Month: July 2020

Happy Things

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I’ve started watching stuff on YouTube to cheer myself up – sometimes cute animal stuff (eg huge golden labrador frightened of tiny little new kitten), mostly comedians.

My favourite comedians are, in no particular order, Aisling Bea, Frankie Boyle, Dara O’Briain, Susan Calman, Sarah Millican, Billy Connolly, and Jack Whitehall. They always, always cheer me up.

I’m also reading, as well as Manda C Scott’s Rome series (god I love these stories), a book by Dara O’Briain about his tour of the UK which is hilarious.

Tomorrow I have no chores to do so might get some knitting done. Also fancying this: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/07-origami-shawl when my hand is fixed. In this yarn: https://www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/king-cole-cottonsoft-baby-crush-dk-coffees-2873-100g

Thinking of knitting it half the width and maybe 3/4 the length. I’ve ordered 4 balls of yarn (100% cotton) and there are 210 metres on each ball. So I’ll just keep going I think, making sure the pattern is symmetrical lengthways too.

In the meantime I have the Pimpelliese shawlette to finish (taking me ages because I can only do a bit at a time, and not every day), then a jumper and a jacket for LCS (who will be 6 in November), then a jumper for hubby. Always plenty on my list of knitting things to do!

 

To mask or not?

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Had to go into Solihull today to the bank. Some things just can’t be done online, on the phone, or by post. Sigh.

But what struck me most is how many people are not wearing masks! I went to a knit and natter group on Saturday. Five of us all sat outside, but I was the only one wearing a mask. Am I paranoid?

In New Zealand, the advice was, when you’ve been out and about, change all your clothes and have a shower when you get home. So I did. It might be over the top, but New Zealand is in a much, much better state than the UK.

Hmph.

In the end my sister and I decided that digitising all the cine films was just too difficult and too expensive. Some had already been done, so we are assuming they were the only ones worth doing, and dumped the rest. Freecycled the Eumig projector,  the slide projector, and the screen. A lovely, lovely Polish lorry driver collected them on his way back to Poland, where he lives opposite a children’s home. He volunteers there and collects stuff just like this to help entertain them. He will fix the stuff and then donate it. The Paul Klee prints went to a lovely guy who was influenced by Klee at uni and everybody is delighted, including me.

Dressed in my “working clothes”, had a nice cup of tea after the shower, then used the “jet” setting on the hose to clean up the green wheelie bin (for garden refuse). And now it’s lunchtime.

Have been reading a lot. Had already read Fire & Fury, Siege, and Surviving Autocracy, just read Too Much and Never Enough. Now I’m back into the Boudica: Dreaming series of 4 books. It all seemed much cleaner, somehow, back then (I know it’s fictionalised), but really, honestly, I don’t think I can cope with  knowing too much more about Trump. We do have two programmes recorded which we will no doubt harrumph our way through. Also the Rupert Murdoch 3 part documentary. Oh. My. God. If you’ve watched Succession, know that it is scarily accurate.

Next up will be another book on the Trojan War from a woman’s point of view – Song of Sacrifice by Janell Rhiannon. Then hubby has a book called “Pew” which sounds great.

Have been able to knit a very small amount – half an hour about three times a week, if I’m not doing anything else. And only in the morning. Not today, too busy. And thank goodness for the gardeners. Although they haven’t turned up today . . .

Some ups, some downs.

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The plumber fixed the leak in half an hour. It was the cistern. Big relief.

Slept most of today. Got up at 9 am then back to bed at 10, woke at 3 pm.

Had another go at the cine films on the Eumig projector. The plan is to go through them – there are 39 labelled ones and a dozen or so unlabelled – before deciding which ones to have digitised. However. The projector works, bulb and everything, on forward, but the take up spool is a bit squashed so you have to fiddle about with it to make sure it actually takes up the film. That’s ok. But then reverse doesn’t work at all. Now, if it’s a film you don’t care about, that’s also ok. But an added problem. The next thing is that I don’t know which are standard 8mm and which are Super 8mm.  I looked in the manual, and on the internet, and I have to say there isn’t anything which helps me much. Certainly not the reverse problem. Then I thought maybe I could hire a projector. But again, standard 8mm or Super 8mm? or one that does both? and then how would I know which was which?

Finally have almost come to the decision (checking with my sister at the moment) to just have the labelled films converted and bugger the rest. Depressing, because the technology has got the better of me. But a relief to have almost made the decision.

Then the projector (and the slide projector) can go on eBay.

Am going to try and speak to the doctor tomorrow about a couple of things, mostly the pain. We shall see.

 

Things are happening . . . . .

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Finally had to give up gardening. But it’s all fine, because after some major research we have found a gardener. He gets excellent reviews. Young, wispy beard, skinny ripped jeans and big old Doc Martin style boots. Liked him instantly. They’re coming next Tuesday.

And the garden currently looks ok. A bit shaggy, but there you are.

Also managed to get some shots of the jays. I can’t post videos on this site because I use the free version, but have captured a couple of stills. That’s our washing line in the middle of the picture. The picture with two jays in is a nano-second before the bully pigeon flies in to frighten them off. It works. Hate pigeons.

No news on the steroid injections for my hands. I need to speak to the doctor next week anyway so will mention it then.

The plumber is coming today to sort out the leak in our small bathroom. Hey ho.

Also have invested in speakers and a microphone for the Zoom meetings so that hubby can join in on the same login – on a desktop screen you can see a lot more people than on a tablet screen, which has a maximum of 4. Am going to test it out today.