Winter still

So, today we are having wet snow flurries and quite a bit of wind - Fred thinks we can walk outdoors but I am not so certain. I'll have to bundle up *very* well.
Our Mac is back from the shop, with a less-than-ringing endorsement from the fixer. He's not too pleased about how slowly the hard drive is responding - but he re-loaded the OS and the programs, and we'll see how well we do. Fingers crossed. He said to back up daily, so the Time Machine is grinding away as I type.
My Sock Madness team, Minnow, still hasn't reached the cutoff number of 37, so no new pattern until they do. I'm getting lots of other knitting done in the meantime. Finished another pair of Stretch Socks, this time a pattern called Take Five, and now I'm making progress on the Zetor shawl I'm making out of Fleece Artist mohair called "Angel Hair". It *is* a lot like knitting with hair, I suppose - at least, there are plenty of fluffy bits and you can easily knit one of those, rather than the actual teeny tiny core yarn. I've managed to catch all slips so far, but constant vigilance is the watchword. I didn't weigh the ball before I started, but Ravelry seems to indicate that it was 50 grams to begin with. It's down to 30 now, so I'm less than halfway - though of course as with all shawls, it gets bigger and bigger as it goes along, so I'm keeping my scale handy and checking the weight after every chart repeat.
I bought seeds for ground cherries at Vesey's, and I checked today and they are up! And I will have a great crop of cilantro if all goes according to plan. It's almost time to start some tomato plants, I'm thinking. I may have to prick out the cilantro in order to have a flat to start them in. My F1 hybrid strawberries continue very tiny, but they are at least now putting out some true strawberry leaves - so cute!
So, it's officially a year since we arrived in Ireland for our visit. Now that the Mac is back I want to get out the photos and look at them - and re-live the trip!