Housework...an unsatisfactory option.

Yesterday morning I was planned to go to the allotment. It rained. This morning I planned to go to the allotment. It rained. Tomorrow? Well, Mairi does not go to nursery on Fridays, and even a sunny January morning would be too cold for her. She would moan, she would complain there were no strawberries/peas/flowers to pick and the ground will be too hard to dig. Ten minutes later...we would have to leave. Too frustrating for both of us so w will go to the library instead...*sigh*. It`s annoying. Just when my brain has moved up a gear into allotmenting mode again...

Well, I might be able to go on Sunday. It`s a training day for Duncan at rugby, so Hubby can be persuaded to take Mairi along to watch. She can play around on the touchline with the other small siblings and get trampled occasionally by an over-enthusiastic pack of Primary five boys and girls. She loves it, really! But it might rain...

Oh well, the two days were not a total waste of time. I washed three fleeces...a mainly white Jacob, my Ouessant fleece and some Blue Faced Leicester. The Ouessant fleece, I have to say, was the filthiest fleece I have encountered yet. I had to put it through four washes of hot soapy water because the first two washes were the colour of tar. That little ewe was one filthy little sheep! She`s washed up nice and fluffy though, so all I have to do now is get rid of the rest of the amazing amount of chaff and vegetation in her fleece. If It wasn`t for the fact that it`s an unusual fleece and that the small amount I washed up and carded as a trial came out beautifully in the end, I might just have given up on this fleece by now. I`ve composted at least one fleece before now, when I decided that my time x the minimum wage would buy me twice the amount of pre-prepared roving.

What else did I do? I took Mairi to her first ballet lesson yesterday afternoon...move over, Darcy Bussell!






The best thing that happened to me was that my knitting pal Gourdongirlcame round for a cuppa and a knit`n`natter. Her kids and my kids are pals too, which makes it easy. Amongst other things we discussed SkipNorth a weekend long shopping/knitting/talking/knitting/spinning/more shopping for stash event which we are both booked up for. We are also planning to go to Woolfest at the start of the summer. This is about as close as we get in the UK to one of the big USA events like Rhinebeck or the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, so not to be missed. We both missed the first ever Woolfest last year, but this one promises to be even bigger and better. We need to get ourselves booked into a campsite nearby soon though. It promises to be busy in the area with all these knitters and spinners around.

We even managed some knitting...I carried on knitting my Opal sock.






I just love that purple faux-fairisle!

I`ve got to make a confession here, actually....I`m a terribly slow knitter. Not only do I have very limited spare time but I also just knit slowly. I suppose it`s because I`m a self taught hand-off thrower, and that`s about the slowest way to knit in the world. Not for me the Harlot speed-knitted-garment-per-weekend blogging! You`ll be lucky if you see one finished piece (that`s piece, not garment!) per month.

Oh, and I did some housework. Not a satisfactory option at all!