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December 29, 2004
(Knit 1 Purl 1) x 3 sets
As the cornerstone of my pre-snowboarding-get-fit-strategy knitting has turned out to be a complete failure. Even with the no.15's.
I can't fit into my snowboarding pants and as I no longer cycle every day to and from work the only regular exercise I am getting is the daily currant-bun-run to the baker and back with a small tricycle and 11 kilos of attached-boy. The baker just isn't far enough to cancel out the currant buns.
Looks like there is nothing for it but to spend the next few days finishing off all the chocolate in the house before embarking on some sort of organised effort to get myself fit enough to fall down a mountain. Considering the wintery turn in the weather this may even have to involve a gym. Just when I was planning a cheese fondue for New Year's Eve.
This year, (or next year as it still is, actually, 2005) we are going somewhere new, Les Gets. Our first choice was a small Italian village but as full-time childcare for babies of Jacob's age was hard to find in any of these we have had to resort to something a lot less interesting but where we'll ALL be able to have fun. Jacob included. Besides all the obvious snowboarding-fitness-requisites I also have to build up the muscles in my throwing arm as we plan to make snow-angels with Jacob and I don't want any footsteps spoiling the photos.
Posted by Faith at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Speechless
Just when you've worked out a particularly petty post based on your magnificent ability to whinge about trivial things a giant tsunami goes and destroys countless lives across several different countries and continents making the petty just that much pettier.
Ok, a LOT pettier.
Posted by Faith at 10:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 24, 2004
Christmas Eve
At last the knitting is finished. I did think of a few more things I could knit for even more people but have decided to bow-to-reality on this one and STOP! What is it about knitting and babies, once you start you want to see it inflicted on everyone else?
The last few presents are being wrapped this afternoon, Ron is coming home from work early and then tomorrow morning, after opening the parcels that have arrived from Australia, we head off to Ijsselstein armed with kerststol, chocolates, presents and wine to spend the weekend drowning in crumpled wrapping paper, witloff, cheese and gezelligheid! It is strangely warm which is a bit disapointing, I was hoping Jacob might get a white-ish christmas. In Melbourne, ten hours ahead, Mum has just been to the market and returned armed with fresh-from-the-sea oysters and prawns for Christmas day. I hear its lovely weather but quite mild. Good thing too with all those woolies to unwrap!
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas doing what they like doing best, and if that's ignoring Christmas then thats fine too. Special greetings to my most devoted commenters, Bob, Jane and hubby John Doe, Texas Hold Em, luba, napoleon and all the rest. Don't work too hard over Christmas!
Posted by Faith at 12:26 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
December 22, 2004
Too much Poo
The poo-people didn't turn up last night. I scoured the papers this morning for news of a poo-van traffic disaster but to no avail. Later they rang to say that they won't be coming until Friday.
What AM I supposed to DO with a superflous bag of POO?
Posted by Faith at 01:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 21, 2004
Jacob's Visited Cities 2004
Not being one to look a gift blog in the mouth I was inspired by Shauny to do a List of Visited Cities 2004 for Jacob. Its nowhere near as impressive as Shauny's but then it is his first year,...ever, and getting used to travelling with a baby HAS slowed us down a bit. So, Jacob's Visited Cities for 2004 are;
1.Brugge, Belgium
2.Les Arcs, France
3.Neufchateau, France
4.Copenhagen, Denmark
5.Naples, Italy
6.Palermo, Italy
7.Bilbao, Spain
8.Madrid, Spain
9.Istanbul, Turkey
Besides these cities Jacob has also spent a week in southern Italy, two weeks travelling through northern Spain and the Picos de Europa, has twice driven the length of France, weekends in Twente, the Hooge Veliuwe and Terschelling in the Netherlands and hours travelling through Belgium and Luxembourg.
The only things we have planned so far for 2005 are Prague, Les Gets and Melbourne. (sooooooooo looking forward to THAT 24 hour flight with Jacob!)
Posted by Faith at 01:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 20, 2004
Leaps and bounds!
The Christmas knitting frenzy continues. It WOULD help if I stopped having brilliant ideas about who else I can inflict items from my rather limited repertoire on.
These two scarves, that may, or may not, be Christmas presents for someone, who may, or may not, be reading this were knitted in different shades of Rowan Cork on 8mm bamboo needles to a pattern by Marie Burns at Chicknits. The Cork is lovely and well-named, nice and springy wool. The pattern is very easy but manages to look quite a bit nicer than than it is, if you know what I mean. Neither of my examples so far is a patch on that at Chicknits. Only two more to go! (I think). And then there's the rest.....
Posted by Faith at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 18, 2004
Photo Friday: Tacky
......is proving to be a bit tricky. I DO have a photo of someone's bum crack from last year's gay canal parade but don't really want to go down that path. I'm consumed with the ambition to photograph stickiness but haven't found the stickiness or the time yet. Will let you know if I succeed.
Posted by Faith at 11:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 15, 2004
Incoming and Outgoing
Ok, Christmas-Knitting-Frenzy-Part-1 is over and a nice woolly package is whinging its way to sunny warm Australia. I hope all that wool gets past Customs? Are they going to rip apart my carefully wrapped parcels of woolies?
And speaking of parcels, I may have mentioned once or even twice before how much we enjoy being on the receiving end of something-too-big-for-the-slot-in-the-door and so we were overjoyed to discover just such a thing from Annette in Melbourne recently. Carefully ignoring the green Postpak adorned with reindeers I pretended not to realise it was a Christmas parcel and opened it there and then rather than waiting another 11 days. Waiting is not my strong point.
Annette sends brilliant presents. And hopelessly overestimates my abilities. Inside was a Patons book of Dinosaurs to knit. This will be interesting as my knitting strategy so far has been to avoid anything requiring me to think and these look a tad more complicated. Some of them even have those graph things so obviously counting and paying attention will be required. Ron, ever the optimnist, has already picked ou the one he wants but we are yet to decide on one for Jacob. Did I say, one?
Also included in Annette's parcel was a HUGE tin of Haigh's drinking chocolate! Truly worthy of our evening ammareto. And last but certainly not least was a platypus tea towel to add to the collection of those we've got from my mum. How did Annette know we didn't have a platypus?
I hadn't realised before that the tea towel thing was particularly Australian but I am starting to have my suspicions. Certainly the Dutch don't do it. (Give linen tea towels as gifts that is) I suspect the English might. But I don't know about the rest of the world? Maybe someone can enlighten me?
Posted by Faith at 02:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 14, 2004
Schitterend feestje
Almost a week ago now we had an uncommonly civilized evening for us. I'm a slack member of ABIE and the Australian Ambassador in the Netherlands, Mr. Stephen Brady is a great supporter of our group. And so it was that he and Mr. Peter Stevens offered to host the ABIE Christmas party at the ambassador's residence in Den Haag. Now I just know you'll find this hard to believe, but its not often that I get the chance to poke around an ambassador's residence, so we duly RSVP'd "YES". I did however make a couple of small, tiny, wee, faux pas. Shall I list them?
One:I misread the dress code 'Lounge Suit' for 'Lounge'. Hmm, funky for an Ambassador, I thought. Add to this the fact that it was the first sub-zero day this winter and my decision to wear a couple of blue-sheep and I guess my initial entrance must have been a bit startling to the other guests. They handled it very diplomatically.
Two:I had somehow not noticed that the chappie I had met previously had since been assigned to Argentina and there was a new incumbent. (It happenned in the post-new-baby-back-at-work-blur, or at least thats my excuse) Thus I resolutely ignored the Australian Ambassador all evening convinced he was a waiter.
Despite this I can report, the ambassador has some nice digs with some lovely reception rooms. He has a new cook who can, as they say in the CWA, "do a lovely spread", and was himself charming and very diplomatic under duress. (Well, it IS his job.) Everyone else was beautifully dressed and behaved and it was as they say on Sesamstraat, "een schitterend feestje, wat een geweldig soiree"*. Thanks to Jacob I couldn't get that song out of my head all night.
*Schitterend is currently one of my favourite Dutch words, its one of those words that sounds the way it means. It means, "brilliant or glittering".
Posted by Faith at 08:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 13, 2004
Sunday morning
Posted by Faith at 05:02 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 12, 2004
still counting.........
Christmas presents 2 & 3 are finished. 4 is almost half way through.
Oh yee of little faith!
Posted by Faith at 10:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
oh the decadence!
Was a time not so long ago when Saturday night started off with a couple of vodka martini's, maybe The Isthmus of Kra or Madame Fang for dinner and then onto some dancing and martini judging, possibly at Tony Starr's Kitten Club or The Gin Palace for example. Then one of those wild-and-decadent Dutchmen lured me off to Amsterdam, City of Sin, where my Saturday nights have been transformed.
Home-made Chicken and Leek pie, knitting woollies for Christmas and ballroom dancing on the BBC!
Posted by Faith at 03:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 11, 2004
Your feets too big........
Despite the best efforts of the 'butcher-of-Amsterdam' and his scissor-weilding-assistant (my obstretician and his doctor-in-training) I seem to have escaped the less desirable souvenirs of pregnancy. I still have the bladder of a horse, I didn't collect any stretch marks, varicose veins, backaches or other complaints. Ok, there IS this spare-tyre arrangement where my waist used to be but if I'm honest that has only a tenous link to pregnancy and a more concrete one to the kitchen.
So, when the first new shoes I bought after the event were a size larger than normal I just assumed it must be a 'smaller' brand. But now, just over one year and several shoes later it seems that every single shoe I've bought in that time is one or sometimes TWO sizes bigger than my pre-pregnant feet.
If I ever have a second baby I could end up looking like a duck.
Posted by Faith at 11:10 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
December 10, 2004
Photo Friday: abandoned
I took this with my trusty Canon G2 almost 2 years ago to the day in Nice. I know I have a better photo, almost identical but the chair is empty. I have Buckley's* of finding it though so I'm posting this instead.
Buckley's*- Australian for relying on pure luck alone. After the explorer William Buckley.
Posted by Faith at 08:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 09, 2004
..and counting
Christmas present no.1 is finished.
(is that the sound of knees-knocking Down Under?)
Posted by Faith at 02:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 08, 2004
Poo
Every second Tuesday evening a small anonymous white van glides through the darkened narrow streets of Amsterdam, stopping briefly at narrow leaning houses where well-tied white plastic bags are hastily handed over to be deposited in the back of the van, before it hurries on its way over the cobblestones and grachten. Its not a special van in any way, unmarked and no different to the van's thousands of small-businesses use every day. The driver sits in the front and directly behind him sit all his goods with no partition between them. On a cold winter's evening I imagine he has the heating turned up nice and high also. Or maybe not.
Because every second Tuesday evening this small white van and a remarkably (REMARKABLY) cheerful driver drop by to pick up all of Jacob's USED nappies. These are then whisked away while two green bags of new recycled disposables are left behind in their place.
You DO NOT want to have an accident with this van.
Posted by Faith at 10:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 06, 2004
Advent knitting
About a month ago I proposed that I was going to knit ALL my Christmas presents this year. After Ron had stopped GUFFAWING I conceded he was probably right and it wasn't such a good idea and went back to knitting patternless-stockinette-scarves-in-extravagant wools.
So now, 19 days before Christmas, about a week before any parcels would have to be sent off to Australia, I've decided to change my mind and reverse my uncommon flirtation with common-sense. This rapid turn around was inspired by my stumbling across a couple of patterns that had the-names-of-certain-close-relatives written all over them. (I can practically hear all those Australian knees trembling from here) Or maybe it was just because giving myself six weeks would have been too easy. Now that it almost impossible to achieve, I feel much more comfortable. At home. Its got that cosy familiar I've-been-here-before feeling to it. And of course it will be just what everyone in Australia is looking forward to, something-warm-and-woolly on Christmas Day when it is 30+ degrees. But maybe I have a far more sophisticated plan? Mobile phone covers anyone?
And just when I'm wavering the new Knitty comes out! So thats what I'll be doing for the next 19 days. Knitting.
Posted by Faith at 03:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 05, 2004
The whole shebang
So here it is in all its glory, the Fall/Winter Collection from the House of Jacob.
Jacob's snazzy scarf and beanie set has been specified elsewhere so I won't go into it again.
Ron's scarf is a K2P2 (yup, too impatient to actually look at a pattern again) in Rowan's Big Wool on 15mm needles. Sort of like knitting with tree trunks. I used Best Brown, Latte and Pip. I did start out on 5mm needles having managed to ignore the signs all over the store screaming "Rowan's Big Wool=15mm needles". The 5mms produced an absolutely gorgeous scarf that was going to end up costing about 100 Euros in wool and would be too warm to wear anywhere on this planet. I persisted halfway before giving in to the inevitable and pulling it all out and starting again on the 15mm needles. Its still a nice scarf but not as gorgeous as its first incarnation. Ron's beanie is another bastardisation of Hot Head from the Stitch 'n Bitch Handbook. For this I used 10mm needles. As the needles and the wool are both much bigger than that in the pattern I had to guess a bit re number of stitches and how many rows. I could have knitted one of those practice squares but that would have made life too easy and predictable. It's turned out a little bit too big so I'll probbably pull it out and start again.
My blue scarf is a very basic affair. Again, in Rowan's Big Wool, this time using Bubble, on the 15mm needles but just plain stocking stitch which was because I just felt like knitting without thinking. This means the scarf is curled, something probably any half-assed experienced knitter could have told me would happen but which of course I've only just found out, but I've decided I like it this way. I made my fringes extra-long. The hat is Vinster from Rowan's Big Just Got Bigger book. The pompom affair on the top is not quite as alarming in real life as it looks here, its actually two tassles which should be hanging more towards the back.
Rowan's Big Wool is absolutely gorgeous to knit with, soooooo soft and despite its chunkiness, not as heavy as you'd expect. I could have knitted much more interesting scarves for half the price if I'd been bothered to spend even five minutes browsing through some patterns. If nothing else it proves that if you spend enough money on a quality wool then you don't need to have skill, imagination or even the patience to read labels and directions and you'll still end up with something half-decent!
Now, if we'd only get some really cold weather!
Posted by Faith at 11:28 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 03, 2004
Photo Friday: Reflections
The ears have it. (And the toes, fingers, feet etc etc........) Although in retrospect I think the focus should have been the other way around. (So easy to see afterwards!) Although Jacob is still 'unformed' in many ways so maybe its apt this way too.
This was taken with the Canon EOS 300D while they slept and I was giggling at the mirroring going on here.
Posted by Faith at 01:28 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
December 01, 2004
Kerst lampjes
Posted by Faith at 02:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack