Finally, something interesting.

Okay, it's been a crap month or so all round, Nuff said. Lets get back to spinning. Here's something interesting for you to admire.

Front view....





Side view....




Rear view...



Okay, hands up who knows what it is. Thought so...not many of you. Well don't feel bad about it because I had not a clue either before I brought it home from spinning group on Tuesday and got going on Google looking for it.

All I knew about it was that it was called a Wind Wheel, that it belonged to a very elderly and now long retired spinner that lives locally and that she had given it on long term loan to the group. She said she never got on with it. (We got her Ashford Traditional too.) None of us could get on with it either...umpteen years of collective spinning between us and we could not get it to spin. It does not have a drive band per se you see. It has a weighted pulley arrangement at the bottom that flicks over and a drive belt that rotates the massive flyer. It is very, very different from anything I've used before. I regard myself as a bit of a wheel geek-groupie, but this wheel is something else again.

Anyhow, after a bit of Googling I discovered my ...err, our new aquisition was an Ettrick Windwheel, that it was pronounced "wind" as in wind up the bobbin rather than "wind" as in gentle breezes and it comes from Australia.

Actually this last bit I could have discovered much more quickly if I'd looked round the rear of the wheel.



"Tasmanian Blackwood". How cool is that? If you stuck a knitting needle through a globe you'd find Tasmania is the furthest part of the other side of the world from Musselburgh. And the tree from which this wheel is made grew there. (It's a type of acacia.) It's fabulous wood and the whole wheel, from design to wood to style to polish is just so exotic. It sat there at spinning group in amongst our Ashfords and Kromskis and Haldanes looking like a rare tropical bird that had got lost.

Anyhow, there was still the problem of the fact that none of us could get it to spin. So as official Wheel Geek and Person that Hangs Out on the Internet Most I was given the task of sorting this out. I emailed the maker, Norman Walters , asking for scans of the assembly plans and spinning instructions. He very kindly sent these and now...I'm barraging him with techie questions, poor man. And some queries as to the design history.

I'm also talking to two Ravelry members from Australia, Zephyrama and Jenwren, both of whom own Windwheels. Now this is one of the most amazing things about Ravelry IMHO...the fact that I can go into it and hunt down a couple of spinners who knew exactly what I need to know to get this wheel going. Wow....!

Still can't spin on it though. I'm pretty sure I've got it set up right but it's the action of this pulley bit that really gets to me.



You have to sort of tap the treadle with your toe to get it up over the top of the turn, then the brass weights pull it down and round and momentum carries it up to the top of the turn and then you toe-tap again...but inbetween taps, if you push down on any part of the treadle plate the drive band will slip on the pulley. If you don't tap at the right moment the band slips up top here.....



...and the pulley reverses and you lose momentum and really, it all goes to hell in a handcart. It's the complete opposite of normal treadling on a single treadle wheel, where you have to be smooth and think rouuuuuund treadling, with only a little extra over the hump at the top. I feel like a beginner spinner again...you know, when you're kicking the wheel halfway across the room at every treadle stroke and it keeps reversing on you? Well this is it all over again.

I'm going to crack it by Saturday though. Saturday is the monthly meet up day for the Edinburgh Guild of Spinners and I am taking the Windwheel along to be admired. I'm going to look a bloomin' prat if I can't get it to work, am I not?

Off to practice....

Happy Valentine's Day.

Back again.

Here I am again! It's been a long eleven days or so. Thank you for all the kind messages...they were greatly appreciated.

We had the funeral on Monday and it went very well. I know there's isn't such a thing as a "good" funeral but it was exactly what my mum would have wanted, with the right songs and flowers and the small group of her surviving relatives there. Because it was such a small funeral (18 of us) the minister made a very personal address, with a lot of people mentioned by name. It was the same chapel we used for my father's funeral, thirty five years ago, and she had the same flowers as in her wedding bouquet. And then we all went back to a local hotel and had tea and buns and sarnies and a good gossip with all the cousins we hadn't seen since the last funeral. Which my mum would have enjoyed hugely, alas. So I think we did her well.

However it's been a fairly exhausting period, with the arrangements to be made and her affairs to be brought into order. I do have an older sister and we shared the tasks but there was still a lot to do. Plus, just to add to the gaiety of the week Lad got a real wallop at rugby practice last week (huge bruise on cheekbone, massive keeker and two skinned and badly bruised knees, Princess went down with the lurgy of the moment and then just in time for the funeral she passed it onto her brother. So he was standing there drugged to the eyeballs with ibuprofen and paracetamol, chalk white with two huge greening bruises on his face, trying not to cough too much. He couldn't even face the buns and sarnies afterwards, so he had to be feeling rough!

He's still off school, come to think of it. And he's given the wretched bug to me now. *koff koff* It has not been a good couple of weeks, really.

Must do a craft update sometime though. I haven't done much knitting (half a sock) but I did get to spinning group a couple of times, just to take my mind off things and destress a little.

My Mum.

My mother died today. She was 83 and though she had an ongoing heart condition that we knew was going to cause trouble "one day", she was still going out and about and getting on with her life. Until yesterday afternoon when she was out shopping on the High Street, tripped, fell and broke her hip. Even then she was quite positive about the whole thing and the doctors at the New Royal were going to operate to fix the hip this afternoon or tomorrow. Except quite unexpectedly, after morning ward rounds and as her op was being arranged, she went into cardiac arrest and died almost instantly. Boom. I was actually on the phone to the ward asking about the scheduling of the op as the crash team went in. My sister and I went rushing in to the hospital immediately but we were far too late of course. Not unexpected, given the poor condition of her heart valve, but a bit of a shock nevertheless.

Isn't it amazing how just as you think you're going into a quiet and peaceful patch for a couple of months, life can turn round and bite you on the bum? Poor Mum. She would have been 84 on Tuesday.

The Mom Song.

The kids didn't really get it, but I thought this was hysterical...

Palz.

I bought a cheapo little cat bed in the sales. There was only one but I thought the boys would probably ignore it so wasn't too bothered. Wrong. It has become No1 Primo Top Spot in the house to lie in, especially since it's placed on top of where the central heating pipes run. And under the clothes airer. There is always a cat in it. Always. They take turns.

Except tonight they were both in it. They don't usually sleep together so this is a first. Aren't they cute? They are closer than Theo and Missy ever were, and Theo and Missy were littermates. They are palz.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you all.

I hope it's a good one. There was nothing much wrong with 2008, but it was a bit mediocre to be honest and marred with a non-stop series of grotty little niggles. I want 2009 to be a year where we can get on with a few things, you know? A positive year, rather than just blah....

It got off to a bit of a blah start though. Lad has had that rather icky gastro bug for the last few days and has not strayed far from a loo. Then last night Princess started throwing up...she's stopped now but is still feeling rather grey. Then at about two hours into the new year I was struck down with my version of presumably the same tummy bug, but with the best...or worst...of both varients, argh. It was not a pleasant way to kick off a new year!

So today we are all having a quiet day Chez Fishwife. I was planning to pay the ritual New Year's Day visit to the allotment, but as the plumbing up there is merely a bucket I thought it best not to. Instead I have been wandering around with bleach, disinfectant and doing laundry on boil in an effort to stop this bug in its tracks. Joy...

Hope your celebrations were a bit more fun!