Nini doings

In and around Kenmare

2010-09-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

Kenmare is a pretty small town located on the southwest coast of Ireland. It was suggested in the Rick Steves guide (by this point in the trip being referred to as "The Book of Steves") as an alternative base to Killarney for exploring both the Iveragh and Beara Peninsulas. Being the ancestral home of many Irish-Americans and the jumping off point for tours of the famous Ring of Kerry, it is a very busy place, jammed with souvenir shops, tour buses and "jaunting cars" as the horse drawn open carriages are called. Preferring somewhere a little more low key, we opted for Kenmare.

With its brightly painted storefronts, a circle of standing stones just outside town, a lovely harbour and a pleasant walking trail through the countryside at the edges of the village not to mention the pubs with live music spilling out the doors, it is a pleasant place to walk about, browse the shops and stop for a pint when fatigue sets in. There are several town and rural B&B's including the lovely five star Park Hotel which overlooks the water, lots of pubs with live music, and a range of restaurant fare from fine dining to pub food. A few recommendations in no particular order of preference:

P.F. McCarthy's - lively pub, great atmosphere, live music

Packie's - great decor, delicious food, good service

The Coachman's - atmosphere leaves something to be desired but food is good and prices reasonable

Foley's - great food, crowded, good service, very hot the evening we were there

On a second floor up a narrow stair from the tourist office is the Kenmare Lace Museum. It documents the work of the Poor Clare order of nuns who came to Kenmare in the 1860's and taught the young women of the town to make lace so they could contribute income to their families in a time of severe unemployment. Kenmare lace, a technique in its own right, was world famous in its day. Queen Victoria purchased a piece and one wealthy American woman bought a coverlet and pillow covers for a price that would buy a very nice house today. The making of the lace is extremely time consuming, a single flower motif from the examples below taking about 20 hours of painstaking work to complete. Needless to say, it is now a dying art although many hobbyists keep the craft alive, including the volunteers at the lace museum who demonstrate the different techniques of Kenmare lace, bobbin lace and Point d'Irlandaise or crochet lace. The museum has many fine vintage pieces of this beautiful work.

Different kinds of lace at the Kenmare Lace Museum

Kenmare Harbour

Circle of Standing Stones

This was one of the few stone circles we saw that was maintained and where we didn't have to skip through cow pies to get to it....not very atmospheric but still worth a stop on an evening walk.

Travelling companion with large stone

Green, red, green - Kenmare back alley

Iveragh

2010-09-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

And many months go by, so so quickly! I have excuses but won't bore you with them...suffice to say that there have been some bumps in the road this year which I may or may not choose to share at some point. For the moment, I'm trying to remain positive, not stick my head in the sand but focus on dealing with what is in front of me and burn those bridges when I come to them. And my apologies for the metaphor mangling.

It has been a long time since the Ireland trip but I want to share what ended up being my favourite part of the trip which was the southwest coast of Ireland. First part of this adventure was to equip ourselves with a car. We took the bus back out to the airport to do this, reasoning that on our final day we could drive straight to the airport and drop the car off before our flight - that turned out to be good strategy, by the way. Our trial by fire (especially for my trusty driver) was to be dumped out onto the busy motorway, driving a right hand drive on the left side of the road. It wasn't so bad at first because on a divided highway, driving on the left was not a factor. Of course the traffic was insane as this is pretty much the biggest chunk of modern highway in Ireland.

As the day wore on and we crossed the country, the roads became progressively narrower until, as we approached Kenmare, there was barely room for two cars to pass by each other. There was so little clearance that the wild fuschia and ferns sprouting profusely from the head high rock walls lining the road was ticking against the rear view mirror on my side of the car making me cringe away in fear. Speed limits in Ireland seem excessively optimistic but local drivers weren't hard to spot - they were the ones driving huge SUVs and flooring it. We had a tiny Twingo (doesn't that sound like something that runs off an elastic band?), one step up from the even smaller car we had reserved but which the agent talked us out of as not a good choice for the distance and the roads we planned to travel. Fortunately, we took his advice.

Iveragh side road

Our room at Hawthorn House in Kenmare, booked on the fly earlier that day, turned out to be a separate cottage affair behind the main building and was lovely and quiet and unlike most B&B rooms in Ireland, roomy. After the usual warm Irish greeting from the proprietress, we set out in late afternoon to explore the town. Most of the very colourful buildings were arranged along two long streets set at an angle to each other in a "V" shape. After poking about in a few shops and a very large knitwear store, we passed by a tiny pub and heard strains of "trad" music issuing forth. Without hesitating, we turned and walked in, beguiled by that irresistible sound and found a room jammed full of locals, a few tourists and a pickup group of local musicians who did a session there each afternoon before going on to their paying gigs.

Downtown Kenmare

It was fabulous! We immediately ordered a Guinness and settled in for an hour or so to listen and observe. There was a group of 30-somethings at the bar next to us who were conversing in Irish, some families having an early supper of Irish pub food at the few battered tables and musicians arriving to sit in for a number or two and then take their leave. We couldn't have been happier with our introduction to the pub music scene which we were to experience almost daily during that part of the trip. This tradition seems happily to be very much alive in that part of the world.

Next day dawned reasonably clear so, full to bursting with eggs, sausage and toasted soda bread with jam, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and "do" the world famous Ring of Kerry, the magnificent circle route of the Iveragh Peninsula. We took Rick Steves advice and set out in the opposite direction to the one the tour buses take, clockwise as opposed to counter clockwise although I see this tactic is discouraged on some "official" websites. With some judicious dekes off the main route to look at archeological sites that are inaccessible to large vehicles, it is possible to avoid getting stuck in a diesel fumed snail of traffic and allow the bulk of the opposing traffic of the day to go by. Since we were in Kenmare and most of the tours leave from Killarney, it also meant that we were dodging oncoming buses at the end of the day but it was still worth it.

Our first stop was the Staigue Fort a few miles out from Kenmare, one of the so-called "faerie forts" or stone ring forts of unmortared stone. The view of the sea and surrounding countryside, stony sheep pasture for the most part, was spectacular and it was not difficult to imagine the strategic value of the site or to admire the engineering ability of the Iron Age people who built it.

Staigue Fort

Sheep pasture & top of the wall at Staigue Fort

The rest of the day was just as sensational...I won't try to describe it all but the photos below will give you the general idea. Unfortunately we didn't have time to take a tour out to the Skelligs, those pointy islands off the tip of the Iveragh with the stone beehive huts where very dedicated (or deeply antisocial) monks lived out their lives. Even if we had not been time challenged, the boat tours that day were cancelled due to rough seas. We gathered this was a fairly regular occurrence, not surprising given how exposed this coast is to the open Atlantic.

Spectacular cliffs near Waterville

Famine houses overlooking the Skelligs

Contented Irish cows

Langeville to Dublin

2010-01-29T12:51:00.001-08:00

It all seems so long ago...well I guess that's because it's been well over six months now since I met up with my guy at Dublin Airport. There he was in the arrivals area, having made his way from home to Heathrow then to Dublin to our B & B in Dun Laoghaire and back to the airport on the shuttle to be waiting the moment I stepped into the terminal. What a guy! In the interests of catching up to present day, the rest of the travelogue won't be a timeline so much as an expanded highlights spread over several posts with a section on up-to-the-moment stuff. It has been pretty daunting to think about having to write my way from last June to now, to the point I avoided writing at all. Ahh, the excuses we make to procrastinate...

My first impression of Dublin was how modern it felt for such an old city. The curvy futuristic looking airport terminal was still under construction, many old buildings have been repurposed for flats and concert halls and public spaces and there are plenty of brand new glass and steel office buildings. We were to learn from the locals that many of the new places were standing empty as a result of the downturn in the economy and the banking crisis. There was even talk of pulling down the miles of new or stalled-out construction around the airport as it didn't look as though it would ever be occupied or even finished.

River Liffey in downtown Dublin

One of our favourite activities during our stay in Dublin was a bus tour out to Newgrange, part of the complex of Neolithic passage tombs or celestial clocks or ceremonial mounds in the Boyne Valley...opinions are mixed as to their purpose. That they remain somewhat of an enigma is not surprising considering they were built over 5,000 years ago (predating the Pyramids by 2,000 years!) and extensive exploration and protection only started in the 1960's. It is a very impressive place when one catches sight of it from the road leading in, very large and gleaming white on its emerald green hilltop. If its creators meant it to impress, they are still pulling it off.

Ian, our wonderful tour guide who regaled us with history, sang to us and told us storyteller style of Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) and the Magic Salmon

Newgrange

All visitors must pass through the Brú na Bóine visitor's centre and in groups limited to 50, take a shuttle bus up to the site for a one hour visit, one group leaving as another arrives. The passage and chamber can only be accessed in groups of 25 at a time, accompanied by a guide. Inside, the passage runs uphill and is so low and narrow that I was obliged to duck beneath the roof stones and turn sideways at one point to allow my shoulders to pass through. Those with claustrophobia issues are well advised to skip this part. The centre chamber, domed with concentric circles of rock, held all 25 of us, but very cosily. There is artificial lighting but at one point it was extinguished leaving us in velvet blackness with not a glimmer from outside, invited by the guide to imagine ourselves notables of an ancient cult, awaiting the arrival of the light on winter solstice. On that day, provided the sun is shining, a rectangular opening over the exterior door lines up perfectly with the sun's position, the passage and the central chamber, allowing light to run up the path and, for a few minutes, illuminate a polished stone bowl which stood at the centre of the chamber.

Curving entry area with roof box over exterior door to let in the solstice sun

It is thought that these moments were used for some special yearly ceremony but it's anybody's guess. One theory involves the bowl holding the ashes of the deceased so that the touch of the sun's rays at the moment when the days begin to get longer sends their spirits to join the ancestors. Another holds that fertility rites were enacted for the coming year's harvest. Should you wish to experience this moment for yourself, you must enter a lottery and if you are chosen, pray that the Winter Solstice isn't clouded over....bit of a long shot given Ireland's reputation for rainy weather.

Standing stone overlooking the Boyne River Valley

The outside of the mound is decorated with white stone and the base is lined with huge stones laid on their sides and decorated with triskells (three joined spirals) and other runic symbols. The slope down from the mound had several standing stones and a sort of chapel built entirely of stone. As you can see in the photos, the countryside is lushly green and dotted everywhere with sheep. County Meath is an exceptionally productive agricultural area and we were surprised to learn that dairy and other farm products are one of their biggest exports. I had the best butter I've ever eaten while we were there and I should probably devote an entire post to the phenomenon that is the full Irish breakfast.

Stone chapel at Newgrange

Newgrange detail: white facing stone and monolithic lintel slabs

I was surprised to learn how new archeological inquiry is in Ireland, especially given the rich historical and mythic tradition that continues to this day. It was not unusual to hear ordinary people talk about fairies and ghosts, and about bad luck coming from disturbing the "faerie forts". Perhaps it's due to centuries of domination and persecution or perhaps with such a profusion, ruins are taken more for granted than they would be in North America where similar sites would be roped off. There are ruins everywhere, tumbledown castles, famine houses, ring forts and tombs and very few have been documented or excavated to any extent. It was wonderful having such open access to these ancient sites, able to scramble over the same stones where 5,000 years ago, people took shelter, to look out at the same view from the vantage of a fort wall.

Lintel Stone with triskell and other designs

Paris to Langeville

2009-08-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

On my last morning in Paris, I packed up, crammed myself onto the tiny Tiquetonne elevator and departed for Gare Montparnasse, arriving ridiculously early as is usual for me and rather frantic for a washroom. The place was packed and my train not yet on the board so I got a fabulous coffee and watched the scene as I waited. Twice I got into longish conversations with people asking me questions about the trains...French people, in French! Guess I have succeeded in not looking too much like a tourist. The train was finally posted - about 20 minutes before departure - and I headed down the platform. The 2nd class cars are always the farthest from the main station so I no longer panic when it seems like I might have to walk all the way to my destination. It was a quiet trip except for an incident just past Le Mans when a suitcase fell from the overhead rack a couple of seats ahead of mine and clobbered the poor woman sitting below. The French despite their celebrated reserve, flocked to help her and she was well fussed over for the rest of the journey. Yet another reason to pick the window seat...

My friend Françoise was waiting faithfully for me on the platform at Les Sables d'Olonne, a minor miracle in my view since we hadn't been in touch for weeks....nothing since "my train arrives at 2:30 on Sunday, the 7th". This is the third time we have met in France like this so I'm less nervous now about it actually coming to pass although I had the "de rigueur" thought, what would be my next step if she doesn't show? We did a little vehicle tour of Les Sables d'Olonne, a beach town with some interesting buildings from the 30's and many seashell mosaics along the walls of the narrow streets, kitschy but old enough to be cool too. There was a parade being marshalled at the waterfront with some modest floats and a flock of local girls wearing clogs, colourful folk costumes and lace coifs on their heads. Local boys were also dressed up in folk costume and were practising their music on the Breton style bagpipes and horns, quite thrilling to hear in that context but not what everyone would call tuneful, a harsh, compelling sound. The beach was spectacular, a long curve of white sand around the bay bordered with low rise hotels and apartments, some art deco but most newer and pretty cheesy up close. The beach is obviously the main attraction here as the town doesn't have a whole lot of character. It was a gorgeous sunny day but the wind was strong and blowing sand made it less than pleasant near the water so we didn't wait around for the parade to begin and headed off to Langeville where Françoise's family owns a summer home.

Beach near Langeville

As I would learn, Langeville looks pretty much the same as most of the towns in the area: tidy, white stucco houses with blue shutters, red tile roofs, all in the low lying flat landscape of the Vendée shoreline. There didn't seem to be much to do or see in walking distance aside from the beach which was again, spectacular: miles of white sand backed by dunes backed in turn by deciduous forest. Here and there, crumbling blockhouses from World War II poke up out of the dunes. Although sunny the weather was a bit on the cool side so most houses remained shuttered and it was very quiet. The house was lovely and comfortable, full of antique French country furniture, beautiful linens on the beds and the accumulations of a much-loved and long-used family retreat. Françoise has been summering here since she was a teenager so it is pretty much in her blood.

White stucco, blue shutters and red tile roofs at La Tranche-sur-Mer

We spent the week walking, reading, napping, eating, lying on the beach, drinking wine and in my case, knitting while listening to audiobooks on my iPod. Each evening there was the almost ritual closing of the shutters once we were ready to go to bed, often before sunset. With no daylight saving and it being almost the solstice, it was daylight until almost 11PM. Between the tranquility, the gentle rhythm of the days, the comfortable bed and the darkness that only shutters on the windows can provide, I slept like a child, wakening to bird song. The second day of our stay, there was a huge windstorm and we actually lit a fire in the fireplace and hunkered down under blankets, quite content. When we walked through the forest the next day there were branches on the path and the beach was covered in fluffy white foam from the pounding waves of the day before.

Foamy beach at Jard-sur-Mer

The week slid by, serene, quietly delightful, laid-back. On the last day, Françoise drove me to La Rochelle where I was to fly to Dublin to meet my guy. It was a very hot day and it was farther than anticipated - partly because of poor navigation on my part. La Rochelle is a lovely city, reminding me of St. Malo but built of white stone rather than grey, giving it a sunny southern aspect. Much of the new world exploration in the age of discovery left from here and the city was celebrating its links with Quebec this summer...I was pleasantly surprised to see the Quebec flag flying at the harbour.

Exposition at La Rochelle on the expeditions to New France

Quebec flag flies over the harbour at La Rochelle

After a nice lunch outside the cathedral, we wandered the back streets of the old city, climbed the ramparts at the mouth of the harbour and enjoyed the cool shady arcades until it was time for my flight.

Harbour gate, La Rochelle

Inner harbour, La Rochelle

Ramparts of La Rochelle

The La Rochelle-Ile de Ré airport was tiny with nowhere to sit, packed full of people with questions and no staff to provide answers, everyone overheated and anxious. People in Ryanair uniforms sailed busily about the room, unresponsive to pleas for assistance. Guess that's how Ryanair is able to offer those low fares, not that my fare was particularly a bargain. I had dutifully checked in online the day before using my iPhone and was assured on the website that I could print my boarding pass at the airport. At the airport there appeared to be no facility for printing and as for staff to clarify my next step, see above. Nothing for it but to wait with growing apprehension then make sure I was at the front of the line when the flight was called. I couldn't even settle down enough to knit, which is really saying something for me, in spite of it being World Wide Knitting in Public Day.

The agent barely listened to my story, sending me with a form to a different desk to "pay for printing my boarding pass" (30 euros!!!) and to "have my visa checked" (what visa!??)! By the time the stone faced woman at the counter deigned to serve me, my patience had quite evaporated. Speaking French was beyond me and while I didn't raise my voice, I was very firm. I laid out the sorry tale ending with "now it seems I have to pay another 30 euros and I am not happy". She met my eye, assessing my outrage, I glared back, she kind of hitched one shoulder in that French way, rolled her eyes, pounded a "Paid" stamp on my form, and shooed me away, all without uttering a word. For a minute, I couldn't quite believe I'd managed to get my way. The lesson? Have your say, don't yell, don't back down and to hell with polite and accommodating.

Too bad my France sojourn had to end on this sour note. It will be a long time before I put myself in the hands of Ryanair again. Mostly I've had exceptionally good experiences with the budget airlines in Europe. They fly between smaller cities without routing through the large airport hubs and while the fares are not all that small once all the extras are added on, they make it up in convenience. At least I got in my knitting, finishing up the first of what I'm calling my Langeville Sunset Socks in the mercifully cool departure lounge and during the flight to Dublin.

...and next, Ireland...

Paris Encore

2009-07-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

London to Paris:

Off to St. Pancras early in the morning after a rerun of previous day's breakfast - I really don't like canned baked beans...I don't even like looking at them first thing! And I would have killed for a real coffee. Fortunately, they have lots of nice coffee establishments in St. Pancras Station so with a nice hefty cappuccino in hand, I went off to check in, where I was immediately headed off by the nice security men - no drinks in the lounge. I was ridiculously early as usual, so I found a nice bench along the beautiful open concourse and finished drinking my coffee in relative peace.

Passed through French customs without incident, into the overcrowded lounge (did they not know how many people fit on one of those trains when they built the place? And while St. Pancras is very old on the outside, it is brand spanking new inside!) then onto the train. A young Asian woman sat beside me with her parents sitting across the aisle and they conversed in their language for the first part of the trip...turned out they were Malaysian, she had been educated in the U.S. and was a physician and nowhere near as young as she appeared. They were visiting Paris for the first time and were using the French edition of "The Book of Steves" as we have taken to referring to Rick Steves guide books (more on that later) and were staying near Rue Cler near the Eiffel Tower as he recommends.

The Eurostar was nothing exceptional as European fast trains go...comfortable, fast, on time. As for the Chunnel, I had expected an extraordinary experience but after the requisite time speeding through the English countryside, it gets dark outside the train for a half hour or so then one is speeding through the French countryside. The greater pleasure is that the Eurostar takes less time than flying and it is pretty much downtown to downtown. When I arrived in Paris, I was able to walk downhill from Gare du Nord to my hotel near Les Halles without any trouble and without recourse to other transportation.

My room in the Hotel Tiquetonne for this stay was on the top floor, the 7th, reached by a teeny slow jerky little elevator or an interminable winding staircase. Over the rooftops, I could see the Eiffel Tower, hazy in the distance. The room was under the angle of the roof and set back from the eaves with casement windows that opened wide for air (no AC) and the sounds of the unseen street below wafted up to me. Rue Montorgueil with its shops and restaurants was just around the corner but sadly, the quartier has become very touristy since my last stay in 2004. The feel of a residential area has pretty much gone with some of the fine old restaurants replaced by fast food joints and tourist claptrap outlets. Bands of older teenagers roam the streets at night and the drunken clamour goes on until daybreak. That said, the Tiquetonne is ideally placed for walking the city and I went out every day with my deck of walking cards from City Walks Paris to discover parts of the city hitherto unknown to me. Best of the few I had time to undertake was the Butte aux Cailles area, with its neighbourhood feel and the charming Villa Daviel, a whole row of adorable rose-adorned single family cottages on a dead end lane. On a different expedition, the card for the Trocadéro directed me to the Allee des Cygnes, a walkway that runs the length of a very long narrow island in the Seine. James Joyce used to go there for strolls to clear his head and these days, young families and people walking dogs take the air. Near the Jardin des Plantes I visited a Roman arena, the Arènes de Lutèce, and beneath the stone tiers of seats in the centre ring where gladiators and chariot races once entertained the Roman occupiers, neighbourhood children now play informal soccer matches and men gossip over their petanque.

View from the Tiquetonne - can you find the Eiffel Tower? Hint: it's in the right third of the photo.

Les Arènes de Lutèce

Allee des Cygnes

Villa Daviel

Besides these more obscure pleasures, I window shopped along the very tony Rue du Passy, hung out for awhile by the Eiffel Tower, eyed the stratospherically priced designer offerings along the Boulevard Haussmann, walked by the Elysée Palace, home to France's presidents, like a fortress with the small army of security personnel choking the surrounding streets. I couldn't help but wonder if Carla Bruni is at all dismayed by the way she must live now, cloistered inside, in absolute luxury and comfort but always fenced in, enveloped, never able to slip out the back door for a quick walk up the Champs Elysée.

I browsed through the divinely presented food offerings at Fauchon on the Place de la Madeleine - these people have the tortured food thing down to a science. This is where I picked up a box of their miniature pastel meringues as a hostess gift for Françoise, knowing how much the French appreciate these little luxuries, and pretty certain I would have the opportunity to try a few myself. Sharing food is almost the main point of eating for the French - huge generalization, I realize, but it is something I have noted on many occasions in France. Rituals surrounding food and its preparation are of equal importance to food-as-nourishment to a much greater degree than in North America although that is something that is changing for the better in North America and unfortunately, for the worse in France.

And that's what was missing from my explorations of Paris - a bit of company, someone to break bread with. As much as I love the city and as happy as I am to follow none but my own agenda, I was lonely at times, a bit triste. Daytime was too full for much reflection but it would have been nice to have a companion for the evening meal. As it was, I took to buying a few supplies and picnicking in my room or in a park rather than sit alone at a table in a restaurant.

Carrousel in the Jardin du Ranelagh

to be continued...

European Interlude

2009-07-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Back at last...what a busy few months it's been since I last posted. There have been some travels, most notably to England, France and Ireland for the month of June. The plans for this trip came together somewhat piecemeal. I had a large credit with Air Canada that had to be used by June 7th, left over from a trip to Quebec last August that had to be cancelled due to our dog Daisy's first big health crisis. Usually I go to France in April or May to have a French immersion experience with students and former students from the French Diploma Program at the University of Victoria, led by my teacher and friend Françoise. A group of us stay in a gîte in the French countryside, speak nothing but French to each other while shopping and participating in activities intended to put us in contact with local people and have the opportunity to practice French as it is really spoken (3 entries from the 2007 trip to Brittany at my Aventure En France blog). It is most effective in improving conversational skills as it is pretty much impossible to sustain that careful translation in your head before speaking...one must listen hard then jump in if one is to have any kind of a conversation, even if it's just to buy the day's bread at the local boulangerie, and be prepared to be laughed at or not understood.

This year, there weren't enough people to make up a group and I had resigned myself to not going when Françoise, bless her heart, invited me to come and stay with her at her family's vacation home in Langeville on France's Atlantic coast. She goes to visit family in Angers every year and then winds down at the seashore from her busy teaching year. I happily accepted and went on to plan the rest of the trip since the roughly two weeks involved was, to my mind, not enough to justify the agony of jet lag...three weeks is my minimum. I had hoped that my partner, who was tied up with work until mid-June, would come and meet me in France but he suggested that we recoup the trip we had intended to make to Ireland in 2001, cancelled when the foot and mouth epidemic struck and the "ways" across Ireland were closed. We went to Greece instead, had a wonderful time but still dreamt of walking in Ireland.

On June 1st, I left for London having long ago given up on flying directly to Paris with Air Canada. They insist on routing west coast passengers through Toronto - a four or five hour flight from Victoria followed by a five hour wait in the unlovely and crowded Pearson International succeeded by a roughly nine hour flight, and a befuddled arrival into a foreign language and people not celebrated for their patience. My preference is to fly direct from Vancouver or Calgary to London, spend a couple of nights there to adjust the mental clock and gear up for speaking French, and maybe do a bit of tourism between naps.

This strategy puts me into Europe around midday and I try to stay awake until the sun goes down - quite a struggle as the days are very long in Europe in June - they're on the same parallel as Edmonton, hard as that is to believe and the sun sets around 10 PM! My hotel was near Kings Cross station, chosen because St. Pancras next door would be the departure point for the Eurostar a couple of days hence. I got quite turned around coming out of Kings Cross so I had an inadvertent tour of the Bloomsbury neighbourhood before I located the hotel not half a block from one of the many station exits. In my meanderings, I had seen the new British Library (well, new to me) and decided to go back there since it was only a block or two down the Euston Road. It was a splendidly sunny day so I got a bite to eat and sat in the sun in the peaceful courtyard (did I mention how crowded and intense the streets of London are?) before going inside to see what there was to see. And I saw actual pages of the Gutenburg Bible, Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks and the Magna Carta, quite astonishing in my sleep-deprived state.

Day 2:

This was my day to explore about London and I hadn't made any definite plans as I wasn't sure I'd be good for anything if my sleep pattern hadn't resolved. The day started with a "full English" breakfast...eggs, sausages, beans (the bland canned pork-and-beans type of my youth), toast, delivered in a subterranean breakfast room by a young woman with an impenetrable eastern European accent. When it came down to it, I didn't feel up to braving the teeming streets so I got on an open-topped boat headed up the Thames to Hampton Court. The trip lasted about 3 1/2 hours and was made more entertaining by our guide who delivered a rather smartass running commentary about the sights along the river. I had my knitting with me and between that and the surprisingly pastoral riverbanks once we got out of London proper and the lovely day, I was very happy.

Open tour boat on the Thames

The defunct Battersea power station - awaiting yet another developer to turn it into fashionable condos without changing the historic exterior

Beautifully painted narrow boat passing Kew Gardens

Once at Hampton Court, I confined my explorations to the gardens as I usually find palace interiors excruciatingly over-decorated and claustrophobic and besides, my time was limited. The rose garden announced itself with the most exquisite scent, long before I laid eyes on it. The timing was perfect as all the roses were at their height of bloom and the place was practically deserted. The rest of the gardens were the expected parterres, a greenhouse entirely filled by "the great vine", a grapevine that produces 500 to 700 pounds of fruit per year and is over 200 years old, an orangerie, a forest of huge pyramid shaped yew trees set out in lines in front of the Baroque wing, fountains and artificial lakes and streams with, best of all, swans with babies.

Rose garden with Tudor wing in background

The Great Vine - 230 years old

Foxgloves against the wall of the Tudor wing

I skipped the famous maze, seductive though it seemed from the outside as it was getting late and they wanted yet more money to go in...the UK seemed very pricey to me with extra this and supplemental that at every turn. Happily, the hotel had free WiFi so I was able to use my iPhone for e-mail.

The train zipped me back to London and I tumbled into bed in my decidedly spartan but quite adequate hotel room, ready to hop on the Eurostar the next morning.

...to be continued...

Peace Mural

2009-04-18T11:48:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to work on the Peace Mural being put together out at View Royal Elementary. This is a project of the Creative Peace Mural Society and is one of many they have facilitated in communities all over the world. I felt very fortunate to be able to participate locally and hope to eventually join the team on one of their overseas projects.

A large percentage of children who attend View Royal are First Nations and the school is located on traditional Coast Salish territory. Accordingly, First Nations artists Butch Dick and Darlene Gait were commissioned to design the main elements of the piece. The school children and members of the Songhees nation had the opportunity to add elements to the mural which was then assembled and sewn together by volunteers and the core members of the society. The "unveiling" is to take place at the end of the month and I can't wait to see the whole piece hanging in all its glory.

The mural was cut, assembled and sewn together in under a month, an amazing feat considering nobody gets paid. The international murals are completed on a three week schedule and given this narrow window, the method of construction had to be simple enough for speed without compromising aesthetic values. Local textile artist Carole Sabiston came up with an ingenious technique which involves layering up all the elements of the design, covering them with a layer of tulle netting and quilting through all layers with lines of zigzag machine stitch. The tulle has the added benefit of blending out the starker contrasts and marrying disparate materials into a pleasing composition.

The murals are made up of several panels which hang side by side which means that each panel can be rolled and the entire mural packed into a smallish box for transport...very practical for travelling exhibitions. The plan is to have representative murals from each continent shown together at the 2012 Olympics in London.

Spinning Dust Bunnies

2009-03-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Last Friday (one week ago) I attended the Fibres West Festival at the Abbotsford Fairgrounds and came away with, among other things - many other things - a bag of quiviut. I spotted it at the Birkeland Brothers booth when I stopped to say hi to the nice women with whom I've spoken at the shop on other mainland fibre hunting expeditions.

Now I have a history with quiviut, the proverbial skeleton in the old memory vault. I once owned...wait for it...an ENTIRE GARBAGE BAG OF QUIVIUT, pounds of the stuff. It was given to me to spin by a guy who worked up north in the oil exploration business whom I had encountered at some craft event where I was selling the natural-dyed fat singles I was churning out at that time. He had picked it up off the tundra where it was lying around in heaps after the spring moult, or whatever you call it when muskox shed their winter undercoat. The deal was that I would spin up the fibre in exchange for a share of it and perhaps some of his very beautiful hand carved antler buckles or buttons.

I tried spinning the stuff on my Indian spinner and needless to say, had a lot of trouble. I put it away in our tiny attic, resolving to delay the R and D until the long winter months when every hour of the day wasn't taken up with tending gardens and preserving the fruits thereof. In the typical "back to the land" (i.e. hippies in the backwoods) style, my then husband and I lived in a cobbled together house (and I use the term "house" loosely) in the bush that was heated with two wood stoves. To make a long story short, the house burned to the ground one freezing cold December day, and the quiviut was one of the things that didn't get saved. A few weeks later during the cleanup, buddy who worked up north arrived in his pickup and stared at the place where the house had been, not needing to be told that his quiviut had gone up in smoke. He was pretty philosophical about it, saying "Oh well, easy come, easy go," or words to that effect.

Ever since the fire, my feelings about quiviut have been ambivalent: intrigue mixed with the memory of that gut-wrenching day. The scarcity and astronomical prices have been a sufficient deterrent up until now but the temptation was always there and I longed to give it a try, to master it - the fibre and maybe the negative feelings along with it. Last Friday I took the plunge and shelled out for 20 grams of the stuff, a pouffe of roving the size of a loaf of bread in a ziplock bag and after it sat for a week, calling to me from the spinning corner, I plunged in yesterday, still full of those ambivalent feelings.

It was very difficult at first. The roving is ephemeral, smoke between my fingers, like drafting a cloud of nothing, spinning dust bunnies. It has to be a very fine yarn in order to get some decent yardage out of it so I cast about for a method that wouldn't waste a shred of fibre. Not yet in possession of a diz, I tried pulling the roving through a small funnel but it was still too dense and nowhere near small enough. It was a semi-transparent pencil roving I was after. Then I tried pre-drafting the chunks of roving and when they threatened to drift apart, I dampened my hands and rolled the predrafts on my thigh to firm them up. This really worked and now I'm well into the first spool, although I have very little spun fibre to show for two hours of spinning.

My intention is to ply two singles and knit a very open lacey short narrow scarf...after all, the muskox survive -60C wearing this stuff so anything more dense is going to be too hot even on the coldest Victoria day. And of course I only have 20 grams so my choices are limited. The singles are spun quite firmly so that they stay together so the plying should also help them to bloom a little. My only quandary is how to estimate when to change spools so I have equal amounts to ply from. At the moment I'm going by weight but if anyone has a better idea, lay it on me.

As for the negative feelings and regrets? Still there but less strident as a result of confronting a tiny corner of them. One of these posts, I'll tell the story of the fire and perhaps get a little more of it off my shoulders. For now, I'll just say that it was a long time ago, no one died, and it opened some doors that needed opening.

Blankie

2009-03-13T14:18:00.001-07:00

Took a little ramble with the camera in the garden today. It may be chilly still but the garden thinks it's spring. The photo to the left is of the hellebores or Lenten Roses out in front of the house that are one of the earliest things to bloom. It helps that they are against a south facing wall and have the benefit of a micro-climate.

Down below I've posted all the various skeins that I spun for what seems to be destined for a blankie project. The dark brown skeins in the middle will be the anchor/main colour for the mitered squares and they are a two-ply of a merino, alpaca and soy silk roving from Anna Runnings at Qualicum Bay Fibre Works. The soy silk is pink and chartreuse and while the roving looked like chocolate pistachio ice cream, the finished yarn is mostly brown with pink and chartreuse tweedie bits.

Once I had a good whack of the main yarn, I experimented plying a single of the dark brown first with a single of chartreuse kid mohair and then with a single of pink merino to emphasize the pink in the blend. I still had a skein of the dark brown left so I plied it with some commercial alpaca leftovers from stash to get a bit more variety for the mitered squares. The result was a small skein of brown and gold and another of brown and purple. Since they all have at least one strand of the dark brown, I think the variations should all look like siblings...let's hope so.

Merino/alpaca/soy silk plied with chartreuse kid mohair

Merino/alpaca/soy silk plied with pink merino

The happy family

I'm quite thrilled with how the skeins look against the dark brown leather of the couch. I think the blankie is going to look very nice thrown over the back of the couch when it's not in use. The inspiration for this project is the Mitered Square Afghan by Chris Delongpré on Ravelry but I plan on winging it. I'm craving something straightforward that I can knit without charts or fuss and just make it up as I go along. Yep - meditation knitting.

More sad news

2009-03-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yet another dear spirit has left the world. My little Auntie Marguerite passed away two mornings ago after losing her brief struggle with a brain tumor. I was in Kelowna last week for a funeral (bit of a theme here) and visited her in her hospice room on a couple of her "good" days. She recognized me right away, and although very quiet, was in good spirits. It was hard to believe the prognosis but now, less than a week later, she’s gone.

She was a tiny woman, tinier as the years progressed, but one underestimated her at their peril. With eight lively children, and my uncle the ferryboat captain away from home for long periods, she probably couldn't afford to lose the upper hand. Many a time I saw a towering son quake before her wrath and have had reason to quake myself. I often wondered how she kept it together but she was part of the last generation of women who were never in doubt about their destiny. Home and family came first. She devoted herself to it whole-heartedly and still had time to be generous to her community and extended family.

And there has been yet another death in the family. I was in the Okanagan last week to attend the funeral I mentioned earlier, of my Auntie Emilie's husband Victor who died quite unexpectedly of heart failure. Emilie is the eldest of my dad’s siblings while Marguerite was the youngest.

My attachment to these elderly aunties in spite of only sporadic contact over the past few years has taken me a bit by surprise but I think it has something to do with my childhood. I grew up on a farm next to Mission Creek in the south end of Kelowna, not far from Okanagan Lake. It was a truly a "family farm". My grandparents lived in the main farmhouse and my respective aunties with their husbands and large families occupied two newer houses set close to the road, models of modern (1950's) convenience. Our patched together house was up the lane toward the barn tucked in amid weeping willows. I say “patched together” since our house started life as a hired hand’s cottage and was constantly being added on to when farm chores and outside work allowed my father the time for home improvements...in other words, hardly ever.

As kids, we didn't give a hoot that our house was modest at best. My brother and sister and I and the tribe of cousins lived our lives mostly outdoors, searching out new kittens in the barn, roaming the fields and woods on horseback, spending hours at the lake on hot summer days. We hung out on the creek bank fishing or cracking rocks to see the shiny bits, built forts and explored the one bit of bush left wild at the back of the farm. We traipsed in and out of all four houses as if they were our own, my mother and the aunties praising, scolding, settling arguments, teaching and feeding us indiscriminately.

After the sale of the farm and my escape first to university and then to marry and live on the west coast, we saw less of each other aside from brief exchanges at 50th anniversary and landmark birthday parties. The cousins similarly scattered and in this long-lived family, we were lucky enough to not often have the marshalling effect of funerals. With the events of this spring, and the advanced years of the generation ahead of us, that is about to change.

If there is any upside to all this, it is the opportunity to get to know my cousins again. In some cases, it's been 30 years and more since I last saw them yet the connection is still there: a dormant familiarity that springs back to life upon re-acquaintance. And it probably doesn't hurt that the years apart have knocked our sharper corners off, increased our tolerance so we don't piss each other off like we used to.

Between deaths in the family and losing my little dog, there have been a lot of tears lately and I hardly know anymore what I'm crying about - the tears arrive and I just go with it. What set me off yesterday was the enthusiastic greeting from my friend's dog Sophie when I arrived at her place for our twice-weekly walk. Last evening there was no discernible trigger - one minute I was fine and the next I was weeping.

Tough times but once again, knitting and spinning have come to the rescue. My Gnarled Oakwoods shawl is growing apace and I'm into the vine patterned centre panel. Soon I'll be putting the first half aside and starting the second half although it makes me want to tear my hair out to think that I'm less than halfway. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but the lace patterning seems to hide them quite effectively. With any luck, the oopsies won't show once it's blocked…either that or I’ll be redoing the entire first half. Shoot me now!

Because of the difficulty keeping track of where I am in the pattern, I've put aside the index cards I made up for the first section and taken Sarah's suggestion to work from the chart. Not one for waiting about for an internet shipment, I jury-rigged a chart tamer from a metal tray and some adhesive magnetic strips used for making fridge magnets and it works brilliantly. On some short pieces of tape, I drew little arrows on the paper covering and I move them about to indicate the direction of the row and the start of the repeat for each row. I place the main strip above the row I'm working on so I can check on the preceding rows without having to move the strip and lose my place. Cheap and cheerful!

Fast and dirty chart tamer

My merino/alpaca/soy silk spinning project is complete and I intend to knit a mitered square blankie to show off the various colour combinations. I’ve felt cold so often this winter that I want a nice throw for the couch that I can wrap myself up in when I’m chilly. And even big kids need a soft cozy blankie when they feel blue. Look for photos of the yarn and a pattern preview in my next post.

Separation

2009-02-26T15:23:00.001-08:00

For this or any other dog

I believe in heaven, yes, I believe in heaven

Which I shall not enter, but where he will be waiting for me

Wagging his tail like a fan

To greet me with affection when I come.

Pablo Neruda, "The Separate Rose"

Good dog Daisy

2009-02-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

First of all, fair warning...this post is about the last hours of my beloved dog Daisy. If that kind of subject matter upsets you, stop reading now.

The events that initially inspired starting this blog last August(Daisy's first trip to the pet hospital) resolved last evening when Daisy's life came to an end. Little Daisy, velvet of ear, fleet of foot, scourge of squirrels, bouncy and bright and sweet-natured is gone into whatever it is that awaits us all. She spent the intervening five months since her first big health challenge in relatively good shape, running after the ball, chasing squirrels, greeting her many admirers passing by the front gate. She had occasional tummy issues kept under control by strict enforcement of the "no treats, no people food" policy and careful watching of her diet. She ate better than we did with only the tastiest low fat concoctions to tempt her fragile appetite and home-prepared dried chicken breast for treats.

Then a little over a week ago, she started to go seriously downhill, refusing to eat, vomiting, accidents on the carpet at night, getting thinner every day. Two days ago she went for an overnight stay at Kindred Spirits, our local veterinarians, to have intravenous fluids administered for dehydration. That seemed to turn her around very quickly, her appetite returning in spades and her mood back to normal. But the real problem, it seems, was her lungs. During the second night she developed a pneumothorax which collapsed one of her lungs. The vets were able to reduce it yesterday morning but by late afternoon when I expected to be picking her up and taking her home, it had re-formed. It was decision time...the thing I had been dreading for months. I was put into a room with Daisy and I held her on my lap while I waited for Harry to arrive from work. Her breathing was very rough and she held her nose up high trying for a better position to draw in more air. Her body felt odd, sort of loose, like a bag of bones. If you don't know the fox terrier breed, "loose" is the antithesis of the "solid and muscular" norm. For me, that was the telling moment - she wasn't going to come out of it this time.

Once Harry arrived, we agreed that it was time to make the decision to have her put down. I struggled with this as my perfect scenario would have had her dying quietly, lying on the lawn in the sun or failing that, in her own bed at home, not in this cold tiled impersonal room. When I suggested taking her home to die naturally, the vet told me kindly that it would be horrible for Daisy and horrible for us, given her respiratory distress and the anxiety that goes with it. That scotched any romantic notions I had about the perfect death. Once we decided on euthanasia, we sat cuddling and stroking her and talking about all the funny things she had done during her life: the time when she was small when she walked right through the bars on the deck railing, fell into a bush, slid to the ground, got up and trotted away unfazed, or the way she cocked her head to one side when someone said the magic words "squirrel" or "treat" or "whacka whacka" (our term for a nightly ball chasing session using a racket and tennis ball), the daily ritual of biting the mail as it came through the mail slot, her ecstatic greetings at the door after our briefest absences, her enthusiasm for life, and her courage and buoyancy in trying or painful circumstances. Many are the lessons in right living that we have learned from our intrepid little dog.

Eventually, the vet came in to check if we were ready, went away and returned with a full syringe. She told us what exactly to expect and as the drugs went in, Daisy seemed to know somehow. She turned her head toward each of us to look deep into our eyes as we stroked her and said "Good dog, good dog". Finally, her head drooped then went down and it was as if she went to sleep - no more laboured breathing and moments later the vet confirmed that her heart had stopped. It was very quick, very peaceful and somehow right.

The wonderful staff at Kindred Spirits wrapped her body up in a blanket and carefully placed it in a box for us to take home. I can't say enough good things about the docs and staff at Kindred Spirits. Not only competent but respectful, empathetic, understanding and diplomatic...they couldn't have been better. I'm sure they've done this hundreds of times before but you'd never know it from their concern and sensitivity.

It was dark by the time we got home so we rewrapped Daisy in her own blanket and this morning we buried her without ceremony in the garden in her favourite sunny spot, taking turns to cover her over. Nothing left now but to grieve and remember all the good things about her. I like to picture her greeting our old cat Aphra in some kind of afterlife, the two of them restored to youth and grace and ambushing each other from behind the Elysian shrubbery as they used to do in our back garden. It doesn't seem to matter a bit that I don't really believe in an afterlife - it still comforts me.

Lost in the (Oak) Woods

2009-02-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

And here it is, the green monster aka Cobblestone Pullover completed just after my last post. It required very little finishing...just a few ends to darn in and the underarm stitches to graft. And seemingly, I'm not destined for the dreaded "boyfriend sweater" experience - he's worn it nearly every evening since it was finished and says he loves it. It fits beautifully and the fabric is supple, drapes nicely and I hear it is comfortable to wear. Yay!

Yep, once again, it's been awhile since posting. No excuse really although I had a week long trip to the Okanagan visiting family and since returning, I continue to pursue my New Year's resolution of cleaning and sorting one drawer/cupboard/trunk/bin/shelf a week all year. Can't recall if I mentioned this in my last post but because I felt so defeated and overwhelmed by the nasty build-up(s) that lurk behind closed doors and the lack of space to stash new acquisitions, I decided to try doing it in teeny chunks. I made up an Excel spreadsheet and it appears that based on somewhat reasonable/realistic divisions, I'll still be doing this well into 2010. The bonuses are already apparent six weeks in...forgotten and misplaced treasures have emerged from the nether regions of every cupboard so far and I'm not even out of the kitchen yet. Imagine the gems that await in my full-to-the-rafters workroom, not to mention the joy of having access to the surface of my work table once again.

Spring appears to be on its way out here on the Pacific coast. The snowdrops have been in bloom for a couple of weeks, the rhodos are showing some pink and the robins have arrived in force. Yesterday I gardened (second session of the year) and hung the clothes out on the line where they actually got dry...okay, almost dry. Sadly, today is windy and cold and I'm happy to stay in and work on my alpaca lace shawl and pity my fellow North Americans to the east who are still blanketed in snow. I'm using the laceweight two-ply spun from the dark brown alpaca fibre I acquired from Blue Stone Alpacas on my fibre safari last fall. It took forever to spin and I had to pay a lot of attention to consistency but it seems to be paying off. The deep brown suggested a leafy/woodsy motif so I chose the Gnarled Oakwoods wrap by Anne Hanson from the last Twist Collective newsletter. It's really lovely although now that I'm into the third iteration of the 40-row repeat, I wish I had added one more section across (the pattern calls for three) to get more width. No, I'm not about to tear out 90 plus rows of lace and start again. My hope is that it will magically expand with blocking but I suspect it may not end up wide enough for my liking. I had envisioned this as a lightweight travel piece that would cover me from neck to ankles and just the width of my body - I'm a smallish person - on long plane and train journeys. I hate those icky blankets the airlines provide (do you really believe they wash them between usings?...not likely!) The shawl (scarf?) is knitting up so light and airy that an extra panel would not have added much bulk. Too late now...the thought of doing a second one is too overwhelming to consider just now.

This is my first major commitment to lace and I'm finding it quite a challenge. I keep forgetting to do the yarnovers at the end of the repeats and since the wrong side is a purl row, by the time I notice, I have to tink back two whole rows and part of another. Also, I think perhaps the yarn is a bit underplied in some parts as it separates easily and I end up with surprise extras.

Part of my Okanagan visit involved a couple of days with my latter-day hippie daughter and her partner in beautiful wintry Cherryville. They are avid chain maille makers and they have taken to incorporating coloured rubber rings to add stretch and of course, colour to their work. It seemed to me that these rings would make great stitch markers so I cadged a dozen each in white and yellow. They work brilliantly for the lace as the colour shows up well against the dark brown yarn and they are flexible and soft and a little clingy so they don't slip too easily through the stitches. I know these can be ordered in the bazillions online but I'm not sure what I would do with all the extras. Unfortunately, they only seem to come in black at the hardware store - fine for pale yarns but pretty much invisible otherwise. If anyone out there knows of a source that supplies a range of sizes in a range of colours in stitch-marker quantities, please share.

Elephants and Phone Booths

2009-01-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

Another "holiday season" behind us - sometimes it seems like the social (and every other) aspect of Christmas is like trying to stuff an elephant into a phone booth. Eventually, something's got to give. Thanks to the weather, we had a respite this year, many events being cancelled due to the slippery roads and unusual amounts of snow for our usually green-year-round city. What I didn't miss due to weather, I missed due to a bout of the flu which is still in the denouement stage as I write. There was a lot of knitting done over the past few days as I lay beached upon the living room couch, listening happily to the audio version of Connie Willis's unabridged novel, "To Say Nothing of The Dog"...20 plus hours of entertainment with an excellent narrator. It's supposed to be science fiction but reads more like another of my favourites, Oscar Wilde, given that the time travellers spend most of their time at a country house in late Victorian England.

The green monster (aka The Cobblestone Pullover from Interweave) is almost knitted and is looking very good. I was lucky to have such a simple garter and stockinette stitch project on the go since my fever-addled brain could probably not have coped with anything more complicated. The many pairs of Felted Clogs were well received and I managed to knit myself a pair as well - there is a reason these are so popular despite being quite a pain to knit - they are sooo comfortable and they look wonderful once they are fulled. What was a loose floppy thing becomes a thick firm fabric and the colour intensifies.

During the holidays, I knitted another pair of Sea Anemone Wristwarmers in yet another colourway of Noro Blossom and was very happy with the outcome. Herewith, the pattern, as promised.

Sea Anemone Wristwarmers

Yarn: Noro Blossom, 1 40 gram skein

Needles: 4.5 mm DPNs or one long circular for magic loop

Divide skein into two equal balls (by length) and loosely cast on 28 stitches (I went up to a 5.5 mm circular for the cast on). Join and work in the round in 2 x 2 rib (2 knit, 2 purl) for 3.5 inches. Work another inch to an inch and a half in stockinette (4.5 - 5 inches from the cast on). Work one increase round by knitting into the front and the back of each stitch. (56 stitches). Knit one round even. Work a second increase round by knitting into the front and the back of each stitch (112 stitches). Knit another round even. Cast off knitwise and sew in ends. If you want the cuffs longer, you will need another skein of yarn, knitting in rib for however many more inches you desire before changing to stockinette.

As you can see from the photo, I made no attempt to match them, preferring to believe that the chaotic colour scheme is part of their charm. Pretty much impossible to match them with just one skein anyhow. I divided the skein by winding a centre pull ball, hand winding a ball with the yarn held double to find the middle, cutting the yarn then rewinding each strand by turns to make two separate balls...kinda painful. If anyone knows a more elegant solution, by all means, let me know.

Below are a few photos from our guild Christmas party - so much fun and many thanks to the organizers for their hard work putting it together and to all the fine chefs for their contributions. The adorable lamb cake that begins this post was one of the offerings.

Lamb cake

Seasonal headgear

More seasonal headgear

Raven snags the lambikins in the gift exchange/showdown

Table of revelers with my prize-winning

felted tea cosy in the foreground

2008-11-27T12:50:00.001-08:00

A week later:

I'm no further along with the the green monster...I have yet to cast on. I keep losing my pattern copy bought online from Interweave Knits (hope that's not a bad omen). Fortunately I have it saved and can just reprint. I've also been doing quite a bit of Christmas knitting - more of those Anemone Wristlets I invented and some felting.

On the felting front, there was a gathering at a lovely little sheep farm in East Sooke featuring Guljan and Janyl, two women from the village of Bokonbaevo in Kyrgistan, visiting Canada to talk about their felting techniques. A group of west coasters facilitate the importation of their production and hold sales across the country to benefit the village which has fallen on very hard times indeed since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The farmhouse - divine, isn't it?

Young Icelandic sheep

Show and tell: east meets west

Some of the beautiful felted articles from Bokonbaevo

Several weeks later:

The green monster is coming along wonderfully, despite a long hiatus to knit four (count 'em, FOUR!) pairs of felted clogs for my walking buddies for Christmas. Our Christmas luncheon is tomorrow and I plan to give them unfelted/unfulled so they can custom fit them and have the fun of seeing them transformed. Getting back to the sweater, I'm very pleased with how it's going - I have reached the yoke on the body and have one sleeve knitted up to the yoke. One more sleeve to go and then I can attach them and knit the garter stitch yoke. I found several photos of the sweater on Jared Flood's blog that show different views of the sweater than on Interweave...even one of the sweater before it was blocked, spread out on the bed in his hotel room in Ireland. The sweater is named after a pub where he hung out in Dublin. This sweater is great mindless knitting - I knitted my way through the entire first season of Deadwood and plan the same for season two.

2008-11-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

About six months ago, I had the bright idea of spinning up enough yarn to make a sweater for my sweetie. The knitting has finally begun after an epic process that began with that free fleece, vegetation included, that came my way earlier this year. I spent many nights in front of the television or plugged in to my iPod teasing out the dirt and bits of straw in a large portion of the raw fleece, carded up several batts on a newly acquired drum carder and proceeded to spin it on my Ashford Traditional. I used to have a drum carder many years ago but it was one of the casualties of a hippies-in-the-bush house fire. The lanolin made for quite easy spinning - after all, I hadn't spun a thing since the 70's - and it was only after gumming up the wheel to the point where it would hardly draw in the yarn anymore that I switched to prewashing the raw fleece. It turned out to be quite nice fibre - soft, good staple and not so filthy that it couldn't be rehabilitated - nice to know as I still have a ton of it! I wanted a worsted weight two-ply and I was aiming for 32 ounces of finished fibre, just to be on the safe side. Turns out, I'm pretty much on the money with the yarn weight.

Then came Adventures in Dyeing. Back in the day, I did a whole lot of natural dyeing but didn't have the heart to revisit it with this quantity of fibre. British racing green was requested - it's that black-green of vintage British sports cars. Maiwa Handprints in Vancouver were out of premixed green but I was assured that yellow and blue with a touch of magenta would give the desired shade. You probably know where this is going. I set up my little dyeing station under the carport with a hot plate and my venerable white enamel dyepot purchased in Chinatown in Vancouver in the late 60's. Thereafter, over the course of a week I did battle with the dye pot and after four shots at it, I finally have a lovely heathery moss green, NOT British racing green. This was preceded by gold, followed by pale brown, then insipid green and finally something I can live with - the nice heathery moss green seen above.

The hopeful recipient-to-be assures me he is quite happy with the colour - he probably knows that if he still wants that dark green, he'll be making a trip to the yarn store and dropping serious coin. That free fleece just doesn't seem to want to take the dye very easily despite repeated dunkings. I tested this hypothesis by dyeing some Cheviot roving in the same pot and coming out with great strong colours. Not sure what kind of fleece would behave in such a belligerent fashion but it behooves one to value process over product - dyeing is not an exact science.

This morning I made a centre-pull ball out of one skein and swatched for the Cobblestone Pullover from Interweave and scored a home run...got guage on the first try.

Harvest Time

2008-11-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today a good friend informed me that I hadn't posted since September and I could hardly believe it. I was determined not to be that kind of a blogger when I started out. In fact I put off blogging for a long time because I figured that if I wasn't going to keep it up, why bother? So here I am again with lots of good intentions of doing better from now on. Thanks to Shirley for prodding me.

Part of my preoccupation this fall has been keeping up with all the falling leaves before they get rained on and turn into immovable sludge. Raking is great exercise and I like being outdoors when the weather is nice. It has been a glorious autumn here on the Pacific coast and I hear the same thing from other parts of the globe...a long and beautiful fall season with spectacular colours. Apparently it's something to do with the kind of weather we had in the summer and early fall that influenced the chemistry that makes for good colour.

The garden is pretty much put to bed for the winter, aside from a bit of clipping here and there. I like to leave the browning plants in place as long as possible for a bit of colour and structure. For the first time in quite awhile, I actually planted vegetables this year. Usually the vegie garden is a jungle of volunteer leeks and parsley with the odd space hacked out for a bit of lettuce. This year I mixed all the leftover lettuce seed from other years, added a bit of sand and succession planted 4 inch wide rows on the theory that at least some of the seed would still be viable. It came up fairly thickly and I used scissors to clip off what I needed when the little leaves were about 4 inches high, leaving the roots in the ground to grow again. I got about 3 cuttings from each row and didn't have to buy lettuce all summer long. Of course the lousy summer (cold and rainy) was just perfect for lettuce.

Last spring, my friend Lesley suggested that planting a few potatoes might be a good idea and for added encouragement, she gave me her leftover Yukon Gold seed potatoes. I bought some red seed potatoes called Caribe to add to the mix and also allowed some volunteers to grow from the fingerling potatoes of a couple of years ago. And what a crop!...about a bushel of spuds from four little rows and the taste is a different category altogether from the store-bought kind. I'll definitely be doing that again.

Not a lot of fibre news in this post but be assured, there has been a lot going on...another reason I'm so late with this post. I finally caved and joined the Victoria Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild so the scope of my obsession now knows no bounds. Fibre retreats, festivals, distaff days, spinning groups: I just might be in trouble here.

Felting and fulling has really hit the mainstream of late. Last week Susan Forsythe was in town to give a workshop on constructing a vest from felted (accidently or otherwise) sweaters and that same week I saw Martha's latest publication with a big article on making all sorts of gift items from fulled sweaters...hot water bottle covers, oven mitts, pot holders, etc. My vest was only about 25% finished by the end of a very intense day although I'm making good progress with the finishing since then. I will have photos from the workshop and of the finished articles in a future post.

My knitting has been going full tilt and I finished my cabled hoodie in time to wear it on our annual getaway to Tofino. We go to Middle Beach Lodge every year in November and this year there was lots of time to knit in front of the big fireplace in the main lodge. I managed to finish two pairs of wristlet/cuff thingies in Noro Blossom. More about those along with photos and maybe even a pattern for you in future posts. For the first time, I was able to bring my spinning with me on holidays, thanks to my lovely new Louet Victoria folding spinning wheel and to my sweetie who bought it for me. It travels very well as it is light, compact and tidy in its dedicated bag, not to mention fun to spin with. It was the perfect activity while the rain poured down in buckets outside and the surf came booming in. Luckily, after a spectacular storm on the first day, we had beautiful sunny weather and were able to do some nice long beach walks. Next year we're going with the extended family...daughter, son-in-law and the two grandchildren so knitting may not be an option.

Birthday presents

2008-09-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Much to my surprise, it seems there are actually a few people reading my blog. I'll try not to go all shy - up until now, my entries seemed more like writing a diary than putting something out for the world to look at. Starting a blog felt a bit like a leap into the void but jumping off the deep end has always been my thing. I am enjoying doing some writing again, love the unstructured and random nature of it compared to the demands of "writing to order". I like having a place to express the little musings that fill my brain every day, a chance to chronicle my projects and the motivation to get something written and posted because maybe someone might read it. But the idea of actual readers was still a little murky. Then I attended Monday night's spinning group and found I had an unsuspected small following. For some reason I'm not getting any stats on you - there is probably some techie thing I didn't do to turn that feature on. Free advice on this is welcome.

"When on earth", you wanted to know, "will you ever get around to posting photos of your birthday yarns?" Thus prodded, I'll get to writing/gloating over that, but first here's the premise. When I was asked what I wanted for my birthday, my first reaction was to say "Nothing - well maybe a card". Assured by my personal party planner that everyone would ignore that, I was persuaded to provide some guidance..."Yarn", I said, "but just one skein." Apparently the invitation went a bit further to specify something exotic in the natural fibre category. Perfect! (He knows me so well.) Something I would use and love, not too big, not too expensive and a bit of an adventure for the non-fibre obsessed.

And everyone ran with it! I was blown away by the variety and beauty of the yarns people found and the fun they had doing it. Those who had never darkened the door of a yarn store claimed to have discovered a world they didn't know existed and were enraptured with the colour and texture and variousness to be found in your average yarn shop. The cognoscenti in the group went much further of course: a knitting book I've had out from the library about 50 times - "The Best of Interweave Knits", a pair of beautiful birch knitting needles called "swing" type from River John Needle Company - a new one on me. One gift came wrapped in some beautifully carded batts of silvery gray fleece - from Shirley, of course - causing a bit of a sensation among the uninitiated. "What is that stuff?" they wanted to know. Matt, our actor friend, draped one over his head to reprise his role as Christopher Columbus, bad wig and all, in a play called "Japango" that I stage-managed at university. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of that to show you but it was pretty hilarious. Of course there were a few random gifts...wine to drink while knitting/spinning, white fig soap and Body Shop products to wash with after a hard day in the fibre trenches, a jin chin do treatment to get the knitting kinks out of my shoulders, a cycling jersey for when I need to get outside for a break from knitting.. Thanks so much to my generous family and friends for your thoughtfulness and for making my 60th such a memorable occasion.

I realize that this photo doesn't really do the individual yarns justice so I will photograph them individually and post them as I come up with projects for them...or maybe on my next post.

The photos below show the alpaca I've been working on since the fibre safari in late August. I finally have enough at the same weight for a lace shawl I have in mind but it looks like it will have to wait on the other irons I have in the fire. I love the colour of this fibre and I really enjoyed spinning it in spite of all the preparation from the raw fleece state. Although it was remarkably free of guard hairs, it was still quite dirty...something that was not evident at first because of the dark colour. After spinning a bit without washing it and coming away with filthy hands (and wheel and floor), I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to spin all that dirt into the yarn and make it more difficult to get clean so I picked up several mesh bags for washing delicates at the dollar store and after picking the fleece to remove the big chunks of dirt/hay/foreign matter, washed several batches. It came out a noticeably lighter shade and a bit re-consolidated - not felted, just lumpy. So I picked the lumps again, more crap fell out, carded it on the drum carder and still more crap fell out! The batts are quite easy to split and spin from and the finished yarn is pretty clean. I should hope so after all that prep!

The spinning was a bit of a struggle at first, given that it was my first experience with alpaca - slippery compared to wool - but once I got the hang of it, it went really well. I was still on my traditional Ashford which doesn't have a way to adjust the ratio so it took rather longer than I anticipated - about two weeks of spinning one to two hours a day to fill two bobbins and then ply them together. Very satisfying to have four nice skeins of lightweight alpaca yarn waiting in the stash.

Some thoughts on aging

2008-09-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it happened...I caught the dreaded flu that has been flying around the town but not before I merrily burned the candle at both ends and in the middle. Early this month, I passed a serious milestone birthday-wise...six decades on the planet! The celebrations extended over the better part of a week with relatives and friends arriving from out of town, brunch, lunch and coffee gatherings, phone calls, the party and the aftermath. Just about the time the dust was settling, the flu arrived and I've been shivering under the covers and having my way with boxes of lotion infused tissues ever since. Finally I feel well enough to put some more-or-less coherent sentences together.

When I was a child, adults in their 60's seemed antiquated to me. Now that I'm there myself, I don't know if I seem just as elderly to the children in my life, but I feel no different on the inside than my young self. What has changed is that I'm much more choosy about what I take on of late. The big question when I consider a new project or interest is "How much of my precious time do I want to dedicate to this?" It has proven to be a good question to ask on all kinds of levels, not least because the halfway point of my life is well behind me. It helps weed out the things I think I ought to do and helps me focus on the things that are truly important to me, the things I love and am passionate about. When the "guilts" strike, self-imposed or otherwise, it helps to have this basic principle to work from. Asking it seems to break through that obsessive dedication to work and housekeeping to which our society compels us. Chores that seemed to be obligations set in stone have lost most of their power to sidetrack me from a good novel, an afternoon in the garden or goofing off with my grandchildren. "Wasted" time is anything but wasted.

Another imponderable of getting older is the decline in stamina from earlier days. It's getting quite noticeable - I can still put in a very long day when I need to but I pay a bigger price than I used to. One can react (and one has, repeatedly!) by taking up a fitness program. Again, The Question (see "precious time" etc. above) comes in very handy - followed by "Am I enjoying this?" and "Could I get the same effect doing something I love...or something less boring?" For me, hiking up a mountain or walking with friends beats laps in the pool any day. And the iPod has been a golden discovery - there are things I can do while listening to my favourite podcasts that would otherwise bore me rigid...and not just running the treadmill - dishes, vacuuming, what-have-you, all fly past painlessly to the strains of Craftlit, CastOn or Escape Pod. If I listen to something improving (CBC's Ideas or French language lessons), I feel that I'm multi-tasking. Not to say that some onerous chores are without reward - I'm as fond of a clean house as the next person but I find myself more and more reluctant to pour time into the attaining of it without the proverbial spoonful of sugar.

Enough philosophizing...now for some comic relief, here are the lyrics my friend Lesley wrote in honour of my birthday, which a group of friends sang for me to the tune of "My Favourite Things":

Merlot and iphones and needles for knitting,
Naots, orthotics and new iMac settings,
Bundles of sheep wool all tied up with string,
These are a few of your favorite things.

IPods and 'blogging' and 'hot' reading glasses,
Face cream and French scarves and free Belfry passes,
Lattes and sci-fi and music that swings,
These are a few of your favorite things.

When the pipes leak
When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
You simply remember your favorite things,
And then you don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and Harry and warm purple sweaters,
No dish with garlic or laced with red peppers,
Bathrobes and slipper and France in the Spring
These are a few of your favorite things.

When the joints ache,
When the wind breaks,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then we'll remember the great life we had,
And then we won't feel too bad.

Thanks Lesley!

Next post I'll share what I got for my birthday...lots of yummy fibre!

Fibre Fun at the Saanich Fair

2008-09-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the Spinners' and Weavers' Guild demonstration area at the Saanich Fair last weekend.

Guild member projects

Microwave dyeing

Dyeing with Koolade and food coloring

Transforming thrift shop yarn

Dyed in the grease

Dyeing results

Needle felting

Cookie anyone?

Raincoast

2008-08-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

Summer seems to be over with out here on the Pacific Coast - I wasn't quite ready for that. I'm hoping we get a short hit of nice weather on the 13th of September as that's the day of my birthday party - celebrating a pretty big number this year - and we wanted to have it mostly outdoors. It was very difficult to decide on how to celebrate this year. I hate leaving anyone out but I don't feel up to a truly huge party. So compromise has ruled the day and it's just family and closest friends. Of course there will be the usual Virgo gathering of the theatre related crowd at a local watering hole on the 5th of September and I'm promised a celebratory breakfast on my actual birthday (the 8th) morning. And I'm excited about my present from my guy this year - I'm hoping for that new folding spinning wheel I'm jonesing for but I suspect it will be some spectacular piece of new technology...more shopping fun for him.

And speaking of spinning, I finished two skeins of alpaca lace weight, all washed and ready to go, but I don't think it will be enough for the lace shawl I have in mind. I'm going to do two more skeins so that I don't have to stop in the middle of knitting and spin more...typically that would spell the stallout of the project since I would have to learn the pattern all over again and wouldn't be able to figure out where the heck I am after taking a couple of weeks out for spinning. From my reading, a rather open lace seems to be a good choice for alpaca as it is too warm when knitted solidly. Proof of that? I made a nice little sweater for my two year old granddaughter and after she's been wearing it for awhile, she grabs the front and yanks on it to indicate "Get this hot thing off me!"

The alpaca fleece from Bluestone is really lovely...hardly any guard hairs and not much in the way of vegie bits, the dark colour yarn lustrous and soft in the finished state. I realize now that the commercial alpaca yarns are a somewhat lower quality as they have a lot of long guard hairs sticking out of the thread. These can feel very tickly on the skin and perhaps that's why Eva hauls on her sweater fronts. I'm considering buying a whole fleece from them when they shear in the spring from an all black male called Marco. That should keep me out of mischief for a very long time.

This is week two of the Fringe Festival in Victoria and we've seen a couple of shows so far, one excellent, one so-so. I try to see everything done by my friends in the theatre world and follow that up with the shows that are getting the most buzz. This can be difficult during the last week as the really good shows sell out quickly and the venues are small. It never ceases to amaze me how resourceful these small productions are and how well some quite wacky venues work for theatre. There is something to be gained from not sitting in a conventional space, seats in rows, stiffly upright. Besides having a more relaxed audience, the best pieces make an advantage out of distractions like missed sound cues, street noise and other unforeseen occurrences. One good thing about the crappy weather...attendance is up. No one wants to go indoors when it's sunny out.

Finished projects...lots of travelling in the past couple of weeks and that's golden time for knitting, if not spinning. Knitting in the car while someone else drives is one of my great pleasures in life. I have the utmost sympathy for those who get carsick if they do anything other than look at the horizon. I finished a knitted tank top that is in the blocking stage and I'm praying it will fit. It looks right but no knowing for sure until I try it on if it will both fit AND be flattering. I also knit a slew of little baby hats from superwash merino for some babies of my acquaintance. They (the hats, not the babies) have a rolled brim and a knotted top and look so cute that I could just keep knitting them in bunches. So quickly did they fly out the door that I didn't get photos taken...guess I'll have to make some more. And I'm making good progress on the Central Park Hoodie for myself - I'm past the armhole decreases on the back and that purple tweed colorway is gorgeous in those cables.

Decision time - either I pick the plums and figs this afternoon or head out the door to watch some theatre...nice choices to have.

Daisy update: the x-ray report came back and the news isn't great. She has a cyst and possibly a mass in her chest cavity and surgery isn't recommended. So I guess her days are numbered although she's pretty much her old self energy and attitude-wise. For the time being, we're going to keep her comfortable and see what happens but it's pretty sad and I get misty writing or talking about it and am a complete emotional mess over other people's aging/dying dog stories. This seems natural to me, if not my favourite thing to go through. It was almost harder to not know if she was going to still be on the earth after the first episode and now that the cards are pretty much on the table, we try to appreciate her to the fullest, every day.

Getting out of the lair

2008-08-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a slow few days around here - hard to get rolling when the schedule gets knocked off kilter. Not that I haven't been busy. Monday evening was spinning group and I was seated next to someone who turned out to be a holistic vet who has a home visits practice...funny how the right person comes along just when you need them. Daisy is pretty much her old self although the hacking cough continues. Still no word from the doggie hospital on the x-rays so I'm in limbo on how to feel. There is a lot of fear displacement activity goin' on. I've managed to spin two full bobbins of laceweight singles in alpaca and now have plied them together for a grand total of around 6 ounces and about 600 yards of yarn. My plan is to knit a lace shawl for myself but I don't know if I have enough yet for that. Lordy it takes a long time to spin lace weight! Two weeks of pretty steady spinning to get two bobbins!

The alpaca came from a "fibre safari" up-island with my guy during which we visited a winery, had a look at the wonderful display of Cowichan sweaters at the Duncan museum, had lunch at Urban Beet in Nanaimo (highly recommended) visited Hummingbird Studios and tried out all the portable spinning wheels (the Louet Victoria...or was it the Juliet...was my fave) and bought extra bobbins for my traditional Ashford, went to Blue Stone Alpacas and had a tour, came away with two giant bags of alpaca, one dark brown and one white, dropped by Qualicum Bay Fibreworks, had a tour, picked up some lovely roving, stopped for dinner at Bistro 161 (not sure about that number) in Duncan which was great except for the selections of '80's rock blasting from the beer garden across the street. Whew! Quite a day. And quite a long sentence!

This week I've cast on and finished two adorable little hats for a shower gift and knitted quite a bit on my silk summer tank which I'm hoping to have done in time to get some wear out of it before summer is over. Today was a pretty hot one for Victoria, very muggy, so there's still a bit of summer to go. That's not to say it might not change overnight...it does that here...from shorts weather to sweater weather and back again in less than a week.

2008-08-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

Daisy came home last night and it is good to have her back. I can't stop hugging her and I'm sure she's wondering "What the heck?" She seems the same as ever: waggy tailed and optimistic. She has a little blue bandage around her right forepaw covering her intravenous site...I suppose I should take it off soon. She has bottles of pills and a special diet which she seems to like a lot. It looks and smells a lot more interesting than her usual dry dog food and she's eager for it.

We've had a quiet morning together - me spinning alpaca, her lying next to me in the sun on the bench by the window. It's lovely and peaceful but I would have been on my way to La Belle Provence (Québec) as I write if not for this crisis. No way I could have left with Daisy in this state but I couldn't help but feel a bit forlorn as Harry, who has to go for business, went off in a taxi this morning. There were plans to visit eastern Quebec fibre attractions, spend a week at Lac Meruimticook with Quebeçois friends, and enjoy lively Quebec City including a one night stay at the Chateau Frontenac. Can't blame me for feeling chagrined.

The up side of having to stay home is that I get to enjoy my lovely city of Victoria at pretty much its best. The sun is out, the garden is gorgeous and tonight is spinning group. Since this is pretty much a bonus week, I plan on "wasting" time by pursuing my leisure activities nonstop....spinning, knitting, gardening, reading...yeah! Now if I could just get someone to cook for me and make my bed!

Tough day on the homestead

2008-08-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

Today I found myself writing life details into my pattern notes on Ravelry and it occurred to me it would be more appropriate to (finally) get myself this blog and do my rambling here.

Our little dog Daisy, smooth fox terrier pictured on the left, has had a cough for a few weeks, had some treatments that seemed to help for awhile and gradually relapsed. In the past couple of days she took a turn for the worse, suffering along with the persistent hacking, some gastro-intestinal distress of which I will spare you the gory details. Last evening I spent a less than pleasant four hours waiting at our local pet hospital (it's the weekend and her regular vet is sensibly unavailable) for her to be seen.

The place was hopping, every chair in the waiting room full, receptionists rushing about dealing with new arrivals, triaging the serious cases. A weeping teenager in tight jeans and ear glued to a pink iPhone tottered in on four inch heels carrying a fluffy black cat yowling in distress from its carrier. A rangy older woman limping behind a walker brought in a tiny sick kitten she had gotten the day before at the SPCA. A middle-aged couple with a cute, waggy-tailed maltese waited and waited. A man and teenager (his daughter perhaps) arrive with takeout, eat it hurriedly on the bench outside the door and are handed what can only be the remains of their dead pet in a cardboard box. Everyone in the waiting room watched avidly until the penny dropped and then all looked studiously away. Vets cruised through, godlike, flipping through charts, delivering treatment options, professionally kind.

This I observed in the final hour of waiting, the first three hours having been passed in the car since coughing dogs aren't allowed inside until kennel cough has been ruled out. Daisy got a carside assessment and then was admitted to the building. I kicked myself for not bringing along my knitting - I could have finished my current project in all those hours of sitting. Although I remembered my iPod, worrying made it difficult to concentrate on listening to anything.

After being x-rayed, Daisy stayed for a sleepover and further diagnostic work and to have fluids and meds pumped into her intravenously. She's still there but I'm told I'll be getting a call soon to come and pick her up and get instructions on her care over the next few days. I've had to cancel a trip to Quebec, planned for months. Disappointing but I can't go away in the morning with our little buddy in this uncertain state, needing more than routine care. Not something you can ask a house sitter to take on, even if I could bring myself to leave.

I've been steeling myself for the worst, considering the horrible possibilities and narrow options, and weeping buckets. I've consoled myself by spinning alpaca and listening to podcasts of only the gentlest and most soothing variety...CraftLit, Knitwit, Manic Purl...you get the picture. I must write and thank those lovely women for helping get me through this.