Sunday 30 March 2014

25 Before 24 - Post-birthday Update

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ut we've mostly been tired & eaten simple things. Getting reflective?


March has brought sunshine and warm enough weather for breakfast in the garden at weekends. We've been enjoying seeing what's coming up - the previous tenants made an effort with the garden so we've had lots of daffodils, snowdrops and others already and there are plenty more things sprouting. We're still failing to win over our neighbours' cats - some run away, one just looks disinterested. I finally got around to shortening the curtains we bought a month or two ago and we've found some more pre-existing holes in the walls to hang things from so the sitting room is looking a bit more homely.
I've done a bit of sewing and managed to watch The Great British Sewing Bee every week, but not made all that much progress on sewing things. We've both been quite tired and I've not cooked anywhere near as much as last month I think. We spent a couple of weekends mostly at home recovering from the week and straightening the house out, though we also escaped to Tyntesfield and Chew Valley Lake for a change of scenery. Spending last weekend with my parents has left us struggling through mountains of washing up and laundry this week. Glamourous stuff.
I took the day off on my birthday and went off to Bath with vague ideas about drinking good coffee, visiting The Makery, and the magnolia trees in Queen Square looking nice. I had a very good flat white and some tasty cake at Colonna & Small's but found that The Makery was closed for relocation. However I also found a quilting shop called Country Threads which was absolutely lined with lovely quilting cottons, including the mad Kaffe Fassett vegetable ones. I later found out that The American Museum in Bath has an exhibition about him on - good excuse for a return trip I reckon. I had a nice day of wandering around looking at things & came home in the evening to dinner cooked for me by Boy.
I think I'll post a proper finish up of my 25 Before 24 when I'm feeling a bit more awake.

25 Things

  1. Cycle to Bath - Bicycle is now in Bristol! Need a helmet & lights.
  2. Visit K at RHUL
  3. Go to a sewing meet
  4. Make 5 items of clothing - halfway through a modified New Look 6154 skirt
  5. Go to Cornwall and/or somewhere warm
  6. Learn some Perl/Ruby/C++/SQL - Knowledge of Perl & C++ slowly increasing
  7. Keep a list of things to cook and make 2 new ones per month - Banana, oat, & chocolate muffins, potato farls, chicken & ham pie
  8. Read twelve or more books
  9. Cut down my photo-uploading backlog - Onto A35F roll 1
  10. Scrapbook - Nope
  11. Visit 5 new towns or cities
  12. Keep job/get good/become independent - Enjoying being back in my normal problem solving role. Set an objective I'm actually interested in doing
  13. Go to a pop-up restaurant or supper club
  14. Finish things - Started & finished several new things
  15. Mend/alter
  16. See cousins
  17. Go to a gig/film/... every month -Saw Ellen & The Escapades and Stanley Brinks & The Wave Pictures + Freschard - both very good. Saw The Grand Budapest Hotel.
  18. Walk lots - Few evening excursions on foot, lots of rain
  19. Visit new cafés/things - had coffee at Colonna & Smalls in Bath, visited Small Bar and Turtle Bay on work outing, ate Thai at The Old Fishmarket, visited The Gallimaufry
  20. Do something creative every week - Lots of knitting on the way to work, bursts of sewing in evenings
  21. Make an effort to go to things - Plenty of evenings out with friends, a couple with work, and one with my parents, excursion to Weston-S-M despite train problems
  22. Learn to knit properly - Shapely Boyfriend cardigan has one and a half arms
  23. Listen to the radio regularly - Still lots of 6music, plus Radio 2 during lifts to work
  24. Use stashes - Bought fabric on my birthday! Acquired more stash from my Great Aunt. Using up some on skirt & made a little zippy pouch from stash.
  25. Find a dentist & get teeth fixed

Saturday 1 March 2014

25 Before 24 - March Update

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January merged dully into February and February slipped past slyly. It was definitely a busier month but with the same feeling of fighting the weather to get up the necessary oomph to get out and do things. I don't think I did too badly though. On the craft front at least it's been a productive month, with several projects making decent chunks of progress or being completed. There's also been a shift culinarily - not doing big shops has meant that I've instigated or brought together many more dinners, including ones that are less boy-style meat-veg-carb, and more adventurous concoctions and bits and pieces.
Writing this post so soon after finishing off the last (very late one) has made it clear to me that I don't have much of a sense of how February has been. I could perhaps do with more slow thinking time. I think I've also been taking fewer phone photos. In some ways that's good - I've been less distracted by it - but also there are things I've already semi-forgotten or misplaced in my mental timeline. When did I have brunch with A&C? Was it late January or early February? I didn't take any photos or send the postcards I had meant to send that day. The physical act of writing the date might have cemented the mental connection.
I've generally not written to people as much as I should. I've managed to keep up with birthdays, I think, but I have at least one long letter to reply to. I no longer have several hours of bus time in which to think of these things. I'm getting through my RSS feeds much slower, and I'm not talking to my bus-riding colleagues so much (though one is away anyway). The flipside of all that is the increased time for craft and cooking and being at home with boy. I'm basically less social and thoughtful but creating more.
With some effort (in the direction of not just slumping on the sofa with my knitting) I'm sure I can even this back out. Knitting & cooking are the kinds of thing that I will always find time for - I have to eat anyway and knitting is very easy to pick up & put down - so it's the thinking more that needs some work. I think that working out how much free time I have when deciding what to do with it will lead to more variety and the more complex things getting done - less just starting knitting by instinct. That said, both Death In Paradise and The Great British Sewing Bee are on at the moment...

25 Things

  1. Cycle to Bath
  2. Visit K at RHUL
  3. Go to a sewing meet
  4. Make 5 items of clothing - made a top from Simplicity 9175 (1970)
  5. Go to Cornwall and/or somewhere warm
  6. Learn some Perl/Ruby/C++/SQL - Had a presentation about Perl & reviewed some C++
  7. Keep a list of things to cook and make 2 new ones per month - Chocolate & blueberry scones, beef rendang, cornbread, pea & ham soup, chocolate tarts, cucumber and lime G&T
  8. Read twelve or more books
  9. Cut down my photo-uploading backlog - On K1000 roll 6 now
  10. Scrapbook - Nope.
  11. Visit 5 new towns or cities
  12. Keep job/get good/become independent - Changed the format of part of a big meeting & got more people talking which is a win :) Got very good annual feedback
  13. Go to a pop-up restaurant or supper club
  14. Finish things - Sewed up last pair of Learn To Knit Love To Knit wristwarmers. Made top from Simplicity 9175.
  15. Mend/alter - added *more* things to my mending pile!
  16. See cousins
  17. Go to a gig/film/... every month -Saw Cate Le Bon at The Lantern. Very good and very loud!
  18. Walk lots - 9.5 mile walk round the downs, down through Clifton, round the harbour, to Sunday lunch at The Bank, then all the way home
  19. Visit new cafés/things -Went to Obento with friends, experienced the extended upstairs at Boston Tea Party on Park St
  20. Do something creative every week - So much knitting! And a bit of sewing too.
  21. Make an effort to go to things - Coffee with friends, colleague's birthday party, two weekend lunches, a pub visit, impromptu dinner with old old flatmate.
  22. Learn to knit properly - Shapely Boyfriend cardigan is coming along nicely
  23. Listen to the radio regularly - Still lots of 6music, plus Radio 2 during lifts to work
  24. Use stashes - Bought wool for shapely boyfriend and red thread for curtains. Used stash fabric for top & made a couple of plans
  25. Find a dentist & get teeth fixed