Thursday 27 November 2008

Innocent Veg Pots

Forgot to tell you about my new best friend.....Innocent Veg Pots.
These babies come in 4 flavours and are simply delicious-Moroccan Squash Tagine, Tuscan Bean Stew, Pea and Broccoli Rice and Thai Coconut Curry. My personal favs are the Squash Tagine and the Thai Curry. These are soooo good and have no colours or preservatives and no meat either. So if you are a vegetarian, these are perfect. I'm not but still like them. From the Innocent website "It's a meal of chopped up vegetables, pulses, wholegrains and sauce that give you 3 portions of vegetables in each pot. With no colourings, flavourings or nasty things you wouldn't add yourself."
I've been stuffing myself with these. Probably because I know I won't have these again.
MMmmmmmmm.......


....sneaks off to have Tuscan bean stew.....

Only 3 days to go! Yikes!

Yup, only three days. How quickly has time flown by?? I feel like the last two weeks have been a mad rush. We have had a full diary for the past two weeks-literally seeing a friend every night! And last weekend was our official going away party. Crazy! We spent about 1 hour walking through London looking for a cab home at 1 in the morning. And of course, I NEVER wear high heels but on Saturday I did!!! My feet were killing me! I'm such a wuss! But they are nice shoes though!! Let's see if I can find a pic...

They are the Betsey Cage sandals fom Oasis and are on sale right now for £30. Like I said, I don't usually buy or wear high heels but I liked these so much that I couldn't stop myself! Of course I realise that I will regret that decision every single time that I wear them! Hahahah!!

I've not managed to get much knitting done with all the social events. But did finish sock no.1 of my Ziggy's. It looks nice except that the sock isn't very stretchy. Slightly tight on my foot but I'm sure it will loosen with wear. The colours worked out great though. I've just cast on sock no.2 but probably won't get much further until we are actually in South Africa.



I am taking my Denise needles on the plane and will start the Swallowtail. It's such a looooooong flight-12 hours!!! So I'm sure I will get some knitting done. We splashed out this time and will be flying premium economy with Virgin so that should make a HUGE difference in comfort. If you haven't flown economy for 12 hours, then DON'T! I've done it countless of times and it's never been fun. Just very long and very cramped.
These last few days are going to be crazy busy. I still have to swap my clothes with some in storage as the weather in South Africa is the exact opposite of the UK. It's currently about 30 degrees C there! WHOOHOO!! So I have to leave my coats, hats and scarves and get the bikini and sandals out. I don't know when I'm going to do everything.

Oh I've also finished a horrible hat for a friend. He just wanted a Liverpool FC hat as he is a supporter. It's red and very boring and knitting acrylic. Really not nice. I've clearly become a yarn snob as I couldn't stop moaning about the quality of the yarn. Don't get me wrong. I use acrylic for toys etc...but for wearables, it's just horrible (IMHO!)

And look at this crazy monkey on the bed last night...


Honestly, how am I supposed to sleep!!! :-)

Saturday 22 November 2008

One week...

Yup, one week left before the big move. It's really gone way to quickly and suddenly we're nearing our flight date. Things have been very busy...winding things up at work and seeing everyone for the last time. We've literally not had a evening at home this week and won't for the next week. My diary is FULL! WOW! I'm definitely going back to SA about 10 lb heavier and with a damaged liver! hahahahha!!

Today I decided that I feel like a change...so I got a fringe!! (or bangs for the US readers) I'm not sure whether I like it yet but the Rockstar likes is, which is a surprise! So I guess I just have to get used to it. What do you think? (bad pic!)


I don't mind really. It's just hair and will grow back. And between you and me, it's hiding the wrinkles on my forehead!!!!! SShhhhhh...

Knitting has taken a back seat for a bit though I did finish little Rufus the dogs' sweater. It looks gorgeous!!!


He won't hold still for me to get a good picture. It took ages to make though as the whole thing is cabled!!! Man! Did I swear. It takes quite a lot of time where I could have knitted a plain sweater in a week this took about 3. But it does suit him and he seems to like and accept it. So that's a good thing. It's also turning pretty cold in London so he will need it.

Last weekend we also went to Norfolk for a friends birthday. I'll load some pics at a later stage but it was a great weekend. We stayed in a converted barn on a farm. Somewhere close a farmer was shooting the living daylights out of rabbits and partridges-ALL DAY!! Bloody gunshots! BANG BANG BANG!! And the road was littered with spent cartridges. It was annoying hearing something being killed every 2 minutes.

Anyway, gotta go. The Rockstar is bugging me....

Monday 10 November 2008

Weekend break to Wales **pic heavy**

This last weekend we decided to drive to Wales before we leave the UK. The Rockstar has always wanted to go-maybe he feels a connection. Anyway, so we hired a car on Friday morning, got up at the crack of dawn and made the trek up. It was a 6 hour drive which is pretty long and seeing that I had to do all the driving.
Most the drive up was uneventful until we actually entered Wales and suddenly the landscape changes, hills appear and everything is greener. And with all the leaves changing on the trees, it really was spectacular!!
This was one of the first really awesome sights that we saw!

The wind was absolutely HOWLING though and moi decided to get out to take a picture! I nearly died! WOW!!! It was sooo cold and windy and the camera actually blew right out of my hands, giving me a nice bruise on my hand. But beautiful!! The Rockstar couldn't even get out of the car as he was on the receiving end of the wind and couldn't get the door open! Pahahahaha!!

So I hopped back in the car, heating on full blast and continued on our drive. Our destination was Llanberis which is on Lake Padarn. We stayed here....

Good old fashioned B&B with a great breakfast and Henry...


Oh I did love Henry!! He was the friendliest cat ever and just wanted to visit and flirt and play! And he's so photogenic too! Just look how sophisticated he looks with his legs crossed. A real gentleman!!!

So after arriving we went down to the lake.
The area was well known for it's slate mining for many years. Hence everything here is built of slate. It also give the water in the lake a lovely blue hue. After the mine closed, the village was pretty much deserted until a hydro power station was built into the mountain using the water from a lake above and below to generate power. We went on a tour of the power station which was pretty interesting. Unfortunately we weren't allowed any personal belongings due to safety reasons so no pics. But you enter the facility through a tunnel mouth and then just drive down and down and down into the belly of the mountain. Great tour guide! Even if you weren't interested in power generation at the start, this guy had us listening intently. Really good!!
Across from the power station and lake, is Dolbadarn castle.


Great place for views across the valley and a great castle too!

We then took a drive across the lake to the actual slate quarry. It's rather forlorn now, deserted and almost sad, but still beautiful. There is a slate museum that tell the whole history of slate mining in the area as well as the old hospital...

and the mortuary...eeeeekkkk....

Pahahaha!!
Oh and this is the actual quarry. It's really gorgeous in there.


The next day I persuaded the Rockstar to go to the Trefriw Woollen Mills not far from Llanberis. They manufacture products from welsh wool. So naturally I had to buy this...

It's woven from the local wool.
And OF COURSE....

2 Skeins of pure Welsh wool in aran weight and colour ocean...beautiful. It's a bit hard but I'm sure I can sort that out. I just love the colour though!!!
The store did have a small section devoted to knitting with some yarn, looms and the like..


They also had some antique swifts from Scandinavia and the UK.
Sorry for the bad pic but they were high up in bad lighting.

From there we headed north west to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.......WOW!!!! It's the name of the local train station and means St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave. I did try to pronounce it but we just cracked up with laughter. Go to wiki here to hear what it should sound like. There weren't much else to look at and we headed out to Caernarfon next.


There we found a LARGE castle right on the waters edge. It was here that Charles, the Prince of Wales had his investiture-big word!! I had to look that one up myself! Haha!
The castle is pretty awesome with towers on the corners which you can climb. And some really REALLY green grass in the middle.



And lastly we rushed over to Portmeirion- an italian style resort village in Wales??!! It's strangely continental-as in European as opposed to the UK with all the brightly coloured buildings and lain-out gardens.
We had a great sunday roast at the hotel before driving back.

The drive back was another story on its own as we were hit by torrential downpours and flooding roads. I was driving with my nose practically against the windscreen, trying to see the road and on the look-out for floods. Needless to say, it took us over 7 hours to get home!!! YIKES!!
Anyway, so I leave you with this....

PAH!!! BLOODY INTERNET IS CRAP! OK I will load these last few pics tomorrow...it's just not happening tonight.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Monday 3 November 2008

I love this...

I just saw this and loved it!

I love how there is knitting everywhere in the picture! It feels like one of those where's wally things where you have to find/ identify something..I mean...there are about 4 hats, various necklaces, long sleeve knits, short sleeve magoodies and strange ruffly things. Who knows what else lurks in the recesses of that outfit.

This weekend has been kinda weird. I realised that we are actually a very happy, easy going couple and that some people may have more relationship problems than they think. Which is kinda scary for the person in question.We quite happily watch TV without fighting over remote controls and which program to watch. I like to knit in front of the TV so will watch any mindless crap. The Rockstar likes MTV, which isn't too bad considering that he doesn't like football (YEAH FOR ME!!) But witnessing friends fight over petty nonsense this weekend has really made me appreciate the Rockstar and the fact that he accepts me stash, needles and all!
OK enough of that...

I'm at work counting the days until I leave here. Have I told you my boss is an idiot?? I have a mountain of filing to do which belongs to him. Nothing gets my beef up more than someone that shoves their work onto me. He literally took his 30cm high pile of paperwork from his in tray and dumped it in mine?!! AND there is another pile waiting for me on the floor next to my desk. I'm so seriously pissed off but know that my time here is limited so I should just do it already. But I'm still pissed! I'm not a secretary or PA to him at all. But he's not here today-working from home(!). So I Absolute Radio on streaming (Garbage is playing now-Stupid Girl. How appropriate.) and will be going for lunch soon before tackling the heap of madness.

So whilst wasting time I have come across these. You might have noticed that I like Hello Kitty.
This snazzy cardigan

I like this Darth Vader-ish coat


WANT WANT WANT (1,000,000,000)

Sunday 2 November 2008

I'm baaaaaccckkkk!!

Yeah baby. One nightmare move over and time to move on..literally! That was probably the most stressful move ever since we had to get rid of many things that we didn't want to pay shipping for. In the end, we just donated most to the local charity shop. We also managed to get rid of all the furniture, which was my biggest worry. I just didn't have the energy to break down the furniture and carry it down four floors. Luckily for us the landlord has taken it over from us and is returning our whole deposit! Whoo!! Well, we did leave the flat in a perfectly clean condition after working like a slave. Once again, the difference between man and woman was very apparent. While I cleaned the living room, bathroom, toilet (separate room), spare bedroom and main bedroom, he cleaned the kitchen only!!!! Took his time!! I eventually shooed him out and finished the job myself!

Anyway, we are now settled in with friends not far from our previous flat. While I'm writing this, I can hear a multitude of fireworks going off. You'd swear I lived in a war zone! We have a pretty nice room and actually feel like we're in a hotel. So now we have a month left before d-day. I have 6 days of work left and I CAN'T WAIT! YAH!
As our friends have taken us in, I have offered to knit their little dachshund a sweater-he's always cold. His name is Rufus. I have quite a bit of Lion Brand Wool Ease left in green. I've started the 102-43 Knitted dogcoat in ”Karisma” with cable pattern by DROPS design in a medium size but will have to lengthen it for obvious reasons.
Pics...


It's quite a pretty pattern but filled with cables of all sizes and types. So only one month to finish this.

Yesterday we went out for a meal in London at Spaghetti House -best Italian pasta house! And I saw this...


That's right! It's a WALL OF YARN!!! Granted it's machine knitting but it's still yarn! It was in the Benetton window I think and really impressive!!!

And finally I bought these....how awesome!!!

All I can say is....THEY TASTED GREAT!