Almost Print O' the wave Shawl

I finally finished my Print O' the wave shawl and blocked it last week. It was almost completed 2 months ago - but 10" from completing the border I realised I wouldn't have enough yarn. Damn. I needed to find another lace edging that was narrower so searched my stitch files and books and finally settled on one from Interweave's "Knitters' Shawls and Scarves" - that's not quite the right title but I can't see it on my shelf at the moment - where the hell is it? It's the edging from (will fill in this space once I find the damn book). It's okay, but the proper edge pattern would make for a wider shawl. Now, when am I going to wear this thing? I don't have any clothes that it would go with! I would love to give it to one of my girls but I don't think they'd wear it for a moment. Neither of them are lacey people. My mum would put it in a drawer and not look at it again. My granddaughter would love it - to dress up in, no thanks. No, I want to wear it, when I lose the stone I need to I'll buy a little black number and E can take me out to dinner! So, a bit of a wait then.

What I've been doing

Well not posting here that's a fact. I've recently visited the UK to see my girls and parents, now E is over there doing the pre-Christmas visit with all 5 of his kids! I normally don't mind being on my own in this great big place but this time I'm not feeling very comfortable, rattling around and wishing it was smaller and I could feel the boundaries.

After a few rough months, emotionally and effortwise we have made the decision to sell-up next year and move back to England. However, this will not be accomplised quickly. We won't wait until the whole house is renovated, that would be another 2 years at the rate it's going, and E will be on his knees by then. This means yet another 'partially renovated' property on the market, so we will be very lucky to get a buyer for months, and they will want it for a knock-down price. I will add a caveat here, there is a slight possiblity that we will just buy something smaller, less land, less work, in France which was E's first suggestion. But, in my heart of hearts, I want to go home and E agrees, so I think that's what we must aim for. It won't be easy, property has continued rising in price at a silly rate and we will have to settle for something very small. But, I have far to much 'stuff' anyway, I'm ready to live more simply. As long as there's room for my bike, wheel, little loom, carder, knitting machine, stash, sewing machine, overlocker, Christ! I must make these things work for me or they should go, no, no good, can't.

I don't know if I can part with the animals though, but I can't stay here. It would be wonderful if we could find some land to rent in the UK and then buy a small house very nearby.

On a lighter note, I've discovered Cast On! It's a podcast hosted by Brenda Dayne. I can't belive it's being going for over a year and I didn't come across it before, I followed a link from The Panopticon I've resisted listen to podcasts after the first one I tried, wondering what all the fuss was about, was less than inspiring, sounding as if it had been recorded in the loo so I'm afraid I didn't give it much of a chance. Brenda's voice has one of those calm, gentle, earthy north american accent. She includes pod safe music along with interviews with a wide variety of people involved with yarn crafts, of course she does talk knitting sometimes. It's made me cry and laugh out loud - not at the same time, and I love it. It just makes me more and more homesick.

We left St Branchs on 25th September, cool, overcast but no wind - perfect for cycling!.

Good, clear road with 295 miles ahead.



Some places we stayed were lovely,


some were not...



But eventually, on 4th October we reached St Genies, just north of Beziers, and my friends Wendy and Jim and ate moules and frites to die for.

Off tomorrow and just a little scared.

Well, panniers are packed, I've reduced clothing to a minimum, no room for a hairdryer, hopefully the hotels will have one. Bike is ready, route planning done. If you want to look at France from the air IGN Maps Geo-Portal. There are options which let you fade between maps and the aerial photos, or, you can select relief. That's pretty scary, photos don't show up the gradients very well, and it's all lovely sunny weather and unfortunately the forecast is for showers and a southerly wind. WE don't care, we're made of stout stuff. I've warned Wendy to expect two grubby, tired and thirsty middleaged women on her doorstep in 11 days time.

Here goes, Geronimooooooooooo!!

Lace charts anyone?

Chart in Excel
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

I was going crosseyed trying to keep my place while knitting Print O' the Wave recently, I'd read of lace knitters who transferred each line of lace to individual cards and just flipped them over. I thought I would give it a try - and it works, it's wonderful!

Here's how I did it.

First I re-create the chart in Excel - I do this anyway so that I can have a clearer chart on an individual piece of paper.

Line by line

Line by line
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

This is printed onto A4 card..

fan-of-cards

fan-of-cards
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

Cut along the dotted lines, punch a hole in the end and use something to link them together.

Marker move

Close-up-of-card
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

Close up showing how I show the marker move - this has saved me hours of frustration.

A cycle ride

Annette and I will be on our way in less than two weeks. I've planned our route to take 10 stages, some shorter ones in the middle in the Dordogne and Perigord where it's pretty hilly, and longer when the terrain is more forgiving. This going by maps you understand, the only area I've actually cycled before is between Toulouse and the mediterranean.

Yesterday I was pouring over my IGNs 1cm to 1k, and adding up the mileage accurately, I have been using Via Michelin route planner to get an idea but this doesn't account for all the twists and turns of a cross country road. The second day between La Roche-Posay and Annette's brother's is 58 miles, and the day after, 60! And the end of that day is getting quite hilly. The contingency plan is; cut the stage short and find somewhere else to stay, we have 2 nights spare which we would spend with Wendy in Beziers but if required, we can take and extra 4 days to get to Toulouse and then put the bikes on the train straight to Montpellier and catch our flight back!! So, I must stop worrying, we can do it!

I've been feeling pretty flaky the last few days and so it does make you doubt your own stamina. I know Annette felt tired and unfit after a hard ride with her young and fit son - but the reality is, we know we can do 50 miles no problem, we have all day, the trick is to break it down to easier stages. So I thought I'd better get another long ride under my belt. I set off at 11 am

70k from home to the bar Le Brasserie. It's only about 43 miles, but included one long hard climb and a lot of smaller hills. I've been carrying panniers loaded with about 12lbs of water in containers to increase the work and so that there's no shock to the system when we set off in 9 DAYS TIME.


Open countryside



The Lac in the local town.



Lunch stop in the Fôret du Perseigne

This is the spectacular Convolvulus Hawk Moth which has been visiting us the last few evenings around 9.0pm, magic! Click on the image for a larger one.

er, um, shuffle, shuffle, I'm back

Okay okay. Pictures might have worked better but waiting 20 seconds between each page.... enough already.

I've copied the few post's I made after I ran off with Wordpress, headings in the side bar.




Here's what I'm working on at the moment....

It's Eunny Jang's Print O' the Wave shawl, in ownspun, Max, (seen here below, kushed down), 18 wpi, acid dyed magenta with a touch of blue. The colour is darker than it looks here, I've tried to tweak it but it's close enough.

Just a couple of things from yesterday

1) It was late on a lovely balmy evening with a full moon, there was the most enormous hawk moth with a really really long proboscious dipping into the huge nicotianas beside the bit of concrete we eat al fresco on patio. It was 4 times the size of the humming bird hawk moths which we see loads of.

2) The goats broke into the patch of sunflowers outside of their house, just trampled the fence down.
I tied the fence up with string and E will repair it in the morning.

3) I was sitting indoors later when a baby toad hopped across the floor. It was very hoppy and took me a while to corner it, and when I did catch it, I couldn't hold onto it as it squeezed out between my fingers - I didn't want to squash it. Got it outside on the second attempt.

4) For the second night running, one of the cats had left the entrails of a rodent in the middle of the dining room floor, just where people walk first thing in the morning half awake. In bare feet.

My bike is being révisioned

Took my bike into Alençon yesterday for a service and any work that might need doing. Monsieur Josselin did a brief check, hubs, no play; bottom bracket, ditto, chain, slack; cassette, worn. I really hope that the changing will be better, I had shorter cranks fitted 7 (can it really be 7?) years ago and they've been tricky since, but mainly on the smallest ring which I don't use much, smirk. No, I do use my stump puller for groveling up steeper hills or when I'm carrying stuff, there's no shame in twiddling. One of the benefits of being older, no-one bats an eyelid that you are slow, which translates into, I don't care anymore. I pick it up tomorrow late pm and then voilà! I'm in business again.

This August has been dreadful weatherwise, similar to the UK, and the mornings have felt Autumnal for weeks. Today there was mist with a clear blue sky above, it's now cleared and the air is very warm and still, wonderful cycling weather. What's the betting by Friday it will be raining again?

Aren't kids just wonderful?

I've this year old female alpaca, Copper, who I've been slowly working with to get her used to handling but as yet she still moves away when touched. Yesterday my 5 year old grand daughter, Molly was helping me with feeding and she approached Copper, "Careful!" I said,

A bit of a cycle...

Four weeks tomorrow Annette and I are cycling to Beziers, near the French mediterranean coast from Tours, about two thirds of the way up France, west of the middle. No, I can actually read a map, I just can't think of a better way to describe it at the moment. But, I have a map to show you.

Our route is represented by the red line if you can see it. Our trip consists of 10 stages, only cycling 30 miles per day or so in the Dordonge as it's hilly, and a) Annette's never toured before or even carried panniers - but she's been in training since April, and b) we want to enjoy ourselves and not feel knackered at the end of the day.

Bye bye blogger

After yet another frustrating time trying to upload images, I've given up and moved to wordpress. It's a wheel thing
Took me exactly 5 minutes to sign up and publish my first post with an image. Ha!

Huh

I'm using this as my own personal diary. No-one reads it, it's not publised anywhere, so what the heck. Our broadband, wireless modem got zapped by lightning, and it has take 2 weeks to get back online with an old one. why didn't we do it before? You tell me. Anyways, I belong to Weight Loss Resources online. It's a brilliant site, I've been a paid up member for 3 months or more now and have only just discovered it's true potential. Like, what is your 'favourite' food, ie, what have you stuffed yourself with most over the last week, or two weeks or month? What do you think! Wine came third, over milk and bananas, taken daily. I thought that was pretty bad, and seeing how I was losing weight at the staggering rate of less than 8ozs a week I took the pledge and drink didn't touch my lips for a week. I counted every last dang thing, grams of this, mils of that, calculated my exercise using a heart rate monitor, and stayed under my weekly allowance by around 200 calories, the result was I lost a lb and a half! Then the lightening struck, blasted the modem and with it my access to WLR - and I lost the plot, felt shaky, panicky and couldn't cope, how sad is that? How will I do if I ever get to goal (9st stone) and stop subscribing, I can't really afford to go on indefinately? Anyhow, we are in business again, I will start properly on Sunday as tomorrow we are eating out and I don't intend to count calories then, life is for living anyhow. And now I can have another glass of wine.

Planning a bit of a cycle

This year I decided I would like a long bike ride, I haven't done one since Land's end to John O'Groats 8 years ago. Was it really that long ago, crikey. I began by thinking of a trip from the English Channel to the Med, but it would mean E on his own for about 3 weeks - I'm a lot slower now- and that means the cost would be steep too. I have a friend Wendy who has a holiday home in Beziers and has often suggested we visit, so that seemed a good destination point, And by making the starting point Tours, on the Loire, then I would be in unfamiliar territory straight away and save 3 or four nights accomodation into the bargain. Normally a solitary cyclist by preference, this time I decided I would like some company so asked Annette who, with her husband Graham, have been really good friends since we came to France 2 and half years ago. Annette said "yes!" and prompty began training, she hadn't got quite the mileage in her legs as I have then, but she's worked hard and gained a lot of fitness in the last few months. We will start on 25th of September, we will be deposited by hubbies hopefully well before lunchtime at a little place called Sorigny, next to the motorway peage just south of Tours.

We plan to do between 60 and 80k per day, quite modest mileage (Kilometage?) but there is a world of difference doing 70k one day only and stringing several together. So, it was about time we tested ourselves to see how much more work we need to do in the next 12 weeks. Doing a 40+ mile round trip with lunch included seemed a good idea! Annette cycled to me, then we left for Le Perrier to meet Graham at the bar for lunch, only to find it closed - on a Thursday!! Typical France! But the proprietor came out and offered us a 'sandwich' - also typically French to help where they can. He brought us the most enormous ham baguettes with some beers, delicous and very welcome. The sun came out as we were eating and so we cycled the longest leg back to Annettes via Mortagne au Perche in temperatures of 30C or more. Another break for tea and cake, quite a bit later I made my way home with my left hip and thigh complaining. I don't find long stops helpful when on a lengthy trip, it takes me ages to get going again. Thirty minutes maximum and save the rest for the evening. I made sure I stretched and massaged my legs when I got home, took 200mgs of ibuprofen and the discomfort disappeared and no after effects the next day, in fact I felt full of energy. The round trip was a total of 68K. The aim is to be able to do 70k 3 days on the trot carrying panniers, and not die, I'm quite hopeful.

Shearing Stress 2 down, 6 to go.

Guess what, replacement shears work!! They are going twice as fast. Now it's trying to get the alpacas done as soon as possible as the temperature is soaring.

It's so hard with just the two of us, and trying to get the 'pacas down and secured, stresses them and me. I've been studying Marty McGee's methods, but haven't had the time to get them halter trained (only two young born here are - but not Copper) and trusting me. Now, any trust I built up has evaporated as we wrestle them to the ground. Without being able to guide them to the shearing blanket, it's a fight and I hate it, I feel they are never going to trust me if this is how I have to treat them. More help makes it quicker and therefore safer and better for them.
We are off to lunch today with some people we met and A is trained in agriculture and offered to help once, so I will ask and hope they can oblige. Unlike the UK, there are very few alpaca owners so none near enough to help. We have other friends who have helped, but this is busy visitor time now and the one day we organised was abandoned when the bloody shears didn't work. I am so cross, last year was hyper stressful as we couldn't get them sheared, the pregnant girls and crias where getting close to heat stress. So we bought shears, a "How to shear" DVD and did it ourselves with friends staying at the time to help, it worked well, so this year I didn't expect any problems.

We got up early (well, I've been awake since 04.00 as I have been every other morning for a week) and did Margo this morning, she kushes down so we pushed her around to get her in posistion and away we went. Her fleece is full of guard hairs now, and slow growing so it all just get's dumped in the same bin, I don't have to worry about sorting it. But after that I was feeling to stressed to tackle another one as I didn't want to tackle any of the others without at least one extra pair of hands.

They need to be shorn and then the girls need to get pregnant - it's a month over due!!!

NEXT YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT.

Those that would be shorn ...

Copper,10 months old.













Her dad, Max.












Enjoying pear leaves.