26 postcards

I'm not a great one for New Year Resolutions - they've always seemed a bit fakey and artificial to me, expecting life to change as a result of a particular day in the year.

This year, however, I have got one. I want to keep in touch more with my distant friends. There really are no excuses for not sending the occasional "how are you" email and Facebook makes that kind of casual contact very easy. Not everyone uses Facebook, however, and this Christmas has brought news of really big things in people's lives (the death of a spouse, major surgery for a daughter) that I knew nothing about. In the days when I lived in the same town as these people there was no need of special keeping in touch - we saw each other at the shops, we visited each other's houses, we knew what was going on. Now that we live in different places it has proved harder to keep that awareness of other people's lives.

So this year I will be sending emails to old friends. Some of them will no doubt wonder what has come over me - why do I think they need news of me? In actual fact I will be sending some of my news in the hope that they will reciprocate with some of theirs.

As an additional impetus to my good resolution I have bought myself a diary which includes 26 detachable postcards inserted between the weeks of the year. My plan is to wing off a postcard to someone in my address book every fortnight during the year.

reading list 2009

For the first time ever I decided to record what I read this year. As part of my 50 before 60 manifesto I set myself the task of reading at least two books a month, with the additional challenge of making one in five of them something a bit harder – non-fiction or maybe a classic I’d never got round to before. The first part was fairly easy, but I’m not sure that I actually achieved the second part. Although I’m a fairly prolific reader, I’m basically lazy – preferring a story to an intellectual challenge.

It’s a fairly hotch potch list – some of which is almost embarrassing to publish! There’s a fair amount of crime fiction in there which I always turn to when I don’t know what else to go for. There’s at least one book in the list that I can no longer remember reading and a couple that were accidental re-reads, discovering partway through that I had been here before, but couldn’t really remember how it finished. I acquire my reading matter in several different ways – presents, occasionally buying new, sometimes buying second-hand from GreenMetropolis or charity shops, sometimes borrowing from the library. I belong to a reading group, so 8 or 10 books each year are read for discussion; I follow up recommendations from friends and reviews I’ve seen, but charity shop books can turn up some unexpected treasure (as well as a lot of trash). Kat Pomfret’s Paradise Jazz was one such jewel, read late in the year – I’d never heard of her, but found myself beguiled. Others that I enjoyed enough to recommend are highlighted below:

Barbara Kingsolver: Prodigal Summer
Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Penelope Lively: Consequences
Kate Atkinson: Case Histories
Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist
Melvyn Bragg: Credo
Anne Tyler: A Patchwork Planet
Tom Wright: Surprised by Hope
Stef Penney: The Tenderness of Wolves
Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture
Whitney Otto: How to make an American Quilt
Peter Robinson: Playing with Fire
Lillian Harry: Dance Little Lady
Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost
Barbara Vine: The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
Stieg Larssen: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Gail Godwin: Father Melancholy's Daughter
Dan Rhodes: Gold
Barbara Trapido: Brother of the More Famous Jack
John Drane: Do Christians Know How to be Spiritual
Sophie Parkin: All grown up
Barbara Trapido: The Travelling Hornplayer
Jill Dawson: The Great Lover
Cecilia Aherne: Thanks for the Memories
D S & M Linn: Sleeping with Bread
Libby Purves: Shadow Child
Bella Pollen: Chasing Unicorns
Joanne Harris: The Lollipop Shoes
Rob Bell: Velvet Elvis
Debra Adelaide: The Household Guide to Dying
Bella Pollen: Midnight Cactus
Michael Dibdin: The End Times
Guillermo Martinez: The Oxford Murders
Iain Pears: Giotto's Hand
Jamila Gavin: Coram Boy
Lauren Weisberger: The Devil Wears Prada
Sebastian Faulks: Engleby
Chris Sunderland: The Dream that inspired the Bible
John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Paulo Coelho: The Pilgrimage
Rosie Thomas: A Simple Life
Sarah Harrison: Heaven's on Hold
Kat Pomfret: Paradise Jazz
Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey): Bleeding Hearts

birthday boy

Dan had his second birthday while we were on holiday so we were able to give him his presents in person. This little tank top was a quick knit I made for him.

You can't see it clearly, but it has a cross stitch detail around the neck and armholes. Had to do a bit of fudging as the pattern was for four-ply and I had double knitting. After some higher maths with the calculator I knitted it as if for the three-month size as far as stitch number was concerned. I'm not sure if it's the pattern or the modifications, but the neckline seems rather deep - giving a slightly "off the shoulder" look. Anyway, he looks gorgeous.

And no, I didn't expect him to be excited that Granny had made him a lovely handknit - we did give him a little trike too!

Photo credits - Alice

st ives

Just back from a week in our favourite place – a wonderful apartment overlooking Porthmeor Beach in St Ives.

On the first Saturday of half term four households converged to become one big family. This was a trip to celebrate Steve’s and my 60th birthdays. Our ages are actually separated by just over a year, but this was a convenient mid-point in time to get the tribe together for a lovely holiday.

Everyone took turns to cook, so we ate well and copiously! According to our tastes we variously, walked, played on the beach, flew a kite, dug in the sand, visited the Tate, read our books, played Scrabble, did crosswords, lounged about, knitted, baked cakes and bread, shopped, photographed and blogged. The latter was Steve, who photographed and blogged obsessively all week and can be read in more detail here!

A highlight was the evening surprise when we were taken down to the beach after dark. Once there, little nightlight lanterns which the children had helped to make were lit, cava was popped open and drunk and two fantastic sky lanterns were sent sailing over the ocean taking all our prayers and wishes for the future with them.

A lovely week, to be savoured in memory.

photo credits: Steve and Felix

another finished object

I have finally managed to take some pictures of the little cardigan I made for Iris’s third birthday.
Cute.

I am pleased with it.

These terrible pictures were taken on my phone in a café and I was also being entertained by a story about how her two little mice hop into her cup of tea. This was dramatised with much expressive eye-rolling, nostril-flaring and general "well-would-you-believe-it! the-things-they-get-up-to" facial gymnastics. No wonder I couldn’t hold the camera still.

And by the way – my hair was that colour when I was little. I was never allowed to wear pink because it "clashed".

Knitting statistics: Pattern "Hawaii" by Sublime Yarns, recently reprinted in Let's Knit July issue. I used Patons Diploma Gold DK, which is inexpensive and machine-washable.

gothic melodrama

Finally another finished object to blog about.

This shawl was a secret as it was a 50th birthday present for a good friend. I had pursued one idea for a while before realising that I was making something that I wanted rather than what would suit my friend D, so had to do some hasty pattern-trawling on ravelry and hunting for lovely yarn. I reckoned that crochet would make it quicker than knitting, which is probably true, but lace-weight yarn in a complex pattern grows pretty slowly whatever technique you use!

Eventually settled on Annette Petavy’s lovely Arrows pattern and chose 100% silk yarn, Glister, from Skein Queen in colourway "Gothic Melodrama".

I started it mid-July and presented it when we all met up for a birthday lunch in September. D is someone who really appreciates handcrafts and I was pretty confident that the colours I had gone for were "her", but it’s always pretty nerve-wracking handing over something so personal. She would never be so rude as to let me think she didn’t like something I made for her, but I think I got it right!

The photo colours are a bit hit and miss. The picture of the skein of yarn is pretty accurate of how it looks in daylight. If I were to do this pattern again I would use a semi-solid coloured yarn rather than the multi-colours as it would show off the pattern motifs better.

change of plan

Last Thursday Steve and I set out to visit Hidcote Manor Gardens – I was hugely impressed by these beautiful gardens when we visited years ago and we fancied a return visit now that we have rejoined the National Trust.
However, as we approached the M5, electronic signs were warning of long delays between J15-14 because of an accident. With only minutes to re-plan the route we stayed on the M4 and found ourselves well on our way to the Severn Bridge. By the time we stopped at Aust Services to look properly at the map together, Steve suggested that we’d come so far that we might as well carry on and visit Cardiff, which was one of the destinations on his list of things to do this summer.
So it turned into a different kind of day out – a city day instead of a garden visit. We had heard lots of good things about Cardiff’s regeneration particularly around the seafront, so headed for Cardiff Bay. I’m afraid we found it decidedly underwhelming and after wandering for half an hour headed for the city proper. There we visited the castle - with some trepidation, fearing that touristification would have spoiled it. We loved it and felt we really got our money’s worth (with his over-60 bus pass Steve went in as a "senior" teehee). The entrance price includes an audio-guide (narrated by the lovely Huw Edwards) which I used liberally but Steve refused to touch with a bargepole. The castle has roman walls (only rediscovered in the 19th century), a medieval keep and baillie and a newer castle block. The latter has real wow factor when you climb the stairs and find yourself inside a Victorian gothic fantasy of the romance of the middle ages – one of the small dining rooms with its gilded angel mantel-supports felt like being inside a fairground pipe-organ!
After that there was only time for a cup of tea in Howell’s Department Store before setting off for home. Ironically we then got caught in severe traffic delays because of roadworks at the Cardiff end and the Balloon Fiesta at the Bristol end and took the best part of three hours to get home! Maybe we’ll try Hidcote again this week.