Good question.  Liberty is my favourite shop in London, with my favourite café on the second floor, and within my favourite café, my favourite waiter.  Much knitting also goes on there.  It is a very delightful spot.

In other news, I have finally finished the interminable ribbing on Audrey.  Now I'm on the interminable edging.  It is not much more interesting than the ribbing, to be honest, but does have the odd yarn forward to help maintain a functional brain.  Apparently I want 18 repeats for a size XS, I've done six, which doesn't look likI'm sure my gauge is way off, but there's no gauge for this bit, so who can tell?  I'm enjoying Sergeant Pepper far more.  And that's shaped stocking stitch at the moment (yum).  Proper zen knitting.

I need to finish Lolita quickly.  Reading it just before I go to sleep is rendering me unable to sleep properly... I have 80 pages to go, and it's a reasonably quick read, which is just as well, I guess.  Never, ever, again.  Too disturbing.  It's a horrible story.  If anyone would like to suggest some nice, soothing, bedtime reading, I'd be grateful.  If not, I'll read Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day again: one of my favourites.

Right.  Now I've snarled at the current data assistant type person, I'm feeling thoroughly unsettled.  Still, I have softball to look forward to this evening, and a gig if I'm not too knackered afterwards!

xxx

It's not just me, it's Mum too.  I suspect, however, mine may be partially based on rubbish diet and partially based on hormones.  I have lectured Mum on the importance of folic acid and B12, and will be buying myself some vitamins today.  Mum's under instructions (since her diet is reasonably sensible) to eat a bowl of Frosties at bedtime.  Being as they're fortified and as she always wants something sweet before bedtime, I thought this might kill two birds with one stone.

I am terrified of the prospect of running the Brownie Unit as 'Guider in Charge'.  At least one girl wishes it wasn't me (possibly because I was being firm while she was being a menace: she always has a look of outrage on her face and is continually talking across us, generally explaining our thoughts further, so it's kinda positive, but wearing).  I just don't think I can cope.  I need good ideas for establishing six identity, because they don't settle into little groups naturally.  Perhaps go back to the days of 'six tables' and 'six boxes' of equipment.  Each six has their own scissors etc.  The cupboard needs a rollicking good clear out first, though.

I managed to put hot kettle water on my cereal this morning.  In my defence, I'd just had a text from J.  My brain wasn't on the job.  It isn't on this job, which is...

The Saturday List

• Partial change fish water, plus change filter


• Meet Dom for lunch. We had a lovely afternoon, a picnic in the park in the sunshine.  I am a great fan of picnics in the park in the sunshine.


• Go to CHQ and pay for the 24 Brownie Environment Badges that didn't make it onto the bill (embarrassment) Well, if you'd taken the attitude of the woman behind the counter, it was all very par for the course....


• Finish copying Polish language CDs Now I have to play the darn things and try learning some Polish.  I need to improve my vocabulary from one phrase which is mildly obscene.  Good Morning, I think, would be a good start!


• Watch highly intellectual and very cultured French Film....


• Finish Lolita (which is still eaugh)


• Sort stuff for recycling


• Finish the sleeve increases on Audrey's sleeve (note how I am gradually reducing the levels which I wish to attain each weekend).


• Take bedspread to launderette


• Hoover


• Bake banana bread


• Eat some red meat.  Had an avocado instead.  It is too hot for red meat that one has to cook oneself.


• Get vitamins


• Continue to log my daily expenditure in my diary


• Wash trainers again


• Get Tulip Paints and decorate a bag (poss buy copy Cosmo for  free bag) to hold Mobile Phones that get handed in at Brownies - we are having a crack down. Remembered that I've got a bag already, but am still thinking on Cosmo freebie.  Found the bag, but it needed a wash.


• Sort out bicycle wheels and brakes, possibly by taking it to the Cycle shop.


• Point out that I have added photos into the photoblog.  Does it work? There's this bit at the top of the page that says 'Photos', and I think we're all supposed to go clicking there.  I can get it to work....can the rest of the world?


• Find out next steps for training....


• Frame tapestries and hang them up


• Wrap and post James' birthday present - I was supposed to be going to his surprise party, but it didn't really happen....

Dom should have been here five minutes ago, and I need to put my face on.

xxx

---

John Lewis had a sale of ex-display kntting pattern books, 50p each.  I am now the proud possessor of Big Easy, RYC Six (Winter Wonderland) and a Jaeger Book.  I wish to knit the contents of all of them.  I also have a Hama Bead kit, reduced by half due to lack of paper (you just substitute greaseproof paper) and a broken box.  Very happy about this, it means I've been able to mend the circular Hama bead mat I've got that broke ages ago: I may well make a few more now.  It's supposed to turn into a dolphin mobile, which is quite cute, and would look pretty in the bathroom, so I might do that too.  The mat thingy can be used for Brownies later, but I need 20-odd mats for the whole unit to play at it, so this is a long term-build-up-materials project.

I got bitten by a mosquito on Thursday night.  So itchy, even with the benefit of antihistamine cream!

xxx

 

And they're such a happy little unit, and working together, and learning to listen to each other, and taking part.  So much nicer than when GinC was running it.  Their current leader is very calm, but a bit worried about having the girls outside.  8 girls, 3 Guiders.... the other Guider was there, but she still phoned to check I was on my way (I had bus issues yesterday), before letting the parents leave.  We were only in the yard...  Played a brilliant game called Zip-Zap-Bang!  It goes like this

Stand in a circle, the game can be played clockwise or anticlockwise, and is played sequentially round the circle.

Player one  points to player two "Zip!"

Player two  points to player 3 "Zap!"

Player Three and Five (with shooting action at each other, simultaneously) "Bang!"

Player 4 *ducks* at the same time as Players Three and Five are going bang (that nearly turned into 'at the same time as Players Three and Five are banging, but that's just wrong.  Funny, but wrong).

Then continue round the circle.  If you point at the wrong person when you're banging, or you don't duck, or you bang at the wrong moment (dear Lord, this sounds so crude!), or you duck instead of banging, or you forget to zap or zip, then you're out.

We also played Seven Up.  I'm quite good at that one.  All good games for concentration, and I could manage games that didn't involve running round but did involve concentrating.  Sarah-Guider kept asking me if I was OK, I must look ill at the moment.

I made the CD last night.  I got a bit overexcited with decorating the slipcase.  It looked like a whole Guide Unit had been playing with paper and sequins, and pressed flowers and glittery pink ribbon by the time I was done.  The tidying up took ages.  Still, it's all ready, packed up, will be in the post this lunchhour, and only seven (maybe eight) months after I first promised it.  I am a bad, bad friend.   It's not as if I were running round like a mad thing in November and December - I was on hiatus from morris and guides at that point. 

I have a bruise on my Achilles tendon (well, a bit to the right) on my right leg.  Makes crossing the legs at the ankle a bit of a challenge.

Wish the sunshine would come back.  I would like to continue to develop my strap marks.  And yes, I have been using suntan lotion.

xxx

---

*giggle*  Found in an autoreply:

"The catering office is now closed until *date* Would you have any emergency, you can contact the catering department on *number*, or contact the duty manager on *mobile*"

I'm wondering what a catering emergency looks like, or why one would have one.  I suspect it involved whipped cream, or maybe custard pies.

xxx

I'm so tired, I feel physically sick.  I have itchy-hayfevery-eyes, along with the attention span of a gnat on LSD.  And my head hurts.

This may or may not have something to do with the fact that I got hit on the head by a flying stick during Young Collins (a.k.a. Stick Chucking) last night.  However, I only got hit.  Dave managed something more spectacular:

 

Yes.  Blood.  And excess bandage (sticking plaster just wouldn't work).

Meanwhile, I handed over a finished baby dress.  And left the booties at home.  Sigh.

 

L.I.D. (Yes, those are her initials) is a very satisifactory baby to hug after you've been hit on the head by a stick during Young Collins.  Having four of the Smiffs pile on top of me after being hit on the head by the stick was, um, interesting in a sweaty sort of manner.  Very sweet was the Smiff who walked me to the tube, gave me a fond farewell before heading southbound, and then reappeared suddenly on the northbound platform, for one last goodbye in the three minutes before our respective trains arrived.  Bless him.

Right.  I have a meeting in five minutes, I have no useful knitting to take into the meeting, and I want to curl up and wither in the sunshine.  Without the sneeziness.

xxx

---

Despite the fact that, last night, I was the most uncoordinated morris dancer ever (think dropped stick, wrong turns, wrong hand - with the stick - up in the air, hit chest with stick and that was all before I got hit in the head by a flying stick), I have just been morris dancing in the office.  To prove that coordination is required.

I honestly don't know how I dropped my stick last night.  I think it sort of accidentally escaped while I wasn't paying attention.

Oh.  The embarrassment.

xxx

THE INDISPENSIBLE MAN

Some time when you're feeling important,
Some time when your ego's in bloom,
Some time when you take it for granted
You're the best man in the room;

Some time when you feel that your going
would leave an unfilled hole,
Just follow this simple instruction
And see how it humbles your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water
Put your hands in it up to your wrist;
Pull them out and the hole that remains
Is a measure of how you'll be missed.

You may splash as you please when you enter;
You may stir up the water galore
But stop and you'll find in a minute,
That it looks just the same as before.

The moral of this is quite simple
Do just the best you can,
Be proud of yourself, but remember;
There is no indispensable man.

(Author Unknown)

So there I am, wandering round Liberty's yarn and haberdashery department for the first of what turned into three visits today, having an entirely unnecessary whinge about men in general, and not keeping my voice down: my mother is slightly deaf.  The only time I ever keep my voice down is when she wants to hear what I'm saying.  This is a good illustration of my being perverse. I have managed to get onto the subject of location. 

"Living in London means you're useless?  Does that mean that I get to be useless because I live in London?  Are we all useless just because we live in London?  What is it about living in London that makes one useless?

A total stranger, dressed in an ill-advised tan chiffon top and trouser affair turns round, glares at me, and enquires

"Do you ever stop moaning?"

"Oh, yes!" I reply, with my sweetest smile, and wander off join Kerri, and go and pay for the pink yarn I've chosen for Karen's camera cosy.  Cue enormous giggles, and total loss of whinging mood (she was right, I was going on rather, but it wasn't really any of her business, and if she didn't like it, well there were plenty of other departments for her to visit).

I'm honestly not sure who was more surprised.  Me, that someone could be so incredibly rude in the middle of a shop: this is not the English way, after all, since the English tend to mumble and grumble under their breath when faced with this sort of thing; or her, with my breezy response, and subsequent disintegration into giggling.  I need to thank her on two levels.  For lightening my mood, and for the blog fodder.  Sadly, I haven't the faintest clue what she looks like, so I won't be able to thank her, even if I do run into her again.

People are weird.  On a side note, Kerri is now convinced that there's a picture of me up in the kitchen in the café in Liberty's, with a little note underneath saying 'please feed this woman'.  You should see the mound of cream that came with today's hot chocolate (and that was after the fuss and fluster of my asking for an open sandwich without the bread part of the concoction).

 Oh.  Hang on.  I took a picture.  It had sunk rather at this point, but you get the general gist.  Someone had also gotten rather whizzy with the chocolate shaker.  By the time I'd polished off that little lot, I felt rather ick.  This feeling stuck with me until supper: ham and Jersey new potatoes.  Note to self.  Do not store Jersey new potatoes in the bag in the cupboard for a week or so before using them.  They do not last, but do go grim.

 

 

 

 

 Then there's the guy I saw while I was waiting for the bus.  It isn't easy being green.  I remember the olive green school uniform I used to have... the memory does not stop me wearing quantities of green, but I think about the shade.  And the quantity.  He had a green shirt on as well.  Yes, that is a Starbucks on the opposite side of the road, and you can just see the lights of Piccadilly Circus on the right hand side of the photo.  I love my city.

xxx

I'm sure this is a cross-cultural phenomenon - the nationalities that have wished me a good night's sleep recently include English, Brazilian, Polish, American and South African.  As a planet, we are obsessed with the idea of sleeping well, or so it seems to me.  Do bear in mind that my anthropological experience is limited to that book about 'Watching the English' and the odd historiography lecture during the third year of my degree, which may or may not have been about Levi-Strauss.  Sociology and anthropology is not my forte, folks.  Damn interesting on occasion though.

Sweet dreams also seem to be important, but the focus for those is more European.  I have been wished "sweet and colourful dreams" recently, which I think is what's prompted this musing: I dutifully ate some cheese before bedtime to try and encourage the colourfulness, but it didn't help much.  Leerdammer cheese is not good for dreams.  Really strong cheddar produces a far more vivid result.  I digress.  It did strike me, however, that sweet and colourful dreams was a somewhat unusual thing to wish someone.

Then there's the whole question of bedtime rituals (for me, they involve quantities of lavender oil in order to induce a feeling of restfulness, as well as the first three tracks of a Debussey piano CD).  Night night, sleep tight, see you in the morning.  Or, as Dad used to put it "Nightle nightle, sleeple tightle, see you in the mornal-ningle".  Which is practically a Spike Milligan poem without even trying (it's the second one in the list).  Mind the bedbugs don't bite.  Or the dustmites.  Having someone to snuggle round (or a teddy bear: or a Canadian moose) is important.  I might not sleep so well if I've got someone wrapped round me, but boy, do I like the feeling of being wanted.  I'm too little to wrap myself round anyone else terribly well.  But I want to know they're there.

(Speaking of littleness, I do know that I need to eat.  But people will keep pestering me on the subject.  This is not encouraging me to eat, quite the reverse.  Note that I am the sort of perverse person who, when told that they must do something, probably won't.  I may not necessarily claim that what you think is black is actually white, but, believe me, it's not black.  It's grey at the very least. And, if someone could tell me exactly why a banana, a bag of crisps and a large milky coffee do not a good, albeit rushed, lunch make: there's protein, carbs, fibre....well, tell me and I'll be grateful.  I am not hungry enough for much more!).

xxx