me to sit down. He asks for my passport and then takes my photo, my fingerprints and my signature, he checks the passport and hands it back. “All done” he says, “huh?” I ask (always articulate in the face of officialdom), “all done”… “but what about my documents?” I ask, “oh them, they are all verified, you’re done and submitted.”

Those are all my documents

5 minutes tops. I am disappointed by the lack of drama – now all I do is wait.

 

Naturally this level of excitement has slowed my knitting, I finished the “Belle” jumper which is lovely in the book and quite nice on Ravelry, to find it looks hideous – utterly unsuited to me – the neck is too high, the colour change is awful and even though I knitted for my size it looks large and shapeless. I think it goes straight to “donate” rather than “gardening/odd jobs/stuffing about in”. Honestly what the hell was I thinking – I am a total sucker for a woolly-pully but I have many, I actually could do with cardigans but still, for some reason I am lured by a nice knitted sweater pattern. The only other knitting has been a tea cosy – it’s a sweet little retro pattern for a small-ish teapot, only this seems intended for a very small teapot and of course I am running out of the blue yarn just before I finish, pfft. The knitting gods have not been smiling on me this month, so I have stuffed about with some very old patchwork instead – many years ago when the children were very small I started making a random hexagons quilt, only I never quite got around to much in the way of progress so what I did make I re-found and have been forming into 2 cushion fronts instead, it will be fine – nothing fabulous but fine.

A (not much to) show and tell, or how I spent Cheesemas

Annual Christmas road trip up to Loch Fyne for hot smoked salmon

Happy New Year, Christmas is over, we have had a quiet one starting with our traditional excursion up to Loch Fyne to buy smoked salmon for Christmas and to visit the small garden nursery cafe next door - it is not the trendiest or most hipster, but the food is lovely and the women who run it are super friendly. Love this place.

Motoring up alongside Long Long

Fish bought, time for a snack...

Christmas day is very quiet for us, Gravel-guy goes out for a run and does something to the fence outside, madam is laying waste to Edinburgh with some childhood friends, Nr.1 kid doesn't do daylight, so in the afternoon we take a walk along the edge of Loch Katrine. There are barely a handful of souls out enjoying this, it is magical.

Anyway, Cheesemas is over (yes it does exist - it is that vague period between the 25th December and early-mid January when it is traditional to eat as much cheese/junk as possible in order to fatten up for New Year fasting and good dietary intentions involving not eating cheesejunk. Gravel-guy and I went away - we don't give each other stuff so instead we head somewhere for a bit of bonding and go wandering in cold windswept places where we couldn't hear a conversation even if we were inclined to try and make some. 

Dunnotar Castle

This year we had 2 nights up in Aberdeen and explored the landscape up north of the city, Aberdeenshire and Banff is a really lovely part of the world - high boulder-y cliffs and little bays. Glorious. That photo of Dunnotar Castle doesn't give any impression of the wind, Gravel-guy says those cliffs it sits on - they are red quartzite cobbles carried 485 million years ago by a huge great river all the way from Norway. Every now and then gravel-guy knows some impressive stuff.

I also packed some knitting and squirrelled deep into my pile of samples and small pots of face care - I am a total sucker for skin preparations and rather than hoarding them I am resolving to actually use them, so whilst day time was spent out and about, evenings were spent with a face covered in magical potion and knitting my current sweater-crush, Belle (quick - very quick and non demanding but will replace a very sad old sweater of almost black).

 

12 photos of 2019

Atelier des Lumières, ParisMusée des arts et métiers, ParisStreet art of St Kentigern, Glasgow

Botanic Gardens, Glasgow

Van Gogh journal at Tate Britain, London

Chihuly exhibition, Kew Gardens, London

Carcassonne

Fontfroide Abbaye

Cathedrale, Albi

A proper flat white, Spitfire Cafe, Glasgow

Princes street, EdinburghDunnotar Castle, Aberdeenshire

The unexpected weekend in London

The vegetable people - Museum of London

Mid-December and I have now seen the new digs that Gravel-guy inhabits in Londonshire, the inside looks a bit ski chalet - all exposed brick, pine and mezzanine floor/bedroom nestling beneath a steeply pitching ceiling whilst the outside looks very much like a retirement complex complete with raised pond and community seating. It is actually very nice and very cosy. I was moderately surprised to see the shrine of homemade marmalade and jam and chutney, but somewhat gratified as well. It was probably a good thing to go away and have a break as I am currently worrying about one of the cupboards in the kitchen - it seems somewhat damp. I don't know if the damp is from a leak from the shower pipe or condensation from a recently fitted kitchen extractor which seems to achieve little if any steam removal. So no poking or prodding on my part, and when gravel-guy returns this weekend, he can look at high places and decide what the issue is.

Anyway much of the weekend went well - he seemed pleased to see me and unusually he was at the airport well before me, normally I have at least 20 minutes of harumphing and feeling a little Billy-no-mates. Part (much) of the enjoyment over the weekend was exploring how gravel-guy lives when left to his own devices (different toothpaste, 50p bodywash and no flannel in sight), I also discovered he has one tea towel, one bath towel (but he bought a Tesco value specially for this wifey) and a fixation with coasters everywhere. I feel like I am discovering the habits of a new species, he also likes 2 duvets and a very warm bed.

Much of the weekend went rather well - a brisk trot along the canal, a visit to the Museum of London (yikes it is like the Tardis - its poked away in the Barbican and doesn't look that big on the outside but it is quite fabulous) and generally pottering about. Less good was Mayfair and then a walk along the heaving Oxford Street (I hate crowds at the best of times and I was hyperventilating and shaking by the end of that), I much prefer the quieter bits and the weirder bits - just don't ever show me pre-Christmas rush hour Oxford Street again.

York

Tansy beetle I believe - rare and endangered

Most people post photos of the Minster when they visit York, you get a gable end with a rather special beetle - this, I believe is a depiction of a Tansy beetle. Tansy is a herb that grows wild in sunny, poor soil and is often mistaken for Ragwort (similar leaves and they both have yellow flowers, although Tansy has very cute "button" type flowers rather than the shabby chic of Ragwort), the reason the Tansy beetle is rare and rather special now is that Tansy gets mistaken for Ragwort which is toxic to animals such as cows and sheep so people pull it out, therefore Tansy often gets pulled out too and these poor little hungry beetles don't fly from one Tansy patch to another - they walk. When you are a tiny, shiny little beetle with a hungry tum that is probably quite a sorrowful trek. Poor little guys - anyway they are hungry, and rare and rather pretty. That's one of the lovely things about the UK - full of little oddities and rare treasure that tourists often miss as so many of these things are very local or have special stories missed by people ticking one big item after another as they zip between the main attractions of a place - you can miss so many quirks and kinks that actually make the place what it is. OK, a few photos of the Minster/locale....

I love this couple - I think she rules, as he seems so aware of her presence, even though he isn't looking at her....

He looks even more distressed and praying for deliverance

Has the artist caught a bit of a nervous facial tic?

Anyway, an opportunity came up to attend a day long meeting in York, so I grabbed it - I love the place, the meeting is very much my area of work interest (methodology - sad, and geeky but there you go). After some discussion with gravel-guy, he expressed an interest in meeting up there rather than either of us travelling the full distance between Glasgow and London, 3 nights were mooted, a very cute apartment in Monkgate was found and then Gravel-guy decided other people had greater need of his time and he could come for 1 night and stay lateish for another, but really he was quite busy and needed by others. Was I impressed? Nope.

The daughter also decided she might come by - she is in Leeds (close), but a night in a cosy bed in a cute apartment and being cosseted and fussed over and not freezing in her very cold flat seemed very appealing. Was I impressed? Nope, but she decided to come anyway, along the way she pinged messages to me - could I pick up a pair of jeans ordered in Mango (nope), could I look at a jersey she had seen online in Zara (nope), her skin feels funny could I go past... (nope). By the time she got to York she was seriously concerned about me as I don’t normally do so many "nopes". Suffice to say, we had quite a lovely day of madam and didn't have to do much of her type of shopping and schlepping about, although she got fed and acquired a tea advent calendar much to her delight.

So it worked out OK in the end, gravel-guy bought dinner - once we found somewhere that was gluten/lactose free for madam - she had fish and chips and ate everything except the plate. More importantly after I got rid of the pair of them I got down to some shopping at the local Palenque (which I like very much) and ate some very large lunches.

more sparkly in real life, I am smitten

This is a lot more sparkly in real life - a bit like little, tiny mermaid scales but I feel fairly sure no mermaids were harmed in the making of the ring. What is more, the daughter normally spots and then critiques such bling "That is hideous - get it off!" but she never noticed. Happy days. I then scuttled back later and got the eggplant coloured, thinner version, just y'know for reasons, but I like that one too.

...and the other one

So now here I am back home and that's rather a good thing as being away from grotty mansions I am dependent on food I don't make - and being away or out and about means portions are huge and I eat, I seriously now need to winch it in. Gravel-guy however must have felt a bit guilty about the York non-event as he has just arranged flight tickets for next weekend to London, I suspect it will involve not a lot of free time and definitely NOT time to stuff about the house finishing bits and bobs I should be finishing but it is a nice sentiment. As Nr.1 child pondered, "perhaps he misses your irritations, mum" I suspect so. Anyway, I get to see his digs and I have told him I am looking forward to eating home cooked at his place as I feel like a complete porker so maybe I needn't go out so much at the moment.

The train trip back was possibly less than joyous - electric cables came down just north of York, so a couple of thousand people were eventually pitched outside the station awaiting information, any information. After a couple of hours the staff were given shiny megaphones, which were possibly too shiny to use as they still didnt tell us anything. Eventually it transpired they "might" have found some buses, people tried to ask where those buses might go (pesky details) but were fobbed off with "there will be buses" how many? Nobody knew, going where? How very dare you even ask. Eventually a small gang of us made it on to a minibus going to Darlington, did I/do I know where Darlington is? No, but I was cautiously excited, we arrived in Darlington about 7.30 and Darlington was more than a little surprised to see us. Trains may or may not be coming from Edinburgh - no one knew, a mysterious train to Newcastle appeared on the boards, so we all go on - hunnerds of people, we got off at Newcastle and this time there was confusion over Edinburgh trains - they were going to Edinburgh its just no one seemed sure if they were STOPPING... I got back to Glasgow Queen Street at 23.05 with the guarantee someone would be there to help people like me who had missed the last bus home, naturally there was no one so a taxi trip of £50 was in order, I am hopeful of claiming that back... 

November and the season changes

Looking up at the castle - pretty isnt it

This was on my walk back from a meeting near Edinburgh Haymarket the other week, I could have caught the train at Haymarket back to Glasgow, but the lure of Princes Street Gardens was too strong and the autumnal sunshine too delicious. I decided it was my reward for sitting through a long morning meeting with a colleague who has been in his job too long so he proceeded to explain MY job and what exactly I had been doing for the last few weeks to external group members. Normally I just sit and let it roll over me, but I figured once he finished I would actually explain what it is I do, as clearly he has no clue. I felt much better for that and he looked a bit stupid. Sadly much of the Princes street gardens will now be under timber boardwalk for the next few weeks as they gear up for the Christmas market and this little spot of heaven and serenity will become a buzzing, raucous nightmare of greasy food and noise, I’m all for a  bit of glitz and fun but the Christmas market like many of the Christmas markets in Scotland are a cheap and tacky imitation of markets elsewhere – expensive but crappy food, expensive but crappy “handmade” crap, expensive but crappy…. And every year exactly the same.

Knitting is going in fits and starts, the purple scarf thing hmmmm sort of gradually progressing ... (done), the green ultra-plain jersey from Rowan (kidsilk haze and felted tweed) sort of gradually progressing ... (finished actually – by ‘eck it is ugly – large and shapeless), the rest of the pile of good intentions – completely stalled… so naturally I am casting about looking for something else to cast on. I am a little concerned about the jersey, it may go straight to “gardening” status as I like the colour (bit perturbed when I started in case the teal kidsilk haze was too muddy against the bright electric green but I think it is OK), what concerns me now is the length – yikes it is long, actually it HAS gone straight to gardening status. Unlike my usual tendencies I have followed it to the letter and I went back and looked at the photo – yes, yikes it IS long. Concerning – do I leave it at that length (and keep my kidneys toasty)? Or do I trim it down a little with an unpick and a re-knitting which as I am exceptionally lazy I would really rather NOT do…. Decisions, but that means I will be casting on for something else… Decisions made - it is my ugly-sweater for when I am feeling sorry for myself.

This looks astonishingly bad on

So anyway, the weather has turned perishingly cold – bright and glittery and frozen, the other day the temperature was -4.0 and as the buses around here don’t do heating in winter (only in summer to stop their engines blowing up), that was an hour and a quarter of sitting in -4.0 until we arrived in Glasgow. Getting off the bus when your legs are numb is an entertainment best observed in others, we were all staggering like drunken penguins. So today, I am working at home and trying out my new baby – a small version of a slow cooker for the first time, I’m making dhal, not that I’ll be eating it tonight as I still have something for my tea – I will have the dhal tomorrow when I get in from our corporate “Away Day” and when I will seriously need cheering up. Who would have thought that in general, larger slow cookers are cheaper than small ones that suit one or two people? Anyway, it seems they are, and dhal is my treat for tomorrow after the corporate away day from hell.

My little treasure - I am deeply enamoured with this little retro gem

I have also changed the bedding from light cotton sheeting to flannelette duvet covers - this is my happy time as I am very snug and cosy and it feels like a "thing" to me every year I make that change - so "happy flannelette-mas", I am sure it is a thing.

Bed time....

I don’t know about corporate away days elsewhere but ours are uniformly dire. We are exhorted to have “fun” and be “creative” which is never going to end well in an organisation that thrives on earnest handwringing and permission asking, the people that work in our directorate are safest in their happy fug of rules and regulations and checking things and following in the strictest possible manner the many SoPs and checklists they like to derive and validate. Fun and creativity are not something I ever want to see any of them get up to, it would be like seeing your colleagues naked. There is also seeing them the next day and knowing you can’t unsee/unknow their whimsical song they created during a particularly creative session on what the directorate means to them. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I feel queasy thinking about it all.

I survived the "Away day" and so did my colleagues, that's all I ever want to say about a day that is now been and gone and can never be revisited. I met a friend afterwards in Glasgow and we trotted of to Gin71 to put the day back on a decent kilter. That's actually a photo of my arm and the ugly sweater, we were both quaffing "rhububbles" which seem to be rhubarb, gin and prosecco, with a wee slice of ginger root on the rim - one was quite enough to have me bouncing up the road for the bus home, delicious.

Glasgow - love this place

It is now the weekend, today the baby Slow-cooker has been pressed into service making chilli for me and the boy. Only the chilli ended up also feeding gravel-guy which was a bit of a surprise as he had been away for about a month, maybe a tiny bit more and for that month or so I had not heard from him. OK, I checked his wellbeing 2 weeks in and heard nothing and wasn't actually sure if he was in Singapore still or Manilla, a week later the monster-child had a very important science type question she needed answering NOW and wanted to know where dad was, my response was - well ask him. He replied within 5 minutes and by then he was in Sri Lanka, my nose was firmly out of joint. He turned up last night, only last night was the night I went to bed with the remnants of a throbbing sinus infection that has settled into a revolting sore throat and cold at the unfeasibly early hour of 9.30pm. Gravel-guy spent the night on a discarded chair in the basement feeling sorry for himself before appearing at the back kitchen window this morning, once I had prised myself off the ceiling I decided that as a very nice person (ha! no I'm not) I let him in, but yknow I might have uses for him at some stage. We are going to have a "little talk" ...

Self-care continues and the louche-life of lounging about

Gravel-guy wasn't back last weekend, so I could slob about. This was rather delightful  - the weather is getting much more autumnal and the nights are drawing in, when I say drawing in, what I actually mean is I don't really fancy the small house being shared with gravel-guy grumping about with no escape whilst it is persisting with rain outside and it is dark, the dark, narrow, country roads really are no good for people perambulating, so we rattle about like 2 cranky peas in a pod. But anyway it is now pleasurably cold and the evening skies are sometimes quite fabulous - look a lemon sky, how utterly, weirdly wonderful.

I was reading and enjoying a post by the imitable Atypical60 about slobbing around at home, she makes me cackle with pleasure when I find there is another "refined slob" out there. I do however hesitate to call myself such a thing - I'd love to be refined, however I'm too much of a peasant, but slob I can do. I have two modes of slobness - as a dab hand at this sort of thing I find just the one isn't enough. I'm not the most put-together person even at the best of times - there are reasons for me being a minimalist type dresser, truly I love the maximalist look but mainly I am too disorganized - take the weekend when I went down to London, I was so excited at packing my knitting and book and skin care samples squirrelled away from trips to Kiehls (they give great samples btw), that I turned up with 7 socks and 3 types of serum, yes 3 and 1/2 pairs of socks... I'd like to think this gives me a rakish and charming air, but really I know in my heart of hearts I probably look a bit chaotic. Essentially I am disorganised and lazy, I need visual cues such as lists and then lists of lists to remind me to pack what I need.

the little make up bag sorted...

I am trying to be that little bit more organised - as soon as I got home from London on the Monday night, I was sorting the toiletries bag - that way I still remember the things I forgot to take as I have quite sensitive skin, I like to be on top of my skincare. It's not as though I have an extensive regime - too many products upset sensitive skin even more, but there are basics I don't like to be without - so I spent a happy hour or so fannying about with little pots and tubes of goo. If I have an overnight for work (rare, but it happens) or any other reason - then I'm sorted and can stop fretting about that and fret about something else like cables. I can fret about cables for powering up my increasingly unreliable camera and my elderly phone. Then I can move to fret about emergency knitting and the like.

Then toiletries packed and ready for next time

Conveniently it is changover time for potions in our household (well for me basically), skin care needs for colder weather and central heating are different to summertime and that goes for fragrance as well. My makeup doesn't change that much during the year - I still need skin protection although summer is a little less obvious coverage.

Given the self-care kicker I am still on (in fits and starts), Wednesdays-working-at-home are now my days for trying colour combinations and or new faddish ideas, this means I explore the brighter colours in my colour palette - I am unlikely to ever fling them all together I suspect - my love for the humble grey (and I mean intentionally) grey teeshirt is too great. Very little can't be put with a grey tee. Grey tee and flannette PJ bottoms are my idea of heaven of an evening, nobody will see me and I am a very happy little critter slobbing about, especially when I am curled up in my nest with a good book. However I am leaning towards the idea of dressing UP for a work day at home - no one sees me but me, so I wear my current favourite jersey, jeans, jewellery, some basic makeup so I don't look like a dandelion head if I answer the door and a spritz of perfume. That makes the PJs and the fresh bed all the sweeter come evening. I also make an effort with what I eat - left to my own devices I veer between tofu / salad veg and wotsits /prosecco.

Un-ironed but oooh so pooofy and soft

Wednesdays being the laundering of the bedding day means my cosy nest is quite delicious on Wednesday night, ok we are un-ironed but we feel so good... we also do the odd experiment on a Wednesday, we bought a cashmere cardigan in TKMaxx for £20 quite a while ago, the colour in daylight does nothing for me - I'm not sure what I was thinking when I bought it, needless to say I haven't worn it - so some washing machine Dylon, "wool cycle" and there you go, a much more plausibly wearable colour. 

Dylon experiment, not "ultra violet" but happy with results

Self care at work is much harder, so far my work-wifey and I have invented the fruit o'clock, basically 7 pieces of fruit and an hour between each one... when they are all gone it is time to go home. We make our own kind of fun. Each day I look for at least a small pleasure (that is often a flat white from my favourite coffee place), do something creative (even if it is just knitting a few stitches) and appreciate beauty or creativity from somewhere or something - that can be a good read or some autumnal leaves, if I can't manage all three during the work day, then I'm OK with a good book or some knitting in the evening counting as part of that mantra. Self care is in some ways a building of rituals and habits to shield against other peoples nonsense, and autumn seems a good time to do this.

The soon-to-be patented satsuma work clock, when they have disappeared, I disappear too

But the self-care at work is hard, too many meetings organised by people with nothing else to do except bump their gums. That's not my thing - I am a librarian partly because I am antisocial - I have fits and bursts of chattiness and being personable, but between those I need a lot of down time when I really don't speak to people and just keep my head down. The worst thing is when nice people organise meetings over the lunch break - as they are nice people we are not supposed to mind, but I mind, I mind very much. Nice people are the worst - you can't really disagree with them as "niceness" is akin to saintliness, never fall for nice people, they get away with stuff. Nor do I stay past my going home time - my bus takes an hour and a quarter, and there is an hour between buses, if other people were happy getting home at 7.30 that would be fine but I am not missing the 17.10 bus for people who like to ramble about nothing.

So self-care at work isn't just about eating well, it's about protecting yourself and setting boundaries which I find really hard. I spent the first 10 years in this job saying "yes" thinking what's the worst that could happen and that is what is encouraged. It means you get stepped on - it is much braver, but more valuable to learn to say no and then neatly sidestep the nonsense, I make a point of saying no and then sticking to it, I have my home time and I have my protected lunch break when I go out away from people. I also make it obligatory to spend time not being talked at, which is hard in my job, but I'm learning.

time to go, satsuma clock works!

A wild(ish) weekend in London

Well the weekend has been, been and gone in a flash basically. I traveled down on the Friday and headed back up Monday, I did wonder how things would pan out and apart from gravel-guy turning up 15 minutes late to meet me at Euston it all went rather well although I could have done with escaping his clutches for a bit of private time preferably in a yarn shop. Still I think I behaved sufficiently well to put those plans into action another time. I love the train journey down - fabulous, sitting, knitting, reading and snoozing.

We started with Friday night at Kew, having seen Chihuly during the day earlier in the year, I'd been very keen to catch this and although it was tipping rain it was superb. I was bemused how well some of the art works did lit up - the ones that were particularly successful were not necessarily the ones I had really liked during the day time. 

Basically you followed the trail of lights and trotted around in a circuit to see the glass outside and inside the glasshouses, even experiencing the glasshouses at night was a treat - they are beautiful when illuminated.

The next day it was still raining, so we did the Natural History Museum, I think it is easily one of my favourite places anywhere - there is something delightful about a rainy afternoon snug in a room full of minerals in glass cases, don't ask me why, but it is.

We spent the whole day there, heading back to our room we passed Daunts books - that's a grumpy Gravel-guy realising his folly of passing a bookshop en route anywhere... although when I came out to look for him I discovered HIM inside engrossed in the bookshelves.

I placated him with coffee in a hipster coffee place somewhere near Hammersmith.

Sunday, it started with rain but this lifted and we had the whole day devoted to the London Wildlife Centre - there are little ponds, there is marsh, there are ducks and geese and otter and Bob the heron. We then walked from there along the Thames pathway to Kew Bridge for dinner, pizza and cider - delicious.

Monday, gravel-guy was off to work and I had the morning to myself, sadly Loop the yarn shrine in Camden passage is shut Mondays, and the Wellcome Institute whilst open is also shut in terms of exhibition - but I did spy this dress approximating all the contraceptive pills a woman would take over 26 years, no I wont be wearing anything like it to work.

I therefore spent my morning pottering around the streets and drinking coffee whilst nursing my book and my knitting - an antipodean without a flat white would be no antipodean at all.

Self-care and the colour of me

A tasty weeknight dinner in a favourite bowl...

I'm still on the self care kicker. Gravel-guy seems to think we are a weekend marriage and I am finding that really difficult (not "him" per se, he has always been a pain in the neck and I have always been one bestowed with exceptional levels of saintly forbearance...), the disruption and sudden wrenching from my contented little one-track furrow to a sideways adjustment of accommodating him (I'm not counting the accommodation of Hughie - nr.1 kid, as he is a bit like a spore in that he takes very little faffing despite living in the same house) its problematic. I'm finding it hard - very hard, although this weekend I will be going down to London to see Kew Gardens at night - so there are some benefits but I'm not sure I'll have much opportunity for tootling about without Gravel-guy. 

Things go great during the week - as the boy feeds himself, so I can plan a menu of healthy food and I can buy healthy food and then I can just crack on doing my thing. Anyway its not as though Gravel-guy is a pain to feed or even that fussy - it's just that he turns up having had a week of eating supermarket pasta salad and bemoaning the comparative lack of vegetables, so I feel I need to make nice meals that are suitably filling and calorific for someone that runs and is pretty energetic. Naturally I then eat my share - and really I shouldn't, I don't need it, and usually it is not my thing but I am a compulsive comfort eater when I am outside my comfort zone. Gravel-guy buys things like bread, he then leaves a bread mountain as a bequest. I hate throwing food out - it wasn't what I was brought up to do so it is a struggle to do that, but I'm realising that waste is waste - if it is in the bin or on my hips, either way it isn't where it needs to be and I am not responsible for what someone else buys. Gravel-guy's latest sad food story involved a university hotel refrigerator that is shared with others so his bag of lettuce leaves and scotch egg he was planning for an evenings repast were both frozen solid - resulting in the leaves thawing to become slime and the egg was so hard he couldn't get his teeth into it. Meanwhile I on the other hand have been loving the weeknights - I eat what I want, when I want and I am in my jim-jammies by 8pm with a cup of tea and a pile of knitting and maybe a face pack and some cosy slippers, happiness is not that hard to achieve during the week. Its just the big jolt to accommodate someone else and really I am a very self-indulgent creature given to whims of tofu or beetroot with everything until I am over "it".

We need nourishing food at this time of year, days are either glorious and full of bright sunshine or dark and blustery, things are definitely on the way toward winter, and people are developing the early sniffs and sniffles in the office - that's always a sign to up the nutrients. The other morning heading into work, there was frost - proper frost, the first for the year.

October weather - this year is particularly all over the place

Some days however.... every now and then at the weekend are quite beautiful, you have to grab them and celebrate them when they happen, we aren't going to get many more like this the other week when we dropped paint brushes and headed up the quiet side of Loch Lomond.

Inversnaid - the "other" side of Loch Lomond

On a completely different note, my colour palette turned up, I had a major fear I would look like a discarded Quality Street chocolate wrapper with nothing but bright jewel colours but it's ok, these colours make me very happy. This is the start of the process - I get guidance on how to use these colours to my best advantage.

Light contrasting winter

I am slightly surprised how much green is in there, I have one green dress I sometimes wear and every time I wear it, I get compliments but I had assumed it was because it is a nice dress and probably the sort that would suit most people. I hadn't really thought much about whether it suited me, I think I'll be wearing more green in future. In the meantime I am now looking at my wardrobe with a fresh eye - some things have immediately been relegated to a donation pile, but realistically I assume I am always going to have things that don't quite fit my palette simply because clothing in the shops isn't just there for me so naturally there will be the odd compromise, so like readers suggest - scarves and shawls and cowls are my friend to ease me into my new schema, just perfect for winter. 

Feeling a little bit lost and found

On the road to visit my boxes in the lock up

I’ve been going through a bit of a process lately partly due to the evolving relationship issues with Gravel-guy and the feeling a little like the only one left in the room when it comes to our thirty year marriage, but also partly due to ever present self-esteem issues. I don't know if it is the usual end of summer type doldrums or menopausal malaise piling on top of my general issues but I felt like I needed something changing. To be honest maybe it is partly it is also due to being a Kiwi in Scotland where the season changes are somewhat overwhelming even after being here all these years. My gut feeling is when we start feeling a bit "bleurghhh" and not quite sure of who we are or just a bit unsettled, then a wee bit of reinvention is necessary and getting rid of things holding you back is a good thing, change is happening whether you like it or not. I sort of feel that I need to be a little less "doormat" and a little more upfront about things I need, and that really isn't my strongpoint. So yet again I'm trying to be a bit more focused on self-care; eating right, fresh air etc but as gravel-guy comes back at weekends it is taking a while to find my groove.

Broad bean salad in the making - self care or just plain old gannet

And I don’t want to sound like a pity party when I type “self-esteem issues” as I think they are almost ubiquitous and I wince slightly when I type that phrase as it sounds rather needy and self-obsessed in an exceptionally boring kind of way. So I have been getting my colours done, analysed, sorted, as its something I have wanted to do properly for a long time and seeing myself through someone else's eyes might just wrench me away from the current naval-gazing introverted fug I am close to slipping into. It’s not just the wonky-donkey state of my/our marriage that has me feeling a stranger in my own skin – like I say, these are long standing quandaries I am facing up to. As a small being, my mother and sister had the dramatic colouring (and the dramatic personalities), I was always bumbling along pretty much in their glamourous wake, my sister has big bright turquoise eyes and chestnut hair (now honey blonde) and my mum was a golden blonde with dark chocolatey eyes and olive skin. Me, I am not their warm tones and my eyes are a blue-ish, glaucous green if anything so I felt more like the little shadow rather than one of “them”. Accordingly they dressed in what I guess are termed “autumn” colours – peach, rust or khaki greens and they dressed me in the same colours – whilst they looked fabulous, I looked grim – alternating between blotchy, greyish and colourless or florid, patchy and pink. As my mother used to say “you are such a difficult child” when she tried to normalise my appearance – wrong colouring, wrong hair (curly, fine, boring), wrong shape (chubby, small) or personality. While they looked elegant and sporty in their culottes and safari jackets (forgive them – this was the seventies) I looked disheveled and in need of a good wash or something as my skin just looked off. These things stick – you grow, but they stay. Naturally when you don’t fit the family mold (in so many ways), you don’t necessarily think about why, you just strive to fit in more – you wear the peach or the rust or the khaki green and you look weird. You look weird - so you assume you are weird and you can’t help it. Anyway enough of these issues – we have moved on, colours – they are being “done” and it is all quite fascinating as I sort of feel I am finally finding my own skin or at least have the permission to inhabit my space. So a bit of a pause and a re-set is something I'm doing right now and to say I find it difficult is putting it mildly - my idea of self-care is to buy hand cream. Do I use hand cream? Hardly ever, I buy it, I sniff it, and then let it collect in odd places as no amount of hand cream will turn my peasant paws into elegant hands of leisure besides greasy mitts are not ideal when you are knitting. Self care is more than that.

These above the kitchen sink - do they get used? Nope but that caudalie in particular is sublime

But back to the colour analysis, one of the tests the analyst told me to try was "fuschia" as not all winters can wear black up close to their face, but fuschia is the clincher on the winter deal - have you any idea how hard it is to find "fuschia"? So this was me in the changing rooms of Glasgow trying winter colours to see how I feel about it (note to self: no one looks good in M&S changing rooms in Argyll st, no one, and no one looks a normal colour of any type in there - do not go in - go to Cos, go to John Lewis, go anywhere else)...

yup - that's me, pink nose and all getting it on in Cos and John Lewis the 1st photo is probably closest to my real colour

So I’m cool, and I’m winter – I could possibly have figured the cool bit – but winter? Who knew, anyway there are different winter types. Bearing this in mind and previously assuming I was probably summer as I think I Iook fairly colourless, being told I was “winter” of some sort was a surprise – anyway this is a first attempt at wearing “winter-ish” colours – strong, bright, cool and er wintery… as for the type of winter (jeez I hope I am not wet and slushy – is that an official type?) or my contrast level – who the heck even knew such a thing was important, perhaps I am just slow on the uptake. I probably am slow on the uptake. But winter… sheesh, winter are cool sophisticates with pale ivory skin, not flustered little pinkertons with white hair – I'd also assumed there was a lot of contrast to winters, in my mind white lily-like skin and black hair or intensely coloured eyes, not something I had considered as “me”.

 

It has got me thinking (some would say that is never a good thing, and some would say it is not my forte – both of those people being Gravel-guy and quite possibly right) but the associations (I made at least) with certain palettes probably hindered me thinking about colours with any clarity or seeing how they looked without prejudice, and yet colour is a big part of my life – we all have a strong visceral preference for certain colours and colour looms large in our life with so many connotations guiding those preferences – it just goes to show you can always open yourself up to looking at things afresh. Spring – I assumed is young and bouncy and preppy, summer – muted and subtle, autumn which almost screams my mother and sister is strong and spicy, whereas winter – sophisticated and dramatic. I am neither sophisticated nor dramatic – I am a clutzy medical librarian who works as a sort of non-librarian and not in a library, so sophisticated and dramatic… I may need to rethink myself. I grew up assuming I was "bland" that's what I felt and it was what I was told.

Not quite my colours or are they???

Out of moderate curiosity I ran those photos above past my sister and she showed them to my mother, asking them what "season" I might be. My sister shot back with "winter" whilst my mother said maybe I was the first person to fail to fall into a season at all followed by "why wont you wear beige?" and "why cant you suit beige?" and "beige is useful! even if you ARE colourless" given I have never been a beige wearing person I get the subtle hints that I am still being difficult skin wise and I am 12 000 miles away, not that I set out to be wilful in my pink toned skin, but there you go - sometimes how your family see you (mummy - bless her) gets set in stone and is often as an offshoot as to how they see themselves. So maybe I have upgraded from bland to colourless, and finally getting there. Then because I was still buzzing from finally finding my colour tribe or belonging somewhere, I asked Gravel-guy what season I was - once I had explained this to him he just looked at me as though I had grown 2 heads and without a moments pause he came out with "of course you are winter, you are like little Miss Frosty" so just call me 2-heads-Frosty, once I am used to this moniker I'll respond I promise. Whilst I await my actual colour fan with great interest I am not letting that hold me back in terms of searching for the cold and bright and lighter end of the yarn world as some brands are more in tune and others less so, but that's the thing - it's a process and the process of change is at least as important as the end result.