The finished product
I know I promised to post a picture of my finished knitting project. And here it is finally! You'll be pleased to know that the scarf project is coming along nicely as well and I'm hoping to have that ready to show you before Autumn officially begins next week. I can't say that there are many signs of Autumn aside from the slightly cooler, cloudy and wet weather. I'm not sure if the trees outside our flat are going to change for Autumn or not. We'll just have to wait and see.
Last night we went to see The Producers at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (only just around the corner from where I work). We picked one of those dinner and theatre deals. We went to Porters English Restaurant which turned out to be pretty horrid, but it was food and it was quick and the show was much much more enjoyable. I had only made it through the first 15 minutes of the film of The Producers on the plane from Tokyo to London and so was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed myself. I think musicals work much better on stage and everyone enjoys a good comedy. I can highly recommend it if you ever get the opportunity to see it live.
Last weekend we didn't get up to much. We went to Richmond to have brunch for Chris' birthday (the Chris of Chris and Suzanne who we stayed with when we first arrived - they are in Iceland at the moment!). We went to the Canyon Restaurant which is on the Thames and we were all a little perplexed when our full english breakfast arrived without the eggs! Luckily they had actually cooked the eggs, they'd just forgotten to put them on our plates. I guess there were a lot of different things on the plates (tomatoes, baked beans, toast, bacon, sausage and mushrooms) but I mean really... We had a very pleasant post-food stroll along the river before heading home again. There is a very large park called Old Deer Park where the nobility used to go hunting. The Kings Observatory is in the middle of the park and apparently the original Meridian line ran through it before the line was relocated to Greenwich. I'd like to go to Greenwich at some point. The Thames must have rather high tides in Richmond as the pub on the River has a special elevated side entrance for when the tide is too high to go in the front door (see the sign on the side of the pub in the picture).
Anyway, I'd better get back to my cleaning and sorting before Robert comes back. I've sent him off on a bicycle ride on his own so I've got time and space to attend to home things before Juliet arrives back from Croatia this afternoon. I'll let you know what we get up to over the long weekend (yay!) later in the week.
Look, it's a castle!
Brougham Castle 6
Originally uploaded by elisabeth_howson.Robert and I like a good ruin. It was Juliet who really encouraged our love of ruins. But then it is hard to find a castle that is still fully standing in England thanks to Cromwell. Even better is the fact that we can go and see most ruins for free now that we are members of English Heritage.
Brougham Castle (or ruin) is just outside Penrith which is where Vega and Mark teach at a local school (it's definitely nothing like Penrith in western Sydney). We ended up here at the end of Sunday after a failed attempt to see another castle in another little town called Appleby-in-Westmoreland. The gates to the castle where shut and there was a long and bitter rant on a sign on the front gate about funding and clashes with English Heritage. We decided to check out the local church (St Lawrence) instead which was first built in the 12th century and was adapted and added to over the centuries. Dad, you will be pleased to know that the church contains the oldest organ, that is still played, in England (apparently) and the baptismal font was made out of rock with fossils in it!
This brings us back to Brougham Castle. We had a great wander in and around and up in the castle. It was a great spot to take photos, although it was a pity about the weather. The castle was built on the site of a roman fort in the early 13th century by Robert de Vieuxpont. and was restored and lived in by Lady Anne Clifford in the 17th century. She was also responsible for restoring the church in Appleby-in-Westmoreland and happens to be buried there.
Unfortunately we had to go back home on Sunday afternoon. We caught the train from Penrith and had a rather long trip back to London and didn't get home until after 11pm. Still, we had a great weekend and thanks to Mark and Vega for looking after us so well.
It's almost the weekend again already and it's been a busy week. Our friend Juliet came back from Russia on Sunday evening and flew off to Croatia in the wee hours of Thursday morning. She reports that it's nice and warm and sunny unlike London where it's now much cooler and a bit wet. Tuesday morning I thought Juliet had turned into a bag lady. She had managed to collect cushions, motorcycle jacket liners, towels and throws to keep her warm during the night. I felt like a very bad host not offering her our doona - it's not like we've been using it. We'll know for next time...
On Wednesday night we went to the Stanmore of London. It's in the North West and it's the last stop on the Jubilee line. It didn't strike me as terribly different to many other places on the outskirts of London. In fact it's not very far from where Robert's Aunt lives in Pinner. We had Indian food with some of the people that Robert works with. The excuse for this event was an England vs Greece football match. I can't say that much watching of the football went on. But the food was good.
Last night we caught up with Brett who I used to work with at Monitor. It's been years since we saw him, and aside from some dreadlocks he was still Brett and we had a great old time checking out the local pubs of Covent Garden. He's been doing a bit of travelling - including snowboarding in Chili. Robert was a little jealous having missed out on winter in the southern hemisphere this year... Still, i'm sure he has grand ideas for skiing and snowboarding all over Europe as soon as it starts snowing!
I'm certainly hoping for sleep this weekend. With late nights and not having enough sleep on Wednesday night (had to get up at 3.30 to get Juliet in her taxi having gone to bed at 1am), I'm pretty much ready to collapse into bed right now.
The lovely Lake District
lake district 4
Originally uploaded by elisabeth_howson.After a rather stressful start to the weekend (Robert only just made the train to Carlisle with seconds to spare) we did manage to have a really nice time.
Virgin trains delivered us safely to Carlisle on time and in relative comfort. I managed to get a lot of crochet in and wondered if I should have brought a second ball of wool given how much progress I was making on the scarf.
We stayed with Robert's cousin Vega and her husband Mark. They love to go wandering in the Lake District so after a good sleep in on Saturday morning and a huge fry-up (including black and white pudding) we headed off for a small and not too strenuous walk in the lake district. We went to a place called Haweswater. This is not one of the natural lake but a man-made reservoir. It seemed to be a popular spot given the number of cars parked at the start of the walk.
It was the perfect weather for walking - not too hot and not to cold. While it was sheltered on the way up the hill, it was blowing a gale at the top. We encountered quite a few wild things on our trek. We saw lots of sheep in various states of being sheared and 3 mountain-bikers who seemed to enjoy carrying their bikes up the hill and then riding down again. Not exactly my idea of a good time. I keep calling it a hill, but I guess it was probably more a mountain as you can see from the views. The views were spectacular, especially when the sun came out later in the afternoon. At the top of the hill, there is an old roman road - mostly inhabited by sheep. But very cool.
The trek down the mountain was a little more trecherous. There were lots of unstable rock and Robert managed to step on a bit of grass which gave way under his weight and he hurt both his hands. His left hand swelled up a little and was bruised but he seems ok now. Perhaps he should have been using his walking stick after all! He very kindly offered it to me, the uncoordinated one. Aside from splashing myself with mud, I didn't fall over at all, even if I did slow things down.
We actually had to go cross-country at the end of the walk as we had to get back to the pub for dinner at 8pm. We made it with minutes to spare and had a nice meal complete with lemon meringue pie.
Sunday we went to see castles but i'll tell you about that when i've sorted out the rest of the photos!
The Knitting Post
Yes, finally, the knitting post that you have all been waiting for!
Ok, so, thanks to Sharon who sent me my starter project, I am now the proud owner of a pair of fingerless gloves. I will post a photo of them soon. The one ball of wool worked out exactly right as they said in the pattern. I ended up with out 50cm of wool left at the end. The perfect project. The debbie bliss wool is extremely soft and warm so I'm sure they will be very useful as the weather gets colder here.
Due to a client meeting across town on Wednesday I was able to get along to John Lewis - one of the department stores that still has a haberdashery section. They sell all the Rowan, Debbie Bliss and Noro yarns which makes that store very handy if you need something in a hurry. I could order stuff online but I do like the instant gratification of a ball of wool in the hand. Plus you are guaranteed to get a colour you like rather than spending hours trying to work out which site represents the real colour of the wool. So I decided on two small projects from the new Rowan book. One is the ruffle scarf for which I bought some pale blue wool (similar colour to the gloves I've just knitted and a nicer blue than the one they suggested in the pattern) and some black wool to make some lacy/fishnet type socks. Pictures for the two projects are shown.
I've got my crochet hook, wool and copy of the scarf pattern to take with me on the 4hr train trip to Carlisle this afternoon.
As luck would have it, I also finally received my free project from Rowan today. So now I have 3 different projects lined up to knit. This is the little knitted bag which I've ordered in red rather than green. It's knitted in cotton so if I get around to it sooner rather than later i'll be able to use it during the last of the warm weather.
You were right Sharon, I'm now unstoppable again :-)
30 seconds of fame
Rather than start this post with the fact that we went to another motorcycle race on the weekend I thought I should tell you about my 30 seconds of fame. There I was sitting amongst the crowd at the race when an Italian gentleman came and sat next to me and asked if I wouldn't mind answering a few questions. I noticed that he was with another Italian gentleman with a TV-type camera. I agreed and he asked me where we were and why we were here. I tried to be funny but that didnt work. Rather than saying that we were here for the Superbike World Championship, I said, "Oh, something about motorcycles". Somehow I don't think my humour translated so well into Italian. So we did another take and this time I said what he told me to say. So who knows why he picked me, whether I'll end up on TV in Italy or if I'll end up on a DVD some day. Hard to tell. All I know is that I think Robert was a little disappointed that they didn't interview him. But then he's not a pretty girl ;-)
So I sat in the sun and got burnt having sweated off the sunscreen in the heat. The bikes went round and round the track. Troy Bayliss did good (he's one of the Australians)- first in the first race and second in the second race. The favourite of the English didn't do so well in the first race so the guys sitting next to us didn't bother to turn up for the second race. They probably went somewhere to drown their sorrows.
I think I took some photos.
I'm afraid that our weekend was a little ho hum. We didn't feel so well on Saturday so we had a rather quiet day. Just went to the library, did house work...
Next weekend should be better - going to Carlisle, tramping through the lake district. Finally, some exercise! Looking forward to it.
Fact of the day
One of my colleagues at work has a little desk calendar and on each day there is a different fascinating fact. This morning I was presented with the page as they felt that the fact was especially relevant to me.
"Orang-utans warn people to stay out of their territory by belching."
Just goes to show that my digestive system is still making an impact. (No, I don't think they were insinuating that I had an excess hair problem.)
:-)
Playing hostess
This weekend we had our first guests come to stay. Robert's Cousin Vega lives in Carlisle with her Husband Mark. They were down in London to attend the wedding reception. The wedding had already been held in Hong Kong but this was the London reception. We met Vega and Mark at a pub in Covent Garden and had a few drinks before heading home and grabbing dinner at the local Thai. This was the second time we'd tried it and I'm convinced that it's pretty close to authentic. Vega and Mark where especially excited to have Thai as they don't get the real thing up in the North country.
After a very hot and humid nights sleep on Friday (the hottest of the summer as far as I was concerned) we headed off into the city to take in a couple of museums. We went to the house of Sir John Soane (http://www.soane.org). He was an architect and turned his house into a museum. The walls are lined with bits of old roman ruins, paintings, statues and other oddities. He even has a real egyptian sarcophogus in his cellar. The man was clearly quite mad. Still, his house was very impressive. He even had plans to add a romanesque frontage to the whole row of houses on the street where he lived. Unfortunately the town planners wouldn't let him. It would have made a nice change to the usual English terrace look.
Robert and I took in a bit of the British Museum after lunch while Mark and Vega caught up with friends. After deciding was too hot to be inside with no airconditioning, we wandered around some bookshops (I got a copy of the Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller) and eventually went home. Vega and Mark came home soon after and after ironing their best clothes headed off to the reception. I was completely exhausted and fell asleep on the couch watching TV. Robert is very happy now he has his digital TV recorder that does all the things our Foxtel box used to do. He was able to watch things that we'd recorded the night before.
On Sunday we went to yum cha again. Vega and Mark were very happy to indulge in another food type that doesn't exist up North. It was just as good as last time so I think we may go there on a regular basis - at least with the people from Australia who understand the whole yum cha experience. After yum cha we went to the Chelsea Physic Garden (http://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/). This garden was established back in the 17th century for research into plants and their medicinal properties. The garden houses some amazing plants including deadly nighshade and mandrake. The Harry Potter lesson on Mandrake was true to the legend. Gardeners thought that the plant screamed when you pulled it out of the ground and that anyone who heard the scream would die. They used to tie the plant to the end of a dog leash and get the dog to run away and therefore pull the plant out of the ground while the gardeners covered their ears. The other story the guide told us was about Milk Chocolate. Apparently crushed cocoa beans where mixed with milk by mothers who had sickly children to help make them stronger. Apparently this remedy was brought to England by the Apothecary who started the garden. He developed the first milk chocolate forumla which was subsequently bought by Cadbury. Sounds bit suspect to me. All fascinating stuff either way.
After Vega and Mark left on Sunday afternoon we cleaned up and did washing in preparation for Juliet's arrival from Sydney. I stayed at home this morning to wait for her to arrive. After much drama she made it to our place and I raced off to work just in time for a client meeting at midday.
Well, it's August already. Hopefully August will see the end of the drought and the end of the headwave we've been experiencing. Looks like there are cooler weather instore for the next week which will make life a whole lot more pleasant.
A very special thank you to Sharon who has provided me with a knitting project - yay! It arrived this morning in a little package all the way from Australia - pattern, knitting needles and wool. Looking forward to casting on :-)
I know I promised to post a picture of my finished knitting project. And here it is finally! You'll be pleased to know that the scarf project is coming along nicely as well and I'm hoping to have that ready to show you before Autumn officially begins next week. I can't say that there are many signs of Autumn aside from the slightly cooler, cloudy and wet weather. I'm not sure if the trees outside our flat are going to change for Autumn or not. We'll just have to wait and see. 
Last weekend we didn't get up to much. We went to Richmond to have brunch for Chris' birthday (the Chris of Chris and Suzanne who we stayed with when we first arrived - they are in Iceland at the moment!). We went to the Canyon Restaurant which is on the Thames and we were all a little perplexed when our full english breakfast arrived without the eggs! Luckily they had actually cooked the eggs, they'd just forgotten to put them on our plates. I guess there were a lot of different things on the plates (tomatoes, baked beans, toast, bacon, sausage and mushrooms) but I mean really... We had a very pleasant post-food stroll along the river before heading home again. There is a very large park called Old Deer Park where the nobility used to go hunting. The Kings Observatory is in the middle of the park and apparently the original Meridian line ran through it before the line was relocated to Greenwich. I'd like to go to Greenwich at some point. The Thames must have rather high tides in Richmond as the pub on the River has a special elevated side entrance for when the tide is too high to go in the front door (see the sign on the side of the pub in the picture). 
