To Nottingjam

I’m woken at 3.30am by a painful muscle spasm. That’s the trouble with getting older, nothing works as well as it used to. I wonder if any of the other people attending tonight’s concert are awake. Later we will be headed for the Rescue Rooms to see Justin Currie. In this way we are all connected, the threads of our lives will, by tonight, be collectively interwoven into a blanket of heads and cameras for our lord and master to strut and fret over.

The torment in my leg subsides as quickly as its arrival but the muscle nervously remembers. Other parts of my body are tensed, poised for a repetition. It seems hours before slumber returns.

The day passes. I check Facebreak every so often for Justin’s latest blog entry, he’s put one up nearly every day of this tour. “To Preston” hasn’t put in an appearance yet. 

I do some exercises the physio gave me to try to stop the muscle spasms. From the bedroom floor, I notice a ceiling beam looks like a guillotine threateningly pointed straight at my neck. I shift out of its way to get on with some ironing. As the creases are exterminated, I listen forlornly to Lower Reaches. When we saw JC and the Pallbearers in May, they only did one song from it. A recent interview reveals his friends didn’t like it. Fools. It is dark and deep, savage and furious. Recorded out of his usual comfort zone, the percussion sounds crisper; perhaps his friends are all drummers. I edit each song against my own life story, metaphors dodge out of reach, signifying everything and nothing. 

Last time MTM and I travelled the hour’s drive to Nottingjam, we had tickets to see a band at the Bodega. The city’s roads have been abused and bullied into one way systems to make way for trams. Everything we thought we knew about the place was gone, routes blocked by No Entry signs. Our usual car park was full. Unable to find our way to a car park near the venue and running out of time and patience, a fourth ride around the merry go round we were squeezed into broke our resolve; with a howl of frustration we retreated with our tickets unused. 

It will be worse this time, yet more redevelopment has permanently closed the Broadmarsh car park. Failure to make the venue this time Is . Not . An . Option.  This is Justin Currie and I must see him.

This time we have a strategy, car parking has been identified close to the venue and advance parking buys our peace of mind. Middle aged couple with a plan, make way you there, we have a VIP reservation. 

Last of the tomatoes as Autumn closes in

Tomorrow I'm thinking I will mainly be making pasta arrabiata sauce for freezing and green tomato chutney.

We had loads of cherry tomatoes out of the greenhouse from July onwards, a fair few of the middling sized ones, not so many of the beefsteak ones but I will sow them (even) earlier next year so they ripen before summer's end. Today, I've taken the day off to clear the plants away ready for winter and these are all the leftovers.

Cucumbers were a bust, I only got three or four thanks to red spider mite decimating the plants. I have a new strategy planned against them for next year.

Autumn makes me restless, if you look at my CV over my adult lifetime and I always change jobs between now and Christmas. Must be all the windy weather blowing the old summer away.

Crocheted shadow blanket

This year's big blanket project has been to devise a shadow blanket. I saw some really lovely sewn quilts made out of coloured squares that had the illusion of floating above a neutral background. This inspired me to to see if I could make a crocheted version. This is what I ended up with. I made loads of granny square style squares with a dark grey shadow line along two of the sides. On the flat bits of the bed, the squares do appear to be floating above the silver base colour. I love it when a plan comes together!

Here's a close up of the border.

And another showing the join. The way I joined meant it was a trifle off centre in the middle of each intersection. This slightly irks the obsessive perfectionist bit of my brain. On the other hand, overall the effect works and I have a splendid blanket. B-u-u-u-ut ... I think it could be even better without the ridge of the joining stitch.

The above used Stylecraft Special DK in a variety of colours, just leave a message if you'd like to know which colours; I wrote them down somewhere so I will dig it out. I also know how much yarn each stage took so I can give the amount of yarn needed, I just have to get round to doing the maths. Overall it weighs 2,200g. 

I have decided to make another one with a different join and with a restricted colour pallet. I will be sharing how to make all the various bits here on my blog as I go so if anyone else would like the pattern, just follow along!