taking a snow day

 Well, I would if I was still working as there are no buses running down the valley. We had the first snow of winter last night, a surprising five inch worth of snow although its thawing out now. To put the excitement in context, we had two reasonable falls of snow last winter and we missed both of them due to being a different part of the country.

I ventured out early as far as the garden., this was my washing line at 6.30am

As I was putting the kettle on for my second cuppa of the day I spotted this visitor at the top of the tree.

Being up early meant a quick chat with assorted people on line before they went to bed whilst working on mitt no 1 which is now complete except for sewing in the ends. I have now remembered how much I hate knitting thumbs.

later in the day I cast on the second mitt

and spun some boring white yarn

snow day

Hi

First things first, I sort of fell out with knitting the shawl. I haven't ripped it back but it is sat in a bag looking rather forlorn. I'm not sure why but I'm just not gelling with it.

So back to the spinning. I had a dig around and found a bag of Bond that I bought maybe 6 years ago? I looked on my blog but couldn't find a post about it. The fleece was imported from Australia and it goes against my objective of spinning only British breeds but its a nice colour and starting to get compacted so its out and on the table being combed.

see, pretty colour :-) I'm going to spin it up and maybe use it for something special. At least if its spun up I'll be more likely to use it and it's better than finding a big felted ball of brown fibre at some point in the future.

The snow came on Thursday, not as bad as many parts of the country and its starting to disappear a bit now as the winds are so strong that its just getting blown away into the nooks and crannies.

So, for now I will sit and spin, and bake biscuits and read magazines .

Speak soon xx

Cabin Fever

Hi

So I've now been off work since 24th December and by now I was hoping to go out for a few steps each day but since Saturday I've not stepped out of the door. The forecast is for more snow until next week. Its not causing any major problems where we live but the footpaths are slippery and I'm not really wanting to fall again.

We have put our next trip to the camper van on hold until the weather improves:-( and I'm just getting a little fed up now with being stuck indoors.

I decided to knit something different as I had a couple of skeins of Rouge de L'ouest  sitting around doing nothing. I've cast on a Stormy sky shawl on size 6mm needles, Well, I really had problems with the circulars to start with and had to cast on using some dpns and then transfer to the circulars once I had a few rows done. 

I've given in and started to wash some of my recent spinning as its beginning to pile up and I will be wanting to use some of it soon.

Please excuse the torn wall paper, years of drying textiles and fibres have taken their toll :-)

I've also finished the beanie which is now washed and fits me quite nicely although I doubt that I will be keeping it. I've found that hats look fine until I put my glasses on then I tend to just look a bit daft in them.

Its still snowing so I'm going to tidy the kitchen, have a shower and change into comfy, snuggle clothes, make a coffee and knit xx

Winter Brrrrrr

this morning we have woken up to this

so I think I will be mainly finishing this

and skeinning up this

altogether a sort of monochrome day xx

Steam Sunday..notice the theme??

We wandered over to Evesham yesterday so Hubby could catch up with his biker mates and I could natter to one of my spinning mates who just happens to be married to one of the bikers. The venue was a steam railway (for the men) and a shopping complex including a needlework shop a jewellers for us girls. As usual, the pics are of the engines :-)

 

On the way back we were surprised by how much snow was still piled up from the previous weekend.

I hope you all had a great weekend and didn't eat too many Easter eggs!!  x

Snowday

This weekend we travelled over to Glossop in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District to see a band who regularly play in Nottingham. We decided to make it a weekend away and booked a room in a new Travel lodge ( budget hotel chain) that had been opened just six months ago in a converted mill in the centre of Glossop.

Very friendly customer service and a great budget price for our one night. Getting to Glossop from where we live means either taking the boring main roads or heading off into the dales and over the higher roads that are often closed by snow although on Saturday they were open with just a little snow left from earlier in the week.

Once there we shopped, had a lovely Chinese meal then headed off to see the band. John, a very talented banjo/accordion/whistle/mandolin etc player, came over to sit with us before their set and handed me his new  banjo. I was amazed at how heavy it was !!! Now I don't know anything about banjos but used to play guitar so I had a quick strum and still fancy learning to play one.

The band were good, tight , probably one of the best gigs we've been to and we have known them for over 20 years!!

I sat to the side with my little camera for most of the night a grabbed a couple of shots

 

then a few more.

 

 

 

 

The band are called Seven Little Sisters and you can here tracks from their new CD here. The next morning we awoke to rain which rapidly became snow giving a beautiful drive back, even got to stop at our favourite book shop !

Hope you all had as good a weekend as we did ! xx