jenwren's blog

I thought I'd post some pictures of my garden today.  It's cloudy, so I could take some pictures without the shadows that are normally there.

This is the garden bed under the study/second bedroom window.  From left to right there is Lemon Balm, Gazania daisies (not flowering at the moment), Radishes (there was Coriander behind the radishes, but it had gone to flower and I already have lots of seed from last year), "baby" Beetroot, which has dwarfed the Thai Basil behind it, and Purple Sage.  The pot plant on the paving at the right end is a Lemon-scented Geranium (Pelargonium for pedantic botanists...).  The Gazanias are the only original plants from when I moved in two years ago.  The rest of the bed was drought-parched and bare.  The left end is actually quite shady because of the colourbond fence, so I'm quite pleased that the Lemon Balm likes it there because I was having trouble filling that gap.  I might put some Sweet Basil in where the Coriander was - it's getting a bit late, but I've found the Thai Basil has quite a liquorice taste to it that I don't like much.

The other side, under the kitchen window, looks a bit bare at the moment.  This is partly because of the Birch tree shading the bed and sucking up most of the available soil moisture.  At the left end beside the back door are two climbing frames which had Snow Peas on them until last week.  I planted Purple King Beans after removing the peas, and they just started emerging today.  Last year the beans were in the other bed, and were planted earlier in December.  They went nuts - reaching the roof gutters in height (with the aid of some string) and producing more than enough lovely beans until April.  I'm hoping the new position will be just as successful.  Next to the beans are Spanish Onions.  These too were in the other bed last year.  Last year I planted too many and failed to thin them out sufficiently.  This year I planted too few - poor germination, and they just haven't been as happy.  They're difficult to see because the leaves are lying on the ground.  The rest of the bed is lettuce seedlings.  Despite the shade offered by the Birch, they are wilting each day in the sunshine they do get.  The Icelandic Poppies that were in this part of the bed over Winter did very well.

I also have many pot plants of herbs - Lemon Grass, Marjoram and Lemon-scented Oregano.  The Rosemary died the first Winter I was here and I haven't been game enough to replace it yet.  I've presently got two chilli plants - I grew them from seed from Massiel and Peter's plant (as discovered the hard way how hot they were!) for when they arrive home from ten months in Chile (they theoretically got back to Australia yesterday) and the first plant (with some tiny chillies forming) will go to them.

The second plant isn't doing so well.  Both had been in the same pot (the only pot out of four in which any seed germinated...) and I'd made the decision to separate them.  Unfortunately, one kept all its roots, this second one didn't.  It has started growing again now, after finally dropping the flowers it had.

Getting seed to germinate seems to be my biggest problem - the Beetroot above were actually the third attempt (though one attempt failed because I was away for Kath's wedding and the soil got too dry and killed the seedlings), and my lone tomato plant was also one out of many seed planted (and nurtured until the end of the frost season).  It is supposed to be a Yellow Pear variety, but the fruit now forming don't look pear-shaped.  So perhaps I got the pots mixed up and it's actually the Mini Orange variety instead.

So that's my garden.  It's not very big, but it's enough to play around with and produces some yummy herbs and vegetables.

I have a head cold.  Everything sounds like it's underwater because my ears are blocked, and I'm too tired to do anything, made worse by today's heat.  So there's not much to blog about.

I still have my head cold but it is much better than it was.  It would help if the weather was a bit cooler.  Friday was particularly miserable with 35°C.  Still, I've managed to very slowly get my next project on the loom and I'm mid-way through tying onto the front beam.  Nothing worth a photo yet.  So what's with that photo?  It's my eldest brother Tim, photographed by my nephew, Harrison (son of my other brother Chris) with my digital camera on Boxing Day 2004.  And Tim and Jenny B are arriving today to stay with me for a few days.  Yay!

When Tim and Jenny B arrived yesterday, they said they wanted to visit some of the waterfalls in the area.  I said they'd perhaps be a bit disappointing, because we haven't had much rain lately.  I should not have said that.  I definitely should not have said that.  Soon afterwards, the heavens opened, complete with plenty of thunder and lightening.  It was so spectacular that the TV transmitter for ABC and SBS went offline for a while.  And it brought an end to the hot weather.  Yippee!

Problem is, the rain didn't stop.  So after another good thunderstorm this morning, we set off for Dorrigo anyway.  We had to give Point Lookout in New England National Park a miss because of the rain and unsealed road it would have involved.  So we went straight to having lunch in Dorrigo.  Then we headed to the Rainforest Centre in Dorrigo National Park, where we donned rain ponchos and umbrellas and braved the Skywalk above the rainforest canopy.  Tim and Jen laughed as I battled the wind, juggling my camera and umbrella to photograph them (left).

As you can see (left), the view was just great, but I couldn't quite make out anything that the informative sign believed I should be seeing...  Tim took some suitably embarrassing photos of me on his digital camera, to redress my posting the photograph of him here yesterday.  But as he left behind his computer cable and it's not compatible with mine, we can't download the photos.

We retired to the coffee shop as it was far too wet to do the rainforest walk (shame, because it's very nice).   Then we visited the gift shop, where I fell in love with, and bought, a lovely pewter bug brooch made by a local craftsperson.  If I recall correctly, the blue stone is polished Tasmanian glass, and the purple stones on the wings are faceted antique glass.   Very cute.  The drive back to town was just as wet and misty as before, but we stopped at Ebor Falls for a fix of waterfall watching.

Yesterday, Tim, Jenny B and I did some more sightseeing, despite the weather still being miserable, wet, and very foggy.  First, we went to Guyra and visited Black Sheep Wool  'n' Wares which passes as my "local" yarn shop since it opened last year and  the Armidale wool shop closed in late 2003.  Jenny B bought a pattern, and I ordered some slubby "purple mist" hand dyed wool that I liked the look of, but not the colours they presently had in stock.  Then we drove back to Armidale and visited the New England Regional Art Museum, for a good look around and some lovely lunch.  We did a little shopping and took a scenic drive around parts of Armidale as the sun finally showed itself, ending at the University of New England, with the intention of having afternoon tea at Booloominbah.   Unfortunately, I'd forgotten the place closes at 2.30pm.  So Jenny B and I posed for photos (left) instead.

Tim and Jenny B left this morning for a winery in Pokolbin, and late in the morning I went into town to pick up a newspaper and my mail.  The Jenny Jeep wasn't sounding particularly happy when I started it, and I wasn't surprised.  Since I returned home after Christmas the car has only been doing short journeys around town, and with Tim and Jenny B here, I'd shifted it between my carport, a neighbour's carport and visitor parking a few times, but no further.  I had intended to drive to Tamworth last week, but due to my head cold I had to defer those plans until next week, once the Country Music Festival ends.  I decided I'd better go for a drive after collecting the mail, to charge up the battery.

I got to town all right, but the Jenny Jeep did not wish to go anywhere at all after that.  All I got was clicking noises when I tried to start the car.  I called NRMA road service, and spent some time attempting to communicate my location to the young man in the call centre.  We had already established what "suburb" I was in (so I thought) but he seemed to have a lot of trouble with the street name, even after I spelt it for him, eventually asking "could I perhaps be in Old Toongabbie?" (which is a suburb of Sydney).   No.  Armidale, Northern Tablelands of NSW, postcode 2350, opposite the Post Office!  Geez.  Then he wanted to know the street number.  I told him I was in front of Westpac, and I'm sure the road service guy would know where that was.

After a 20 minute wait, road service arrived and I explained I probably had a flat battery (after all, the battery dates from August 1998 - that's three calls to the RACV in one day I'm not likely to forget).  I told him about the call centre and their difficulty with my location and he said all he needed was "outside Westpac" - he knew exactly where I was, but the best he'd had was when the call centre told him that a woman was broken down at McDonalds, but was refusing to tell them which McDonalds - he'd had to explain that there is only one!  He jump started the car and checked the battery - it was running on four cells instead of six.  Perhaps not fully dead yet, but it owes me nothing after more than six years.  I have been expecting it to die both Winters since I moved here, so I'll probably replace it this weekend while my parents are here and my Father can help.

So I went for a drive.  I decided to do a loop from Armidale to Uralla, and back via Gostwyk and Dangarsleigh (about 85 km).  I've been to Gostwyck before, so I knew it was a pretty drive.  The main (only?) attraction there is the Chapel.  Unfortunately, I don't know when it was built, but the sign gives a little bit of history - it was dedicated in memory of Major Clive Collingwood Dangar, who died in WWI and was grandson of one of the Dangar brothers who purchased Gostwyck in 1834.  The chapel is covered by a deciduous climber, that I think is probably Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata from the grape family, Vitaceae) or something similar (I didn't actually go and examine it closely).  It apparently looks quite spectacular in Autumn.  I also passed a horse riding place I hadn't known about, a couple of farmstay/bed & breakfast places and Peterson's Winery on the circuit.  Nice.

Today feels like a day off, which it is, being Australia Day, but it also feels like a day off because I've actually stayed home today, listening to Triple J's hottest 100 for 2004.  The last couple of days have been very busy, and the last few remaining days of my holidays will also be busy.

My parents came to stay from Friday to Monday, but were unwell with colds (and I was still getting over mine) so we didn't do very much, unless you count naps and coughing as "activities".  They complained about the heat (around 30°C) which sadly wasn't relieved by the dry thunderstorms we had.  Finally on Sunday the rain started falling, and every day since has been rainy and cool.  But of course they left on Monday morning...

On Monday I headed down to Bendemeer to pick up Peter from the property on which he has been staying, and we drove to Currabubula to see a goat farm as part of Peter's research for buying his own property.  The rain was very welcome because neither of us like the heat very much.  The goats were very funny because they followed us around and kept coming up behind me.  At least they aren't big enough to push you over, but I'd prefer to stay clear of the horns!

Yesterday I met up with Peter in Uralla to go and view some properties with a real estate agent.  Unfortunately the agent had been over booked so we had a few hours to kill.  So we went up to Guyra to visit the wool shop.  The slubby wool I ordered last week hadn't yet come in (I hadn't really expected it would have) but there was plenty to look at.  Then we grabbed some lunch in Armidale as well as getting some credit on Peter's phone, and went back to Uralla.

We were shown several properties to the west of Uralla before the agent ran out of time, but it was very interesting and informative.  After afternoon tea in Uralla (and the best apple and cinnamon cake I've ever had!!!) we headed south again, this time to Moonbi, home of the Big Chook.  Okay, so it's not that big.  Or impressive.  But if you think that's weird, I'll have to dig out my photos of the Big Carrot in Okahune, New Zealand.  Being a carrot botanist, I actually had my family make a detour to see that in 1996.

The purpose of visiting Moonbi was to make the Jenny Jeep climb lots of hills find the location of a newly described, rare Cassinia in the daisy family Asteraceae, and collect a specimen and seed for the NSW Herbarium (where I used to work) and Seedbank.  The Cassinia was very abundant in a small area, mainly behind where I took the photo on the left.  I took lots of photos on both my camera and the Herbarium's - mainly because I was having problems with both camera's focus mechanisms.  Half the ones on my camera are out of focus, but the ones I got right are excellent.  Hopefully I was just as successful on the other camera.

Finally it was time to head home again, via Bendemeer to drop Peter off.  There was time for a quick tour of the garden, and the granite rocks behind the house are home to one of the native carrots that have been part of my research, Trachymene incisa or "Native Parsnip".  Large numbers of this beastie were covering a large part of the bare rocks by emerging from the cracks and spreading flower branches in all directions.  The umbels (groups of flowers) were only about the size of ten cent pieces on these plants, but further north the same species can put out bigger umbels.  And so a couple of really fun days came to an end.  Thanks Peter - I had a ball!

The first week back at school was miserably hot to begin with, but cooled down by Thursday and Friday.  Thursday morning was actually a welcome but chilly 8°C when I got to school and I swear it was a good 20°C warmer inside before I opened windows and doors to cool it down.

I've been fairly busy, but some progress has been made on the scarf and the blanket.  Unfortunately, the slubby wool has still not arrived.  I'm sure there is a direct relationship between the urgency or desire to start a project and the length of time it takes to obtain the materials.

I've had some long days this week, and have mostly only gone into my garden to quickly water the plants and not much else.  So I love weekends when I get to spend some time tinkering around and actually seeing how much growing has been done.   The beans reached the guttering on Monday and are now attempting to find something up there to climb on.  I hope they don't find a branch of the nearby Birch tree, or I'll have to climb up there and cut the stems (I'd certainly never reach any beans up that high).  A few flower buds are now appearing so I hope to start harvesting beans soon.   The tomato plant that was supposed to be the Yellow Pear variety was actually the Mini Orange variety as I had guessed.  Must try not to mix up my labels on the seedling pots again next year.  The fruit have been ripening and I've already eaten several in salads.

My chilli plant now has several chillies on it.  When they ripen I will probably use some fresh, but dry any excess.  I have the dried chillies from which the seed for this plant came and they are wickedly hot!  I've been harvesting radishes, beetroot and some of the lettuce, and all of the onions have been pulled up and stored.  I would have planted more radishes, but as I will probably move house in around a month or so, there's no point (I just hope I can get the most out of what's already there before moving).

The baby blanket is just about to come off the loom.  I'll probably then pack up the loom and table for the time being.  I'm too busy during the school term to weave anything and certainly won't be starting anything before moving.

I started the Bob and Weave shawl on Wednesday night - it took a bit of fiddling with the long-tail cast-on before I worked out which bit of yarn I had to go under and which was looped over to do it.  With this cast-on method the dropped stitches won't cause the whole thing to unravel.  Not that I was totally convinced until I did the first lot of dropping stitches and pulled them back to the cast-on edge...  I started out on 4.5 mm needles and have done about 15 cm but I think I should have used larger needles.  So I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place and swatch it on 5.5 mm needles, and I've just realised the mohair lace scarf is on my only 5.5 mm needles and the next size I have is 7 mm - bummer!  If only I could run out and buy some 6 mm needles locally tomorrow - no chance!  I really want to have this shawl finished by early March, but this is looking less and less likely.  I wonder how much knitting can be done at the swimming carnival this week?

Last year I entered several items in the local show, some photographs (up against lots of absolutely fantastic entries) and a baby jacket knitted from cotton.  Because it was cotton it has to go in a miscellaneous yarns section, and ended up being one of only two entries.  So the second place I received for it didn't really feel like an achievement.

This year, I didn't bother entering any photos (the quality of entries was absolutely outstanding again), and no knitting, but I put the braided twill scarf into the weaving section.  I had to take it to the showground on Tuesday after school, and because there was no steward for the weaving, I'd had to hand it over at the main office without the full paperwork having been done, where it was placed in a pile of stuff from which I feared it would never be seen again.

But I think I achieved something this year...  Not only did I take first place in the class ("hand woven article using commercial yarn") - the little blue ribbon, but I was also awarded the "best piece of weaving" prize overall - the big gold ribbon, beating entries by both my weaving teachers (obviously I have absolutely the *best* weaving teachers!).  Not bad for someone who's been weaving for nine months.  Unfortunately, there being no steward for the section, nobody contacted me to tell me I should be at the parade to collect the "prize" (an empty envelope...  It was sponsored by my spinning and weaving group and I'll get it later).

For the two nights of the show (Friday and Saturday) I've been helping with the spinning and weaving group's display, demonstrating some extremely bad weaving (not my loom so I'm not used to the shaft arrangement, and I talk too much while demonstrating and forget which shafts I should be lifting next!) and getting a lot of the Bob and Weave shawl knitted.  I'm nearly at the end of the second ball of wool.  It's now getting so large I won't be able to carry it to school to work on at lunchtimes for much longer.  And it definitely won't be finished by next weekend as I had originally hoped.

Next weekend will be a busy one: Mark and Tieneke's wedding on Saturday and Jean and Stephen's wedding celebrations on Sunday (they married in January).  So I'll be flying down to Sydney for the day on Sunday (pity you can't knit on planes these days).  This means I'm trying to get double the usual amount of class prep done this weekend.  Arghhhh!

And by the way, the caramel fudge was delicious.

All work and no play makes Jenny a very dull girl.  When I'm not feeling quite so brain dead, I'll post something worthwhile!

I have been really, really busy over the last couple of weeks.  I even have proof: I have repeated an overuse injury to my right foot that I last did two years ago.  By the end of Wednesday (the third absolutely working flat-out day in a row) my foot had started to ache.  By Thursday morning I could barely put any weight on it.  I hobbled off to school anyway, and during my first lesson off all week, went and saw the doctor.

The doctor put me on prednisone (a steroid).  Last time I took a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and it took a few days to take effect.  The prednisone acted pretty quickly and I could walk normally again by Friday morning.  But unfortunately the darn stuff has me feeling pretty wired - I 'm having a hard time trying to relax, especially when I want to go to sleep.  So I'm really glad the dose was dropped to half today, and I'm only on the stuff until Monday.

So that's the mania, how about the mouse?  Well, yesterday it rained properly for the first time this month, and the temperature finally dropped (it's been a warm February and March up to Thursday).  In the evening I thought I could hear some sort of rustling noise behind my oven.  Every time I turned down the TV and went to listen, it stopped.  I thought perhaps it could be a mouse trying to get in, but then I decided I was hearing things.  Then I thought I saw something dart from my sewing pile to under the wall unit in the living room.  I decided perhaps the prednisone was really affecting my sense of reality.  At some point during this (yep - vague would be another effect...), I decided to spray surface spray right around the oven.  I thought if it was something other than a mouse it might be killed, or if it was a mouse, maybe it would dissuade it from coming any further.  I moved some biscuits I bought at the bakery earlier in the day from the cellophane bag they were in to an air tight container, just in case.

I woke at 6am this morning to the sound of rustling within my bedroom...  I lay motionless until it sounded really close.  In fact it sounded like it was beside my pillow.  I jumped up and turned on the light.  I saw nothing mouse-like.  I jumped out of bed and looked under it.  No mouse.  I looked around everything.  Still no mouse.  About the only evidence was some possible droppings on the bed head (so if there was a mouse, it really did want to get into my bed - arghhhhh!).  But the droppings could also have been the remains of a moth (the bedside light is usually the last off at night so I sometimes have to kill the bugs that are attracted to it).  Okay, so by now you can add paranoia to the mania.  I was out of the house for much of the day, and finally did my weekly shopping.  I thought about getting mouse traps but decided I was being silly.

So I'm eating my dinner tonight, and I thought I saw something dart under the fridge.  I looked under the fridge.  Nothing.  I went back to eating my dinner.  Then I thought something dart from the direction of the fridge to behind the recycling bag.  This paranoia is pretty bad isn't it?  I got up the nerve to actually shift the recycling.  No mouse anywhere.  Feeling really stupid, I went back to my dinner.  Then I saw it.  It started to run from the corner near the recycling where the pantry cupboard is, towards the oven.  It saw me and darted back.  Okay, now I'm not seeing things - it's an adult-size brown mouse.  Bugger.

This is the third autumn I've lived here, but the first time I've had a mouse.  Perhaps that's because the previous managing agent was finally successful in getting rid of all the cats in this block about six months ago (then management changed in December).  So what's a girl to do?  Ring her Mum for advice, of course!  While I was on the phone the mouse made repeated attempts to dart across the kitchen, but every time he saw me he darted back - this is one fast mouse.  I think he's got a hole beside the pantry cupboard into a narrow void between the kitchen wall and the cupboard.  I hope he's not getting into the pantry (I did look there for any mouse evidence earlier in the day, so I don't think so).

Considering my paranoid state, I needed to prove I have a mouse with a photo.  So there's his head poking out from the corner behind the recycling bag.  I'm sure my Mum got enough of my babbling to believe I'm pretty loopy on the prednisone...  We decided on mouse traps, so after doing the dishes, I went to Coles and bought some traps.

I went for new, high-tech traps and old-style low-tech traps.  I hope this is a high-tech mouse because the high-tech traps will kill and conceal the mouse within the trap so all I have to do is dispose of the whole lot.  I'm not all that keen on removing a mouse from the old-style trap.  Since the traps were set an hour ago, nothing has happened - while I was out the mouse could have gone anywhere in the kitchen, living and dining areas (a downside of open-plan living - another is heating costs...).  The bedroom door is closed, and will stay that way tonight!

And the prednisone had me climbing the walls before I knew there was a mouse...  I'm off to try knitting for half an hour before trying to sleep.  By the way, the Bob and Weave is at the end of the third ball of wool and going well.

Here's a picture of Bob and Weave in its 75% complete state.  It's just under 140 cm long and so it is keeping my legs warm while I knit - very snugly now the weather is actually cooling down.  I can't wait to wrap myself up in it once I've finished it.

You can perhaps make out where each skein of wool was started.  I didn't bother alternating balls.  The first and second balls are nearly indistinguishable, while the third definitely has more blue in it.  I'm not terribly worried since the ribbon to be threaded through the dropped stitches is likely to draw the eye away from these variations, and they are much clearer in the photo than in reality.

And the mouse?  Hasn't been seen or heard since I went out to get the traps yesterday, with the exception of some possible noise in the kitchen this morning (before I got up and that I didn't bother going and checking).  I hope to get any holes behind the oven blocked up (contacting my landlord's agent tomorrow), and if I detect no mouse activity for a week then I'll block up the passage it was using beside the pantry cupboard with space-filla foam.  I moved any food that wasn't already in a jar or container into air tight containers (including the Easter egg stash - the marshmallow eggs, Lindt bunnies, and Pink Lady wombat are all mine and he's not having them!).  At the moment he's called "bastard mouse!".  Suggestions for better names welcome...

Now I'm off to sit in front of the telly, watch one of my recently purchased DVDs I've been trying to find time for (Yes Minister: Series 3, The Goodies: A Tasty Second Helping and Monty Python's Meaning of Life), and continue knitting.

Mid Goodies episode, and Mr Mouse darted out from under my sofa (on which I was sitting) and across the room to somewhere behind the TV.  Not happy.  Not happy at all.

Edit (five minutes later):  I wish he'd gone for the mouse-squeamish-friendly high-tech trap...  But he's now a low-tech trapped ex-mouse, so I'll just have to deal with it.  Hooray!

No, I didn't fall for any April Fool's Day jokes.  Year 8 tried hard, but I worked out what was happening immediately...  My class went to the other teacher and the other class tried coming to my classroom.  It might have worked if I hadn't marked their roll immediately beforehand, arrived at the room before them, and happen to know every student in that year group by name.  When I finally did get my class, they pinched my pencil case and iBook!  Problem is, the guilty party usually giggles the most and can easily be identified...

I liked the Virgin BBQ sausage credit card ad and MINI Cabrio Roof Down Squad letter in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald (pages 3 & 7 in my edition).  And MuggleNet did a great "closed down by court order" page, and I  can't wait for "Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storge" to be released in just another 4 hours!

I can finally confirm I will be moving house during the upcoming school holidays.  And it was no April Fools joke to be told by my ISP (and then have it confirmed by Telstra) that you can't even request the relocation of an ADSL service until *after* you relocate the telephone service and have dial tone at the new location.  So I can look forward to at least five days without ADSL during the change over.  Bugger!  I suppose I might be too busy packing/unpacking boxes to notice...

I hate moving house.  It's all so much work.  With the help of my wonderful parents though, a large proportion of my belongings have now moved to my new address.  My parents also delivered a sofa my sister wasn't using (well, Oscar the cat might have been using it...) and kindly parted with (thanks pooh-head!).  What's left is mainly either very heavy (books, especially the floras and textbooks) or very bulky (eg. sofa, beds) or both (eg. fridge).  A truck comes for them on Thursday.

The unexpected surprise at my new home when I signed the lease was that they'd repainted the interior walls, ahem, yellow, and that they want to recarpet the place sometime soon.  I'm going to try talk them out of the recarpeting.  It's quite enough to move all my furniture once...  And by the time I arrange the furniture and bring over the rugs (they're staying at my old place until I steam clean them at the same time as the horrible brown carpet) then no one will know there's some dreadful patches and holes underneath in the living room carpet.  Of course, the painters removed almost every picture hook too, so now I need to get permission to put some back up.

So the week ahead involves lots of cleaning at one location, and lots of putting stuff away at the other location (thank heavens for school holidays!).  I have loads more cupboards at my new place; this is probably not such a good thing as I tend to hoard things and never part with them.

Moving out so much of my stuff has meant I could spread out the Bob and Weave shawl to adjust the tension of the ribbons.  I finished knitting it a week ago, and the ribbons have been a bit more fiddly than I anticipated.  I also didn't buy enough ribbon (the shawl is a little longer than expected) so it will be a bit longer before I get a chance to get some more for the last three drop-stitched ladders.  It is very snuggly and warm already!

The latest Knitty is out.  I'm a tad annoyed because I'm on the update list and I still haven't received the notification email for the new issue.  I checked, and I am on the Yahoo! list, and Amy did send out the notification.  I suppose that Yahoo! just can't deal with a list of nearly 20,000 subscribers!  And my browser is being silly and won't refresh to the correct issue.  I'm looking forward to Southern Cross Knitting coming out - an online mag with the seasons in sync, and hopefully using yarns I can actually lay my hands on!

Tomorrow, my phone line gets shifted, so I probably won't have my ADSL connection for a while.

Edit:  the Knitty notification was in my spam box.  I've fixed the filter to allow them through in future.

Here's a photo of some of my new neighbours.  I don't think they'll jump the two fences between me and them to invade my yard, and I don't think they'll make much noise.  When I woke up yesterday morning, I sat by a window and watched and listened to the local bird life (cockatoos, galahs, rosellas, magpies...).  I like my new home very much!

Inside, the place is slowly coming together.  All 14 boxes of books are now unpacked and reshelved.  Thankfully, I did talk the landlord out of recarpeting.  I couldn't face unpacking those shelves again so soon!  But tomorrow, the lino in the kitchen is being replaced.  And I got permission to put up the pictures - only some are up so far because I've run out of picture hooks!  The poster on the wall on the left is one I have had rolled up for the last 2 and a bit years since I left Sydney - it suits the yellow walls (the colour isn't too bad, but it is a really poor paint job!).  The pile of things on the floor on the left is my school marking pile...

And the ADSL was reconnected this afternoon.  Which really makes my moving house pretty much complete!

I thought I had a quiet week ahead, but I've gone and made life a little more frantic by signing up for a professional development course at short notice that will see me in Sydney on Tuesday (and three other times later in the year - two of them also likely to be flying visits).  Unlike last time I flew to Sydney (in March, for a mere 6 hours), this time I'll get a whole 24 hours as I'm flying in tomorrow night and back on Tuesday night.

I'll be staying at Tim and Jenny B's and will catch up with Katherine between the end of the session and returning to the airport on Tuesday.  I'm sorry to everyone else, but on this trip I'll only have time to see family and none of the friends I'd love to catch up with...

I'm still debating whether to take any knitting as I can't knit on the plane, but I'm keen to finish the kid mohair scarf.  I want to just take my backpack as whatever I take has to be carted around all day on Tuesday.  But I doubt it will be light enough for carry-on luggage, but if it is then I'll have to remove the knitting as well as the scissors from my pencil case.  Heck, I've got enough marking I can do and will have even more after an exam is sat tomorrow morning...

Late.  That's a one word summary of my quick visit to Sydney.  Everything ran late.  The Qantas plane I was to fly on to Sydney on Monday struck a bird as it landed at Armidale airport and couldn't take off again without an engineer's clearance.  Eventually everyone from the flight was put on a Rex flight, which surprisingly, still wasn't full after both its original passengers and the Qantas passengers were added together.

So I was later than expected in reaching Sydney and Tim and Jenny B's.  On Tuesday, Tim and I set off in the car at 7.15 am for Wollstonecraft Station.  Epping Road was a carpark, so we didn't reach Wollstonecraft until 8.10 am.  Not that it mattered.  There were no trains, and no information about why.  Finally an announcement was made about the late running 8.05 arriving after the (late running) 8.13, but what I suppose were both those trains finally passed through, packed with passengers up against the windows, without stopping as the time marched on towards 8.30.  The first train that did stop was not worth Tim and I forcing our way onto.  We got on the second train.  I farewelled Tim at Town Hall and changed trains for Marrickville at Central.  I phoned ahead to say I was late, and finally arrived at about 9.15 am - about half an hour late - only to find that a third of the course participants were even later than me so they hadn't started yet!.

So the course sessions ran late all day (one session was skipped entirely) and we finished 15 minutes late.  And having made a mental note about where I'd be able to park my car the next time (late next month), they said at the end of the day "we'll let you know where the next session is" (grrrr!).  I caught a train back to the city and met Katherine in Martin Place at the Lindt shop and cafe.  We both indulged in Lindt brownies and I had an iced milk chocolate (can't remember what Kath's drink was), and yapped for a while until I had to make a move for the airport.  We each bought some chocolate and said our farewells, and I headed for the trains once again.

Thankfully the lateness stopped at this point - I made it to the airport on time, and the plane was on schedule (and without a single spare seat).  I spent the next couple of days totally exhausted from it all.

I might manage to post again tomorrow about Wool Expo.

So much for posting "tomorrow"...  Ahem.  Got too busy, as usual!

Wool Expo was last weekend.  I was in the woolcraft tent on both Saturday and Sunday and had a great time.  On Saturday there were lots of people coming to look at the display and there were other stalls selling a variety of wool and other crafty bits.  I ogled some spun recycled silk throwers waste yarn, but thought it was to impractical for anything I'd want to make.  In the end I bought some undyed Mulberry silk noil 10/1 yarn (all the dyed skeins were in horrible colours in my opinion) for which I have some ideas.  I had barely any time to knit the kid mohair lace scarf in between raffle ticket sales and handing out information on the spinning and weaving group.

Sunday was quieter, but I got no knitting done at all because I had to separate and fold all the handspun, handknitted rug raffle tickets for the draw in the afternoon.  We have been selling tickets since February, and I spent both the last two market Sundays selling tickets in the mall.  In the end it was won by a lady from the Central Coast, and I found out today the final tally was over $900 raised!  So it was well worth all the time and effort put in.

On Sunday night I finally reached the end of the ball of kid mohair, finishing the lace scarf.  I washed it on Monday after school and started wearing it on Wednesday.  It's a bit longer than anticipated as it relaxed on washing, but it is absolutely lovely to wear.  Pictures soon...

So I'm finally back to knitting the blue socks I started last October.  I thought I was going to have to frog back to before the heel because the foot was too long, but on looking at it again I decided that it wasn't that bad, and continued on.  It's grown a few centimetres already.

Alas, it is mid-year reporting season at school, so I seem to have endless work to do.  Sock knitting barely gets a look in.  But I got a new gadget on Friday afternoon - a digital set top box with hard disk recorder, so now I can record television programs on both the VCR and the PVR ("personal video recorder").  Just don't ask me when I'll supposedly watch the stuff I record...

So far I can only watch ABC and ABC2 on the digital box.  SBS is supposed to be broadcasting digital TV here, but I can't get a signal, even with manual tuning to the supposed frequency, and I can't find anyone locally who has a digital box and has managed to tune into SBS.  (Unless I can find someone who has actually tuned into SBS, I can't start blaming the aerial or other possible problems.)  The remaining channels (NBN, Prime and Southern Cross) aren't due to begin broadcasting digital TV here until October-December this year.

I'm really happy with the digital TV because the reception quality is substantially better than analog.  I mostly watch ABC and SBS so if I could get SBS I'd be really happy.  And yes, I have the set top box connected to the television through my VCR, as is my DVD player (I'm glad the VCR has enough sets of inputs!).  I will replace the 'family heirloom' 1978 colour television eventually, but it is still going strong with relatively good picture quality.  I've been waiting five and a half years for the picture tube to suddenly and catastrophically fail, and it hasn't happened yet.

Last post, I complained about the measly rain that had fallen.  Well, later that night, it rained.  And then it rained more the next day.  And it has rained a few more times since then.  About 50 mm fell - the best rain since Tim and Jenny visited in January.  It really did feel like it had forgotten how to rain.  But it has remembered again now.

Now it is forecast to snow tonight and tomorrow.  It is estimated to be a severe cold snap, a one in ten year event, so it could be the best snow falls seen in years.  The first year I was in Armidale (2003) it did not snow.  Last year, it snowed a little a few times, mainly not settling on the ground.  I still have the incongruous image of seeing an Acacia in full bloom (the whole small tree was bright yellow), in the middle of a flurry of snow, stuck in my mind from 5th August last year.  The one morning it had apparently settled, I stayed tucked up in bed (it was a Sunday), and by the time I found out it had melted.  I'm determined to see it and get photos this time.  I've even put away the Jenny Jeep in 4WD tonight, just in case I have a snowy driveway tomorrow - I still need to be able to get to school.

As far as crafty pursuits go, the second sock is now underway.  It doesn't match the first as I worked out the figure-8 cast-on properly this time, and then forgot to twist each of the stitched I picked up to make stitches, increasing the width of the toe.  I don't mind - no one will see that inside my shoes!  I've also been playing around with some beading and made some beaded stitch markers.  The 6 mm split rings the ones in the photo are on are nice for the needle size I knit socks on, but I need some larger rings for larger needles.

I'm a happy jennywren today - I found late last night that my digital set top box is now able to tune into SBS.  Test transmissions had begun on 8 June, which quelled my fears that the aerial was faulty as the STB showed signal at the correct frequency.  I've been checking every week, and since the holidays began, every couple of days to see if the testing had finished and broadcasting had begun.  It looks like 8 July was the day...

So now I probably ought to start looking at DVD recorders more seriously - before the hard disk recorder on the STB becomes full with Mythbusters episodes!  I'm torn between buying the three Mythbusters DVDs released last week (1, 2, 3 - these are selected experiments/episodes, not the complete series), or waiting to see if SBS repeats the series from the beginning when they run out of new episodes (we have 7 episodes to go before we catch up with the US).

And you may have noticed a change of colour scheme.  I'm still deciding whether or not I like it more than the old layout.

Do Not Disturb - I'm busy reading the latest Harry Potter book.

Well, I've finished my first read of Half-Blood Prince (I'd have finished sooner, but I went to Spinning and Weaving this afternoon...).   J.K.Rowling does not disappoint...  I read much of the last 100 pages while bawling my eyes out.

Woah!

My school has been hosting 23 students and two teachers from Japan for the last two weeks.  Last weekend I had one of the teachers, Hiroko, stay at my place while the students were billeted out with our school's students.  We had a fun time.  On Saturday, after a good sleep in, we drove to Dorrigo and visited the the Rainforest Centre in Dorrigo National Park.  Unlike last time, with Tim and Jen back in January, this time the weather was perfect with barely a cloud in the sky, and certainly no rain.  So the view from the skywalk (above) was much more scenic.

After lunch at the Rainforest Centre, we did the walk to Crystal Shower Falls and back.  We saw or heard many birds, from brush turkeys to the tiniest finches, including two birds calling back and forth to each other with calls that sounded like a baby crying!  The trees, ferns and climbers were spectacular, and the falls themselves quite scenic.  Once we returned to the Rainforest Centre we spent some time in the shop before heading back towards Armidale.

We stopped at Ebor Falls on the way back (having demonstrated that Armidale is, in fact, a sizable town by comparison to Ebor) and viewed both the upper and lower falls in the late afternoon light.  As the sun set very soon after, we did not get to stop at any of the other scenic spots on the way back to Armidale, so Hiroko has an excuse to come back some time!

On Sunday we went to the monthly markets, followed by a visit to Petersons Winery for a long and leisurely lunch with the other teacher from Japan and several other staff members from school.  They did some wine tasting, and I bought a few bottles of wine for when I have visitors and a bottle of Grand Marnier and Chocolate sauce from New Zealand (which is very yummy - I had some with strawberries and ic