Just an ordinary Friday!

I’ve given this week’s post that title because for the last few weeks, it’s been the Winter Haven KAL (knit-along) for 2025 and the Friday posts have been all about cosy knitting spaces and what’s on and off needles.  It’s been brilliant and I always find the first post after the KAL quite difficult to write because my head has been in that space for the last five weeks!

Anyway, how are you doing?  It’s Valentine’s Day so I’m sending lots of love out to you – I think it’s a day to send and receive all the love!  I hope everything is well in your world and you are neither too hot nor too cold, too wet nor too dry, and safe wherever you are and whoever you are with.  There’s been a lot of news on the TV and radio recently about all kinds of stuff that doesn’t feel safe at all, and it can make you feel quite on edge if you consume too much of it.  I try to remember that the media rarely shows or talks about good news, and that most of what’s in newspapers is the journalist’s opinion … and my Mum’s instruction for the TV when it all gets a bit too much: “There’s always an off switch”! 🙂

So, what have I been up to over the last few weeks, apart from the Winter Haven KAL?  I’m sure I’ve been doing plenty as I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow at night, but I’ve come to look in my camera roll today and it’s a bit thin on the ground with photos to show you!  I did find some, though, that I hope will make you smile … ready?

I decided (after watching a reel on Instagram that made me laugh so much I nearly fell my chair) that I would buy Astrid and Hattie a running wheel.  The reel that I was watching was of a cat that was pretending that it couldn’t use the wheel without assistance from its owner – and then a night time camera showed that the cat knew perfectly well how to use it and was running like a racehorse!  If you’ve never seen a cat running wheel before, it looks like a giant hamster wheel (because cats are much bigger than hamsters).

Here is Astrid demonstrating how to use it just after I’d put it together …

I did suggest to her that she needed to make the wheel move for it to work, but she said that was too hard.

Hattie said she’d show her how it’s done …

But she didn’t really have the idea either!

The dog said he couldn’t be bothered with any of it, and not to even think about a dog running wheel! 🙂

I’ve been encouraging Astrid to run on the wheel every night, even if just a few steps, in the hope that she’ll get the idea and use it when I’m not looking.  We’ve still never got to the bottom of her allergies but they do seem to be under control with the food she’s eating – although she’s put quite a bit of weight on!  The vet said that’s quite usual with cats that eat dry food all the time and ideally, I would want to move her off that but everything we’ve tried so far has resulted in another sore patch on her head.  She’s currently eating an egg and insect hypoallergenic food (and not even the UK-branded all-insect one the vet said we could try instead as that didn’t suit her either) and I nearly bought some cans of wet insect food – but then backed out because it comes from Germany, it’s expensive, and I wasn’t going to eat it myself if Astrid turned her nose up at it.  We seem to be stuck with the dry food we’ve got for now, so we’ve got cat fountains around the house to encourage lots of drinking (both cats drink more from a fountain than they ever did from a dish) and hence my attempts to increase the amount of exercise our stay at home cat does.  I will let you know if she ever gets the hang of it if I see her!

 

The beginning of this month saw the Chinese New Year and it was time for me to change over my Feng Shui remedies.  Feng Shui has fascinated me for years so I decided to do a course last year and learn a bit more about it.  It’s a way of aligning the energies in your home, although I have learnt that it’s also about changing your own thoughts – honestly, if the mental baggage I’ve offloaded over the last few years was real, I’d probably have used up most of the space in a landfill site on my own by now! 🙂  Is it actually something that works, or does it only work if you believe in it?  Well, we could ask that about so many things, particularly to do with healing and energy, and I actually don’t think it matters – I’ve noticed something different about all kinds of things, and especially to do with relationships and my own sense of self, and that’s enough.  I don’t need to know if there is an exact measurement as to what created that change, only that I like the difference better!  Or as a friend put it, when we were talking about it, “If your weird sh*t works for you, that’s all you need!”  Indeed!

And now, to make you smile, here’s what my weird sh*t had me doing this weekend … hiding all this metal around the house! I found quite a bit of it on Facebook Marketplace, and some more of it came from the centre baskets of joy at a certain German supermarket – and now it’s all disappeared again!

It’s actually quite surprising how easily you can hide all of this around the house, and some of it in plain sight too, without anyone noticing!  I don’t know that there’s any measurable way to say with conviction what this metal may change within our four walls over the year, but I do know that two people who were moving house and needed to sell some metal weights now have a bit less to take with them, so that’s got to be a change for the better for a start! 🙂

 

What else have I been up to?  Oh yes, I have been mixing concrete and levelling the garage floor …

There was an inspection pit in the floor when we moved in – a big hole about 6 ft deep from when people used to be able to do their own car repairs – but it always gave me the creeps in case I or one of the girls fell in, as we wouldn’t be able to get out.  When we had an extension built years ago, I asked the builders to fill the hole in for us, which they did – but they didn’t level it off.  I put laminate floor over it and didn’t think too much about it, but when we had a flood in the garage and the laminate floor got damaged and we had to pull it up, I decided to take the opportunity to level the floor off properly.  Mr Next Door is a builder and he very kindly helped me to patch up the bigger holes, and then gave me some advice on self-levelling concrete.  My advice to you is that if you are going to mix a 25kg bag of self-levelling concrete in a bucket with only a 6 inch piece of kindling to use as a stirrer, it’s going to take quite a while and you will probably need a nap afterwards – take it from one who knows! 🙂

The concrete is dry now and I have say, I’m very pleased with myself!  It’s nice and flat, no unexpected dips or holes – Mr Next Door took a quick look earlier in the week when he came to retrieve the bucket and plastering float he’d lent me (look at me, with my technical terms!) and he said, “That looks very good, you’ve done a good job there!” and I took that as praise indeed – but I’m not in a rush to mix any more concrete with a 6 inch piece of kindling any time soon!

 

The dog and I were out yesterday and I took him a different way for a change.  This tree caught my eye on the way back – you don’t see the branches the same once the leaves are on the trees, but this tree just seemed so busy with all of its branches and I don’t know that you can see so well from the photo, but it looked smooth too, and I liked it.

I really need to let you get on with your day, but before I go, let me show you what’s on my needles.

Not so small daughter’s pair of Film Reel socks are nearly finished …

And can you see what I’ve done?

I wasn’t concentrating when I re-joined the yarn after the heel and the film strips for the feet are different colours.  Oh my goodness, as soon as I noticed, I could feel my teeth start to itch!  It was all I could do not to rip it out IMMEDIATELY, but I know that not so small daughter likes to wear odd socks so I thought I would consult her first.  We agreed that they would match on the leg when she’s wearing her shoes, but only she would know that she had mismatched socks when she had her Docs on (oh yes, totally embracing the student look! 🙂 ), and that would be something a bit different – and I wouldn’t need to do any re-knitting.  Although I will have to not look at the socks too much when they’re finished! 🤣

And that, my friends, is why I knit socks for my family.  They get me – and my socks! ❤️

 

I’ve still got another pair of Film Reel Socks to finish but I’m about to cast on a plain pair in John Arbon Exmoor Sock because I’ve not had an Emergency Sock on the needles for a while and I feel that could be a mistake.  I don’t want to get caught out being stuck somewhere without a sock to knit!  (If you’re new to the blog, Emergency Socks are a pair of easy-knit socks that you can take out and about with you for when you have to wait somewhere – appointments, after school classes, traffic queues but only if you’re stationery … Optional extras in your Emergency Socks project bag include an Emergency Snack, Emergency Chocolate and possibly even an Emergency Drink, but it depends on how big your project bag is!).

The lovely people at John Arbon sent me this to try out when they added some new colours to their range.  This bright red colour is called Peggles and the word does mean something, but I can’t remember what – puddles?  I’ll have to look it up, I’m sure they told me at the time!  It’s a blend of 60% Exmoor Blueface, 20% Corriedale, 10% Zwartbles and 10% nylon so it feels more like a no-nylon yarn but has the nylon in there for the strength.  I’m really looking forward to knitting with this!

Anyway, this yarn is going to be a pair of socks for my husband who is still waiting for his green and yellow striped socks to be finished, because I was going to write a tutorial about the stripes and haven’t done that yet.  I thought I would distract him by knitting him some red socks instead … plus, I get to try out this yarn which has been in my stash for a while but I’ve never had time to use.  I’ve got some even older John Arbon Exmoor Sock in my stash that was from before they improved the “recipe” so it’s about time I got some of it onto feet!

 

One last thing if you’re in the UK – we’re coming up to the end of our tax year in April, and it’s worth checking that your National Insurance contributions are up to date, especially if you’re aged 40-70. This is what’s going to determine how much state pension you get – and we all need as much of that as we can have, even if it’s only going to be used to top up our yarn stash! 🤣

This video is really helpful for explaining why and how to do that – it’s not a sales pitch, so don’t worry, although he does give his business info under the video – you can choose to ignore that, though, what’s important is the info in the video!  I shared this in the Winwick Mum Knit n Natter Facebook group yesterday and quite a few people said that it’s worth checking out the Money Saving Expert website about this (as mentioned in the video), and also phoning HMRC if you think you may have been contracted out at any time.

 

And that’s me for today – just an ordinary Friday with ordinary stuff from the week.  Well, maybe not quite so ordinary but that’s what the blog is all about, isn’t it – looking for the extraordinary in the everyday.  See you next week! xx