A Gift

Yesterday my sister gave birth to her first baby, my nephew.   Far away in Hong Kong.  I have seen photos, he looks beautiful. My sister looks worn out!  He has been named Arlo.

I knitted him a blanket, I don't think he will need such a warm blanket there as it is so hot, but I didn't know he would be born there when I started it. 

I also made him a hat, it's probably too warm for that too

But I am sure that he will need them both when he comes to visit in January.  I can't wait to meet him.   

 

LIKE EATING AN ELEPHANT.......

Someone I work with always describes the best way to tackle a large project as being just like "Eating an Elephant"  ONE BITE AT A TIME!  Which is how I felt about this pumpkin

I decided to have a go at making some pumpkin wine.  This needed 5 pounds of pumpkin so I chose my biggest one and started to chop.  It said to grate it, but I thought it would spoil my nails so food processed it.  

However this only used up less than a quarter so decided to make a second batch of wine which left:

This much!  I made two lots of soup, one with just a potato and some chilli, it was a bit thin.  The next lot I added some red lentils, a can of tomatoes and some curry paste and that was lovely -thick and tasty

But I still had some left so I made

a cake, spicy and spongy.  Didn't put it in the fridge and it had gone mouldy by Tuesday so had to throw the rest out.

But there was still some left, so I roasted it with chillis, no photo of that but some sausage rolls that I made.

AND THAT IS HOW I ATE A PUMPKIN  one bite at a time!!!!


 

TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE........

 Yesterday Alice left home to go and work in Russia!  She is going to a city called Novosibirsk (hope I have spelt that correctly!) in Siberia.  I think she likes a nice cold winter, having spent the last one in Austria working a ski season and two years before in Hamburg.

Here we are at the bus station waiting for the coach to take us to Heathrow.  She is wearing 3 scarfs, two belts, 3 cardigans, 1 hoody and all her jewelry!!!  it meant that the weight of the suitcase came in on target!

 Terminal 5 at Heathrow.  Checked in the suitcase, her visa had to be checked by someone who could read Russian, it was fine and she could travel. We had dinner in a restaurant, just a light burger and chips for Alice.  I don't know how she can eat so much just before flying, but she is not worried, unlike me.

The best bit of news I found out was that you CAN now take your knitting needles on a flight - oh joy!

I left Alice to go through security with a very quick goodbye.   See you soon, have a wonderful time and learn to speak fluent Russian soon.

Home late after the bus had to take a detour as a road was closed.  She posted a photo on Facebook this afternoon, she had arrived safely.  Looking forward to lots of blog posts to hear all about her latest adventure.

And as for me after 2 months of having dinner cooked every night, I have to reaquaint myself with the oven........

THE BOYFRIEND

 

We live on the outskirts of Manningtree, a town which claims to be the smallest in England and in that town is a Theatre. Which may be the smallest theatre in England, it may not but it is very small.

The Manifiest Theatre group is a run by its members and puts on 3 or 4 shows a year, a variety of musicals, comedies and straight plays all performed and supported by the members of the group.  The Theatre is in an old school building and has seats an audience of around 100. 

I joined way back in 1982 and sung and danced in The Good Companions and continued to play an active part in the group for a few years.  Then life changed and I stopped going until 2 years ago when I booked tickets for a show and remembered how much I enjoyed going to see the performances.  Details of the group can be found here

The show this time was the musical The Boyfriend. As always it was very entertaining.  Lots of younger members taking on leading parts which is always good to see as well as the more familiar faces (some people are in almost every show)  Lots of singing, a bit of dancing (very small stage) good lighting and music.  Lovely!

Warm wrists .... cold finger tips

I don't like being cold and I don't like the wind whistling up my sleeves, so I knitted these gloves with extra long arm bits.  You need to put them on and then pull your jumper right down and then put your coat on  NO GAPS.  Only problem is your finger tips get cold.  You can't have everything!!  I like them for driving and for those very chilly days when working on the laptop. 

I found the pattern here FALLBERRY MITTS and used a lovely variegated yarn, Summerspun by Rowan.