Katy’s rambles about life

2 chapters Dawn Treader
2 chapters Grandma’s Attic
3 pages Stile pre-reading 2 (finished book)
Lots of drawing
Far too much TV
Lots of gazing at Curly and Whirly and trying to stroke them before they run off!
++ early night!

oh dear…. we have a goldfish with white fluff all over it’s tail fins and it isn’t holding it’s top fin up at all…. cue rapid dash to the pet shop for medicine! I got stuff specifically for goldfish but it does seem a bit odd that all the other stuff is dose every day for 5 days but this stuff is dose once then leave it for 5 days and repeat if needed. Then again I’m not sure if they assume that if you have goldfish you don’t have a filter etc to take the meds out of the water. We have a filter but it doesn’t have any charcoal in it as far as I know…. whilst I was there I got “pep tonic” type stuff for them too as these infections tend to happen if they fish is stressed… here’s me thinking nice easy pet for small child and already we have nearly as many little bottles as we used to have for the tropical tank we had donkey’s years ago…..

In other news… the hour has confused her - seriously confused her!! She was in bed by half 6 tonight which even alowing for the hour is a bit early really! She did do a bit of “work” today and I want to try to keep up with “normals” a little as I want her in the habit of sitting for a bit each day with a pencil in her hand as well as for listening to stories.

Now my body clock is saying it’s bed time and as Becca went early I suppose I better had too!!!!

Someone I know on a list contacted me earlier this week to see if I would sell Clothbots to her. I have a bit of stock (about 10 wraps made, lots more that just need finishing) about £200 worth of labels specially woven for the business, a popper press for metal poppers (cost £250) plus loads of metal poppers, a press for resin poppers (cost $60 I think) plus resin poppers in 4 colours (hundreds of them) and the templates/patterns etc. She’s offered me £50 for the lot. Now it’s all doing nothing just now and I know I do get a bit of use from the popper presses but I’m really not sure about £50. I know I could eBay/WAHMall the stock, finish the rest and flog that off cheap too and I could probably sell the popper presses and poppers too and get a lot more than £50 but I closed the business in April and haven’t done it yet…. Tim just swore and said to tell her where to go but then it’s not Tim’s “office” that’s knee deep in reminders of a failed business is it.

Well, the local brass band can hardly be called culture but it’s as good as it gets…. Becca loved it, wants me to ask to borrow Grandpa’s (my dad’s) Glen Miller collection as they played a lot of his stuff and was delighted to recongnise brass band versions of a lot of the “last night of the proms” stuff that Granny (my mum) plays all the time. She has such wonderfully diverse musical tastes!

Before we went there we were at Grandma’s (Tim’s mum) and took her to the craft shop. I was very restrained and only got a light box so Becca and I can do embossing (which Grandma paid for cos it’s for a grandchild and she reserves the right to spoil all grandchildren rotten ) Then when we took her home I was instructed to go and rummage in her craft room and help myself so I’ve got lots of coloured card, some yarn and Becca spotted a bit of sparkly ribbon. We didn’t get enough first time so got sent back for more! Eventually 90% of the contents of that room will be mine but I’m taking it gradually!!

Today was very pleasant - more time with Kirsty et al then a gentle half hour drive over to Jax to book browse. Didn’t liberate that many books (but I may bag some of those early reader type ones in 6 months or so if they haven’t sold out Jax!) but had a very pleasant time “sorting” them into vague groupings. Becca tore round with Big and Small.

A much less traumatic journey home - straight onto the M1, off at Tankersley, up the 616 and over the Woodhead, non of this weaving in and out of quaint villages with 30 limits (but still lots of speed cameras, I was in South Yorkshire after all…) and home in around 1 and a half hours. Becca slept most of the way and still went to bed early.

Tim came home briefly then went back to work for (more) overtime.

I had an evening of CSI/snacking/crocheting planned but suddenly it’s 10pm and bed is looking such an atractive option….

The day didn’t really start that well really, just as I was about to leave the house I got a phone call which started a half hour game of “hunt the ambulance keys” (they were in the trousers that Tim was wearing but should have been at home, the spare set were locked in the ambi as Tim didn’t know it should have been left unlocked and why they thought I could do anything about any of this I have no idea….)

Eventually we set out to see Kirsty ! Had an unspeakably rotten trip over to her due to slow wagons over the Woodhead and endless roadworkings but got there eventually (yipeeeee!!!) Got there, got into Kirsty’s car and went to get our new piggies from Kris (who’s white truck is poorly so she couldn’t come to Kirsty’s….) Came back with a bag full of *very* fresh veggies as well as the piggies (more yipeee!!!)

After much running round the house, playing, squabbling etc the kids finally started to look tired and Alex and Becca decided that they were sharing a bed…. you know sometimes you just *know* something is not going to work don’t you… when I went up (far toooooo late or far too aerly the next morning depending on how you look at it) Becca was awake, sat up and looking glum. So she got in with me. How come a 4 year old can take up more bed than an adult??? She giggles in her sleep by the way!

Why, oh why do people buy car alarms then fail to leap up out of bed to shut the **** things up when they start alarming at 2am????? What if someone was actually trying to nick your pride and joy? I mean if it’s worth spending ££££ on a really loud, variable sound alarm it must mean something to you?

Our next but 1 neighbour’s car alarm started at 2am Friday and carried on in 5 minute stints with a minute or so in between for over an hour. It would probably have gone on longer but the battery ran down, a most wonderful sound….

Our new Piggies in their indoor “home” - a big deep plastic crate with lots of shredded paper to hide in/shove into their food bowl etc.

I’m keeping them indoors for now as it’s nearly Bonfire night and that means consant nightly fireworks for at least the next month. Also they are only young and I want them where they can get used to us (and us used to them) and it’s not really the weather for us to be sat for hours in the back “garden” to keep them company!

I have a knitting pattern for a wrap over cardi taht I want to make for me. i have yarn ready for it. Then I realised I don’t have the right size pins and wondered about crocheting it instead. No problem! Found a website explaining how to convert patterns between knitting and crochet and set to with a gauge square. Using the right sized hook for the yarn and the right number of stitches and double crochet (or single crochet if you are in the US) for the prescribed number of rows (aparently 1 row of dc=2 knitted rows) I get a gauge that is roughly 1 inch too wide but 2 inches too short, the piece is also really hard, as in it doesn’t drape and feels nasty etc not as in difficult to do.

So I’m off to do a gauge square now with a big hook (cos I don’t have enythig in between a 5.5 and an 8mm) and see how that feels on the grounds that a bit of extra width in the pattern I can live with, I have a little extra width of my own to contend with you understand…. and if using an 8mm hook gets something like the right height and any sort of drape I’ve won and if not I’m off to the shops for 5.5mm pins to knit it after all!!!! (or I’ll see how it knits up on 6mm pins, what’s 0.5mm between friends after all…)

yesterday Becca and I went to Chester with Jane and Ben. They had the huge excitement of going on a bus that “knelt down” for little legs and wheelchairs to get on easily and a brief trip into the Disney shop (where she got a new winter coat for £14 that should have been £30!!) before getting to the reason for the trip - Chester Cathedral. Nice place but I do have to own up to having “issues” with places of worship charging £10 for a family ticket to go in. Yes, you get a headset for a comentary which was very interesting (it held the kid’s attention too which impressed me) but I would have been more comfortable with being able to wander in free and paying if I wanted the headset hire. But that’s just me.

So we did the full tour, lots of ooh and aah at the beutiful workmanship etc, lots of respect for what the place it, lots of inteligent questions. Then we toured the gift shop, I spent £3 on Becca, Jane (who is hopeless with money…) spent about £33 on Ben. A quick trip to the butty bar (sorry, that would be the refectory then) and suddenly we had 2 droopy, miserable, sulk-faced kids. Hmph. So we got the bus back to the Park and Ride (and yes, I know it’s cheaper to park in Chester than to park there and get the bus but I wasn’t driving….) and home.

They loaned us some of the Narnia videos and she watched the lot - LW&W, Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawntreader. First one is pretty good, second one was naff, third on okay. Took all afternoon and she barely moved off the sofa. Then she had a total melt down at being asked to clean her teeth…. then she went to bed!

No stamina these kids….