Please (cough) excuse this (cough, cough) ridiculous, hacking cough (cough), but I've had (c... you get the idea) a chest infection for the past week, and I sound like I got lost in a cigarette factory as it caught fire. There's quite a bit of water in this post, but I'll get to that in a minute. Here's the view from a small rowing boat, under a bridge in Oxford. The second-worst thing about this has been not being able to go running, and the worst thing has been not being able to do much Continue Reading
May
Despite appearances, this is still a knitting/crochet/running blog. But following your reactions to the last post, I thought that some of you might want to know that this happened with Robyn-the-robin. Repeatedly:- Hello, beautiful. She ate from my hand, too, but I didn't manage to get a picture of that. Sometimes one of the twinnage joins me on the bench waiting quietly for her to arrive, but Robyn is wary of my boys - she stares from the fence as though to say, "Look mate, I've got a Continue Reading
Springy
As seasons go - and man, do they go fast for those of us on the less popular side of 40 - spring has a lot to recommend it. The very best thing is that nature stops hiding its colourful light under a damp, grey, bushel, and comes out to frolic. Look at these beautiful snakeshead fritillaries! It's trickier than usual to be miserable when there's so much new life around, such as the bottle-fed lambs in the twinnage's friend's garden. Meet Alfie. Alfie is trouble. But Alfie Continue Reading
Outdoors Inspiration
I was browsing Facebook the other evening, when I came across this post by Koliber Anna Droździoł. Freeform crochet landscape dresses. How beautiful?! She's done a stupendously brilliant job. I love the exuberance, the colours, the technical skill, everything about this. (Also, I would so wear this.) It got me thinking, and now I'm wondering whether I should make a dress or a skirt based on the landscape around here in Oxfordshire. If you've been here for any longer than it takes the twinnage Continue Reading
Pondlife
May I show you something? It's not yarn-related, but I do plan to spend a lot of time beside it knitting and crocheting. You see, I'm making progress on the wildlife pond. It's nowhere near done, but I've finished digging, and it does at least now contain WATER. One day soon, the edges will be concealed, the lawn will be re-turfed, more rocks will be added, and most importantly, some coir mats will arrive (from these marvellous folk), pre-planted with native water-loving vegetation. Then, this Continue Reading
Outdoors
Yikes, I did NOT intend to go quiet on you for so long, but there's scarcely even been time to knit/crochet! What with the twinnage, and redeveloping the garden, and lots of new patients to assess at work, and a stonking big yarn-related writing commission, and marathon training, and... and... and... I'm sure you get the gist. Talking of marathon prep, it turns out that there's more to the training than just eating all the pasta, so I've been upping my running... and eating all the pasta. If Continue Reading
Yeah, Just Some Pictures Of Oxfordshire That I Knitted.
Want to see some knitted pictures of the Oxfordshire landscape? Those of you who've been here for so long that the seat of your chair has moulded itself to the shape of your perfectly-proportioned posterior may remember this post. Executive summary: I set off around south Oxfordshire in search of the perfect view to photograph for a yarn-related project, and ended up finding a door that may - or may not - have been the portal to another dimension. Anyway. The project in question was this: I Continue Reading
Out Of My Comfort Zone And Into A Studio
Can you hear that? Listen! Silence... complete and blissful silence. Ah, bliss. I'm sitting in a hotel room in West Yorkshire, overlooking this view:- There's even a little bit of snow! Yup, it's the beginning of another Stylecraft Blogstars weekend (previous shenanigans here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). I have much to share with you about the weekend already, but that will have to come in a separate post. For now, let's catch up on the last few days. Let's begin with some Continue Reading
Yarn. Oxford. Also, Sarah The Killer Whale.
Whoa, it's cold today. (Alternative blog text for southern hemisphere readers: Gosh, isn't it warm?) We're not at ice-on-the-inside-of-the-windows levels of chill quite yet, but we can't be far off. Here at Twisted Towers, the twinnage are abed (if only to keep warm), and the Stoic Spouse and I are both choosing pastimes that don't require straying very far from the fire:- That's the Stoic Spouse on guitar, there, with me accompanying on knitting needles. It's a rare privilege to be allowed Continue Reading
Up Unhill Bottom. So To Speak.
(We have a giveaway winner to announce, at the end of this post.) This post is mostly an excuse to show you lots of outdoorsy pretties, whilst we sit and knit/hook/spin a'while. T'was a mild autumnal morning several weeks ago, and I was on a super-secret mission to photograph Oxfordshire landscapes. There is a yarn-related reason for this, and you will get to see it soon, and I'm so happy about the whole thing that I've taken to SQUEAKING excitedly. But it has to stay secret for now... so Continue Reading