Ooh, shiny, woolly goodness!

It's Sunday afternoon.  The temperature has dropped and I'm sitting here, laptop on, um, lap, Goldfinger on the telly, TLH playing Skyrim on the computer downstairs and I'm watching the snow starting to fall outside.  Quite big flakes too.

My immediate plans for today, when I was formulating them earlier this week, were to do one or more of the following - go for a run, clear the large pile of prunings that I left in the middle of the lawn with help from TLH, do some digging at the allotment.  Then on Friday lunchtime I went out for lunch with my lovely friend Bev and in bending down to deposit my handbag on a chair, my back went into spasm.  Damn, it was painful.  Extraordinary how such a small, twisting movement can wreak such damage.  It was like getting a really bad crick in the neck but around and underneath the left shoulderblade.

Paracetamol was my friend here (Ibuprofen would be better as it's an anti-inflammatory but it's not good for the stomach - and I get wicked acid reflux - so I stopped getting it) as well as a hot water bottle.  Sat for the rest of the day with the bottle behind my back, trying not to whimper every time I moved.

Fortunately, although still very stiff and sore, yesterday it was bearable enough for me to do my usual craft fair in Alresford.  You might think that sitting on my arse for around 8 hours would be okay, but the chairs are not tremendously comfortable and I frequently end up with headaches the day after an Alresford show so it was going to be touch and go as to how my buggered back would respond.  I took my hot water bottle and used it, and dosed myself up with painkillers and it was fine.  We had a good day as well, sold 12 items and made three figures so, all in all, not too bad.  But there was no way I was going to be doing anything in the garden; I need to be careful until it settles down.  I'll contemplate a run tomorrow, though, depending on the weather.

Oh yeah, the running - it's going quite well.  Last week I managed 2.5 miles (although there was more walking than running) but a couple of days later I did 2.8 miles, this time with more running than walking.  In my last post you may recall I've signed up for a 4km (2.5 miles) fun run on 21 April and my goal is to be able to do it all running.  Speed is not all that important, just consistency of pace right now.  To be able to get the entire way round without stopping to walk is looking surprisingly difficult just at the moment - but I'm working towards it.

Dang - got sidetracked from what I wanted to post about!  Last Saturday there was a 2-day festival at Farnham Maltings devoted to all things yarn-based.  It's a big show for independent wool dyers, spinners, providers of accessories, etc.  I missed it last year but was determined to go this year.  I decided on my budget - £100 - saved from the meagre profits I make selling jewellery - and I spent the lot!

The show is called Unravel and this was the 4th year.  The town had been yarn-bombed during the week and there was stuff around lamp-posts and hanging from shop signs, including knitted balloons (actually balloons with knitted covers) floating above a bridge over a river.  There was a mother and baby sheep in a pen in the shade (it was a sunny, warm day) just outside the front door of the venue.

The place was heaving.  We got there about half an hour after the doors opened and it was rammed with punters, standing easily three deep around each exhibitor.  I decided I wanted to do a once-round look at everything, to see what was available.  I'd got a design in mind that's going to be my next knitting project - a wrap around sleeveless waistcoat/cardigan type thing, that is basically a rectangle with two slits for armholes.  Look, here it is - simple wrap around vest.  Looks easy, huh?

So I wanted some really nice wool to make it in.  I didn't know what colour but I knew the colour would find me if I went looking for it.  I was first entranced by the Fyberspates stand and my eye was particularly drawn to a 100gm skein of shades of green/pale yellow shot through with gold sparkliness.  I knew I didn't want to make the waistcoat out of it, but I also knew I wasn't leaving the building without owning one of these.  Even though it was £21.50!  Pricey, yes, but also hand spun, hand dyed and hand twisted and that amount of work costs money.  Here's the skein I bought:

Isn't it lovely?  It'll go into my stash for now and I'll decide what to do with it later.  I like to see my yarn in the flesh so I get an idea of what the colour is actually like, as opposed to what it looks like through a computer screen.  This means buying wool when I see something I like because lord only knows when I would find it again, if you see what I mean.

I was extremely tempted by the products of The House of Hemp which is, as you might expect, yarn created from hemp stalks, much like linen.  The kits they have for sale are absolutely stunning - beautiful designs and lovely colours.

In the end, I found my yarn at the NiMu Yarns stand on the top floor of the exhibition. They are a small company (not sure, I think it's a husband and wife team) who hand dye specialist yarns in small batches and I loved, loved, loved their colours.  I absolutely fell for a colour shade called Wicklow and bought 3 100gm skeins to make the waistcoat/cardi (it needs 300gms of wool).  Here they are (with added Bruno, being as helpful as ever):

I've tried to show the colours as best I can - isn't it divine?  All shades of blue including sky blue, turquoise and even the palest blue-green.  Utterly, utterly fabulous.  And reasonably priced at £11 per skein as well, so £33 for enough wool to make the waistcoat/cardi - I don't think that's too expensive.

The next thing to do is to wind them into balls as you can't just use the wool straight from a skein, it gets too tangled.  Mum and I wound one skein yesterday while sitting around at Alresford but I forgot to take a photo.  No matter, I'm not ready to start knitting the waistcoat/cardi yet as I'm still finishing off a third swirly scarf.

I've decided to add a line of sequins to the two scarves I've already finished, the ones that are going to be Xmas 2012 presents for my two nieces.  I've not added them to the fern green scarf yet, but I've done the purple one:

I like the little flash of sparkly that you get, and it just blings the scarf up a bit more and hopefully will be more attractive to a pre-teen.

 So I've yet to finish the 3rd scarf, add the sequins and then I'll probably start the waistcoat/cardi.  Or I might start this crochet scarf kit that I absolutely, positively also had to buy.  The Natural Dye Studio stand held me totally entranced when I came across it.  I didn't take photos (it was hot, packed and not easy to take pics) but I'll pinch some photos off the intertubes to show you why I fell in love:

Heart-patteringly beautiful.  Although I'm not currently crocheting, the stand was selling kits for their Iris scarf which contained the pattern and all the yarn needed to complete it, for £25, which is a good price.  Just look at this and tell me that it doesn't make you catch your breath:

Here's a better picture that, again, I've nicked off the internet (sorry):

Just stunning.  This is the wool that comes with the kit:

 This has added Sylvester Bean, at the door keeping an eye on Bruno, his current nemesis.

See all the lovely colours?  Each little skein is variegated in colour and is made from 100% wool from British Bluefaced Leicester sheep (although this one doesn't look very blue to me...):

The whole thing is crocheted on a 2.5mm which is pretty damn small.  But it's going to have to wait as I have other stuff to knit first and all those little skeins also need winding into balls so, frankly, it'll be a miracle if I get round to doing this this year, but at least I bought it when I could.

So this was what I did last weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed fondling yarn and spending my hard-earned dough.  Talking of which, I didn't get the job (or even an interview) that I mentioned briefly a couple of weeks ago.  It was for a part-time Document Assistant for the British Museum.  Basically, working on the museum's database of lithic artefacts in its stores.  In other words, data entry.  Yeah, I was massively over qualified for it but I thought it was worth a shot.

Never mind, I've got plenty of other things now to fill my time!!

PS.  Results of boob squishing arrived on Friday - all clear.  Hooray for disease-free bosoms!

Vroom.......

I've had what I think is Plantar Fasciitis since Christmas.  This is an inflammation of where the large muscles underneath the foot join the heel bone.  It's very painful but it's a weird sort of pain because it only hurts when you first start walking on the bad foot after not walking on it for a while, and then it wears off. For example, first thing in the morning, when you get out of bed.  Or if you've been sitting around for a while with your feet up and then get up to go and do something.  The pain of your heel striking the floor - and any pressure being put on it - makes you limp, sometimes severely.  But, like I said, it wears off after a few minutes.

There isn't a great deal of treatment you can do other than rest it up.  For more severe cases one can, apparently, have a cortisone injection straight into the site.  I'm not doing that.  Ever.  But what I have had to do is not run on it.  At all.  So the last run I did just before Christmas - 22 December to be exact - when I topped running 50 miles in 2011 - was the last time I went out.  It was just too painful.  Sometimes it was almost more than I could do to just walk to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

The odd thing is that it does get better, it just takes a bloody long time.  I've had it once before, several years ago, but I can't remember now what caused it.  I'm suspecting it might have been when TLH and I were going to the gym and I'd been using the treadmill a fair bit, but I dunno.  I really can't remember.  I do remember that it took months to go away.  So when it turned up again this time, I recognised what it was and realised I was in for a long road to recovery.

But, over the last weekend just gone, there was much improvement.  Barely any wincing at all.  So yesterday I decided to take the plunge and go for a gentle run.  Not that any of my runs are anything other than gentle, of course, there's no way you could mistake me for Jessica Ennis, even on a good day and with the sun in  your eyes.

Strangely - and I never thought I'd say this - but I've actually been missing going for a run.  I also like running in the cold so the frosty, sunny mornings we've had this winter have found me yearning to be able to pull on my Mizunos and go for a quick trot.  Plus not doing any exercise at all over the last two months - but still filling my face with yummy, yummy food - had not done me any favours at all on the weighing scales or, I suspect, in the blood pressure department (which, if you recall, is the reason I started running in the first place), and the spectre of statins is now constantly over my head.

So, yesterday morning, I went for a run.  A very, very slow run.  More of a shamble, really.  Interspersed with a lot of walking.  And it was fine!  I use the Couch-to-5k (or 'Ease into 5k' as it's been rechristened) iPhone app, which always runs for exactly the same length of time for each week.  So week 1 is 33 minutes, week 2 is a bit longer and so on.  I usually manage to cover just under 2 miles for the week 1 setting, but yesterday I did 1.5 miles.  I really didn't want to upset my foot any more than was necessary, but I still ended up sweaty and red-faced so managed to get a reasonable workout.  I just had to wait to see what would happen the next morning and if I'd crippled myself.

But - hooray!  Foot is fine this morning.  There's some residual discomfort but it's nowhere near as bad as it has been so I think I'm probably going to live.

And, to celebrate, I've just registered for my first 'proper' run.  It's a fun run, really, 4 kilometres around Clandon Park (which is near me).  There's a longer, 10 km, run at the same time but I'm not going to push my luck.  2 miles translates into about 3.20 km (or going the other way, 4 km equals 2.5 miles) so it's not really a great deal further than the distance I already cover.  But it gives me something to actually work towards.

Blimey, I'm starting to take all this a bit seriously, aren't I......?

Boobs successfully squished!

See this?



This is a cream-filled coffee choux bun and is my reward for undergoing my first ever mammogram.

I was a little horrified a few weeks ago when I got the letter in the post 'inviting' me to come along for one.  It just underlines that I'm not getting any younger.  Weirdly, my mother had asked me only a month or so before if I'd had a letter yet but I scoffed at her.  'I'm only 48', I said, 'they only ask you once you hit 50, and I'm not 50 for AGES yet....'.  Then the letter arrived.  I'm so old.

I know what's involved, they stick your bosoms into a machine and squish them flat, but I had no real idea as to what it was actually like to have this done.  So I asked around.  My sister-in-law said it was excruciatingly painful.  This was not good.  I began to have The Fear.

I asked the women in my favourite message board on Ravelry and the general consensus was that while it can be painful for some people, for the majority it's more uncomfortable.  The discomfort also seems to be connected to where in your cycle you are, and the size of your boobs in general.   Smaller boobs = more pain.  This was more heartening since my matronly boob shelf is cumbersome and about as far from perky as you can imagine.  It has never done me any good and gets in the way.  Clothes don't fit me properly because I'm top-heavy.  I have to wear the most industrial sports bra on the planet in order to reduce the likelihood of giving myself black eyes when I go running. Of the blokes I've dated over the years, absolutely none of them have been boob-oriented, and, of course, I can't have kids so, all in all, they've been a bit of a waste on me.

I decided not to worry too much about it but take some painkillers an hour or so before 'just in case'.  The Ravelry gals also suggested that I should treat myself to something afterwards.  It being a fibre-related messageboard, a trip to the nearest wool shop was the top choice.  But I pointed out that my nearest wool shop was 15 mins drive away, but delicious, delicious cream cakes would be in walking distance.

My appointment was for 2pm this afternoon in a mobile unit, parked in the car park of my nearest Sainsburys.  A very fancy mobile unit, it turns out.  All wood panelling, carpet, piped music and friendly staff.  What happens next is that you go into the little room with the machine and stand there topless. A kindly lady with (hopefully) warm hands flops each of your boobs, one at a time, onto a 'plate' (for want of a better word) and then she lowers a clear plastic panel onto it, flattening it as much as is just about comfortable for a few seconds while she takes an x-ray.

 Each boob gets squished horizontally and then vertically, a total of 4 x-rays being taken.  The vertical one was a bit more uncomfortable than the horizontal one but, as the nurse said, less painful than end-stage breast cancer, so it's a small price to pay really.  All finished and done in 10 mins.  I get the results in 2 weeks - I'm hopeful that they'll be fine as, for all my whinging about The Girls, they've never given me any medical problems at all.

And with that, I trotted across the carpark to Sainsburys and headed straight to the cake department and brought home that bun at the top of the page which I've just forced into my gaping maw.

Cake - mmmmmmmmmmmm.....

Ta-da post - knitted twirly scarf

*taps screen* Is this thing on?  Anyone still out there?  It appears to have been getting on for 3 weeks since I last posted.

I'm so lazy about doing this.  And it's not as if absolutely nothing is happening in my life, well, I mean there's nothing drastic going on, just life bimbling along at its inexorable pace.  But if I put my mind to it, I could work up a post or two about it but, you know, I have a lazy streak about this sort of thing a mile wide and I also seriously don't think my life is all that interesting.  I count it an achievement to get up and get dressed in the morning.  If I was then working on a cure for cancer or building my own home in a field by some woods with a river running through it or even just caring for my own kids - that would be something.  But I don't do any of that.

So what AM I doing at the moment?  I'll tell you what I'm doing, I'm KNITTING, that's what!  After finishing the cowl that I mentioned in my last post, I decided to move onto another simple pattern, if I could find something I liked.  I rather fancied having a go at some legwarmers.  Don't laugh.  I used to wear them in the 80s when leggings were first fashionable.  But the 'simple' pattern I chose turned out to be one knitted in the round and it defeated me.  Further searching on Ravelry took me to an incredibly simple pattern for a knitted twirly scarf (the pattern calls it a 'potato chip scarf' which is a name I don't care for), quite similar to the one I crocheted last year.  I know I said I didn't want to make another scarf because I've got hundreds of the damn things but then I realised that I could give the scarf as a present!  Genius!

I went rummaging in my stash and grabbed one of the balls of Stylecraft Life DK yarn in Fern Green.  I've got 2 or 3 of these left over from when I was crocheting stuff last year.  It's a mixture of wool and acrylic, and is quite nice to work with.  The Fern Green is one of my favourite colours and, I've found out, also a favourite of my eldest niece so guess who's getting this scarf for Christmas this year?! (She doesn't read my blog so she won't know about this - hopefully!)

This took one 100gm ball of yarn and I just started knitting and stopped when the ball ended.  I've no idea how long it is but the length was fine on me so should be ok on a lanky 15 year old.

It was also long enough for an elderly cat but it gave him The Fear, as you can probably tell.

The jug of daffodils didn't seem to mind as much.

It took me 12 days in total but that was only knitting for about an hour or two each evening in front of the telly.  Unfortunately I'm not competent enough yet to be able to knit without looking so the latest Danish TV serial 'Borgen' is currently going unwatched because I can't knit and read subtitles at the same time!

Of course, I then realised that my eldest niece has a younger sister and it wouldn't really be fair to make a scarf for one and not the other.  My second-eldest niece is much more girly than her elder sister and she loves pinks and purples.  I chose to make the second scarf from Stylecraft Special Double Knit in Violet.  This yarn is 100% acrylic which means it slips off the needles really easily.  It's also a kind of acrylic that is amazingly soft - there are some acrylic yarns that are very cheap and nasty, and so rough you could use them as an exfoliant, but Stylecraft Special DK is just lovely.  It's also inexpensive and comes in some gorgeous colours - I've used it quite a lot and will again.

This is as far as I'd got (i.e., just started) as at 3 February - it's much further along now, but you get an idea of the colour.  I'll post photos when it's finished.

I'm enjoying this simple-pimple knitting very much, and this pattern is incredibly easy.  If you want to have a go at it yourself, then you can find a tutorial with pictures for it here.  The pattern is free.

In which I become bicraftual.

We did, indeed, have a most fabulous time in London at the weekend, and I can most highly recommend The Ladykillers.  The run has been extended until mid-April but it's likely to sell out pretty quick so if you were considering it, then hurry up and decide!

We don't think we've been to the Gielgud Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue before but for one of the Victorian/Edwardian theatres, it was pretty comfortable.  TLH is a chap that takes up a lot of space and being about 6'2", he values his legroom.  Most of the older theatres in London are very uncomfortable for him.  Plus the seats can be quite narrow too - how the ladies ever got their voluminous frocks in them I'll never know - but the Gielgud had enough legroom and there was just about enough elbow space so you didn't feel you were encroaching too much on your neighbour.  It's quite an intimate theatre too, so even though we were three rows from the back of the stalls, we still felt we were plenty close enough to see the actors' faces properly.

Enough of that, though.  This was intended as a new Ta-Daa post.  And in a new craft at that.  I've had another go at knitting, with better results than last time.  This time around I fished out some knitting needles, grabbed some wool and knitted and purled for several inches, then ripped it out and started again.  Then ripped it out and started again.  Then decided I'd got the hang of that and actually wanted to try making something.  My goal is - don't laugh - to be able to knit socks.  I'm a sock wearer - 99% of the time I wear trousers or leggings or jogging bottoms so socks it is.  And I like knee socks too, but they're very hard to come by, especially if you have matronly calves, like I do.  So one way to resolve this is to make them myself.  I do realise, of course, that this is a bit like me being able to walk up hilly Guildford High Street and then announce that I'm going to tackle Mount Everest but, hey, doesn't hurt to have goals.

Some of you may have heard of the messageboard Ravelry.  Ostensibly set up for people who knit and/or crochet as a place to keep track of your projects and interact with like-minded addicts, I've been on there for a couple of years now so thought I'd ask those wiser than myself to point me in the direction of a very VERY easy knitting pattern that is absolutely NOT a bloody scarf or a hat (which is what you traditionally start with when learning to knit).  People give me scarfs and I've crocheted at least 3 for myself in the last couple of years so I really don't need anymore of them. 

A lovely lady pointed me in the direction of a free pattern called Dew Drop Cowl.  And, no, a cowl isn't exactly like a scarf even though you wear it round your neck - OK?  Unfortunately I can't link to it from here because you need to be a registered member of Ravelry to access it.  This is what the finished item should look like though:

It calls for knitting, purling, decreasing by knitting two stitches together (k2tog) and increasing by yarn over (yo) and that's all.  It's a very loose knit item so you don't need to worry about tension or gauges.  I had to look up Youtube videos for k2tog and yo but they're simplicity itself.  You also need a set of 6mm circular needles and a stitchmarker.  I found those quite tricky to handle but it makes sense to use circulars because you're creating a tube (the stitchmarker is to indicate where the end of a row would be normally). 

A week ago I popped into my nearest wool shop and got my circulars:

 

And found myself some really nice yarn which, even better, was on sale at only £3.99 a ball:





It's made of recycled silk, cotton and viscose, and the colour is lovely - a turquoisey blue with flecks of loads of other colours.  Nice.

So I started it on Monday last week, and finished it yesterday.  There were 41 rows of 200 stitches each, so that's 8,200 stitches in all (no wonder my hands ached afterwards).  And it didn't come out too badly at all:







Of course I've hid the errors well and there were some.  It took me a few rows to work out how to join them on the circulars without leaving a huge gap (I sewed it up after) but the biggest error is that I somehow managed to twist the stitches on the circulars so that instead of it being a proper tube shape, it ended up being a Moebius twist.  I'm calling it a design feature.  It's not, it's a mistake but no-one will know!





Last night, after I finished and realised where I'd gone wrong, I was really quite pissed off with myself for getting such a simple design wrong but after having slept on it and looked again this morning I think I was being a bit harsh on myself and it's not too bad after all.  Especially for a first attempt.

So what shall I make now?  I still want/need to do very simple stuff - any ideas?

(Oh, and I spent 2 hours this morning filling in an application for a job.  I know - blimey!  It will probably come to naught so I'll let you know more about it when I've more to tell).

Two brill things what I've seen.....

First off - how are you all?  Well, I hope.  I've been living in the House (and, indeed, the Head) of Snot for the last couple of weeks.  Both TLH and I went down with The Massive Cold From Hell that's been doing the rounds.  He fared better than I did - at one point I would have most definitely failed the Flu Test.  You know the one, it's the one that determines whether you're suffering from a cold or the flu - if you're feeling grotty and look out of your window to see a £10 note lying in the gutter outside, if you've got a cold you'll go and get it, if you've got the flu you won't be capable of, or even interested in, going outside to get it.  On the first day that the germs hit me I felt so unutterably dreadful that it could have been a £50 note and I still wouldn't have gone outside for it.  I had an atrocious sinus headache, aches in every single joint known to womankind, was wearing at least 3 layers of clothes but was still shivering enough to need a further layer of blankets and was sneezing loud enough to crack the windowpanes.  Awful.  I'm much better now but it's still just hanging around the edges.  I don't recommend catching this one at all.

Secondly - while I'm here whinging about my physical ailments (and thereby fulfilling every menopausal stereotype going) - I've also done something to my right foot.  I haven't been able to go out running since the last time (well, duh....) just before Christmas when I clocked up 50 miles.  So that's getting on for about a month now, isn't it?  Hmm, this isn't good.  I may have to take it to my tame chiropractor as I'm sure it's a mechanical thing.  I'm not aware that I twisted my ankle or foot last time I was out but it's possible.  I can't tell whether it's Achilles Tendonitis or Plantar Fasciitis but it's unbelievably painful whatever it is.  But only when I start walking on it after resting it for any length of time.  So first thing in the morning, or if I've been sitting down during the day, when I stand up and start walking, the heel pain on my right foot is horrible and it takes a few minutes of me hobbling about like a cripple before it wears off and I'm fine again.  It gives me no more trouble and then I sit down for a bit.  And then I stand up and the pain starts all over again.  And some days are better than others.  It's a pain in the hole (or rather, my foot) is what it is....  The sad thing is this current sudden spell of extremely sunny and frosty morning is, to me, perfect running weather and I actually would rather like to go for a run in it, but I daren't.  If it carries on for another week without improvement, then I'll get it looked at.

But, hey, this isn't what I logged on this morning to post about. 

I saw two brilliant things yesterday - one online and the other in real life - which I thought I'd share.  The first thing was this extraordinary golden cape:

 and golden scarf:

Close up of the scarf design:

"So what?" I hear you say.  "Sure, it's pretty enough but what's so special?"  If I show you a close up of the design on the cape, you might get a hint of why these textiles are so amazing:

These textiles are remarkable because the image above is of female Golden Orb spiders and it is their silk that has been spun and used to weave the cape and scarf.

I'll just run that past you again.

Made from spider silk.

From over 1 million spiders.

Isn't that extraordinary?  And aren't they just beautiful things?  That fabulous colour is entirely natural too.  These are modern items, made in Madagascar, and are currently on tour.  They've just been to Chicago and New York, and will be at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 25 January to 5 June.  I think I have to go.

The second splendid thing I saw yesterday was at Mercedes Benz World in Weybridge, Surrey.  We bought our little Smart Car from there in May last year and it was due a service.  Mercedes Benz World is a brilliant place if you have any kind of petrolhead on you at all.  They have a showroom with all the latest models for ordinary mortals as well as ones that are only fit for Saudi princes.  There's also a museum and various displays in there which they'd changed since we were there last, so we had a bit of a wander when we went to collect the car.

Right up on the top floor, amongst other exhibits, I found this extraordinary car.  It was created by Geraldine Lloyd, an artist who has been dealing with cancer in various forms for about 40 years.  She found this old Merc in a scrapyard and adds bits to it every time she has to undergo treatment.  I think it's a fantastic thing:

The pictures were taken on my iPhone so apologies for crappy quality but I hope they're good enough for you to see just what an awesome piece of art this is.  I realise it may not be to everyone's taste but it's a tangible object showing one woman's way of psychologically dealing with the trauma of having yet another cancer diagnosis - go and stick more stuff on the Merc.

So that was yesterday, and today TLH and I are driving up to London to go see the Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum, drink Margaritas at Wahaca in Covent Garden and go see The Ladykillers at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.  So more brill things to see.  And it's another beautiful sunny, icy, sparkly day.  Sometimes life doesn't get much better than this....

Let's hope the Mayans were wrong....

Of course the world won't end in December 2012.  I don't expect.  The Rapture didn't happen for the Christian god-botherers and there's no reason to think that the Mayans were any better at judging this sort of thing.  I hope.

Anyway, how was your Christmas and New Year?  Mine was most acceptable.  We 'did' Christmas at our house for the first time ever - my mum and stepdad, and TLH's sister came over and food was consumed and drink imbibed and gifts opened.  Most convivial.

This year I got many books from my Amazon wish list, a 3.5 litre slowcooker, a very nice cheque (most of which has, rather sadly, gone towards a new washing machine) and, as ever, The Lovely Husband got my favourite gifts, a rather splendid turquoise Mexican wrestler's mask:

I have a plan to mount it like a trophy head.  Because why not.

He also got me this stunning silk scarf designed by Grayson Perry showing his map of the British Museum:

I am most enamoured of Grayson Perry's work and the British Museum is one of my most favouritest places ever in the history of ever so to get the two combined is gold-plated fabulosity incarnate.  Was that too gushy?

The scarf is really big - 90cm x 90cm - and I'm going to get it framed as it's likely to be the only piece of his artwork that I'll ever be able to afford.

New Year's Eve was very quiet at Jones Towers, as it often is.  We ended up watching six hours of The Killing II which we taped earlier and had saved for this purpose.  We drank lager, gin & tonic and had champagne at midnight while the local fireworks made it sound like The Somme out there.

So, what am I looking forward to in 2012?  The world not ending for a start.  But apart from that, in general terms, there's the London Olympics in the summer that we didn't manage to get tickets for so will have to be satisfied with being glued to the telly for.  We loves the Olympics, we do.

Of more historical interest, this year marks the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen.  60 years on the throne is a long time, and I suspect she'll do her best to beat Queen Victoria's record as longest-reigning monarch at 63 years.  She'll be nearly 90 by then so it might be a close run thing.  I'm not a monarchist by any stretch of the imagination but being of an archaeological and historical bent, this sort of thing always interests me.

As a couple, TLH and I are off to more classical concerts at the Guildford Civic and in a couple of weeks we're off to see The Ladykillers at the Gielgud Theatre.  Written by Graham Linehan - who wrote Black Books, Father Ted and The I.T. Crowd - it has had rave reviews.  Then in February I managed to get tickets for one of the last performances with James Corden in One Man Two Guv'nors at the Adelphi, before the cast changes and it moves to a different theatre.  I have had the great fortune to meet up with the really rather wonderful Katyboo during 2011 for a couple of theatrical jaunts and it reminded me of how much I did actually enjoy going to the theatre so I'm hoping to try and go a bit more frequently.

As for other things, it would be nice to get to go away on holiday, for the first time in several  years, but that's dependent on whether or not I can persuade TLH to actually take some time off and not just work all the hours he can get, even allowing for the dire economic climate.

I'm hoping Bev and I can sort out our saxophone duo thing we have planned and, of course, some more gigs with The Fugitives would be enormous fun.

I'm also going to have another serious stab ('stab' being the operative word) at teaching myself how to knit.  I partially managed it last year but found it really difficult so I'm not sure I was doing it right so put it away again and returned to my crochet hook.  As soon as I publish this post I'll be heading off to Youtube to find a decent tutorial - wish me luck!

Continued good health for all my friends and family would, of course, be most welcome.

What are the rest of you hopeful for?