Things I have learned in 2009 - Number 2 - Using the internet after midnight

In the second of this series, I shall tell you a sad story of coming home, high on the fumes of tennismania (aka Hopman Cup Tennis) to log onto the interwebs, then to Ravelry and the terrible results thereof.  It transpired early in 2009 that my credit card wilted under the pressure of this onslaught and I committed to so many things that the remainder of the year was a complete shambles. So, next lesson:

1. Thou shalt not log into the interwebs after midnight and purchase yarn just because it's there.
2. Thou shalt not log into the interwebs after midnight and purchase yarn just because it's on sale.
   
3. Swaps maybe fun but you should check when they all become due before signing on, especially if it's after midnight.
4. After midnight all swaps, sound good.  Look, read, take notes, come back during daylight hours if you still think it's a good idea.
5. After midnight, surfing the net for three hours - stupid idea!  Just do what's needed and get thee to bed!  There's another day tomorrow....

Here endeth the lesson!

Things I have learned in 2009 - Number 1 - Knitting after 10pm

1. Don't start fine lace after 10pm when you are tired
2. Don't start knitting lace after 10pm when you are tired and the yarn is cobweb weight AND BLACK!
   
3. Don't start knitting lace after 10pm when you are tired and you've had any amount of alcohol
   
4. Don't start knitting lace when in a group and you are tired
   
5. Try taking note of your own comments on this matter instead of thinking you know better - IT WILL END IN TEARS!

My Fountainpen Shawl is coming along nicely.  If I had made this list earlier and actually stuck to it, I may actually have been about halfway through.  As it is, I think I have tinked more than knit just lately.  I know for a fact that I didn't make any forward progress on Christmas Day - that was ALL tinking.  Boxing Day, a little better.  I reknit all the tinking from Christmas Day, knit about four more rows, tinked one or maybe one and a half, fixed the mistake I found and purled the wrong side row before putting it away to write this as a penance. 
This shawl will be completed.  As I keep saying, the pattern isn't that hard, I just seem to be making it that way.  I shall do better tomorrow.  For now, I am tired, I have had several glasses of wine and some cointreau and the group has just broken up to go home.  Not in tears yet but entirely possible if I heed the siren call of that dratted black lace shawl.  It being 11pm, I shall heed my own list and retire while I'm still ahead.

Doing some charity stuff

Back to our usual level of overcommitment, I am participating in the Cancer Council's Relay for Life with our group 'Knitters for a Cure', commonly known as K-FAC!  We have a goal to raise $3000 and are currently over 80% towards our total.  Raffle prizes are available to like-minded knitters who want to donate AND expand their non-stash.*
This coming weekend - October 24 and 25 from 3pm to 3pm - our group will walk around Joondalup Arena in various directions while knitting squares for a blanket that will be auctioned off at the end of the relay.  We're hoping that we won't spend too much time falling over while doing this but you never know.  If you're in the area, please come down and support us / take pictures of how silly we look / laugh a lot.  If you're not in the area, how about donating to cancer research?


*non-stash - a term used by knitters to describe the insulation they accumulate for projects.  Others may use the term stash however:

• If a project was intended = non-stash
• Bought as a gift or to make a gift = non-stash
• Sock yarn always = non-stash
• Bought from someone else's stash (non-stash) = non-stash

So there's no such thing as stash!!

Evicted from our Monday Meetup

Cartoon on page 4, The Voice Community Newspaper,
Saturday October 3, 2009

Thanks to the kindness of DH, I have been home scaring the cats these last four days trying to avoid coughing so hard that my eyes pop out - not fun! He claims to have got this wondrous bug from a cycling buddy during the recent On Ya Bike tour around New Norcia, Toodyay, Northam & etc. Not sure how you would actually ride with this but whatever. It's been a very eventful week even if I have had to watch it from home.

Monday - Public Holiday - was fine if a little scratchy in the throat. Went to knitting at Exomod Coffee in Mt Lawley as usual. Smokers outside - as usual. Complained - as usual. I got up to shut one of the shutters that was open - besides the smoke, it was a little cold and none of the staff seemed to be bothered. One of the other knitters also complains about the smoke as we now have a cigar smoker in the mix. There's an actual by law about this sort of thing and by January, there will be state laws so they must know that when they serve food - smoking's a no-no.

Inside Cover, The West Australian,
Thursday October 2, 2009

Next minute, short, swarthy, hairy man comes up, grabs the chair of my knitting friend and goes off, very loudly. "This is no community centre!" "You people never buy anything!" (We all had drinks, I just finished my sandwich and there was plenty of cake happening...it's a knitting group!) "You just take up space!" (That'll happen I guess.) "You're too noisy!" (What the...?) "We don't need your kind here!" (What kind was that? Human?) And then we were asked to vacate the premises.

As we left, we explained to anyone who asked what the issues were and why we were going - not to the girl on her laptop who had no cake, drinks or anything else and hadn't since I'd been there but she was quiet so obviously not 'one of our kind!'

Much tweeting and FaceBooking on the part of others (I'm allergic to either!) happened via various mobile electronic devices with many expressions of amazement on the part of respondents - we'd been going to this cafe as a group for around four years without a problem. Put up with a heap of bad service and substandard food on occasion because staff were new, yada yada yada. We used to be the only customers there most Monday evenings as I recall.

Now we've moved down the road to Caffissimo who looked like they needed a group of loud, uncouth people with pointy sticks and spinny things to see how we go there.

We've had some quite remarkable news coverage - Inside Cover in the West Australian picked up our story as well as the local rag, The Voice. And we got a cartoon in the later which is quite good. A FaceBook site dedicated to bagging this arm of the franchise has been set up. Heaven knows what will happen next Monday should I be well enough to go. Exomod may get a few queries asking where the knitters have gone. That'll make 'em happy I reckon. Stay tuned!

The article published on Page 3 of The Voice Community Newspaper,
Saturday 3 October, 2009

An Act of God - Fun & Games at Tullamarine

Finally home after another fun board meeting in Melbourne. Every quarter - basically February, May, August and November - I attend the professional association board or Council meeting as the Western Australian representative. Fly out of Perth very early Saturday so I have some free time cruising Melbourne in the afternoon then the meeting runs all day Sunday, most of Monday and I come home Monday night.
This time on Monday - evil weather! Decide I should go to airport a bit early - flight at quarter to 7 but it takes some time to get from the middle of Melbourne to Tullamarine and town was being tiresome so I went back to get the bags and headed out around 4.30. Hit the airport just after 5pm when the weather was being really disgusting - hail had been forecast but the taxi had had to slow due to the heavy downpours as we went along the freeway.
Check bag, get drink and some water and sit down with book and paper to await the boarding call. Didn't happen. Instead my fellow travellers and I hear that the plane due to take us back to Perth has been hit by lightening and needs an inspection in the hangar. Earliest departure will be 8.30pm but worst case scenario - 11.30pm - stay tuned!
Ring husband (DH) to inform. Qantas allow us all to have $20 of food from anywhere in the terminal on them by just showing our boarding pass. Have some noodles "extra spicy" which apparently means how I would usually have them - mild but they were nice.
Next announcement - 9.30pm departure. Don't call home this time as DH had gone for a swim. Wait a bit longer - now no plane. Qantas will put us up overnight and we will all go home in the morning. Go to collect bags and find that our transport vouchers are back inside the terminal leave bags with Qantas staff member. Go back through security check who always look sideways at my handbag (aka the hand haversack) - "Yes! Yes! You've actually seen it before and it hasn't changed. Maybe you should have looked better last time..."
Join queue for Cab Charge and details on hotel plus gain copy of form letter with apology for lack of plane and explanation. Request computer access to explain to boss why I won't be at work and am shown into a staff room to access e-mail (on a reread this afternoon - I was tired when I wrote this!!)
Get to hotel after queuing for cab and queue for room. DH calls exactly when I'm trying to check in as predicted. Tell him I'll call back. By the time I hit the room and its king-size bed, it's 10.30pm Melbourne time. Put kettle on for cup of tea. Call room service for skim milk. Phone not working properly. Try to call husband - no answer
Everything else in room is king-sized including the vanity unit where the only mirror lives which is so high I can't get close to the mirror to remove (or replace) make-up.
Have shower in lukewarm water. Doesn't seem to have a hot but certainly has cold. Also no where to put shampoo, conditioner, face washer, soap and comb requirements. This room was designed for a 6 foot tall bloke with no hair. That much is obvious.
Try to call husband - no answer. Try mobile a couple of times with the same result and realise that there is little to no signal in this room. Try to call husband - no answer.
Blow dry hair. Drink tea. Try to call husband - no answer.
Make second cup of tea. Organise clothes and early wake-up call after setting up alarm clock. Try to call husband - no answer.
Go to bed and am rudely awakened by early wake up call but pleased by this as the alarm clock never goes off. Repack suitcase and go down for brekkie and 7.45am bus ride back to airport.
Recheck suitcase which has gained 2 kilos in weight (how can this be?) and enter the departure lounge after suitable bag scrutiny occurs (again!) Realise I can't call husband now as it is WAAAAAY too early for Perth-time. Hover around shops. Our plane is apparently due at 10am. Buy a book I haven't yet read and some more chocolate to replace the stuff I consoled myself with the night before. Plane will now be 10.30am.
Time ticks past 9am and I call DH who got many messages last night apparently - some unrepeatable and possibly not making much sense either I suspect. Tell him I should be home by 10 past midday. Buy shoes (well I've read the paper and started the book already and my knitting is in my checked baggage - roll on Airline Review!!)
Plane now departing from the other end of the terminal (WTF?) and at 11am. I rang DH from my seat on the plane at around 11 once the doors were shut and we had a definite departure time. Managed to be back in Perth at 1.30pm only 16 hours after we were supposed to be there.
Guess I was lucky we weren't on the plane that WAS hit by the lightening and I am home safely but now have lost a day basically to an Act of God.

Slacker I am...

...as Yoda might put it. Can't believe I've put no updates here since - OMG May!!! Dear Bloggosphere you have missed THE EVENT of this annum - The Centenary Celebration itself - the celebration of his and mine half century type-y thing birthday stuff. Yeah!

It happened. Then it was over. Gah! There was a dinner on July 25th with all our favourite people in attendance and everyone was sooo wonderful, good time had by all 'n' stuff. We did dips and wine and food and food and wine and cake and wine and then had to rush home so that Perry could watch the second last stage of the Tour de France. It was to have been the penultimate - big climb - separates men from boys, etc, etc. In a word, fizzer. The guys who should have triumphed didn't and everyone else just, well, finished as you might expect, sigh! We won't discuss Cadel here...

The week before on July 17th, I had a day off for my actual birthday - collected Nanna from his possie outside Midland Spotties and under intructions, went to yarn spot at Dormani wearing my best Doc Marten boots. Lunch followed at Coode Street with Mum and various Exomodians (do they not work??), much chocolate, occasional knitting, flowers too and bubbly.

Also a BBQ at a local park on July 26th giving Perry a chance to show off the towing power of the new birthday touring bike. Loaded up with the snaggers, buns, sauces, nibblies, wine, oil, utensils, and all manner of BBQ requirements, we had everything prepared but were nearly defeated by a total lack of understanding of - the PUBLIC BBQ!

RULE number 1: You must push the 'GO' button once every 3 to 5 minutes in order to maintain a flame to keep the gas alight.
RULE number 2: See rule number 1.

We had pretty much considered sending out for wood to build our own fire by the time we worked this one out folks. But when it lit - well - the whole top of the thing was toasty. Literally! Our snagger rolls were toasted and we had to move all wine and glasses to avoid the mulled wine effect that too much heat may have given.

Although rain threatened, it was an empty threat and a good time was had by all. Once again there were recurring themes of yarn (spoken and knitted), chocolate, wine, food, yarn, wine, food and knitting. The DrsBruce joined the fray bringing the three babiesBruce who conveniently evaded all attempts at photographs. Young Rosie who accompanied Nanna Pete spent some quality dog time being fussed over and petted by many caring knitterly folks during the afternoon and was keen to do the same Monday morning rather than let Peter go to work (all together now..ahhhh!).

BabyConvict was oohed and ahhhed over by all and sundry after his care was taken over by Nana Ruth for a time.

Since then things have been basically work and knitting - more or less in that order. Too wet to cycle much, I have reintroduced myself to the rigours of public transport with the occasional car ride to work. the work project is live at our first site with much effort being expended to get the next and largest site live at the end of this month - GASP! As I have been with this project since 2007, this is almost the icing on the cake for me - actually seeing some results. But there is much work still to come with a punishing schedule required to bring all public hospitals onto the system by this time next year.

In between times I knit for sanity although I'm knitting for Royal Show entries at the moment. Shan't be stressing here - if the projects are finished, they'll be entered. I'm sure they won't penalise me if I can't get something done but I'm keen to see what I can achieve in any case. Only myself to blame if I'm overcommitted here (overcommitted? me?? NEVER!!)

Stay tuned!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Quote from Shakespeare's "Henry V"

Sock Wars IV has commenced its long and bloody path through dedicated sock knitters worldwide. There are 282 confirmed sock warriors and the battle commenced at sometime around 3am Perth time on 16 May at which point the weapons of sock destruction were released – Insidious, Air Raid and Barcelona. Apart from a minor hiccough with Barcelona all seems well. This would be the first time THREE patterns were released onto the unsuspecting warriors. Hard enough to steel yourself for the war without having a selection of weaponry (shades of Monty Python, “Amongst our weaponry we number such diverse elements as fear, surprise……”).

South West Trading Company sponsors this war as they did last year and the official yarn – TOFUtsies Power Stripes is not in evidence around many of the weapons I have seen.

I ended up using some lovely purple Lang sock yarn (from stash please note!) to create my Air Raids for Killing ‘em Sockly. They were posted last Wednesday 20 May with sufficient extras to soften the blow I hope. Unfortunately word from up the ladder is that my socks of death also wing their way Down Under.

I should say here that I appear to be one of only three Aussies in this war and that there are not many international participants this year. I assume some of this is due to the sudden end of the battle in ’08 certainly making some think twice about joining the fray. My location assisted in my two kills in ’08 as my socks of death must have gone around the globe at least once before they got me. As it is, my assassin lives in the US as does my target. I am relying on Australia Post to be speedier than US Postal Service so that I have a kill before being killed as I can’t see that there will be time to receive SIPs (or socks in progress for the uninitiated) from stateside before my death occurs. Who knows? Sometimes you’re the dog and other times, the tree.

Time will tell but for now I watch the Diagram of Death waiting to see which of the people above me meet their demise and of those below me, who I would receive SIPs from should that happen.

I finish with a picture of my (assumed) one and only kill trophy - the third in a range of shrunken socks to add to my handbag (in lieu of a bet you understand!) This is SockItToMe! signing off for what maybe the last time as a live warrior in 2009. We knit to kill!

Ridiculous quizzes...why do we go there?

And in the latest of quizzes you didn't need to take...

Created by Recipe Star

Created by Recipe Star

I just don't think people have enough to do with their time but I was sucked in anyway. These ones are just so far left of centre. At least those quizzes in Glamour and Cleo and Cosmo told you how likely you were to get a date / keep the boy / shop yourself into a stupour / etc. All good and useful information.

On the real life front, I'm not sure I'd be putting myself in a situation where anyone would have to taste me or that I'd have to exist in my freezer for any length of time. I have far too much knitting and cycling and other s**t to get sorted to be bothered. Check out the WIPs over there on the left > I swear they're breeding. I no sooner start one than another crops up that absolutely, positively cannot wait to get on the needles. I think that's why I have so many straight needles. If I had discovered circulars - especially interchangeable circulars - earlier, I'd just have an excess of tips lying around. Instead I have fixed circulars, DPNs, all manner of lengths of straight needles.

Anyhow - I have actually finished a couple recently and have nearly clocked up 5km worth of knitting so far this year. That can't be bad. I'm also about to clock 5000km on my hybrid bike since its purchase in November 2007. If I could combine the two, I'd be in clover! See you next rant :)

March update

Looking at the Blog and thinking I should feed it but what with? Having a bit of a ho hum kinda month so far. Hay fever has struck with a vengence and feeling like crap most mornings doesn't help the joie de vive at all. Motoring on with knitting projects as I have another swap to get going on and am making socks as fast as I can. Post date is supposed to be March 10 but as it's the 8th already, I'm going to miss that. I do have 2 socks you understand but they are missing feet - being only just turned heels-style socks. Major bummer!


On the positive side knitting is happening and both swap projects are out of stash and out of my Ravelry queue. The second project is supposed to be gone next week and needs legs, sewing and stuffing in parts before I can finish - oh! not to mention the back half of his body. Good grief! How did I get into this pickle? One answer - late nights after tennis going, "Oh! That sounds like fun! Think I can do that!" without adding up how much stuff and when they all had to be done. At least the Birthday Swap group I am in has no one with a birthday in March or April. I have breathing space!

This is good because I have several projects I wanted to do that are now hibernating for no good reason. My Tilli Tomas silk top with lace inserts for one. I did finish some lace though - a sanity knit this was the yarn from Secret Santa last year. Will talk again soon but leave you all with Laminaria Shawlette in Naturally Dawn a 50/50 merino-silk mix 2ply. Very nice!

What Star Wars character are you?

Well apparently you can be almost anyone but I am bits of people. Whoda thunk it?


Your results:
You are Luke Skywalker

Luke Skywalker 76% Han Solo 72% Princess Leia 67% Anakin Skywalker 65% Lando Calrissian 63% Jar Jar Binks 59% Boba Fett 59% C-3PO 58% Padme 58% R2-D2 57%

You value your friends and loved ones, but can sometimes act recklessly because of your emotions. Occasionally you resort to whining. You look ahead to great things for yourself.

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)


Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test

The best concert of 2009!!

DH and I recently went out to the Swan Valley to see a select group of performers headed by the not-to-be-missed Leonard Cohen. The whole thing nearly didn't happen as I left it really late to buy the tix and missed out on the general admission area where we could have picnicked on a blanket and truly relaxed. Instead, we had "silver" seats - white in actuality and very plastic and linked together using cable ties no less!
For the extra money, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting however we made it through the long trail of traffic having decided to drive and headed off with the back pack of yummy stuff, sunscreen, hats mossie repellent and all those other bits you might need. Next stop - evil bag check man. First mistake - I mentioned the umbrella. "OOo I'm sorry you can't take that in! Safety of patrons......." blahblahblah! If I hadn't mentioned it he wouldn't have found it as it was a collapsible one only 15cm long in a black case at the bottom of an extremely big bag! Then DH (Perry) had his turn and there were the glass glasses - a definite no go! So Perry takes the offending articles and his ticket back to car while I wait with belongings - and wait, and wait, and wait. We had over 20 minutes to start but it was just beginning when DH approached from inside the venue to find me. He went in and assumed I'd carry it all I think (not)!
Anyhow, we get in and enter the inner sanctum that is the gold and silver playground and find seats that DH assures me are ours. Goodies unpacked and some refreshments being taken when we are approached by two people who look at us and the seats and claim them as theirs - DH didn't look at the block number (head slap)!
Our seats had a definite tilt towards the duck pond, let's face it three to four more seat widths and we would have been swimming! The evening was balmy, company good and nibblies and wine (we had to buy in-house to get "glasses" of plastic to drink from) even better.

Concert started with Augie March in acoustic mode playing Paul Kelly's guitar as Qantas had cracked his in transit in spite of the industrial strength case. AM was on for 30 minutes with a break before Paul Kelly came on alone. Wearing a pair of borrowed sunnies - from a guy in the really expensive seats - he was supported at times by son Dan.
Then Leonard started. The voice floored me. It was like treacle - deep, dark and sweet. His backing band were exceptional - Spanish guitar, exquisite backing vocalists, harp, drums, guitar, slide. The only one I had any issues with was the keyboard player. I can't get past the Hammond organ sound I'm sorry. It fitted the music - from an era perspective and everything else - but I still didn't like it. LC and his band were on for one hour with a break and then came back for a further almost 2 hours solid. Not bad for a 70-something in a suit!
Heard all my faves from all three performers - particularly fond of Paul Kelly's "Everything's Turning to White." Also Cohen did many of his well-known tunes - "Hallelujah", apparently voted Canada's best ever song, certainly well in my top ten thanks to Jeff Buckley's version - "I'm Your Man", "First We Take Manhattan", "Suzanne". All fantastic!
The fact that we sat in the car park for an hour after was not an issue after such a polished, brilliant performance. We had food, drink and Leonard Cohen on CD to watch the hoons go by as we waited for the dust to clear.
I'm not sure anything else I see this year could compete with this but the year is young!

New bits on the Blog

I am sooo loving those Shakespearian Insults as a Blog option. You see it plays to the Monty Python in me ("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!) kind of thing.

The Knit Meter (no I don't like the spelling!!!!) is part of letting me know how much yarn is being eaten off my stash. I like it better pink but had a few issues trying to get it on there. Work computer was not behaving (...seriously I was just trying to change the colour code in my lunch break!)

And now for something completely different!

Now for the real start to the year

WORK!!
Back at work this week and what a shock to the system that was! Body used to 9am wakeup now rudely awakened by loud alarm bells at 6.30am. Still going to bed at reasonable time for it (midnight) but the earlier start is wrecking the whole deal. Still we must work to replenish the Christmas depleted funds - moths are accumulating!

DESTASHING
Following the destash of wardrobe, I intend to mostly knit out of yarn stash this year (no sniggering please). I have checked the queue on Ravelry against the stash - mostly on Ravelry but evenly scattered throughout Chez Harrow. I have yarn for pretty much all the projects I wish to do now and into the year 3000 should the regeneration of human bodies become a reality (come in Star Trek!)

ALPINE CLASSIC
The Great Lycra Clad Cycling One (aka Perry) is off to join his equally lycra clad friends in Victoria this week for the Alpine Classic - two more sleeps until fly time. So we have the Great Black Bike Carrier and its sidekicks, the large and capacious MacPack and smaller day pack lurking in the back room. The bike will be dismantled for its trip tomorrow evening I suspect whilst I join the Exomod knitters for an evening's coffee and chat. Don't really think I need to be there for that. Then it's a crack of dawn airport run with, hopefully no hitches involved (overweight luggage or "But we weren't expecting you with a bike Sir!" or any of those other airline-type excuses.)

STRANGE INTERNET STUFF
I also need to share a strange tendency I developed over the holiday season. I attended the full Hopman Cup tennis series at the Burswood Dome and many of the very good matches went on until after midnight at which point I would pootle home on the bike - very nice early in the morning with the frogs croaking and no hoons to spoil the silence - or cadge a lift with friends who were passing my door on the way hopefully. I then would hop onto the computer, ostensibly to check mail but I managed to put my name down (apparently) for a bunch of Ravelry swap groups that I then had no recollection of in the light of day. Fascinating! Not that I will welch on any of these but I had messages coming from strangers wanting to tell me about themselves and asking questions about likes and dislikes and saying what fun we were going to have and all that sort of stuff. What the...!
So I have little boxes on the back room table - one for a monthly sock swap, another for a birthday swap and who knows what else will come up. I've got to get onto at least one pair of socks for the former and am planning to knit something for the latter. All good as I will get stuff in return I guess. For the birthday one which is Australian only, four parcels out and then four pressies in - all good!!

THE 'NOT' RESOLUTIONS
Meantime, I shall work on not casting on tooooo many things before I actually complete some of them. Bec and I decided we would have to publish a knitting book sometime soon but we were at The Balmoral when we decided this (there was also talk of a knitting shop somewhere in here...) so I'm not sure on the time frames. All sounded good when singing along to background music and laughing hysterically - just ask Bec! Anything sounds better than work though when work is looming dangerously close as it was last week. Now that it's a reality, everything else is a bit - background for now. But you never can tell............

Welcome to 2009!

Well who'd a thunk it?! Just when I was about to throw GT into the bin in disgust, I double-checked all the relevant bits, unchecked a box that I didn't tick in the first place and Georgie-too is purring like a kitten again. For those not in the know, Georgie-too (GT for short), is my PDA that last month made life less than wonderful. The good new coming out of all that is I have a new operating system and have reloaded all the programmes fresh so it's all squeaky clean. Haven't synchronised at work yet though so keep watching.

On the knitting front, I have finally finished my Landon by Jordana Paige. It was to have won me a nice new Rio bag (the link shows what Landon is supposed to look like with my bag) but somebody without a life finished it in 4 days - bugger!! I have since (obviously) slowed somewhat, revised the pattern and shortened it to suit me instead of a six foot person. It isn't blocked yet but you get the picture I think... There will be more and better pics on Ravelry and Flikr for those who care!

Moving on to this year's aims and targets - I refuse to do resolutions! - I hope to deal, at least in part, with my bower bird tendencies. I have this very day, recycled to the Salvos 6 bags (eeekkkk!!) of various fashion errors and past trends that no longer require space Chez Harrow. I am in the process of packing down the woollies from winter to put out what I have that is summer........and see what a disaster that was - but it doesn't look like I have touched what is there (woe is me!) It's been a while shall we say. It's also a wonder the wardrobe hasn't collapsed under the pressure.

I have discarded six pairs of shoes that really were past it (ie beyond repair) - but that makes room for the ones I bought at the sales - cute pink sandals that whispered, "Buy me!" when I walked into the shop.

Also looking forward to a bit more cycling fun. I managed to reached the heady levels of 3051 out of 8090 cyclists worldwide on bikejournal(dot)com so I was fairly pleased with my erstwhile tendencies as cycle commuter extraordinaire. I had aimed for 2750km for the year and scraped in with 2644km - a good effort in anyone's book. My husband not to be outdone, clocked 17,873.5km (yes, that's 17 thousand!) and was ranked 66th on the list. I think he has a bicycle saddle implanted because I don't think I saw him out of lycra in 2008. He assures me the challenge on km's was just last year and he won't be going all out in 2009. Stay tuned for that one!