All hale our Hero

Tyson the wonderful mouser

We have had a suspicion for a while that we had some vermin who had joined us in the kitchen. A couple of traps were laid but no luck. During the last week the dog kept going on alert in the kitchen and today he struck. One mouse became cactus and he duly trotted out and presented it to us. Nice and neat with a clean break to the neck. It looks he has been learning from the old girl Furzy the cat was very proud of him.

Frosty Friday

Frosty footpath and road (last year)

We have had a very cold night last night and this morning it is a balmy -4C at 5am.  There as been a light dusting of snow but I expect that to melt as soon as the sun actually hits it but that will sometime after 9am long after I have gone to work.  The kids are still hoping for snow day sorry that is not going to happen today.

Knitting wise the Ruby Ruby is sitting and looking at me with pleading brown eyes saying "pick me up, you know you want to knit".  Sorry I have to do a couple of thousand words first.

The Road to Scotland

A dear member of our Tuesday knit night is leaving Liverpool and heading back north to Scotland. Hubby has won a great job there and they needed to go as it was an oppertunity for them. So tonight we said bye bye to Scottish Anne.

You take the road to Scotland...

We will see her when she comes down to visit the hubby's family and I am pretty sure she will have visitors up in Scotland.

Mainstream media making foobars

In the last couple of weeks we have had some mainstream media foobars. The NY Times decided to run an editorial which insulted participants in NaNoWriMo and then decided to have a sideswipe at knitting and knitters in particular those who participate in NaKniSweMo. Excuse me this event is encouraging people to write and then dripping your disdain you poke at the participants. Reality check without a writing gig the author of this editorial would not have a pay check. 

The tone of the editor indicates that participants in NaNoWriMo are laughable. Excuse me my daughter participates in NaNoWriMo she has been quiet successful in fan fiction and she is only 16. This is not her first NaNoWriMo and she wants to go on an be a writer when she leaves education but she acknowledges that she will have to find another job to fund her writing.  She has already flicked journalism to the side lines cause of hacks like this editorial. Check your facts. I would suggest they visit Shannon aka knitgrrl blog for some details and the response from knitters and writers to this editorial.

Then The Huffington Post in an article on the 9th November decided to class Ravelry which has 1,000,000, yes 1 million, users as one of the strangest Social Networks. To add salt to the wound Rob Fishman from this site goes on MSNBC to again throw his disdain about again about handcrafting as being a bizarre act. Think about 1,000,000 knitters armed with knitting needles getting a chance to express their disdain for the attitudes expressed.

The start of Autumn

This week has had its up and downs but on Saturday I had a lovely trip into my favourite deli in the sunshine.  The deli is on Bold Street not far from Central station.  I had to go in to do some work so it was a 2 for 1 trip - work and deli. The trouble with where we live is that we don't have specialist food suppliers and the variety of world food in the local shops you can write on a postage stamp.

Our Cherry tree flashing a lovely
colour before dropping its leaves.

As a result of the supply run we are now stocked up on some of the essentials of life in our house, spring roll wrappers, a couple of tins of Milo, couscous, polenta, Thai fish sauce, and lots of herbs and spices that we go through at a great rate of knots.  Dinner last night was a breakout of the new package of spring roll wrappers.

Some of the Thai vegetable spring rolls
made and waiting to be fried.

Today it was another nice day of business in the sunshine. I now have another of post graduate TESOL students and this takes some of the pressure off with work and the cash finances but I will still be looking for a more permanent solution to the hourly job contracts. Came home from to town to the gorgeous smell of a crock pot full of French Onion Soup welcoming me in as I opened the front door.  

Old pic of duck socks but now at repeat 4
of 2 at time duckie socks

I seem to be back into the swing of knitting. Knitting wise for the last couple of 7 weeks or so has been a complete disaster. I have had my 15 minutes of fame but I wish it had not been over such a terrible thing. I have managed to get to the fourth repeat on the duckie socks during my trips to and from Liverpool Central on the train over this weekend. So things are looking up knitting wise. Thank goodness as I have a baby pattern test knit to finish and some time constraints for new baby items. One of the babies is scheduled to arrive this Thursday so I need to be knitting like the clappers. Nothing like a tight time frame.