2paw

Tuesday"s Letters Eat 17: 'K' is for Kumara Spicy Wedges

We used to call them Kumara but now they seem to be called Sweet Potatoes. I am just happy to have something beginning with 'K' to cook. Kumara is very trendy now, it is in the frozen chips and wedges section in the supermarket and its merits are extolled in ads on TV.  I usually have some garlic and chilli or cayenne or paprika and olive oil. That's all you need. I have gussied mine up a little with some lemon zest and sour cream, but still, one kilo of wedges for $4, compared to almost $9 in the supermarket is good value. I bought Australian Kumara which was cheaper than that which came from I know not where.

This recipe is also speedy. In the 10 or so minutes it took to heat up the oven, I prepared the wedges. They take 15-20 minutes to cook. I scrubbed one and peeled the other. I think I quite like leaving the skin on. The smaller the wedges, the quicker they cook. And they are delicious. Recipes advocate serving them with Tzaziki, but I quite like the plain sour cream with a little spring onion for garnish. Maybe some sweet chilli sauce??

The pictures just show half of the Kumara.

Kumara Spicy Wedges  serves 4

• 1 kg Kumara, scrubbed or peeled
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 tbspn olive oil
• spiciness: chilli flakes, chilli powder, paprika or cayenne pepper
• sour cream to serve
• lemon zest and juice optional extras

Preheat the oven to 200*C and line a heavy oven tray or dish.

Prepare the mixture to coat the wedges: mix the oil and grated or chopped garlic in a bowl. Add as much spiciness as you desire. I added 1 tspn dried chilli flakes for 1 kg of wedges. Maybe some lemon zest too, then mix well.

Cut the Kumara into wedges. Bear in mind that larger wedges take longer to cook, while smaller wedges are likely to be crispier. The four Kumara were roughly the same size and yielded 8 wedges each. Coat the wedges in the oil mixture.

Place on the tray in a single layer, pouring any of the remaining mixture over them. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Check after 15 minutes, they may need turning. They are cooked if a skewer goes easily through the wedge.

Serve immediately with some sour cream for a snack, or as an accompaniment to a meal.

Ruby, Don't Take Your Dog To Own.

There I was, minding my own business and suddenly in the letters I was opening was one from the Microchipping Records company saying someone was transferring Lorelai Gilmore's ownership to them. What??? I rang them immediately and they said they had a Stat Dec saying that her ownership was to be transferred to someone else. I was more than a little taken aback and slightly panicking. It turns out 'someone' had made a mistake with the microchipping numbers, either the CAR people or the breeder, and they used the same number twice. So someone's new puppy had been given Gilly's number. Then we had to wait for a form to be emailed, go to The Vet and be scanned and have forms filled in and  photocopied and then go home again to scan and email said forms. I haven't heard back yet. I am pretty sure it is sorted out now though. The lovely nurse at the Vet said it has happened a few times before. Peri and Gilly had a lovely time at The Vet, it was Very Exciting to go for an extra ride in the car too.

It is compulsory to microchip your dog now, but Vundy and Tori were microchipped in 1989, so it has taken a long time to percolate through to The Powers That Be.

Yesterday Peri and Gilly had the most wonderful game at the dam. Lots of running and chasing and leaping: such fun!!! I especially love the one where they are both leaning into the bend and swerving as they run.

MrsVally and I met up and went to local vineyard for lunch. It has such beautiful scenery and even though the weather was brisk, it was nice enough to have a short wander near the car park!! This morning it was colder in Alice Springs than on the top of Mt Wellington in the South of the island. That's very strange weather!! We spent almost four hours on our short drive and long chatty lunch, it was a perfect Autumn afteroon.

Mrs Valley had the beetroot and feta tart and I had the risotto: baby beetroot, feta and spinach with the most gorgeous roast lamb on top. You can click through to the Cafe on the website and see the menu. We both had some Sparkling Rose. Yum!!

I was finally able to give MrsValley her Valley Girl Hat (Rav link) which she really liked!! She gave me some lovely lilies, but it is too dark nw to take a photo. They are on the sideboard being cheery!

The back of my cardigan is complete and I have started on a front. I haven't done much knitting, what with being out yesterday and my appointment with the psychologist this morning and the whole microchip saga this afternoon. I plan to sit and knit and watch Lewis after I have posted this.

Saffron Craig has beautiful fabrics, I love her prints and designs. I used some to make my aunt a little quilt. I don't have picture, but it is the first picture in my December OPAM mosaic, the nine patches with a kind of fuchsia surround. I also bought AuntieDutch some fabric with reindeer/elk/moose/caribou. I am mentioning this because I am soon to be the proud owner of a Softie, and she has free postage till the end of May. I have had lovely service and friendly emails!!!

I bought two other Fat Quarters today. One is just for my stash, I liked the houses, and the other green one is for me.

Last year started a Coin Quilt, and it was going well until I was sick and couldn't continue. This is because I wasn't just adding a rectangle of fabric, whizzing along on my sewing machine, every day. It was because I was embroidering the date on each piece and sewing by hand. No wonder it fell by the wayside. MrsDrWho spluttered and laughed and was incredulous. With my new effort to cope more realistically, I'm going to pick it up and continue on, just sewing a new piece every day. No embroidering or other fancy stuff that is just too much for me to do. It's just going to be a quilt for my bed that The Labradors will lie on!!!

Thank you to everyone for their kind words of encouragement and support. I really appreciated the comments and found them both reassuring and cheering. I am feeling more positive and slightly less anxious, which is good.

Tuesday's Letters Eat 16: 'J' is for Jelly: Philistine's Trifle.

I am not going to let the fact that I am not a billionaire stop me from making The MasterChef Trifle, however it will be the Philistine's Version!!!

I used some sparkling wine which cost $10 instead of champagne for $100, and frozen raspberries: $2-50, one third of the mascarpone, just one bunch of rhubarb and sponge fingers. It doesn't look too bad for a generic trifle!!!

There were some issues with he leaf gelatine for the jelly, which is the J for this week. The leaves from Germany are repackaged here, but there is absolutely no information on the packet, the label, or the company's web site to indicate the ratio of gelatine leaves to liquid. I shan't buy any gelatine from the HBC Trading Company again until their labelling information is updated.

I googled 'Titanium leaf gelatine' and the suggested ratio was 1 leaf: 250ml. This didn't set, so I added 4 or 5 more sheets and that did the trick. I think the ratio is more like 1 leaf:100ml of liquid for a jelly for this particular leaf gelatine.

I more or less halved the quantities from The MasterChef and the trifle almost fills a 3 litre container. For ease of transport and storage I used a BPA free plastic airtight container.

 

Jelly Trifle: Philistine's Version   serves 8-10

• leaf gelatine to set 750ml of liquid
• 1 bottle of sparkling wine, 750ml
• 40g caster sugar
• 1 cup or more, of frozen raspberries

• sponge finger biscuits or savoiardi

• 1 bunch of rhubarb cut into 3cm lengths
• 200g caster sugar
• 1-2 tbspn water
  
• optional blueberries/raspberries

• 250g mascarpone
• 200ml double cream
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 75g pure icing sugar, sifted

Put the wine and sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for a minute then remove from the heat and cool slightly.

Meanwhile soak the correct number of gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water and then add to the cooled wine mixture, stir to dissolve. Pour into your trifle bowl and then add the raspberries and cover. Refrigerate for about an hour. Mine gave a lovely jelly wobble at about an hour. I left it a little longer though, just in case.

There were some leftover frozen blueberries and raspberries so they were added to the rhubarb, sugar and water. Bring the fruit to the boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Cool.

To make the mascarpone topping, gently beat the mascarpone till it is creamy and then add the double cream, vanilla bean paste and icing sugar. Beat only to soft peak stage and refrigerate till needed.

Once the jellied raspberries are set, begin to layer the trifle. First the sponge fingers, then the rhubarb and fruit which has thickened nicely on cooling, and finally the mascarpone mixture. Smooth the top, cover tightly.

 

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, overnight is better, before serving.

NB The Philistine's Trifle doesn't have an extravagant garnish of a kilo of chocolate curls or 2 punnets of raspberries, but feel free to add whatever you like!!! MrsDrWho and I declared this to be a delicious concoction with just the right amount of sweetness balancing the slight tartness of the jelly. A definite for Christmas this year!!

Tarte Tartan

I am very much enjoying the back of my cardigan and it does look like a tartan pattern. I have knitted 50cm, and even though the colour and dyelot numbers are exactly the same for each ball, there is quite a lot of variation. I don't mind at all, it is just interesting. You can see where each ball begins and ends. I've knitted 110 rows. I don't like this number.  I don't like 112 either. I like 120, so I shall knit ten more rows and then cast off for under the arm. I have decided as I have so many balls left I will make the sleeves a little more generous as well. They are slightly form fitting, ie my arms look a little like sausages bursting out of their casings!!

After I took the picture of my knitting I went away and when I came back I found this.

At first Gilly looks nonchalant, but then she starts to get worried and then she has her Naughty Ears on. I didn't growl or even look cross. The Knitting's not for lying on, obviously!!!

This afternoon I cooked corn fritters for MrsDrWho. They look very large but I measured half a cup of the mixture: corn, chives, spring onions, garlic, SR flour, an egg , milk and salt and pepper. I made myself a potato cake. Yum.

Whether I like it or not Peri wants to swim. The swimming is fraught with gluggy mud, but if I don't catch her eye at the top of the track, she's off like a bride's nightie!!! I really do say that, I'm not just inserting colourful local vernacular. I love all the ripply water.

I often talk about being unwell physically, but now I'm a tad unwell mentally. I am a bit depressed and I have anxiety.  I have had little feelings of despair, and it is as if my evolved brain watches the silly part of me think things, but I have no strategies to stop myself. I have been to see the lovely and very effective and insightful psychologist, and I have five more appointments. If your GP fills in a Mental Health plan, Medicare pays for quite a lot of the cost, and you can have up to twelve visits in a year. This makes me less anxious. I have some thinking exercises to do to try and be less anxious as well. Apparently it is no surprise I might be feeling a little unwell mentally. I also think too much, I have very complex thinking processes and I over-think things. So there you go. I am glad my sensible brain made an appointment to see my GP.

I deleted all my saved Sent messages yesterday. I had thousands. I don't know why I was keeping them. Just in case?? I do tend to keep things just in case. It freed up quite a lot of memory on my computer and now it doesn't keep saying Low Disc Space. It just has to limp along till August, when my tax return arrives. Fingers crossed.

Peri and Gilly were extremely serious during their walk. It has been foggy and the fog doesn't clear till after 11am, but then the days are beautiful and sunny.

On MasterChef on Friday a chef made some proper jelly, with leaf gelatine, just like the recipe in the Delicious magazine I've been eyeing off for Tuesday, for a trifle,  Hers used incredibly expensive Champagne, fresh raspberries (7 punnets), lots of marscapone, rhubarb, gin, almond meal and chocolate..well click through to see. I think you would need to be very rich to afford to make this, maybe a one off for a VERY special event?? Still it is a sometimes dessert!!

It Is An Ex-Carrot!!!

Carrots were on sale at the local Vegie Shed so I bought two kilos and they were sitting just inside the back door. I noticed Lorelai Gilmore was in an unusual part of the garden where there are lots of thin prickly trees. She was there for a while and when I called her out she was wearing naughty ears. Later on that evening when I went to make their dinner I realised why.

Gilly had been stealing the carrots, one by one, and either eating them or burying them in the garden. I think she may have taken ten carrots.  Carrots obviously taste of Utter Bliss!!! She's a funny girl.

Peri is a changeable girl: every now and then she decides to sit on the other side of the back seat of the car. She loves sticking her head out of the left hand window, and I never open the one behind me, so she's missing out on wind in her hair.  She's been in the creek and she's dripping wet. I love her soulful gaze!!

When we walk The Labradors often slip under the wire fence and go the long way round. I think they do it just so they can screech round the corner and run full pelt!!

I did make some little jam tarts for morning tea with my quick jam. They were cheating tarts because I used frozen puff pastry. I just docked the pastry all over with a fork and pressed each circle of pastry I cut into the tray. I am not sure what it is called but it has shallow semi-spherical 'holes'.  I put in a teaspoon of jam and baked them for 15-ish minutes on 220*C. They were very delicious but they need a little time for the jam to cool down before lifting them out of the tray. I think I took the picture with the 'Sport' setting, it's a tad blurry.

I have been knitting furiously on my new cardigan. I've knitted 100 rows, or 30cm of garter rib and now I am back to just normal K2 P2 rib. I prefer that, I was always ribbing when I should have been just doing a plain knit row. Here's the back thus far.

There has been a lot of talk recently about buying generic brand grocery items. I don't. I know it costs more, but I prefer to buy local products and those that are sourced from The Mainland. I am afraid of eating food where it just says 'imported ingredients'  because I don't know where it is from or how careful they are.  I know China sends some vegetables to NZ and they package them and send them on to us. I feed The Labrador people-quality kangaroo because I can't be sure exactly what is in the pet kangaroo mince. I think it is a false economy to buy supermarkets' home brands all the time because the money goes off shore and I want to support local producers.

There, that's my two cents' worth.

The weather has taken a warmer turn, and we're expecting 18 or 19*C tomorrow. I had to turn on the aircon in the car and take off my cardigan.  I finished watching The Adventure of English DVD this afternoon and it was due back, which was why I went to The Library, but I forgot my card. I'll go again tomorrow to pick up the Edge of Darkness DVDs. I've managed to miss it twice on the ABC in the last few months.

I'm going to visit The GardyGardeners tomorrow afternoon so I'm taking some special Chocolate Biscuits, pork and apple sausage rolls and some treats for Ben the Corgi!! I'll need to start cooking as soon as we get home from our walk tomorrow.

Tuesday's Letters Eat 15: 'J' is for Jam, Easy Nigella's

J. J is worse than I. Undaunted alphabetically, I made some easy Nigella Raspberry Jam this afternoon. It only keeps for a week, but I made a cup's worth and I plan to make jam tarts for morning tea tomorrow and maybe a Queen Pudding.  I believe you can freeze jam in clean airtight containers and then it will keep for a much longer time.

I like to think of this as Emergency Raspberry Jam!! I would have had more if my hulking great forearm hadn't knocked the jam jar over while I was turning to fetch a cloth to wipe said jar.

Things I learned: use flat containers for the raspberries AND the sugar, and an oven proof glass jug would have been handy too.

I did sterilise my jar at the same time as I made the jam. Just wash the jar and lid in nice hot soapy water, rinse and then place on a tray, upside down, in the oven for 20 minutes. The timing was perfect.

You can use any amount of raspberries and jam, as long as they are equal by weight.

Do be careful as everything is dangerously hot.

As I found some Titanium Strength sheet gelatine in the deli at the corner, I might try a jelly next week. I usually use powdered gelatine, but I might just cook on the posh side.

 

Jam, Rasperry and Easy   makes 250ml

• 250g raspberries
• 250g caster sugar

Preheat oven to 180*C. Prepare jar if needed.

Place berries and sugar in separate flat oven proof containers and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Being ever so careful, remove from the oven and tip the sugar into the berries. It will look as if it won't work. Don't panic, it will.

Then stir with a clean spoon till it is a jam.

 Pour or spoon into the sterilised jar and refrigerate when cold.  It seems to thicken a little on cooling too. This will keep, in the fridge, for a week. If you can resist it!!

Love Me Or Sleeve Me And Let Me Be Lonely

My sleeves are lonely for the fronts and back of the You Only Rib Twice cardigan. I love the way the sleeve are pooling. I adore pooling and the way the colours weave about is a little bit mesmerising!!

I have seamed one sleeve. Mattress stitch is so good, I can barely see there is a seam, well except for the colours not matching. I have cast on for the back, I am making it longer so I cast on more stitches. The garter rib makes a wider fabric than ordinary rib, so after a huge wodge of garter rib, ordinary K2 P2 rib will give the cardigan some shaping.

Here's the proper finished edging on my Treasure Island (Lace) scarf. It looks yellow, it must be the dull Autumn light affecting the camera because it is very green in real life. I wear this a lot with my aqua greens, the limey green looks great with aqua.

At the Craft & Quilt Fair I only made one purchase: some green material. I think I see green chillies, green grapes, green lettuce [perhaps Cos], green cabbage and finally limes. MrsDrWho bought a fat eighth of every fruit and vegetable which will make a fabulous Greengrocer quilt!!

It has been so cold in the mornings that there are puddles with ice over them when we go for our walk. Lots of mud too, and muddy paddy paws!! I have taken to being a little organised and we get the Dog walking clothes all prepared in the bedroom the night before. Then it's a quick leap from the bed into the dog walking clothes, and the shoes out by the door, and we are ready to go. As long as I can find my little ear bud things for listening to the news etc while we walk.

It is like The Olden Days on our couch now. Lorelai Gilmore has taken Peri's spot and Peri has taken Harki's. Peri and Gilly together are smaller than Harki and Peri together, so there is actually room for me on the couch!!

Peri is looking particularly gorgeous, though I do notice she's getting a little paler and white around her muzzle. She's getting older. I think she's an OAP in dog years, though you'd never know the way she runs and plays.

Miss Lorelai Gilmore is also cute, but her ears make me laugh!!! Gilly is the most obedient pup, she always comes and is an excellent sitter when she does come. There is often a treat!! She looks so serious. She must be homing in on a treat.

On Mondays I always talk on the phone to my mum, so I must get timers on DVD recorders set and my knitting all ready to go. I'll make a quick cup of tea at 7pm and then I will fine. Now I just have to think about tomorrow's cooking and the letter 'J'.......

The Cowl Of The Wild

Technically I suppose it should be The Neckwarmer Of The Wild, but where's the pun in that??

This is the same green as the warm Kathmandu zippy jacket I wear to walk The Labradors in the Winter. It is the Candle Flame Cowl from The Ravelry. It is written for 10 ply, but I used 8 ply and cast on 112 stitches and two thirds of the way through I made the purl rib P3, just to make it a little wider at the bottom. It is extremely warm and snuggly and I have worn it twice now.

Peri looks very snuggly in her chair, on my little quilt. She loves lying on it. I will have to wash it tomorrow when she's not looking.

Sometimes there is a little playful dispute about who really should be in the special chair.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you have to lie on the Otto instead. Lorelai Gilmore is a good loser!!!

Thank you for all the recommendations for a cardigan. In the end I did choose a very simple rib cardigan where I will be able to use the whole 20 balls of wool. I have added the other cardigans to my Queue and I am looking forward to knitting them anon!! I am starting with the sleeves because then I will have quite a good idea about how much wool I will have for the fronts and the back. There will be a lot more buttons too.

The gloves are continuing on as well. I started the right glove because it was easier to knit that and talk to my mum than to do fingers.

The weather is wintry, we've just had our coldest May day in 22 years ( by 0.1 of a degree) and there is snow on the mountains already so skiers are champing at the bit. I am not a skier, but I am glad we will have a ski season this year, the last few Winters have been light on snow.

This weekend I plan to do more knitting ( surprise!!) and maybe read The Name of The Wind again. It came at The Library today and it is so long since I read it (2007) that I have to re-read it before I can tackle his new book.

Tuesday's Letters Eat 14: 'I' is for Irish Stew

There are not many recipes that start with "I", but noticing turnips in the veggie shed, I decided on Irish Stew. This is based on Stephanie Alexander's recipe, but with a few additions. It is a very easy stew to make. We didn't ever brown the tops of the potatoes and we always had carrots, swede and parsnip, never turnip. The turnip I used is quite mild and not a vegetable to be afraid of. I think mum may even have added a splash or Worcestershire Sauce.

The very best part of eating Irish Stew when I was at home, was the end of the meal, when everyone had a nice thick slice of crusty white bread and we laid in on our plates and sopped up all the juices. Then you cut it up into little squares with your knife and fork and savoured each delicious square. I plan on doing that tomorrow!!

My little casserole is only 2 litres ( 3-ish pints) so I just made half the recipe. At home we always used forequarter chops. I think they were cheap!! It is important to use lamb with bones. Two Tooth is suggested but it's hard to find old lamb or young mutton.

You can cook this stew in a variety of ways: in a cast-iron casserole on the stove top, in a large saucepan on the stove top, and then in a casserole dish of any kind in the oven. It takes the same amount of time to cook. I browned in a fry pan and then baked in the oven.

 

Irish Stew   serves 4

• 8 - 10 lamb neck or shoulder chops
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbspn butter
• 1 tbspn vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 2 large turnips, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 carrots*, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 parsnips*, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 small swede*, peeled and cut into chunks
• 4 small onions, peeled and halved
• 6 waxy potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced
• 2-3 cups water or chicken stock. Who has lamb stock?
• 1 sprig thyme, or dried thyme
• 4-5 stalks of parsley
• small amount of chopped parsley for garnish

* Optional extras

Preheat the oven to 170*C.

Season the lamb well, on both sides, with salt and pepper. Melt the butter and oil over a medium high heat and then brown the lamb on both sides. Place on a plate. Turn the temperature down to low, add the sliced onions and fry till golden brown and soft. Pour off any excess fat if you are using the same casserole. If you are going to transfer the meat and vegetables to a casserole dish, heat the stock to boiling now.

Layer the ingredients into the cooking pot: meat and sliced onions, the chunky vegetables and halved onions, and then layer the potatoes over the top.

Add the boiling stock ( or bring the casserole to the boil on the stove top) adding the parsley stalks and thyme (mine is dried flakes) so that it comes just to the level of the potatoes. Bake or simmer on the stove for 90 minutes or until the meat and vegetables are tender when prodded with a skewer. If they are not ready, cook for another 15 minutes and tests again.

You can now rest the stew out of the oven and skim off any fat, but the lamb was not very fatty, and we never did this at home.

Return to the oven or place under the grill for 10-15 minutes if you prefer the potatoes to be browned on top.

Spoon meat and vegetables into a bowl, sprinkle with parsley and at the end, sop up the delcious juices with some bread. This reheats extremely well the next day, but doesn't freeze very well at all.

 

The Computer Wore Menace Shoes

My computer has been back for a little while, but I had a little accident. I knew I shouldn't be left in charge of deleting programmes I no longer wanted using the Add/Remove feature. I accidentally removed the programme that plays videos. Damn and blast. I downloaded it again.

After that I stopped deleting.

My computer is old (Father William), it is almost eight years old and in computer years I think that is 147. I had no idea it was so old, I thought three or four years, but I checked the first emails I sent from my computer and it was the beginning of September 2003. I shall be needing a new one at Tax Return time. Mine has no proper room for any more memory and it is just getting a bit creaky. I did have a short dalliance with the idea of a laptop but MrsDrWho said a few well chosen words: bouncy Labradors and cups of tea. I decided that wasn't the way to go.

I was lucky enough to be The ComputerFixer's Mum's Knitting Friend and so I know my computer was well looked after. It has extra protection now, but I think there is little thwarting of the horrid viruses and Trojans to be achieved in the long run. One just has to live with the possibility.

I didn't actually do much while I was not online. At first I had horrid feelings of withdrawal, and then I entered the Pit of Despair and thought that I might just have to manage without a computer forever. I tend to catastrophise things. I had a tiny little Georgette Heyer Decline. MrsDrWho let me check my comments on her computer and so I had lots of commentorial support throughout my computer troubles!!! It hepled to know other people had experienced the same problems.

The Labradors have been very busy and happy. They love the cold weather. Peri rolled in something so smelly that she had to have a swim. Lorelai Gilmore tried to help by licking Peri clean. Yuck!!

They also made cards:

There's a 'verse' to be sung to ABBA's Money Money Money too. We sing all the ahas and do do do do dos in between the lines!!

He works all night, he works all day,
To make the eggs for Easter Day.
Ain’t it sad?
And still there never seems to be
An egg for Peri or Gilly.
That’s too bad.
In their dreams, they have a plan:
If they get that Bunny, man!!!
He wouldn’t have a chance at all,
They’d chase him like a tennis ball.

Bunny, Easter Bunny,
Must be funny,
In a chocolate world.
Bunny, Easter Bunny,
Always sunny.
He’s in a chocolate whirl.
Aha-ahaaa.
What can Labradors do?
They can send you chocolate kisses,
Happy Easter to you!!!

There was some crafting. I made some milk chocolate Easter aprons with embroider on the front, and some little coasters, and some chicks.

There has been some knitting, and some unravelling. I started the Greenfield cardigan but I just didn't love it. My row gauge was so far out I was having to do calculations all the time and the garter stitch was not a flattering look. I had knitted 200g of wool, but I just undid it all.

Consequently I am cardigan knitting-less. I am in possession of twenty balls of the green variegated Cleckheaton Basics. I thought I had ten balls, but they must have multiplied. I want to make a nice longish 8ply cardigan, ribbed or with some shaping and a v or scoop neck, but I don't seem to be having any luck finding a pattern. I am too lazy to make one up. Any suggestions?? 

I have knitted a pair of green socks for walking The Labradors, they are green, a misty green 8ply. There's a dishcloth with a paw print for the GardyGradeners because they were intrigued by knitted dishcloths, and a hat for Toddler Electric. You use the 'rosebuds' and leaves to make a wreath above the rolled brim. I saw Prudence Mapstone's lacy scarf at the Craft Fair but by 1pm on the first day they had sold out of the colour I wanted, greens of course, so I am kitting a skinny scarf with some anonymous very fine mohair. It's just four rows: K, P, K2tog yfwd, and then P.

On Friday I cast on some new gloves in some 4ply sock wool. I wanted a finer pair with a longer wrist section for when the days are a bit chilly. I'm experimenting with a tapered finger decrease over six or seven rows. I don't think the K2tog-across-all-needles-and-pull-a-thread-through-to-gather decrease looks nice or fits well. My Dog Walking mittens have a hole in the cuff so I have to fish out the rest of the Zara and knit a new cuff. I might make the cuffs a little longer.

Then there was the incident of The Lorry in the Afternoon. A lorry was trying to turn down the road and there was a slight miscalculation and they were wedged across the road. They tried to reverse: no good. They tried unpacking the contents and then reversing: still no good. In the end they had to bring a hydraulic lifter thing. It was a talking point in the neighbourhood for a few days. If it was not for the metal barrier, it would have careered right over the drop and into someone's house.

Doctor Who is back and I am really enjoying the new series. Some people have complained it is too dark, but it has always had darker elements. Mary Whitehouse  and even the Head of the BBC complained about the horror and violence back in the 1980s. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I have no idea what Letter for Cooking will be happening tomorrow. The food part of the blog has gone to hell in a hand basket this year. So, I'm going to watch The Adventure of English which I borrowed from the Library, and knit my gloves this afternoon instead.