Lazy girl

Grumpy blogger (self-loathing for lack of blogging discipline and focus).

Slightly vexed knitter (pattern-induced anger--by the time these darned flappy mittens are done, it will be June).

Cat-napper (ahem, rescuer).

Cape-wearing wise woman (due to wonderful eccentricity of my St. Clement's friends!)*.

So, I am sat home not going to knitting tonight with a kitty on my lap and having a grand old time listening to the 'flishy-flishy-pause-flishy' sound of the washer going in different directions. This is okay because will be on manic trip to Cardiff this weekend, and unless I spend all of my time in IKEA the store or IKEA the catalogue, there should be a little time to knit in the vehicular transport (it really makes me happy not to have to drive in this country! yet.).

Last week, I sort of went to knitting. But never actually got there. The journey began when C picked me up at 7 and we drove in to the Forum. Forty-five (45) minutes later, we were sat at the barrier in the parking garage waiting for someone, anyone to freaking leave the car park so the machine would let us in... 3 minutes later when we finally got in, we both decided we couldn't be arsed (and I needed to go home in less than an hour for a husbandly creation of completely homemade pizza -- a 20 minute walk away). So we drove all the way back, she parked her car at hers, introduced the kittehs to me (mew!), received decline from hubby to join the pizza/knitting/cider outing, and we walked to E's Pizza Wonderland, where tomato sauce was being flung with wild abandon (have I mentioned that cleaning is my task? sigh.). It was all excellent fun, but not a whole lot of knitting was accomplished on my part. C has this outstanding sock technique she invented herself where she knits two socks, toe-up, at once on 2 circulars -- my next project is to learn this; sounds like an Oz/NZ trip project to me!

Fortunately, I was able to do a little knitting on the (3-hours late) train to and from London on Monday/Tuesday, but two (further -- i think I have ripped this flap out 7 times now) attempts had to be abandoned and re-started. At this point, I am beginning to hate the mittens -- for the knitting problems and for the fact that I am running out of the purple angora from Kneece. Kneece, move back to France!

The rest of this week, I have been pooped in a sort of 'grump-and-stay-at-home-drinking-hot-chocolate-and-knitting' sort of way, and no more knitting has been done.

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Above, I must admit that I optimistically said there will be a trip to Cardiff (and IKEA -- slightly obsessed with storage solutions for my life at the moment) this weekend -- there is a forecast of 8 more inches of snow across south and west England, so we may be in drippy Norfolk instead. But if so, I shall selfishly and suspiciously indulge and drink hot chocolate, knit, sit with kitty, etc., etc., as mentioned above... so as to fit in with national culture.

In case it hasn't outstripped the local need to report on drive-bys and bar fights in the Ark-La-Tex, it has been a snowy week in England -- the snowiest in 18 years! London was as quiet at Christmas on Monday night. Banks were shut (or at least the 3 branches of Lloyd's I tried to visit on Tuesday). Transport has been chaos (London busses didn't run on Monday, and 90% of the Underground was suspended).

As the girl who got married in 79*F heat on 20 December, snow/ice/frost is exotic and thrilling. I take pictures of it. I force the macro setting to capture the frost on the car roof; people stare at me as they walk down the street. I peer out the window in the morning in anticipation of a snow day (in vain). I smile in my water-proof-waxed and fleece-lined hat. An understanding of the logic of legwarmers is continuing to develop (no, I still haven't any of my own -- cannot take that idiotic step yet).

Eamonn has only let me scrape the ice off the car windows once, because he said it made him look like a b-a-d man for him to sit in the warm car while the wench scraped the window.


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I may have mentioned there is a warm kitty on my lap. This is all well and good except that my toes are on the ground and they are cold. So I must now relieve myself of the computer position and adjust everyone so that my toes are on the insides of my knees where they can begin to thaw.

* Explanation of cape-wearing in medieval church. One of our regulars is just lovely and thoughtful and, as he is clearing out some unneeded things from his house, happened to bring a clerical cape into St. Clement's on Saturday since he has watched me slowly turned blue over the past few weeks (a medieval church does hold the chill to an impressive consistency). So, I put it on and then when Tom (pictured above, another regular) came in, I think I rather terrified him, standing alone in the middle of the nave next to a heater :)

However, I think it may become necessary for me to wear capes -- not in an attempt to be the best Harry Potter fan ever -- but because that thin cape is warmer than my hugely thick woolen Gap coat! Judith is afraid that I am becoming blasphemous, although her logic in this conclusion baffles me somewhat. I shall have to force British humour and eccentricity on her during her upcoming visit.