head full of fuzz

As demonstrated by the fact that I managed to post this on pigwotknits by mistake.

That's how I feel today. Not sure why. Too much caffeine? One too many anxiety dreams? I haven't exactly been sleeping well.

Not much else to report.
I wake up, I go to work, I go home, I eat, I knit, I sleep.

Except it's just been the weekend. Which was different.

Sorry, nothing sparkling to say today. I'm feeling a bit flat.

I did manage to find and stay on the A14 yesterday, so that's an achievement. The secret seems to be to remember not to be put off by the twists and turns and weird bifurcations and forget what the map looks like and the fact that usually when I'm on this section of road I'm going to Melton Mowbray and just follow the signs. Why this doesn't work in the dark, I have no idea.

Can I go home now?

I'm really a very good driver

I am. Ask Debbie. Ask Duton or anyone else who's been in my car. I'm a good driver and I have a pretty good sense of direction, in the city. So why on my way home from Sainsbury's last night did I end up in the wilds of the Cambridgeshire countryside, not entirely sure where I was? Why, when trying to find a new venue for my cell group a few weeks ago, did I find myself in a field, miles from civilization, surrounded by travellers?

In the country, it's a different story.

The Cambridgeshire countryside is very pretty. Flat fields stretching off into the distance, long straight stretches of road raised a few feet above the level of the surrounding ground, beautiful views with lines of trees marching off into the distance.

None of this is of any use whatsoever in the dark.

The other crucial point about Cambridgeshire roads is their casual approach to signposting. You're looking for a village, let's call it Groundwater. You come to a cross roads with a pretty fingerpost pointing you towards Groundwater, Ely and Cambridge. "Oh good," you think, and poddle along in the direction of Groundwater. You come to the next crossroads. There are directions to Ely, Cambridge, Watertree and Soggy Oak, but no directions to Groundwater. "Oh well," you think, and decide Groundwater must be in the opposite directions to Watertree and you'll go that way. Next crossroads, no directions whatsoever. "Oh dear," you think, "Perhaps I should turn round." You drive along the long, straight dark road with a 3 foot drop on either side desperately hoping for a side road or gate in which to turn round. Suddenly, with no warning, you see a turning to Groundwater and you have to brake abruptly and swing round the corner, sending everything on the back seat flying onto the floor of the car.

Then there's the A14. Me and the A14 have a difficult relationship. It looks like a very useful road, running roughly East-West across the North side of Cambridge. There aren't many East-West roads on that side of Cambridge, so it should be very useful for getting to places. Er, no. The A14 is elusive. Despite the fact that I can get on it a mile and a half from my door, I inevitably lose it again. Unless I'm trying to get on the M11. Otherwise I end up heading to Bedford or Ely or Newmarket when I wanted to go somewhere else entirely.

Perhaps it knows. Perhaps it's a conspiracy of country roads to send me and my bug hurtling back to the city where we belong. Perhaps the signposters of Cambridgeshire want me to be lost.

Perhaps I just need to look at the map more often.

I'm not dead

Just a bit busy.
Essay writing did beat knitting, so I didn't finish my Olympic cardigan.
Tuesday and Wednesday I was in London on a course on publicity and promotions which was very useful, if quite intense.

Today is a busy day at work since there's a big public lecture this evening, followed by a posh dinner and discussion. And I seem to need to be in about three places at once for most of the evening. I do get to eat yummy food though, so it's not all stressful.

hurrah for the weekend

This one contains knitting and an essay. And probably some other stuff. And the essay may trump the knitting.

Have a good weekend, whatever you do.

And just so there's something interesting for me to find on Monday morning, tell me your plans for the weekend. What exciting things does your life contain?

Gosh, I sound like a Radio 1 DJ. Sort of.

ta ta til then.

book meme

I'm a sucker for a book meme. This one came from Anne. As arbitrary as any other book list, but here you go.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger Currently re-reading this one. It's good.
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman Not sure whether I want to read this or not. I saw the first half of the National Theatre production and it rather put me off.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies – William Golding No, I still haven't read it.
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
1984 – George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling (family copy)
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez I started it once.
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
(The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini)
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer – William Gibson
(Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson)
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgesss
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis Well, technically it's a family copy.
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement – Ian McEwan
(The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herbert

I love radio co-op

It's so unexpectedly entertaining. I went into the Co-op on my way home last night to buy potatoes (it was cold and windy and I had a craving for sausage and mash with gravy). The tannoy system was playing Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc. Interesting, I thought. Then the song finished and I heard the unmistakable plinks of the beginning of Bjork's Venus as a Boy. A grin slowly crept across my face and I found myself staying in the shop and buying a few more things just to hear the whole song and find out what came next (something I couldn't identify). Perhaps that's why they do it. Anyway, whenever I go in a Co-op there's almost always something unexpectedly good playing on the instore radio. In the last few weeks I've heard

Bob Dylan - Like a Rollin' Stone
Amy Winehouse - Stronger than me
The Foundations - Build me up Buttercup
The Beatles - Drive my car
The Bangles - Walk like an Egyptian

And that's just the ones I can remember. It's the randomness of the selection that gets me. You never know what's coming next and they're (nearly) all quality tunes.

hungry hungry

My stomach is making the most extraordinary noises.

Thanks to all who are praying. I don't know any more than I've already said. The post mortem ruled out any suspicious circumstances, but wasn't conclusive about the cause of death. I don't know the funeral arrangements yet.

Church was good on Sunday. It was great to able to pray for each other and feel the support of the church community. And I went out for lunch with a bunch of girls, all about my own age and non-students. Finally I'm starting to find some people like me. Hooray!

prayer request

I heard last night that one of the guys in my cell group was found dead on Thursday morning. No idea why, there's going to be a post mortem today. I didn't know him all that well, but he seemed a lovely bloke. He was a very new Christian, full of enthusiasm, glowing with love for God and care for others. He leaves an ex-wife and a 7 year old daughter, who hadn't been told about his death yesterday, her mother is probably going to tell her today.

Please pray for his family, for the cell and for the church as a whole.

unhappy wednesday

I'm having another one of those "what am I doing here, I'm no good at this job, aarrgh!" sort of days.

Silly really.

I'm feeling disorganised and completely not on top of my work. Everything I have to do seems to be urgent and needs doing yesterday. And I'm forever putting things off until I feel confident enough to do them (i.e. anything that involves the phone.)

All this despite a successful event yesterday.

Last night I ended up knitting in front of the telly, watching Jackanory night on BBC4. Wonderfully comforting and nostalgic.

Today I met Debs and my mum in town for lunch, which was great, if too brief. They're both on half term this week. I wish I was. I'm feeling very time-poor. I'm supposed to be taking my favourite food and favourite pudding to a cell social on Thursday night. I made triple quantities of mole (that's chicken in a tomatoey chilli sauce with ground almonds and chocolate, not a small furry creature) last night and froze what I didn't eat, so that's sorted, but I haven't got the time to make brownies or chocolate cake or banana cake. I might have to buy some yummy ice-cream or something.

Choir tonight. Singing always cheers me up. Last week I was feeling tired and didn't want to go, but I went and by the end felt muchly cheered and destressed. So hopefully, it will have the same effect tonight.

happy tuesday

It is Tuesday. It is a Tuesday just like any other Tuesday. Actually not just like any other Tuesday because this one contained an event I organised which was well attended and very interesting but kept me awake last night and early this morning with every part of my body feeling tense and nervous. Tonight I plan to relax. I might have a bath. I will certainly knit. Maybe eat some chocolate. I'll have the house to myself since my housemate will be out with her fiance for some inexplicable reason, so it'll be lovely and quiet.

I hope you have a happy Tuesday too.

Shandian

I went to see A Cock and Bull Story the weekend before last, and liked it much more than I thought I would. Not that I expected to dislike it, but I did worry that Steve Coogan would be too annoying. He was a little in the early parts of the film and I still think he mostly plays multiple versions of the same character, but by the end his character seemed to have some depth.

It's not a straight adaptation of the book and it's not meant to be. It shares themes with Adaptation, in that both are about the process of making a film. There's enough humour for it not to seem clever-clever and overly knowing. The film acknowledges the feeling of frustration at missed-out elements of a favourite book by using character's complaints to include 'missing' scenes. (Thankfully it completely misses out the long travelogue sections I always get bogged down in.)

Rob Brydon steals every scene he's in. Keeley Hawes looks terribly grown up as Tristram's mother. Shirley Henderson is squeaky and interesting as usual. There are some great cameos, one of the best being Tony Wilson turning up to interview Steve Coogan. (Coogan played Wilson in 24 Hour Party People.)

I think this film manages to side step possible accusations of pretentiousness by being amusing, clever and touching. It also gets away with much of its unevenness and jumps between plot lines since Sterne does exactly the same thing. The digressions are the point of Tristram Shandy.

what am i up to?

I have been requested (read, ordered) to blog about what I've been doing, so I shall.
On Friday night, I joined some fellow Cambridge knitters in a pub to watch the Winter Olympics opening ceremonies and cast on for the Knitting Olympics.

On Saturday, I woke up earlyish (for a Saturday) and sat in bed knitting and listening to Home Truths. Then I went out and collected parcels from the Post Office and bought some fruit and veg from the Co-op. I came home and ate croissants and hot chocolate and then did some more knitting.

After a while, I decided I needed some fresh air, so I went for a wander. I walked through the cemetery, walked up the main road in the direction of Cottenham, wandered off through some twisty roads, found a bit of bridleway, walked along it, walked back, took some photos, found the village church, walked back through the old bit of the village, discovered a few shops I hasn't seen before (a shoe factory outlet, no use for large feet, unless you want trainers or maybe walking boots), found the local library (open on Saturday mornings, but not afternoons, so not that useful), sat and watched the ducks on the village green. Went home to find Z and D watching the rugby. Knitted some more. Cooked mole, knitted some more and watched TV. Went to bed.

Sunday, I went to church, went to a newcomers lunch in a really old and amazing house, went home and knitted, went to a students and 20s evening event at church, talked to some friendly people, ate doughnuts, went home, went to bed.

Debs, are you happy now? I don't often write diary entry type things like this cos I think they're quite boring to read unless you know the person.

I shall now find something more interesting (I hope) to write about.

run away and draw

Hours of fun: Sketch swap

via meish

phew

Someone else is videoing the event on Tuesday and the one two weeks after that, so I have about a month to aquire kit and get some practice in. That's such a relief.

I'll be very glad when this week's over.

pointless 1980s UK-centric trivia

Did you that Charles Collingwood (Brian in The Archers) voiced Wordy in Look and Read?

Given that to appreciate this you have to
a) be about the same age as me
b) be British
c) have watched Look and Read at school
and d) know enough about The Archers to know who Brian is,
this piece of trivia is probably only of interest to about one member of the audience of this blog, but never mind, it amused me.

meurgh

Why do apparently simple things take forever?

I've been trying all day to find a tripod to order for work. And I am still confused. There are tripods, there are tripod heads, there are little tiny tripods for still cameras, there are great big huge tripods, there are quick release tripods (equally useful for a wedding or a warzone apparently) there are triffids, there's an 80s BBC sci-fi drama, there are £20 tripods, there are £2000 tripods. I still don't know what I want. Well, I do, but I don't know where to buy it.

I want a tripod for a Sony DCR-VX2100. It needs to be tall enough to put the camera at about eye-height, it should have a quick release mechanism, a spirit level would be useful and it should pan and tilt smoothly. I'm not bothered about having controls on the handle. I'd like to spend around £200, but that's a bit flexible. Not £2000 flexible though. I've got to film an event on Tuesday and I'd like to have chance to play with the camera setup before that. Does anyone have any good ideas?

where are you from?

I've been playing with a fascinating surname profiler website, found via Anne. It gives you maps of the frequency of a surname in the UK in 1881 and 1998, using census data. My surname is mostly concentrated in Cornwall and the South West in 1881. In 1998, it's more widespread, but the highest density is still in Cornwall. It also gives you the Mosaic group with the highest index for your surname. Mine is 'Tourist Attendant', which makes sense for the South West.

Where does your name come from?

if you can't stand the wait, don't listen to the band

Yesterday I was feeling rubbish and Mondayish (yet again, got to do something about that) and since there are rather a lot of pink fluffy things around in February, it's not the most fun of times to be single. I found myself moaning to God about not having met anyone yet and trying to work out how best to trust God and what my attitude should be.

So I tried turning it around and thought about what I'd like my future husband* to be doing right now and this is what I came up with:

Waiting patiently and chastely for God to bring the woman he’s going to marry into his life.
Not chasing after every girl he meets, but hopefully and prayerfully keeping his eyes open.
Not putting his life on hold until he gets married, but getting on with whatever stuff God’s given him to do in the place in which he is now.
Trusting God for the future, whatever happens.

So, perhaps that's a good list for me to think about too.

*Clearly there are some implicit assumptions here, but we'll leave those for another day.

that friday feeling

End of the week, about to head home. It's a good feeling.

This weekend holds good stuff - a ceilidh, sunday lunch with my landlords, D and Z, knitting, reading, maybe the cinema, definitely sleep.

I've lost track of how many weeks I've been at this job. 4 I think. Today is a month since I started, so perhaps it's 5. It's going well. I'm busy, every day there's something new to work out how to to do, we're all still finding our feet a little, but we're making progress.

Off to cycle home.

scarf

Does this belong in knitting or flying? Anyway, Nathan found it. (Why doesn't that boy have a blog yet?)

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Doctor Who scarf.

tuesday over

The event went really well. Loads of people turned up, we had to turn a few away. The speaker was great, the food was OK and there was just about enough of it, although more wouldn't have hurt.

And I've just finished my essay. Going home now, I'm very hungry.

maybe it's just mondays I don't like

I would happily run back to bed right now, but I'm at work and there are things to do.

Quick post and then I'll be good.

I did go and see Narnia on Saturday (on my own, which I rather like) and I liked it a lot. Yes, there were lots of little changes from the book, but that's what happens when you make a film. Books and films are different animals. The scene leading up to Aslan's death got as near to making me cry as anything ever does. (Unlike my mother who cries at ANYTHING vaguely sad, I never cry at films. Books very occasionally.) There's one line "But let him first be shaved!" that always makes me squirm with horror and sadness at the humiliation of it.

Tilda Swinton's Jadis is a huge improvement on the pantomime villain of the BBC version (although I really don't understand why she wears such oddly shaped dresses. In one she looks positively deformed.) There's something very chilling about her offhand nastiness and the way she changes abruptly from soft-voiced flattery to anger.

I have an essay to write, which is at least half done. More than that if you're counting words, but it needs some pummelling into shape.

Tomorrow is the first work event for which I'm partly responsible. I think I've checked everything which can be checked. The one thing I can't check is how many people are going to turn up. I'll let you know how it goes.

escape to Narnia

narnia, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I'm posting this photo because I'm fed up with Monday's slightly self-pitying post still being at the top when mostly I'm OK really. And as a reminder to myself that I STILL haven't been to see the Narnia film. I'm supposed to be going with Debbie at some point, but since she's gone home to be ill, that might not happen.

not a good day

Today has not been a good day and I can't really put my finger on a reason why. I have things to do, but I'm not really getting anywhere with them. My first actual event is in a week and a day. I don't seem to be doing anything towards making it happen. I probably should. I've sent out lots of posters, so presumably some people will see them and come. The room is booked, the food is probably booked. Perhaps I should look into this a bit more.

I think I'm missing a sense of purpose. I turn up at work not really have much sense of my goals for the day, the week, the next few weeks. This is partly because everything is so new. I need to do some planning.

This is turning into a really boring post isn't it. Sorry, just me working stuff out by writing it down. It sometimes helps.

Anything exciting happen this weekend? I went shopping, bought a suitcase, a grey jumper (I can't quite believe I managed to buy something that isn't pink red or purple. Still, it is for work.) some CDs (Franz Ferdinand, Nick Cave, Nick Drake, haven't listened to them yet). Saturday night was a Burns Night concert in Debbie's village, which was fun, very silly but well-sung.

Sunday was church, lunch at a work colleague's house and lots of knitting. I spent the coffee time after church talking to lots of students, which was lovely, but did make me feel old. (That's City Church btw. In the end I decided it felt like home and since I don't really want to go back to being an Anglican, there wasn't anywhere else I fancied going, so I'll stick with it) I don't yet seem to have met anyone of my age bracket yet, i.e. post-student, working, single. Early days. Church never seems long enough to get to know people. There's no general gathering of people to go off to lunch somewhere. I am not patient. I want everything to happen right now, but friendships take time and effort. Time to start inviting people over to lunch. It would be good to have a reason to cook properly. I don't often seem to have time, especially not in the week, and this weekend I got cooked for on Saturday and Sunday, so didn't really get chance to cook anything interesting.

Shall I bike home or get the bus? It was very cold on my way in, which is probably a good reason to bike. Cycling is cold, but standing at the bus stop is colder.

There you go, some of the contents of my brain at this moment. Is it too boring? Will anyone comment? Go on, say hello.

lost in the city

Apparently, a whale was seen swimming through London today. Poor thing, it must have been very lost.

the long clay noses

It's nearly the end of week three of my new job. This week has been a busy one, both in and outside work. I've done lots of things for the first time - met up with other knitters, been to a new choir, been to a new church small group, put an advert in a major science journal, cycled along 60mph roads (I wasn't going that fast, obviously).

I'm tired, but happy with how things are going. I'm not what you'd call settled, I still get lonely and am only just starting to make some friends. I hope as days turn into weeks turn into months, Cambridge will become home.

hallelujah

I went to a practice of the choir in the village for the first time last night. It was brilliant! I haven't sung in a decent choir in ages, not really since my chapel choir is Oxford. There have been choirs since then, but not very taxing ones. This feels like a proper choir that will stretch my singing. We're doing parts 2 and 3 of Handel's Messiah for a concert at the end of March. The first thing we sang last night was the Hallelujah chorus, which I've sung before, it's the bit everyone knows really and then the rehearsal zipped along through lots of unfamiliar sections. Loads of high fast semi-quavers to learn. Hooray! I'm hoping it'll literally strecth my range and I'll get my high notes back. I can't do really stratospheric, but I used to be able to get a high A fairly reliably, maybe a Bflat on a good day. Without practice, I've got rusty.

Cycling home last night, I realised how much I like living within cycling distance of so many things. I can cycle to work, into town, to choir practice, to the Co-op and a mini Tescos. Cycling to church is a little bit beyond me. Actually, I just looked it up and it's only 4.4 miles, so might be do-able soon, although some of those roads are pretty big and scary. Yay for villages and yay for Cambridge and its cycle lanes!

Read some Byron, Shelley and Keats

Actually just some Byron, but some lyrics stick in your head. No prizes for identifying it, just the glory.

Anyway.

I have been reading Byron, the 1st Canto of Don Juan to be precise and it's very, very funny. Although only the dedication and 1st Canto are set texts for my course, I think I might have to read the rest too. Byron's world-weary narrator is pretty cynical, though on the whole not cruel. The way it's written is brilliant. The tone is so fresh and conversational, yet the rhymes are obviously carefully chosen. This stanza from Canto 1 (a description of Juan's mother, Donna Inez) made me laugh out loud with its audacity.

XII
Her favourite science was the mathematical,
Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,
Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,
Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity;
In short, in all things she was fairly what I call
A prodigy -- her morning dress was dimity,
Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzzling.

So, to all (Well maybe not quite all, it's also quite rude.) I say, go and read some Byron. It'll make you laugh.

Or alternatively, go and read Tristram Shandy. My course notes draw a comparison between the two since both constantly wander away from the narrative on digressions. I'm looking forward to Michael Winterbottom's film, A Cock and Bull Story which comes out this week. There was a review on Front Row last night and it sounds fun, if you can put up with Steve Coogan. The only worry I have is that it'll just be Coogan doing the same sort of unreliable narrator thing he did in 24 Party People (same director, lots of the same actors too). But to make a film from an unfilmable book is an achievement and worth a look if, like me, you love the book in question.

The Windhover

The first lines of this have been buzzing around in my head for a few days, so I had to look up the rest. It's an amazing poem, absolutely breath-taking.


The Windhover
To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous. O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

blue sky thinking

wall, sea, sky, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I'm feeling tired.

Yesterday I came into work and then felt so awful I went home again. I slept for a while and then lay in bed and looked at the sky. When lying in bed, all I can see through the bedroom window is sky. The day had begun cloudy, but by the time I woke up for the second time, it was sunny and bright. I felt energised after my sleep and took my bike out for a while, to get myself used to the idea. The sun shone, the sky was blue.

Today I'm in work again and feeling tired and a little floaty. The sky is blue again, pale winter blue. Blue with possibility, bright with warmth in the sun.

Why is blue hope and despair? Blue is freshness, daylight. Blue is cold water. Blue is depression. Blue is cornflowers. Blue is frostbite. Blue is the sea. Blue is loneliness. Blue is bridal. Blue is sky.

I'm tired. I'm lonely, a little. I'm hopeful.

who are you?

Various people have been declaring this National De-Lurking week, so I shall join them. It's been very quiet here and I want to know who's reading this blog. Leave a comment, say hello and maybe if you ask me a question, I'll answer it.

church hunting

Cambridge, it seems, is blessed with many brilliant churches. The problem? How to decide where to go. My obvious choice is City Church. It's where my sister goes, it's a New Frontiers church, it's full of families and students and older people and single people, it's a lot like Jubilee in lots of ways, but obviously different, being in a different area and having its own building. I'd be happy to go there. I just don't want to feel I haven't give anywhere else a chance. I want to get involved in a church and start making new friends, but I want to make sure it's the right place.

I've been looking at church websites to get a few ideas of other places I could go. I wouldn't chose a church on the basis of their website alone, but it does give you a feel for their style and often there's a good statement of the vision of the church. Trouble is, I think I'm finding reasons not to go places, rather than looking for places to go. For instance, one church has cell groups that are only made up of one sort of person, eg women's cells, couples' cells. I'd rather be somewhere that has a mixture of people in cell groups. True, I have been leading a group that was mainly geared to the 18-30ish (very ish in some cases) age group, but even within that there were men and women, single people and couples, students and workers. Other places I didn't like the sound of their worship style, too old-fashioned or too slick.

But then, firstly as I've already said, a webpage is not a good basis for choosing a church. Secondly, I need to visit some places and see what they're like. Thirdly, I need to pray about it and ask God to guide me to the right church.

Anyone got any tips on church-hunting?

pig wot flies' moving day

On Saturday I moved into my new abode. It's lovely. I hadn't seen the room properly before I moved in since last time I saw it, it had no furniture and the walls and ceiling were dark blue. Now it's a beautiful shade of lavender and has furniture, including a big metal frame double bed. Luxury! I'm getting on well with my landlady (the word doesn't go with the person, but I suppose if I'm her lodger, she must be my landlady) and I don't think it'll be long before it feels like home. It just needs a radio in the kitchen so I can cook and listen to Radio 4!

There are still things I need to bring from home, not least my bike lights which seem to have disappeared. I'm planning to cycle to work, but without lights, that's not going to happen. I drove in this morning, which I never want to do again. I don't mind sitting in a traffic jam on a bus because I can do something else like knit or read, but sitting in a car in a traffic jam, even with the Today programme for company, is not my idea of fun. I'll try the bus tomorrow. Hopefully my lights will turn up next weekend. I'm planning to do another raid home on Saturday to pick up a few last bits and tidy up the mess I left behind me.

Saturday was also my one year blogoversary. Yes, I've been at this blogging lark for a year now. I started rather slowly. January 2005 doesn't have many posts, but I like to think I've improved since then, in frequency and I hope in quality.

I've been trying to work out how to blog about work. I've come to the conclusion I don't want to mention where I work by name, but I am excited about it. People who know me in real life know where I work, obviously. I think I'll have to see how it goes. I certainly won't be naming my place of work, or naming people who work there, but I suspect there might be things that happen here that I want to blog about. We'll see. So far, it's good. The people I work with are friendly, the job is exciting, if a little daunting at times and I'm settling in gradually.

another newbie

I've just discovered Adrian's been spawning blog-children again. Dave Routledge has a blog. It's small so far, but I expect it will grow and hopefully he'll post some more of his brilliant photos too.

There are now several bloggers from Jubilee church. How exciting! But so far the boys are outnumbering the girls, as they seem to in the wider blogosphere. Why is that? Come on girls, you've got things to say too!

day one

Bother. Wrote a long post and then lost it because I couldn't spell temporarily. You can take that sentence either way.

My more observant readers will be noticed that my location is now Cambridge. I started my new job today, it's great. Lovely people. Office is gradually getting unpacked and set up. No email or internet yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Over the weekend I went to Wales to see la famille Perkins, Nathan, Nayf and Sian. HP came too and a good time was had by all except Turk, who broke down on the way there and the way home. He's currently in a garage being fixed. I hope he'll be well again soon so I can bring him to Cambridge.

I'm temporarily (is that spelt right? I really can't tell.) living with Debs and moving into my new abode on Saturday. I think it might a few weeks to move completely since there's lots to move.

I am very tired, so I'm going to have a bath and go to bed very soon. A belated Happy New Year!

end of a year

2005 is nearly over. I'm about to be summoned for tea I think, so there isn't time for a proper round up, but I felt something was needed.

I started this year with no job. I end the year having just left one job and about to start another which I'm excited about.

I started the year with a red bug, I end the year with a turquoise one.

I started the year as a Londoner, I end the year soon to be a Cantabrian (by residence only, I'm still an Oxonian (and a Londoner) at heart.)

I started the year single, I end the year still single.

I started the year in a wonderful church that met in a school, I end the year in a growing and still wonderful church that meets in a cinema.

I started the year having not knit for years. I end the year a very keen and possibly obsessed kntter.

I started the year with one camera, I end the year with three (if you count the phone.)

I started the year trusting God for the next step. I end the year thankful for what He's done this year and trusting Him again to take me into the next exciting installment.

new monster

My sister has a blog! I can't really claim her as my blogchild since she decided to start one all on her own, but I can be the first to send people her way. Go and say hello to Debs. It's her life.

pig in a flap

Not much blogging from me at the moment I'm afraid. I'm back home after Christmas, which was good if a little quiet. I start my new job on Tuesday, I'm spending Sunday and Monday in Wales, so obviously at the moment I'm making cushion covers. Hmm, should probably do a little packing too. Next week, I'm living on Debbie's floor for a few days and then moving into my new home on 7th January. Life might be a little hectic for a while.

An interesting snippet from our local paper - a village in Pakistan is to be named Walthamstow in gratitude for the help given to that community by this one after the earthquake. I think that's quite cool.

Happy Christmas!

manger, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This photo was taken last year after my church's carols and nativity service. The baby in the manger has grown up a bit since then and has more hair, although he often still looks as worried.

I'm off for a few days to the land of pork pies and blue cheese. (I don't like either, but I know some people who do.)

Have a wonderful Christmas.

sorted!

I've got somewhere to live in Cambridge.
I've been stressed about it all week. In the end, I decided to turn down beautiful-old-house and go for house-3-miles-out-of-town-but-only-for-6-months. I rang up Z who lives there (I'm sure she's going to feature in the blog in the next few months, so she might as well have an initial now) wondering whether the room would still be available and discovered not only that it is, but that she's now decorated the second spare room which is about twice the size of the one I originally looked out. (It's lavender, very me!) So all is well and all has worked out. God's good!
I won't be able to move in until 7th January, but given that I'm away over the New Year weekend, that makes life a bit less hectic.

It's such a relief to get a place to live sorted. Perhaps I'll be able to stop biting people's heads off now and enjoy Christmas.

how to make fudge

Lots of people liked the fudge I made for cell on Tuesday, so here's the recipe:

1 lb demerara sugar
8 oz golden granulated sugar
1 tin evaporated milk
3oz butter

Put all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan. (I use an old pressure cooker.)
Heat on a low to medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted.
Turn the heat down slightly. Boil the mixture for 10-12 minutes to the softball stage (when a small amount of mixture dropped into cold water will stick together to form a ball.) STIR CONSTANTLY!
Take the pan off the heat, add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence and beat until it thickens slightly. The mixture begins to feel fudgy and makes sticky noises. Sort of. This is one of the bits you have to practise.
Pour the fudge into a greased and lined tin and leave to cool.
Once cool, cut into pieces and eat.

For chocolate fudge, add 3 tablespoons of cocoa at the beginning.
The basic recipe is easy, but you might need to practise a few times to get it right.

house of cards

It seems finding somewhere to live is even less sorted than I thought. I turned down big-house-full-of-young-people and house-with-cat because I thought beautiful-old-house was the one. Then I went to Cambridge to meet the potential house-mate I hadn't met and discovered that there are are two other people interested in the house and they're going to talk to all of us and then decide who they want to live with. Which is fair enough, but I wish I'd known that before hand. I still love the house, but having met both inhabitants, I'm worried that they're much more goey-outy (not a word, but anyway) than me. They've said they'll tell me by the end of the week. I'm a little thrown really. I'm not sure they'll like me and I'm not sure whether we'd get on. So that leaves me with house-3-miles-out-of-town-but-only-for-6-months. Which is warm and cosy and I like the girl I'd be sharing with, but I did want somewhere closer to town and longer term.

I don't really know what to do now. Hang on and see what happens, keep trying anything I can and pray. I start my new job two weeks tomorrow and so far I've got nowhere definite to move to. I'm trying not to be depressed about it. I've been here before. When I moved to Bath, the house I ended up living in got sorted very quickly. I had about 10 days to sort it out before I went on holiday. In a matter of days I went from having no-one to live with and nowhere to live to having three housemates and a gorgeous house. I'm trying to hang onto that and trust God.

another Christmas, another last day

This bunch of flowers was a present when I left my previous job just before Christmas last year. It's nearly Christmas and once again, I'm leaving my job. This time last year, I didn't know what I was going to do next. I'd applied for my current job but the deadline was ages away and it was a couple of months before they interviewed me. This time, I know where I'm going next and it's exciting.

I've known I'm going to leave this job at the end of the year for the majority of the time I'd been here. I started just after Easter, I was offered my new job at the end of July. That's 4 months not planning to leave and then 5 months knowing I'm leaving. Knowing I was leaving soon made doing this job bearable. It's not all been terrible, but my heart's never really been in it. I'm more excited about where I'm going next. It's a new thing for everyone involved. I'm moving to a new town, new church, to meet new people, learn new things, moving on to the next stage in my life.

As far as I know, this time next year I won't be about to leave my job. And that will be a very good thing.

another gorgeous London sunset

another London sunset 2, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

About 4pm, the sky outside my East-facing office window started turning pink. I kept watching and waiting and going to the other side of the building to see whether this sunset was going to be a good one, and it was. The moon is beautiful tonight too, high and full and misty with cloud cover, but I couldn't get it to photograph well.

still here

This is my penultimate day at work. I'm running out of things to do. There's no point starting anything new because I won't be here to finish it. I'm trying to tidy things up and make sure everything's in order for my successor, but there's only so many times you can reorder your files, tidy the desk and put things in files. Not long to go now, all over soon and then it's Christmas, hooray!

houses

Dave requested a post on the latest with my move to Cambridge, so here it is. I've not been blogging about it much because it feels a work in progress and I'm not good at sharing unfinished things with the world, but here's where I am at the moment.

On Saturday I went to Cambridge to look at a couple more places I could live. The first house I looked at, I fell in love with. It's a mid terrace Victorian house, beautifully decorated, lots of light paint and wood, stripped wood doors, odd cupboards and nooks and crannies. It's not far from the centre of town, there's a small garden, a passage way through to the garden in which I could keep my bike. The room I'd have is unfurnished so I'd get to buy my own furniture. It's got big wooden framed sash windows. It's all very me. The two girls living there have only just moved in. I've spoken to one on the phone and met the other. We got on fine.

The other house was good in lots of different ways. It's further out of town, has a huge garden with a back gate and is full of lovely people who I got on with really well. My main reservation is that I feel too old for it. Most of the people in the house have only just graduated. I'd be the oldest. If I were a few years younger, I'd probably go for it, but I just feel a bit too grown-up. It's is if the two houses are two possibilities for people to be. Centre of town sophisicate or edge of town only-just-not-a-student. That's a little more extreme than it actually is. I think if I hadn't already seen and loved the first house, I'd be happy to live in the second.

So, I came home on Saturday feeling sure I'd found my new home. All I needed to do to be sure was to meet the girl I'd only spoken to. I envisaged doing that one evening this week and then sorting things out quickly so I could move in before Christmas. Unfortunately she's very busy all this week and we can't meet until next week. That's pretty close to Christmas, so there isn't going to be time to sort contracts etc in time for me to move before Christmas. Perhaps that means I won't move in until after I've started my job and I'll have to sleep on my sister's floor for a few days. But then I haven't met her yet and we may not get on (I think this is unlikely, but you never know.) So now I'm feeling a bit thrown. I've rung and turned down one place I looked at, but there are still two others I haven't rung (including the second hosue from Saturday) I don't really want to keep them hanging on, but I don't want to turn everything down just in case this one doesn't work out. Basically I wanted it all to get sorted and it isn't (yet) and I don't deal well with uncertainty, it tends to make me assume the worst (hmm, perhaps Puddleglum is right after all). So there. That's what's happening.

And I've got three days left with nothing much to do at work except fidget and worry, so that's not helping either.

music eddie?

At the end of Athlete's song You got the style, there's a voice that says "music Eddie!" a few times with a screechy intonation. It's been bugging me ever since I bought the album Vehicles and Animals last year. (It's rather good, Tourist is OK too, but the first one's more interesting.) I'm sure I remember guys at my church youth group saying it to each other. This would be in the early to mid 1990s. As boys do, they were always chucking around dialogue and catchphrases from comedy programmes, Harry Enfield, Mary Whitehouse Experience, that kind of thing. These were inevitably lost on me since I didn't usually watch the programmes in question, but I usually got the joke. One of the guys was called Edmund, so "music Eddie!" would have got a lot of use. I just want to know whether I'm completely making this up and what the origins of "music Eddie!" are. I haven't been able to discover so far. Anyone out there know?

really?

I'm a bit of a sucker for personality tests. But I don't usually post the results. However, the result of the Narnia test (found via Catez) made me laugh.



"As Puddleglum the marshwiggle, you are very much pessimistic and paranoid! However, you're respected and trusted, and have a heart of gold."

I'm not sure what to make of that. I suspect it might be true, a bit.

sparkle sparkle

sparklers 3, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I've finally scanned and uploaded my photos from the fireworks party. I wasn't very impressed with most of the fireworks ones, but I think the sparklers are quite effective. Also up are assorted photos from Chester, Exeter and my cousin's baptism.

pause

Radio 4 is on the blink. There was a long silence after the end of Four Corners, so long that you begin to wonder if something terrible has happened. What could possibly take the BBC off the air? Then the continuity announcer's soothing tones announce a technical fault and introduce some Mozart. A string quartet starts up, beautiful, delicate, precise. You wonder how long it will last. Like a break in the weather, a sunny spell in the middle of winter, a sleeping baby. The music swells and dies away. Every quiet passage makes you hold your breath and wonder if PM is suddenly going to break through the impromptu concert.

The music fades out and the announcer is back. Is order about to be restored? No, the fault is still ongoing. An orchestral piece starts. Will the ensembles get bigger as time passes? If this goes on, will you end up listening to Mahler's symphony of a thousand, or the music of a giant gamelan comprising every musician on earth?

The orchestra plays on, soporificly. You are being lulled into sleepiness, you don't need the news, never mind what's happening in the world, here is calm and peaceful.

Suddenly, the music ends abruptly. We're rejoining PM, the quotidian order is restored.

grrrrrrrr

I have a cold. Urgh. This afternoon watching The Never Ending Story, I decided my voice sounded like the rockbiter. All deep and gravelly.

Good film. I like it. My sister says it was always the film we'd watch at school at the end of term, but inevitably there wouldn't be time to watch it all, so it really was a never-ending story. I read the book a year or two ago and discovered that the film ends about halfway through the book. Apparently there are two sequels. I've never seen either.

The scene where Atreyu's horse sinks into the swamp gets me every time. It was always the most memorable scene when I hadn't seen the film for years, probably because it's a horse dying (I was a horse-mad child), but also because the acting is so good. The child actors playing Bastian and Atreyu are both brilliant, totally believable in their distress and anguish. Atreyu in particular spends a lot of time crawling in the mud, climbing things and getting sneezed on by a giant tortoise. It can't have been much fun to film.

The other memorable thing is Falkor, the luck dragon. Mostly because he's large and pink and slightly fluffy and yet manages to look dragonly and not like something dreamed up for a Disney princess. Doesn't everyone want a dragon?

Not very coherent, obviously still ill. Bed.

advertising space

There's 12 hour webcast from CERN, called Beyond Einstein tomorrow from 11am GMT. It's all about Einstein, his legacy and the future of physics. The slot hosted from London (which I've been involved in organising, a little bit) starts around 4.30 GMT.

a pig in search of a roof

This weekend I went to Cambridge to see a couple of places I could live. Both are possible, both are lived in by lovely people, both have advantages and disadvantages. I'm going to see a couple more places in a fortnight's time, so I'm trying not to make a decision on where to live until I've seen all the options.
It's a tricky thing, deciding where to live, especially when you've never met the people you're going to live with before. You might get on brilliantly, you might annoy each other totally, you might just live parallel lives in the same house. All of these things have happened to me in the past. It's good to have a few options though. I think I could live happily in either of the places I've seen so far. All the places I'm looking at contain at least one other Christian girl, which is the main thing I wanted. God's good.

running away

Last night, it all just got too much. The stress of flat-hunting, the fact that I've got to write an essay by Tuesday and I've barely started, the fact that I'm leaving people, place, circumstances I know to start something new in a little over six weeks time.

So I'm very glad that today I'm taking the afternoon off to run away to Exeter for the weekend, to see HP (briefly), HP (confusing I know) and NL. Paddington here I come.

sunset

London sunset, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Monday may not have started well, but it finished beautifully.

London sunset III, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

ba bah ba ba ba bah

Reasons why today is a bad day

It's Monday.
It's cold.
My office is cold and smells of cabbage.
I've just exploded a blackcurrant teabag while trying to detach it from its sister teabag.

Reasons why today is a good day

It's one of those beautiful crisp and frosty mornings in autumn that I love.
I have pink fluffy gloves to keep my hands warm on the bike.
I've now got a steaming cup of blackcurrant tea (and I've cleared up the mess).
Psalm 118 v24: This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

UPDATE: I've found a heater. Much better!

future bus

I've just seen my first fuel cell powered bus. They're currently being tried out in nine cities across Europe. How exciting is that? Of course, there's still the problem of how you make the hydrogen and distribute it. According to Transport for London's handy (and not at all over simplified ;-) ) diagram of how hydrogen is made you need electricity to electrolyse water to make hydrogen and large tankers to transport the hydrogen around, so it's not a totally zero-emissions process. Still, a step in the right direction.

More information about London's fuel cell buses.

flat-hunting

I don't think I like flat-hunting websites. It's all a bit scary and intimidating. You find yourself endlessly analysing 10 word descriptions of people trying to work out what they're really like. I more or less know what I want, it's just working out how to find it. What I really want is to live with other Christian girls about my own age. I'm not convinced I'm currently going about this the right way. Has anyone any advice?

where's your blog at?

Is it just me, or do other people have mental maps of where blogs (and other webpages, but mostly blogs) are in relation to each other? For instance, looking at my blogroll, Adrian's blog is on the lefthand side of mine, Beyond Lilith and my knitting blog are on the right. I just went through the list and realised that for each one, there's a specific direction, mostly left or right, some diagonally. It seems entirely arbitrary. I thought perhaps there might be some logic to it, e.g. male on the left, female on the right, but Brosdee's view is also on the right and Lori Smith is on the left, so that doesn't work. I don't think it's political either. It's just further proof of the oddness of my brain.

Perhaps it's a synaesthete thing. The UK Synaesthesia Association calls synaesthesia "a harmless condition in which people experience perceptual sensations that are not shared by most other members of the population. For example, people with synaesthesia may experience colours with letters, sounds, or words; they may experience shapes with tastes, or smells with sounds, to name a few varieties. It has a biological origin and is found in at least 1 in 2000 people." I think it's more common in women than in men.

For me, most numbers and letters and days of the week have colours. Words and sounds have shapes and colour. I also have a kind of mental number line. the cardinal numbers are arranged as if on a rollercoaster, climbing up from 0 to ten, then steeper from 10 to 20, a long shallow slope up to 100, then spirals getting tighter and tighter away to infinity. The negative numbers are there too, droppping away from zero into their own spiral. I can fly round my number line, zooming in on different bits. If I get close enough, I can see the numbers in between, the fractions, decimals, irrational roots. Somewhere over to the left are the complex numbers, sideways branches out from -1. This number line serves no practical purpose, it's just always been there, ever since I can remember. I also have mental maps for years, months, days of the week. Sometimes they help me plan, or think about time. I often have to think in shapes when I work out when things are happening. If you see me doodling in the air while thinking about a particular date, that's why. So perhaps my having a mental map of the internet is inevitable. It's just that I've only just realised it.

It's back!

I've been Lomoless for several months after my LCA broke on holiday. It was less than a year old, so still covered under the warranty, just about. I contacted the lomo people and sent it off about a month ago. I hadn't heard anything more, so assumed they'd contact me in time.

Yesterday I got home to find a parcel from Austria waiting for me. My lomo was back! Mended and working again. Thank you lovely lomo people!

I took it to a fireworks party last night, along with the practica, and took lots of shots of things whizzing into the air and sparklers whirling round and round. I can't wait to see how they come out!

the worst sound in the world

If you want to hear some truly excruciating sounds and take part in a massive science experiment, go and play with the Bad Vibes site. You'll need sound, obviously. It's quite fun, but some of the noises might set your teeth on edge.

closely observed pigeons

This lunchtime I went to Bethnal Green and sat in the park. An East End park at lunchtime feels different from a West End or city park at lunchtime. Green spaces in the city, however small, are always full of suits at lunchtime. People escape the office for an hour or so and balance their sandwiches or noodles or vegetarian pasta bake on their laps, enjoying the sunshine or trying to pretend it's not freezing cold. In Bethnal Green, there were several squirrels, various yoof sitting around or playing basketball, one other lunching woman and a small flock of pigeons.

I watched the pigeons fly around the park. From being scattered, they suddenly flew together towards a tree on the far side of the grass. For a while, they jostled about there and then fanned out like policemen doing a finger tip search. A lone pigeon flew back across the park and landed beneath a tree near me. A few minutes later, the entire flock flew across to join him, gathering together for a bit and then fanning out as before. A little later and for no apparent reason, they all flew off again.

Do you think it's fun being a pigeon?

God's a science starter, holy science starter

There's a brilliant essay on why Christianity is good for science - indeed the reason that science is possible - over the the newly launched Pearcey report. I remember arguing this as part of a talk on faith on my Masters course. Not quite as well as Nancy Pearcey does though.

Here's an extract:
"The story of conflict [between science and Christianity] does sound familiar, because it is the standard interpretation of history taught all through the public education system. In fact, it is so widely accepted that often it is treated not as an interpretation at all, but simply as a fact of history. Yet, surprising as it may sound, among historians of science, the standard view has been soundly debunked. Most historians today agree that the main impact Christianity had on the origin and development of modern science was positive. Far from being a science stopper, it is a science starter."

Note to self - must get round to reading Total Truth.

blog matchmaking

There must be something in the air. Adrian Warnock and Marla Swoffer have both been wondering about the possibilities of blogging as a way for single people to meet each other.

As a single blogger myself, I can't say the thought ever ocurred to me. I think of my blog as my public face on the net, a place to write and think and show other people things that have ocurred to me. I like the interaction of commenting on blogs and finding out about other people and I suppose over time relationships online could develop into relationships offline. On the other hand, much of the Godblogosphere is based in the US and I'm not. Perhaps it does happen, but if that's your prime motivation for blogging, you're not going to get very far!

sniffle sniffle cough cough

I've been being ill for the last couple of days, so it's been quiet. There are lots of knitting photos to look at over at pigwotknits and I've been scanning some pictures from this summer, so they should be up on flickr soon.

My brain isn't really working well enough to write proper stuff which is a little worrying because I've got to write an essay about Pride and Prejudice in the next week.

UPDATE: pics from Chester zoo are up.

scavenging

scavengers busking
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This weekend, a bunch of us from church went on a scavenger hunt round London. This is my team busking in the underpass at Hyde Park corner (I think, I was a bit lost). We had a fantastic time (thanks Sunny and Nic!) and discovered new bits of London. More pictures on my flickr photostream.

another blogger is born

Go and say hello to James.

post number 100 - happy birthday to me!

It's my birthday, I'm 26 today.

Apart from that, today isn't very exciting. I'm at work, it's raining, I'm not doing anything particularly exciting tonight. Although I did see Pride and Prejudice last night and absolutely loved it!

Today, you could also be celebrating John Peel day, Margaret Thatcher's 80th birthday or Paul Simon's 64th.

I've been ratified!

Does that mean I've started to grow a tail, pointy ears and whiskers? Sadly, no.

I've been waiting for my new job to be confirmed by the college committee since August and finally, it has. That means from January I will be working for a small institute in Cambridge. I'll be marketing their journal and courses and seminars about science and religion. I'm very excited about it!

I've not got anywhere to live in Cambridge yet and there are loads of thing yet to be sorted. Moving out of my parent's house properly will be exciting and scary, but it feels like time to move. Leaving my current church will be harder, but I know there's a good church in Cambridge (several actually) and I'm looking forward to getting involved there.

Please can you pray that I'll find somewhere to live and that I'll use the next couple of months wisely and patiently.

retro gal

Marla Swoffer's been causing trouble with her retro/metro Christianity table. This isn't a post about that, although it's an interesting idea and the resultant discussion seems to have snowballed. For the record, I scored something like 13 retro, 21 metro and 7 undecided/don't knows. Typological profiles tend to be crude, especially when there are only two choices, but as Marla points out, that was kind of the point. If you've no idea what I'm talking about, go and have a look.

Anyway, I realised yesterday as I washed my 1976 Beetle, wearing my giant flared jeans and a striped shirt that's older than I am, (it belonged to my mum and was tatty enough when she went to university to be used for painting in), brushing my side-parted shoulder length hair out of my eyes, that I appear to be living in a 1970s timewarp. I could have taken a picture of the event with my c 1978 Practica MTL3 or my Soviet era (designed in the early 80s so it doesn't quite fit, but why let logic spoil a good blog post?) Lomo LCA.

So does this mean that the 70s weren't the decade taste forgot after all or that I'm about 30 years out of date? I will admit to being slightly Luddite in preferring lowtech solutions to fancy electronic ones, but I can't be all that much of a technophobe since I am after all posting this on my blog. Perhaps the awful truth is that I'm turning into my mum, c1976, (although with blonde hair and no glasses). What a scary thought.

space to knit , space to think

There have been quite a few knitting-related posts here lately and I thought it was time to give the knitting its own space. I've created a new blog, the pig wot knits, to accommodate the knitting. There's not much there yet, but I'll update it soon with details of the things I've made so far this year.

So those who like knitted things can go and take a look, but anyone who isn't really that bothered can ignore it.

Hmm, that means I've got to think of some proper content. Any thoughts?

flights of fancy

So, I was just in the library looking for a dictionary of quotations and I came across a book called The Symbolic Pig: An Anthology of Pigs in Literature and Art by F C Sillar and R M Meyler. (Would you file that next to a dictionary of quotations? If not, where would you file it?) Naturally I had a flick through, looked up flying pigs and found this quotation:

"I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it."

from Fancies versus Facts by G.K. Chesterton

I rather like that.

sit down, put your feet up

bench
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

It's been a long week.

Good things - HP has a roommate. She's a Christian, she's from Nigeria.
Tuesday night, my cell group had pizza at my house. We sat around and chatted and had fun.

Bad things - being knocked off my bike.
I'm still feeling achey and very tired and wondering if I'm about to be ill.

Good things - it's Friday, the weekend starts soon.
I'm going to Cambridge tomorrow to see DP.
I'll be able to go to church with her on Sunday and talk to people and say "I'm moving here in January."

Bad things - it's a long time until January.
I haven't got anywhere to live in Cambridge yet.

Good things - it's a long time until January so there's plenty of time to find somewhere to live.
The committee who have to approve my appointment meet this weekend, so on Monday I should be able to resign properly and tell people at work that I'm leaving.
It's my birthday next Thursday.

Silly thing - I found this moon hoax parody earlier in the week. It made me laugh.

the most beautiful knitting in the world

Is to be found here. It's half in Japanese and half in sort of English, so it's hard to work out what's been knitted by the author and what hasn't, but even if she's only knitted half the stuff, she's a genius. (I assume she's a she, I have no idea.) Go back through her archive and look at some of the intricately put-together jumpers. I've been trying to figure out how she makes those zig zig things, but so far I can't. It's probably something like knitting a mitred square, but that didn't seem to work when I tried it.

All I have to show off is a finished pink jumper. Ta da!



big pink finished object
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

a minor incident

Yesterday on my way home, I got knocked off my bike. I'm OK, just a few bruises and a scraped knee and I'm thankful it wasn't worse. On my route home, there's a point where the road bends round to the right but there's a turning that goes straight on. It's very easy for drivers to go straight on without really thinking about it (I've done it myself when driving that way.) I was going round the corner and a car going straight on into the turning clipped me with its wing mirror. The bike went over, I went flying. The woman in the car behind me jumped out of her car to see if I was hurt. The driver of the car that hit me stopped and got out too. I was fine, just a little shaken up and all that happened to the bike was that the basket on the front came off. The driver who hit me helped me reattach it and made sure I really was OK to continue and gave me his contact details before he drove off.

The collision was partly the driver's fault for not seeing me and partly mine for not paying enough attention. I usually swing round that corner without thinking about it, trusting the fact that it's my right of way and anyone turning in or out of that side road can just avoid me. That would be OK in a car, but on a bike, if someone doesn't see me and turns off, it's me that's going to come off worst, even if the collision is their fault.

I'm not going to be put off cycling. I got back on the bike this morning, although I did feel a bit shaky by the time I got to Leyton and left the bike there rather than continue onto Stratford as I usually do. However, I think I should try harder to pay attention to the road. It's too easy to pedal along with my thoughts miles away instead of thinking about than where I am and what the traffic around me is doing.

on socks

rainbow socks
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Here, as promised, are my first ever completed pair of socks. I'm very pleased with them. There are some errors, and things I'd do differently, but that's all part of the learning process. One sock is decidedly greener than the other, presumably because the colours in the hand-dyed wool came out slightly differently in each skein.

While knitting these socks in a variety of places (on the tube, on the train to Birmingham, during spare time during a conference), I remembered some of the knitting I'd seen on holiday in Wales at the National Woollen Museum. There were handknitted stockings made Welsh working men, from the 18th (I think) century and pictures of men and women knitting as they walked to work or to market or anywhere at all. Some of the stockings were personalised with intricate designs and initials. These were practical, vital garments, made by hand from handspun fleece, dyed with vegetable dyes, all local materials. Those too poor to own their own sheep would have got their wool from hedgerows and fences, following the sheep as they moved around (the origin of the word woolgathering).

My knitted socks are essentially a luxury item. I didn't shear the sheep or spin the wool or dye it myself, although theoretically I could have done. If I had to knit all my socks myself, I doubt it would be so much fun.

On Saturday, I went to a Christians in Science conference on sustainability. It's got me thinking about the environmental impact of my everyday life and the choices I make about what to do and how to live. My sock wool, spun and dyed in the USA and then shipped to the UK is beautiful, but represents a large number of airmiles. I could have made a different choice; this country is hardly lacking in sheep and yarn manufacturers. I don't think you'll see me out woolgathering or spinning my own yarn anytime soon, but perhaps I might start thinking about ways to make my yarn choices (and choices in other areas of life) more environmentally sustainable.

new addition

Adrian's been spawning blogchildren again. His newest blogchild (and therefore my blog-brother?) is Dotun and his blog is Brosdee's view. (I don't know why, perhaps he'll tell us). Go over and give him some encouragement and perhaps he'll post some more.

Africa Sunday!

One of the things I love about my London church is the diversity of people from different backgrounds and countries, including lots of people from Africa, mostly Nigerians. Today at church we had an African day. We dressed in African clothes, ate plantain and rice and other delicious things, learnt some new songs and danced and worshipped joyfully and exuberantly. We were celebrating our diversity and our unity. God had made us different, male and female, black and white, tall and short and He has made us one, united in Christ.

On the way home, I talked to my mum about how much fun we'd had, and what some of the visitors we'd had might have thought. "You know," she said, "this morning wasn't actually that different from a normal Sunday morning. This is us, this is who we are."

She's right. Maybe we don't always wear such colourful clothes, or jump around so much, but we're joyful and united and enthusiastic about being together praising God. Thank you God!

(UPDATE: Go and read Adrian's post.)

come and play

I'm loving playing word tag over at Thinklings. Go and take a look and add some of your own. There's currently a pretentiousness competition going on, started by me, although I fear this may be a mistake. It was a sort of reaction against the 80s songs theme that preceded it, but at the moment the only people playing are me, Nathan, Rich and occasionally De. I hope we didn't kill it.

this must be thursday

On this particular Thursday, I want to write about socks, but since I wanted to be able to show you my newly knitted socks when I wrote about socks and DP has borrowed the digital camera it'll have to wait. Perhaps I could bring my socks to work and take their picture here.

Enough, there are more things in life than socks.

There are jumpers and scarves and hats and gloves and mittens and...books!

I'm currently re-reading Pride and Prejudice not only because it's wonderful and makes me smile and because I want to have read the book recently when I go and see the film but because I'm studying it in my Open University course this year. Yay being a part-time student! The new course starts on 1 October and once it gets going, there isn't going to be much time for knitting.

At the moment I'm wondering whether there's going to be enough time for reading. I used to read lots on the way to work, but cycling most of the way to work means I have about 10 minutes of on-the-tube reading time per day. I can stretch that a bit by reading as I walk to the tube station, but the number of days it takes me to read a book is significantly longer than it was in the days when I had 40 minutes of train time per day. But I still read pretty quickly, so I'll just have to get clever at finding times and places to read.

What else have I got to read this year? Great Expectations - I've read this before for GCSE and it took me forever to get through because I got so fed up with Pip. Frankenstein - I finally overcame my fear (it's not really scary, but the cover of the copy I've got put me off) and read this when I was doing my MSc, where we looked at it from the point of view of fears about science and technology. It'll be interesting to look at it from a different perspective. The Color Purple - I remember reading this sometime at school, probably around the time I wrote an essay comparing Meridian, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Gormenghast. A bit of a strange combination, but good fun. It was something about union with nature bringing both freedom and destruction.

Texts new to me are A Doll's House, Fathers and Sons, Top Girls, Henry V, Othello and As You Like it. I'm sure I've seen the latter in some form at some point, but I can't remember anything about it if I have.

It looks like lots of people taking the same course as me are buying their books on Amazon. If you look at the "people who bought this book also bought..." section, the same books keep recurring. It must be quite a puzzling combination if you're not buying for that course.

So there you are: if you ask me what I'm reading over the next few months, it's quite likely the answer will be one of these books.

countdown

I noticed today that I'm edging close to 100 posts and it's also getting close to my birthday. I'm not going to try to emulate little red boat's year by year countdown to her birthday earlier this year, but I thought I ought to see if I can make post number 100 coincide with birthday number 26 (27, if you count the day I was born as number 1). So I'd better think of lots of things to say in the next couple of weeks.

(it's 13th October btw)

next step

toeing the line
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This weekend, HP (whose feet these are) was delivered to Exeter University by my parents. They left her with a room with a minuscule amount of storage, but as yet no room-mate. It sounds like she's already found some friendly people. Today will be her first day of student-dom.

Enjoy it, HP! Don't worry, every else is just as nervous as you, even the loud over-confident people. Freshers' week will probably be the longest ever week of your life, but if you survive that, you can survive almost anything student life will throw at you. We love you and most importantly, God loves you, so you can stride out with confidence on your new path.

the sound of black holes?

10 minute programme on BBC2 on Black holes. And the soundtrack is as follows:

The sound of silence, Simon and Garfunkel (Er?)
Black magic woman, Santana? (It's black, it's weird, I don't think it's female though)
La vida loca, Ricky Martin (crazy gravity, apparently)
In the air tonight, Phil Collins (Well it's in the sky I suppose)
Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden (I'll give you that one)
Female of the Species, Space (Black holes swallow stuff)
Something disco I can't identify - He's dangerous? (See above)
Something dancy I can't identify - Shine on me? (big shiny stars in the sky)
Got my mind set on you, George Harrison (Astronomers search for eveidence of black holes)
Oasis, Live forever (Er, something about how long the universe will last?)

The visuals are pretty good, loads of computer stuff combining stock footage, astronomy pictures, visual distortions and swirling black holes. Occasionally there's a Hitchikers' style fact screen. Science seems OK, I'm too sleepy to pay attention really. Someone had fun with the soundtrack anyway.

Ooh look, Dead Ringers. Really will go to bed soon.

settee blogging

I've been sitting on the settee in the living room for hours. It's sunday evening and I'm sleepy. I've been frogging the Colinette jumper, it's too big so I'm redoing it. Some thoughts on what's on the box.

Monarch of the Glen. Molly is using a search engine that looks very familiar but it's called Ogle.

What's happened to Frost? They've switched to video and it looks wrong. It's OK in the darker scenes, but anything well-lit looks like every other drama on ITV. And there's a glamourous psychologist and a nasty serial killer. That's not the Frost we know and love!? I'm disappointed.

Pitch Black is on 4. No idea what's going on, but it looks gorgeous. Sort of over-exposed white and blue. There are a few patches of red, but mostly it's all bleached out. Some people are running around, ooh just got some flashes of negative colour and then urgh, blood splatters. Back to Frost. He's confronting a dodgy priest, but it looks like something from Family Affairs or some other tacky soap. Oh why do ITV do it? Perhaps I'm just too fussy.

I finished my Lorna's Laces socks, pic to come when I've access to a digital camera.

Advert for the Best of ELO. Since I heard some of their stuff in my uncle's car this summer I seem to be hearing them everywhere.

Oh perhaps someday soon I'll have something to write that's not about knitting or my car or silly trivial things. There are things I'd like to say, but my thoughts are so ill-formed at the moment. There's stuff running around in my head, but it's staying there at the moment. Give it time. I think I've got used to living in my head recently.

I ran out of energy about 5 this afternoon. Perhaps I should just go to bed.

the young turk

the young turk
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Meet my new bug. He's shiny and turquoise and seems to have a little problem with a leaking petrol tank. Hopefully I'll get that sorted soon. In the mean time, he needs a name. So far suggestions include Tom (a bit boring I think), Olly (maybe), Moses (Er? HP suggested this one. Admittedly the only Moses I have ever met was turquoise (he's a large toy dog)) and The Young Turk (or perhaps Turq) which is what's currently sticking. Any more suggestions? He's definitely a boy.

bye bye Ruby

I bought the car.

I drove Ruby to the garage this morning and said goodbye. Her engine and various bits and pieces will be transferred to the new bug and I'm picking it up on Saturday. It was a little emotional knowing I was driving my car for the last time. Silly really, especially since my new car is also a Beetle and it's not falling apart quite so fast so should keep going for a few more years.

I led sunday school yesterday and one of things we did was a game in which we had to decide which things we needed (water, food, clothes) and which were luxuries (chocolate, computer, mobile phone). A car was one of things that was hotly debated. Lots of the kids saw a car as essential for getting around, but I think we eventually agreed that having a car is a luxury and that many people in the world don't have access to any transport at all. It was a timely reminder! Funny that. Whenever I lead Sunday school, God teaches me as much as he teaches the kids.

car buying

I've been looking at another bug. Much as I love Ruby (my current bug), she has terminal rust and won't get through another MOT. She was in the garage a couple of weeks ago to have her brakes fixed and while I was there, the garage owner pointed out a younger bug for sale. I've had a look at it, it looks much less rusty underneath. The inside's not in brilliant condition, but then neither is Ruby's. The plan would be to transfer the engine (which was new last year) to the newer bug, scavenge various bits and (gulp) send Ruby to be broken up for parts.

The price seems reasonable. I'm taking a man who knows more about cars than me to take a look at it tomorrow and if he thinks it's sensible, I'll go for it. It'll be sad to lose my red VW, but she was always going to die eventually and I'll still have a bug. The new bug is 5 years younger, turquoise, with beautiful hub caps. I don't like the interior, the seats are brown plastic leatherette and in need of replacing, the dashboard is the same design more or less, but it's plastic and the steering wheel's awful. But the bodywork's in good condition and I know the engine's OK. Plus it's got a rear screen heater. Hurrah for being able to see out of the back when it's cold!

When I move to Cambridge, I'll need a reliable car. I don't plan to drive to work, but the new job will invlove lots of travelling and moving away from home means no longer having the backup of my mum's car. Yes, I could probably buy something newer with the same money, but it wouldn't be as fun. Despite the hassle when things go wrong, the lack of air-conditioning, the little quirks, I like being a VW owner.

puzzled

For several weeks the name Tiglath Pileser has been buzzing around in my head, popping up at odd moments, niggling me to look it up and find out what it is. So I googled and I found that Tiglath Pileser was the name of several kings of Assyria.

Tiglath Pileser I was roughly contemporary with David and Solomon (er, actually no, see below) and Tiglath Pileser III is mentioned in 2 Kings 15 and 16 and 1 Chronicles 5.

All of which is very interesting, but doesn't explain why it had got stuck on my head.

Tiglath Pileser would make a good name for a cat.

UPDATE: oops, not reading carefully enough. Tiglath Pileser I reigned well before David and Solomon. They were around during the decline of the Assyrian Empire that followed his death. There's an inscription of Tiglath Pileser I in the British Museum. Is anyone else interested in this or is it just me?

cricket lovely cricket

It's everywhere today. On the Today Programme this morning, every other item was cricket-related. There was an item on the Woodworm bat, as used by Flintoff and others, Mick Jagger and John Major swapped stories of international cricket watching, Simon Heffer and Billy Bragg were heard agreeing (on Jerusalem as a possible English national anthem), even Thought for the Day was cricket-themed. When I walked past the chaplaincy this morning, the usual sign saying 'Open for prayer' had been altered to read 'Open for cricket'.

I have no claims to be a proper cricket fan. I have a rudimentary knowledge of the rules, but still don't really understand what things like 'silly point' mean. HP has to explain it to me since she's been listening to our cricket-mad uncle. But I did get very excited at the nail-biting end of the Trent Bridge test and I expect I'll get drawn into watching this one too. It could be a historic occasion.

and relax...

I know I'm probably the last person in the blogosphere to catch up with eBay.
But I just bought stuff on it for the first time and am feeling very pleased with myself. It's very tense, watching the minutes tick down on the item you're bidding for, refreshing the page every two minutes (er, seconds) to see if you've been outbid, the relief when the item is yours.

Perhaps not something I should do too often. Too stressed-making.

(I bought lots of double-pointed knitting needles and some bright pink mohair blend wool. Just in case you're interested.)

I have nothing to say

To disprove myself, I'm going to post in the hope I'll think of something.

Hmm.

Something must be happening in my life?

Cycling is continuing to happen. Which is a good thing, especially when I realised last week that I'd lost some weight. No idea how much, but enough to be noticed by me. So there's an extra incentive to keep pedalling.

I have told my boss I'm leaving, but not formally resigned yet. Time is dragging.

I finished the flamingo shrug, although I might go back to it to add some ribbing. The pink Colinette jumper has a back, a front, one sleeve and a few rows of collar. Last night I ripped out a few rows of the shoulders so I could add short row shaping and use a three-needle cast off to join the shoulder seams which was very satisfying. I realise that's goobledegook to non-knitters, but it made me happy. I then knit a few rows of the collar, but then realised I was using one 12mm needle and one 10mm so that'll have to come out and be re-done tonight. It won't be long before it's finished. Then I'll have to decide what to knit next. Probably my first pair of socks in some beautiful rainbow coloured Shepherd Sock by Lorna's Laces. Once I've found the right sized needles.

That's it really. Life seems to be a little knitting-centric at the moment.