A Small Political Rant

So, this week, we saw the re-nationalisation of the East Coast Main Line, after National Express came to their senses and ran away from the convoluted, tortuous and illogical mess that is our rail network.

About bloody time. Ever since the disastrous, money-grabbing fiasco of privatisation, the rail network, and it's passengers, have suffered a never-ending stream of accidents, delays, cancellations, crumbling infrastructure and soaring fares. Here's a nice little article from the Times on this very matter.

I live on the West Coast of Scotland, in a popular area, about 50 miles drive south of Glasgow. It costs me £10.65 for a return ticket, and takes about an hour to get to Glasgow Central. That is if the bloody train shows up, and when it does, it is an elderly, decrepit, badly-maintained piece of crap that should have been pensioned off years ago. The signalling fails between Paisley and Glasgow with such alarming regularity I don't know why they don't have a bunch of handsignallers on permanent standby. Oh, of course. Network Rail "can't afford" to employ people like that any more. On the approaches to Central, the trackside is in such a state you can begin to understand why there are so many failures. There are literally miles of cables left out of troughs and rubbish is strewn all down the cess and six-foot.

This would never have happened under British Rail. BR employed scores of people to work on the track, walking it every day to look for problems and carry out maintenance. Faulty points or cracked rails were picked up straight away by a guy walking down and looking. Easy. If he couldn't fix it, he phoned up and BR sent out a man that could. If you left cables out of the trough, someone would probably have fired you, and rightly so.

We now have a Byzantine situation where multiple Train Operating Companies are screwing the travelling public for every possible penny, whist simultaneously screwing Network Rail as soon as any tiny hiccup occurs which delays a service. The TOCs are also busily annoying each other, Network Rail are annoying the rail regulator and the TOCs, and the relationship with the Government is a total mystery. If it wasn't so brutally ironic, it would be comical. One ring to rule them all, anyone?

The network is so overcrowded that it's a miracle the trains don't run into each other more often (big credit to the poor signalmen, the unsung heroes) and if one train should break down, large chunks of the network grind to a halt. We desperately need new lines, new and longer trains, more freight-only lines, high-speed long-distance services and more frequent commuter services in many areas.

We'd also like the bloody things to turn up when they say they're going to, and not have to take out second mortgages or sell a kid for a season ticket. Rail should be a public service, not a profit-making activity. Safety, reliability and cost-effectiveness need to be put at the top of the agenda. That's why we need to renationalise it and bring back British Rail. Just get the sandwiches sorted out first, ok?

Here's a little treat for you BR buffs. Remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddtPI07hhA8

~*~

Random on a Saturday

Thank God and all his angels, it's the weekend again. Hoo-bloody-ray. The last couple of weeks have sucked most mightily in some ways, which I'm not going to discuss in detail but involve the Love of My Life and also work being very weird. Meh.

So, when all seemed rather grey and miserable, and things were all getting a bit much to be honest - you know, when you're staring out the windows looking for a car that never comes and missing your Mum and wondering what the hell is HAPPENING with your LIFE, DAMMIT, Mother Earth decides to take pity on you and send you a wee reminder that whilst all may be going to shit, there is still good stuff. You just got to look for it.



Sometimes Mother Earth is not so subtle :-) This is her basically going postal on my lousy ass and informing me to cheer the hell up and get over myself (and maybe a few other things too.) She's been sending me awesomely cute baby birds too. Awwwwww.

It's actually not been a bad week in some ways. My landlord dropped me round a bookcase (finally) which is already full and I need more...Yes, my name is Helen and I have a book acquisition problem. Bite me. At least I don't waste my money on drink and high living and unsuitable men. Well, not much anyway. Also my neighbour, along with Colin the handyman, kindly strimmed all the side path and the wild bit of my lawn with a big petrol strimmer so I'm not looking for David Bellamy in the back garden any more.
I had to move my car for them while they did the front (so they didn't ping up a stone and chip it - very thoughtful I thought) On getting out of the car, Colin's adorable big daft collie (which had been rounding up the car while I moved it) immediately bounced on me, knocked me back into the car, pinned me against the wing, vigorously humped my leg and slobbered all over me. It's good to know I'm still desirable, even if it is by another species. It's been a long time since any species thought me worthy of pinning up against something and humping. *sigh*

So amidst being ravished by collies and having rainbows thrown at me, I completed my first spin-to-knit project. Ta-daaaaaaah:



Cosmicpluto's "Simple but Effective Shawl" worked in various bits of my own spindle-spun and some leftover Shunklies handspun. I just unpinned it this morning and need to trim the ends and it's all done. Waaaarm and snuggly.

I've picked up the green ripple afghan again in a drive to get at least something out of Project Spectrum. I want to do Girasole, by brooklytweed, for Yellow / East, so I need to pull my finger out! I also still want to work a green vest. I think PS is going to last a long time for me :-) Lucky it's not a race.

I finally managed to go for a walk with the camera. I hate this camera with a passion (Fuji S5700) it's TERRIBLE in low light but outdoors it does a pretty good job. I still want a DSLR but it will have to wait until I've seen off the electricity bill of doom that I received. Ouch. I'm not sure how the hell I afforded the winter, what with the coal I had to buy as well. I shall have to knit more sweaters and some nice warm socks I think. Anyway, my walk. Here's a few snaps of Scotland when it's not raining:



The lane that leads up to my house, planted with beeches.



Some elderly tree-graffiti



The original gatepost to the farm, at the end of the old access road, which was destroyed by British Steel in the 70's. They were going to build a huge rolling mill right the way across the peninsula. Fortunately it never happened, but a lot of the earthworks were completed before the project got pulled, hence the road being wiped out. I didn't even know this existed before now. I've only lived here for a year...Need to get out a bit more methinks!

~*~

Spinster of This Parish

Oh dear. I have seriously fallen into the spinning quagmire. I think it's been brewing for a while, to be honest, but the opportunity of squishing fibre in the flesh at the Ravelry Day means that the burgeoning interest has now blossomed into an all-out fetish. Hee.

First do you want to see what I got in Coventry? Course you do. Yarn porn is always welcome, right?































Gulp. There's rather a lot there isn't there? In amongst that lot there is some lovely slubby linen from Knitting4fun, some linen laceweight from Artisan Yarns, sock yarn from Lilith, Babylonglegs sock and fibre, The Knitting Goddess lace and sock, Jamieson and Smith jumper and 2-ply lace and Shetland tops, 8oz of merino roving from Frabjous Fibres via Artisan Yarns, a batt from Rockpool Candy and Castlemilk Moorit / alpaca / silk from the Natural Fibre Company. Phew.

Rav day was excellent fun, apart from the appalling weather and the fact that there were no spinning wheels to play with and very few spindles. I actually spent slightly less than anticipated (grin) so I decided that what I really really needed was some new spindles. Helllloooooo Etsy! Two cute top-whorl spindles are now winging their way over from the good ol' US of A. I couldn't wait for them to arrive, so I invented my own lightweight version (my only other spindle weighs a ton):



Yep, that's a jamjar lid. Works a treat, once I'd slathered the join in Araldite anyway. So all this spinny stuff means I fell over in Lilith's yesterday, and bought some Wensleydale, Massam and Shetland, and I got a squishy parcel from World of Wool with BFL, Suffolk and Icelandic tops to play with. I'm already spinning up the Suffolk :-)

I'm still not a great spinner, but I've cast on a shawl in all this nice bulky handspun I had laying around, just to prove it can be knitted into something!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go water the garden (it hasn't rained properly for about three weeks now - I think the world may be ending) and then that nice Suffolk top is calling me back to my spindle...

Oh, and Hi Ange! I have a follower! *blush* hee hee

~*~

Nibbled by Zombies

Sorry, another month has passed and I am a bad blogger. June already. I've been up here in Scotland about a year! I can hardly believe it. And would ya believe, I'm sick again. My neck has swelled up to icky proportions on one side, enough to send me scuttling to the doctors in horror of glandular fever or swine flu or the plague or summat. Typical quack - reckons I've got an infection, or possibly a dodgy tooth, or maybe a bite. Or maybe she doesn't really give a fuck. Pah. I reckon I've been bit by a zombie. Sods get everywhere.

Anyway.
Project Spectrum has fallen somewhat by the wayside - I just can't get excited about yellow. I'm trying real hard but it's not working. Also...the weather's been nice! Fabulous in fact. I'm having to water the garden. It can't possibly last, so I've been making the most of it so crafting has taken a bit of a back seat. Also, I found a new time-suck - Folia. It's like Ravelry for gardeners. Great fun, and I've found that their database has at some point been fed some rather out-of-date info on my favourites, Rhododendron. So I'm busy updating and correcting information on the genus and learning lots at the same time. Yes, I am a geek. A taxonomic geek at that. Well, I like things to be right, you know? It's keeping the "I wanna be a gardener!!!" vibes calmed quite nicely at the moment.

I also had to invest some fairly serious time tidying up. Because I had a visitor! Yay me. I get very few visitors (feel free to be sympathetic at this point) so it's a bit of a treat but means I have to make the place look presentable. Jules is one of mah bestest buddies (i.e. he's one of the few people on the planet who can actually tolerate me for long periods) and my former boss. He's only been trying to get up here since January, but bearing in mind his history of punctuality, May wasn't too bad considering. (Ohai Jules! *grin*) He wasn't staying here (I think he's worried I might keep him) so at least I didn't have to try and elbow enough room out of the spare bedroom / sewing room / painting studio to accommodate the airbed :-) instead he stayed at the Seamill Hydro down the road where we had a very nice dinner on Friday night. Jules - you can come up any time if you bring the sunshine with you like this time, and if you take me out for dinner :-) I don't get out much these days y'know.

Meet Jules' very unsubtle car:



Cool innit?

And we went to Largs on Saturday, enjoyed the sunshine (next time Jules, tell me when my back is going pink, ok?) and stuffed ourselves at Nardini's before coming back and stuffing ourselves again at the local restaurant Chu-Chus. I haven't eaten so much in weeks.

Look! Sunshine! (This is Jules on a work call. While he's on holiday. *sigh*)



So a jolly, if rather fattening time was had by all.

And next weekend...it's the UK RAVELRY DAY!!!!! Lock up my credit card someone.

~*~

The Weight of Expectation

is pretty heavy round here, let me tell ya. Allow me to explain. Last week I received an incredibly snotty email from the boss. I was a bit taken aback as he's actually a very nice guy who does not normally indulge in the snotty. Anyhoo. I responded, after a suitable interval to calm down and poll the Pointless and Arbitrary gang on Ravelry, and managed to restrain myself from telling him where he could shove his job. I was actually very polite and reasonable and ever-so-slightly "poor me." He never replied. Not even an, "okay, thanks, let me see what I can do." Nothing, nada, zip. Soooo, I have no idea where that leaves me. I'm still turning up (or working from home) and AFAIK they're still paying me (payday is the end of the month). However it means that I am getting really concerned about my long-term prospects - i.e. I don't think I have any. This only bothers me in the sense of not getting a regular paycheque, as the role itself blows goats and is nothing really like what I was sold in the beginning. So, meh. It's starting to feel a bit stressful, like Damocles must have felt with that bloody sword hanging over his head. I've been suffering on and off with insomnia, and now indigestion from fretting. I just want to know where I stand, you know?

On a brighter note. All the above meant that I spent some serious time mulling over what I'm doing and what I want to be doing. Nice as it would be to sit on my butt knitting all day, I do need to have an income.

After much chewing over the issues (probably why I have indigestion to be honest) I realised a few things. I hate working in an office. I hate commuting every day. I loathe the whole corporate environment of stupid signs and insult-your-intelligence mass emailings. I hate the bottom-line mentality, and the lip service paid to things like employee development. I dislike having to wear "business dress" and getting looked at by the other females to see if I'm a threat or to eyeball what I'm wearing. The corporate bullshit nearly kills me. I am not remotely interested in what I'm doing.

So okay, I told myself, where does that leave me? I can't find another position anyway, there's not much out there and the few applications I've made have come to nothing. (did I tell you about the interview in Edinburgh? Sheesh waste of time that was) I have some cash saved up. If all else fails I can live off that for a bit, so that's not too big a concern. The real issue was what do I want to dooooo? 31 years old, you'd think I'd have figured it already *grin*

There is one area that I've always enjoyed, and had a strong interest in, which is horticulture. In fact, I nearly studied Botany at Uni until I realised I'd not got the sciences for it. At the time I don't think I even realised you can study Horticulture at Bachelor's degree level. Doh. I love working with plants. I love the scientific part of it, the getting-your-hands-dirty part, the design and the history. I love watching things grow that I've planted (and occasionally they die...but not often, I have fairly green fingers *grin*) About the only part I'm not keen on is cutting the grass, but even that has a satisfaction when you've finished it. Part of the appeal is seeing results. Sometimes it's instant - like at the weekend I cleared one of my borders which had been overtaken by the dreaded ground elder. An hour's work and I had a trug full of weeds and roots and a nice clear space for planting my Euphorbia x martini and a Polystichum tssusimense (the Korean rock fern.) Yes, I know the elder will come back - I know from bitter experience just how tenacious that bloody stuff is. Sometimes the results can take years - like growing cacti from seed or training bonsai, or even creating a garden from scratch, but it's all good.

What clinched it was sitting one morning, leafing through The Garden magazine from the RHS. I just enjoy looking through it so much, that the realisation kinda snuck up on me. "Why don't I just become a professional gardener?"

Why not indeed. So now, I just need to work out the most sensible way of going about it. I think I will need to go back to college, most jobs seem to expect some qualifications. I might have to do some volunteering to build up experience too, which will be interesting as this part of Ayrshire is rather short of large public gardens. I may even have to move, partly because of this and partly because of financing. This is the really sore point. The courses I'm looking at require attendance in the week, which is not happening with the job atm. I don't particularly want to resign (I'd much rather they made me redundant) but I will need time to study. I might try for an evening class or distance learning for the meantime, but I really want the hands-on training too. I need to do more research into the options.

Any tips would be gratefully received.

And don't worry, I'll still be knitting :-)

~*~

hmmm, not as much $$$ as I'd hoped :-)

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Am-I-Dumb.com - The Dumb Test

Where the hell did April go?

Jeez. It's the 26th already. I think I lost a couple of weeks somewhere. I got slightly broadsided by hurting my back, leading to working from home most of last week. It was nice, but annoying as I couldn't really do much around the place as I didn't want to aggravate my back. It was only a pulled muscle so all better now pretty much, but another sign of my increasing age :-) It was interesting to watch what goes on when I'm not normally at home, mainly the hens running riot in my front garden. If they carry on that game I'll put one in the pot. Probably the noisy cockerel first.

Anyway, apart from plotting the brutal murder of the livestock, I've managed to achieve a few things. I had a Project Spectrum moment, when I realised we're nearly into May and the next Cardinal Direction, and I haven't finished half the stuff I wanted to do for March - April. I may have to alter my timescales a bit, but that doesn't really alarm me too much. I did manage to snap a few photos for East already, we had a few really nice sunny days so I took full advantage. (I also did gardening which was what did for my back. Win some, lose some.) Of course the weather now has turned, it's raining, windy and I've had to light the heating again. So I started an afghan, for Project Spectrum North. This is all manmade fibres for easiness of care and because I wanted fluffy bits. I like fluffy bits in these sort of things, it adds a nice variety of texture both visual and tactile. I am an equal-opportunity yarn crafter.



I love green, which is why PS North has been good for me so far. Funny for someone who supports Hearts to like green, but hey. I can't help my tastes. There's also lots of springy new growth busting out all over, so photography has been really easy. PS North is actually put under Winter as its season, but I guess that's aimed more at people in the Northern US. Here Spring has definitely sprung.

I've one more project I'd like to do for North, which is a vest / sleeveless top in some gorgeous Scottish Tweed DK in a lovely sharp green. I think I've tracked down the pattern I want (finally!) - Vestish by Robin Dodge. It's very cute with the pockets and neckline flowing into the straps. I'll probably knit in the round up to the armholes though. Hate sewing up, you know? :-) It seems very wearable as well, I can picture this over a shirt for work, or over a flowery blouse with a cute twirly skirt.

I've also had a couple of distractions from Project Spectrum. One is lace. Remember I said I was going to do the Fountain Pen Shawl? Well I'm not. Let us speak no more of the matter. I've swapped over to the Large Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis Pattern (rav link) from Victorian Lace Today. I'm still using the Old Maiden Aunt laceweight merino in the Gothic colourway, which is gorgeous. I'm working it on a 4mm needle which, in all honesty, may be a little bit too large for this, but I am not frogging this yarn again as I don't think it would like it very much. The original pattern calls for a slightly heavier yarn, though I notice Rav has it listed as 4-ply which is interesting (and I think is a mistake - many people are workinging this in 2-ply / laceweights). I thought it was more like a 3-ply weight but meh. I'll just not block the finished article too hard. I don't have a picture as it currently looks like a small piece of tangled pinky-red-black spaghetti.

I also saw this on Flickr. Go on, click. I'm never too sure if I can post someone else's work on here, so I've just linked. This is inspired by the work of Anu Tuominen, a Finnish artist. She does some wicked things with crochet potholders. Seriously. Do a Flickr search and you'll see them. So of course, this has triggered a potholder kick, which in turn sparked off a general dishcloth / facecloth / tawashi exploration, which now means I have a load of dinky flower-shaped facecloths sitting in the bathroom. (Pattern here) I also may have bought some more crochet cotton. Ahem.



Mmm, Peaches 'n' Creme, finally available in the UK from here. The colours are to die for, however it is a true worsted weight which means it may not be suitable for UK patterns. It's between a DK and aran, I would say.

It's not been all yarn here either. Today I started a drawing for the first time since, well, I actually can't remember it's been that long. I will take some pictures once it's a bit more advanced. I've also been patchworking, piecing the top for my quilt. Experienced quilters may wish to look away now. There is no plan. no overall design, my seams are best not discussed in detail and I can't cut a straight line to save my life. However, I am enjoying the process. It's nice to work with fabric again.





Somewhere I have a quilt that I never finished, that was falling apart because I didn't know about proper seam allowances. I must dig it out and see if anything can be done with it.

And finally, this big box arrived:



What could it be?

No, surely not. It's not a...



It is! It's Roomba's little brother, the Scooba!

Here it is in action:



I tell you, with a bad back it was a ruddy Godsend. Yes folks, I am the proud owner of a £300 mop. My parents now think I am insane, I dread to think what the bf will say when he sees it, but to be honest, I do not care. My floors are clean and that is awesome. I plonk it in the room to be done, shift any stuff out of the way, press "go" and off it potters. I can then go and do something else far more interesting. It even plays a little tune to tell you it's finished. Awesome. I reckon this saves me 2-3 hours work easily. At that rate it's paid for itself after a few uses, and it's far more effective than sloshing a mop around. Also it's rather compelling watching it. I have yet to introduce it to the cat. That could be quite funny.

~*~