Generally I mostly like 24, but there are many things that annoy me about it some of which I’ve already mentioned in a previous post in 2009. Some other things include government trained agents being unable to clear a building in adequate time or the general squabbling between CTU staff which clearly stops any real work being done.

The main reason I don’t like 24, however, is Kim Bauer. She makes me wonder how she has made it through everyday life so far as she has no common sense, people skills and pretty much just plays the ‘deer caught in the headlights’ angle. Things that have happened to Kim Bauer over the course of the show:

Day 1:

• She gets kidnapped.
• She and her friend try to escape, her friend gets hit by a car.
• She gets kidnapped by the same people again.
• She is handed over to the people that ordered the kidnapping.
• She nearly escapes, but then changes her mind.
• She has to flee the safe house with her mother as they’re being attacked by hitmen.
• She is in a car crash and separated from her mother.
• She is a witness to a drug deal.
• She is arrested for said drug deal.
• She is released from jail and immediately kidnapped by terrorists again when the police car she is travelling in gets attacked.
• She escapes the terrorists and swims through the water to safety.
• Her mother is being killed.

Day 2:

• She is being pushed to the ground by her employer, the father of the girl she is babysitting.
• She and the daughter escape the house in the mother’s car.
• They are tracked down and have to escape on foot.
• She is again tracked down and attacked by the father.
• She and the daughter reach CTU via the bus.
• She is inside CTU when it is blown up.
• She is accused of child abuse at the hospital.
• She and her boyfriend take the daughter from the hospital in the father’s car which again involves a confrontation with the father.
• They are stopped by a policeman who discovers that the mother’s dead body is in the trunk and arrests them.
• They are taken to the police station and then transferred to jail.
• She lights a fire in the police car and causes it to crash injuring the policeman and her boyfriend who had to have one of his legs amputated.
• She escapes the crashsite and runs away.
• She gets stuck in a trap left by poachers whilst escaping from a wild animal.
• She is rescued by a poacher, taken back to his hut and made to believe the bomb has exploded so she stays there with him. Once she realises he lets her go and foolishly gives her a gun.
• She thinks her father is being killed by an exploding plane.
• She leaves safety of the car she hitchhiked to reach a convenience store which, minutes after her arrival, is being held hostage.
• She has her gun being taken from her and its responsible for the death of the store owner.
• She is arrested again.
• She is released, taken back to the house of the family she was working for and is attacked by the father. Again.
• She kills the father on command from her father.

Day 3:

• She gets tied up by Gael.
• She exercises very poor judgement with the baby and social services.
• Her negligence is responsible for Saunders being killed.

Day 4:

• She doesn’t appear, yey!

This is a post I first wrote in 2010, but for some reason never finished. I think it’s probably because I never really watched much more of 24. The next season I’m expecting to watch will be season 6, but unlike Stargate, it’s a show I have to really pay attention to while watching it.

For the past couple of weeks I have been watching Stargate, a show I initially watched some episodes of when it was first on TV, but never got past the fourth season finale. So far I am through the first two seasons and should be starting on the third season at some point this week. The run so far has been enjoyable if a little basic. Just like Star Trek’s Deep Space Nine, it’s taken a while to establish everything in the universe and a lot of the episodes were a little too much ‘Monster of the week‘.

The penultimate episode of season two sends the team back in time to 1969 where they meet a younger version of General Hammond, their superior officer. Before their departure he gives Sam a note she isn’t meant to read. His younger self discovers the cryptic note written in his own handwriting and he is meant to help the team. Era specific hijinks ensue. So far, so boring. Eventually they make it back to present time via a detour to the future and General Hammond reveals he has known about it all along. The end.

This episode bugs me for many reasons. None of General Hammond’s reactions in the first two seasons make any sense. For example why would he oppose Teal’c joining the team or act surprised at Daniel Jackson’s existence? It also pretty much means that Sam can’t die as she will, in years to come, inform the girl from the future about sending them back. Of course it also means that neither Earth nor the Stargate can be destroyed, though there’s another Stargate on the planet, as well as many other factors.

Timetravel in TV shows works as long as it is sufficiently in the past or the future. Doctor Who manages this by travelling far enough ahead, such as the Earth’s destruction or far enough in the past to avoid meeting major characters of the show. Episodes such as the one with Rose’s dad is dealt with carefully.

Stargate’s episode is irritating and shows a disregard for the continuity and the show’s fans and it’s made me irritated about future episodes.

Tonight I went to see a concert by the London Symphony Orchestra in the Hexagon in Reading which marks the first time I’ve been inside the Hexagon, despite having lived in Reading for over ten years.

I’ve realised over the past year that I quite enjoy seeing classical concerts, such as the Oxford Philomusica and a Proms concert last year or a concert in Venice this year, yet always seem to just say ‘well, that’d be nice’ instead of actually booking the ticket.

I think a reason for that is that I don’t know a lot of classical music – sure I listen to it a lot and have some favourite composers [Elgar, Einaudi and Gershwin come to mind], but asides from that I don’t know much more and most concerts I have seen advertised in the local area feature music I don’t even recognise. Of course this could largely be down to the fact that I have a terrible memory with all artists and song titles. I would recognise most popular songs of the past two decades, yet curiously would not be able to name the artist or song title.

The London Symphony Orchestra is something I have always wanted to see, I have listened to recordings on soundtracks, such as Star Wars, countless times and any time I have seen a video it always seemed so vibrant and lively yet always professional.

Tonight’s concert contained the following setlist of which I only recognised the name Bernstein, but not even the songs by him. There was also another song prefacing the interval which wasn’t mentioned in the program and that the clarinet player announced as ‘the song played instead of the wedding march during the wedding to my first wife’:

• Adams – The Chairman Dances
• Bernstein – Three Dance Episodes from ‘On The Town’
• Copland – Clarinet Concerto
• Milhaud – La Creation du Monde Op.81a
• Bernstein orch. Foss – Prelude, Fugue & Riffs
• Ellington orch. Henderson – Harlem

Despite not even recognising the songs when they were played it was a fantastic concert. The whole concert was dynamic with the conductor practically dancing around, the clarinet player getting the audience involved with clicking fingers and telling an anecdote of the wedding to his first wife and overall the members of the orchestra seemed not only happy to be there, but also to play the music. There were a lot of smiles which made a big difference.

Looking forward, I am quite tempted to see the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in November playing the best of John Williams.

Allow me to explain: I have shoulder length medium thick curly hair which is washed at least every two days. In order for my hair to not turn into a ginormous frizzy mess I have to blow dry it each time which, with my previous hairdryer, took about 20 minutes for my hair to be completely dry. This time I normally spent catching up with Twitter or Google Reader on my phone whilst holding the hairdryer in the direction of my head and only using both hands during the final minutes.

I don’t know whether it is my new haircare products which promise faster drying time or the Remington D5020 Pro Ionic Ultra hairdryer which has a turbo button, but my drying time has been reduced to just seven minutes from almost dripping wet to completely dry hair. It’s a reduction of more than half an hour a week or over two hours a month. I feel like I should try to see if it makes a difference without the haircare products or what it’s like to dry my hair without the turbo button, but for now I just enjoy that it works so fast though I do miss the time spent on Twitter!

Overall, whilst the hairdryer doesn’t look very pretty, it does its job very well. A purchase well made.

The shampoo on the other hand isn’t that amazing. Whilst the serum has become part of my hair routine, I almost don’t want to use the shampoo, as it doesn’t seem to work too well. It doesn’t lather much and I always feel like I’m not using enough despite using more than I normally would with another shampoo. I’m glad it doesn’t work too well as it means that I can carry on buying cheap shampoos and just buy the more expensive serum. Problem solved.

It’s all part of the experience of having a vegetable box with random contents delivered to my house which can turn out well in the form of kiwi muffins or roasted savoy cabbage and can also turn out badly with fennel. Having researched recipes and realising I didn’t fancy the raw option as a salad that @swedishmike suggested on Twitter, I googled a bit more and debated between fennel steaks and potato and fennel soup before deciding on the latter.

I ended up freestyling [inspired by @swedishmike's blog] a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Instead of the things he mentioned I used:

• Sunflower oil
• 1 knob unsalted butter
• 1.5 large onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 2 small fennel bulbs, trimmed, tough core removed and diced
• Four large potatoes
• 600ml chicken stock
• 100ml whole milk
• Thyme
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the rest I pretty much followed the recipe and first softened the onions, garlic and fennel before adding the stock and potatoes and the milk after the puréeing.

Initially I was quite impressed – the strong fennel flavour was all but gone and I was left with a very creamy soup that tasted like it had too much salt. The more I ate of it, however, the more I realised it was actually the fennel I could taste, not the salt. By the end of the bowl I regretted that I have another batch sitting here waiting to be frozen.

The moral of the story is that I think I would have been very disheartened had I received fennel in my first vegetable box from Abel & Cole, but having spent some time over the past week cooking from scratch I can live with the fact that I spent over an hour cooking something I really didn’t enjoy. I have now made sure I set fennel as a dislike with Abel & Cole and won’t be receiving any more of it in the future.

This weekend has been a quiet one as the time in between my coach trip to Germany and Venice was quite hectic and stressful and I really needed a bit of a breather. This worked perfectly well with the cold weather we’ve been having this weekend and I was glad not to have to go out. Instead I stayed in, cooked things from my latest Abel & Cole order, such as broccoli and peanut butter soup and read a lot.

Yesterday I read most of ‘Death at La Fenice’ which I finished today and also got about halfway through the next book in the series ‘Death in a Strange Country’. Only another 20 or so books to go in the series. It is remarkable just how much more I recognise the town when locations, such as Fondamente Nuove [there's a great cafe there] are mentioned and I’m looking forward to reading more.

For the past couple of days I’ve been reading Donna Leon’s ‘Death at La Fenice’ which is the first of her Commisario Brunetti books. Whilst I’ve read them before many years ago I don’t really remember them too well and am yet again wondering who the murderer could be.

It really helps with the immersion that I was in Venice just a few days ago, as I have actually been to some of the locations and directions described in the book. I have even encountered La Fenice – the large operahouse in Venice where I took the above picture.

Tonight I cooked roasted savoy cabbage with mashed potatoes and carrots loosely following the Abel & Cole recipe. With hindsight I should have probably followed it closer rather than just seeing what happens, but it turned out lovely. I used:

A whole savoy cabbage though the one I had was kind of small.

• Half of a large white onion.
• Three potatoes.
• Three tiny carrots.
• Several garlic gloves.
• 500ml chicken stock.
• Black pepper.
• Thyme.
• Some butter.

For the cabbage I:

• Cut the onion and diced it.
• Peeled the garlic gloves and crushed them.
• Added them in a pan with butter to brown them.
• Cut the cabbage into five pieces.
• Added them to the pan and left them in there for a few minutes on each side.
• Placed everything and the chicken stock in a dish.
• Added some thyme and black pepper.
• Left in the oven for half an hour.

For the mash I:

• Peeled the potatoes and carrots and cut them into small pieces.
• Cooked them until almost too tender.
• Mashed them with a little bit of chicken stock from the oven.

Served.

I had never considered cooking savoy cabbage this way, but it was lovely, if a little less strongly flavoured. I think in the future I will try to make sure the savoy cabbage has more taste as it is one of my favourite vegetables.

I went to Venice and I bought a snood. Sure, lots of other great things happened, too, but the snood has changed things. I had been looking at knitting one before, but never really saw the point in them until it was almost too cold to bear it.

The one I bought from a random small shop in the San Polo district is made out of two identically sized tubes in beige and black wool containing:

• 60% acrylic
• 30% mohair
• 10% Lana wool

As both tubes are layered with each other and contain mohair it is incredibly warm and barely allows even strong winds to go through.

Now I need to look at snood patterns or perhaps join this knit-a-long @noirem pointed out.

Yesterday I went to prison or rather a former prison. I was in the Palazzo delle Prigioni in Venice to see a concert.

It included opera performances from Rossini, Chopin and others and, particularly with the setting, was beautiful.

Venice, however, is very, very cold.

We’re planning to:

• Go to a classical concert with an opera since which is booked for tonight.
• Go to the Santa Maria della Salute church.
• Go to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.
• Go to the Rialto fishmarket.
• See Venice early in the morning, during the day and late at night.
• Walk around lots.

So excited!

In April 2011 I got two pairs of glasses from Boots Opticians after my previous ones of over three years had broken. It was the first time I had used Boots Opticians and I was already displeased with the service back then after they had neglected to inform me that my glasses had arrived and, even earlier, when I had an eye test lasting two hours. Granted my prescription had changed most peculiarly and the test was thorough, but waiting times of 40 minutes when I had a scheduled appointment isn’t that great.

The problems with my glasses started about 1.5 months afterwards. They didn’t sit properly and I had to go in far too often to get them adjusted. One of the lenses started chipping off around August or September time which, when I pointed it out to the technician, was brushed aside as normal wear and tear. As someone who has been wearing glasses for at least 1.5 years a time since she was six years old I wasn’t impressed, but, seeing it didn’t seem to be that bad at the time didn’t insist much. This also coincided with work stress and then the knee injury.

Another time after that both arms actually got bent intentionally at the screw bit meaning they wouldn’t close as well as they did before. I pointed this out the next day after inspecting them and again was told this wasn’t an issue and it made them fit better. They are so bent that when closed they would not be able to fit in even a large glasses case.

Fast forward to now and one of the lenses is showing several millimetres of chipped glass on all sides where the arm is connected and, worried they’ll break one day, I decided it was time to yet again visit Boots Opticians for what is already the third time this year.

When I pointed out the issues I had and the numerous times I had visited both of the two Boots Opticians stores in Reading [Foursquare now tells me this was 14 times since I bought them though I do remember not always checking in], I had to argue my point for over half an hour in total. The technician spoke to his manager eight times in total, each time claiming that because the frames were fitted with an different set of arms than the standard, as requested by me during purchase, there was nothing they could do. This is despite my insistence that this was a manufacturing and aftercare fault and something that was not explained to me at the point of sale. Seeing I had no proof of any of the times I had come in to get them fixed it was pretty much my word against theirs and I really don’t think they would have accepted Foursquare check-ins.

After checking with his manager three times I was made the first offer of a free eye test with 20% off my next pair of glasses which is ludicrous. An already far too long story cut short my saving grace appeared to be the bent arms at the screws as this was evidently done professionally [at one point he suggested I should get those fixed at the other Boots Optician where it originally happened] and finally I was offered a new pair of glasses if I would purchase a £25 Boots cover covering me from the moment I get those glasses through.

Whilst I am not particularly happy about having to fork out an additional £25 for a pair of faulty glasses costing me several hundred pounds under a year ago I feel that it was a compromise I should agree to. My downfall was the lack of evidence, as well as the need for new glasses.

The blogpost I had written several months ago was very negative to Boots Opticians. I was unhappy at the poor level of service I received on the majority of my visits and the fact that the aftercare generally was unpleasant with staff trying to quickly get me back out of the door. Granted I was spoilt by having a previous pair of glasses from a more upmarket optician which delivered excellent care even after warranties and cover expired, but Boots is a big name company. They dominate the market in many sectors and by pushing cheap glasses solutions on customers they are probably quite successful.

I’m glad I am getting a new pair of glasses, but I will not be using them for any future glasses I will need to get.

Yesterday evening one of my housemates made the oddest request. He wanted me to knit him a scarf for his figure to go on top his model aeroplane when he’ll fly it later this year.

How could I possibly resist this?

The scarf was another lengthways scarf with five rows knitted over 65 stitches.

I need more fun and unusual knitting projects like this one!

Today I baked some kiwi muffins following [mostly] the Kiweasy recipe on the Abel & Cole website. Not only did I bake and cook for the second day in a row, but I also did something I mentioned in the previous post so it’s pretty much a double achievement!

I modified the recipe by using eight muffin cases rather than a muffin tray which I do not have and I also mixed all the ingredients in one bowl starting with the wet ingredients before adding the dry ones starting with sugar. The mixing was done by a housemate which was great seeing the mixture was rather worryingly thick.

Preparation was about ten minutes and the time in the oven was bang on 25 minutes.

The final result was amazing. The muffins were crunchy sweet on the top and broke open slightly during the baking. The inside was fluffy and the kiwi really complimented the muffin. My brain kept telling me that I’m eating an apple and cinnamon muffin and it was uncanny just how similar the kiwis tasted. The whole muffin had a rather balanced taste to it, it wasn’t too sweet, but just right.

Seeing I have enough ingredients left I’m very tempted to make another batch tomorrow!

Unrelated – I have watched a lot of films today:

• Poirot’s Mystery of the Blue Train
• Galaxy Quest [brilliant as ever]
• Van Helsing [which will always remind me of the game]
• The Green Hornet [much better than I expected]
• The Rock [also brilliant as ever]

Today was the first delivery of my Abel & Cole box.

I had considered ordering a vegetable box for a while and Abel & Cole was always at the top of my list thanks to some of the great reviews by people on Twitter. After putting it off for far too long I finally decided to go ahead on Tuesday and was very excitedly awaiting today!

Opting for the small fruit and veg box I had the following delivered today with all the items being in perfect condition:

• A small savoy cabbage [one of my favourite vegetables!]
• One avocado
• Several carrots
• Four Fairtrade bananas
• Four kiwis
• Three leeks
• Several Sante potatoes
• Two star grapefruits

I also ordered a range of other things with it whilst having a lot of problems resisting the pies and cakes on the website:

• Yeo Valley unsalted butter
• Rude Health Early Bird Muesli
• Six free-range eggs [have selected this to be included every other week]
• 1L of milk [have selected this to be included every week]
• Two large garlic bulbs
• Rosemary
• Abel & Cole traditional houmous [180g]
• Abel & Cole mature cheddar [360g]
• Two Brown Cow raspberry yoghurts

Included with the order was the Abel & Cole cookbook which has a multitude of great recipes in it, all depending on the season. I like that the recipes don’t assume I have a large store cupboard full of obscure spices and most of the recipes sound very straightforward.

One of the first things I did when I got the box through was to look at the website for recipes. I don’t particularly like grapefruits and don’t really know what to do with it. The following recipes can all be made with the contents of the box as the primary ingredient:

• Organic Dial-a-Cabbage-Wedges
• Organic Kiweasy
• Organic Abel & Colecannon
• Grapefruit Guacamole

I also saw a recipe on the Abel & Cole website for an avocado chocolate mousse which sounds interesting.

Tonight was the first time I cooked in a while. I chose a recipe from the cookbook which was roasted vegetables and added potatoes, carrots, leeks, red onion [not included in my books] and seasoned it with several sprigs of rosemary, some garlic cloves before adding it to a roasting tin with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Even though I mistimed the carrots it was delicious.

Tomorrow I’m looking at possibly making some potato and leek soup or maybe the colecannon and I’m definitely going to have a go at the Kiweasy! I think I’m just regretting not having ordered it long ago.

In Brussels with a full on cold. Incredibly unpleasant drivers, too. #Catisonacoach

I can confirm that I am not currently on a coach and haven’t been since the 14th of January. Thanks to both of the journeys I am also not planning on any coach trips within the foreseeable future, particularly not ones that involve the use of foreign coach companies. More on that another time.

I think the last two coach trips have somewhat scarred me as I’ve had two coach related nightmares in the past two days.

One of them involved me being stuck on a coach for three days until mutiny. Why this took three days I’m not sure and I also don’t remember why I was on the coach or where I was going to.

The second one was more vivid though and whilst I don’t remember the dream so much now I do recall bits with the help of the notes I wrote down as soon as I woke up:

• Coach travel.
• Several days break somewhere for some reason.
• Handbag stolen.
• XXX helps me retrieve it.
• Then tells me to go for my real love.
• He gives me the number for that person.
• Hollywood happy ending with music.

XXX is a person I know, he is someone I went to school with back home in Germany. I haven’t seen him since 2001 and, apart from having him on my friends list on a German Facebook clone some years ago, have had no contact. In fact there wasn’t really any contact then either; he added me and I accepted the friends request. Whilst he went on to move towns and become somewhat successful in a certain sports discipline in his local area, I haven’t come across him in any news or seen him on Facebook or anywhere.

It truly puzzles me why he appeared in my dream in a manner very unlike how I remember him. In the dream he was a supportive person with local knowledge and able to help me. In a sense he reminded me of Jonathan in the Buffy episode where he made himself famous though he was never anything like Jonathan.

All in all it was one of the strangest dreams in my life and very much unlike previous dreams. And who is my real love? The person representing my allegedly real love in the dream wasn’t anyone I’ve ever met.

I wish I had never discovered the Agatha Raisin series as it is sure to bankrupt me over time!

Since then I have made a resolution that I will only buy one book each calendar week to not only draw out the series, but also ensure my bank account doesn’t hate me too much. Last week I read ‘Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage‘ fairly early on in the week and was tempted to buy the next one as early as Thursday. I managed to not only resist, but also forget all about it until remembering just now!

The murderous marriage was a good book, but it wasn’t fantastic. For most of it it changed the dynamic between Agatha and the other characters a bit too much and the overall murder and plot was completely crazy. It did, however, have this quote which made me laugh a lot:

The rendering of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ was, Agatha reflected sourly, music to stun pigs by.

This week’s book is ‘Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist‘ which some Amazon reviews have called the worst book in the series and which I am now looking forward to reading in bed.

Only five days until I can buy the next one!

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

She had no texts, no missed calls and the only emails were ones offering her enhancements she definitely wouldn’t be needing without far more invasive and complicated surgery first.

I finished the book quite quickly and enjoyed it. Jessica Daniels is a solid character with enough quirks and too few friends to be completely believable though the plot itself was a bit too straightforward. Maybe it’s because I have read too many crime novels to see patterns easily, but it was still satisfying to see I was right at the end.

Vigilante on the other hand was a little bit less obvious. It is set several months after the first book and things for the character had changed which led to her feeling isolated more. She has picked up some new bad habits which turn out to be quite annoying to read about as I can’t quite follow the character. The book itself was much more fun to read as the story was more compelling and perhaps because I didn’t guess the end.

Overall I am enjoying the Jessica Daniel’s series a lot and book three is on my list of books to read next. I am also looking forward to book four and five which are set to be released later in the year.

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

I first started a scarf for my friend’s birthday all the way back in October when I opted for a patchworky looking pattern out of various knit and purl stitches over four rows with two different colours until I realised that the colours, whilst matching really well, were my favourite colours, not hers. Knowing that her favourite colours are hot pink and emerald I chose to buy some wool when I was in Germany.

Initially I was dubious about the colours and whether they would really work together, but quickly realised that they were actually practically made for each other and quickly progressed.

It’s the first time I chose to knit a scarf lengthways which is surprising seeing how many scarves I have actually knitted. It was @sahfenn who first put the idea in my head at some time last year, but I never actually got around to doing it myself. With this scarf I was really looking to create something with texture and a bit of an Asian feel which the colours definitely achieve. By knitting lengthways I was able to alternate colours for a large chunk of the scarf which also automatically created tassels at the end.

The yarn is Schachenmayr SMC Bravo which is 100% acrylic and distributed by Coats Crafts and I used approximately 85% of the pink and 55% of the emerald, as well as approximately 35g of gold Anchor Artiste.

I cast on judging purely by gauging the length and lots of guessing and then alternated knitting emerald and gold with pink and gold rows, as well as a pink middle section with a double gold midsection.

Once cast off I knotted the tassels together, two at a time and normally one of each colour. This eliminated having to add tassels at a later point and meant I didn’t have to sew in any ends.

Overall this was an incredibly easy and quick scarf to knit. I now have ideas for my next lengthways scarf with an initial idea of a rainbow coloured one.

It all started early today afternoon when one of my housemates mentioned going on holiday and we then thought we should go on holidays together which led to two of us looking for cheap deals to Amsterdam, then Madeira, Marrakesh, Venice and other places in April.

Come early evening after hours of reading trip reviews and playing around with dates and locations I was caught by the holiday bug and wanted to check, just out of interest of course, what a few nights in Venice at the end of this month would cost just for me. I realised I could travel and stay in Venice for a lot less than I expected. Speaking to a friend hoping she would dissuade me only led to her saying she would be able to join me and I have just completed the booking!

I will be in Venice from the 31.01.-02.02. staying in Residenza Cannaregio, a former monastery directly in Venice, flying to Venice’s Marco Polo airport. No coach travel this time! The hotel has received a wealth of great reviews on Trip Advisor and most importantly looks really good.

Additionally we have decided to opt for a Collegium Ducale Orchestral Concert with an opera singer’s performance in the Palazzo delle Prigioni on the Tuesday.

The entire trip including the performance, hotel, flight, taxes came to less than £200 per person. Including train and bus it’ll probably not be much more and it’s quite mindblowing that it’s possible to stay in the actual Venice for that amount.

Going to Venice will be a strange experience. Even though I’ve been there before, it was always during the summer time and I’ve heard that Venice can seem like an entirely different town during the winter months. It’s also the first proper holiday I have been on in many years as I normally have to go back to Germany every time I have the time or the money or I decide to do other things with my time. I’m really very excited.

I’ve just realised the search with housemates was never completed..

If my memory is correct, which is always a caveat to add to most of my childhood memories, one of the first stories I ever read myself was the one with the sweet porridge. I had been read the more traditional ones over the years and only picked this one, because it was probably one of the shortest ones in the book. I remember leafing through the pages until finding one that was less than a page. Now, many years later, I couldn’t even remember its entire plot and had to look it up during one of the conversations.

Whilst I had been aware of the concept of Sherlock Holmes from a young age I didn’t read them until I was 11, as my parents considered some of the themes and settings to be too adult. I spent Christmas one year reading the collected Sherlock Holmes works.

It’s interesting to see what has happened to the books since. With the Grimm’s fairy tales I’ve watched the Heath Ledger film, some of Grimm and a majority of Once Upon A Time and none of them really does it for me. The latter probably is the most interesting because of its recurring characters and intriguing story, but I have no real drive to carry on watching. With Grimm I’m finding the premise incredibly difficult to swallow.

Sherlock Holmes has had many adaptations and I remember watching quite a few of the older ones. Nothing seemed to quite grab the character for me as the 2009 film though and I’m still planning to see the new film. By all intents and purposes I feel like I should like Sherlock, but, just like Grimm, find the overly modern setting irritating. Sherlock makes me feel both bored and angry at the same time.

Maybe it’s best to keep the fond memories in the past.

I have just ordered its replacement from Amazon based on the good reviews all around the internet – the Remington D5020 Pro Ionic Ultra Hair Dryer which is quite a mouthful. May it last me as long as the other one has.

A purchase I never thought I would make is spending anything above a couple of quid for shampoo, but after yesterday’s wash and cut using only these products I’ve thought that perhaps it does make a difference in what I use on my hair. In addition to purchasing the serum at the salon at the time I have also elected to buying the shampoo and conditioner by Paul Mitchell. I’m hoping this will last years as I don’t want to spend this much on my hair on a regular basis!

I feel like I need to balance this out, turning far too girly.

I got Skyrim on the PC [well, my laptop] since the week of its release and have not played it at all this year. In fact I can’t even remember the last time I did play it, but think it was after Christmas. I even took my laptop to Germany with me hoping I would be able to play some there which, but, thanks to a mixup with travel plugs, I couldn’t.

I have nothing to blame at the moment – I have the time and I have the means right here as I’m typing this post on my laptop. Yet at the same time I’ve had a long day of shopping and getting a haircut and time at my friend’s house that all I want to do is eat the white chocolate brownie I bought from Workhouse Coffee and have some Kindle time in bed.

In the past I blamed having incompatible hobbies, such as knitting and reading [though that's slowly starting to work together with the Kindle], but I can just as well play Skyrim from bed as the desk is next to my bed and I’m playing it with a 360 controller anyway. It’s not even that I don’t like Skyrim – I think it’s probably one of the best games I’ve ever played and every time I’ve played it has been rewarding and brilliant.

So why does it feel like a chore?

It’s a show I discovered years ago and, despite not really being convinced by its concept, stuck to. Mediums and premonitions aren’t really anything I give credit to.

The show was great for its characters, particularly the DuBois family. Joe’s difficulty of dealing with his wife’s abilities and the children’s daily life coming second after their mum’s job felt real. The family had to adjust and even later episodes made a point of dealing with things like the schoolrun or the girls slowly growing up. One of my favourite B plots involved Ariel having to make a difficult decision whether to accept a dead husband’s help deceiving his wife and deleting emails if his infidelity in exchange for him helping her pass the interview for university. Another involved Allison lying to her husband’s mother by telling her she had a dream about her years down the future after having been diagnosed with brain cancer leading to her not making any arrangements when it came close to her dying several years later.

There were also many things that annoyed me – Allison was too vague and often withheld or didn’t share information until the “oh, I saw that” moment which could have potentially saved lives before. In that regard I wish the writers had been more clever about important plot developments.

However, the thing that really left me with a bad taste in my mouth and really made me question the whole show was the final episode. I can’t forgive the writer’s for wrapping it up by removing all the things that made the show great – the family. I remember thinking the episode was less sad than Buffy’s ‘The Body’ and that was in equal parts the episode being sad, the end of a great show and the events of the episode.

Overall it’s a show I can see myself watch again years down the line, but I will not be watching that last episode again.

Memories of the Future was one of the first books I bought on the Kindle and the fourth book I’ve finished on the Kindle.

For most of the book I was disappointed and then disappointed in being disappointed. It felt like he was pandering to the audience’s hatred of his character on practically every page and whilst he pointed out obvious plot flaws, such as a doctor’s kid suddenly being given an important mission, I wish there could have been more on the episodes. Anything than the constant reminder on how it’s the cool thing to hate the character would have been good.

I also didn’t find his writing to be of his usual standard until quite late in the book when it got towards the final episodes of the first season.

This is where the episode, which had been flirting with a left turn at Albuquerque for the last fifteen minutes, sets a course for planet Shark and warps right over it.

Looking back at my Amazon activity I realise I shared quite a few passages which I remember made me laugh out loud, but there were too few, especially at the beginning.

It’s a fun book, but I am overall a little bit disappointed as I have seen much better writing from him in basic blog or tumblr posts and I’ll think twice about purchasing the sequel or any of his other books at full price. Or maybe I just had too high expectations?

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

My list of started knitting projects:

• A pair of socks – started months ago, am maybe 40% through the first one.
• A scarf – was meant as a present, but might unravel.
• A scarf – was also meant as a present, but I think I will finish it and use it for myself or someone else in the future.
• A scarf – this one was started as a present, but I have since realised I didn’t like the colours for that person so I’ll unravel it.
• A scarf – just started for a friend’s birthday. This is in good chance to be finished within a couple of days.
• An attempt at knitting a basket. It’s actually v6, as I unravelled the previous attempts.
• My jumper – probably at about 30%, haven’t done anything on it in over a week due to a trip to Germany.
• And then there’s always the #doodleblanket..

Projects I want to do:

• A hat – I desperately need another hat that isn’t bright red/orange/purple colours.
• A hot water bottle cover requested by housemate.
• A teapot cozy and/or something to keep tea warm in my cup.
• A proper Kindle cover.

I’m really feeling the pressure from my unfinished projects and will have to really reduce some of them, even if that means unravelling something. I’m also realising I’m in desperate need of finishing something as it’s been almost a month since I’ve finished the jumpers.

It has 2.5 floors of all things wool from Knit Pro needles to sockwool to sections dedicated to fleece, as well as a whole floor just for discounted end-of-range wool with prices of 1 Euro for most skeins.

It’s the shop responsible for starting my collection of Knit Pro wooden needles which, as it seemingly turns out, are turning into my favourite needles and I made sure to pick up a few more last week.

Even though I constantly think my knitting isn’t as good as I want it to be, I still feel that I am learning more about it in general. For example most of my knitted items are 100% acrylic as I like the touch, find it easier to knit with and want to be able to stick it into the washing machine without having to worry. If they don’t contain 100% it is at least the majority in the mix.

As such my recent visit to Woll-Weber KG was a little disappointing as I realised that most of the wool on offer is indeed 100% wool and I had to hunt to find wool made of acrylic for my latest project.

Reading only has one dedicated wool shop out in Tilehurst which I really ought to visit one day!

It sort of happened as I was browsing the Kindle store when I discovered the Agatha Raisin omnibus containing the first for books of the series which now spans more than 20 books.

The books included in the omnibus are:

• Agatha Raisin and The Quiche of Death
• Agatha Raisin and The Vicious Vet
• Agatha Raisin and The Potted Gardener
• Agatha Raisin and The Walkers of Dembley

Whilst they are effectively standalone books they do contain character development and follow Agatha as she moves from the busy city to a quiet life in the Cotswolds all whilst solving murders and making friends.

It’s very much Midsomer-Murders-esque with quaint village life, gardening competitions and women’s societies and I keep expecting John Nettles to make an appearance.

I think my favourite part about the series so far is the protagonist – Agatha. Outwards she is a strong woman coming from a demanding job running her own PR company, but really she has just as many shortcomings as everyone else which particularly comes through in her love for her neighbour and her panic with everything related to him.

The omnibus cost around £7, every future one at least £5. I don’t want to do the maths!

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

• On time
• Clean
• On time
• Cheap (compared to the UK anyway)
• On time
• Spacious
• On time

Kids playing music through their phone’s speakers aside this is what not to do for German public transport:

• Queue

Every cloud, silver lining and all that..

This book is different, it isn’t written by a survivor or based on diaries, but is completely fictional. Whilst the author has taken efforts researching the subject matter, it feels like we’re strangers starting into something happening rather than get immersed in it.

There is hardly any characterisation and people appear and disappear throughout and past disagreements are rarely mentioned. The protagonist – Rosa – degenerates more and more into craziness and in turn becomes unlikeable. Time jumps months or years ahead with most chapters and if feels lazy of the author to not make any reference or indication to the lost and skipped time with the exception of the new date as the chapter title.

The writing is curious – there are a large number of German words interspersed in the text from her father’s nickname for Rosa – Püppchen – to words in conversations, but most of the time they feel out of place and tacked on and I wonder how non German speakers would cope. The author also had an annoying habit of constructing incredibly long sentenced with ten or more commas which makes for difficult reading.

I wouldn’t recommend it.

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

All the images from the purple jumper. More info about the knitting here – the story of the jumpers.

All the images from the green jumper. More info about the knitting here – the story of the jumpers.

I can still hear myself insisting over and over to my friend that I was happy with just being able to do a garter stitch and that I didn’t feel like I needed to learn purl or any other fancy stitches. That was back in 2009 and since then I’ve learned a few more stitches. Well, really just one more.

After about a dozen scarves and about eight sets of wristwarmers I felt it was time for another challenge, I felt ready to knit my first jumper. Because I felt I needed to get my head around knitting a jumper I didn’t want to jump straight into knitting one for myself. Instead I decided to knit a jumper for each of my friend’s children – a boy aged five and a girl aged almost three.

The hardest part was deciding what I wanted to knit as there are hundreds of patterns for jumpers on Ravelry and I found suggestions by housemates to be very helpful. The basis of the jumpers was the ‘Knit Coastal Stripe Pullover‘ pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. Ravelry link.

There were a lot of things I modified about the pattern and the final result looks almost nothing like the pattern, but it was a good basis to start with. I found the pattern relatively easy to read and only made one big mistake which was knitting the first part almost twice as long as it should have been!

Deciding on how to modify the jumpers proved tricky and I remember running a lot of things past housemates who I think got about as invested as me in them. As such we mutually chose and decided on:

Boy’s jumper [henceforth referred to as green jumper]:

• Green for the jumper
• A brown dragon pattern on the front which later changed to also include fire as the dragon was too small and couldn’t be scaled without looking too blocky
• A small neckline

Girl’s jumper [henceforth referred to as purple jumper]:

• Purple for the jumper
• A flower garland which later changed to a large pink star for more effect
• A larger neckline

All of the above took me several days to decide on, even though it now seems silly and easy, but I do remember being so much in awe of the project that I wanted to get it right the first time.

Having decided on the colours, calculating the yardages and having asked the lovely @melsworth and @noirem on Twitter about the English substitute for worsted yarn [Answer: Aran] it was time to go wool shopping which was October 30th. As I realised later I had bought about 40% too much wool which I’m sure I’ll be able to use for something else in the future.

Wanting to get the majority of the knitting out of the way I started knitting the back of the green jumper which is where I made the only major mistake of the project by knitting about 300 stitches too much. After that I moved on to the front piece whilst constantly measuring the length. With that in mind I decided to knit bot sleeves at the same time which reduced the time spent measuring that they’re both the same length and I’d equally increase stitches.

Writing it up like that makes it seem like a walk in the park and like it happened quickly, but it actually spans over two months thanks to my thumb injury. I remember the feeling of achievement of having finished the dragon and the fire and realising I got it all right on the first attempt and I also remembered the sadness when I realised my neckline was rubbish and I apparently couldn’t decrease well enough.

Knitting the green jumper didn’t feel right the entire time which is probably due to the long break I had to take with it, but also the wool itself. It split a lot and it just didn’t feel great knitting with it. The dragon, whilst knitted right on the first attempt, was slightly pulling the surrounding wool and there were a lot of imperfections where I didn’t get the tension quite right. The jumper also turned out quite small compared and I found out later that it didn’t fit properly.

Realising that knitting identical pieces at the same time was a stroke of genius I then started on the purple jumper which was much more fluid and easy.

I think I completed the front and back piece within just a few days and the sleeves within a couple of days. It was much more straightforward and pleasant to knit. I added some stripes on the sleeves on a whim, too.

Green Jumper:

• Pattern - from Lion Brand Yarn
• Dragon - from Ravelry
• Fire - scribbled by me on a piece of paper

Purple jumper:

• Pattern - from Lion Brand Yarn
• Star - from a friend’s knitting book

Before sewing the green jumper I blocked it to make it easier to sew it together, but it didn’t make enough of a difference to consider going through the hassle on the other jumper, too.

Again I started with the green jumper and the sewing of it which was, apart from one sleeve, straightforward and helped greatly with understanding how a jumper works. The purple one was a breeze.

I had such different experiences with each jumper that it’s really difficult to sum up. I’m glad they are done and I know I won’t undertake something like it for someone else again. I now understand how jumpers work and was confident enough to now start on my own one.

I keep telling myself that I don’t have any guilty pleasure books and that I don’t mind that some books might not be as highbrow as others, but in all honesty I varely rarely find myself talking about chicklit. I don’t even like a lot of it, most are annoying characters or too much of a will they, won’t they for me to enjoy and they make me want to scream just like most, if not all, rom-coms.

I finished reading The Sleepless Nanny within a few hours and it was enjoyable and I couldn’t stop reading. That’s not to say that there aren’t issues with it, the pace at times feels too rushed and at other times too slow, but the characters work well. The story was believable and whilst there are some little grammar niggles it worked and I particularly enjoyed seeing all loose ends resolved.

I’m now looking forward to seeing what Christa is writing next.

For £1.87 I expected a lot less.

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

Over the next week I will be spending around 50 hours travelling though I think that’s a rather conservative estimate. My journey involves: Bus, bus, coach, coach, train and bus and the same in reverse for the return journey.

I’m not annoyed about it, after all I chose it and I know I can sleep well on coaches and now have a Kindle, but it’s still quite strange knowing all that time is looming.

I will most likely be tweeting about it as well and most likely use the #CatIsOnACoach hashtag. Feel free to follow it!

Thanks to the amazing, brilliant [insert others here] Joe who bought it off my Amazon Wishlist, I now have a Kindle which arrived today. You know, the item I put on my wishlist thinking no one in their right mind would ever buy it for me!

I’ve played with it a little bit, but have unfortunately been quite busy this afternoon and not yet had the chance to read anything on it properly. I have, however, bought some books for it and downloaded a lot of free ones.

I’m particularly looking forward to having the Kindle over the 50 hours travelling I’ll be doing the next week to and from the Fatherland. More on that another time.

Thank you, Joe!

My Kindle activity which includes shared quotes and finished books. I blog about books I’ve read in the ‘Books‘ category. And, finally, my Amazon Wishlist includes upcoming books I am planning to read.

The book was published in 1844 and is adapted for American society from an original English centred book. Its subjects range from letters of introduction to fashion, conversation and general views on society. I believe the most commonly used word throughout the book is ‘vulgar’ which pretty much describes anything that could possibly be fun.

Obviously this book is terribly outdated with views to modern society and whole chapters on leaving visitor’s cards when calling upon a lady are something that doesn’t apply at all. Other parts on relying on servants to serve dinner or not following fashion are also something that wouldn’t apply in today’s society.

There is nothing more plebian than thin bread at dinner. [Page 40]

Quite a few ideas behind it do apply though, particularly with the conversation section and should still be read for that. It mentions not to talk over others or talking too loudly or whispering with others whilst in company.

Mothers should be on their guard not to repeat nursery anecdotes or bon-mots, as, however interesting to themselves, they are seldom so to others. [Page 97]

Reading this book reminded me of reading an etiquette book when I was in primary school. It used to either belong to my mum or my grandma and was aimed at young girls and teens. I only remember one section dealing with going to an ice cream parlour with a male friend and how every girl should pay attention to not sit within view of a mirror to avoid looking into it during conversation and possibly getting distracted, as well as to never spur the male companion on to do anything daring, such as ordering the largest ice cream!

As a whole etiquette, just like language, is still important. Whether it applies to replying to Facebook messages in a timely manner, something I am always failing at, or how to act within a group or people, it is a skill that needs to be learned. Hopefully though with a little bit more up to date book.

In addition to hearing Captain Hastings’ ‘I say’ or ‘good Lord’ or ‘that girl’s a corker’ it’s obvious that language has evolved since then. A recent episodes had two examples within the same conversation. Whilst discussing a male character the two women said ‘awfully nice’ and ‘frightfully attractive’ which nowadays would be more negative descriptions. I can’t think ever using the adjective ‘frightfully’ to describe something positive.

Tweeting about this sparked a conversation and Kyle told me about the paper he just handed in for university. “Are spelling, punctuation and grammar relevant anymore?”

His conclusion is that it still is more than relevant not only professionally, but also socially and that technology aids us with the help of spellcheck.

Back in 2006 I first blogged about language and my hate for txt spk. None of that has changed.

I’ve been on Last.fm since 2008 and have blogged about it before. Stats fascinate me, but not nearly as much as visualisations created based on the stats.

Saw LastGraph linked on Mark’s blog and created my own graph from joining Last.fm until now.

It’s interesting to see what over 60000 listens look like and even more interesting is being able to tell what album or artists I’ve discovered when. For example The Kooks in September or The Foo Fighters back in January 2009.

The entire Last.fm listening graph for carocatuk. It’s 148MB!

This showed in the form of nightmares and the unusual desire not wanting to live on my own any more has resulted in three moves since then and a number of new friends and housemates. I also got another laptop again.

Thinking back to the first half of 2011 is scary – my life was a complete mess and whilst I was trying to deal with the fallout of it, the constant illnesses and the moves, a lot of other things fell short. I struggled with work yet at the same time was happy to have the regularity and structure of it and not having to think on how messed up my life was. On the other hand I also struggled with friendships and particularly on how to deal with arguments I wasn’t expecting, as well as acquaintances drifting away.

But I got there and it’s not longer really affecting my life.

I’ve written about @satscenes before [though the post is hardly worth clicking through to!] and I’m quite proud that I’ve managed to submit a satscene for every Saturday this year with one hitch once where @akaSylvia graciously allowed me to submit one late.

Satscenes are “photographs of people enjoying their Saturday from around the world” with the only rule being that they must have been taken on a Saturday in their respective timezone. Submission is through Twitter by sending an imagelink to @satscenes and including a location. It is the brainchild of @akaSylvia and maintained by her since Summer 2008.

Here are my 53 Satscenes submissions in 2011:

January:

• 01/01/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – My first knitted hat in progress.
• 08/01/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Earl Grey tea at @giraffetweet.
• 15/01/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – @KevFerguson’s cats!
• 22/01/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A new haircolour gone wrong.
• 29/01/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – The Oracle in Reading. I also blogged about this picture here.

February:

• 05/02/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – One of @KevFerguson’s cups.
• 12/02/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A statue in an art shop in Reading.
• 19/02/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A building in Reading at night.
• 26/02/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Another Reading night time scene. Creative. /sarcasm

March:

• 05/03/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – @KevFerguson and one of his cats.
• 12/03/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Random art [?] in TKMaxx.
• 19/03/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Why is the wool always on the other side of the room?
• 26/03/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Watching Shrek 4.

April:

• 02/04/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A quaint street in Reading town centre.
• 09/04/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Pint of beer in BoBs.
• 16/04/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A CSI pause picture with a rather magnified bug.
• 23/04/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – An Easter scene drawn by a colleague.
• 30/04/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Not all my bottles!

May:

• 07/05/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Workhouse coffee in Reading town centre.
• 14/05/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Laundry day.
• 21/05/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Reading in the garden. I think this is also the only satscene I ever submitted as the first. All the earlier timezones must have been slacking!
• 28/05/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A giant duck appears!

June:

• 04/06/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Shocked by the hike in cinema ticket prices. Went to see PotC 4.
• 11/06/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A pint of beer in the Sun Inn in Reading.
• 18/06/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A new picture in my room. Potentially the world’s most boring satscene ever submitted.
• 25/06/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A tank in Reading.

July:

• 02/07/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Caution: Murder can be hazardous to your health!
• 09/07/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A picture of a logo of the vegetarian society for a friend. Basically I forgot to take another picture.
• 16/07/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – This was the self portrait Saturday, but I was too busy with the Race for Life and just submitted a collage of my pictures from the day.
• 23/07/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Randomly stumbled across a war memorial service in Reading’s Forbury Gardens.
• 30/07/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Notice signs on the S-Bahn in Hameln [Hamelin, the town of the pied piper]. This is one of only two satscenes to be taken outside of Reading.

August:

• 06/08/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Growing basil!
• 13/08/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – The cathedral in Exeter.
• 20/08/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – #doodleblanket in progress.
• 27/08/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – New earrings looking like balls of wool!

September:

• 03/09/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Cooking leftovers.
• 10/09/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Tidying up.
• 17/09/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – All glory to Cthulhu Hypnotoad.
• 24/09/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A message on a broken glass.

October:

• 01/10/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Starting to play Deus Ex Human Revolution.
• 08/10/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Starting with Christmas knitting.
• 15/10/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Buying wool for all my Christmas knitting.
• 22/10/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Mysterious anti-climb paint seen in Reading.
• 29/10/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A scary mannequin in a charity shop’s window display.

November:

• 05/11/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Winning at Monopoly against housemates. Such curious timing that @akaSylvia had already planned to write about Monopoly for that very Saturday!
• 12/11/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – #doodleblanket in progress.
• 19/11/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Assassin’s in Skyrim.
• 26/11/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – A picture of a cat drawn on the condensation of the window. Couldn’t capture it properly though.

December:

• 03/12/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – More Christmas knitting.
• 10/12/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – My friend’s fireplace.
• 17/12/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Christmas knitting. This isn’t actually posted on tumblr as I wanted to avoid my friend seeing it.
• 24/12/2011 – tumblr link – SatScenes link – Purplelicious! Starting my very first own jumper!
• 31/12/2011 – tumblr link – Not yet posted! – Meow – Cat’s ears!

I didn’t sleep well thanks to a scratchy throat.
I started the day with lemsip. I hate lemsip.
I got wet in the rain in town.
I got hit in the back by a shopping basket.
I got wet in the rain in town. Again.
I was stuck in hell, also known as Tesco for over two hours helping out a friend.
I got wet feet.
My feet were killing me.
The kettle broke. It wasn’t me.
My new teapot drops when pouring.
I hit my right knee again.

Meh.

I completed and by now even gift-wrapped two major projects that have taken up a lot of my time of the past months and I can’t wait for Christmas purely so I can blog about it and post pictures as I’m quite proud of what I’ve done.

Overall I’m not completely happy with it though. I’ve thought for a while now that my knitting hasn’t evolved and instead of being confident with with stitches I’m winging it with everything apart from the basic knit and purl stitches. Everything else is trial and error which often makes the completed work look sloppy. Plus I’m sure I’m creating a lot of unnecessary work for myself.

Seeing that online tutorials don’t work well for me and there aren’t any classes in the area I’m going to have to start looking at other options.

Fast forward 12 hours and whilst reading a totally random blogpost [reading the blog as I'm generally interested how the world is changing for children] a long forgotten memory from my mum comes back.

Up until she got ill she used to make me sandwiches for school breaks [German schools are generally only in the mornings, no lunch] and very occasionally she would put in a note telling me she loved me or that she was hoping I have a nice day. I miss that.

I’m having one of those moments.

Took a break from Christmas knitting the other day and attempted a couple of Christmas decorations with dubious results.

I made a star of which we won’t speak of again and a Christmas tree based on this pattern.

I’m not very happy with the tree though crocheting a gold border around it gave it some stability and form. Its original finish made it look like an Ent, as @RebeccaAJones suggested! She also had some fantastic ideas for other knitted ‘Lord of the Rings’ related Christmas decorations, such as Christmas Treebeard, “Merry” Christmas, SamWISE MAN Gamgee, GandELF which I’m sure already exists! It’s also curious timing as I am currently watching the first LotR film for the umpteenth time.

Best tweet of the day, however, came from @DjDATZ resurrecting an old Xzibit meme: I heard you like trees, so I put a tree in your tree so you can tree while you tree!

With regards to the Christmas knitting I appear to be doing better than I thought despite having just unravelled about 3000 stitches due to making something too long. I realised the mistake a while back, but put off unravelling it until now. My to-do list is still long, but no longer seems impossible. Plus I’m sure I’ll finish lots over the next days as each LotR film is about four hours long.

And then it all went wrong and I hurt my thumb.

My current progress:

• One project is 98% complete.
• One project is 90% complete.
• One project is 50% complete.
• One project is not yet started.
• One project is 40% complete and deferred until that friend’s birthday in January.
• One project is 95% complete, but ties in with another project that is not yet started.

So it’s all a matter of getting it done and at the same time continuing to knit through the pain. Brilliant.

Of course once I have completed those I still need to wrap them and I don’t like wrapping presents yet luckily I have a friend who enjoys it so much that she practically asked me to let her do my Christmas wrapping for me. Who am I to argue?!

Turns out wrapping presents is something that many people don’t like doing as a tweet I made yesterday showed: “Far too many people I know truly enjoy wrapping presents. I can’t be the only one that doesn’t?!” #

• Peterbcooper: I like giving people things in plastic bags.
• vegoutgirl: make that two!
• Katie1989: I love it! :D
• ernmander: I don’t like wrapping presents, mainly because I am crap at it.
• noirem: I like box shaped things and gift bags.
• _mickychaela: I usually get my brother to do it. I am so bad at it, they’d look nicer in a carrier bag!
• katupoo: I am bloody awful at wrapping. I barely even try anymore.
• NTGrace: I hate it and always leave it until the last minute :o(
• NickThomsponRG: your not the only one. There is a gift wrapping stand in the oracle which solves the problem
• DavidMurby: No, you’re definitely not the only one :)
• BenPrudden: My girlfriends Christmas present from me is to wrap my Christmas presents :P. But seriously, people do seem to like the wrapping.
• Anie67: you aren’t!
• su_lynx: add me to the list of people who enjoy wrapping presents!

Conversations following that centred around present wrapping parties [*shudders*] and wrapping me up [Noooo!]!

Those following me on Twitter will already know that I have been spending far too much time in front of my friend’s fireplace. They finally had their chimney swept and bought wood and Monday was the first time they lit it. Since then I have spent far too much time at her house for various reasons which wasn’t just the new fireplace. Honest!

And take lots and lots of pictures.

I’ve missed the smell and the sound of a real fire. We used to have an oven [wood burning stove, whatever you call it] back home in Germany which used to heat the house quite well during the winter months.

Having a real fire is a little disappointing. It’s still warm, still smells of wood burning, but it doesn’t have the long lasting heat as all of it disappears straightaway and doesn’t get contained within the oven to heat later.

I’m still enjoying it though!

It’s no secret that I love Nutella which is probably the German in me coming through! I am sometimes surprised that I like it seeing I generally am not much of a chocolate eater, but there’s just something about it.  I’ve blogged about Nutella once before, too!

When I mentioned making a Nutella hot chocolate the other day I got a number of replies from people curious about it and I realised I couldn’t really sum it up well in just one tweet so decided to make a blogpost about it which also allows me to finally use the much underused cooking category of my blog. The image at the top is from @sahfenn who simply takes much better pictures than me!

Will I like a Nutella hot chocolate? Yes, if one or all of the following apply to you:

• Do you love Nutella?
• Do you love hot chocolate?
• Do you love creamy hot chocolate?
• Do you love hot chocolate that doesn’t feel heavy?

Word of advice before you’re attempting this – You will run out of Nutella and milk a lot quicker than you can imagine as it is seriously addictive.

How to make Nutella hot chocolate:

1. Get a saucepan.
2. Measure as much milk as you want to use. I generally go for 1/2 pint.
3. Measure about a heaped tea spoon of Nutella and add to the milk.
4. Use a whisk to completely stir the Nutella into the milk.
5. Heat the milk whilst stirring vigorously to create more bubbles.
6. Either bring the milk to a boil [which is great if you love the skin on your hot chocolate, like I do] or turn off the heat just before boiling.
7. Stir for another 30 seconds to get as many bubbles as you possibly can.
8. Pour the mixture into a cup.
9. Wait at least four minutes before drinking. Trust me!
10. Enjoy!

I have various sleeping issues:

• Inability to fall asleep
• Inability to sleep more than a couple of hours
• Restless sleep
• Over-tiredness
• Being very alert
• Nightmares

I’ve attempted a lot of things to fix it, such as:

• Cutting out caffeine
• Drinking a lot of water
• Drinking very little water
• Getting a bedtime routine
• Removing distractions
• Setting different lights
• Blocking all lights
• Using earplugs
• Sleeping with an open window
• Sleeping with a shut window
• Changing my bedding
• And much more..

Normally I don’t let it affect me too much and I can deal with it, however, getting one night of good sleep normally throws me off-balance for weeks.

I woke up last week Tuesday after the best night’s sleep I could remember in a very long time. It was free from nightmares and lasted seven amazing hours. Of course since then it’s been worse than normal and I am now tired and it will me a while to get used to it again.

As it turns out I have ‘De Quervain syndrome‘ which is a fancy term for a form of tendinitis most commonly occurring with women. It most likely was not caused by knitting though which makes me happy[ish]:

The cause of de Quervain’s disease is not known. In medical terms, it remains idiopathic.

Some claim that this diagnosis should be included among overuse injuries and that repetitive movements of the thumb are a contributing factor, but there are no scientific data that support a link between hand use and de Quervain’s.

Basically looking at that Wikipedia article and elsewhere on the ‘nets it’s pretty much something that gets thrown around, but no one really knows what causes it and what actually makes it better. Not that it would actually make a difference as all the GP said was:

“Well, here’s this prescription gel which you shouldn’t take for more than a week and we’ll see how it goes in about a couple of weeks or so. Oh and if you’re feeling lots of discomfort [I do, this is after me telling her how even getting dressed hurts] do take Ibuprofen tablets, but they’ll probably give you stomach issues so you’ll have to see about that.”

I’m glad I’ve wasted this morning just to get annoyed and now officially worried about a situation I can’t change. I didn’t want to go to the GP this morning knowing exactly that they wouldn’t do anything about it. The only reason I made the appointment was at the insistence of two friends who don’t really seem to understand that I’d much rather be writhing in pain and complain about it then have the injustice and frustration with every GP appointment and also still complain about the pain and my following bad mood.

I have never in my life had a good GP, family doctor, dentist, specialist or anything. Being in the presence of doctors makes me angry based on all the previous experiences and nothing good ever comes from it, especially not earlier this year though that finally sorted itself. Instead I’m left with a hand that still hurts with a gel that doesn’t do much [and cost lots of money] and still angry at the appointment over twelve hours later.

I realise I have issues.