Black Dog

I have been awol. I am not having a very good time of it at work. It's only little things but I am feeling all full of whinge and not in the mood for cheery posting, so I have thrown myself into my knitting and Facebook Scrabble by way of a distraction.

I am knitting a garter stitch pullover (Rav link) for my friend Alison's baby, who is being christened in March but I can't go. And I am preparing for the Ravelympics. I want to knit a laceweight pulloever; my only concern is, I have 100% silk laceweight and mostly this is only used for shawls, from what I can find on Ravelry. So I am going to swatch for the Shirley sweater ('nother Rav link) and see how it goes. It's a Kidsilk Haze pattern, but I am hoping it will work out, even if I have to knit it a size down to keep it clingy.

I REALLY hope it works out, the yarn is absolutely stunning! It is by Knitwitches and is the most amazing shade of blue, called Lapis Nights. Yes, blue, of course! But deep blues like this aren't too common. I will photograph it if I am ever at home in daylight again.

I am in danger of developing a serious Knitwitches habit since discovering them at FibreFest in August. Then, I bought 3 skeins of undyed pure silk and a skein of luscious grey cashmere (which, actually, I had forgotten about blush) and now that I am more amenable to laceweight it's like a whole new yarn wilderness stretching out ahead of me. Heaven forbid, I find I love knitting socks....I think I would have to buy a new house.

(I have decided, it's definitely one of those fundamental knitting truths that the more experienced you get, the thinner the yarn you work with. I still like working with chunky but it's definitely not as comfortable as working with smaller needles.)

I am thinking of setting myself a knitting goal for this year of a sweater a month. This is mainly because I urgently need to see to my stash, as well as knit some things from my queue. So I was thinking - a top a month (not necessarily with sleeves) and an extra, like the baby jumper this month. I don't think it is unachievable. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, ROLL ON HALF TERM. Still no sign of Ofsted but honestly, I don't think their visit could be worse than the endless build up to it. I shouted at a member of the leadership team in the staffroom this week, and I'm normally Little Miss Sunshine. It's not a great time. But, yey, I am out Wednesday at a meeting and Thursday visiting the college in Oxford that will be hosting our conference this year (HOOGE feather in my cap) so it's only really two more days til break, and then I am off to Warrington and then Sheffield so I can just forget everything for a bit....and knit Shirley. I booked train tickets so I have lots of free time!

Tuesday Ten

Ten Reasons to be Cheerful (again)

1. Ebay. Perfume going for more than I paid for it. Result! Which leads to...

2. Chanel sunglasses. I decided they were too frivolous for buying with real money, especially because I am terrible with looking after sunglasses, so I set myself the task of raising enough money on ebay for them. I am currently a scant (!) £70 away with 5 days left on my extremely popular auctions.

3. Fireflies by Owl City. It really reminds me of something but I don't know what.

4. New skirt coming from Boden soon.

I love when Boden release their spring catalogue. How summery is this skirt? I am going to be living in it, especially since the sad demise of my workhorse denim skirt, which finally wore away at a seam this winter.
The new skirt will go with my favoured sunglasses, which have denim arms and red frames but are not nearly as dodgy as they sound (cannot find a picture of them anywhere, though).

5. The functionality of this SuperMacbook which sucks all my time in the evenings now it sits by my chair, with a siren song coming from Facebook, Ravelry etc. It is easy to use, though. I didn't have to go through right click, save etc with that Boden snap - I can just highlight a bit of the page and take a picture of it which goes right to the desktop. Did you know that? I think it is very clever.

6. Tomorrow is Happy Wednesday: I don't have to drive to work or teach until after break, and I've got belly dancing with Parpy Jo in the evening.

7. Glee. Especially this bit of the football team dancing and Kurt making the goal in the episode which aired here yesterday. It may be my favourite bit of TV so far this decade.

8. Travels. I booked tickets to Malaysia for the summer holidays, Caroline from work and I are going to see an ex-colleague, Rhiannon; and I booked train tickets to Manchester for Feb 13th to see Sian, and then I'm going to visit Jen and the mini-Jen (or, more correctly, mini-Ben since she is the absolute spit of her daddy) afterwards.

9. Cadbury Caramel Bunnies. Small, yet perfectly formed.

10. I am having trouble thinking of number 10 because I just remember that fricking Ofsted still have not been in and the whole school is wound tight as a very tightly wound spring that won the Most Tightly Wound ribbon at a tightly wound spring contest. At least I haven't lost my sense of humour....yet.

Weekend FO

And suddenly, all the YOs, fiddly SSPs and knitted joins were forgotten, as a small choir of seraphim seemed to descend on the sunbeams this afternoon to flutter around the scarf of wonder...

Pattern: Myrtle Leaf Shawl, from Victorian Lace Today
Needle: 3.75mm
Yarn: Malabrigo Laceweight, natural, just over a skein...maybe 1.2 skeins
Mods: I cut the number of pattern repeats by 2 because Jo wanted more of a scarf than a shawl.

I cast this on while I was in the US in the summer. I don't know why I thought a my first attempt at lace in a laceweight yarn would make the ideal project for travelling; it really didn't. It took me until the end of October to finish the body of it, by which point I knew the 12-row repeat well enough that I no longer needed the pattern; then it took about a month to pluck up the courage to start the border, I was convinced I would mess up the whole thing with that; then I lost my nerve again as I approached the corner and it was set aside again.

It would have gone a lot quicker, is what I'm saying, if I had had a little more confidence in my abilities!

The yarn is very delicate; it had started to fuzz a little at the cast on end by the time I finished, so one end wouldn't block out as far as the other, but it doesn't notice. In fact, blocking made it look far better. Blocking is truly a form of alchemy. I followed advice given to me on the Malabrigo Rav board, and soaked it for half an hour in luke warm water with Eucalan. Then I ran the blocking wires through the YOs between the border and scarf body, so that the edge stayed wavy. It was dry within 12 hours.

I would be sorry to give it away, were it not for the fact that (a) I got a gorgeous ladybird ring out of it and (b) I would RUIN it within a week.

Fave Friday

It's the depths of winter now and my skin is always looking at its worst this time of year. I don't notice that the central heating dries it out too much but I do come out of my classroom at the end of the day feeling baked and it's difficult to get the temperature in my car just so, which means I spend much of the evening flushed and just a splash of water on my face makes it feel tight as a drum. Plus, no healthy sun glow, and even if I were the sort to use fake tan I can't, because it smells just like feet on me. So I have to work hard to do skin maintenance other way. Here is my amassed wisdom on the subject.

Five Favourite Tips for Dry Skin

1. Exfoliate over oil
I slather my face in Lush's Babyface (which is basically cocoa butter plus other stuff in small quantities) before exfoliating because otherwise I find scrubs a little harsh on my skin.

2. Use a facial oil AND a moisturiser before bed
I read in a magazine that Sienna Miller advocates this and I thought it was ridiculous. I mean, just how overloaded do you want your skin to be? But I hate to admit - she's right.

3. Drink tonnes of water
Boring, but so helpful. I really notice the difference when I'm not guzzling enough of the clear stuff.

4. Use cream and liquid make up formulations
They'll add extra moisture and they sink in, instead of skittering across the surface.

5. Moisturise all over
I am rubbish at this. I hate sitting around waiting for the cream to sink in. So I use King of Skin in the shower (this product is definitely misunderstood; you just have to make sure you wash it off before you get out of the shower) or I put some sort of oil in my bath. I am convinced that dry body skin makes my face feel drier. It's probably all in my head.

Have you got any good skincare tips?

Really, blessings should be counted

or - I don't think my problems count as a gnat bite on a rhino's arse compared to what is happening in Haiti and I should curtail my whinging fingers, or at least use them for typing something more interesting and helpful.

So, I didn't know much about Haiti. I knew it was poor and there was crime. I had heard the song Haitian Divorce by Steely Dan - my parents used to have it on their juke box when I was a kid. I had a fair idea they spoke French there. But I didn't know it was part of the same island as the Dominican Republic, and when I found that out, well, I had to do a little research and find out - why does one half of this island speak French, and the other Spanish?

Ah, murky colonialism, you are often lurking just below the surface of human tragedy, making it just that bit more awful.

I found an excellent, and brief, article detailing Haiti's past as the French colony of Saint-Domingue, the subsequent slave rebellion (incidentally Haiti is the only slaving colony which earned its freedom this way) and the heinous reparations wrung out of them over a period of more than 100 years. Naturally, that article is now buried somewhere way down a list of new articles which have appeared online in the past few days and I can't find it, but if you're interested in reading a little more of the history, I have found this article which, while more verbose, is still very good.

I didn't think I could feel any sorrier for the people of Haiti than I already did, but there it is. I have been sharing a convoluted version of this story with my classes this week, all of whom have been interested and actually quite coherent on the subject. We're having charity events next week to raise money for the relief effort....as long as Ofsted don't come in.


(An aside - The head upset our finance dept today by telling them the way they collated CRB checks was all wrong and if Ofsted come in on Monday we'll go into special measures just on the strength of that. They are all expecting to have to work all weekend to fix it, and looking very glum. He's over-exaggerating in his panic, I have no doubt. Ohgoodgriefjustlethtemcomesowecangetitoverwith!)

Hrmph

I am grumpy.

I finally had to fork over my taxes, after ages of putting it off and jumping every time Moira Stuart appeared in the airing cupboard on that advert.

I had my first line management meeting with my new line manager (the head) and...well, the less said about it the better. Let's just say, he is verbose.

I got the final invoice for the ski trip via email which they expect me to raise a cheque for by Friday. Er, no. And when I rang and said they'd got the numbers wrong, and we also might have one more drop out (kid's mum hasn't paid anything and isn't returning our calls, hmm hmm...) I was warned there might be a surcharge. WTF.

I can't shift myself to DO anything! I bunked circuits. I bunked the second session of bikram yoga (more on that shortly). I didn't even manage to update my blog yesterday. I am just like a slug, in permanent recline in front of the TV with the laptop, watching episodes of the Biggest Loser and marvelling about how much weight those people are losing. OF COURSE THEY ARE LOSING WEIGHT. THEIR BUMS ARE NOT ATTACHED TO THE SOFA.

I have a serious grump on this week.

On a positive note...the car windscreen has been replaced. Today, my horrible year 9 class fought to model the best trench out of things they had in their bags, in order to win a banana, a teabag and 2 Mr Bump plasters, which were pretty much the only things I could find in my bag to give away; so that was amusing. I went belly dancing with Parpy Jo tonight, which was fun.

And I went to bikram yoga with Amaryah on Sunday. It was hilarious. The guy who took my money said that, since it was my first class, my objective was to stay in the room. I barely managed it. For those not in the know, bikram yoga is practised in a room that is heated to 42 degrees C. I broke a sweat 5 minutes in. After 15 minutes, every time I stood up from a bending-over pose, a rivulet of sweat would cascade off my nose like the Angel Falls, until eventually my towel was wring-out-able. Oh, it was pleasant, I can tell you. The worst part was when I had to do any of the grabby-leg poses - I couldn't keep hold of myself. I was too slippery.

I did manage to stay in the room, though, and I felt pretty good afterwards and WOW did I sleep well that night. I just haven't been able to bring myself to go back yet. It's an expensive class but I paid the January special £10 for 10 days option - a total bargain considering the drop in class rate is £12. So I should try and go at least once more.

In knitting news, I am very close to finishing the border on Parpy Jo's scarf, but I have really hit a wall with it. I think it goes back to this general ma'laze (sic) I seem to have contracted this week, though.

Bring on the weekend. Even though Ofsted will surely be here next week.

Tuesday Ten

Ten Warm Things

1. Hot water bottles. I am now grateful that Mother Hand keeps them bringing them to my home and leaving them behind.
2. Duvets.
3. Thermal tops - especially this handy sport one I am currently wearing, on which I cut the neckline down so I can wear it under my summer dresses.
4. Central Part Hoodie, made from Debbie Bliss Maya. I promise, if I'm not at work tomorrow, that I will (think about) finally picking up for the button band on it.
5. Thrummed mittens. I have a desperate wish to thrum myself a catsuit right about now.
6. My classroom. I think myself and Ian (in the other half of the mobile) are the only people able to control our own thermostats.
7. Malaysia. It was warm there. I remember lying awake at night trying to decide which was the lesser evil - the heat or the air conditioner noise. Good times.
8. Curtains. They at least keep the heat in even if they are not independently warm. I must get some for the enormous French door at the back of the house.
9. The Mitten. Though, admittedly not at the moment - she has just been out in the snow. She looks like the snow now.
10. My fur lined duvet duck slippers, annoying though they may be (they are shedding feathers all over the house)


It is snowing again. Work tomorrow is looking unlikely, though this is not really a good thing because I think school will still be open, so cover will need to be set....and I have things to do, dagnabbit! But Mr Z snaked all over the road when he went out to fetch us dinner earlier and he saw a transit van do a nifty sideways curb mounting move, so I don't think driving seems like a good plan.

The worst part of it is, the snow is very wet, because it's rain coming from the Atlantic and hitting the cold front from the east. It's not fluffy snow like last week - so that means that, even though it's not officially as cold as it was last week, it's so mofoing DAMP. It's get-into-your-bones cold. Worse, in my opinion.

I am too depressed and cold to even knit. Though, at least I can catch up on some sleep tomorrow if I'm not going in.