Craptastic Year Continues

I have not liked this year.

It started with visiting lots of hospitals with Neil, I got lots of knitting done while he had MRI
scans. I learnt of lots of ways he could die, I stressed, ate a lot and, if truth be told cant really remember much of what happened for the first half of the year.

He is now recovered, his energy levels are getting better and the 'sleeping sickness' is reducing.

One good thing that happened is that we got chickens, they are lovely ladies, we get at least one egg a day, sometimes all three laid, sometimes Dolly gives us a double yolker.

Then Mollie, my dear ex neighbour became ill. She was great, we used to giggle a lot. Even though she was forty years older than me she phoned me up to check that I was ok if she didn't see me for a few days. When she looked after the cats when I was away I always came home to a clean kitchen floor. I will miss her a lot, especially when we do something silly.

My boy has been ill for a while, he had thyroid problems (which is what his brother had).

This morning I made one of the worst phone calls I've ever had to. The vet was great.

He is now at peace.

It is going to be strange not having a him around. He had a good long life, 15 years of catty fun.

Hospital Visit

Today we went to Frenchay to discuss the latest set of scans. We had to be there for 9am, so left early when we were ready before 7. I have never got to Bristol so quickly (and we weren't travelling above the speed limit). At 8.10 there was not a lot open at the hospital, luckily the unit was open even if the coffee shop didn't open until 9.30.

The result of the consultation is better than we thought, there are no further tumours, one vertebra is very thin so bloke doesn't know how much metal he can attach to it, might have to use some wire ... think it is the second one down so he should be able to attach stuff to the ones either side.
Artery to head pushed out of the way by 2cm, if damaged could have large stroke.

Think op could be in next few weeks, maybe on a Thursday (cant be on Monday as bloke has a bbq!)
Secretary should be phoning us in next few days.

Neil thinks it might be time to pack a bag... he will have reduced movement in his neck still be able to nod but limited sideways movement.

And now for some knitting:

I have eventually finished Evenstar shawl.
The beading is heavy, the graft in pattern is not as pretty as I would like, but the horseman might not notice...









Here it is blocking in the sun on the newish decking. Knitted in a hand dyed silk that I had in stash for ages. I thought there was enough of the huge ball to complete the shawl, but I was wrong, so I dyed up two slightly different colours, one for the last clue and one for the edging.

It is 54 inches diameter...





And I had a helper telling me what to do...

Now I need to go and find a bag to pack...

Meeting of minds

These were taken last week ....

It is the cat's garden

The dog just visits...















Trig was having a good explore....

But had a problem when he came back up from what is meant to be the veggie plot....















Eventually they realised that they could get past each other with a bit of moving about...











Then the cat had to go and see what was now the bottom of the garden...












And then the stand off continued...

If only they had been so good today !

We had hisses (at me & the dog)
And growls at everyone...

And the odd claw shown in anger...











Thanks to everyone for their good wishes.

And if you are curious about what the bloke looks like - here is a photo taken today....

I've got an exciting end to week - I'm getting one of these on Friday on the way up to Liverpool for the weekend...

And the spinning is going well - I've nearly finished spinning up the batt I got from Winghams at Skipnorth....

Knitting is on a bit of a slow at the moment, but hopefully when the batt is done the clicking will start...

Wednesday Weeds

I forgot to take my camera out earlier, and I'm not going to sneeze my way down to the river now...

But I thought I would share a plant growing by my front door.. for some idea of scale the top of the porch must be about 8 foot from the foot of the plant...











And an arty shot looking upwards.

I was going to pull it up but then I thought I might see how high it would grow ( I think it is cow parsley, but I've never seen it so tall...)












And I've got a guard cat, sitting one side of the door. His brother likes to sit in the middle of the door way. This is fat cat, his sickly brother is getting better - another trip to the vets this week for more blood tests. I'm hoping that his thyroid levels will be more normal, his weight is definitely improving...

The weekend was fun filled, lots of people to talk to about all sort of things - Several people wanted to buy Granny's Blanket and some of my shawls... It was a very posh show and the fashions were brilliant to look at.

There has been a little bit of knitting this week, but most of my time has been taken up washing a jacob fleece that I came home with and catching up on sleep ;-)