Bob - so you think you're grumpy?

You think your week has been bad? Well I had my sofa cleaned this afternoon and its too wet to sit on it. I have been standing up since 2pm! Now *that's* grumpy my friend. :-)

A Troubled Conscience

I've been wresting with my conscience as to whether I should admit that during my tenure at the BBC I falsified the winner of an internal competition to win a promotional copy of the interactive Dinosaurs dvd.

I was pulling correct answers out of the hat and one of the winners was someone I used to work with and didn't like. So I stuck it back in the hat and pulled out another.

Its obviously a sign of endemic corruption of the BBC staff that when I uttered the words "Eleanor Macann, what a cow, she's not getting one" and put the card back in the hat, that not one person challenged my behaviour. Either that or they agreed that she was a cow.

*Snigger*.

Potter Predictions

Does Harry die? Does Ron or Hermione? Is Dumbledore really dead and is Snape really as bad as he seemed at the end of the Half Blood Prince? Is Voldemort going to finally get what's coming to him in the shape of a particularly nasty flash of green accompanied by the words "Avada Kedavra"?

I really wouldn't like to guess what's going to happen in the Deathly Hallows, but I hope JK Rowling has made it a cracking finale. Its particularly satisfying when you're reading a book or watching a film and you realise that a particularly clever twist or plot device is going to deliver a truly great ending.

But I wouldn't like to predict what that will be. The only thing I can think is that the owner of the initials RAB makes an appearance - that was too loudly sign-posted in the Half Blood Prince - and I'm wondering if its Sirius's brother, at least the initials fit. And perhaps its a Weasley that dies - after all, there's about 9 of them, so there's plenty to go round.

Right, that's quite enough geekiness for one day :-)

Never trust a machine (especially after your husband has been messing with it)

We've been treated to yet another wet Sunday, but as it wasn't due to start raining in earnest until noon I decided to get the kids to the park for an hour or so this morning. As I was heading to the supermarket first, I thought it would be a good idea to test the SatNav that Doug bought me for my birthday; although I was pretty confident of the route from the supermarket to the park, it wouldn't hurt to have a second opinion and save any messing about.

Having left the supermarket, I drove down Green Lane to the roundabout, fully expecting the direction to be "take the third exit". Instead, what I got was "take the fifth exit". I was quite surprised about this, but wondered if it knew of a better route, so I took the fifth exit. It then proceeded to direct me in a bewildering maze of little streets until I was completely lost - the only thing I was fully confident of was that I was nowhere near the park.

I started wondering if I'd chosen a road of the same name but in a different part of York - after all, New Lane isn't going to be that uncommon a street name. But as far as I could tell, there was only one of the name in that part of town - the others were out in Huntington and to the north of York, and certainly not in the direction which I was being herded.

So I decided to rebel and when I got to the next recognisable road, I'd try and get myself back on track. Good idea, but the SatNav didn't like this one little bit. As I finally found myself by Askham Bar Tesco (right at the bottom of Acomb) and proceeded to take the Tadcaster Road back into town it started telling me to turn right, turn left, in fact take any other turning to get me off this main road.

And its then that I realised what had happened - a vague memory of Doug messing with it earlier in the week and announcing that he'd set it so not to suggest a route with any major roads in it. This was so that it didn't take me onto the A64 when I wasn't prepared for it (I hate and fear the A64 in equal measure). Unfortunately, for major road, read A road. No wonder it was having a hissy fit at me driving on the Tadcaster Road.

Anyway, I got us to the park. It only took us 40 minutes longer than it should have.........

My Resoultion

When I get my Harry Potter book next Saturday, I pledge not to look at the back and find out who dies.

Just Another Day

Its my birthday today and I'm feeling a bit grumpy about the whole thing. I initially thought that my grumpiness was down to a) entering my fortieth year and b) the weather, but I've come to the conclusion that the root cause is that for the first time in absolutely ages I'm not really marking the actual day in any way.

In the past I've always made an effort to do something on the whole of the day and not just let it slip by unnoticed and unloved. Since going out with Doug my birthdays have been spent in Paris, Hampton Court, Leeds Castle, Paris, Kew Gardens, the theatre, Kew Gardens; only in 2007 did we just go out in the evening and that was a combination of early pregnancy woes and a bit of apprehension about the bombs that had gone off a couple of days earlier.

This year, I'm not doing anything - Doug is working just about every hour god sends at the moment, and that includes weekends. While I'm mature enough to appreciate that its all part of ensuring the company's continued success and keeping a roof over our heads, I'm also immature (human?) enough to be a tad grumpy about the whole thing.

I'm not saying that we've done absolutely nothing for my birthday, as we went out for a very nice meal on Saturday night, but I think its the fact that today will be just another day, largely spent doing what I do every Monday (the laundry, some ironing, child-care and going to Morrisons) is whats making me the rather scowly ungrateful old cow that I feel I am today.

Oh well.

Dead Leg

At 4.40am Jacob woke up crying. He'd lost Bumble (his toy cat and boon companion), a situation which required immediate attention from Mummy.

Courtesy of some really bad nights sleep and a couple of 5.30am starts, I was utterly knackered last night and was getting some seriously well-needed slumber, so I wasn't best pleased at being woken up. Especially as, after finding Bumble (some 3 inches from his left hand) I heard the plaintive "sleep with me Mummy".

Sigh. This requires sitting down next to his bed, lying your head on his toddler armchair, and attempting to remain comfortable while he drops off to sleep again. He's prone to nightmares, so while I try not to make a habit of this, I have to do it occasionally in order for everyone in the house to get a decent night's sleep.

Anyway, last night I actually managed the unthinkable; I was so tired I actually fell asleep in that most uncomfortable of positions. When I woke up it was 5.30am and both children were hard and fast asleep.

I stood up, preparing to creep silently out of the room and get back to my own bed, only to find with my first step that I'd got a dead leg. With an almighty thump I crashed to the floor and lay there, wrapped round the rocking chair with my face in "Is it Bedtime Wibbly Pig?". How the boys remained asleep during such racket is beyond me.

The only way I could get back to bed was to do a sort of half crawl/half commando shuffle out of the room, on to the landing and then into my own room. I had to haul myself up onto my bed and lie in the position I landed in until I got the life back into my leg.

I was actually quite amused by it at the time and considered waking up Doug to tell him about it. I didn't though. He hasn't got much of a sense of humour at 5.30am, for some reason....

Grumpy

Its 6.25am on a Friday morning. I've been awake for an hour. Its raining. It was raining when I went to bed at 10.30pm, it was raining when I woke up briefly at 2am, and it was raining when I came downstairs to get Sam's bottle at 5.30am. Its no wonder that I am grumpy.

We have mushrooms on our lawn, its so wet. And courtesy of my mum's expert gardening knowledge, I now know that there's no chemical way of getting rid of mushrooms and that I just have to pick them and bin them as they appear. And there's loads of them. I also know that if they are fairy ring mushrooms, they'll destroy my lawn and we'll have to have to relaid, just six weeks after it was put down. And they're poisonous.

God, I'll be out all summer picking mushrooms out of my lawn. Fantastic. No wonder I am grumpy.

A Little Something

I used to be a very keen knitter. I took an interest in it at age 16 and knitted fairly consistently from then on. Becoming an aunty for the first time eleven years ago gave me new scope for my efforts although by the time of the third arrival there'd been a considerable drop off in production; I'd started going out with Doug and obviously had other things to do with my time/hands :-)

I picked up the needles again following Jacob's birth and knitted him a couple of v nice things, as well as finishing a jumper that I'd started for Conor, some eight years previously! However, being the mother of an increasingly active toddler meant that, once again, production dipped.

I hadn't knitted anything since I became pregnant with Sam; I didn't want to exacerbate the carpal tunnel syndrome that I suffered from while expecting Jacob. Unlike my first pregnancy where it started up about 20 weeks, I didn't suffer from it at all, and about 7 months in I decided (rather unwisely) that I would give knitting a shot and knit a little something for Solveig and Adrian's first who was due around six weeks before Sam. Halfway through producing the jumper, CTS kicked in. I ended up giving the jumper to my mum to finish and by this time it was far too small to give to Freyja, so it ended up as a gift to another baby born later in the year.

This time the CTS lingered long after the birth and I still am prone to it, especially after driving lessons or pushing the double buggy for half an hour or more. But I decided to have a pop at knitting again, figuring that I might be able to produce something for Caroline's baby that was due in May.

I managed a little jumper, but wasn't entirely happy with it. I knitted it in DK cotton which I felt was a bit too bulky for the pattern (even though it was the yarn stated). Also, although I knit to tension, the sleeves weren't wide enough to fit in the arm holes which leads to a rather odd shape when making up; I didn't remember until I'd got to the making up stage that I'd actually knitted this pattern before and encountered the same problem.

However, the main thing was that my arms had coped with the recursive activity of knitting. So I had a go at knitting a second item; finally a little something for Freyja to make up for not producing something on her arrival. I had to adapt the pattern as I didn't have quite enough wool in my bag, and as I was knitting with a different yarn to the one suggested, I had to alter the pattern for the sleeves so they weren't too small/too big for the armhole shaping.

This time, I'm very pleased with the finished product:




I altered the method of tying the wrap, however; in the pattern the ribbon went right round the back before tying at the side, which I felt wasn't necessary. Also, it didn't address the issue of the right front - in my experience of wrap-overs, you need something to tie that inside the wrap and keep it from dipping below the level of the other front. So I fished out my button box and found a suitably small button from a Monsoon top that was the right colour. That's now on the inside to secure the right front.

My right arm, neck and shoulder did start hurting as I finished it, a clear sign that I'd knitted too quickly and not sitting square and straight. It did, however, completely clear up overnight once I'd finished knitting, courtesy of Deep Heat and the use of my lovely back massager that Doug bought me for Christmas.

Anyway, I hope the cardy fits Freyja and I hope Solveig thinks its suitably stylish for her daughter to wear. It didn't really cost anything to make (it was from the spare wool bag and so long since paid for, iyswim) other than my time and the 58p for the ribbon, so I'm happy with what I've produced.

I do have loads of odd balls of nice wool in the bag, but I doubt I've got enough to make a complete jumper in one shade so I'll be looking through my patterns and see if there's anything adaptable. I've thought about doing a fair isle pattern, but I'm not happy with the mix of colours available in the bag.

Anyway, enough of these woolly ramblings. It is a post worthy of the Knit Nurse :-)