Settling in with the cats

So pleased to say… the cats seem to be enjoying themselves.  There is deep purring all round and enough sofas to satisfy most demands.  Also some very high cupboards in the kitchen onto which there is access via the mantelpiece from the back of a dining chair.  Very satisfying

The journey up from the South with Mike and Emma was fairly uneventful, but their (the cats’) parting shot was to catch a pheasant the night before – well done girls!!! – and Phoebe kung foo kicked her way out of her cat box in the car on the way to the station.  I would have had someone sit with them to calm them, but this obviously wasn’t an option.  Anyway, they caught her and she arrived at King’s Cross very cross but otherwise well.  They then had to wait an hour and a half with us for the train to Edinburgh, and then spent nigh on five hours on the train itself.  Cleo had her nose stroked until she was comatose and slept all the way, and I held Phoebe’s paw.  She managed almost all the way and had a little panic / strop in the last twenty minutes.  Enormous joy when they got to the flat and could explore.

We kept them in the playroom for the first couple of nights (until I was sure they knew exactly where the litter tray was!) and now they are free ranging everywhere night and day.  They haven’t tried to get out yet – well, the weather is wet and cold – and seem very happy.  None of the yowling that was driving Mike and Emma mad, just a lot of purring.  Phoebe has recovered her ability to do somersaults and was entertaining Joolz with them last night

Bringing the cats home

Joolz and I are off to London to pick up Phoebe and Cleo.  My ex-husband no longer wants them, so although they will miss the countryside, they are much better off where they will be loved and cherished, in the way those with an oriental feline persuasion like best.  We are working on Monday until mid-afternoon in London, then we’ll meet the cats (in their travel boxes, and accompanied by ex-husband) at King’s Cross for the 6pm train up to Edinburgh.  I’ve been informed that they are in very good voice, so the journey should be interesting   We have invested heavily in cat nip.

We are SOOOOO looking forward to having them with us, and despite my not having lived with them for over 18 months now, I’m hoping they’ll settle in fairly swiftly – the first week or so just in the flat, then we will have had cat flaps installed so they can make their first tentative steps out into the great beyond of masses and masses of back gardens back to back – two crescents effectively, all with small walled gardens.  They will encounter more cats than they have ever met before and absolutely no deer or badgers, but probably the odd fox here and there.  We shall endeavour to keep them away from the road at the front for as long as possible.  They haven’t seen 5 storey buildings yet, but I’ll wager Phoebe will give it a go.

Goodness knows how they will respond to a highly restricted outdoors playground in terms of space… but more interest per square inch than they have ever dreamed of.  At least they will be allowed in the house at night, which should probably go down very well.  We are thinking warm, soft, radiators, sofas, beds, airing cupboards, that sort of thing.  In fact I shall be encouraging them to lounge around in the flat as much as possible.  In terms of inside interest, I think the rope bannisters up the stairs will provide good climbing facilities, and the flat lends itself nicely to being developed as a race course :)

In the meantime we are sitting on the train on our way down to London, and I am revelling in the ability to mess around with my laptop, check out ravelry, and get some knitting in at the same time, all of which is impossible when flying.  It does bump around, though!

Cats

My cats, Phoebe in the picture above, and Cleo, her sister, will be joining us in Edinburgh on February 1st.  My lovely ex-husband is not prepared to keep them and so they will have to get used to city living!!!  We have a small back garden which backs on to masses of other small back gardens… so they will have to work out their new territory.  Hopefully without too much ado.  There are also very large gated communal gardens for the crescent, but they will have to cross a road for those and I am reluctant to let them do that.

The flat, however, is rather more fun for cats than the house they are coming from.  It sports a very inviting, enormously thick rope as a banister along the wall down the stone stairway from ground to garden floor, so I expect they will have fun chasing each other at speed along it upside down.  They will also be able to hurl themselves off the iron banisters from the top hall down to the bottom hall.  Then there are the very high ceilings and equally high shutters inviting a climb and a rest atop to enjoy the view - bliss for orientals!  Raw mince and the promise of plentiful Edinburgh mice may well help too.

We’ve moved!

Well, nearly… we’ve moved everything from Joolz’ flat and everything from my flat in Edinburgh, and tomorrow, Tuesday, the rest of my furniture and books arrive from Sussex.  Hmmm.  I’m not sure what my lovely ex-husband has put in the removal van for me … hopefully all the correct furniture and my books… he is saying that he has packed ’some other stuff’ as well.  I don’t know quite what he means, but we’ll see what arrives.  I’m looking forward to the piano, the grandfather clock and the old Chesterfield sofa which will go straight off to be reupholstered.

The flat is beautiful and it is wonderful to have space again.  I haven’t even been out into the garden yet, and we moved on Friday!  I have taken this week off apart from today in London so I shall have time to explore.  There are interesting things to get to grips with, like the burglar alarm and, in reverse, the ‘exit system’… the vendors have a lovely little downs syndrome girl who used to go walkabout in the centre of Edinburgh, so they had an exit lock fitted so she couldn’t get out unaccompanied.  We have to key in the code to get out of our front door!  Then there’s a rather bizarre heating and hot water system and underfloor heating in the upstairs bathroom.  A quiet couple of hours with the instruction manuals will do wonders.

Drawing room and kitchen are as good as finished, so we now have somewhere to eat and collapse   It’s amazing how many jars of lentils, beans, rice and dark muscovado sugar one can accumulate when living out of two flats… somehow rather more than twice as many as in one flat.  (What on earth did we need all the sugar for?)  Joolz has worked out how the open fire in the drawing room is best lit and kept a) alive and b) from burning out in two minutes.  There are woodburners in the kitchen and the playroom (where Joolz will do her sculpture and furniture restoration and I shall do messy fabric stuff, and we shall try some mosaic soon).  I can’t wait to get the woodburners going – apparently they are dual fuel… not sure what that means exactly, I’m just used to logs, but we’ll find out.  Our bedroom is awash with clothes as the wardrobes we bought won’t be delivered until February!  Until then there are motley chests of drawers and my little old wardrobe donated by one of my sons.  Joolz has several boxes of shoes which are still looking for a home.

Joolz has started painting the spare bedroom which was in glorious shades of bubblegum pink stripes – her mother is arriving on Wednesday for a quick visit, so that gave us a deadline!  The office, which we shall be using as a clinic room for the while, is as yet untouched and full of boxes, but doesn’t need redecorating.  The two other bedrooms we shall be using for work, and the decorators turn up on the 15th, so we haven’t even been in there yet.

The books are spilling out everywhere.  Joolz packed 50 boxes of books for me from my flat and a few more from hers, and there are more arriving from Sussex, so we are having shelves made for the library.  All the other shelves have been distributed around the flat and the vendors left two very large bookcases behind which are now in the drawing room. 

The yarn boxes are in the downstairs hall hoping for a space in one of the storage cupboards, which we conveniently can’t get at because of the yarn boxes stacked neatly in front of the door   My yarn baskets are in the drawing room and in the playroom.  Bliss!  I really want to sit down with a cup of tea and get on with some knitting

Oh yes, and my divorce came through in the same week as we concluded missives (completed) on the flat, and all went very amicably and well.  Such a relief!  I need the Christmas break now.

Where did the last three months go?

Well, I’ve been knitting and buying a flat with Joolz, getting my divorce through, knitting some more, commuting to London from Edinburgh, working, teaching, training, sleeping, not sleeping, getter fatter, getting thinner, learning to spin, not spending enough time in Edinburgh, wanting to own my own home again, worrying, not worrying, all the usual type of stuff.

Knitting:  see me on ravelry for knitting recently.  A couple of scarves and quite a large Susan Pandorf shawl.  Oh yes, and an Ulmus shawl.  It’s been a good knitting season.

Buying a flat:  yes, we finally bought one, the best of the bunch we’ve really wanted to live in, so it was meant to be.  Quite large, on a quiet crescent in the centre of Edinburgh, West End into New Town, just away from the drag with a small garden and very large private gardens owned by the two crescents in the middle.  Moving in on December 4th.

Learning to spin:  with the lovely Sue MacNiven.  She is amazing and taught us over one of the most stressful weekends (last weekend) I’ve experienced in recent times (divorce, buying property, selling property, family members dying, oh, we’ve had it all!).  Sue is a total joy and enormous fun.  She is chicksinrubber on ravelry because she is a fly fishing instructor

 

I’m going to learn to spin…

The slippery slope has been beckoning for so long, and it is actually Emma and Kate and Anne’s obsession magnificent achievements that have finally persuaded me.  It was actually Joolz who said “would you like to learn to spin?  I would like to learn to spin.  We could learn together and then we could spin yarn for you to knit”.  Little, so little does she know what this means.  Anyway, we are looking at doing a spinning course with Sue Macniven just south of Edinburgh over two days in November, which just happens to coincide with my birthday

Ulmus and various newses

I’m knitting an Ulmus shawl in yellow / gold and a variegated blue / green / red / gold sock yarn with the striped, slip stitch garter beginning and a wavy lace outer section in the darker variegated yarn.  All in 4ply from my stash and very satisfying.  Picis soon. 

My still-husband’s now girlfriend is on the very point of selling her house, so she can  buy me out of mine, which I still own with my still-husband, so this means he won’t have to move (bless!) and I can look for somewhere to buy myself as soon as the divorce comes through, looking like beginning of October.  I can’t believe how amicable this has all been barring the first few weeks of shock, so I am profoundly grateful.  I think the whole process, though, however ‘easy’ in comparison with others’, may be fuelling some of my extensive yarn buying.  Just a hunch.

Yarn Goddess in Edinburgh

Sunday was the day, and I went to K1 Yarns with the intention of bagging greens. Forest, grass, lime, sage, sea, sap, stem, there they were… lace weight and 4ply, alpaca / merino / cashmere blends… bliss!!! I came away with some 4ply weight in Scottish Thistle, a blend of greens and blue/greys, some light grass green lace weight, and darker, softer, more bluey grass green lace weight, and just 400m of more sock 4ply in, er, green. To round it off I couldn’t resist burnt orange lace weight. YUM!!!

Mini-tour of London yarn shops

I ws recently in London over a couple of weeks and had three days off to go yarn hunting.  I managed one yarn shop a day, visiting I Knit, Loop and Prick Your Finger.

I Knit in Waterloo is set in a busy little Street just around the corner from the station.  It’s packed with beautiful and rare yarns, many from these isles and others from further afield.  They cater for serious, knowledgeable knitters, truly a knitters’ paradise, and I stayed for rather a long time.   They stock lots and lots of independent UK dyers like Natural Dye Studio to Habu, Manos del Uruguay, Malabrigo and other more exotic names.  Shop samples abound (beautiful!) and the feeling of the place is busy but not cluttered, lots of natural light and masses of inspiration.  The assistants were helpful and very friendly, dealing twice whilst I was there with people wanting sewing related items and directing them further along the road, without a hint of  ‘here we go again’ irritation.  They obviously knew both their stock and the kind of things that independent knitters look for, not at all phased by odd questions about drape or wpi.  They were also happy to suggest yarn substitutions from their vast stock which might seem overwhelming to a new knitter.  I bought some very green Malabrigo lace yarn and left on a blissful cloud of yarny high.

Out in Bethnal Green (10 minutes walk max from the tube station) is Prick Your Finger.  I have to say I was really disappointed here. 

The display was made up of crocheted and knitted lizzards, too clunky for much detail, and very grubby, i.e. plain dirty.  In one corner was a toilet either covered with once white/cream, and now filfthy, knitted … well… covers… or the whole thing was a knitted stuffed toilet.  Complete with toilet roll cover.  I didn’t investigate further.  Very few yarns on a few shallow shelves.  So shallow that the one yarn I picked up – the only one on its own shelf – wouldn’t go back on the shelf and I had to reshape the skein substantially to get it to stay on.

They claim to stock UK independent dyers and spinners but had amazingly little stock: no Natural Dye Studio, no Old Maiden Aunt, none of the more obvious UK small producers.  And Yarn Yard?  HipKnits? Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop?  Nude Ewe?  Nope.  A few balls of BFL and Wensleydale, some Jamieson’s, no sign of enough yarn to make a larger project, although that may have been stored out in the back where they had more of a selection of coned carpet yarns.  It wasn’t clear if these were for sale or not.  One had to ask for some of the yarn prices as they were not necessarily marked.  There were a few skeins of very thick yarn, hand-dyed, very little fingering weight.  In fact, the woman in there said I was the FIRST person ever to have asked for 4ply or fingering weight in the shop… What?????

There was some intriguing nettle yarn, 2 balls, and I asked about that (wanting a yarn trophy from my visit, of course!)  Then came the weirdest thing… the shops assistant said she didn’t know the yardage – what??????? and couldn’t ever know the yardage of any of the other yarns because these were spun by small, independent spinners who didn’t have metres on their equipment.  Huh?????  I explained that it’s really useful to know yardage when one is designing, rather a crucial bit of information, in fact.  She got defensive and said she’d been designing for years and always designed by weight not yardage.  Wha…????? Oh, never mind.  I left after a very short time – there was very little to keep me there, and try as I might, there were no trophies either.  Soooooo sad!

On my last day of yarn hunting I went to Loop in Islington, off the main drag down Cross Street.  I’ve been there before and left them ’til last, as my experience with them has always been fantastic.   The premises are light and airy, and CLEAN!!!   After my experience with the previous very grubby shop, the cleanliness of Loop and I Knit are particularly welcome.  Their stock is wonderful and eclectic and they will wind from skeins for you while you wait.  The chap who was working there is an amazing sock knitter and spinner and very friendly.  He’s a mine of information about knitting and spinning and totally enthusiastic.  I spent a l-0-n-g time there again, coming away equally inspired and content with some more beautiful Malabrigo lace weight and other little bits and pieces (I have to say during those three days Loop stocked Malabrigo lace at £8 a skein and I Knit at £10).  Loop are now selling yarn online as well. 

It’ll be Loop or I Knit when I next have yarn hunting days in London.

Ulmus and hand-dyed yarns

I’ve been thinking about using hand-dyed yarns in shawls, the kind of yarns that have big colour changes, not semi-solids.  The latter look beautiful, always, the former can look garish and clunky, jarring from one colour to another.  This pattern, Ulmus, is one that can take advantage of big colour changes and show off these yarns to their best, by combining them with one solid which holds the whole thing together.  Some of the examples in the gallery are just amazing.  I think I prefer the ones in which the edging is in the darker yarn, whether that’s the multicoloured yarn or the more solid one.

I want to knit one in green.  Green green green.  Several greens.