Here’s a fun experiment to try. First, change the bed and put a new duvet cover on. Then take some clear apple juice and put it in a saucepan. Set it on the stove, and gently heat it till it’s about the same temperature as the average baby’s bath water (you can test it with your elbow to be sure), and then fill a hot water bottle with it and go through to the bedroom. Hold it over the bed, remove the cap and press both sides simultaneously, sending a strong squirt of yellow liquid all over your nice clean duvet cover.
That’s what it’s been like since we moved, as our elderly cat does not seem to be adjusting well to life in Edinburgh (for apple juice, substitute – well, you get the picture). Ah, well – at least we know the washing machine works.
As for the move itself, that wasn’t as much fun as it could have been, but no disasters. The loading went fine at the Somerset end on Monday – they had plenty of guys on the job. But when they arrived in Edinburgh (an hour late, about 4pm) the next day, there was only one man – the driver – as the other had reported in sick. (I’d asked Margaret to make sure they knew about the 55 steps, and I guess her description was a little too vivid…) So anyway the driver spent over 3 hours that night slogging boxes and furniture up to the flat all on his own, until he looked like an extra from a low budget zombie movie and had to go sleep in his cab.
Next day, the company had hired a local guy to help, but he couldn’t come till 9.30am, so the poor old driver had another couple of hours on his own. Then they really got down to it, but even so it took them till 3.30 to get it all in, some 100+ boxes of books and stuff, plus beds, dressers, desks, you name it – by which time neither of them could stand up unaided. The poor old driver then had to drive all the way back to Somerset by himself, which meant he wasn’t allowed to drive next day (working time directive), so he couldn’t work and so would miss a day’s pay – so he was not a happy bunny.
Anyway, we’re here now, and it’s starting to feel like home, mostly because the house is full of unpacked boxes of stuff, just like all our homes tend to be. Not much time for knitting with all this stuff to be put away, but the lounge, the bedroom and the kitchen are mostly sorted now. The hi-fi is up and running, the cds are on the shelves (and in order) and all’s right with the world.
We’ve also found the local supermarket, so we can stock up on apple juice, and – .
Slow but steady progress this week, not helped by Edinburgh having its annual heatwave, uncomfortably hot and sticky, temperatures in the unimaginable high twenties/low thirties celsius, seagulls flopping down exhausted in the shade, too fagged to peck the garbage bags open. All in all, not the kind of weather to have the equivalent of a woollen blanket on your lap, even if you’ve got the windows open and are exposing your pale, unsightly legs to the faintest hint of a breeze, not to mention the neighbours (well, they deserve some excitement, I thought) as I was. Also still troubled by this cold I can’t seem to shake off, which resulted in my sleeping through about half of the weekend (it’s just like being a student all over again).
The cold it was that made me miss the Moray Firth Partnership’s Scottish Traditional Boat Festival at Portsoy this weekend, with workshops and displays on knitting and ganseys. If anyone has any information about it, how it went, I’d be interested to hear. (According to their website they seem to have most of their funding in place for their gansey project, so that’s one to keep an eye on.)
In the meantime, on with the sleeves. I’ve almost finished the gusset, and will soon have finished the pattern band, after which it’s plain knitting all the way to the cuff. As I’ve mentioned before on these blogs, it’s a good idea to keep moving the stitches around the needles if you’re knitting in the round on double-pointed needles, so the break doesn’t always come on the same stitch. Otherwise, the danger is that you slacken the tension slightly as you move from needle to needle, and that can have the unfortunate effect of producing a line of looser stitches running down your sleeve, which looks like a pull in a pair of tights. As my pattern row comes every third row, I just slip a couple of stitches from needle to needle when I reach them to break things up a bit. Sorted.