Technology versus knitting

As part of our broadband upgrade after the lightning strike a couple of weeks ago, we decided to upgrade to BT Vision, the box was only £28 and it came with a new free hub. I had it in my mind that our old hub (which got fried) cost something like £80. I thought a replacement would be at least £100. Bargain!

The new box arrived on Friday but  I reserved Sunday morning to setting it up. It says on the box that it takes 30 mins, well, they are talking out of their arses um ... they are lying toads hmmm.... they were telling a teeny fib there cos I started at around 10.30 am and finally finished at 5pm!

When I'd finished and it was all set up and working, I did get a happy feeling of accomplishment ... but BT Vision squashed my picture and fuzzed it up; everyone looked like they were hugely overweight and blurry.  Changing the aspect ratio on the TV solved the overweight bit but I had black lines down the side and I was a bit cross about not getting the full quota of inches of widescreen TV that I paid for about eighteen months ago.

It could just be the old equipment that we have to receive TV pictures, we are trying to cram 21st century technology into a 19th century house. I doubt the aerial and cabling have been changed since television were invented! These problems may be easily resolvable but not by me, I feel I've wasted enough time on it. The advantages of BT Vision such as pausing, rewinding and recording live TV are far outweighed by the disadvantages; it's all been unplugged and we have gone back to normal fuzz-free Freeview.

I had all day on Monday to forget about my stressful Sunday. We attended a 40th birthday party for sister Sharon's fiance, Martin.  We had a lovely time, lots of great food, most of his family and ours were there. Martin seemed quite overcome (bless him) with his present. We all clubbed together to send him to Rome for 5 days and 4 nights, Sharon is going with him (but she paid for herself!) He said he has always wanted to go.

Today I've been back at work making beads (yes, she came back!) and this evening I will be taking solace in doing a nice bit of knitting and having happy thoughts about how nice it is that the knitting needles I have had for forty twenty-odd years don't need upgrading, repairing or a software download. They are fully compatible with every kind of yarn that has ever been invented in the intervening time and have never needed a reboot - I just love knitting!

I've just finished this pair of Bouquet socks from Wendy Johnson's Toe-Up Socks for Everybody.

This is a lightweight scarf for Autumn which is being knitted in a lovely 2ply lace yarn with a lovely sheen that glams it up a bit. I've only got a few more inches to knit on this so it's nearly finished.

Final picture - this is a mutli-coloured blanket I'm knitting for Missy's basket using up various left over balls of sock yarn. Can you believe that I actually removed some balls from the selection I made because I thought they clashed a bit ... :-)

The only other UFO I have on the go is a black cobweb weight lace shawl I started about a year ago; I am about a quarter of the way through the border on that one.