Happy Halloween.

We won't be trick or treating, but we will have a bit of fun with evening meal:

Brains with blood sauce (Spaghetti bolognese)
and
Death by Chocolate cake!

Last week's art work

Last week on about Wednesday when I was feeling a little better I noticed that the garden had some beautiful autumnal foliage so I put together this little arrangement.

Then as my parents are in Australia at the moment visiting my Aunt. I thought I'd write an airmail letter, but it was plain white without any decoration. So I sketched the leaves and coloured them in with pencil, hopefully if the letter gets wet the drawing will survive.

Not perfect but I was pleased with it, it is a long time since I did any sketching/painting. I finished the letter on Sunday, so now its crossing the world.

Back to school

That break went too quickly.

Friday we went to Ikea in search of a lamp & cushions which we found as well as some items for the kitchen, managed to spend £93!

Saturday and Sunday were filled with the usual household stuff. We did manage to go out for dinner on Saturday evening to Appia in Storrington, delicious food.

Alice went to a Halloween party at Uni and sent us photos,

Scary!

Feeling better

What ever that bug/virus was, it left me feeling washed out and tired until Wednesday.
Yesterday I felt much better so Em and I went out to find a winter coat, we succeeded. We also visited
and bought some Rowan classic wool (Poppy and Donkey colours) to knit a little bear for Tony's birthday.

Wilhemina Witch and Penfold & Rosie Monkey too.

For the last two weeks I have been making Alan Dart's Wilhemina Witch as featured in Simply Knitting magazine for Al who's away at University (I also made a little cat from Jean Greenhowe's patterns and he's called Penfold).
Because of my cold/virus bug I couldn't go to see her as we had planned this weekend so Tony went instead. This is the photo he took, as I had forgotten to take a picture before Wilhemina and Penfold went to their new home.





Whilst he was out visiting Al, I stayed home with Em and made a sock monkey whom Em named Rosie. Em had great fun looking through my Gran's button box for the eyes. She also found a pretty buckle, so we put it onto a piece of ribbon around Rosie's waist. Then I found some real Mother of Pearl buttons and we made them into a bracelet.

My bug is now finally going and I'm begining to feel much better although I am worn out by lunchtime! I'm now going through the squeaking & coughing phase.

Virus has got me!

I've just about survived the whole half term with only one cold and two days before half term I start a dry throat. (groan) now I feel as thought my head is full of lead and my nose is stuffed full of cotton wool and bright red. Time to go back to the chair in front of the telly with some knitting. So I thought you might like to see a photo I took on my Dad's birthday in July, we went to see the Yetties in concert. At the interval we came out of the marquee, there was a beautiful sunset.

Helicopter Visit

The weeks are flying by, often I can't post because I think I don't have much to say. But today at school we had some excitment that I can share with you.

A helicopter flew in, to visit the Primary School for a couple of hours. They had the chance to look inside the 'copter and talk to the pilots.

I know that our students would have loved that chance too. Some were fortunate to have lessons in rooms on the side facing the field where they landed and it caused a lot of excitment amongst the year 7's (11-12 yrs) on our corridor.

Later the Helicopter returned home.

Wool, Socks and Shopping

Saturday morning we went shopping. I found shoes, trousers, skirt, 2 blouses and a jacket. Then I dropped into the Fabric Shop and found some beautiful balls of sock yarn which I couldn't resist. This Duo is for a pair of socks for me.















And the threesome is intended for a Christmas present once I've knitted them into a pair of socks for my Dad (sssh its a secret! But its ok he doesn't do computers and the internet)

Then I bought some wool to knit a halloween theme gift, more about that when its done.
When we got home we had an Autumn (spring) clean and sent the spiders packing, which left us with just enough energy to go out for and Indian meal.

Today I did the Ironing (which I hate) and Tony washed the cars. (Its the weekend and we are working as hard as during the week when we are both at work!) Finally after lunch I was able to get on with blogging, oh and Thurday evening I finished my pair of socks hoorah! woohoo.

I did enjoy making them and I have made some mistakes along the way (one heel is deeper than the other) but I would like to knit some more socks as well as all the other projects I keep thinking of.

Meanwhile I'm off to do some knitting, I'm working on the Candle Flame Shawl which nearly drove me insane until I found the corrections here because I kept pulling out the few rows that were wrong.

Sorry if this post comes out all over the place but nothing is staying put today. Three times I had to reload pics

Weekend in Dorset

This weekend we went down to Dorset and spent the day in Salisbury on Saturday. The weather was very wet so we didn't take any photos. We wandered around the market, there were lots of tasty smells. Fresh bread which we bought, pies, fish, cheese (yes bought some of that too), olives, coffee and fresh flowers. We bought the final book in the series of "Lemoney Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events " for Em and Jeffrey Deavers book "Coffin Dancer" for Tony (a gripping yarn not for the faint hearted, I've already read it). I was looking for a shop that kept knitting books. I wanted to get hold of "Charmed Knits" to see what it was like and also to browse some other knitting books. But I didn't find the right bookshop. I was struggling to walk towards the afternoon as I have hurt my foot and so I gave up. I'm going to see a podiatrist on Thursday about my foot, so I hope he can do something for me.

During the week I started knitting a pair of socks. The pattern was in a magazine called "Knit Today"

I thought I would try making them using some ordinary acrylic yarn so that if I made a complete mess of the knitting I wouldn't waste the yarn.

Happily I think my socks are going to be a success. I have now finished one (it fits) and I have started the second one. So my next adventure will be to try and find some lovely sock wool. I think the possibilities are endless!

Box Hill Week

Last week was the fieldwork trips to Box Hill, Surrey. Over four days the Geography Department took 240 students to assess the impact of tourism on the landscape at Box Hill. The weather was warm and sunny and the trip was a success.
That was a relief as I booked it and processed all the payments and associated paperwork.