I've become a mommy!

...To two white dumbo girl rats :-) They are sisters, and are now 17 weeks old. Matilda has a darker nose and splodges down her back, Missy is the pale nose.

Work In Progress

Corking Dolly. 5.4m long. Started when I was about 10 years old.

This will be the biggest pom-pon that I've ever made. Started when I was at primary school!

Drinks coaster. Kit from Mollie Makes.

Bag of 10 x 10 cm knitted squares, made by my Grandmother. Enough squares to make a single bed size blanket. All need sewing together! Was given to me by my aunt when Nan died

Autumnal Scarf. Rapidly becoming my favourite piece. Wanted to felt it, but the acrylic content is too high. So far has 4 and a bit balls of yarn, and I've got another five to use. Scarf is becoming a blanky.

Crochet 'boyfriend hoody' from Inside Crochet magazine. Wrong stitch, wrong yarn, wrong size. Oh well. I'll make it work somehow!

Granny A Day Project. May have given up.

A small piece. Crochet dreadlock sleeve. Hook is 2.5mm.

Crochet dishcloth! With actual dishcloth cotton!! Bitch to work with, keeps splitting.

Yarn basket has now become a 'Work In Progress' Basket. Looks neat, huh? Won't stay that way.

Ten Week Road Trip

A list of the places we visited/drove through/drove near/stayed overnight in on our way home from Saudi Arabia in 1996.

Ukulele

I've had my uke nearly two months and I can still only just play one song on it. I feel really shit and dejected and crap and rubbish and feel like I should quit while I'm ahead. I saw two different local uke bands, twice each, over the weekend, so I've got more a drive to practice and try to learn, but I'm listening to them, reading their song books and just feeling like I'll never be at that standard. I feel like I'm doing it all wrong because I can't even read music. I don't even know if I'm tuning properly! I have no idea how to work this thing and I just feel like it's all a wasted effort. I have no one else to really practice with so I could be doing it backwards for all I know. I want to carry on and play and practice but I also don't want to bother if it's just going to be awful. Such a catch 22. Sometimes I just sit and strum with an open fret board, or just strum the same chord over and over and over again. Which is ace, I can play three chords without looking at the chart, but I can't seem to incorporate them into a song, I can't change chords without stopping and looking and tilting my uke towards me so I can see what I'm doing.. Gah. Forever a beginner.

Allotment Update: Digging A New Bed

Started digging a new bed on the allotment on Monday, it's a biggy - 9ft x 6ft (ish). No idea what I'm ganna grow in it. It needs the rest of it turfing, then digging over, then covering, until I can get the wood to build the raised bed-ness of it. It'll probably then have manure dug into it, ready for next year. Might make it into a brassica patch because it's big enough for three or four rows of cabbages :)

Volunteering Week Seven

This week we continued working through the boxes. We found lots of skulls (mainly rodents); hippo teeth; cat claws and small boxes with miscellaneous small bones.

Cat claw?

We then decided to open the box labelled 'Monkeys x7', and Lynsey filmed it as part of our Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Twitter takeover day on the Thursday. The box did indeed contain seven primates, including a Marmoset and a Lemur! The following pics contain rather gross images of dead primates.. you have been warned!

We catalogued one of them and then had to pack away - we will continue with the box in Week 8!

I Climbed A Volcano

Mt. Vesuvius, 1996.