Ramblings

Lurgy

 I'm so tired.  I'm carrying some sort of cold bug that just won't go beyond the first few, throaty symptoms.  I'll feel rough for a few hours and then it eases back for a while.   This has been going on for over a week.

Last Monday, my throat was so swollen, I skipped rehearsal and went to bed early.  Gradually felt better on Tuesday, rough on Wednesday and OK by Friday.  This Monday, I spent most of the day with a splitting headache, partially masked by painkillers.  Couldn't miss another rehearsal, but felt more and more knackered as the evening wore on.  I yawned my way home, went to bed fairly quickly and promptly woke up at 4am.  Couldn't get back to sleep.   Felt like a zombie for a large part of yesterday then, at 3pm, my Commercial Director bought me a cappacino.  The caffeine kicked in around 5 and didn't wear off until  midnight.  Today, I was woken by the rain but felt human until just before I left work.

Right now, I'm peering at the computer, feeling slightly feverish with a sore throat.  I haven't had an on-off, dragged-out illness-in-stages like this since the winter before I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism.  I just wish the damn thing would either develop or go.  I'm sick of it.

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Channel 4

Last night, I watched 27 Dresses on E4 (one of the TV stations controlled by Channel 4).  Good film.  Very funny. Cute leading man, James Marsden.  Almost totally ruined by Channel 4's insistence that they insert 5 advertisements every 10 minutes, cutting scenes in the middle, without sensitivity to the story line.  They do it by the clock.  You can set your watch by it.

I hate Channel 4 for this!  I remember the night they totally ruined The Elephant Man.   They don't care about the film or their audience, just about their advertising revenue.  I rarely watch programs on Channel 4 - wonder why?

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Eye Candy

 Talking about James Marsden, I spent a considerable part of the film thinking he looks a lot like the poster-boy of English cricket, Alistair Cook.

 Alistair, when you cricket career finishes, I hope Hollywood comes calling.

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Toying with an idea - PipneyJane's Wartime Experiment


World War 2 is back on our screens in the form of the Wartime Farm on the BBC.  The thread discussing it on MSE got me thinking.  Five years ago, Thriftlady did a ration book challenge - feeding her family for (I think) 2 weeks on the same quantity of rations they'd have got in 1942.  Could we do something similar?  Who would be willing to pretend it's September 1939 again? War has just been declared and rationing is imminent.

These are the ration quantities per person, per week:-
Meat –this was rationed in money not by weight but it was roughly equivalent to 12 oz mince/stewing steak. Chicken was scarce. Offal and sausages were not rationed but hard to get. Wild game such as rabbit was not rationed.
Milk - 3 pints
Sugar ½ lb
Butter – 2 oz
Margarine – 4 oz (for this challenge can up the butter ration to 6 oz instead of using margarine)
Cooking fat (dripping/lard) – 3 oz (for this challenge can substitute up to 3 fl oz oil)
Cheese (English hard cheese) – 3 oz
Bacon and ham - 4 oz (or have an extra 4oz of meat instead)
Eggs - 1 Dried egg -¼ packet (equivalent to 3 eggs so use 3 eggs)
Sweets and chocolate - 2 oz
Jam- 3 oz Tea - 2 oz (18 teabags) (need an equivalent for coffee)
There was a points system - 16 per person per month – which allowed you to buy tinned goods, orange juice, cereals, rice and pulses. Off ration were: bread (finally rationed in 1947), potatoes, oats, fresh fish, and homegrown fruit and veg.

As to the rules for the game, so far, I've come up with these:-

• All mod-cons are allowed if you already own them (freezers, food processors, microwaves, etc). 
• You don't have to buy a whole week's ration every week.  If you routinely only shop once a month, then buy a month's worth then.
• You can eat out of the freezer or the pantry but limit your weekly quantities to those of the ration.
• You can stockpile a week's ration, but you can't spend one in advance, i.e. you can save up your chocolate ration for several weeks in order to purchase the chocolate needed to make coconut rough for Easter.
• You don't have to eat wartime recipes, just adapt what you normally eat to fit the restrictions of the rations.  (However, the various recipe collections such as Marguerite Patten's Victory Cookbook are a very good resource if you need ideas.)
• Petrol/gasoline rations.  Since I'm dependent on a car for work, I was thinking 1 tank of fuel per car per week.
• Clothing rations.  How about throwing in a Fashion on the Ration challenge as well?  The 1941 clothing ration was 66 coupons. (Yarn and fabric already owned doesn't count towards your ration.) This is what your coupons could buy according to Fashion Era:-

Item Of Clothing	Women	Girls
Lined mackintosh or coat over 28"	14	11
Under 28" short coat or jacket	11	8
Frock, gown or dress of wool	11	8
Frock, gown or dress of other fabric	7	5
Bodice with girls skirt or gym tunic	8	6
Pyjamas	8	6
Divided skirt or skirt	7	5
Nightdress	6	5
Dungarees or overalls	6	4
Blouse, shirt, sports top, cardigan or jumper	5	3
Pair of slippers, boots or shoes	5	3
Other garments including corsets	5	2
Petticoat or slip, cami knickers or combinations	4	3
Apron or pinafore	3	2
Scarf, gloves, mittens or muff	2	2
Stockings per pair	2	1
Ankle socks per pair	1	1
1 yard wool cloth 36"wide	3	3
2 ounces of wool knitting yarn	1	1

I'm still not sure I'll go through with this.

- Pam

Mean Girls

(I have been stewing over this for the best part of 10 months.  I think sufficient time has elapsed, now, to tell you all about it.)

Just before Christmas, I met up with a group of girlfriends for our annual Christmas Night Out. We are a group of five successful women in our forties. I was late and flustered (got held up in traffic) but within five minutes of my arriving, it turned into the female equivalent of a pissing contest. One woman (I'll call her TopDog) had to be better/a bigger martyre/a saint/more successful/bigger-spender than the rest of us. Whatever it was about TopDog had to win the comparison contest. My favourite episode from that evening was not long after I arrived, when the others were commisserating with me about my journey: TopDog announced that she'd had the furthest to travel to get to the restaurant, which was blatently untrue. "No you haven't", I responded, "I've just driven in from Reading, which is 40 miles away. You've only come 20 miles". If looks could kill, I'd be pushing up daisies.


The evening deteriorated from that point onwards, with TopDog demanding admiration and to be the centre of attention at every turn, making more and more outlandish comments just to get a rise out of people. (Seriously? Why else declare that your latest, uncircumcised partner was so much more sexually stimulating than your previous circumcised one simply because he has a foreskin? Who cares?) At one point, late in the evening, she even started a sentence irrelevantly with "Well, speaking as the only mother here....", which was designed to be a dig at me (several rounds of infertility treatment) and at another friend (I'll call her Placator) who is also not childless by choice. I demanded to know "And that means what exactly? What are you really saying?" and got no answer.

The worst part of the evening, though, was the half an hour TopDog laid into Placator bullying her, criticising her for her lack of love-life and for not wanting to date anything in sight. The rest of us sat there speachless. It was a horrible, nasty thing to do. We tried to change the subject and it kept coming back, time and again. I couldn't think of a thing to say to stop her. Eventually, one of the others said, "Friends don't try to "fix" friends," to which we all agreed and that finally changed the subject. (Honestly, I nearly accosted a total stranger in the Ladies Toilet to ask her what to do. I was at my wits end.)

I drove home that night fuming with anger. Still feel it now. In the morning, I sent Placator a text message apologising that I hadn't stood up to TopDog on her behalf. When TopDog sent out an email saying "That was fun! Must do it again!", I replied that I hadn't enjoyed the evening and that I though she owed Placator an apology for laying into her for half an hour. My exact words were:

Personally, I didn't have a good night. I didn't enjoy what I witnessed. You obviously have no idea how hurtful you were being last night. You laid into xxxx for nearly half an hour. In that entire time, I'm surprised she only came back at you with one snarky remark. And she immediately apologised for it. Sorry, but I think you owe her an apology. You need to learn when to stop.

The response can be summarised as: "F.... Off. And don't bother to contact me again.". At which point I congratulated myself for saving myself a Christmas card. When I talked to the others, the response I got was largely positive. It needed to be said. And I'm glad I won't have her in my life any longer. You know when someone is a good person and a good friend when go to their wedding/birthday/family celebrations and see how many of the people there have known them for years - looking back at the time I've known TopDog, she has virtually no long term friends other than the girls who were at that meal. Says a lot really.
 
My only regret is that I didn't tell TopDog to stop. I was brought up to believe that I should stand up for the defenceless and shouldn't stand by when someone-else is in trouble. And that includes standing up to bullies like TopDog.


Life is too short to worry about the TopDogs unless one is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of their attentions. I hope you have managed to escape such nastiness.

- Pam

Paralympics

It is not often that the sight of something reduces me to tears.  This did.

I haven't told you about the Paralympics.  We went for four sessions on four consecutive days:  Friday 31st August to Monday 3rd September.  Cycling, athletics, rowing and equestrian (dressage).  Four amazing days. Four fantastic venues. Several medal ceremonies.

It was the women's tandem cycling medal ceremony that did me in.  Earlier, we'd watched the final and the race-off for third place, and cheered and yelled and (probably) deafened the cyclists.  

 

 The results were put on the board.
 

The girls were presented with their medals.  We all stood to attention and faced the flags.

 

As one of the small contingent of Aussies in the audience, I sang my national anthem and, then, it happened. There I was, in the middle of singing Advance Australia Fair, tears streaming down my cheeks, trying not to sob.

We witnessed all sorts of greatness that day.  And on the next three days.  The triumph of the human spirit over adversity.  While the Olympic athletes are correctly feted as amazing, talented individuals; it's the Paralympians who are a step beyond.  They are the true heroes. 

In the Olympic Stadium on the Saturday night, we witnessed four world records fall and several Paralympic records, including Oscar Pistorius breaking his own world record in the T44 200m heats.

 The stadium was amazing, but there were so many events going on that it was hard to keep up.

Is it enough to say that we were there?  We were their witnesses?  

This was taken  at the rowing, when it was cold and wet, with that horizontal, floaty rain that only seems to exist in these islands and which the Irish call "soft weather".

We witnessed the heartbreak of a Spanish rower who, paralysed from the waist down and strapped into his boat, was leading his race by several lengths when the velcro on his strapping gave way, less than 100m from the finish.   Following frantic efforts to re-strap himself in, he came in third.

If the audience had had a choice, we would have given him a special gold medal for his heroism and courage.

How can I adequately describe the Paralympic Dressage?  We witnessed the Individuals Competition at the "Costa del Greenwich".  (It was so hot and sunny, my legs actually took on colour!) 

Against the most amazing backdrop, we witnessed miracles.  Men and women, often with limited - or no - muscle control below their waists, controlling huge horses by the touch of their fingers.  And making them dance.

Seriously, there were horsemen/horsewomen who were only upright because they used special saddles - bouncing around like a sack of potatoes whenever their horses trotted - often with limited movement in their hands and arms, and they made their horses dance by the sheer force of their willpower.  

They are the true heroes.  We, their audience, are not worthy to breath the same air.

Another Milestone

The Toy has something to show you.

Frugal Friday - Procrastination Costs Money

If there is one lesson to learn from watching athletes at the Olympics, it's to get off your behind and do rather than sit there and think about things, then over think about things, or put off thinking about them all together.  I am sure that every single competitor and potential competitor has had moments when the last thing they wanted to do was to go and train.  Whether it was having to get out of bed early and go out into the pouring rain, or having to go home early from a party so that they could compete in an event, every athlete will have had a moment when they gritted their teeth and did what they had to do rather than what they wanted to do.

That's the thing that sets them aside from the rest of us. The rest of us go "it'll keep" and put fun before obligation, usually to our detriment.  Or we procrastinate, trying to avoid the inevitable, possibly putting things off until just before a deadline or even missing the deadline completely.  Sound familiar?  Are you remembering essays left unwritten until the night before they were due to be handed in?  (Who hasn't done that?  Seriously, don't lie?)

So what does this have to do with frugality?  Our current house-and-contents insurance policy expires later this month so, on Wednesday, DH and I went online to Comparethemeerkat to find a replacement (and score another meerkat toy).   Last year, I'd thought about using a comparison website, but procrastinated and let the renewal date slip past.  To be honest, I saw the insurance renewal notice envelope, thought "must deal with that" then put it in a drawer and forgot about it. I'd never even looked to see what the payments would be.  (We paid monthly.)  When the first direct debit came out, I went ouch(!) because the payments had gone up by over 22%. 

Fast forward to this year.  This year, I opened the renewal notice and read the letter.  Another huge leap in insurance premiums.  The monthly payment was increasing by 30%.  We've never ever made a claim, not even when the kitchen roof was leaking.  A few minutes of our time - a few questions answered - and we've found a comparable policy for a much more reasonable price.  By acting, instead of procrastinating, our new insurance policy is £233.02 for the year instead of £1,100.74!  Yes, you saw that right.  The new policy cost 21% of the price of the renewal.

The moral of the story is:  be like an Olympian.  Don't procrastinate when renewal time comes around.  Don't assume that the insurance companies will act in your best interest and keep the price reasonable.  They've already got your business and consider you a captive audience to be milked.

- Pam

Recipe Tuesday - Chocolate Brownies

(Yes, I know the date stamp below says "Wednesday", but as I type this on Wednesday morning it is still Tuesday evening in California, so I figure this squeaks under the wire.)

Everywhere I've worked in the UK, it's traditional for the birthday girl/boy to bring cakes into the office to celebrate their birthday.  Breaking with the shop-bought norm, a couple of weeks ago I decided I'd bake chocolate brownies, which is what I took into the office on Monday.  They went down a treat!

In the end, I had to make two batches on Sunday.The first batch  were too gooey - our combi oven is on its last legs (we've ordered a replacement) and didn't hold its temperature well, so I got the timing wrong for it.   For the second batch, I used a proper oven - the fan oven on the stove - and they turned out perfectly.

Chocolate Brownie Recipe - makes 16 - 20

Ingredients:

110g dark chocolate  (I used 50% stuff from Lidl)

110g butter

225g self-raising flour (or 225g plain flour plus 2 teaspoons baking powder)

40g cocoa powder

275g soft dark muscovardo sugar

4 eggs, beaten

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a medium sized saucepan, over a low heat.  (Or use a large bowl suspended over a saucepan filled with boiling water.)
3. Stir in the sugar and keep stirring until combined.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the eggs.
5. Add the cocoa and flour (plus baking powder if using).  Whisk until all ingredients are combined and there are no lumps.
6. Line a large rectangular baking dish with silicon baking paper (I think mine is 30cm by 20cm and 2cm deep).  Pour in the mixture.  It may not spread all the way to the edge.  Don't worry about that.
7. Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes.  If you stick it with a knitting needle, the needle should be slightly sticky but not covered in goo.  Turn out onto a cake rack and allow to cool.
8. Once cool, cut into 16 or 20 squares.  Store in an airtight container.

Notes

Mixing - I mixed this by hand using a balloon whisk.

Flour - I used what I have in stock, which is wholemeal chapatti-bread flour and added baking powder.

Eggs - The second time I made this yesterday, I only had 3 eggs.  Turned out slightly stiffer and a fraction smaller but otherwise fine.

Time - takes 5 minutes to measure all the ingredients.  Another 5-10 minutes to melt the chocolate and butter and combine everything into a batter.

Doubling up - The first time I made this recipe, four months ago, I made a double quantity.  It works well but you get a lot of brownies.  

Enjoy!

- Pam

Yarn Lust

Do you know something? I think the yarn-lust has finally worn off. I think I've finally reached saturation point. With the stash all in one place, where I can see it in all its glory, yarn shops don't have quite the pull on me that they used to. If I'm near one, I'll still have a browse but there isn't that "Got to buy wool" that there was. Maybe it's because I have virtually all the yarn I need to make the projects in my mental To Knit List? That's not the same as my Ravelry Queue - a lot of my Ravelry Queue is taken up with trying to find patterns to fit the yarns that I already have in stock, not the other way around. In fact, there are only two projects on my To Knit List for which I don't currently have yarn. The first is a Rowan Kid Silk Creation scarf (photo lifted from their website):

To be honest, while I'm still tossing up between the grey ("smoke") or the cream, I'm gradually going off the idea of knitting one at all.

The other item on my list is this big cosy winter jumper from the Australian Women's Weekly Best Ever Knitting Book, published in 1977:

I've wanted to make this one forever. It requires 1300 metres of 12-ply/chunky/bulky yarn to make the tunic and the hat. This is the pattern for which I wanted the Rowan Cocoon a couple of yarn diets years ago, but there's no rush. And there are readily available alternatives. Besides the Rowan, I could use Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky or Valley Yarns' Berkshire Bulky, both of which I can buy on-line from Webb's. Or I could use some of the Cleckheaton Country 12-ply, in black, that's already marinating in my stash. However, I don't think it'd give the right texture (the original yarn was an 8-ply/DK wool/mohair blend used double) and I'd envisaged the jumper in charcoal grey with the odd fleck of white mohair showing.

Oh, I felt a momentary stab, earlier in the week, when I heard that Reynolds Yarns had ceased trading due to the death of the owner - bye-bye Reynolds' Saucy cotton, Reynolds' Lopi and Lopi Lite - but it wore off pretty quickly.  There will be other yarns. Anyway, a quick browse of the Yarn Barn of Kansas website revealed that they've found an alternative supplier for Lopi and Lopi Lite - it appears they're buying it directly from the mill - so if I want those yarns, I can still get them.  How sad that a yarn company can fold because there is nobody to take over from its driving force.
It's possible, too, that setting this year's yarn budget up front has had an effect. As I mentioned in an earlier post, £60 is not a lot of money yarn-wise and I didn't want to fritter it away. It's all gone now: £8.44 on acrylic for baby jackets; £7 on sock wool; £15.95 on 3 extra balls of the Sublime Organic DK in Tuille because I was running out; £37.45 on Ethical Twist from EBay and £4.70 (inc P&P) on some Robin Paintbox DK in "Patriot" (red, white and blue) that I used to crochet a patriotic tea cosy in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee:

The mathematically inclined will have worked out that the above totals more than £60 - it comes to £73.54. It was the Ethical Twist that pushed me over, but that was a case of "act now or never get to knit with it" (it's discontinued) and I purchased enough for a decent sized jumper. Just don't know what yet.

While I won't say "no" to gift yarn (it is my birthday tomorrow, after all), I'm really not fussed if I don't buy any more yarn this year. I have enough.

- Pam

Five Frugal Things

We've had guests staying, who were a bit surprised by some of the things I do automatically - not taken aback or grossed out, but surprised in the "Oooohhhh! That's a good idea! I never thought of doing that!" sense. These aren't big, headline frugal activities; rather, they're the little, every day things that save a penny here or a penny there and only cost a few seconds of time.

Since the internet is full of these things anyway, I thought I'd create a new meme: Five Frugal Things.  Feel free to copy the idea in your own blog.

Five Frugal Things I do Automatically

1. Set Asides. When I'm serving up dinner, I'll dish up our lunch-boxes at the same time as I do our meals. That way, lunch is taken care of and I can ensure that there is sufficient food for lunch if someone wants seconds.
2. Batch soaking and cooking dried beans and chickpeas. I have a pressure cooker; it takes virtually no more time to cook 1kg of kidney beans than it takes to cook 200g. I'll then bag, tag and freeze the excess.
3. Decant shampoo, conditioner, body wash and body lotion into pump action soap dispensers, so that you get standardised quantities each time you wash. This extended the life of a bottle of shampoo by more than double.
4. Using the bread-maker to bake bread. It takes 5 minutes to weigh out all the ingredients and costs less than 25p for a loaf of wholemeal bread. When I set up the bread-maker before going to bed on Monday night, my guests were a little stunned at how quick, easy and cheap it is. The bread was ready when we got up in the morning.
5. Washing and re-using bread bags/freezer bags. It takes me less than 30 seconds to wash out a bread bag when I'm doing the dishes (turn inside out, give a quick swish through clean-ish washing up water - scrubbing any sticky bits - and position over the cutlery drainer to dry). Re-using a plastic bag only saves me a fraction of a penny a time but they all add up. For food safety's sake, I do not re-use bags that have held raw meat or fish, although I do put those into a previously recycled bag that's looking like it's seen better days (that way, I can bin the bag afterwards with a clean conscience).

 What about you? What are your Five Frugal Things?

- Pam

Standing on the hallowed turf at Lords

It wasn't for cricket - let's face it, I'll never bat for Middlesex - but here's proof that I've stood on the outfield at the home of cricket.

Archery photos

Summer?

Ever the optimist: at the Olympic Archery at Lords, wearing sandals, trousers that convert to shorts, a strappy top, cardigan, leather jacket and a rain poncho.

Knitting at the Olympics

Tonight, my knitting witnessed Senegal beat Uruguay 2:0 at Wembley. In a few minutes we'll see Great Britain play the UAE - a great evening of football at the Olympics.

Olympic Fever

Did you watch the Opening Ceremony last night? We watched it from the start at 9pm to the finish at 1am.  What did you think?  Didn't Danny Boyle do us proud?  I thought it was brilliant!  Absolutely brilliant!  Nothing twee or cringe-making.  The segment when the LSO played Chariots Of Fire and Rowan Atkinson did Mr Bean had me in stitches.  (And I don't like Mr Bean.)  I also loved the sketch where "James Bond" turned up to escort the Queen to the Opening Ceremony.  It proves HMQ has a sense of fun.

When you think that most of the performers were volunteers, they should be really, really proud of themselves.  Professionals could not have done better.  The team of staff and patients(!) from Great Ormond Street Hospital were just amazing. Most of those children have chronic, long-term illnesses and here they were, centre stage at the biggest show on earth.  Their faces lit up the television screen.

Danny Boyle didn't shy away, either, from being subtly political.  The message "Hands off!  Leave our NHS alone!" came through loud and clear.  As did the statement about honouring our armed forces and our war dead.  And the tribute to the victims of 7/7.  What other opening ceremony has had the Secretary General of the United Nations as an active participant?    Messages received loud and clear, Mr Boyle.  Well done!  And thank you for making them.

My first Olympic event was actually on Tuesday, when I sang in the Torch Ceremony in Ealing.  The choir had to be there from 2pm for the sound check.  It was stiflingly hot. We were lucky, though - they gave us a spot under the trees, right beside the path for the torch.

 

 About two minutes later the cauldron was lit and we sang the closing number, appropriately called "Olympic Torch".  It was a medley of pop songs that finished, naturally, with "We are the Champions!".

 Sadly, the cauldron was extinguished within a couple of minutes of the end of the show, so I couldn't get a close up of it aflame.  Within 15 minutes, the crew had started to dismantle the stage, in order to move it to the venue for Wednesday night's show.  This is the best I could do:

My next Olympic event is tomorrow.  We have tickets to the men's football at Wembley.  As luck would have it, we get to see Team GB play.  Hope they do better than their opening match.  Tuesday, we will be at Lords for the archery and next Saturday (4th), we're back at Wembley for the men's football semi-final.  Sadly, we don't get to the Olympic Park proper until the para-Olympics, for which we have tickets to the athletics, cycling, equestrian events and the rowing.

- Pam

Sorry, Interweave Knits, but you lost me

Dear Interweave Knits

I am writing to tell you why, after a period of 6 years, I will not be renewing my subscription to Interweave Knits. It's definitely you, not me. The "new" layout that you've been using for the last couple of years is a total turn off. I lose the will to live while flipping through the pages to find your patterns and, when I do find them, they just look like more advertising. The patterns don't register in my mind. I can't remember a single occasion over the last year when I opened your magazine, saw something I liked, and thought "I want to knit that". More commonly I'll see something on Ravelry, look at the details and then be surprised that I didn't recognise it since it came from one of your recent editions.

This is the third layout you've had in the time I've been a subscriber. I cannot understand why you think regularly changing the layout is a good idea. You had a layout that worked just fine but you just couldn't stop messing with it, could you? Is it because, each time you get a new editor they have to put their own "branding" on the magazine, like CEOs who rebrand companies to make their mark? It makes no sense to me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! As well as your magazine, I've been a subscriber to Vogue Knitting for well over a decade and have copies dating back to the 1980's. Throughout that time, their layout has remained constant: advertisements and editorial at the front; followed by pattern stories; and then the pattern instructions. If consistency works for Vogue Knitting, why doesn't it work for you? It works for your sister magazines, Knitscene and Interweave Crochet, who have had the same layout for as long as I've known them.

The other thing I find annoying with you is that you do not include your regular "special issues" in your subscription price. Every year, you publish Interweave Knits Accessories and Interweave Knits Holiday Knitting - don't you think your regular, overseas subscribers would like to purchase them too? If we want a copy, we have to pay DOUBLE the cover price in P&P. It's not as if you don't know you're going to produce several special issues a year - given your lead times, you'd have to schedule them at least a year in advance - so why don't you include them in your subscription? (You used to do this with Knitscene but finally saw sense and created a separate subscription-type scheme.)

It's reached the point where I dread opening your magazines and your emails (Knitting Daily). That is not good.

Good-bye.

- Pam

Silence

Silence.  Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate odd moments of silence?  There is so much noise in our lives:  radio, television, the neighbours, traffic, stuff on MP3 players.  Sometimes, it is only when the noise stops that you can hear yourself think or listen to the wind in the trees or the birds in the garden.

Silence, is also relative.  In the background, right now, I can hear our new washing machine whooshing away quietly.  The last one shredded a bearing back in March and gradually got louder and louder on the spin cycle.  When I called him out, our marvelous washing-machine-repair-man told me that it wasn't worth fixing because the parts would cost almost as much as a new machine, but that we could run it until it died, which might take several months and be a bit messy at the end.  His solution to the noise was "Close the kitchen door".  (For his honesty and that call out, I paid £15.)

A week ago, we decided that enough was enough.  While it still worked, the old machine was deafeningly loud.  A quick trawl on the internet and two shop visits later, we'd bought an almost-like-for-like new machine:  7kg capacity; separate temperature control (so that you can run every wash on cold water - as we do - if you want that facility); handwash woolens cycle; everything mechanical, with no mother-board to go expensively wrong.

It arrived on Friday and was immediately plumbed in and tested.  It is so quiet.  For the first time in months, I can be in the kitchen during a spin cycle without risking hearing damage.  In fact, when a wash finished a few minutes ago, it took me a while to realise it had stopped!  It is that quiet.  Near silence is indeed appreciated.

- Pam