Tea and cakes and things I like

Went for a walk here yesterday. It was a beautiful day, and the walk is nice and gentle (and long, 7.5km). The sun was shining, it was cold but not windy, and the bag of crisps and an apple I ate after the walk made for the perfect snack.

Curly Scarf, made from Debbie Bliss Maya, 100% wool, on 6mm needles.

I like it, but it could be better, it’s a learning experience one.

I think this scarf style would be good on a fine mohair using yarn over increases rather than knitting into the back and front of one stitch.

I’ve read this many times before, it’s interesting and I like re-reading it. It’s the true story of the person that Arthur Golden based Memoirs of a Geisha on - so this has less of the exaggerated nonsensica stuff in it, but is admittedly biased from the other side, making everything out to be about beauty and art and focusing less on the high class escort side of things.
Anyway, it’s pretty interesting, and after going to see the movie of Memoirs of a Geisha last night (boring), I would recommend giving the film a miss, and sitting down with a nice cup of tea to read this instead.

A classic thriller.
The first few chapters seemed strangely familiar. Could I have read this before? It was possible, but I didn’t think so. I continued to read. More memories presented themselves, but not quite true to the book. Discussion with D helped me figure out what was going on. I’d fallen asleep watching the film version, at a friends house. (I do that a lot, fall asleep mid-film, and if I happen to be at a mates house at the time, so be it). Anyway, the good thing was I must have been dead to the world snoring my little heart out dreaming of assam tea and carrot cake served on fine white china, because I had no recollection of the ending. So, I enjoyed the book.

(I can’t remember the name ok, and the book’s in the other room, and I can’t be bothered to move, and I can’t find it on amazon)

Anyway, it was a nice little collection of short stories. I especially liked the Nick Hornby one and the Neil Gaiman one, but I’m not going to write about them, because that might spoil it for anyone who manages to decipher this and figure out what the hell I’m gibbering on about anyway.

*Update, book found thanks to Arsela Undress. You can find it here.

I finished this a week or so ago now, but have’t got around to writing it up. This was great. She wrote it between 1950 and 1965, so whenever she talks about “how things are now”, it’s really how things were 50 years ago, and she’s geerally comparing things in that present to when she grew up round the turn of the last century. So yes, it’s about growing up fairly well off in Victorian England - and how when money was short they just rented their house out and spent the summer on the continent, which was cheaper. I was really born 78 years too late.
Anyway, as well as talking about that, she also goes into detail about how she became a writer, and how she writes, where she gets her stories from, and how to go about getting stuff published. She also worked in a hospital pharmacy during the war. Oh, and was into archaeology, helping her husband dig important sites in Iraq, unearthing treasures that have no doubt been destroyed over the last couple of years.

So, quite an interesting life, and an interesting book. Oh, I loved that she knew that what she wrote was popular fiction - she didn’t try to dress it up as anything more worthy - it was what it was. So unpretentious.

My addi turbo circular needles arrived today, along with some debbie bliss maya in lovely warm colours. They arrived really quickly, and they sent me a lollipop and a pen too, making getknitted.com my official favourite online retailer.

Above is a picture of my bag. Inside my bag are needles and yarn, waiting to become wristwarmers. I’m in a cafe. By myself. And I’m embarrassed to get them out and start knitting. It’s what I’d like to be doing. I have other things to occupy my time, that’s never a problem, but I’d rather be knitting. Why is it that I’m totally comfortable taking photos of my cups of tea, but not knitting in public. I’m strange, that’s the only explanation.

This is my tea and panini at IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art. It was disappointing, and my expectations were low to begin with.

Tea
The teapot held barely 1 cup. The mug didn’t belong on a saucer. If you’re going to give me a saucer, I want a cup. The milk was in a tiny little plastic glass. Why? Why not a little jug?

The Panini
Wow, this was a let down. I wanted soup, but they’d run out, so I settled for the mozzarella, tomato and basil panini, except they’d evidently run out of basil too. I declined the salads as they all looked tired and nasty.
A trend has developed in Dublin for microwaving tomato mozzarella paninis before toasting them. This is not a good trend. The bread goes doughy, the mozzarella goes stringy, and the tomatoes go mushy. A panini should be crispy. I’ve ordered toasted, flattened bread, and what I get is a microwaved roll that’s been squished by a ridged iron for a second.
IMMA would appear to be following this trend, and it’s nasty.

I find IMMA a shame. It’s a beautiful building in lovely grounds, and it should be busier. Part of this I put down to their choice of exhibitions, and general lack of things to look at. (I can appreciate space, but sometimes there can be too much space, and I’m not a fan of dvd installations and modern art that sets out to be shocking with no artisitic merit). They do seem to have a good educational programme, so that’s a start.

I do think the café needs to bear the brunt of the shame though. It’s kinda grubby, for a start. Someone also decided to put it in the basement, which is simply criminal when there’s a large, under-used courtyard just crying out for some tables and chairs. Most of the people there on Sunday were middle class parents with young children. These are people with money to spend on posh tea and cakes. There’s just no excuse.

Every time I go I think that I should really go back in the summer, with a picnic. Then I forget.

This is what I thought was green tea, in the Library Bar at the central hotel. When I drank it, it turned out to be peppermint tea. It was nice though, and I was feeling a touch queasy, so it was quite a fortuntate error (peppermint tea helps with nausea).

I was there meeting other people who knit, which was really lovely, and not nearly as scary as I was expecting. I’ll be going again. It’s a shame they only meet monthly, and on a weekend. There are two other groups in Dublin, but I can’t make it to either of them unfortunately, which is a little frustrating.

Hopefully writing the menu isn’t part of the role. (or should that be roll?)
It’s mean of me to posrt this, I know, making fun of someone’s poor spelling is cruel. However, they underlined the bit that’s wrong, as if to draw attention to it, so it’s just tough.

Whiney fucker, isn’t he?

a. When an hour after getting off the bus, you’re still feeling travel sick.
b. When you go downstairs to make yourself a cup of coffee, and come up the stairs with a cup of tea, without even realising what you’d made.

One of the penguin 70 years series of very short books, which are great for a taster or reading on the bus.
This was interesting enough - a mixture of the author’s history with shopping and useful tips.

The seventh in the excellent Sandman series.
Fabulous, of course.

This is a bag I’m knitting. I’m posting it now as it looks pretty ugly at the moment, but will be beautiful when it’s finished, and I want a record of the transformation.

Ahhh, childrens books you read as a kid: there’s just something cosy about them. And a litte bit wierd, you realise when you look back.

Spoliers ahead, but really, I don’t see the need to hide the rest of the post.

What Katy Did: Katy Carr, whose mum is dead and, along with her younger brothers and sisters is looked after by her aunt (her father is around, but he’s a man, so can’t look after them). Anyway, Katy falls off a swing and becomes laid up in bed. Then her aunt dies. Luckily, she has an invalid cousin, who tells her all about “The school of pain” where god teaches patience. She becomes a nice person and then is able to walk again. The end.

What Katy Did at School: Katy is too serious so she and her sister Clover are sent off to boarding school. They have japes. Katy, despite having founded a society against flirting and unladylike behviour, is accused of giving a note to a boy. Thanks to her hard work, sensible attitude and general responsibility, by the end of the school year the teachers decide that she probably didn’t do it. The end.

What Katy Did Next: Katy goes to Europe to help a widowed mother look after her young child. They run into Katy’s nasty cousin who is trying to catch the widow’s brother as a husband. The child almost dies. The brother realises the cousin is frivolous and selfish and falls in love with Katy. The end. (no wedding or anything) (they’re not even in the same country at the end of the book) (I mean, really, that’s supposed to be it?)

OK, so I want to keep a record of all the books I’ve read. As established previously, I’m crap at reviews, so they’ll be short or maybe even non-existent.
I enjoyed this. It was an interesting idea and very nicely done.

Christmas and New Year were great, which for me means quiet and relaxing.

I worked on Christmas eve and day, which meant I just got to do the fun things like open presents, eat delicious food and listen to carols being sung while missing the clearing up parts, which seemed like pretty clever planning to me.

Then we went back to that England to the civilised Sussex village my parents call home, where I mainly spent time sitting by the open fire, knitting or reading, slowly getting covered in dog hair. I also visited my grandma, who’s a pretty opinionated 89 year old, who spent the time giving out about her cleaning lady who does too much chatting and not enough cleaning. “She keeps telling me about her mother in law and I couldn’t give a toss.”

For new year we went to Bournemouth, which was terribly exciting. I was witness to the ‘binge drinking’, and saw lots of people wearing not enough clothes for the freezing weather. They’ll all have nasty colds now, I’ll bet. Warm coats, hats, scarves and gloves, that’s what they should have been wearing.

Anyway, my new year’s eve went as follows. Didn’t fancy eating anything served in our hotel, so went to “Coffee and more” for yummy beans on toast and tea.

The tea was good, I like having my own pot, and it was a generous portion - I got a good 2 mugs worth out of it. No picture of the beans on toast, but they were great. 2 slices of toast, with real butter on them, and exactly the right amount of beans. It was so good I had exactly the same thing again as my first breakfast of 2006.

~~~

After breakfast we headed to Studland Beach for a nice healthy bracing walk. By healthy and bracing, I mean, freezing and very, very wet. It wasn’t at first, but the weather hit quickly and we were drenched. It was great though, can’t beat a walk on the beach in the rain. My only complaint was that I had been promised the sight of some nudists, and I was let down.

They must have all been hiding in the dunes.

Anyway, there’s nothing better after a brisk walk in the rain than visiting a warm country pub (or in this case, The Manor House Hotel) for a cup of tea and some cheese and pickle sandwiches.

The tea was Twinings Assam, and it came with an extra pot of hot water, which I approve of wholeheartedly. The whole experience could only have been improved by a milk jug, instead of those horrid little cartons. Anyway, the company was great and I warmed up considerably, so I was very happy.