In which Sulky resists a Chav with wheels.

I have always had a weakness for Bad Boys. Hence being single, it never works out and Bad Boys seem to be very possessive and hard to get rid of. But fun ;-)

'This is all very interesting Sulks, but what has it got to do with anything?' I hear you ask.

Yesterday was a bit of a mega hospital day - the screening for a newish drug which might just start mending this knackered little body. I think 'tis easier to write a post dedicated just to that tomorrow.
But afterwards, after the three and a half hours of being prodded, jabbed, x-rayed etc, I was outside the hospital waiting for my taxi.

And there he was - whizzing that wheelchair of his round as though he was playing Murderball (remember Him, the blue haired delight of the Paralympics? Yum). Sadly this wasn't THAT him.

 

Tattoos, scrawny, shaven headed. Oh yes. Exactly the type I go for. Then something magical happened and he approached me in his wheelz. And uttered those romantic words -

'gorra light luv?'

If only I hadn't actually looked at him when I said sorry no, it might have been the start of a beautiful romptastic relationship.
But look I did.
That was one battered chavvy type, mug yer muvver for her pension book type of face.

Nah, think I will leave that one alone.
Not that desperate. Yet .... ;-)

Apart from yesterday's trip there isn't much to report. After last weeks flare up I had a few days of feeling really crap, like fighting off the flu. Dr chappy yesterday said that is classic RA, the way it attacks the whole body.
But things have been made and things are going to be made.

I have finally mastered gluten free scones, which I am delighted with - recipe to follow asap, but blimey these are nice.

I hope everyone reading (anyone reading? Hello?) escaped the flooding without harm. I so feel for the poor woman in Whitby who was given 30 minutes to grab her most precious possessions and get out, her home is being demolished tomorrow morning after a massive landslide. Poor poor woman. To stand outside and know you cannot get anything else as the house is condemned. Heart breaking.

We have had a day of sunshine today (allegedly, I spent most of the day in bed resting after yesterday). I much prefer cold but bright, much better than cold and grey and dark and wet and gloomy, which is what we have had for weeks now.
This single leaf made me smile yesterday and I had to grab a photo before that too fell onto the ground.

More tomorrow. Toodles .

No snazzy title, sorry.

Firstly, thank you for the lovely comments last week - it is reassuring to know others understand the slow life, and don't see it as being lazy etc.
Thank you.

The last few days have been ok really - the sun has shone, it is very frustrating not to have the energy to go round the park or somewhere for a walk when it is so pretty, but I can't do a damned thing about that so no use dwelling on it. My daughter says anytime, just give her a shout and she will come round and go pottering with me - I want to go and gather some fir cones, and look at the trees and their Autumn leaves.

But despite not being able to pootle about as I would like, things have been mellow - rather suitable for this time of year I think.

It is hard to be miserable with this little fatty on your knee:

He really is the most adorable little piggy I have had (and I have had several over the years). He sat on my knee for an hour or more last night, singing away to himself and nodding off. Every time I stopped stroking him he licked my hand and nudged me until I started again.

He seems to think he is a cat, he curls right round in a ball on my knee.

He LOATHES my glasses and tries to kill them - I don't know if he can see his refelction or something in them, but he tries to rive them off with his teeth, make my daughter laugh everytime he does it - good job they are just my manky 'at home' specs!
PSidney, you are a lovely little piggy.

This hydrangea has been the star of the summer, and continues to look beautiful - it is the most gorgeous shade of pink (many pinks) and has started to do that delicate skeleton leaf thing, which I think is simply beautiful.

This small plant has given me so much pleasure.
I am amazed so many things are still blooming - the pinks are onto what must be their fourth flowering. Must be the sunshine, and although there is a definite change to the air (and we have had a few downright cold nights) it's been - mostly - relatively mild.

Slow roasted tomatoes to go into a cheese and tomato flan, delicious. (My gluten free pastry was bloody awful tonight, not sure what went wrong there as it's usually edible if not tasty - thankfully the contents were much nicer!).
If you haven't bothered slow roasting a load of toms it really is worthwhile - slice them thickly, drizzle in olive oil and ideally basil  and leave them in the oven for a few hours, on a verrrry low temperature.

I don't seem to have much interest in food at the moment - by rights with that and the constant stomach upsets I should be a size 6 - but I had some very tasty new potatoes with the flan and was glad I had made the effort.

Knitting is happening - I am plodding through a cardi - well not plodding as that sounds negative and I am really enjoying this, but it is slow going. It is a Louisa Harding one I started - and almost finished - a couple of years ago, but when I wet blocked it all the black dye ran into the pink wool and I was fuming, chucked the whole thing in the bin.
It's this pattern:

Pocket Watch from the Queen of Hearts book. Mine is in black, pinks and greys (just for a change).
Piccies to come - that waist band ribbing seemed to take forever!

I am also knitting 'things' - some are pressies so piccies when they have been received, some are for what I am hoping to be a woodlandy themed Christmas (yes I said the C word, sorry) tree and decorations. I have some silly plan that we can go and steal a branch from the woods and make it look EXACLY like the expensive John Lewis ones .... hmmmmm.

OOOOOH - before I forget, I DID come up with a rather marvellous and - thought I say it myself - very impressive invention. One can tell one went to art college. Brace yerself -

Sulky's Patented Bra Dryer

Dragons' Den here I come.

That's your lot for now (I suspect the sight of my bras has finished you all off completely, sorry_ - but before I go, how utterly wondrous are these little blighters:

Brrrrrrr!

I am so cold! Currently snuggled into my dressing gown, on top of my clothes, and socks. Brrrrrrr.

Firstly a quick word about why I am now moderating comments - a certain silly person seems to think I am perfectly fit for work and that I need reporting to the DWP for pulling a con, and has been sending increasingly bizarre messages. Obviously I would much rather be living on the breadline rather than back in my beloved career where I eared a pretty decent wage ... They don't bother me in the slightest but are not the sort of thing anyone else needs to read, hence moderating them.

Moving on.

Health isn't brilliant. I started on the methotrexate injections again two weeks ago, have done two of them at home and although I am not at all happy about putting that damned yellow poison into my system I do hope it will do some good this time round. Last time they increased the dose every week to get me to the maximum asap and I was pretty ill with it, so this time it is a 10ml dose for the next few weeks then up very slowly and carefully monitored.

I have plenty of anti-emetics for the side effects and the name of another to ask for at the drs if needed. I stayed home from Thursday to Thursday this last week, seemed to be one thing after another (upset tum, exhaustion, horrendous nights etc). It's just a case of taking each day as it comes.

Several times I have eaten a plate of beige.

As innocuous as possible (the cheese scones are home made, gluten free and not too bad at all).

Not a huge lot of craftiness has been happening. I had the most fabulous weekend in the Lakes, surrounded by loving, genuine, kind people. Couldn't have been any better.

I am plodding through a jacket I have loved since seeing the pattern on Ravelry but it has to be the most poorly written pattern ever. Riddled with mistakes, even down to mixing up the left and right. I am determined to finish it but am pretty much making it up as I go now.

Piccies to come unless I set fire to it / throw it to the wolves.

I bought this recently, there are a couple of dresses and a nice top I hope to make at some point.

I also bought the pattern for this rather lovely dress:

Spotted on Roobedoo's blog, the pattern is from here: http://tessuti.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/lily-linen-dress-pattern-available-now.htmltessuti.
I spotted some nice black (what else) silky fabric on the market, will pop back next week maybe and get it. I think a couple of these will be very handy for the winter, especially as they just pull on over the head so no tricky zips or buttons for sore fingers to cope with. I quite fancy a polka dot version too ...

The garden is doing OK despite this sort of 'summer' weather:

(fir cone, not floating poo)
There was a lightning strike a couple of miles down from here during this storm, it blew up a tree!

But my beloved plants have done their funky thing. My favourite at the moment is this wonderful hydrangea which goes from an acid green to pure white and then to pink tinges.

Highly recommend. I just spotted it in the new Autumn catalogue from Sarah Raven here: hydrangea-paniculata-limelight. Not cheap (I got this one when it was on offer) but so pretty.

Right, that's about it for today. I hope anyone reading is well.
Happy weekend.

Testing , testing, one two three testing ...

As I am still having a problem loading photos from my camera to my blog, I have had to download Picasa again and am trying to load from there to here.
So if piccies end up inside out, upside down and generally it all goes tits up just bear with it please!

So.
First up, some more attempts at gluten free baking. Sheesh!
I can manage edible pastry and edible yorkshire puds and pancakes, so that's a good start. They aren't brilliant but they definitely aren't horrendous.
Bread, that's my mission, to make a good loaf of gluten free bread. I used to bake a lot of bread and really enjoyed it, and a decent stodgy doughy thick sliced loaf of bread is something I miss a lot, laden with butter, ohhhh yes! Gluten free bread in general is pretty dire stuff, some of it just needs spitting straight out again.
The nicer ones available from supermarkets are Genius, M&S and the latest from Glutafin (their others are in the spit it out category). But none resemble a 'real' loaf of bread.

So I tried.



Erm ... you don't need to knead gluten free dough, it's wetter than proper bread dough, and quite frankly this lot looked and smelt like playdough. But I followed the Doves Farm recipe to the letter, left it to rise (erm ....) and baked it.
That lovely smell of freshly baking bread? Nope, none of that either.
A loaf appeared.

It looked awful.
It tasted worse.

Bizarrely it actually tasted of nothing very much. I double checked on the web site and it looks almost exactly how it should - but blimey, there's no pleasure in eating this! Plonked some out for the birdies - they ignored it. Chucked the rest in the bin and I wish the bin men well in lifting it.

Next try - gluten free fruit scones.
Now I tried these last week or the week before and didn't get piccies - and yes, they were shite too!
So I tried a different recipe which was much better, and tried yet again with a bit of recipe tweaking.

Not brilliant, but not too bad ....

 and these actually smelt like scones and pretty much tasted like them, miles better! Very cumbly and they don't rise much but yes, I was pleased with this improvement - so back to the bread making at some point.

Last November

January

And today.
Marvellous eh!

Getting there!

50 sets, 5 in a set - yes, that's 250 stitch markers all packaged up and finished.

Phew!

I am rather pleased with them, but lordy I am SO nervous about what other people will think.

I am going to leave them alone for the day, then go back through every single one of them tomorrow and double check them.

But that's the first lot of 'stuff' that I have finished.

Next job for this afternoon will be sewing ties and beads on 20 needle rolls, then giving them all a damned good iron ready to attach labels and package them up.

Soooo much still to do.....

I haven't eaten or knowingly consumed any gluten for quite a while now, and definitely feel better for it. But this morning I went wild and had this for brekkie (I wish I had put a spoon next to it for size, it's teenytiny!).

Tangy lemon cheesecake - yes, crushed biscuits in the base, but what the hell, it's worth it just this once.

Cheesecake for brekkie, bliss!

Cabbages and Kings.

For no other reason than I seem to have a rather eclectic mix of photos, projects and nonsense to post.

We have had some oif the heaviest rain I have ever seen - I woke at 4am this morning and couldn't believe the noise - sheets of rain, and a mini river rushing past - and I live half way UP  a hill! God only knows what it must have ben like for those at the bottom - it's a steep hill, and it was a LOT of water.

I shoved a thick bath mat around the bottom of my door because it leads straight into the living room, it was the best I could do - I was flooded at my old house, ruined the hall completely (uterly soaked in a couple of inches) and my por cat went yowling past the door, washed away on a sea of bark chippings and half my back garden - I had to go paddling to rescue her!

Thankfully last night didn't do that sort of damage - not nice though.

Hard to believe that just a couple of days ago I was sitting on the step in the sunshine, reading a magazine and eating this

, totally gluten free and delicious, courtesy of Messrs Marks and Spencer. Highly recommend.

The post yesterday was fab - a wool delivery - piccies of that to come tomorrow - a pile of fabric, and this. Peel off the grotty plastic outside, and underneath is:

yes, the new Rowan free gift, Now there's a lot of fuss and bother about this, as they seemt o have stopped giving wool as the gift when you pay for a year's subscription. But I am not complaining - I signed up and paid late last year, and received the wool and the last magazine. AND I still received the bag and magazine 48 - so two gifts.

Yes it looked pretty dire with the plastic design on, yes it took a bit of fiddling about to get it all off, no it doesn't peel off in one handy strip and yes it is marketing the Rowan brand - but I still rather like it and used it yesterday in town.

And I like the sentiment ... a critique of the new magazine to come tomorrow.

LOVE.

This is the first time I have succumned to the lure of this wool, mainly I resisted because it was a bit trendy to knit with it and I wasn't mad keen on the colourways - but cerise and black? Rude to resist.

I started Annis two days ago and it is almost finished, despite only doing a little bit of knitting as my hands are so painful (I think I have overdone the sewing lately, both wrists really hurt).

This is where I was this morning, more has been done since. I like. A lot.

Busy weekend

As part of my trying to stay positive I remembered to take my camera with me when I walked down to the bus stop, because something rather pretty had caught my eye last time I was there (not literally, that would be rather painful). These smell incredibly sweet - are they dog roses or did I make that name up?
I also love cow parsley when it's huge and flowering, there's loads along the canal but it's not safe enough to go for a walk alone there anymore.

The bus was 35 minutes late but it was  abeautiful day - I peeled off my mac and made the most of it, and told myself I wasn't in a rush so it didn't matter.

And really, it didn't.

My sewing machine has died, which is really pissing me off. It's only 2 months old - the needle went from sewing perfectly to jamming against the foot plate in the blink of an eye:

I have had it apart and it seems it just needs shunting forwards a fraction, about 2 millimetres, but I can't do it. Bugger. It's from Argos and I have a sneaky feeling they will say they will repair it - I don't want it repaired, I want it replaced there and then, I need it!

So that's the expense of a taxi tomorrow, I have loads to do in town so I hope they will replace it, I really hope so, and that they will hang on to it for me until I have been to the post office and done my shopping - then the expense of a taxi home (although that bit is ok, as it would mean I had a new machine).

Grrrrr. If they agree I plan on upgrading it (yet again, this machine was an upgrade) for a Singer that's about £40 more. I have sold quite a bit of 'stuff' on Ravelry and Ebay this week, much needed Knitcamp funds that now looks as though it's sewing machine funds. What happened to good old solid machines that lasted 20 years?

I di proper cooking yesterday - it doesn't look as fab here as it did in reality, honestly!

Carrot, parsnip and cashew nut loaf ( I added fresh chilli and parmesan, whihc it needed), with spinach, walnut, blueberries and feta salad with a raspberry vinaigrette (couldn't find any in Marks so made my own - a bit on the oooooooh side with the sherry vinegar but still good!). Really enjoyed this and packed full of goodness.

Then I undid it all and made a rhubarb crumble to try out my Doves gluten free plain flour - big success, very pleased. The flour looks like cornflour, very fine and dense, and the crumble looks very smooth if that makes sense, and almost like coconut, but tastes great - very pleased with this. Crap for the weight loss plan, but good to know it's edible!

It gradually wend darker and darker today until I was sitting in this tiny room watching the Grand Prix in semi darkness - then it did this, Sheesh.

It's rumbled with thunder for a few hours but nothing happened except the rain, I love storms and thought we might have had a corker but no such luck!

Hard to believe sometimes that the pouring rain was like this two days ago ...