Birthday Present!

Our Pentax Optio (about 6 years old) has been giving us trouble - or rather, not giving us pictures.  The shutter fires once for every 20 times it's pressed. So yesterday I was given a new Canon A720. Haven't had time to do anything with it yet, and it's blowing and about to rain outdoors, not optimal photographing-the-flowers weather. But my other present was a new garden journal (my last was filled up) so it's time to take stock of the garden, and start trying to remember what things are so I can record their locations. With lovely photos for the facing pages. But it's not fit to be out, and the rest of the day looks to be worse.

Maybe I'll have to stay in and sharpen knives.

Garden News

I planted tomatoes yesterday after dinner - in the rain. I hope that's optimal growing conditions and that they will flourish.

I hope someone sees my flower bed today and thinks I'm a brilliant gardener for matching the foxgloves with the sweet rocket, though if it's a gardener he or she will suspect that the sweet rocket is a volunteer from another bed and just blew in to the one with the foxgloves, The peonies are about to burst, so I hope the rain today doesn't knock them down.  The rain makes for great colours, however.

Summer's here

I've been busy! Some knitting, a bit of dancing, and now that the weather has cleared up, a bit of gardening too. Yesterday I did some deadheading on the lilac hedge (a monumental task, as they are now 'way over my head) and some planting of annuals. Taking away, giving.  

Roses are starting to come out - nothing of particular note, just Blanc de Coubert, Philemon Cochet, and the rugosas - including Hansa. I have planted a few new ones this year, but not on the rose mound - in the flower beds and along the edge of the lawn by the road.  I did buy a new Explorer - a red climber called Henry Kelsey. Robert Osborne (of Cornhill Nursery) speaks highly of Henry in his book. I planted him behind the rose trellis (with Dublin Bay in front), so I hope that 1. Both survive, bloom, and confound onlookers with two sorts of red blooms, apparently from one plant; or 2. One or the other survives and fills in the trellis. My money's on Henry. While I was planting Henry I managed to break a bloom off an iris, which I brought in and put in water. I wanted to see what colour it was because I bought it at a church yard sale last year and had never seen the bloom. It's warped because the slugs had got at it. Next year I'll keep an eye on it. 

In knitting I'm scundered with socks (toe up is doing my head in!) so I'm looking for other options, including fingerless gloves, entrelac and a lace shawl project that requires more concentration than I have, apparently. I've had to start it again.

 

More on the iMac (wonder of the age)

There were a few teething pains after I last posted, but 2 hours on the telephone with the very nice Steve from Mac Tech Support on Monday night seems to have sorted it.

The problem? We have a 2.4 GHz cordless phone (on which I was speaking with him) and that's the frequency of the AirPort, (which is the cordless router). There were other problems too, but that was the one that kept the AirPort from working. I'm shopping for a new telephone (5.8 or 6 GHz this time) at once!

Helen is exactly right - there's barely time for knitting, now that this Macbaby has entered our lives. I have one Blueberry sock finished, and am working on the other - and have one Monkey at the heel flap and have started the mate, because I think I'm going to run out of yarn, and I MAY have to make heels and toes is a different colour.

I am definitely going to make my VERY NEXT pair of socks toe-up, two at a time, so I can be sure of the yarn supply.

New Computer and High Speed!!

I am typing on a new iMac that is so gorgeous that I cannot stand it. And the new high speed provider has just left my house so I am on t'internet full time, full speed. 

I'm so happy I can hardly breathe.

Vishten Concert

We went to a concert/live CD-making with the Acadien-Celtic group Vishten on Saturday. It was a great time, and afterwards Pierre Chartrand did a couple of figures of a Quebec dance he'd taught earlier in the year at the BIS.

In the knitting-related part, Emmanuelle Leblanc was introducing a song (Mariez moi, the first track on their first CD, Vishten) and explained that the protagonist says in the song that, if she's not married by the time she's 20, she is going to give up knitting. Emmanuelle then asked if anyone in the audience is a knitter, and I waved my sock! She asked if I was actually knitting during the concert (I was, of course) and she seemed surprised - perhaps she thought I would be too busy to applaud!

Anyway we bought their CDs and pre-ordered the new one. They are pretty fabulous.

April Fool!

This morning we woke to about 10 cm. of fresh snow, with more accumulating every minute. This has to be a winter for the record books. That's the kindest thing I can think of to say.

Yesterday I mailed off a tiny sock to Washington state in the Wee Tiny Sock Swap. This was so much fun to do, and the sock was amazingly tiny and cute. I seem to specialize in green sock yarns so this one was green as well. It was a tiny sample of a skein from Perfect Day Yarns, which came with a regular-size skein of sock yarn. I won them both in the January Sockdown! on Ravelry, and believe me, there's nothing more thrilling than getting a skein of mystery yarn in the mail. Thanks to Sarah for donating the prize.