I'm reading ...

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

-x-

I've finished reading ...

Transmission 2 (Ragnarok) by John Meaney

-x-

I've given up reading ...

The Road to Middle Earth by Tom Shippey

-x-

Autumn sunshine in the Vicarage garden

Off work today (there goes the best part of £100) with a cold and a temperature (38!) so it was especially pleasant to sit in the sunshine in the garden, even if it wasn't for very long.
Some flowers (not roses, but never mind):

Temperature seems to have calmed down now so normal service should be resumed tomorrow.

-x-

me vs. the Internet

Things I 'get'*:
Blogging (the following thereof)
Amazon (inc. MP3 downloader)
Kindle/e-readers
Podcasts
Twitter
Etsy
Fab/Achica

Things I'm getting*:
Ravelry
Blogger 

Things I don't get*:
Facebook
Pinterest
Picasa/Flickr
Tumblr

-x-

*i.e. can use without squinting at the screen in confusion.

I'm reading ...

The Road to Middle Earth by Tom Shippey

-x-

I've finished reading ...

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

It was loooooooooong! 

-x-

Week 3

Waist, before breakfast and after a weekend of bingeing cos I've got a cold! = 36" when resting, 35" when standing up straight.

Not bad.

-x-

*sigh*

Didn't 'fast' today and just felt horrible & bloated instead :(

Finished crochet baktus scarf Sunday but can't wear it as it needs a wash first. Started garter stitch cable baby blanket last night and, after googling 'provisional cast-on' for ages had to frog what I'd done cos I hadn't followed the pattern accurately enough - AND I don't know how I cast on 88 stitches and ended up with 89, not like me to miscount stitches. So a whole evening of knitting and absolutely nada to show for it. 

blurgh

have now spent a couple of hours on ravelry sorting out my library and stash - feeling a teensy bit better now ...

-x-

Week 2

Waist (before breakfast) = 36.5ish".

Ho hum.

-x-

The Fast Diet - my lite version

I used to be skinny, with almost no effort at all apart from skipping the occasional dinner in favour of alcohol. And, for the record, I didn't think I was too much of an arrogant b*tch about it either, neither was I Kate Moss/Middleton in the looks department, just a skinny girl. That was 6ish years ago. Since then, for various dull reasons - like an older, slower metabolism, a more sedentary job, medication, etc. - I have put on weight. I don't know how much weight as I haven't weighed myself in all that time but I do know that I've gone from 8/10 to 16 (18 on a very bad day). And worse, as I've put on all this weight in an unhealthy way, it's all round my stomach and waist, plus baggy upper arms and thunder thighs. These days, I walk past a mannequin in a shop & think "*sigh* I used to be that skinny". So maybe I didn't appreciate it as much as I thought I did at the time because boy what I'd give to have those days back! AND I look exactly like my mother - aaaarrggggghhhh!
And yes, I could eat less and exercise more, of course I could.

So.

A few months ago I read about the Fast Diet, aka the 5:2 diet, and it seemed like a really good idea and waaay more manageable than some sort of weight-watchers type thing. I even bought the book. And then I spent ages telling myself I would start the diet soon and if only xyz, then I could start losing weight, etc. Now I'm staying chez maman and she's cooking for me & of course I couldn't possibly ask her to cook me funny meals or tell her I'm dieting because of the interrogations I'll get from her, blah blah blah.
At the weekend I realised that these are all excuses and if I don't get on and start losing weight now I'll be waiting til the end of time.

I read the book.

I decided not to share my plans with Mum, which means I'll have to eat full dinners every night but I'm going to fast during the day (i.e. skip lunch!) 3 days/week instead. Monday was the 1st day - this, ladies and gentlemen, is me Getting On With It!

-x-

this would make a great blanket!!!

It's from here

-x-

china for me!

It's called Tilly! I want!

(only if it's fine china though, cos I'm a princess)

https://www.churchillchina.biz/Products/Dinnerware/TILLY-

-x-

OMG something terrible has happened to my blog header!

mostly, it's not there.

damn

-x-

My weekend went a little something like this ...

Stayed with Dad & Stepmother - ate lots of (organic) veg from Stepmother's allotment , drank no wine and had very little caffeine, so a detox of sorts!

We went on a Bat Walk, where we were given Bat Detectors (yes, really!) which can pick up the high frequency sounds the bats make so you can hear them. Our guide was really really good at pointing his torch beam in just the right place at the right time so we saw the little bats fluttering around and we could hear their little noises at the same time. So cool! We also heard a tawny owl as the light faded and at the beginning of the walk the guide kept getting interrupted by a kingfisher - I don't think I've ever heard one of them before. 

Then on Saturday we went to Nuffield Place, which wasn't as inspiring as I thought it'd be but lots of pictures of roses to keep me quiet! The only things I thought photo-worthy before my fone inevitably ran out of battery were these rosettes on a chest which is apparently a replica of a very old chest:

Like I said, not very inspiring. We also went for a walk (march) down the river at a nature reserve and we saw a kingfisher!! I don't think I'd ever seen one for real before. Well, Dad & I were looking the right way at the right time & saw it, Stepmother wasn't & didn't, although we waited A Long Time to see if it came back.

On Sunday I 'helped' them take pictures of things-that-aren't-bees-or-wasps-but-look-like-them, by standing well out of the way! Then we found this rose in the garden and we all took pictures of it! these are my pictures :)

My camera's not very good at reds but the rose really is pretty much those colours, isn't it lovely and unusual? :)

I did hardly any crochet or knitting, but I read quite a lot.

I had A Moment and got all, like, motivated and stuff and decided to start the Fast Diet TODAY! (see other post).

I started crocheting the shawlini, in my trusty bamboo DK, as I've got a real hankering for a soft little triangular shawl to keep my throat warm as Autumn approacheth. But it was really complicated to follow AND what I was producing just looked a mess so last night I frogged it and eventually found this pattern for a crochet baktus, which I started and, after changing hook size from 8mm to 5.5mm, have produced something that looks OK and hasn't given me a headache. It's just rows of treble crochets after all, although I did have a spot of bother keeping track of which row to increase in. Watched Ratatouille while I was doing it :) 

I suspect that 'baktus' means something ...

-x-

I'm reading ...

reamde by Neal Stephenson

-x-

I've finished reading ...

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen

-x-

Fast Diet - my lite version, day 1

Waist (before breakfast) = 36.5"

Wish me luck :)

-x-

inspiration for writing clinic!

Just wanted to share this gorgeous video. I'd agreed to do a 'writing clinic' at the school today and I was desperately short of ideas until another teacher suggested showing the students a video and having them respond to it. A while and several 'googles' later I found this, which I think is so lovely:

In case you're wondering, the activity was quite successful, the students all wrote something - very different somethings in some cases as well :)

And I had a lovely time!

-x-

I've finished reading ...

Summertide by Charles Sheffield

-x-

I'm reading ...

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen

-x-

Bee-prints!

There are a lot of sleepy, end-of-summer  bees in my bathroom at the moment. This morning there were 3! 1 of them left these tracks in the condensation on the window: