Scottish Sundays: Drifting towards a goal

As any knitter will tell you, it's very difficult to move purposefully towards a goal when there's a lovely soft skein of yarn eye-balling you from the top of your stash. I *know* I should be more structured about planning, lists, setting goals and sticking to them. Startitis is really just a symptom of an underlying problem: lack of finishitis or fear of the unknown.

Even though this is not a WIP-post, any progress towards any sort of goal has been delayed by some cashmere/angora/lambswool mix, some Shetland and some random other things from stash. 

I made a list of things to do. I could have done some things on the list, but I just couldn't get myself to do it. I'm not sure it's all just me, but I dare blame the weather and lack of sunlight a teensy weensy bit as well. I just can't be bothered to leave the house, to "go and do" or to be torn away from my craft area, my podcasts and my yarns. I've more or less prepared a few things I can do during lunch break at work (like taking the expensive leather shoulderbag to the mender's again, or getting the battery of my watch replaced) because I'll be around there anyway. 

Instead of finishing off some to-be-sent-off SWAP thingies, I'm in the process of re-knitting the Mystery KAL (halfway there). I tidied, some. I laundry-ed, some. I started another Christmas Knit. All stuff that needs doing at some point, just maybe not exactly now. 

Instead of striding towards a goal I'm more or less drifting towards it. I'm hoping for some rapids to be honest...

In pictures this week, some boats we encountered in Bonny Sunny Scotland.

I know exactly where I took this picture. There's a little harbour near the Gaelic Whiskey Distillery on Skye. The sun was out, as you can see. As you will also have spotted, this boat is sitting on the grass. I'm not entirely certain it's still in use. 

I mentioned this boat in the last instalment of the Scottish Sundays: the turn-table ferry that takes you from a tip of Skye over to Glenelg. I try to take it whenever I can because I adore the thing. It's a lot like being taken onto a play toy, with dogs running around where they shouldn't and if you're lucky a seal or two popping up out of the water to check you out. It's not really breaking the bank, and it takes you to an area of the Western Highlands I love. What's more to want? Oh, right, there's only one of them left in operation, so I don't mind spending some of my hard-earned money on it. There appears to be a donation button on their website, so if you're looking to spend some cash, you might want to think about the Skyeferry. It even has a blog!

Couldn't leave you without a picture of Scotland's! Only! Floating! Pub! ('t was the sign that took us onto a side road). The Eagle Barge seems to have a Facebook page which makes this floating pub even more impressive. It's situated by the Laggan Locks. Locks always intrigue me. I think they are wonderful things, and I think I want to experience one from inside a boat once. I'll put that on my bucket list...*

Anywho, must get on. I think I'll treat these lists like I treat candy. Eat it all in as few sittings as I can so it's gone the next day. Hats, balls, etc. 

* we all know by now how Great I am at following lists... Any tips welcome. Or you can come and finish them for me.**

** ultimate wish: someone to finish my lists for me. All applications welcome. 

Scottish Sundays (or mondays): On the Road Again

On. The. Road.

There was a time when I explored Scotland on foot and by train, under water (unplanned) and by postal service. These days I see a lot more of the country, because I get to drive on little country lanes which are too far away to reach by foot or train and possibly even by postal service. Even better, I get to choose when to travel and when to stay. I know it's not the best thing for the planet as a whole, but then again, I camp, leave no litter and inject what little I have to spend in the communities I reach by this mode of travel. Plus, I really like driving through Scotland. Open roads, mountainous tracks, glorious skies, I love them all.

Whenever the Photographer and I get to spend any amount of time together, a large proportion of that time is spent in a car. In a month's time, I'm off on a road trip, as it happens. This road trip will not take me very far, only about an hour and a bit, if traffic allows. I will then continue my journey on foot, by plane, some more footing, and a "bit" more flying, even more footing and a 2 hour road trip. After all of that I get to collapse on my own bed. I haven't slept in that bed for 2 years. It'll be an experience...

As this trip is in the future and I *still* don't own a Tardis (HINT, Photographer, HINT), I can't show you any pictures of it yet. Instead, some images from our last Big Scottish Road Trip.

Ah yes, roller coaster road. Twist and turns and ups and downs. Absolutely the best way to drive all the way up to the north coast, drive wise. Also probably sunshine wise. And a soft verge to land in. 

Why yes, that IS the late Queen Mum's royal car park. Sort of. It's the car park at the Castle of Mey. Which happens to be the late Queen Mum's castle. So what I'm a little obsessed with it? There was a basket of sample balls of yarn for HM the late Queen Mum at the entrance. Sheep! 

You might recognize the view from a movie. Highlander. Filmed in, you guessed, the Highlands. They probably left the road out though. I'm sure it wasn't there in the times they were trying to depict. We got muddy and climbed up a hill for that, you know?

The Cuilins, creating their own weather system. Just because they can. One of the great landmarks of the Isle of Skye. If I were an old God of some kind, I'd pick that as my home. Totally.

On the way to the little turn table ferry, I think that might be a distant view of the Five Sisters of Kintail. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. Lovely road to drive on, as the ferry can only fit a few vehicles at a time. A maximum number of vehicles coming towards you. Not counting the locals....

A better and positively certain view of the Five Sisters, taken on the road to Ratagan from the little ferry. I walked around there once, it's a stunning place. Also quite muddy at times...

Not, I repeat NOT ROAD KILL. 

There, I hope you enjoyed a few of our road trip pictures. 

Next month's road trip will look a little different, but I'll make sure to show you then. In the mean time, let me know: 

What's your best road trip ever?

Scottish Sundays: Back to School

As the mailbox is filled with shop folders promoting the latest in School Fashion, the summer holidays are just around the corner. In my day, you know, last century, we started looking for agenda's, notebooks and pens mere weeks before school was about to start again. Apparently, there just so much to choose from, we have to start looking months in advance. It doesn't affect me, but it leads to another subject I wanted to talk about.

Learning.
Yep, I said it. How much did you like to go to school when you had to? And, admit it, be honest, how much did you long back to those days once you started real life?
Real life, I call it, as it's such a stark opposite to the mythical days in which maths was the bane of our lives, or even when writing a 30 page paper on The Idea of the Self in Modern Literature (modern, as in early 20th century Modern) seemed like an unclimable hill. The days of sleeping in when a class was cancelled or sleeping on the bus for an hour while whizzing past traffic on the way to uni.

We may not like to admit it, but we all learned skills in school, or I wouldn't be writing in English here. Graduation comes as a relief from all that learning, and we vow to never go back. After a certain period of being a computer drone, we may, just "may" be ready to challenge ourselves again. Maybe you start learning a new language (hello Spanish, long time no see, como estas?). If we're that kind of person, we start 'expanding our self' to become more aware, or if we're honest, we jump headlong into a quarterlife/midlife crisis of our own making. African dancing, Jembé or pottery, while all having their own merits, call up an image of a certain kind person. If we're still being honest, and lets say that we are, we all have the image of a slightly voluptuous lady of a certain age who likes the sense of natural fibres close to her skin and who dies her hair with henna when we think of African dancing, Jembé and pottery.

Now, if you could let go of these projections and look at the idea itself, we might see something else. We live in a time of affluence. Most of us don't have to spend the larger part of a day on finding food and shelter. This leaves us with time to let our minds wander. And with that time come the questions.
Imagine having to live hand to mouth. Would you care what colour to paint your bedroom walls? Probably not, because asking and answering that question wouldn't make your stomach rumble any less.
When we live on a small budget, we let ourselves be led by our budget when we decide on the colour scheme of our bedroom walls. And most of us do. Only when we can afford to pick whatever we want do we have to ask the question:

What is it that I want?

Inevitably, this leads us to question if what we have is, in fact, what we want. E presto, a crisis has magically appeared.

Some will turn to materialistic things to answer that question and compare the merits of one portable device against another until they see blue in the face. Others, let's call them our earth mothers, might enter a course of African dancing to bring them closers to themselves.* Whatever you do, do something that fits you.

I fit a toy wheel around a piece of dowel rod, and attached some fibre to the hook i screwed into the top of it. Eventually, that led to this:



During the 2010-2011 school year, I thought myself how to spin.
Next year, I'm learning how to play the Oboe. Neighbours, beware.

Are you challenging yourself?


* or fencing, or race car driving. Why not?

Scottish Sundays: No rest for the wicked

Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu.

No I haven't lost it. Those are the first Dutch words written down EVER (that still remain). Roughly it means something like "All the birds have started their nests except for you and me". If you look around... that's kinda true. Big bellies are popping up all over the place, and I think I've mentioned that before. Never mind that, look at this picture!

This past week, a female blackbird (I'm guessing) started ripping bits off of our vines and flying in tufts of moss to build this nest! How weird, it seems rather late in the season to start building. The nest has grown in size since then, but I haven't spotted anything in it. Yet.

Nothing much has happened this week, apart possibly from the fact that my job got extended for another 2 months. In spite of that, some more job applications have been sent. Luckily I had already decided to stop stressing out about it, as there isn't much point to it. Something will come up, eventually.*

So, while I was procrastinating this weekend, I got the pictures off my phone and stumbled upon this, which shall be the Scottish picture of the week. It was taken at the Ullapool Golf Club. it includes DH, who, I've decided, needs a nickname like every other DH mentioned in blogs. From now on, he shall be called the Photographer. He doesn't often appear in pictures because he hogs the camera.**

I want my summer back. With sun and time off. No more of this nonsense.

Back to knitting warm cardigans it is for now. I hope that bird can swim...

* So I've been told
** He will deny this

Scottish Sundays: of ripples and refocussing

If nothing else, the past year has led me to learn that life will probably never be completely without ripples.

So, this glass lake does not represent life. Bummer, because wouldn't it be nice if it were like that even for just a little while? Sometimes smaller ripples would make things a lot easier, but I guess the point to it all is to build in such a way that any ripple can be easily absorbed.
Last week was a bit of a struggle, what with too short sleep, hormonal challenges, job sillyness and a lovely DH reaching point of explosion all at the same time. I let myself be led down the path of the unwanted career-thing, while I'm not even *that* worried about there being something, or being able to get by on benefits for a while if we had to.
With life twisting and turning and not settling on any direction at all, some things seem like better plans than others, but none of them seem to gel with the Big Plan, whatever it may be in the end. Not a full time job being scared out of my mind before even starting it. I'm fairly certain that is not the plan. Part time, maybe. I need to send an application tonight, and instead I'm blogging. It'll be all right, I can do this, you see? It's all for practise anyway. Apparently, it doesn't have to be perfect in one go. Someone should tell my head about that.

Dear head, please take this advise from the people who write on Scotland's roads, and SLOW DOWN. Thanks.

Scottish Sundays, of milestones and how they hurt when you loose your balance.

Yes, still alive. Hai. Let's move on.

Last week I was confronted with my goals and wishes as they were when I started therapy about 9 months ago. There was little more to do but laugh about them and how they relate to now. I get to go on without the training wheels.
Oddly, it feels like hard work now that I'm officially declared sane enough to be left to my own devices. It's been a lot of Me Me Me Show* which I suppose is a necessary thing to deal with the Not Me Not Me Not Me Show** of the last years. Now it's more or less dealt with and every day has become more about NOW and how to make that work instead of the What If's of yesteryear, and about finding balance... Right.

Balance is not my best quality, which you would be able to tell if you were behind me at leaving the cinema last friday. No alcohol involved, just relative darkness etc. It's not something I possess in oodles, but something one can aspire to, can't one?

Anyway, during the time I just really didn't feel like blogging much, I've been trying to get out of the dip left by the high of the night of the performance (the higher the high, the lower the low?) which was great fun, and led to much hurt and drunk idiocy and trying to fit in without my wing-lady. It hurt the head and the soul, but dear therapist, who we ran into at the bar, said I looked really in my element. So, obviously, drunk and surrounded by relative strangers is where I really come into being me.***

Also during the non-blogging, 1 baby was born, a set of twins wasn't, and still isn't yet born, and then another baby. Are they handing them out for free or something? So including the twins, 4 are still to be born this year. Unless someone still has a surprise to tell me, I think that's quite plenty. One can only do so much baby-knitting in a year, can't they?
On a more serious note, the inevitable baby boom one encounters at this age does reinforce the notion of living life through others. People all around are getting settled, or at least have started a long process of doing up their dream home in order to get settled there. They are doing things that, I can only assume, make them happy in their being. So when those around us are taking the steps that some of us can't just yet, it is sometimes a little difficult to deal with those who don't appreciate what they have. While I'm very happy for people to vent their peeves (after all, that's what this blog is for sometimes) and make their own decisions about their lives, I'm often left baffled by the level of complaint and the decisions that are made. I'll have to go by the assumption that's just me not understanding others and their choices and remain silent in my bewilderment.****

Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom. Fancy me, being annoyed at not going out on an evening for feeling horrible? Uhuh, it happened, and again the next evening. I am still a bit bummed for missing the concert, but everything hurt, so sitting outside in the cold was not the best thing to do.
On my list is start Oboe lessons in the new school year, finally digitising a pattern, reading a few books and one day, maybe, book DH a ticket. You know, nice things. For now, I must continue knitting.


with this, for one of them unborn babs. 5 weeks to finish, or thereabouts. Oh, and send a bunch of postcard which have been sitting on a shelf for weeks. You know, now my head's out of my ass?

Disclaimer:
Due to the nature of my dwellings I encounter a lot of young parents, as well as in my personal, online and professional lives. My disbelief and bafflement can be contributed to all of you and no one in particular. Please assume I am talking about someone else. I probably am.




* Copyright to Louise J Hunt.
** No one in their right mind should want to own copyright to that.
*** Not really.
**** These things end up on the please kick my butt list

Scottish Sundays, nothing to see here

Soooo,

Yes it is still Sunday. The second day of Sunday even. By law, no less.

We celebrate a second day of... a few things over here. Christmas, Easter and Whit Sunday. So today is the second day of Easter, a public holiday. Last Friday, Good Friday was another day off at work. Due to not sleeping, I took a few hours last week, at the end of the day, and sat in bars (don't judge me) working on clearing out my head. Seems I found me a spot, so I'll be returning there regularly. They don't look at you funny (much) when you whip out a stack of paper and a pencil and start scribbling and doing weird things with symbols.*

On Friday I got some help clearing cobwebs from a dear, slightly loony friend. Hefe Weissen is our mutual friend, and the bill was loads smaller than last time, so that was nice as well. I'll be taken a course in house renovation with her, free of charge, hurrah!

Due to this course, and me enjoying my... socks off (too warm for April), Scotland has been put on hold. It's all about feeling good about what you're doing,** and I've been having a bit of a good time lately, so I'm just going with that. I'm sure I'll get some kind of response on that later this week.

Anyroad, while I wasn't hanging around in bars or out eating or knitting a stranded sock, I finally finished the bfl/silk/silk 2-ply. 650 meters of it. It stunk when wet.



This will be a weird week, with today off, a short day on Wednesday because of tri-weekly appointment, and then a short Thursday to be un-rushed before the Big Night. To boot, the folks will be in Japan, and I'll have Friday to recover. Looking forward to it!***

* drawing charts. Stop that thought.
** it is, isn't it?
*** not the recovery bit, the bit just before that.

Scottish Sundays, in Black and White

It's not often I get to use my shoes as a way to describe my thoughts, so here they are! Black, heeled and oh so purdy. White, somewhat comfy and wearing the wrong laces.

I wore the black shoes this Saturday. They went well with my black dress, the one which seems to be the costume for singing the serious stuff. Singing was serious yesterday, even though it's quite joyful in parts.
Some of it is massive, other bits are very subdued, but all of it is beautiful and very unlike our usual repertoire. Of course we're not the first (or the last, beating Eindhoven to the post) to perform this, so youtube provides some great performances, like this one, which is Movement I of the Queen Symphony



I wouldn't dream to suggest I could sing to that level, but not for lack of trying. Trying is made a lot easier because of the enthusiasm and, dare I say Charisma (such an awful word, but quite correct here) of the people we're working with. The fact that the choir conductor was pleased(!) during practise can be called quite a miracle, as he never seems entirely happy at regular choir practise. There's always room for improvement, quite a bit of room to be honest... After the try-out he still seemed quite pleased "with some bits which turned out quite beautiful" which may possibly have been the bits we didn't sing. I'm not sure he specified. Anyway, we'll take the sort-of-compliments when we can, won't we?
The other conductor, who is actually in charge of us all seems to radiate joy in what he does, it's quite addictive. He got me thinking about having so much joy in what you do that you infect other people with that positive energy... Be honest, how often do you get to experience that? I don't, not often.
Are you that person? I'm not.

I moan a lot about a job which does little more for me than pay the bills and keeps me from not leaving the house. The people around me moan about their jobs too, because we share the same lack of enthusiasm. My mentor finding joy in his latest nickname "Rain man" isn't quite the same thing. He just remembers a lot of useless facts and can do numbers in his head.
Anyway, if you've been keeping up, you know that enjoyment doesn't come easy these days but I try very hard, which brings me to the other side of the coin.

Before, I unconsciously decided that there was no point in starting new things because it meant there was only going to be more to say goodbye to. And since I had very little going on, that worked, kinda. For a while, until it didn't any longer. So now I enjoy a lot more things, allowing the entire experience to "enter my head" (which is not a medical term, obviously, ahem). But oh boy, trust my head to bugger it up again. Besides having the best of times singing and experiencing and quietly enjoying the fact that I still think this conductor is my DH's long-lost-twin-brother-from-another-mother (I've got people agreeing with me, I'm not crazy), there's this nagging little voice in the back of my head reminding me it's going to be all over in 2 weeks and nothing is going to replace it. Besides that, I'm moving to a place which seems to be a bit of a cultural black hole (no offence, really, it's a numbers thing) so even in the very far of future, there won't be anything like it. Granted, there is a music hall in Dallas, but lets be honest, I won't be singing for Jaap van Zweden, if he's even still there.

So, in order to stop this voice from nagging, plans have to be made, once again. All this energy has led to me plans 1004 through to 1006. Ehm yeah, not really counting, I just make a lot. But, piano lessons aren't so hard to come by, and maybe even some voice training? Who knows, but music is good for the soul so why not, eh?


On to the white shoes...

We did this one today at a shared concert with another local choir. The general feeling lacked a teensy bit of enthusiasm. Only a little bit, honest. It's just not quite the same, is it? Hilariously, we managed to get the number of chairs wrong again, which I might just blame on the little gnome sitting in the row in front of me at the Queen stuff. She turned up with a chair she brought in, which might possibly have come from the selected stack which was painstakingly counted out up to 3 times before we needed them. So what do you do when the awfully loud music combo is not where it was supposed to be and therefore in your way with fewer chairs than bums to fill them? Uhm, I'll leave it to your imagination to come up with the answer.

Instead of being bummed out, I did manage to enjoy the day, grinning at the valiant attempts of our own conductor to stay awake (he didn't leave the try-out after-party until 2.30 am, rockstar that he is), being happy with the outfit I didn't feel much for at first but turned out to be much more me than many others, and my red fingernails! Hurrah!

What does this have to do with Scottish Sundays, or even the lack of WIP Wednesday earlier this week, I hear you ask!

Quiet down, even you in the back of the class! (I still imagine people actually read this). I've been going on an average of 6 hrs sleep for about 3 weeks now. This article explains what that does with your brain. For now, I'm happy with my language centre working, somewhat...

Now, please excuse me while I keel over. (If only)

Scottish Sundays, a 4-horse race

I was told this week that I didn't have to have everything solved before visiting the one person there to help me solve the problems.

For once, you do your homework thoroughly and still it's no good. Uhuh. I'll take it as a compliment anyway.

This Scottish Sundays thing was started a little while back to help me focus on an achievable goal. Something to work towards for the time that the main goal, share continents with the hubby (or even states, county, dare I say address?), is held back beyond my influence. This secondary goal, being where I love to be, is something that I have influence on, something that isn't quite unimaginable as much as you would think.

Right.
Now that we've got that clear, let me explain what my head does with that information.

*insert Munch-like scream*

That's it, no really. And then it runs around like a headless chicken, bumping into all kinds of useful ideas that could help sustain me during this new adventure.

I ask you, what would a headless chicken do when it runs into a splendid idea?

Really think about it.

A bit harder.

Exactly, that's what I thought (and know, this is MY head after all). There isn't much a headless chicken can do, is there?
This head of mine ran into a few decent ideas, but rather than acting upon them, it would run right on into the next one, only to stumble on to the one after that.

The hubby goal seems to be on the move much like tectonic plates move. You need expensive and complicated instruments to measure movement, and once in a while it makes a big hoohah and upsets everything. Only when tectonic plates do it, it's not just my little bubble that gets shaken.*
So whenever this tedious work-thing finally moves into place (maybe in 2 weeks, maybe in 2 years, who knows?) we get to see what happened to the visa application. I don't even want to think about what that means.

Anyway, the Scottish thing got a strange reaction earlier this week. A Welsh girl in my book club said (and I try to quote here):

"What do you want to go to Scotland for, no one's happy there, it's miserable!"

So ehm, yeah. I'll happily stay in my tent for a few months, the thing is, I need to be able to afford that. Queue Plan 2a, 2b and 2c. As I haven't assigned them yet, I've been working on one of them this weekend. The secret knitting got sent of to its little recipient, after I figured out what I did with the cast-on. A pattern has been started, Illustrator has been beaten into submission (for now), and my little baby (the knitting, not a real one, obv.) is now gone, never to return... *sob*

Something to cheer you up

Spring is here, you can tell by the blossom (not only in Japan, ha!). This happens to be our neighbours' plum tree, but tress are doing their flower thing all over the place now. Not the big tree that lived at our other neighbour's house. It got the chop last week. the light, oh the light! It burns, even though the sunscreen lotion.

As this is still Scottish Sundays until further notice, here is a picture of me, taken a few years back on Skye.



Some of you might recognize the backpack, only it's being used properly here. These days it only comes out when oodles of fibre-goodness needs to be carried around (ahem). But, this picture might help to explain the blue-green obsession I've had going in crafting these past few months.


The latest thing on the bobbins is much like that. Blue, green, and yellow for the backpack. Cunning, isn't it? I'll have to get my maps out to name this one...



*have you done your bit for Japan yet?

Scottish Sundays, and a Glorious Day of Knitting

I'll start you off with a Glorious Day of Knitting, which could also have been named "Day of Frantic Driving, Intensive Estonian Knitting and Utter Exhaustion" but that doesn't really get people to buy tickets. So they went with Brei- en Haakdag instead. This being a Dutch event an'all.

After some well placed advise and misplaced sense of direction, we reached the event with 5 minutes to spare before the course started. Our frantic re-routing by way of a 80km road didn't leave us much time to breathe, let alone stop for coffee or a bathroom break. You get the picture as we reached the venue. I should add at this point that we were not the last ones to get to class. Minor triumph, but only that.

We took the Estonian Colour and Lace Knitting Course from the Dutch Knitters. They started out by telling us that this is normally a 3-day course, crammed into 3 hours, and to be honest, it did show. At the end we were rushed to finish the Lace instructions because the next class was waiting, while at the start we were shown a large collection of books we might be interested in. I'd think they might want to turn the order of events around, as they kindly provide a list of interesting books with the written instructions. That aside, I learned a lot.

Lace practise

Since I've already made the Laminaria, Aeolean and the Echo Flowers Shawl in the past, I'd met the lace techniques that were in the course already. This came in handy when my neighbours had a question, and at least I got my knitted cast on corrected, as I knew I was doing something wrong with that. We started with the colourwork, and this is what I came for!

Estonian braids

Don't you just love the different braids? Not all of it is great looking, I got the tension and the order of the tails wrong a bit at the start, but wow, I love it! the best thing is that I caught most of it from the instructions, so I'll be able to reproduce them all.

After the class ended we went down to the fair part of our day, and spent some time oggling and coo-ing some lush yarns, but I managed to keep to my wish list and only get spinning fibres. Obviously, the Belgians had some nice things so I scored a 500gr hank of yarn that is to be dyed, and two cones of merino, one black, one magenta.
It was lovely to find some new yarns and a shop I knew of but hadn't seen before, Penelope Crafts.They stock Cascade which I love for a 'simple' yarn. Mom got a cardigan's worth of blue and matching sock yarn so she can make a set ;)

As far as the Scottish Big Plan goes, boy is it ever so hard to keep going. When the rug got pulled it didn't just take away my ooomph, but also quite a large chunk of the base I was working from. With the buffer gone, this is turning into a very different sort of game. Wrong decisions start looking attractive all of a sudden, which is to say that one should be content with what one has, and not aspire to have what one needs. I've got my job until the end of May and quite likely beyond. It feels wrong to not want to have it, but..... oh go on, I need to stop myself from moaning about it. Now, if only I could find that little bit of Oooomph back, that would be nice.

Secret Knitting

One part of the Grand Scottish Plan (it goes by many names) was to find something to do that could be exported along with me. Something to do regardless of my position on the globe. The Secret Knitting is to be sent off this week, so I better get on with writing down the pattern, the instructions, and teach myself how to do layouts etc.



Meanwhile, I'm spending quite some time rehearsing for the Queen Symphony that we'll be performing on the 28th with Harmonie Cecilia Princenhage for their jubilee. Today was the first rehearsal with orchestra, and I've decided that the director is DH's long lost older twin brother from another mother. Makes it a lot easier and pleasing to the eye to keep focus on his directions. Ha! It's not even close to what we usually sing as this is a project (with 140 singers), and I hate to say I love this so much more. Next time there's a classical project and I'm in town, I'm definitely joining in.
During breaks, I'm making lists for the other big huge plan of bringing dyeing, spinning and knitting to the not-yet-yarnies. Oh boy.

PS. I don't know what happened to last week's pictures, or which they were or I'd put them back. Ehm, sorry 'bout that.

Scottish Sundays, suspended

As you may or may not know, my brother lives in Tokyo. He is doing fine, or as much as anyone can be doing under the current circumstances. As far as I know, his friends are safe. There's something to be grateful for. It could've been much different.

You can read about his experiences here if you read Dutch.

Many, many people are not so lucky. They've lost their house, maybe their relatives and friends as well. They need our help.

Please donate what you can miss to the International Red Cross or organisations like Shelterbox who provide basic provisions like tents, cooking gear and items which are specifically needed in the current situation.

When you've done that, stop, breathe and think about what would be the worst thing that could happen if you were in Japan at the time of the quake. Cherish whatever you come up with, because you were lucky enough not to have lost it.

Please give with your heart.

Scottish Sundays, WIP wednesday's pictures

This week hasn't been a great week for dreaming.

Two big events had quite a bit of impact, even though neither actually touch me in the current situation. DH had a serious bereavement at work and our step-son managed to throw in the towel before even getting started at his last real chance of making something of himself.

There's no better way to realise the distance between me and home (aprox. 5000 miles as the KLM flies). My brain took the week off to deal with that.

In between that mayhem, I did manage to send out a job application to the RSPB to most likely no effect. Before Tuesday, I need to send out another. No, I didn't actually work on that this weekend because I was too busy being tired while having sushi on Saturday and mom's birthday party today. Lucky me, I got to explain the situation once (twice) more to my cousins and other various guests at the party. Just what I needed.

Anyway, not to complain, we're all still alive and in (questionably) good health. That has to count for something. The glass being half full and such things.

In my last sorry-excuse-for-a-blog-post I did mention the absence of pictures. Well, here are some.

Storm Clouds

Because that's what the colours of the bat reminded me of. Both bats had greens, blues, whites and grey in them, making for a stormy outlook. It's plying quite interestingly, more on that on Wednesday.... (fingers crossed)

Suikerspin

The final object, not quite. But this is what I gifted, so it's no longer up to me what it becomes. It sure is sugary sweet though...

Eventually, this part of the blog will become less gloomy, promise. I tire myself out.

Glass. Half. Full.

Scottish Sundays, brighter pastures

Today my sort-of-stepson Ryan is off to start Basic Training so he can be a wheeled vehicle mechanic in places where people might shoot him before becoming his friend. I've decided not to worry about this too much until I have to. Good luck to him, and well done for sticking with his decisions. It won't have been easy.

Anyway, brighter pastures.

It wasn't too long ago that I emerged from the latest Big Dip, so to be complimented was a minor triumph. Apparently, I've made a few new strategies and gained some insights into how my brain works. Practically, I've found 3(!) vacancies to apply to, one of which closes on Thursday. Some urgency required, obviously. RSPB and Historic Scotland, you can expect applications by me and I strongly urge you to at least look at them before tossing them out. Thanks in advance.

How awesome is my tent?

Can't wait to be back.

Scottish Sundays, misplaced mojo

No, I didn't forget.

Not really anyway, it just slipped my mind. Trying hard to keep on track, and applying to more underpaid jobs at organizations I know and appreciate. It's not easy to keep the enthusiasm levels up all of the time. I had better do it quick too, because I'm not getting any more positive about them over time.

In the mean time, I'm turning down teaching gigs I can't and won't do. Just the thought of it fills me with dread, and that doesn't seem like the way forward.

I know it's the me being tired to the bone who is typing this, but in many ways it feels as if I'm back to where I was, only a bit more aware of it.

Yes we're hoping for things to work out soon, which means me making plans for me is futile. It's not futile, I know that. We've been hoping for almost 2.5 years for things to work out soon. Going by the assumption (the truth) that things will change at their own pace (making a snail seem F1-like), I need to make plans for me.

The fact is that my current job will end by 31-03-11. That is in 6 weeks. As the sole earner in this family, this means I need to find another source of income and I need to find it soon. And then, in 4 months, I'm supposed to be in Scotland, where I think I belong and need to end up. Right now, all I'm finding are jobs I'm hopelessly overqualified for, jobs that disappear from websites and jobs that would suit me, but "please send your cv next year."
Previously mentioned by-lines and side-tracks have been abandoned as fast as they were conceived, going downhill with the positive vibe. My sorry attempts at designing knits are not far behind.

I can't believe I felt positive about all this just a few weeks ago. I wonder when I'll get it back. I'm running out of time...

Scottish Sundays, on the road (sort of)

Dear reader,

I'm afraid this is another blog post with lovely pictures but not a lot to say for itself. Scottish Sundays was called into this virtual world to keep me on track, to have a reason to work on achieving my goals. I have to say, it hasn't been easy to stay on track as it's so easy to stray. Straying means doing things I truly enjoy, but which can only be a by-line, at least in the foreseeable future.

However, in an attempt to keep on the road, I did manage to find a job opening that sounds mightily exciting, hopelessly underpaid, but seemingly satisfying. I've sent enquiries. Fingers crossed, light a candle and help me hope.

A narrow road, not very travelled

Anyway, I think too much. And I do it often. Often, it doesn't do me a lot of good. I sure hope this thinking does, for once. Also, if you have any advice on sticking to the road, it's very welcome!

Not my Thinking Face

Sometimes I think not the right thing, but I'm working on that. I bought a book.

Scottish Sundays, a work in progress

As you can tell, this blog looks a tiny bit different than it did before just now.

That's because I made sure to reserve some time with the DH this weekend, and asked (made) him help me out with the sizing of Things. Right now, I can only show you this One Thing, and it is quite late (he also told me to go to sleep).

Just know that Things are afoot after a good kicking of the behind. Stay tuned for some exciting news* later this week!

Goodnight, good night.

*involves glue

Scottish Sundays, roughly so

This past week has been a bit rough. Sleep seems to be elusive like sunshine on a rainy day and this hasn't helped my Being at all. In fact, although it has been quite nice, most of last week have felt like I wandered around with a cloud above my head.

Much like this one, actually (Outer Hebrides)

Road to nowhere, anyone?

I'm not a very pleasant person when I'm in this state of mind, so I mostly try to avoid people. I was going to enjoy my day off on Friday and devote it to Scotland and to designing. Instead, I dealt with the remains of a 2-day headache and read a book. It's a nice book, and it makes me laugh. It started with the title: Blood Sucking Fiends (amazon link). Enough to extract a smile, and it's pretty amusing for a Vampire Book.
The rest of the weekend I've spent ripping out (re-)knitting, watching tv, and finishing a skein of Black Icelandic wool, which wasn't a pleasure at all. In a sense, I felt pretty stuck in where I am right now.

Very Stuck Standing Stone, Callanish

In an attempt to grab myself by the scruff of the neck, I've been doing some job hunting with the Scottish Arts Council, The National Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage. Unfortunately, I'm not qualified as a ranger or an estate manager, because how wonderful would that be? On the other hand, I'm not quite ready to go back into retail, as far as being a tourist trap shop assistant. At least not for a while yet.

So another week passes with no answers but more questions. At least there is still my awesome mother, who did my laundry so I can have clean clothes while I drag myself to work again in the morning. I promise to be more upbeat soon. I just need a bit of good news, the old good news has worn off.

Scottish Sundays, Confusedly Yours.

You're never too old to learn, so if I go by my age and the average age of my Grandfathers (not my grandmothers, that would not serve my purpose), I have a lot of things to learn still. One thing I've learned is that you must make time to find some tranquility within yourself. I've learned some exercises and my spinning helps me get there, but the trick is in the Doing (as ever).

Take a pebble beach, a tranquil sea, and Feng Shui! A Quiet Head!

This Quest For Scotland, however, is not as easy to follow. While the idea is starting to stick, with the sticking comes the worrying about how to execute this Quest. If I had my way, there would be no more worrying about money and how to pay the bills, but that's just not realistic. The road to IF is very treacherous and will lead to the Bridge Of Doom if you're not willing to stray from it. And you know you won't have the correct answer to the question. Aaaaaaaaaaargh!*

It doesn't hurt to travel along it for a while...

IF there was no worry about how to pay the bills, THEN I'd love to live in my tent for a while. I'd take the big one, the one with room to move around, and stand up. I'd take it to my most beloved sites, and some I haven't visited before. I'd take my knitting and my Bea*** and my laptop, and I'd design and people would love me and offer me odd jobs around their business, their hotel or whatever. I'd make a commitment to walking at least an hour a day, and because of this, I'd finally reach a size that leaves me room to expand a little again, whenever I get back to having access to fall-of-the-bone-ribs. I'd do some tech editing or translate patterns to bring in enough to buy food and petrol when I need it, and the world would be OK.

However. The world is not made of IF (unless you're offering ;)), but of NOW.

The Windy Road Of Deathy Deaths, or NOW****

I've traveled that road a fair few times now, and it's mesmerizing, scary but with that sense of excitement. And sometimes, I find glimpses of excitement but they disappear so quickly into the Fog of Doubt. Would anyone else be interested in walking and crafting to free the mind? How would you find these people? Where would you go and where would you stay? Would anyone buy into this silly idea of mine?

This Quest is scary and driving me back into IF and into worrying, and it's really up to me to fix it, but it would be silly not to ask for Help. If you, dear reader, have an opinion or ideas, please leave them below.

It never hurts to remind yourself that the Windy Road of Deathy Deaths sometimes takes you here. Life ain't bad on the Harris/Skye ferry.

*Note by Geek: Blue**
**I probably got that wrong.
***Bea, the Orphaned Wheel
****Yes, that one, again

Scottish Sundays, and shamelessly inserting some holiday pictures

The past week wasn't one to write home about. That would be silly. I spent quite a bit of it at home, so it would at least be a waste of a stamp. No I'm not in the business of keeping TNT Post alive, as long as they pay me my pension if and when I reach 67. In the last WIPW post, I've mentioned that my diary seems to be clearing, and that trend has only kept going.

Quite understandably, my students have put their NT2 lessons in the fridge, while he travels around the world for work for the next few months. While it does make very little sense for them, it does blow a hole in my finances. At times like these, I have to keep hold of my mantra.

Something Will Come Up

It hasn't helped with being more productive but I'm getting there. I ingested some alcohol on Friday, which didn't help either, but it was good for the soul. (not for the head. or the liver). Since then, I'm trying to pick things up, while not forgetting the Big Project of getting me Across At Least One Sea by this Summer.

Oh no, I've done some thinking. Tonight, my thoughts seem to have re-enforced themselves while I watched Lark Rise to Candleford. It's a period drama set at the end of the 19th century. Many of today's issues get incorporated into the series. Last week, for instance, a honorable man lost his business and his possessions because he took out a loan he couldn't pay back. Sound familiar?

Anyway, this week, it was about industrialisation and old crafts being replaced by factories. One of the characters, Queenie, the old wise woman of the village, can no longer sell her bobbin lace to the Pratt sisters who run the local boutique. They've gone over to factory-made lace, which leaves Queenie in a sorry state of loss. In true Lark Rise tradition, her setback returns her to the true nature of her craft, the art of making instead of the lost goal of selling. In a truly heart-wrenching scene (or stomach-turning, whichever your sentiment) the younger sister Pratt turns around and learns the art from old Queenie, who never had a daughter to teach.

In a side-line, Laura learns that winning is not the object either, but the wish to create great writing, and recently bankrupted Gabriel learns about his wife's true motives for marrying him. All in a day's work, dear writers of Lark Rise. If you don't already know it, the entire series has a hue of rich honey mead, but I like it. The costumes are quite stunning, and the story lines are really not all that bad as I'm making out here ;)

The point I'm trying to make, is that they actually chose this subject, the loss of great crafts. It's just one signal of the interest for the handmade that is growing on an international basis. Not long ago, Ravelry, a forum for anyone interested in fiber, knitting and crochet, reached 1.000.000 members. Yes, One (1) Million (6 zeros) members. And not all of them are over 50!

In the UK, there is special interest for the wool industry, with sheep running around Savile Row and over here, a very successful YA writer is starting up some super knitting club for teenagers.

Just a few examples here, but there seems to be a genuine interest in getting back to the basic of things. We've all seen it with food, Jamie Oliver grows his own veg, the slow-food movement gaining momentum (slowly, ha!) and we all want to know where our food comes from, as long as we're able to pay for it. Search Amazon for a few minutes and you'll be flooded with titles on how to grow your herbs in a city dwelling to starting your own dairy business from scratch.

And now, knitting is hot! Museums all around the world get Yarn Bombed, bridges get wrapped on every continent and new designers turn into Bright Young Things at the snip of a fiber-wrapped finger.

Which leads me back to, well, Me. I'm not a designer (much, yet), but what is keeping me? Time, too many WIPs and the bad excuse of not having the correct software installed. I don't see myself as the next Ysolda, Gudrun or Kate, but they're great examples and inspirations. Talking of which, wouldn't you be inspired by this?

I know I need to be more organised with my time. It should help with going forward instead of stalling in the faux-safety of a job that only gets me to the other side of the city-canal. And that's Not A Sea.

Road of Deathy Deaths

It's a windy road, but I'm sure it will take me somewhere. Plans are starting to hatch, but uncertainty about the how and the 'will people be interested' bits still find their way into my head. That's okay, these questions need answering.

For now, all I'm happy to say, is that it might involve demonstrations, or 'doing things fiber-y' with kids. Or tourists. If you like someone to spin in your business, your castle or on a lonely beach, I'm sure it'll attract some people. I'll be needing a spot to put up my tent ;)

I might be going potty, but at least I'm going somewhere!