Not really fallen from blogging....

...but the term has been really busy so far, although the biggest barrier to writing a post was finding the time to photograph and upload some knitting projects! Lame but true! Now I have done that so here goes!

I have joined the 'Cowl bandwagon' & I so get them. Actually I have had 'neck gaiters' for skiing & camping for ever & have knit a few mobieus scarves that I tend to wear with a double twist 'a la cowl' so I knew that they are a great idea anyway. The first one was knit in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport & the pattern is Birthday Cowl. Really nice knit & a lovely soft lightweight neck cosy! The second one is Crofters Cowl. The lace is 'Horseshoe Lace' (same as Cranford Mitts) & is knit in two pieces then kitchened together! Yup, an hours Kitchening (is it a verb?) but it was worth it. The yarn is the ever awesome Malibrigio Worsted. This REALLY is a neck cosy!

What else? The orange 'no purl' monkeys are done & lighten my world.... literally. They really are this orange!

Woodland shawl is finished & blocked. Love it, although I may re- block it with more emphasis on the width. On Tuesday it was the much awaited 'At Home in Harrogate' end of summer swap... swap. The excitement was not wasted. This is my swap waiting to go to Sieue. It contained a Ravilo scarf (a Knit Spot's 'Little nothing') in Dream in Color Baby, two skeins of the Knitting Goddesses differences sock yarn & packet of 'Yorkshire Mixture' all wrapped up in a dinky little box for bits from Paperchase. My gift had been prepared with a huge amount of thought & care (and stalking!)by Dalesgirl. It is a gorgeous Ribbons scarf, knitted in pale blue vintage pinigoun pure alpaca! I also received two more skeins of the yarn & a really clever bead row marker.Thank you so much Samantha. I know that this project plagued you as you were unable to knit for much of the summer with the problems you had with your wrist.

Swap Night was quite riotous. We swapped packages but then took turns to carefully unwrap, pet & try on our new knits & yarn. I had my camera phone with me so........

Since then, on the knitting front, I have picked up Spring Things, a shawl pattern by Susan Lawrence, that I am knitting in very autumnal colours! Malibrigio Lace Weight Loro Barranquero. I am also knitting another pair of fingerless mitts. This time for son & heir. In black, vintage wool worsted. Not a knit for poor light!

I have also completed my first christmas gift knit! Enough of that though!

This was Nellie's completed hat & jacket. She is nearly big enough for it I am told!

.... Did I mention that I had bought another Namaste bag? No! Well I did. Its a Laguna in Olive & its fantastic. Its just my 'bag bag' & large enough to hold safely all of the c*&@^ teachers end up carting around (in addition to laptop, text books, exercise books of course!). I was in danger of using 'Malibu' for the purpose & having no knitting bag!

Almost September?

Its back to school tomorrow & for the first time since forever (well 1994) its just Mr J & me to go back to school as son & heir is established in his gap year job. Tomorrow will no doubt be a mixture of 'well done' ,as our GCSE results were 6% better than the previous best & 1% above target, and 'do better' 'cos.............. that's the way education is in England & Wales at the moment. It will be a busy term, even if the men from the ministry don't come to call (we do expect Ofsted at sometime this year!). My job as been 're-defined' ... read made bigger/same pay, but at least it is a permanent post again after the uncertainty of the last two years following re-organisation.

Enough of that. It really feels like the beginning of Autumn with a heavy mist this morning & real changes in some of the trees as Moss & I enjoyed a walk around Swinsty Reservoir yesterday morning. Mr J & S&H ran 9 & some miles around two reservoirs plus some more. But they are in training for the 'Great North Run' in October!

So with a look forward to September on the knitting front, the Ravelry Sock Knitters Anonymous starts again with a challenge that is Orange socks or Cookie A design or a Mystery sock. I will knit a mystery sock but September will be a time for soothing knitting not challenging projects with tighter timelines. I think I will go for another pair of no-purl Monkeys in Orange! Two out of three aint bad? The yarn is very orange! The 'rule' is 75% orange & either of these little citrus delights from Knitting Goddess easily meet this! Not sure which one I will use though. Whadythink?

Currently on the hot needles is this little cardi (not so little, but she will grow into it!) for Nellie. The pattern is Tater's Cotton cardi. Its not knitted in cotton, but wool, Patons Fairytale colour 4 Me DK to be exact & its lovely yarn. I am planning some adaptions to the pattern, maybe to the edging & I don't think it will have ties but a popper & a crochet flower fastening. There should be enough yarn to knit a Tam, also with a little flower decoration. I am not a huge fan of the 'knot & string' art for whole things but for decoration it could do the job. I found this You Tube tutorial (via Ravelry of course).

I have still to finish Mr J's 'Colours of the Hebrides' socks, but as this is the second sock they are nearly done. A couple of car rides will finish them!

Other 'hot' wip (as opposed to almost hibernating) is a Woodland Shawl. Its lovely. I ordered extra yarn. It wasn't in stock. I found some in the UK (last skein in UK) on ebay. It came. It was WAY OUT as a match. I knitted some Cranford Mitts from it, whilst waiting for an order to come in from Eat, Sleep, Knit in yarn heaven (USA!). This was where the first two skeins came from. It arrived on Friday. It matches! Btw, Cranford Mitts is a lovely pattern to knit.

We had a wonderful long weekend last week (Bank Holiday) as my Mum, Dad, Sister & Brother in Law came to stay for 4 days. My sister is a knitter. She was knitting these. They are Nereid gloves. She gave them to me! Sisters are great!

End of the Rainbow?

August 14th. A level results day in England & Wales.

S&H gets his results.

The grades are very good, the place at Northumbria University for 2009 to study Sports Science & Coaching confirmed.

All very happy, relieved & PROUD!

Heart of hearts told us that he had worked hard & the grades were not in doubt but it was great to have them confirmed. There was gold at the end of this particular rainbow

A levels are NOT easier, they are just acquired in stages & therefore results are less of a surprise. If you are not up to a subject you know & can do something about it -like drop it, hence the high pass rate! Some of the 'knockers' should know better. Most of the students work very hard & under alot of pressure. So do their teachers. I have seen it now from both sides & it annoys me that we have created a society & a system where we are suspicious of success, then again I work in a profession where 'satisfactory' is 'unsatisfactory' (Ofsted) so what would I know?

I shall descend from my soapbox!

Thank you for the lovely comments about our photos of our trip so here is a little more of our travels in Scotland

Hebridian sunsets are renown & we were treated to a cracker after a day of rain on North Uist.

For those with an historical/ archaeological bent we visited a couple of fascinating places. the first is St Clement's church , Rodal (on South Harris). It dates back to medieval times but was restored in the nineteenth century.

Religion is important in the Hebridies. The Northern Isles are the domain of the Free Church but South Uist & Barra are Catholic & this is visually evident by the numerous shines found in the south, such as this one found in South Uist.

Whilst on Lewis we had to go back to the Standing Stones at Callinish. We took loads of photos but I need to do some editing as most of the best are 'portrait' & need rotating before I can upload them into blogger!

The stories of the Highland Clearances are bought home when you find abandoned crofts such as this one on South Uist. I spent sometime trying to envisage the people who would have lived there. Would this one have looked good in a plaid?

Moss had a fantastic holiday too! He loved the camper -very comfy but wasn't too sure about the ducks that stalk around the caravan club site at Braemar!

Since getting home I have made some progress on Mr Greenjeans, although I have made quite a few modifications so she doesn't look so much like the pattern -added length to the ss body, reduced the ribbing & changed it. Oh yes, changed the position of the button holes.... and added another! Still I like it but I am waiting for some 4.5mm dkp's to arrive -the one size I don't have- so I can finish it! In the meantime I have cast on a Woodland Shawl in Lorna's Laces Multi Sock. The colours are lovely -too good to hide.

I love to see the little counter tick along, telling me how many people have visited this blog. I write for me but I am fascinated by the idea that what I write & photograph might be of some interest to people thousands (or even 5) miles away. I hardly ever label my posts on this blog (I do on my Geography blogs of course, so how did you find 'the hill'? If you have the time or inclination I would love to know who you are & why you arrive 'OntheHill'! If you don't want to, then you are still most welcome!

Tales from the isles and other places

We are back to a very wet Yorkshire. We have had an awesome time away in our new truck camper. It was everything we hoped it would be and some more. Overall we had pretty good weather, we found some wonderful places to camp & we really had chance to just kick back & re-charge our batteries.... oh yes, and knit awhile! Our travels took us to North Uist , Benbecula, South Uist, Harris, Lewis, Skye, Moray Firth, Braemar & Northumberland for a final night before returning home.

I will just include a few pictures here to give a flavour of the holiday.

Camping by the beach on South Uist, Our 'Northstar' camper really was a cosy home!

A liitle knitting by the camper on North Uist (Yes it is a Namaste 'Malibu' bag!):

I could disclose these locations, but I don't think I will cos' we will be back!

Climbing the Quirang on the Isle of Skye, Moss thought it was great!

We left Skye via the old Glenelg ferry. Check out http://www.skyeferry.com/ to support this great transport link & important piece of history.

I managed to finish my Fetching mitts and socks in a slipped stitch rib as well as making good progress on my suprise for our 'At Home in Harrogate' Summer swap.

We came home via the Cairngorms National Park, which is not a part of Scotland that I really have visited before. It was beautiful with the heather in flower.

We managed to take nearly 500 photos so I may share some more as I start to edit & organise them!

The mid life crisis is here!

Collected today, off tommorow! Cool huh? Yarn space is a little limited, but there is plenty of room in the truck!

Day Two

Its the second day of the summer holidays, its warmish but overcast here & we are promised the collection day for our demountable camper is nearly here! Monday morning at the latest! This is good, 'cos if we get away on Monday evening or Tuesday morning we can still squeeze in two weeks in Scotland before A level exam results day! Mr J is Head of Sixth Form its a 'big day' for him & S&H gets his results too! He is "excited", I am nervous! Our holiday plan (two plus dog) is to head for Skye, wait to here that S&H has landed back in the country after meeting up with his 'inter-railling' pals in Prauge for four days and then cross The Minch to Harris. About five days on Harris (probably going no further north than Callanish) then across the Sound of Harris to our beloved Uists & Berneray. All is ideal camper van territory!

I am busy preparing, plotting & planning various knitting projects to take. I have finished another pair of fingerless mitts for Mr J. They were going to be socks but I didn't have enough yarn. Basically they are twisted rib sock legs with a peasant thumb! I have cast on for my Ravelry 'At Home in Harrogate' Knutty Knitters Summer Swap -nuff said on that! I have also cast on Fetching as an easy 'travelling' knit. The yarn is Brigantia Luxury DK in colourway 'Autumn'.I am so into fingerless mitts at the moment and have purchased the lovely 'Snow on Cedars' pattern from Knitspot after eyeing my friend Anne's sensational mitts. These may require a little more concentration I suspect. I have laminated all 7 pages of the pattern!

It is a while (possibly) since I bought any knitting books but Folk Mittens arrived yesterday (How DID that happen? I was only looking at Amazon .....maybe...!!!!) Anyway it looks great so I have stocked up with some great superwash DK from Scandinavian Yarns, which as always arrived a fast as is actually possible by Royal Mail. Which, by the way, is a hell of alot faster than the combined efforts of UPS & Apple! Two weeks to take delivery of an empty box to send back my son's dead, 6 month old, IPOD classic. Collection is due anytime now & then heaven knows how long to repair it & get it back to me. In a place where I will be! ...... UPS man has just been - he says he delivers around here all the time & has never been here! Where were they trying to deliver the empty box to????

Last Sunday Mr J competed in his second 10k race. The Burton Leonard Village Feast 10k. Its part of the 'Black Sheep Brewery' series of 10K races. In contrast to the Leeds 10k it was almost all 'off road' & his time was a fairly respectable 47 minutes. The runners made quite a picture setting off from the village green. Next definite race is the Middlesborough 10k for both him & S&H.

The recent sunshine has done something for the garden. The courgettes are as pretty as a picture with their bright & big yellow flowers & they will not get any bad press from this gardener. The carrots are great eating & I have just picked our first french beans.

Garden

"We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden." (and in my case knit!).

Thank you for all of the lovely comments about our garden. As we sat outside by the front window this evening, trying to enjoy the sun & stay out of the wind I remembered this quote that my sister & I included as we wrote a eulogy for our Auntie Chic, who had recently died. This was nearly three years ago now & I doubt that she would have approved of the chaos that the wind has brought but she would have loved the flowers and the bird life that abounds in the garden. I went inside for the camera (& a glass of red wine!). The sparrows fill the garden. The seed feeder has to be filled daily, There are also three nut feeders and a fat ball feeder. The delphiniums have lasted well but I feel that even with a scaffolding of canes they will not last much longer. They have been wonderful though, despite the windy weather.

Poppies grow at will amongst the Lady's Mantle & the roses. My lovely David Austin rose 'The Pilgrim' (I think) struggles to hang on. The flowers are lovely but its plagued by blackspot.

Moss enjoys the garden, but is more impressed with 'his' field where he can chase footballs and things. The back garden faces north. It can be wild, doesn't always get too much sun but the view is grand! On Sunday I managed to sit on my big cushion, sheltered by the while & knit awhile.