Whoops!
Sorry to bloglines subscribers out there – yes that post about going to the Raptor Foundation is an old one – I’d just noticed that I’d totally messed up the formatting – all better now I hope…
And another whoops – we have no ‘big’ computer – it’s dead. Very dead. Possibly all our data gone dead. 
John thinks he’s worked out what happened (it died – but apparently it died with a beep and a whirr rather than just a clunk – I’m not entirely sure whether this is good news or bad news). And of course it’s been rather a while since the hard drive has been backed up. (Just don’t say it, we know, we don’t need telling… )
So although there has been knitting, I have yet to discover how to get pictures onto the laptop. (It’s probably not hard, but there’s not actual instructions written on the machine itself saying anything like “Anne, plug the camera in here” ).
So you’ll have to make do with descriptions (for now).
Having spent a portion of last Tuesday’s KTog dissing white baby clothes, I’ve started… a white baby kimono. My excuse – I’m being pretty firm about knitting from my stash and Ruth’s childminder’s daughter is having a little boy in the next couple of weeks. A year or so ago my cousin gave me some Phildar Oxygene partly knit-up that her daughter had already outgrown. (Tee hee, yes, you’re right, it’s not just white, it’s white acrylic… but it’s Phildar white acrylic… ) She also passed on a pattern magazine, that for some reason I assumed I could follow – I can sort of read French, I can read knitting patterns – stands to reason I can read French knitting patterns – right? Wrong. To start with I’m not exactly sure what the item is actually supposed to be – apparently it’s a brassiere (and no, that’s not underwear – it’s a baby vest), but the picture doesn’t show the back, so I can’t really work out what’s supposed to be going on – the two back pieces are 31 sts each wide, the front is 50 sts – so there’s obviously an overlap – so I’ve turned it back to front and am going to call it a kimono – I could never be doing with back-fastening baby clothes anyway.)
Oh, and the Shetland Garden Stole is still growing – we had a long car journey last weekend, so I managed to get onto the last chart – way hey!
And my mother is ever so impressed that I’m knitting her socks that are custom designed to fit her ankles.
But all that would be so much more meaningful with pictures.
Sigh.
Justin
I can do no better than quote Annie:
... no not Mr Timberlake (tho’ obviously he should get one too for other reasons… ) It’s Mr Fletcher I’m talking about!
Petition to Put forward Cbeebies Presenter Justin Fletcher forward for a OBE
Heartwarming
3 year old princess
Funny, I don’t really like the whole “Little girl = Princess” thing, but then we did choose to give her a middle name of Sarah, and Sarah does mean princess, and she’s been living up to it since the moment she was born (plain flat refusal to emerge until Mummy was in the lithotomy position and there was a doctor present – not exactly a home-birth sort of a girl my daughter.)
But now she’s a 3 year old princess. So here are some birthdayish pictures:
Making pink pasta (which she loved doing – shame she refused to eat it later!)
At the playground at the zoo (I think they’d both have been more than happy with a picnic at a playground – forget the animals!)
(Click on the top photo to cycle through.)
Blowing out candles
And just to show off John’s decorating skills (he did it all) – the cake in detail (as ever, click to make it bigger):
A grand day out...
Not much knitting to report (well, I’ve been hard at it, but nothing looks much different – I’m on row 122 of the Shetland Garden Shawl, which I reckon means I’m about halfway there, and I’ve done another couple of inches on my mum’s sock – oh, and I’m idly swatching another sock, but I’m not sure that it’ll come to anything, and I can’t be bothered to take a pic just now anyway.)
So I’ll try to distract you with photos of our trip to The Raptor Foundation – it was fantastic. You know you’re onto a good thing when the first sign that strikes the eye as you turn into the driveway says “Yarn sale”. (In the event that wasn’t so exciting – all acrylic and fun fur, but hey, it’s definitely the right way to welcome people! – And to be honest it was rather a relief that there were no spectacular goodies – I’m on a very strict yarn diet after Skip North!)
Working from the left we have: 1) and 2) a Harris Hawk, 3) a Little Owl, 4) a Common Buzzard, 5) a Kestrel, 6) – 9) each of us with a Barn Owl. The last one is the most important – a few weeks ago a group brought some owls into Adam’s school – he was absolutely full of it when he got home – wonderful. Not so wonderful was a week or so later when he had a photo of himself with the owl in his book bag – with a note enclosed saying that we could buy one copy for £7, two for £10, or return them both to school. Amidst much wailing and screaming and stamping of feet I returned them. I’m afraid I object to the emotional blackmail to spend up to £10 on what was not a particularly good photo of Adam, when there had been no warning that it was coming. It smacks of the whole “sweeties at the checkout” syndrome – and although Adam can apply plenty of pester-pressure, I’m stubborn enough not to give in. However, I did feel bad that the experience had been spoilt for him – hence the trip to the Raptor Foundation. (And we did see a lot more birds flying – the whole demonstration lasted over an hour – I just didn’t get any decent photos 
)
(Edited to add: Just to make it clear – it was an entirely different group who brought the owls to Adam’s school – the Raptor Foundation do visit schools, but don’t do the whole “let’s fleece the parents” photo thing.)
There was high drama at one point when a wild red kite flew over – all the tethered birds started shouting, and the falconers got very excited and tried to tempt it to land – however a local wild kestrel had other thoughts and sent it packing. (Wonderful to have expert commentary on what was happening.)
So what looks like a simple Tuesday Sky:
does in fact have a little black dot if you look closely enough (click on the picture to enlarge it)
Enlarging further shows the kite itself:
Urgh. My writing feels very lame and pedestrian – I’m ill. Having scoffed (a little, and mainly sympathetically) at John for going down with a nasty cold over Easter, I’ve now trumped his ongoing cough with what the doctor called folliculitis and has prescribed antibiotics for. (Having looked it up online I’m not totally convinced it is folliculitis as it’s all over – yup, I got a nasty ITCHY skin thing ALL OVER!!! – and I’ve not been sitting in any dirty hot tubs. In fact I’ve not been sitting in any hot tubs.) But I do ITCH – like it’s driving me crazy – and I do feel rubbish, so I’m WHINING. (I can be rather a whiner, which is wrong given just how many times I tell Adam off for whining – mind you, he does have it to a much higher art form than me.)
