Scherious scheep-based schopping in schunny Stockholm

I was away in Stockholm most of last week for a convention which I stretched out into a weekend. The convention was fine and the weekend was fun and there were lots of boats, but it was faaar hotter than the weather forecast.

I'd packed for 12-20°C and it ended up being 28°C. Which meant that instead of my nice little skirt-and-warmish-top / trousers-and-t-shirt combinations, I had to work the skirt-and-tee angle and boy oh boy but I had NOT considered that option and ended up looking like a mismatched clown most of the time. We're talking formal-black-linen-skirt-with-blue-striped-pirate-t-shirt-and-strappy-silver-platforms clown. I'm not great at working it at the best of times, but this....

Ah well, fortunately there are yarn shops run by nice older ladies with sufficiently broken English that it's all smiles but no need for conversation. We have Malabrigo. Yeah. I'm embarrassed to say that I'd been staking out my Stockholm yarn purchases and was all set to go to Nysta and KnitLab and buy all sorts, especially my first-ever Malabrigo. I'd actually started dreaming about the Great Malabrigo Purchase. But it turns out that Nysta and KnitLab have both closed and so I found myself wandering the streets, bereft and lonesome, which is when I walked past the Anntorps Väv window and hope bloomed in my little heart again. I trotted back first thing the next morning and had a great old time. I could have bought half the shop, especially where this stuff, Östergötlands Ullspinneri Pälsull, was concerned:

That's my sister-in-law's colour and this yarn will end up being her Christmas present - just have to decide what to turn it into. There were some great yellows and oranges too. And a few skeins of Malabrigo. I bought 100g of black lace-weight (with a project in mind) and can't wait to get started on it. I also bought this monster chunky wool-and-soy, although that was in another shop that I passed:

Also fortunately, when I changed to my non-convention hotel, I got a tiny noisy room that looked right onto the hotel bar. I'd booked tiny, so that wasn't a problem, but I'd also booked (and wanted) quiet so, for once, I asked to change. And they gave me a gorgeous double on the fifth floor with a balcony and let me stay there both nights. Not the best photo, but it was very luxe and very lovely.

And then I got home and washed my windows and oiled my wooden worktop and watered my plants and all was well with the world.

Where do I start?

That was a long, long break, but I needed it. Work's been crazy and not-work has been crazy too but things are finally settling down (I hope). I also had a week away at the sea, taking sailing lessons, at the start of this month. I'm really glad I did it - definitely A.Good.Thing. and it blew away lots of lingering winter cobwebs.


In the last few months, there's been a LOT of knitting. My first ever lace, my first ever hat (a black mistake stitch beanie to match the black mistake stitch scarf - one of my favourite people has a birthday coming up), my first ever bag (in progress), and more to come. I love the colours in the last picture!:



Some new furniture. Slightly rubbish photo but I'm pleased as punch with my little sideboard and the fact that it allows me to free up the mantlepiece and move the radio to a better position in the room:


And new plants a-go-go:
After all that waiting, the tulips came and went in a flash.

And I couldn't get the heat/light/water balance right for this little thing. Beautiful while it lasted, but it didn't last long.


The new geraniums (to replace my trusty old bright pinks, that were zapped by the week of ten-below in January) are doing well and seem happy.


I don't seem to have killed off my first ever orchid yet. I love the white-pink-yellow against my blue bedroom walls.


And this afternoon I spent a happy couple of hours grubbing around on my bedroom floor, planting up petunias for my other windowbox and setting this season's kitchen busy lizzies on their way. Those busy lizzies were one of the best things about my house last summer and autumn - it's almost embarrassing about how much I'm looking forward to watching them grow.

Don't know where to start

I've been back at home for a week and a half now, gradually coming back down to earth. I'm not great at being a house guest, so four weeks on couches and airbeds (albeit staying with friends who couldn't have been more welcoming) while simultaneously trying to manage the renovation and finish up at work and suffering from a rather sore post-bike-accident shoulder, wasn't particularly easy.

Now that I'm feeling a bit more chilled, I don't know where to start. So much has changed in the flat, and I'm so generally delighted, that I want to post a million photos and write a thousand words. Instead, I'm going to go and buy paint and a better roller and finish putting undercoat on the new plaster and plasterboard in my bare-naked kitchen and bathroom and not let myself get distracted from finishing my part of the renovating deal.

Although I guess I could post two little photos anyway:


And some quick pictures of the unforgettably awesome weekend in Brittany:




And note that my oven is still hanging out on my bedroom floor in my pre-kitchen-installation, living-in-one-room arrangement and that, if those brownies are better than the ones we had that night, they must be MIGHTY fine.

And finally, to say that yesterday was my last day at work. Freedom!!

Small-scale photo extravaganzette

Beach weather... For me, this was one of our best days, surrounded by storm clouds but quite happy in a little pocket of sunshine.

Which isn't to say that anoraks aren't still de rigueur when it comes to beachwear...

Although I'm quite happy if wearing an anorak is the price to pay for enjoying this. :)

The huge west beach - bleak, beautiful, and ferociously windy.

Best beach find: a perfectly-formed, translucent prawn skin. It was about as long as one of my fingers and even though it was extremely fragile, all the articulations still worked. It still had its feelers and everything. First time I've seen one!

The house where my great-grandfather was born.

And some others that don't need explanation. It was a good holiday, the kind of open air and space that makes me wonder what I'm doing living in a city.

On holiday

The island is as wild and peaceful as ever, although the weather leaves a little to be desired. At least that means I'm getting lots of time to knit a blanket for my latest nephew, who was born ten days ago.

I'm also managing to unwind a bit from work, helped by the face that I resigned on Wednesday 23rd July. No smiley in the world could do justice to the relief I feel, but here goes anyway. :) I found my new job so quickly that it all took me a bit by surprise and I didn't really have time to think about whether it's really what I want, but I do think it'll be interesting and worth doing for a couple of years at least. We'll see, but whatever happens, it was certainly time for a change. God but it feels good to know I'll be out of there long before Christmas. I'm a happy happy kid.

Hope and hard work

The hope refers to a big ol' fingers crossed about work and the hope that I'll be able to spill the beans in the next week or so.

The hard work refers to my kitchen window. Yep, I finally did it: all stripped. I was starting to wonder whether I'd ever get there - it's such ferociously hard work and takes so LONG and I hate wearing rubber gloves, especially when they get wet and sweaty and my hands smell of rubber for 24 hours after I finish. Other than that, great fun.

Anyway, still a few little bits of scraping left but I'll do that dry, without any paint-stripper. The important thing is that the windows are washed and ready for sanding and oiling, even if it took me a good part of my long weekend. I did a big session on Saturday afternoon then spent another seven or so hours this afternoon.

It was a glorious 14th of July outside, so shame I was inside fuming it up, but at least it'll be another "memorable" Bastille Day. My first 14th July, I went to the Firemen's Ball in the 6th and the fireworks on the Champs de Mars with Georgina, the second I was painting my then-new flat at Bastille and almost fell off my ladder when the jets and helicopters flew past after the military parade, the third I was up in Granville and met J for the first time, the fourth I was in Rouen with D and had a fairly massive post-break-up fight with J on the phone (oh yeah), and last year, I went to the fireworks on the Champs de Mars with... good ol' J. Heh.

Catch-up.

No posting for a couple of weeks due to a mix of good times and bad.

Good times: S&R arrived back from Spain (with dulce de leche :) ) and stayed for a few days before heading back to Canada. As always, I really enjoyed having them around and it was a great excuse to hold my first proper dinner at the flat. We managed to get eight round the table and managed to feed them all too, thanks to S taking care of pudding and an inspired decision to plug in the oven in the bedroom and leave the kitchen free for plates and other gubbins. Not the best picture ever, and I've no idea what exciting story was being told, but I think it kind of captures the atmosphere:

More good times last weekend, down in Cannes with another friend and her cute-as-all-heck 10-month old. Three days lazing on the beach and spending the evenings sipping rosé on the balcony was just what the doctor ordered... yep, work is hideous at the moment. Resignations a-go-go and one of the new recruits is giving me real headaches by behaving like a jerk with clients and then getting aggro when I try to coax/steer him back on to the right track. Very unhappy state of affairs which isn't leaving me with much energy for anything else.

In the circumstances, not much has moved with the flat. I finally sorted out my bedroom curtains yesterday, and I'm going to do more paint-stripping in the kitchen tomorrow night. At least my flowers are still looking nice. :)

Busy having fun

It's been a busy few weeks. Lots of work (no surprise there), but also lots of socialising and even a few days away.

Flat-wise, the stripping continues:

Flower-wise, the impatiens in my kitchen window are (I know this sounds uber-cheesy but I'll say it anyway).... delightful. Really:

Friend-wise, I had one of my favourite former colleagues and her equally lovely husband staying for a few days on a quick stopover in Paris between travelling in Asia and hiking across Spain. I so enjoyed hanging out with them, especially as the friend is none other than the Casual Baker and she decided to whip up some delicious strawberry yoghurt muffins one sunny afternoon:

Holiday-wise, I and another friend set off with S&R to join them for the first few days hiking through the Pyrennes. Damn but it was GOOD. The weather was phenomenal, the jinks were high, and the walking was just right: