Inside and out

This past week involved a lot of Inside Time (weather issues) and no knitting (who picked Jurassic Park for movie night? Nobody can knit with sweaty hands!) 

Thankfully the inside of our house is full of nice things to look at. These paintings are by my friend Wrona, and they are teeny tiny compared to her usual huge cloudscape canvases which she paints with her hands while sitting on top of them. There's a video of her at work, at the link!

Anyway: we had a fleeting few hours yesterday that were super nice out, so Pete and I grabbed our chance for a big walk into the ravine, and I took pictures for you.

This is a shared path for cyclist, dog-walkers, runners, walkers, and people who just want to be around a lot of trees. (me, waving both hands.)

There are often some really interesting species of fungi to look at!

From the edge of the path you can see it's quite a drop to the more groomed gardeny part of the park. It might not show in this picture, but I thought you might love it anyway. I do, especially from this safe distance, heh.

By contrast, this is the view looking up:

Forests: they are such classics, all over the world.

When you get to the bottom of the trail the bike path goes on into this meadow. It's different in every season but summer lush greenery is my fave... I'm always surprised by those tall buildings in the distance.

 

In reality, the ravine is bordered by busy roads with traffic you can trick yourself into believing is running water. Isn't it wild that in the heart of a big city, you can just wander into all this green space? I feel so, so lucky to be near enough to walk to it.

 

Water runs through the whole ravine, and the paths twist and cross over it in a bunch of different places. Those last two pictures are the view from either side of a bridge. I can never decide which I like best! Do you have a favourite?

Queen Anne's Lace dots so much of the path in this part of the park. They're super elegant. 

Here's another little section I love. These two trees that look like they're somehow dancing together!

Or maybe just talking.

Today the weather is terrible again so I'll be staying in and revising yet another manuscript. After all this time, I still love writing more than anything, which is saying something, isn't it? 

Hope your day is wonderful, whether you're stuck in or otherwise. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday! 

 

Flower power

Sooo... I was sick all week. Too sick for knitting or sewing or anything crafty, really. Instead of our usual Hugs fare, let's look at some gorgeous flowers!

A super talented friend arranged these wildflowers in dollar-store drinking glasses for centrepieces at a 50th wedding anniversary party and I absolutely loved them. 

Some of these petals are so tiny!

 

While I was sick I moved from sleeping, to listening to podcasts and falling asleep during them, to streaming shows and sleeping on breaks from them, until finally I was well enough to read a book. 

My pick: Rosemary's Baby. Not that I'm a horror girl, but I'd heard it was well written and I cannot argue that point whatsoever. It is FABULOUS. I might have to stop when it gets to the really scary bits but the opening chapters I've consumed so far are just so easy to read and hard to put down. Lucky I slept so much the last few days, amiright?

 

Ira Levin, who wrote it, also wrote The Stepford Wives which I had not known was a book. Definitely a theme there, for me and for him. But his first, A Kiss Before Dying, was such a fantastic film I am pretty sure I'll have to read that too. How did I miss all these greats? Probably because I was on the Classic English Lit track. Anyway: gifts for my future self, as I always think of them. If you read everything at once, what's left for later?

Since this subject is less Hug than Boa Constrictor, let's move on. The good news is, I'm mostly all mended now, and have celebrated by cleaning and dusting and washing my sheets and pyjamas for a fresh start that doesn't involve lying in or near the bed all day. 

And with luck, next week will include something craftable you'll enjoy more than my horror movie musings. Until then (and please note that I am not at all mentioning the tiny caterpillar I found on this desk a couple of days after bringing in these arrangements aiiiieeeeee don't worry we ushered it safely back outside) thanks for coming by and I hope you have a great weekend!

 

 

 

Knit n natter

Ugh the heat! You cannot work with heavy textiles in the heat. Not a big blanket, and not a mohair blend sock either. 

This one's up to the chompy stage and can't manage so much as a nip. Just limpness and a plea for water. 

So instead (after cooling and watering that poor blue sock), I've done work on a stripy, having been reminded by last week's photoshoot how much I love Vesper sock yarn.

Still haven't found a new sock yarn source. Really need to work on that. But it's so easy to distract myself from that problem by binge-watching some new series, or one I missed when it first came out. After I finished almost all of The X-Files, which wasn't quite the way I remembered it, I started in on The Mentalist. I hadn't seen a single episode of that and I wasn't especially interested to start, but whoa: loved it! Loved every season. Loved the series finale too, when I finally got to see it last night. 

And now I need something else to watch while I finish this sock. I'm thinking about the new season of Enola Holmes, or a re-watch of the last few episodes of Person of Interest, or a good sit-down with The Boroughs, from the Duffer Brothers. 

There's something about creepy crimey shows that's always appealed to me. Surely not as an outcropping of my childhood love of Nancy Drew mysteries... but maybe.

Oh, and by the way: did I ever give my black handknit cat her closeup?

She has a fish purse! (We're in my air-conditioned office for these pix, which I've renamed The Treehouse for the summer.  I love working at my desk here, with my fish-purse cat for company.)

Speaking of Nancy Drew, I reread The Secret of the Old Clock not too long ago and it held up so much better than expected. It was a 1950s tweed cover edition, so I got the whole tactile appeal of holding a real book that opens up easily to each page.

Sorry, just had to interrupt myself with a closeup of my beloved coaster from the gift shop at the (truly excellent) London Transport Museum. The 'm' uses the actual typeface from the Tube!

Usually when I'm reading these days, it's ebooks on my new Kobo Libra Colour. This week I finished Mary Stewart's Touch Not The Cat, from 1976, which now that I think of it is another creepy crimey story. She wrote so lyrically, I just sink into her work. I think only John Berendt, writing Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil, affects me the same way. 

That book, I read in a trade paperback I deeply regret loaning out or else packing into a box in the garage when we renovated, only to be lost to raccoons. The new editions either don't appeal to me or have a huge sticker over the otherwise fabulous cover. Ugh, amiright?

 

Anyhoo.... I've been knitting again, while watching things, and it's been really nice, and I didn't appreciate how much I've missed it. Do you find you have ebbs and flows with your knitting?

Either way: hope you have a fabulous weekend! Thanks for spending this bit of it with me and I look forward to seeing you again next Saturday. In the meantime, I'll no doubt be dipping into this second sock, and trying to grow it to the chompy stage. It'd be fun to have one of the pair face off with Mr. Mohair, don't you think?