kit kat

Well it's once again been an embarassingly long time since I last posted, but I think I've had pretty good reason. Turns out getting a couple of kittens really eats into your time.

(guess who also discovered Instagram recently)

Biffy and Misty are just about the best thing to happen in a long time. Something about having cats around just fills me with unbridled joy. If I had my way there would be nothing but pictures of these two from now on, but apparently that's not cricket. Here's a few to keep you going for the time being.

 

needle business

above image: lulusvintage.com

So knitting is de rigeur and it's no longer weird to be found lurking in wool shops on a Saturday afternoon. Late to the bandwagon as always, I've not been knitting properly that long (save an afternoon on the train in my first year of uni when I tried in vain to knit the beginnings of a patchwork quilt, failing miserably and no doubt being silently mocked by the commuters around me). I'm also one of those people that can't resist trying to step up their game before they're any good at something.

A couple of years ago I came across a fantastic wool shop in Norfolk whose name helpfully escapes me at present. Even though anything beyond a knit, purl, increase and decrease (end of rows only, obviously) was an alien land, I shelled out what seemed like a fortune (£16.99) for a Kim Hargreaves book. A thoughtful yarn-based birthday present and about 6 months of starting again (and again, and again) later, I finally managed to finish Fleur, a cashmere-blended t-shirt-jumper. The feeling was brilliant - I was invincible, I could rule the world, one skein at a time.

Then I spotted a huge bargain in John Lewis' always immense Christmas sale - £48 for 12 balls of Rowan Silky Tweed. I decided my skill level was up to conquering cable, double moss stitch, peplums and buttonholes (despite being a novice to them all) and snapped up the yarn with the aim of banging out Delphine, a kind of tweedy jacket from the same book. Obviously I couldn't even get past the first line, so I gave up and sulked for pretty much a year.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself staring at the knitting bag once again, daring myself to have a go at the stupid pattern. I would beat it. And, armed with a rare afternoon of nothingness, a couple of helpful Youtube clips and litres of tea, I finally cracked it. Victory! And now I have a new knitting project to while away my currently ill hours:



The back is done and I've just started the left front. Now I know what I'm doing it's one of the most fun things I've ever attempted. And it gave me a chance to acquire some new equipment - say hello to my lovely new stitch markers. They came from a tiny shop called Create and Knit in Breedon on the Hill. A really weird place actually, a kind of antiques-cum-craft-cum-garden centre affair. Full of elderly people of course, but that's the life you lead when you take an interest in knitting and antiques. It was a decent shop with a small but well-chosen selection of wool, and I couldn't resist these murano glass-esque markers. My Mum bought about 20 balls of aran for her own knitting project, and we spent a happy afternoon tackling cable for the first time together.

You can laugh/cry at my tedious progress on my Ravelry page.

new and delicious beginnings

Last week we moved to Belper which, if you didn't know, is a nice market town in the middle of Derbyshire. Luckily for us it's a bit of a foodie gem, stuffed with nice places to er, stuff your face. Not that that's the most important thing about a place, obviously, but it does help.

Easily my favourite of them all is Fresh Basil, a deli on Strutt Street. It's tiny and unpretentious, with friendly staff, a reasonably priced menu and stacks of gorgeous fresh and baked produce on display. While I wish I had the budget to stock up on their parma ham and foccacia, I'm happy enough to munch away on a red pepper and goats cheese salad and admire the lovely stuff piled enticingly all around. Can't wait to try their all-day breakfast too, which recently won an award for the best in Derbyshire. And it's walking distance. Believe it or not I'm not on their payroll, though if they'd like to add me to it in exchange for cheese, I'm open to negotiations.

On the next street (it's only a small town you know) sits Liquid Treasure, alcohol specialist. When I first went in last year, I did that aimlessly-picking-up-attractive-looking-bottles thing and found myself suddenly being interrogated (in a friendly way!) on my favourite cocktail. Clearly the owners are passionate about nice things to drink and the small team of staff know plenty about wine, spirits and ales. It's one of the best stocked shops of its kind in the area, but it's sadly way beyond my budget at the moment. At least when the lottery win happens I'll know where to go for the champagne.

We've actually moved a bit further away from Croots, an excellent farm shop/deli/cafe combo in nearby Duffield. Oh well. It's worth the extra couple of minutes in the car though - another independent haven of tasty stuff. Again, not very pocket-friendly but nice for a treat. Perhaps the nicest things they sell are frozen half-baked pastries. Buy them by the bagful then get out a couple on a Friday night, let them rise overnight in a warm place and bingo, fresh and ready to bake croissants and pain au chocolat on a hungover Saturday morning. Bliss!

hello.

looks like it's been two years since my last update and oh boy, the things that have happened.

1. i got old. well, 25. though looking back i think i'm more or less the same person. anyone else in their twenties noticed that they lose the whole 'i'll be a different person every two months' thing?

2. i got a job. a pretty damn neat one too. it's my job to make sure money happens for an international humanitarian charity. you'll guess what it is, soon enough, if you don't know me already. and i love it.

3. i got a house, but lost a cat. finally left home, moved in with my lovely man. found the best place, more on this later.

4. i got excited about the idea of a blog again. for ages i thought i had nothing to say that hadn't been said already. then i thought fuck it, i think i can hunt out an epic bargain and i don't mind telling people where i got it from. and it's about time i put my mind to something other than work, small kittens and where i'm going to get my next pastry-based goodies from.

so. hello. nice to be back.

new year, old things

already we're eleven days into the new year, yet my resolutions feel weak and unmotivating. the usual 'be nicer' and 'do more' are floppy, vague promises, hard to quantify while i'm in the mood for tangible results.

so i AM going to do more. as stiflingly unimaginative as it is to set personal goals at this time of year, i'm going to embark on a little adventure:

from today, 11th january 2010, to 10th january 2011, i will not buy anything from the high street.

doing so will, i presume, make me feel better (more smug?) about my spending habits while simultaneously saving enough money to counter all the good work in a massive january sales binge this time next year. or, y'know, put down a deposit on a car, or a nice flat, or something actually useful.

obviously there are exceptions to this resolution, else i might go spare. there are challenges, and there's needless suffering. so i'm allowed to do the following:

1. buy presents for others. who genuinely appreciates half-arsed, slapdash homemade gifts from someone with zero creative ability? no-one, unless they're 100% nice (rare). at least my family and friends won't have to endure kirstie allsopp-esque thriftmares.

2. indugle in essentials. essentials as defined by me, not by, say, the people who run brat camp. so decent shampoo and conditioner, black/sheer tights and soap. i refuse to smell for a year for the sake of my moral fibre.

3. charity/second/hand/vintage shops. i suppose the 'high street' aspect i'm getting at consists of the big guns, arcadia, department stores, and anything else found in the shiny halls of consumerism in town centres. but this need not include shopping second hand.

ok, so i do most of my shopping in this environment already. which to some might suggest i'm not taking this challenge seriously. it's what you're thinking, isn't it? well you're wrong, because despite this get out clause, i'm going to limit spending in these environments to a frighteningly low £20 a month. why? why the hell not.

4. work clothes. cv and interview success willing, i plan on spending some, most, or all of this time in work. where a uniform isn't needed, i'll be after something to wear for this. i think, with all reasonableness, that this should be another exception, particularly where strict rules apply. for the purposes of clarification, i'm allowed a white shirt, a work skirt and work trousers, one of each, twice in the year. and only if i'm employed.

5. a new phone. for november onwards only.

so that's it. goodbye high street indeed. watch as i fail spectacularly in week three!