A busy week!

The month leading up to the start of public exams is even more hectic than usual in school! However some knitting has been done. The blue leaf socks are finished. I like them BUT I wish I had done them longer, rather than following the pattern. They are very much 'ankle' socks. I will knit them again, maybe in a summer yarn & probably with another one or two pattern repeats in the leg. The postman has bought me some nice things this week as well. The kidsilk haze in liquor is for the Melon shawl from VKT. The colour is not so pink as in the picture, defiantly a good claret colour. The postman also bought me a parcel from 'Landsend' and included were a pair of these, which were bought for summer hols plus general 'round the house & garden'. Guess what -they are really comfy with a nice pair of hand knitted socks!Guess what these are?

Yup! Toe up socks, knitted on a magic loop! I decided on Friday evening that it was time I learnt to knit toe ups & whilst I was at it, magic loops. I found a range of instructions on the net, which I kind of mixed & matched..... Turkish cast on instructions from one site...... actual shaping from another...magic loop from another..... heel from somewhere else probably but I have not reached the heel yet! Any suggestions for a definitive toe up pattern? I am just putting a simple knit 3 purl 1 rib in as it is 'Opel Mexico' yarn which is self patterning & anything else would loose its effect. The toe is really neat & smooth, not sure about the magic loop. I seem to spend alot of time sliding stitches not knitting! The Turkish cast on IS magic!

The garden is good. The auriculas have gone outside. I spent most of yesterday morning in the garden (with & without camera). The first dwarf beans are through & so I made a second sowing, this time of 'Masterpiece' and 'Maradonna'. The first courgettes are also through & so I planted the rest of the packet (total 9 seeds!). They are F1 Tosca. All from Dobies. We are cutting & eating the first salad crop of 'French mix'. It grows back really quickly, with a second cut possible about a week later.

The picture below is 1/9 of the packet of courgette seeds.

It is, of course, now the cricket season. Son & heir also plays cricket! The weather is fairly untypical! We sat in lovely sunshine until the last half hour, when although the sun still shone the biting north east wind blowing down from the North York Moors began to dominate proceedings & we froze! If anyone had told me 10 years ago how much time I would spend watching & enjoying watching cricket I would have laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the idea! Now I watch & listen to cricket quite happily. Watch it on the TV & listen on the radio. In fact I love radio cricket commentary. I am not an 'audio' learner so I really appreciate the quality of the descriptions -especially the off game comments, describing people in the crowd, birds on the pitch or the arrival of the 23 bus! I love this quote about village cricket: “It has been said of the unseen army of the dead, on their everlasting march, that when they are passing a rural cricket ground, the Englishmen fall out of the ranks for a moment to lean over a gate and smile.”~ Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937)Scottish playwright, author of Peter Pan. Hmm thats a bit 'off piste' for a blog thats largely about knitting!