Cambridge again!

Hello Dear readers,

This weekend Chris and I went to Cambridge, our favorite place to relax and visit old friends.  We usually just hang out at Molly and George's place, but this time I wanted to go into the city and walk around a bit.  We had lunch in an old converted church (they do that here), then walked around window shopping and admiring the colleges.

We checked out Trinity College, with it's patron King Henry VIII I believe.  This one is famous for having had Issac Newton, among others.

And this apple tree out front supposedly came from a pip from THE apple tree in Newtons yard..... though a simple core sample would probably show that the tree isn't really that old.

Baby Katelyn has decided to skip crawling in favor of going straight to walking.  It's more exercise for her and for her mom.

but how can you say no to this face?

I think she's grown about 6 inches taller than when we saw her in October, and she eats as much as me now!  We had really good food when we were up there, and Saturday night Molly and George went out to dinner for George's birthday. As a birthday gift Chris and I volunteered to babysit Katelyn.  It consisted of listening to the baby monitor after she had gone to bed at 7:30, so Chris ordered a pizza and we watched Fresh Prince of Bel Air on TV.  It felt like we were a couple of teenagers on a babysitting date. I pity the pizza delivery guy though, when he came I was shushing him furiously (and had just put on a green face mask) because I didn't want the dog to bark and/or Katelyn to wake up!

Finally, I never walk away from Molly's place empty handed. This time Molly asked if I would be interested in her bread machine.  She had asked for it as a birthday present, but after many many tries and experimentation, she couldn't get the kind of loaves she wanted from it, and they don't have a lot of space in their house for something they can't use.  I took it with me all the way home on the train, tube and bus but it was worth it.  It is almost exactly like the machine I had and LOVED in college and graduate school, and I made two loaves in as many days.  For me the most tedious part of bread baking is kneading and rising, and the best part is the experimenting and eating, so a bread machine is great.  This one also has the jam setting, which will come in handy when my veg box sends me fruit that I'm just not that into.

All in all a very restful and happy trip.  So often I come back from travel just exhausted and have to go straight into work, but this was a good one.

Next week, some more of my finished New Years Resolution projects, which are waiting to be photographed.

Cheers

Old year project and new years resolution project #1

Hello Dear Readers,

What really keeps me from posting when I want to is poor lighting, which means I can't take photos of the things I want to share. It's usually dark when I get home, so if I don't take a picture on the weekend, it's too late. Fortunately I went in to work a little later today so I was able to take some snaps this morning.

This is the first project finished for my new years resolution to work my way through Last Minute Knitted Gifts, the Baby Hat.  I'm pleased with the way the cotton looks, and how it matches the original in the photo.  I'm trying hard to follow instructions, not an easy task for me but that's why it's a new years resolution.

I'm currently working on the light and airy scarf, it's beautiful in some blue mohair given to me by Icy when she left the knitting group.

I also snapped some photos with the self timer this morning of my Chickadee sweater that I've been working on off and on since Sept.  I finished before Christmas, but didn't get around to photos. Not sure how happy I am with it, it fits really nicely, but the colorwork seems to put people in mind of bad Christmas sweaters....though the birdies are really sweet.

  I also love the vintage buttons that I picked up at Prick Your Finger in Bethnel Green.  I cycled over there this weekend, 10 miles, along the river, through the city and out to the East side. It's so wonderful to be able to cycle anywhere, and have such views.  I went by  Big Ben, saw the London Eye, and went past St. Pauls, The Gherkin, and all the skylines.  Also went by the Tower bridge accidentally, but hey, getting lost is all part of the fun.

Still, it's been a fun knit, and nice to have a new sweater.  There is also a woman's sweater pattern in the Last Minute Gifts book which I will attempt to do with the white camel I got from my friend Lucy when she was in China.

The Christmas Gift that Kept on Giving......me a headache

Hello Dear Readers,

Here I am in sunny warm Cyprus!  I had intended this to be a blog intensive trip, full of photos of the fun stuff Chris and I were doing this time since he promised that we wouldn't do chores or see lots of relatives.  Well, he partially kept his promise in that I spent almost the first full week in bed (starting on Christmas Day) with a nasty, knock down cold courtesy of Chris.  According to his family, the cause of my cold was the change in weather in Cyprus, as it had just turned "cold" (14 C/ 60 F) when we got there. I pointed out that it was actually warmer than in England, which then changed the story to, "the drastic change in temperatures is what caused my illness."  I pointed out that Chris had the same bad cold a week before, but that didn't seem to make any difference, and people mused that traveling such a long distance in an airplane the day before probably also contributed to the cold.  So either it was the fact that it was cold in Cyprus, or much warmer than the UK, or traveling great distances, but not living with a sneezey coughing Chris that caused my illness.  Only by wrapping up warm and sweating it out could I recover, oh, or I could take antibiotics.  Sigh.  I think it was more tiring trying to explain basic biology principles than actually being sick.  I'm still stuffy and coughing, and seem to have pulled a small muscle in my chest with all the hacking, but I'm trying to cram in a few fun things now that I am vertical before we fly out tomorrow!

Before I got too ill, we were able to visit our friends Stavros and Margarita who have two little boys.  I love to make things for them, last year I did the sock monkeys and this year it was a dragon and a lamb.  For some reason Andreas was afraid of the lamb at first, but he took to it eventually with his usual good humour.  Somehow he seems to have skipped the terrible twos.  Here is his baby brother with the dragon I made him, lots of good sticky out parts for him to put in his mouth, which is exactly what I intended, along with some safety eyes that he can really get his teeth into.

Christmas day was a very quiet affair, as only myself, Chris, his mother and aunt and uncle were home (and I was in bed the whole day), but being Greek Orthodox Christmas isn't really celebrated, it's New Years (at midnight) that St. Basil comes and delivers gifts to children.  Chris's cousin and her boyfriend were here for New Years, and somehow we got into a discussion about traditional clothes.  Chris's aunt happened to have an old dance costume of one of her girls, which I immediatly put on and paraded about hte house in.  It's very comfortable I have to say, on a par with what I wore when I worked in Colonial Williamsburg.

 Further proof that I was born in the wrong era, I think, I make these outfits look so good!

New Years day we had the traditional lunch at his Aunt's house.  His sister's family was two ill to drive the 1.5 hours to come see us, so it was just the 7 of us.

L to R is Chris, his mother Nikki, Aunt Anna, Uncle Stephanos, Cousin Valando and her boyfriend Dolis.  I've been able to make good use of my Greek lessons this trip, though the fast paced, slang Cypriot dialect still gets the best of me most times.   Fortunately I've been able to use the time I wasn't comatose to finish up a sweater order that I got before I left. 

Yesterday we drove to the Capitol to see Chris's sister and her family.  His mother spent the whole day before cooking and buying food because she seems to think that the largest and capitol city in the island is a desert, devoid of food and, apparently, quality eggs.  It was a bit of a bust though as Odie is deep in his terrible twos stage, every item in the house is his, and you can't touch it or you get a whack with a plastic wrench.  When given a book as a gift from his great Aunt, he proceeded to tear the whole thing apart while his father watched and sighed "Oh dear, tsk tsk." Hmmm, someone really needed a nap, or perhaps everyone.  Not really endearing him to me yet, but I remember my brother was a little brat as a kid, so I'm hoping in 10-15 years he'll be fine.......

Today is our last full day, and it's sunny and warm.  I'm finishing up a job application (it's a never ending process in these austere times) and Chris is doing his annual servicing of his cousin's computer.  Afterwards we'll take a stroll on the new path by the sea and pick up a few groceries that we can't find in the UK.  Tomorrow it's back home to England, and snug in my own bed again!  I hope that Patrick has fufilled his promise to repaint the kitchen, we'll see....

Hope all my dear readers had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I think I've slept enough this week to last me through the rest of my contract at the Museum, and feel refreshed and ready to tackle the new years resolutions I've made.

Cheers.