Here comes the sun

It’s the end of week two of not so small daughter’s trip to Nepal and my stay-at-home holiday (I’m not a fan of the word “staycation”) and it’s been lovely.  The sun shone and I sat outside under an umbrella for most of yesterday, and I really appreciated it.  We didn’t hear from not so small daughter for a couple of days as she was trekking up Poon Hill and there was limited WiFi (although it’s been surprising how much of it there has been for her to use) and I think the off-grid break has done her good.

By the time I remembered to ask her to take a photo of her hand knitted socks in the mountains, they were back in Pokhara and the trek was over, but she did manage to send me a couple of photos to show you …

I’m not entirely sure where she was here, other than it being one of the accommodations that they stayed in, and I don’t have permission to share the friend’s photo which is why they are blurred out.  Not so small daughter is the one with her leg in the air, wearing her brightly coloured pants that she haggled for in the market and a rainbow-striped hand knitted sock, which is actually one of the first pairs that I ever made for her.  The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley DK in shade Sherbet Fizz, both long since discontinued and now the ColourLab DK Sock replaces it.

She took a second photo for me when they were on the plane from Pokhara to Kathmandu (they flew with Buddha Air which amused us no end) and apparently this is “the most cramped plane ever”, but I am sure that the short flight was a definite improvement on the 5 hour bus journey they took to Pokhara last week!  This is one of her ColourLab Sock pairs – this is the Soul colourway.

I am very happy that she has worn them, and in all of the texts that we’ve had (updates on the weather, leeches, lots of appreciation for the food, how many stairs were involved on the trek and dancing with the locals), not one of them has said that she has had sore feet so I am confident that the boots and the socks have done their job!

My job this week has been to continue doing as little as possible.  Honestly, I can’t tell you how hard it has been to not do anything, but at the same time, I’ve not really had the inclination to do much either so I took that as a sign that I still needed to be on holiday.  If I’d gone somewhere on a plane for two weeks, I wouldn’t be feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing any jobs so I have had to remind myself of that!  It’s been a long time since I had two weeks off and I feel like I have really needed it.

My week has been pretty similar to last week – sitting, knitting and listening to podcasts.  If I’ve listened to them previously, it has tended to be when I’m in the car or doing something else as I think of them as a type of radio programme (I’ve never really got into video podcasts) and it’s made a nice change to listen to something that isn’t the radio, or feel like I have to sit and watch TV to make myself not get up and do something else, as I often have to do with deadline knitting.  Are you a podcast listener?  What sort of things do you like?  There’s no shortage of choice, is there?

Last week, I mentioned that I had started a Polkacats jumper and after a bit of a struggle to work out the pattern instructions and then a wrongly chosen contrast colour, I was just about to dive into my West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply leftovers.  I wanted to try to make a colour palette out of the colours that I had that would work and my tired brain just would not do it.  I found myself getting in a right knot over it, even up to the point where I was about to abandon the whole thing, and then I realised that what I really wanted to do was use all the colours.  I didn’t want a carefully curated palette, I wanted a joyful rainbow, and that’s what I’ve done.

I had a bit of help when I re-started with the new colours … I found it easier to work the first bit on straight needles and somebody was very interested in how they worked.  She was removed right after this photo as her style of knitting was more enthusiastic than necessary or helpful!

She went back to her surveillance point on top of the kitchen cupboards – she doesn’t half make me jump when I see her up there out of the corner of my eye!

Progress was quite steady after that point …

and then I got to the next chart in the pattern which absolutely didn’t match what was on my needles, but I have realised that the pattern numbers are right so as long as I make sure that I match those, I can work the cats to stay in line with what I have knitted already.

Here’s where I got up to yesterday in the sunshine …

Oh, those joyful stripes!  It’s making me very happy to pull a colour from the pile and see how it fits with the cats in the previous row without needing to give it any additional thought.  I’m just about to divide for the arms here; I’ve done that now and worked another cat row so there’s been a bit more progress but I’ll show you that next time.  Oh, and if you’re tempted to try the pattern out for yourself, I’ve been making notes on my Ravelry project page (Ravelry link) in case you get stuck like I did!

I’m surprised I got as much knitting done as I did yesterday as I spent ages watching the swallows on the overhead lines.  Ever since we’ve lived here, I thought these were house martins but big daughter has told me about a free phone app called Merlin which identifies birdsong (it’s a bit like the music-identifying app Shazam for birds) and now I know that they are swallows and not house martins!  It’s very clever, it listens to the birds around you and then gives you a list of what they are.  The current singer is highlighted in yellow, and you can see here that the app also hear a goldfinch and a great tit, neither of which I would have recognised without help.

So, armed with the knowledge that I was looking at swallows and not house martins, I had a lovely time watching the parents feeding the baby birds which were lined up on the wires.

The parent bird is on the left, you can see the long forked tail, and the babies are next to it.

At first, there were just these four birds with the parents wheeling back and forwards with food for them …

It was really interesting that they took in turns to feed the young so that they both got something (it was the two lower birds that were being fed) …

but by the time I was ready to go indoors to start dinner, there were lots more of them up on the wires.  This number will get bigger until there will be something like twenty or thirty birds on the wires – and then they’ll be gone, off to sunnier climes for the winter.  It feels like such a privilege to see them when they’re here.

I saw something else that I hadn’t seen before yesterday, hidden away at the bottom of the garden …

I’ve had to look it up, it’s called a Dryad’s Saddle and you can eat them if you find them early enough, apparently.  The only type of mushrooms that I eat are the ones that come from the supermarket or in my veg box so that I know I’m not about to poison myself, but it’s quite exciting to see it!  A dryad is a mythical wood nymph and I like the idea that there may be one at the bottom of the garden 🙂

It’s been quite a photo-heavy post so far but before I let you carry on with your Saturday, I’m going to show you some last photos of last night’s dog walk.  It was way too hot for the dog yesterday – even at 10am it was 22 degrees C and he didn’t want to go outside – so we waited until quite late and then walked to the fields where he likes to be off his lead and have a sniff for a short while.  He was a very happy boy now that it was cooler!

What can you see in the clouds?  A dragon?  A phoenix, or a leaping horse, perhaps?  I like to make shapes out of the clouds.  They were really high last night with “mare’s tails” which are a sign of a good day to come, and it’s certainly warm and dry today although not as sunny.

It’s been lovely to chat to you!  I’m going back outside now, taking my knitting and my brew, and I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your day.  See you next week! xx