It's Saturday, it's sunny, and, although I had beautiful plans about sleeping lots, I can't.  Partly due to the building site at the end of the road, which has effectively rendered it impossible to have a lie in unless it's Sunday.  So I'll drink some more coffee and begin on the list.

• Join Hanami knit along
• Buy the relevant yarn.  And double check the bead situation.  Got five balls of something rather nice by Habu.  And was entirely distracted by cashmere sockyarn in a colourway called 'Brown Owl'.
• Recharge camera batteries.  Find other set.
• Take photos of baby socks etc before I wrap them up
• Finish the Anthropologist's scarf (I've averaged an inch and a half to two inches each time I've picked it up recently).  Take photo.  Blocking can wait until Christmas.
• Acquire small box into which my cousin's 18th Birthday present (sewing scissors with hand sewn scissorkeep) can be placed for safe transportation to Canada.  Wrap scissors, and prepare for the post.  Maybe post them, but, you know, let's not get too enthusiastic. Posting happened on Mon.
• Get to Proms (I'm going to be bad.  I really want to be at tomorrow night's Prom, but I could not care less about today's offerings.  I need to have been swiped through on my pass for today's for them to count towards the 'six proms' I must attend before I can get a ticket for the Last Night.  It's Brass Music Day today.  I can't stick Brass Music.  I am so annoyed that the one weekend I can go Promming there's only one concert I really want to Prom to.  Last night's Prom was nice, but the singing was somehow strangely reminiscent of the last chapter of Ulysses.).  I shall arrive, swipe, and depart.  There is No Point in hanging around when I don't want to be Brassed to pieces.
• Tidy up Pack Holiday licence
• Laundry
• Hoover bedroom
• More writing, and revision, and reading for The Book.   Acquire reading copies of 'School at the Chalet', 'Jo of the Chalet School' and possibly 'Princess'.  I am so lucky: I have lovely hardback copies, one of which dates from the 1930s.  However, they are not good for reading on public transport.  They are far too lovely.  Ooooh, just found a three-in-one that does the trick perfectly.  I Ebay.
• Acquire India Guide Book.  Look into flights.
• Fold sheets and put away.
• Tidy up magazines for recycling
• Work some more on the cotton cardigan.  I need lace in my life again. Frogged it.  Found some different cotton yarn, and cast on for something else entirely.  First batch of cotton yarn will go to the Charity Shop.  It is not my colour.
• Contact downstream Sockapalooza pal to see if she's had a package in the post yet.  She's not posted to her blog since April, and the only email I've had from her was to say that she'd email me the decrease pattern for her calves that she'd worked out with a friend.  It's definitely a good thing that I didn't wait for this, as she wouldn't have had any socks.

xxx

I have three finished objects:  some Boston Red Sox baby socks (so cute), some baby sandals (also so cute) and, finally, Opie, which was seamed up last night for no better reason that I wanted a new cardigan.  I am Not Sure about the collar.

In other news, I have a crashing headache, the sudden news that I have to work Sunday afternoon as well as much of the first weekend of August, with a vast amount of working late next week but  the Anthropologist has promised me that he will deliver my saucisson on Monday night (no, that is not a euphemism.  He brought back Swiss saucisson for me) and that he has labelled it this time, in order to prevent his Father eating it.  Apparently it was a Very Good saucisson that his Father polished off.  Shame I never got a sniff of it.

Note.  The Anthropologist has not yet submitted his PhD.  Indiana Jones began the final writeup process for his in April, and has now submitted (interestingly, Xanga suggests 'retype' as a correct spelling for 'writeup').

I started this over an hour ago.  My head still hurts.

xxx

The last Harry Potter was a rattling good tale.  But, oh, I am full of sour grapes, as I got picky about some the grammar (and I blame her editor), some of the descriptions, and, honestly, if one more baddy had been defeated because he hadn't been able to raise his (or her) wand arm in time, then the book could have gone flying across the room.  I suspect, had I not been reading it in one day, I would not have been so bothered.  As my Mother says, it doesn't really matter (within reason, because we wouldn't want the little loves picking up anything excessively violent or sexy) what children read, just as long as they pick up that habit.

When it comes to annoying phrases, I'm just as bad.  My characters are continuously taking deep steadying breaths.  Because, obviously, there isn't enough air to go round in the the Austrian Tyrol.  I have to do some writing this afternoon.  The last batch I wrote turned out to be error-ridden.  This must be corrected, while on the sofa, with tea.

I'm glad I went to queue up: I can't honestly see that a book is going to inspire quite so many people in the future.  I thoroughly enjoyed the hype.  It was fun queuing for an hour and a half in the cold, and trying to explain to the odd social anthropologist (a different one, and he was drunk) exactly why I was there. 

Which reminds me.  I must ask the Anthropologist to bring back some Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream from Geneva when he flies over.  My nose is disintegrating: we cleared out the Guides' loft at Coram's Fields, and it was very dusty: I soaked three tissues with that ghastly runnyness that's indicative of an allergy really getting going.  And now my nostrils and septum are bright red and hurt.  I almost wish I had a moustache to hide it.  However, I'd look silly.

xxx

But I have my Harry Potter.

It was also a long queue.  And full of students.

xxx

• Laundry
• Make dough based voodoo Bridezilla doll Decided that she wasn't worth the effort
• Brownie Accounts
• Brownie Self Esteem afternoon at CHQ (sat) Not only did my Brownies not turn up, I promptly ran into the Queen's Guide Candidate I'd failed while in the shop
• Brownie Fun Day somewhere near Covent Garden (sun)
• Poster of all we've done at Brownies this year.  With Glitter. And Photos.
• Find out if nut allergy child will be allergic to coconut ice Should be OK according to internet.
• Make coconut ice or rock cakes (particularly latter, as Daddy wants to have the leftovers, but hates coconut ice).  Consider gingerbread. Jo reminded me of the leftovers from her Brownie Tea Party.
• Try to find cheap copy of House 2nd Series DVD Amazon, £20, so I stopped searching there.
• Wash completed Grasshopper Socks

• Hem trousers (two hems down, two to go - there's two pairs)
• Tidy up Pack Holiday licence
• Fill in Carlton Club form
• Create testing plan for MIIS, because I think I've nearly got my head round it.
• Go to a prom.
• Weed wand burn the weeds in the back garden Brilliant fun.
• Find border fork
• Send hugs to Heather (have started with faintly apposite Shakespeare Quote)
• Paint toenails electric blue
• Mend Sinatra LP covers.

• Tidy bedroom  Work in progress.
• Text all Brownie parents to find out who will actually turn up next week.
• Buy brownie badges while at CHQ.
• Buy presents and wrap same, with socks, for Sockapalooza pal. All is now reading for mailing next week.  We're supposed to ship for 2nd August, but I'd rather mail these things when I have the opportunity.
• Eat quantities of red meat
• Supermarket shop
• Find out if Waterstones open locally next Friday at midnight.  Considering joining the brouhaha in Piccadilly.  I have no idea whether another book is ever going to create quite such hysteria in my lifetime, so I'd like to say "I was there."
• Water plants.  Baby bio Bessie the Azalea (who is on her way out)
• Write cheque for Brownie PH refund.

OK. That's probably quite enough for one girl.  Here.  Have a bonus picture of my home grown from seed basil.

xxx

Any good day would have been made better by that.  Yesterday was mostly kinda sucky, and the winning run made it just good.  Being called as first aider to one of the chaps who was taking down the marquee, and who had removed the tips of two of his fingers was the highlight of the morning.  I didn't actually do anything.  Just teased and made him smile while he waited for the ambulance - his colleagues had the whole situation totally under control and I was surplus to requirements.  The afternoon saw me accidentally disable an account. It wouldn't re-enable.  It sorted itself out overnight.  Like magic.  But not fun.  Oh.  And we tried to change something in MIIS, and it still wouldn't.

Bah humbug.

Here are some finished, washed, happy, soft sockapalooza socks.

Detail of the stitch pattern

Detail of the cuff (I love the cuff).

I've stopped worrying about my gauge issues.  They've evened out OK.  I shall be sending them off with some rather yummy Colinette sock yarn.  They are an odd shape, but my pal has minute feet, tiny ankles, and calves which say "I am a walker, dammit, and proud!".  I also need to pick up some tea and so forth - because they're off to Somewhere in America.

xxx

For a woman who states that her money is her own and no way ever will she have a joint account with a man, I've got an inordinate number of joint accounts.

Well.  Two.  One of which is closed (the Diana Memorial Fund account, in connexion with a concert that we'd spent all summer planning as a group, only to have it coincide with The Funeral and therefore be turned, by default, into a memorial concert).  The other, well, it rather disappeared.  Bit embarrassing. It was the Andrew Rose Memorial Fund, and we were going to buy some Historiography books for the Venice stream of our undergraduate course.  The poor lad died seven years ago.  We still haven't bought the books.

Now, my partner in crime has been doing a PhD.  And lecturing round about the place, including the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as part of the Science and Technologies department Brown Bags.  I'm sure his lectures are amazingly funny and witty.  Check out his blog.  He's fundamentally intelligent, and great fun with it - and I used to share seminars with him.  He'd do the reading.  I'd do the reading.  No-one else would bother, and I got exceptionally good marks for some of those courses.  Fluke like.  His arguments kinda rubbed off on me.

Last night, I finally twigged that someone lives and works in Madison.  And I got my act together, sent one last email to Dan to say 'look, we've got this account, and I've lost the details', poised my savior to possibly save the situation by asking him for a potential huge favour... and actually got a reply from a man who is never regularly at a computer with a working internet connection and who will be in the same country as the damn account, its details and the cheque book in the next few weeks.  Thereby nullifying the need for a favour (unless you fancy going off too John Hopkins in the fall?) to result in a response of the 'good lord, who on earth are you and why do you know about that?' variety.  OK.  You could argue that I'm in the same country as the account, its details, and the cheque book.  But he's the one with the key to his parents' house...

So, hopefully, the cheque will get sent to the History department at Warwick, the books will be bought, I'll....

Oh blast.  Book plates.  We need to get book plates.  Maybe Fiona can design some.  I have no idea who was going to do those either.

I do know that the account exists.  The bank let me know about it when I went to open an account for the purposes of keeping life simple with rent, bills etc.  That was three years ago.

No more joint accounts.  Too much like hard work.  Particularly when you try to close the damn things.

xxx

Three hours I spent struggling with MIIS last night.  And then I gave up in disgust and went home, managing the fastest turnaround between home and morris practice ever - it did involve getting changed while stirring scrambled eggs, and consuming said scrambled eggs as a sandwich on the tube.  Not recommended.

Three hours.

Don't ask me why, but it sorted itself out overnight.  Sans human intervention.

I could scream.  But I shan't.

In other news?  Sockapalooza socks are knitted.  I have been so stressed in the past fortnight, the second sock is a tad smaller than the first.  I'm hoping blocking will help.  Photos when blocked.  I'll be packing them up to mail this weekend, and sending them next week.  They have to cross an ocean.

xxx

Harry thought he was a cat: well, apart from the time he bit David Dickenson who picked him up at an antiques fair while under the false impression that he was stuffed.  He wasn't.  Harry was a great one for licking you, and did sterling work on me after various festivals when I went to visit his master and take advantage of his master's bathroom.  Or the time that Liz and I went to see Insignificance and the local playhouse, overnighted with his master, and Harry decided that I couldn't possibly go and clean my teeth without having my feet washed first.  He tickled.  I sat down on the stairs and laughed.  His master looked most confused.

Poor Harry had cancer.  RIP.

xxx

Look how much longer it is.  It would be nearly done, but for a nasty miscount of stitches and a gusset that didn't decrease as much as it should have done.  Took me two inches to notice, and I had to frog.  The sock's all curled round on itself so that it fitted on the cushion.  Simply to give a different background from the sofa.

Other than that, I'm sat here feeling a prize prune with my head wrapped in cling film while I deep condition my hair after the polluted rain of yesterday.  I shall head into the shower in about twenty minutes and go to bed early.  Everything aches, and I think a couple of ibuprofen might just help matters.  And warmth.  Lots of warmth.  Still not exactly warm round here, my shoulders are aching.  Less damp, though, so the knee is much happier.

xxx