The S Word

I can’t really not mention it can I? I know that you’ll all be sick of hearing snow-related posts but I feel I have to add my tuppence worth seeing as it is the most snow I’ve ever seen in my tender twenty seven years on this planet.

When I posted last Monday it was still a novelty and all was lovely in the world and bright and crisp. How I marvelled at the beauty of it all and pranced, gazelle-like in the flurries on my way to work.

Little did I know what was in store.

It was funny really because it just kept. getting. worse. Monday was pleasant, Tuesday was a little weird and by Wednesday full on chaos had broken out. By Thursday I was convinced it was never going to end, and that was before another 4 inches fell out of the sky that evening. When I woke up on Friday I felt completely freaked out.

In the back garden, early morning Friday 3rd December

It’s had a puzzling effect on people though. Snow days were pronounced throughout my work and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. Yes a lot of snow had fallen and yes people’s cars were snowed in but in Hull the buses were still running (they were stopped once that I’m certain of last week and that was Thursday evening) and we have a pretty damn good bus service. But then it occurred to me what was wrong – I was looking at it through the eyes of a person who doesn’t have a car. I’m used to getting a bus and walking. Apparently when you do get a car nowadays it comes with a 5 year guarantee and a frontal lobotomy. It just did not occur to people that even though their car was snowed in, there were still plenty of other ways of navigating the city. I would know, I have to do it every single day regardless of the weather.

Why yes, yes I am ranting.

On Thursday afternoon I had a meeting, four of us should have been there. Three of us were there and of that three, one person was in despite a family member dying that morning and another person was in, having travelled in from the other side of the Humber Bridge, where they had it worse than we did. The one person that wasn’t there because of the snow? They live less than a mile away from the office. They should be walking in anyway so don’t get me started on them not coming in because their car (which I should also add is a 4x4 number) was snowed in.

Maud bravely ventures out.

People completely lost their heads. And you know what? Everyone needs to get a grip because you know what? This might be what the rest of winter is like? This might be what every winter is like from now on and we cannot just shut the whole country down when this happens. Man up Britain.

I won’t pretend I’m on some moral high ground here, on Wednesday when my boss told me I should go home because of the weather (he wasn’t in himself) I thought to myself “Why?!” but quite frankly, I don’t need to be told twice so I did go home and went in the garden and built a snowman. He could have been bigger but a) it was snowing whilst I was making him and b) it’s tiring building a snowman by yourself, Dorothy came out to take photos of my masterpiece and Maud did her best in a supervisory capacity but it’s really a job for more than one person.

Putting the finishing touches to Mr Creepy. I don't know why, but somehow instead of looking cute and adorable he came out looking like something out of a horror film.

Please don’t think I’m being flippant, this is seriously the worst snow I’ve seen ever. It’s been ridiculous, but come on everyone, let’s get a grip (literally as well as metaphorically, I fell over twice on the way into work today).

ALSO please note that this post only refers to those people who live in Hull and the surrounding areas, I know that places have had it much worse and bus services were stopped and people really did struggle to get in to work, please do not comment saying "Well I drive a car and the buses stopped so I couldn't get into work." A) I'm talking about Hull and B) this blog is just supposed to be a laugh, no need to get uppity.

And to prove how hilariously deep the snow has been here, I took this brilliant picture. The back story: I saw a pony, I wanted to touch it, I (like the moron I am) started to walk towards it, not noticing how far up the pony's legs the snow came and fell up to above my knees in snow. THEN I went back to reenact the event for this photo, except I wouldn't go that deep again so I just went up to my knees. I suffer for my art you know.

More than a little bit in love...

....HA fooled you. I told you, I'm not talking about him.

I am however talking about this little minx,

Look at her the dirty little madam.

Words cannot express how much I enjoyed doing this embroidery and seeing it gradually come to life. Although I think my idea to do her hair in chain stitch has paid off, there were several times when I was cursing myself, wishing  I'd chosen a much more simpler method of filling in. The bodice was filled in using brick stitch which was a great way of filling in and was pretty quick and easy to do, giving a really nice finished effect.

I promise I'm not completely neglecting the fact that I have to get on with Mum's crocheted blanket, it just occured to me that this bag had to be sent off in the post to its recipient so I needed to get it finished as soon as possible whereas I can be feverishly working on Mum's blanket until the night before Christmas Eve! (And most probably will be.)

Quick question for those who may have embroidered on to things before - should I find some way of putting a backing on the work? I've tried to be as neat as possible and tie my ends in very thoroughly but I'm worried that putting things in and out of the bag might ruin the stitchery. Am I worrying unnecessarily? And if I'm not and I should be backing it - what the hell do I use and how the hell do I attach it?!

Christmas Mission

I am on a mission this Christmas. A mission to spend as little money as possible without resorting to buying everyone’s presents at Poundland.


For many years I cursed my stupid family – parents splitting up and Dad re-marrying, thus thrusting into my life another person I had to buy a present for, brother and sister both marrying and then having offspring, slowly increasing the amount of money I was forking out each December.

Last year I decided that I would be Scrooge. Much as I know it’s all about the giving and not the receiving my bank balance couldn’t take anymore and I rang my brother and sister up and said that I would buy for their children but not for them. They were happy for this to happen, and I should think so too – it’s bad enough being the youngest at times but I was starting to feel like I was being punished for not getting a ring on my finger and a bun in the oven. So that was four presents off the list – BOOM.

Lots of people were feeling the strain last year so most of my friends and I decided that we would knock the idea of gifts on the head and maybe just go out for a drink and be full of festive cheer instead. But still my Christmas present list seems ridiculously long – and don’t think I didn’t kick off about my brother’s decision to add to my gift list this year by having another baby – some people are so bloody selfish.

My problem is that I have this terrible habit of equating more presents with better presents. I might get someone something I know they’ll really like and maybe only costs £10 but then will be plagued with a conversation that goes a little like this:

Bad voice in head: Is that all you’re getting them?

Me: Well yeah, I mean I know that they’re going to really like it and that’s good isn’t it?

Bad voice in head: Well I guess but you haven’t really spent that much money have you, I mean they’ll look at it and go “That’s nice they got me something I wanted but she only spent £10. Bitch”

Me: Really? Yeah you’re probably right, I’ll get them something else as well...

And so my list of presents to buy grows more expansive and expensive.

It even extends to situations where a limit is set. For instance we have a Secret Santa going on this year with the Stitch and Bitch girls and there’s a £10 limit and I’ve spent my limit on one present. And it’s kind of tiny. It doesn’t look like a lot. And so the internal monologue begins:

Me: Hurrah I spent my pennies and I got something I know my Secret Santa recipient will like

Bad voice in head: Yeah....but it’s tiny, doesn’t look like much.

Me: Yeah it is tiny, what’s your point

Bad voice in head: What if they think you’ve just spent a fiver and pocketed the rest?

Me: Well I can’t hand it to them with a receipt telling them how much it is can I?

Bad voice in head: *silence*

Me: Well maybe I should get something else?

Thus negating the concept of Secret Santa and limit setting.

I don’t know why I do it to myself. I know it’s the thought that counts and not the amount of money you spend and the size of the present but there is a child that still lives within me who really seems to think that way. She bugs me.

At the end of the day I just need to get realistic, I want people to have a lovely Christmas and want to buy them all the things I think they would like but I have to be reasonable, I just cannot afford to do that and that doesn’t make me a bad person.

Take my brother’s newby for instance. I thought about what I could get her and list began to grow and grow, from outfits, to books, to rattles, to toys and it all started to get a bit out of control until I thought to myself. “You know what? She’s going to be 2 months old, she really doesn’t need very much” so I bought her a lovely soft little bunny rattle, some babygros in the sale at Pumpkin Patch and I’m making a little sampler.

And with every cross stitch and every sweep of the crochet hook this month and next I will repeat to myself on a loop – more presents and expensive presents do not equal good presents.

Lady of the Manor

And so last weekend was spent in Ashby de la Zouch, staying with my sister and her family. My sister’s been living there for a good few years but has still never been to Chatsworth House which is just over an hour’s journey away. Her husband, being the typical alpha male type has refused to accompany her (he’s a lovely chap at times) and so it was decided that next time Mum and I came over we would have a girl’s day out.

I’ve been a few times before to the outer grounds and had a good stomp around, but I’d never been inside the house or looked at the private gardens so I was more than a little bit giddy to get going.

I was even more giddy when I opened the curtains and realised that the snow had followed us from Hull and given Leicestershire a little sprinkling.

Rowan the Irish Setter having a frolic.

We were lucky enough to be going during the Christmas celebrations, where the downstairs rooms are bedecked in decorations, this year’s theme being a Russian Christmas (yeah I’ve no idea why either).

The downstairs rooms are beyond anything my tiny little brain can comprehend. ORNATE is the word that springs to mind. And it definitely has to be in capitals, this isn’t just “Oh how ornate”, this is “F**k me, how ORNATE” and everything in sight is painted, carved or whittled in some way. The wealth is staggering.

The ceiling in the chapel

I don’t know if I was the only one but I did feel a little disappointed with being inside the house, there are parts of it closed at the moment I believe for restoration so you don’t really walk round that much and actually, beautiful as the Christmas decorations were, I kind of felt like they got in the way and distracted your attention from what was inside the rooms.

Photo aptly demonstrating the Christmas decorations' getting-in-the-way-ness

We did give the gardens a miss, mainly because they were a) covered in snow and b) we were freakin’ freezing so we opted to take shelter in the cafeteria which was insanely busy but the food – and I’m just talking about the wrapped sandwiches here – was lovely.

The view out of the library, don't you know

After essential gift shop browsing and buying (I can’t help it, I’m sort of more than a little bit obsessed with the Mitford sisters so I had to buy at least one book and then the other one was a signed copy so I had to get that one as well. PS Father Christmas, if you’re listening, I want the Duchess of Devonshire’s new book please thank you.) it was time to make our merry little way back home, on the way spotting stags sheltering beneath trees and deer running through the park and sheep just wandering about all over the place.

It really was unbelievably cold on Saturday and the place was absolutely jammed full of old biddies with their walking sticks, I was just waiting for one of them to go over. In the end it was nearly my Mum that fell and she did the best comedy almost-fall I've ever seen, I seriously nearly wet myself laughing and got run over by a car.

Random photo of icicles. Because you can never have too many of those.

I bloody love this place you know, I want to come back immediately and go tramping through the grounds again and come and visit the gardens in the summer.
 

And you can totally get married there! It only costs a mere £3,500 then with £60 a head for the catering. Erm....

Excuse me, I’m just off to empty my money box...

Random photo of a stone lion. Just because. Like him? You can get him in bookend form from the gift shop.

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SNOW UPDATE:

This was the view out of our back door this morning....

Check out the chair in the middle, then you can get an idea of how much snow has fallen in the past few days...

I have affectionately christened it Apocalypse 2010.

Not that you'd know any of this was going on. The BBC doesn't really like to report bad weather until it hits London, instead it gets a vague mention - "And in other news, somewhere north of the Watford Gap there's apparently a bit of snow, but now lets talk about something London-centric."

Grrrrrrrrr.

November Book Review

I am hanging my head in shame. But you will probably breathe a sigh of relief at my next announcement.

There are only 2 books to be reviewed this month. I know, I know. The shame. This is down to a combination of factors, the equation of which would look something like this:

Christmas crafting stepping up a notch x Reading behemoths of books this month / general busyness = 2 book review in November.

I feel I need to make clear that the books that I review each month are the books that I finish in that month. I don’t want anyone to be under the impression that on the 1st of the month I start reading, I could have been reading a book for a couple of months before it gets reviewed. I just felt a need for transparency, in case it wasn’t clear to anyone.

Currently taking up space by my bed is Under the Dome by Stephen King which I can barely lift let alone carry about with me. This means I’m restricted to reading it in bed and at the moment I’m mostly crocheting/embroidering/cross stitching in bed. Also hanging like a brick over me is Lark Rise to Candleford – who told me this book was good? YOU LIED. It’s a dreary trudge that reads like a social history textbook. It’s awful. But because I’m stubborn I refuse to give up.

Anyway, I’ll shut up and get on with this month:

The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobsen

I’m a sucker for the Man Booker Prize, I always say I won’t buy the book that wins in hardback (or indeed any of the shortlist that catches my eye), I will wait until the paperbacks are out, but I always fail miserably. Sometimes it turns out well, other times, it’s Wolf Hall (I still can’t talk about it without shuddering. Terrible book. Awful.)

Some time ago I was talking to my Dad about a Book Group he’d joined, I asked him what book he was nominating and he said he wasn’t going to nominate the book he really wanted to because he didn’t want people to not like it and rip it all to shreds in front of him (and yes he could probably do with quite a bit of therapy). I never really understood what he meant but now I do. I’m torn between urging everyone to go out immediately and buy this book and hiding it away and keeping it to myself because I know that it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and I’ll just get upset if you don’t like it.

I love characters that are not instantly likeable. I’m not a fan of characters that are so dull you couldn’t care less about them, but I am a fan of ones that provoke serious reactions from you. (John Lanchester is a master at writing characters that you would really like to punch in the face but can’t bear to stop reading about.) I especially like characters that are a little bit pathetic because you know what? They’re realistic, there are more slightly pathetic men walking about than there are heroes.

Julian Treslove is a pathetic man. He is unloved and unlovable and desperately wants to belong to someone or anything. He especially wants to be Jewish like his frenemy, Sam Finkler. Or does he? I think it’s less about him being Jewish and more about the comfort and insularity that being Jewish brings with it that Treslove craves. He feels he’s not part of a gang and resents the closeness that Finkler and a mutual friend, Libor have, due to their shared religion.

Finkler belongs but doesn’t want to belong, joining a group of Ashamed Jews. Libor feels alone, having lost his wife and just wants to belong to the same realm as her.

This isn’t a huge tome. It isn’t a door stop of the book. But it is so beautifully crafted and I think it will genuinely stay with me for a long time to come (not least because I’m obsessed with all things Jewish myself, god I hope I’m not as pathetic as Treslove). I want you to read it, I really do but please let me warn you - don’t think it’s a happy clappy story, you will want to grab Treslove by his lapels and shake the life out of him at several times in the book and the ending isn’t one all tied up with a bow, but it is wonderful nonetheless.

I feel the judges have redeemed themselves after last year’s nonsense.

Of Bees and Mist – Erick Setiawan

I have no idea how this ended up on my bookshelf, so I’m inclined to believe it was a Times/WH Smith offer, but however it appeared on my shelf I’m incredibly pleased I finally dusted it off and read it.

This is a proper fairytale for grown-ups but don’t let that put you off. It’s also a tale of having possibly the worst mother-in-law you could ever have. It’s a tale of power and strength and that whoever has one doesn’t necessarily have the other.

Meridia grows up in a house where her parents don’t get along. Her father leaves each day in a cloud of mist and returns in another and her mother is, to put it nicely, away with the fairies. When she meets and falls in love with Daniel she marries him and goes to live with him and his parents, where she discovers that her new mother-in-law, Eva, is not all that she seems, sending plagues of bees into the ears of her husband and son when things don’t go her way.

The story is about love and the lengths that people will go to to protect it or keep it close to them and it is another beautiful story, but in a very different way to The Finkler Question. It was a really brilliant read and kept me incredibly good company on the train to and from London for which I am very grateful to it.

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The winner?

HAS to be The Finkler Question – did you not see how much I wrote about it? And I had to pull myself back from writing more. Buy it, read it and if you don’t love it, don’t tell me because I might have to cry my eyeballs out and that would be terribly inconvenient at this moment in time.

(However, please don’t write off Of Bees and Mist, if this was any other month that would probably have won.)

Obligatory snow pictures

Please allow me to get in on this snow action. I hardly ever get to post snow pictures, that's the bad fortune that comes with living in Hull. As we're pretty much below sea level and have about one hill in the vague vicinity, the white stuff doesn't come our way that often and if it does it hardly ever settles.

So you can imagine my smugness when we not only got snow, but that we were some of the first to get snow. Ha. In your face the rest of England.

The view out of my bedroom window yesterday afternoon

This morning was one of the days that made me glad I don't have a car. Whilst everyone was scraping the ice and snow off their cars, I could just begin walking into work, happy as a clam. This is a feeling I'm not sure will last, this morning was fine because the snow was fresh and powdery and therefore not slippy. After a couple of days of being walked on and compacted I think I might have a different view and possibly a broken ankle or two.

But let us not concentrate on the bad things the snow can bring. If I was going to do that I'd have to tell you all about how the pipes were frozen when I came back from my sister's yesterday and remained frozen, despite the heating being on low, until nearly 6pm last night. OR I'd tell you about how the other Stitchettes, who bravely went out to Harrogate to the knitting and stitching show, got more than a little stuck, spending 7 hours on the road in an attempt to make a journey which is normally a couple of hours at the most. OR I'd tell you about how Fred and Lily are trapped at the cattery because Mum couldn't drive out to bring them home yesterday (they'll think they've been abandonned!).

Instead let us ooh and aaah at the prettiness.

Remember Pearson Park from this post at the end of August? This is what it looks like now, there have been plenty attempts at building giant snowmen over the weekend, but for some reason, all of them appear to have been aborted once they've built the body. No commitment some people.

Queen Victoria remains unamused.

The fountain in Queen's Gardens in the middle of town is frozen over and some amazing sheets of ice are hanging over the sides.

Close-up ice action

And do you remember the baby moorhens? I've been meaning to tell you, they're doing incredibly well and thriving, there's at least three or four that have survived which has warmed the cockles of my icy cold heart. I am very pleased to have been there to capture their first experiences with the cold stuff. They seemed pretty confused, whereas the mallards and their mother skidded about with relative ease the babies did not look happy at all and were incredibly tentative as they stepped about the frozen pond. I feel like a proud Mother Moorhen myself.

Brave baby moorhen



No rest for the crafty

Don't think I was resting on my laurels this weekend just because I couldn't carry on with Mum's blanket. I'm a dedicated little monkey you know and the Christmas crafting carried on unabated.

I have bought some cotton bags off tinternet with the aim of embroidering some up to give to people as Christmas presents and first up is one for my Mum's friend.

I've had the Sublime Stitching craft pad for almost a year after one of the Stitchettes gave me it for Secret Santa last year. I periodically get it down and flick through it and then reluctantly put it back on the shelf because I can't find anything nice enough and deserving enough of its beautifulness.

But this little fairy would be absolutely perfect for Mum's friend so I got my sister's iron out and my book of embroidery stitches and set to with gusto.

At the moment this is what she looks like and I'm incredibly pleased with her. Especially the toadstool which is outlined in red glittery thread and red satiny thread, which is making it look like it's shining out at me.

I've tried out a couple of new stitches, my embroidery repertoire is pretty limited as it's totally new to me and I've never even attempted it before, preferring to stick to the cross stitch I know and love well. This piece has seen me try out a couple of different chain stitches and I've been pretty pleased with how they've turned out, I have plans for more chain stitching when it comes to her hair.

This has made me feel pretty excited to tell you the truth. I've got that giddy feeling you get when you do something new and you get all carried away with it, I need to be careful to not get so carried away that I forget my crochet duties.