Category: waffle

Back in the land of the living

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It’s been a strange week this week. It started last weekend looking like this:

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with me studying for my upcoming exams while working on my Katarina cardigan and eating biscuits.

It was then followed by a bad stomach bug that resulting in me spending 5 days on the sofa watching Buffy DVDs. (6 series in 5 days combined with exam and wedding stress has resulted in some very bizarre dreams about demons that I’d have been able to vanquish easily if only I had finished coding our wedding website.)

There was some good during the week though (other than the Buffy-watching). There was the day that I spent watching a fox sleep in the sunshine on top of our garage roof:

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And just to prove that that really is a fox, here’s a badly-enlarged section of the photo.

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We still don’t know how he gets up and down from there but he’s becoming a regular.

There was also a lot of knitting done although sadly my food-deprived brain wasn’t really up to lace knitting and it somehow didn’t occur to me that I might want to take pictures of knitting projects as well as foxes. I do however have a very nearly complete cardigan with sewn-up seams and everything. My Katarina cardigan just needs the garter stitch shawl collar finished (which will hopefully get done at I Knit on Thursday) and the ends woven in and it will be ready to wear. I’m so pleased with it (and promise to post pictures soon); the sizing is perfect; the yarn is beautiful (although it sheds a lot) and it looks fantastic on. All I need now is for the weather to cool down enough for me to be able to wear it.

I also have almost the whole of the first of the Leyburn socks (again, pictures will follow). I just need to decide how long I want the leg to be. I’m torn because I usually wear my socks fairly short but that will leave me with lots of leftover yarn and since the yarn looks so good in this pattern I’m thinking I might just go ahead and knit them to the full length.

Second class citizen

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Apparently this fortnight has been about finding things that you can’t do without iTunes. First, there was “download stuff from Audible”, now the list includes “buy an iPhone”.

Well, technically you can buy an iPhone but since the first thing it asks you to do when you switch it on is connect it to iTunes there’s not much point to doing the first bit.

Somehow things didn’t seem so bad when software either ran on Windows or Mac or Linux but rarely ran on more than one of them. Now that there’s software that runs on both Windows and Mac, as a Linux user, I’m starting to feel like I’m on the outside looking in.

And, amazing as it may sound, I’m not one of those Linux users who runs it just so they can feel that way. I don’t run Linux so that I can look down on other people who have never heard of an init.d file or a kernel. I run it because I don’t have to pay for it, it runs on the old and not very powerful hardware that I have and, until recently, it did everything I needed it to do.

Now, it turns out that I have various options if I do want to buy an iPhone. I can use iTunes on Steven’s iMac to do the initial setup, much like I used it to download my Audible purchase, or, I can install and run WINE on my PC long enough for my PC to pretend that it’s running Windows, install iTunes and initialise the phone. Then I can hack the phone so that it can synchronise with an application that will run on Linux.

But, frankly, I just don’t want to. What I want is to buy the phone and use it without having to jump through any hoops (why do you need a computer to use a mobile phone anyway?). So, until I get over this bout of childish petulance, I won’t be buying an iPhone. I’ll just need to live vicariously through Steven’s instead.

(In)Audible

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Over the weekend I made my first and, for the foreseeable future, last purchase from Audible.co.uk.

It seemed like such a good idea; I was doing some work for Distributed Proofreaders and needed some background noise; I didn’t fancy listening to music and couldn’t find a film that I fancied either. I decided to purchase one of the Doctor Who audiobooks that had been recommended to me recently and listen to that instead.

I headed over to Audible, which had also been recommended to me, checked that my MP3 device (an iPod) was compatible, checked that I could access the free samples on the website and then selected the book I wanted (The Stone Rose, by Jaqueline Rayner, read by David Tennant). I signed up for an account and paid for the book.

Then the fun started.

It turns out that all Audible downloads are protected by a form of DRM (Digital Rights Management). This means that you need to use software supplied by Audible in order to “unlock” the files. Since they only supply software that will run on either Microsoft Windows or Apple operating systems, I had now purchased a file that I couldn’t even download to my PC since I use Ubuntu, which is a Linux-based system.

A bit of web-searching and hunting through the Audible support forum confirmed that when they said that all iPods were compatible with their audiobooks, what they actually meant was “all iPods whose owners use iTunes” which is not the same thing at all. In fact, the only way I managed to listen to my newly purchased audiobook at all was to download it via iTunes on Steven’s Mac and burn it to a CD. From there, I can now re-rip it and load it on my iPod if I want to listen to it while I’m on the move.

Suffice to say this is less than convenient and I won’t be doing it again.

DRM doesn’t stop piracy; it just pisses off people who want to use items they’ve purchased in they want that they want to use them rather than the way that the seller wants. There’s a further issue with Audible’s DRM in that they won’t publish audiobooks without DRM even when the book’s author and publisher want them to.

There is one silver lining though, while researching all this, I discovered that emusic (a site I’ve used before for non-DRM music downloads) now does audiobooks as well. I’m off to renew my subscription now.

Cake!

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Shopping for cake is supposed to be one of the best bits of planning a wedding and yesterday it absolutely lived up to the hype. Steven and I visited a cake shop to try some samples and chat about what we wanted (cupcakes!) and ended up placing our order and putting down a deposit, which means there is one more thing ticked off on the to-do list.

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Then we came home and tried the samples they had given us. (The slices of cake were samples of their different sponges for the top tier cake that we’re going to have.) This was all really good cake and I’m just a little disappointed that I have to wait until November to have any more!

And, to make it even better, since Steven found out on Friday that he passed his final accountancy exam, we decided to open some champagne to celebrate.

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You may be thinking that what is in those glasses doesn’t look a lot like champagne and you would be right. Those are glasses of Pimms Royale (1 part Pimms to 3 parts champagne) and they too were absolutely amazing. All in all, a very good day.

Two out of three ain’t bad…

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as Meatloaf used to sing but three out of three is definitely better!

I got my first set of actuarial exam results tonight and passed all three of the exams that I sat so I’m currently a very happy and excited Susan.

To top everything off the yarn arrived for my shawl and it is just as beautiful as I hoped it would be. It’s a gorgeous slinky 100% silk so feels fantastic without having a ‘halo’ or as much chance of me shedding over all the guests at the wedding as mohair or cashmere would. I can promise lots of pictures to follow!

What’s in a name?

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I was thinking over the weekend about the implications of changing my name when Steven and I get married later in the year. Over time I have gone backwards and forwards about whether I would take my husband’s name when I got married or not. By the time we finally got around to getting married, I had pretty much decided that while I am happy to go against societal conventions, I do get fed up explaining why I am doing so to people. Hence, mainly out of laziness, I decided that I would change my name. It saves any confusion when we have children and means that I won’t have to get into complicated discussions about why I’m not Mrs. Hanlon.

One of the considerations was the fact that I don’t yet have a professional reputation to worry about. If I was more established in my career, I might have considered keeping my name professionally but at this point, it is unlikely that I will confuse anyone by changing it.

What occurred to me over the weekend though was that I have established a reputation under my maiden name, it is just an online one rather than a professional one. I am registered just about everywhere under my full maiden name: Distributed Proofreaders, Ravelry, Flickr, Facebook, Yahoo, Googlemail. Even the texts that I have submitted to Project Gutenberg are credited to my maiden name. Hundreds of people know me under a variety of usernames, all based on my maiden name. Some of these sites will let me change my userid, so I could change my name but some won’t. I also know that if I only “know” someone online, I struggle if they change their username because I have difficulty transferring the associations to the new name.

Given all this, it looks like I am going to be keeping my maiden name after all, even if only virtually!

Random Friday musings

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How does someone manage to stub their middle toe so badly it turns a ghastly purpley-black colour without injuring the surrounding toes in any way at all?

I managed to do this while walking downstairs this morning but have no idea how!

How can I manage to go into a yarn store intending to buy a pattern book, yarn for baby presents, yarn and needles for a wedding shawl, and a bottle of cider and come out having spent only £5.50?

This one I do know the answer to: £2.50 on “Natural Knits for Babies and Mums” by Louisa Harding (I Knit special offer) and £3.00 on a bottle of cider. I Knit just did not have anything I fancied yarn-wise. I occasionally feel guilty for not buying more of my knitting supplies there, since I spend most Thursday nights in the shop knitting and chatting (and drinking organic cider) but they just don’t tend to stock yarn that I like using. The cider is fantastic, though!

How do I manage to not spend lots of money in a yarn shop that I intended to spend money in and yet manage to spend lots of money on knitting-related paraphernalia over the internet, whilst at work?

I actually think this is a reaction to the above question. I got really excited last night about the idea of buying yarn and needles to get started on the wedding and baby knitting, so when nothing came of it, I just had to have another go this morning. So, I bought the Honeybee stole pattern, some longer cables for my KnitPicks Options needles and some Rowan Cashsoft DK yarn for a baby jumper from the Louisa Harding book. I can’t find anywhere that has laceweight yarn that I like in a colour that will go with my wedding dress in stock at the moment so I also emailed a couple of places to find out when they are likely to get something in.

Meanwhile, I get to decide whether I’d rather do the Honeybee or the Myrtle Leaf Shawl from “Victorian Lace Today”. I’m currently leaning towards the Honeybee but love the idea of making something based on an original vintage pattern (the premise behind the Victorian lace book). Now that I actually own both patterns, I’ll sit down over the weekend to compare them and hopefully make a decision.

You may be right, I may be crazy

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to quote the Billy Joel song. There aren’t many things that I’ll get out of bed at 7am on a Saturday morning for, there are even fewer that I’ll get up that early and then drive 200 miles for. A town of books will do it every time though.

Yesterday I met up with some fellow Distributed Proofreaders in the town of Hay-on-Wye, which bills itself as the world’s first Book Town. With around 40 bookshops (and not a Borders or Waterstones for miles!) it certainly deserves the title. The town itself is very pretty and the surrounding scenery, provided by the Black Mountains, absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, my camera spent the entire day in my bag so I have not got any pictures to share.

After a quick coffee to gather our strength, Ian, Brendon, Steve and I hit the shops. It turned out that 4 bookshops was all that we had the energy for but since each of those was at least 3 or 4 times larger than a standard second-hand bookshop, I don’t think we did too badly.

Having experienced before how easy it is to get carried away on one of these expeditions, I had set myself a budget and a rough list of particular books and particular subjects that I was going to look for. Everything was going fine for the first 3 bookshops. I picked up a book on South London by Walter Besant. I’ve been putting a selection of his books on London through Distributed Proofreaders so it was great to finally find one that covers the area we live in. (Completed Walter Besant books on Project Gutenberg.) I also found a 19th century children’s book called “The Jolly World of Boxcraft”, which explains how to make what seems like an entire town out of different sized cardboard boxes. This was slightly off-mission but looked like lots of fun. In the last-but-one bookshop, I upset the bookseller by asking the price of an unpriced copy of “Science from an Easy Chair”, a collection of general science articles published in the Daily Telegraph in 1909 and 1910. Some internet research reveals that the £2.50 she eventually charged me was a reasonable market price so she had nothing to worry about!

The last bookshop was where it all went a bit wrong. This was the Hay Cinema Bookshop, which is linked with my favourite second-hand bookshops in London, Quinto. Within about a minute of entering the shop, I had already picked up three books from the “Chats on …” series, an early 20th century series of antique-collecting guides. “Chats on Household Curios” is already available from Project Gutenberg and “Chats on Old Lace and Needlework” and “Chats on Old Silver” are currently in progress (via DP). I had hoped to find more of the series in Hay so was delighted to find “Chats on English China”, “Chats on Old Prints” and “Chats on Autographs” in the Cinema bookshop. So far so good, this was definitely on-mission and nicely finished off the budget.

Books from Hay

The bookshops were not done with me yet, though.

The Cinema bookshop has an outdoor half-price sale section that, for some reason, we hadn’t looked at before going into the main shop. Despite being pretty laden with books already and having exhausted my budget, I couldn’t resist a look for a last minute bargain. I ended up with 8! I’m a sucker for “Scottish” books of any description and there on a shelf was a series of 8 of the “Famous Scots Series”, a late 19th century series of biographies of you guessed it, famous Scots. The eight volumes that I bought are Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, James Boswell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Allan Ramsay, James Watt, Thomas Carlyle and The Blackwood group. They’re quite slim little volumes but with beautiful illustrated bindings and decorative title-pages and at £2.50 or less, each, definitely bargains!

Famous Scots Series

A philosophy for planning a wedding

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Lists are good; short lists are better; short-lists are best.

Research and preparation are key for this one. I am not suggesting you short-list the first options that you come across. Take your time and make sure that your short-list has enough options on it that you do not feel like you might be missing something but not so many that it stops being short. Do not go visit every wedding venue in the country, check out websites and brochures, make a short-list (we only visited 6 venues in person) and, unless they really are not suitable, book one of them. If you really do not like any of them, start a new short-list. Do not keep visiting lots of venues, trying on lots of dresses, listening to bands, etc. ”just in case there is a better one out there”.

Like sex, if you are not having fun, you are not doing it right.

I am guilty of forgetting this myself sometimes but when it comes right down to it, planning a wedding should be fun. If you are not having fun, think about why not and see if you can do something about it.

Pick what is important to you and budget accordingly.

Unless you are very lucky, you are not going to be able to afford to spend unlimited sums of money on every aspect of your day, so decide which ones you are not willing to compromise on. Maybe you really want fantastic photographs but wouldn’t mind a cheaper cake; maybe you want a 5-star chef to cook for your guests but don’t mind not having live music.

Perfection is not the goal!

I am not suggesting you settle for second best or that you should not strive to get your day exactly the way you want it. Just remember that the day is about celebrating the commitment that you’re making and not about the exact colour of the bridesmaids’ dresses. Sometimes you just need to remember to let go of the reins for a while.

Elope! (or at least think about it)

This is not as silly a suggestion as it might seem. If planning is all getting a bit too much, you can always fantasise about running off and having a quiet ceremony, just the two of you and some witnesses. If it really all gets too much, then go ahead and do it! You can still have the big reception afterwards to let everyone else celebrate with you but it will ease a lot of the pressure. Your families should start speaking to you again eventually.

Keep information on a need-to-know basis.

Families (and friends) love playing Chinese whispers around wedding preparations. What you thought were perfectly innocuous statements will be taken completely out of context, exaggerated beyond all belief and you will end up spending lots of time trying to placate angry family members over things that are not even a problem in the first place. The best time to tell people what you are thinking of doing for any particular aspect of your day is when it is already booked and can not possibly be changed.

A brave attempt

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Sometimes I try something and fail; sometimes I try something and succeed.

Fortunately, tonight was definitely in the latter camp and we now have a new cutlery drawer fitted!

Only I could decide that assembling and fitting the drawer myself, including drilling the holes for the handle, was easier than trying to schedule the kitchen fitting company to come back out. For once though, it appears I was right.

The new cutlery drawer