one good apple

It’s 8am on a Saturday morning and I’m typing this whilst making strange noises at Donald in order to make him stop chewing the wallpaper.  I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what it is that is so incredibly tasty about wallpaper but he doesn’t just rip it off, he attempts to eat it too.  The wall that appears to be his kill zone is now covered with LPs in order to dissuade him from chewing.  This hasn’t worked, he just moves them to one side and continues nibbling.  Sometimes, in a moment of ingenuity I’ll move the records around while he’s not looking so that they’re in a different order.  Then I watch him as he hops along, examining them and looking for his ‘in’ to the wall, in this case The Velvet Underground by The Velvet Underground, push it to one side and realise, hey, this isn’t the bit of wall I was working on earlier!  And then I observe, in much the same way as I imagine Brody and Hooper and Quint observed when that massive shark in Jaws started systematically dismantling the boat, the little sod knock down each and every record leaning against the wall until he finds his ‘patch’ and gets back to work.  Of course, he eats the record too now.  He has a particular fondness for the Bob Dylan ones, and Buffalo Springfield.  I couldn’t tell you why but Bruce Springsteen doesn’t interest him at all, nor does Van Morrison.

With this in mind, and having watched The Money Pit yet again last night whilst waiting for Dirty Sexy Money to start I cross-stitched this,

Just need a dilapidated house pattern to use as a border and I’m golden. 

I started making a coat last weekend but couldn’t be bothered to do the last bits of finishing - the button holes, the hemming, the dull stuff that if I was a millionaire I would get someone else to do - so that’s my job for this morning.  We have no plans for this weekend other that going to John’s mother’s on Sunday to give his dad his birthday present so I’ll probably spend the rest of the day fiddling with bits and bobs in the house and maybe have a trot into town. 

Going into town means I get to go on the bus.  I love going on the bus.  So much so that if I’m meeting someone in town and I’m running late I’ll still hang around at the bus stop for ten minutes to see if one’ll come along before I flag a taxi down.  On the bus you get to read and listen to music and it doesn’t matter how much you had to drink the night before.  You can listen to other people’s conversations and look at things out of the window when you go past.  I get to do none of these things on the fourty minute drive to and from work five days a week. 

Because of this whole Capital of Culture thing her at the moment there’s loads of building work going on and lots of old places being torn down.  One of the old houses my bus route goes past has the whole front taken off and you can see the old wallpaper and fireplaces and shelves still on the remaining walls.  It even has part of the staircase still intact.  I love looking in an imagining what it was like to live there.  When I was a kid I used to stand on my head with my back against the sofa and imagine what it would be like to live on the ceiling.  I suppose this is the logical, slightly more grown up version of doing that.

So, to town, to town, to buy presents for the Magic Yarn Ball swap I’m doing on Craftster at the moment.  And maybe a treat or two for myself too.  I’ll put these two to good use too I think,

Have a good weekend x 

Not got much mojo this week.  I think it’s probably a combination of going back to school and this miserable weather we’re having at the moment.  I mean, snow?  In April?  Come on… 

So anyway, I’ve consoled myself with embroidery and made this picture

that was meant to fit into a frame and be part of my mum’s birthday present.   Too big for the frame.  Meh.  It can become something else when I get a little more motivated.  I also finished off a shopping bag for my sister,

This week a kid who left school last year came in to say hello to me and let me know how he was getting on.  This is a kid who last year was banned from my classroom for forcibly berating me on the corridor because I’d ask him to leave the class.  And he wasn’t just banned from the classroom, he wasn’t even allowed to talk to me on the corridor, in the canteen, the whole kit and caboodle.  The whole thing had straightened itself out by the time he left, but if there was one kid I would not expect to want me to know what he is up to now, then it would be him.  And there he was bright as day and I was really very proud of him. 

When you work in a school you tend to get really insular.  The seasons come and go and the kids move up the school ladder but as soon as they leave you don’t really think too much about what happens to them.  So it was nice to see someone who just wasn’t made for school doing well in the real world.  It also made me realise why some people say in the same school for the whole of their career.  There’s something very comforting and cocoon-like about being in a place where not a whole lot changes.  Of course there are changes and there areunbelievable pressures that you have to cope with every day but there’s a lot of safety there too.  Like Neverland but with league tables and target grades, stacks of marking and not time to do it, kids who can’t wait to get out and grown ups saying, ‘I’m sorry, is my lesson interrupting your conversation?’

Today I’m going out for a pad around my neighbourhood with a Brownie Cresta II camera I got for £1 at a car boot sale a couple of weeks ago.  I’d bought it more for show than anything else so was quite surprised when I got home to find that it would work and had nothing missing.  Then it’s shepherd’s pie for tea, the only meal I cook that John actually enjoys eating. I’m quite the Gordon Ramsey you know … x 

This time tomorrow I’ll have finished my first day back at school.  That Sunday feeling just doesn’t go away.  You know the one, where you think about getting up and getting ready and that bit of homework you were meant to do on the first day of the holidays but put off and put off and put off…  At least tomorrow the kids won’t be there so we’re sort of eased back into the whole thing.

The stupid thing is that the year goes by ridiculously quickly.  One moment it’s September, dark and cold and dreary, and the next you’re saying year 11 kids, ‘Only six more weeks till your exams start so let get busy!’ *yeah right*  Time goes too quickly and you don’t even notice it’s happening.  Oh, for a time machine…

Blustery is finished up and blocking at the moment, with it’s mismatched buttons.  It wasn’t meant to have mismatched buttons, the one I was going to use were too small for the button holes I made so I had to resort to my stash,

The lack of sleeves in a waistcoat are an obvious bonus when you’re desperate to finish a piece before the evening is out.  I also made these slippers with a pattern from Burdastyle,

Tha Wizard of Oz, Japanese style.  These were incredibly easy to make although I did make two left feet by accident, hence the reason one inside is red and the other patterned.  More a testament to my stupidity than anything else.

I’m going to combat those back to school blues now with a little embroidery and some telly.  Oh, and some rabbit snuggling x

Oh I’ve been busy.  Well, crafty busy.  In terms of real life, clean the cobwebs from the ceiling and make sure you’ve done the hoovering, I’ve not been busy at all.  Slovenly, in fact.  But I’m on holidy so who cares?  And like the prodigal daughter I have returned to my knitting these last few days and made a lace ribbon scarf,

for the Miss Marple swap.  I was meant to post this today but it is currently blocking on the radiator but will, tomorrow, be winging it’s way to Finland.  This is the first ever lace project that I’ve not messed up in some way, shape or form and I’m unfeasibly happy with it.  I will be sorry to see it go but I have plans in mind for one of my own soon.

I also got into the spirit of the eighties this week and cast on two pairs of leg warmers.  Our flat gets very cold during the day - we have landlord controlled heating - so these will come in very handy.  It’s strange how even when it’s warm outside and old, high ceiling-ed flat is quite chilly.  The pair I have finished are from One Skein and made using some yarn gifted to me by Mandy during Secret Pal 11,

The other pair are from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and are a lot more basic in that you cast on, K1 P1 to infinity and beyond and cast off.  I’ll post when they are finished but I’m only half way through the first one at the moment so…  I am magic looping them though.  I used this great tutorial and as far as I am concerned now, this is the only way to knit in the round.

I’m off to eat chips and gravy and read some Agatha Christie x

My mum came up to Liverpool on Thursday and we went out and did some touristy things that I wouldn’t have done if she wasn’t there.  St Georges Hall,

and the Walker Art Gallery,

St George’s Hall was particularly good, the last time I went was for a Freshers Fair in my first year of uni and nothing will spoil the ambiance of a place more than obnoxious students. 

It’s kind of a sad story but the man who made the hall killed himself not long after it had been completed.  You see, what happened was, they built it the wrong way round.  On day one of construction someonehad the plan, looked at it, and placed the first stone.  Then the second and the third and well, you get the idea, without realising that it was facing the opposite direction to what it should be.  So what you have now is the most amazing building, a total testament to Liverpool as an economic and social force, that has it’s back to it’s own ornamental tiered gardens and instead chooses to face a busy main road. 

I’ve always had an ‘I can do that’ attitude to making things.  Rainy Saturday afternoons of my childhood would be spent with a piece of fabric, some thread and a picture in my head of what I wanted by the end of the day.  And now, when I see a top or dress I like I automatically look at how it’s made  up and try to figure out how I would do that myself.  Of course half the joy of doing this used to be that what I would make would end up being significantly cheaper than the top I saw in the shop.  You don’t really get that any more, not now we have places that sell blouses for five quid and dresses for ten.

So now the pleasure comes from the fact that what your making is pretty unique.  I mean, the combination of fabrics and the way the finished item actually looks, even with the same pattern you have endless possibilities.  My grandma taught dress making at college and I often wish I took more time on sewing than I already do.  Yesterday I made this,

from a Simplicity pattern.   I’m going to wear it today, John and I are planning on going to Port Sunlight if the weather cheers up a little bit.  I also embroidered a shopping bag during the week and finished it off yesterday while the machine was out,

See that leopard print strip at the bottom?  That’s where my wash out embroidery pencil didn’t wash out.  The ghosts of cavorting animals have been gobbled up by a big cat.

Of course the best thing about this week is the fact that I am now on my Easter holidays.  Two whole weeks of *almost* nothing to do.  I’ve not had too much school work to bring home owing to the fact that I’ve been running around like a headless chicken the last two weeks to give myself a chance to breathe.  Happy Easter x

I’ve been tagged by the lovely Jenn who was my first ever swap giftee though god knows why anyone would want to know the following things about me…

La rules,

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I love the smell that comes out of drains when you’re really close to the water level.  This is one of the reasons why I loved Berlin.  My mum and sister went out shopping the other day and caught a whiff of that sewage smell and my mum told Jane, ‘Emily would love that’ and Jane had to phone me up and ask because she didn’t believe it.

2. Having said that, when we used to go to the dump to drop stuff off we used to drive past the sewage works and I would have a panic attack that somehow I would fall in and smell forever like in The Labyrinth and the Bog of Eternal Stench.

3. I was a horrible teenager.  Think about your worst nightmare and double it.  I don’t know how my mum put up with me.  Sometimes when a kid is giving out to me at school I feel like telling them to give up, they’re talking to a professional.  I never swore at my mum though.

4. When we were little we used to have picnics in front of the fire on a Sunday afternoon where we’d toast bread and marshmallow and eat the left over Yorkshire puddings from dinner with golden syrup and watch The Box of Delights or Chronicles of Narnia on the telly.

5. I hate to drive because I can’t look at of the window at the scenery.  I can look at the car in front and the car behind and that’s it.  My drive to work takes forty minutes each way.  That was a smart choice.

6. Even though I’m nowhere near being a fan of Elton John, I can’t listen to Your Song without crying.  It has no association with another place or time or person whatsoever but I still start to well up the second it begins.

Good grief, I’m odder than I thought… I will now tag Mick, who makes scarves that make me jealous, Mandy, my first ever swap gifter, Fatema, my UK Swap giftee and Meg, who made me an amazing scarf for the Miss Marple Swap.  I know I’m meant to pick six.

My view of the Neil Young gig on Wednesday.  And he moved around.  A lot.  This is what I get for saying my mum was wrong about something.  But he was amazing (Mr Young not the baldy man in front).  I can’t believe I’ve been.  I can’t believe how much I’ve spoken about it, to John, his mate who went the night before, friends at work, kids in the classroom, everyone.   Take deep breaths.  Re-adjust.

Twenty eight today.  I remember my mum once telling me that as you get older, your birthday gets less important and less exciting.  I mean.  Telling that to a kid surrounded by presents who can only see endless gift filled birthdays in her future.  Meh.

Now there’s not many things that my mum has ever been wrong about, apart from banning us from watching Grange Hill and trying that whole reverse psychology thing on me when I took my Grade 2 Clarinet exam, but this is one of them. 

When I got into work today I was presented with a huge chocolate cake by one of my colleagues.  And other things, but most importantly, chocolate cake.  Pretty good going for a Tuesday morning. 

So we share it in the staffroom and I potter along to my next lesson where I am presented with a chocolate cake by some of the kids.  And other things, but most importantly, chocolate cake.  My second chocolate cake of the day.  In your face mum.  Your right/wrong tally is shifting, lady.  If you’re wrong about this, what else could you be wrong about?

And chocolate cake aside, the most exciting part of my birthday is who I’m seeing tomorrow night,

Even better than a chocolate cake hat trick.  On Thursday I’m going to be the annoying kid that tries to show you a video clip of the concert they went to last night but all you can see is the head of the person in front of them and some flashing lights a long way away.  Look!  Look!  There he is playing ‘Like a Hurricane’!  Can’t you see him?!

A whole separate post for this beauty - my UK Swap parcel arrived yesterday!

There was also a bar of After Eight dark chocolate there but it didn’t;t last long once it was out of the parcel.  Some gorgeous purple yarn as well as some undyed to dye as I see fit, a lovely crochet hook case, Body Shop bath goodies, including Coconut Body Butter which is just divine, some adorable buttons and some cards for my Gocco.  Thank you secret pal, you’ve made my Saturday!  Now I just need to figure out who you are so I can thank you in *blog* person!