Colours...

I cant decide on the exact colours for my sisters blanket, so far it is burgundy in the middle, then a little black, and then some peach. It was going to be like this (excuse the poor photoshopping):

But the peach looks kind of bright, so I wondered if it would look better if it was like one of these:

Running Again

I went for a run again today, because I ran yesterday, today's run was predominantly on grass (or mud mainly). My route went along the old railway and round a little lake. I did a similar route last May, at this time of year the railway bit was nicer, because the gravel/hardcore was more embedded in the mud, so I was less worried about spraining my ankle. The grassy footpath round the lake was a lot muddier, and I had to go really slowly to not fall over on some bits!

I finished a crochet blanket for Olly's niece (photos later), so have now started on one for my sister. I am wishing I had brought more wool to Cambridge.

Running

I went for a really nice run this morning. It was like a winter wonderland outside with loads of frost and a clear blue sky and sunshine. Despite the sun it was pretty cold, for the first time ever when running I wished I had worn gloves, a hat would have been nice too. I am getting to know my way around Cambridge, and I didn't get lost!

I should go running more often, it makes me feel happy.

Caffeine

Fact for Today: Diet coke has more caffeine in it than "real" coke (45mg as apposed to 34mg per can).
http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database/

I used to drink diet coke a fair amount, I preferred it to "real" coke. I heard somewhere that that was because the artificial sugar was addictive, but maybe it was also the higher caffeine content?

Until I did my MSc I didn't like coffee. Actually I didn't like it much then, but when I was in the US coffee was free but you had to pay for diet coke, so I started drinking coffee. Now I quite like it (as long as has lots of milk and sugar and isn't very strong...)

Cambridge

I seem to have forgotten to write anything here for a few days. We came down to Cambridge on Monday it was a much faster journey than normal - only 3 1/4 hours. A combination of no roadworks, very little traffic and our nice car. With the old Clio, we tended to drive at 65-70, this car feels more comfortable at 70-75, and more fuel efficient.

We came down here mostly to finish the new front door - last time we came down we bought it, and cut it to size and painted the undercoat. External doors take ages to paint, lots of coats of undercoat, then lots of gloss, and the gloss takes >24hours to dry. It is a lovely red colour though.

I have had a cold which is annoying. Not as bad as the I-finished-my-PhD cold I had in October, or the Man-Flu Olly had a few weeks ago, but still a pain.

The photos are of the most recent hats in my Etsy shop. I had a hard time photoing the top one, partly because there wasn't a very good background in Cambridge, and because the lights aren't very bright (really old low energy ones).

Busy Busy

I listed the cream and pink baby hat on Etsy last night. As ever I wish I could take better photos, I need more practise probably. I do like how quick and easy it is to list things on Etsy.

When I sewed the crocheted fish onto the cream and blue baby hat yesterday it looked a lot less good :( so I had to take it off and I am working out a better way to do they tail. There was lots of fish-inspiration on the Planet Earth program last night.

We are going down to Cambridge today for a week or two, so I am busy sorting stuff out before we go and packing. I just noticed the start of a hole in my only jeans without holes, so I guess I will need to go shopping soon :(

Happy!

Yay! I made my second sale on Etsy, a scarf this time. It is so exciting to be selling stuff, I hope the novelty never wears off.

I am also happy because I went for a run today and my hip didn't hurt at all. I took it slowly, and chose a route that never took me too far from either home or Asda (my destination) just in case. It was pretty windy and a bit wet outside, but it felt refreshing not miserable.

I was busy crocheting yesterday and made a cream+pink baby hat for Etsy, and nearly finished a cream+blue hat for Olly's nephew. I realised I only really made girly hats (i.e. with flowers), so wanted to make a more boys style one. I spent ages working out what to use instead of a flower, and with lots of help from friends settled on a fish. It was going to be a star, but I couldn't make a decent looking one small enough. Photos coming soon!

Corby

The town I come from (Corby) is famous, but not in a good way according to this BBC news article. Corby gets quite a lot of bad press, though it does have a crater on Mars named after it, not many towns can say that!

Yesterday, a man came to the door selling bleach, disinfectant or potatoes. I didn't fancy bleach favoured potatoes so didn't buy anything. It keeps making me giggle each time I think of the odd combination. I wonder if he had many sales?

A Sale and a Tunnel

I sold my first hat on Etsy! Hooray! I was sooooooo pleased, and hopefully this will be the start of many. I should make a similar hat to list soon - this was like the hats that did well on ebay a couple of years ago.

Yesterday afternoon we got a phone call from a friend asking if we wanted to go on a tour of one of the Mersey Road tunnels in the evening. We had seen this advertised in the paper but failed to book places on it - turned out they had lots of demand and you needed to book a month or so in advance. Anyway, our friends had booked 4 tickets, but 2 of the people were no longer able to go, so they asked us. It was a huge rush to get there in time, and we had to walk very fast, but we made it there in 55mins for 5:30 (just!).

The guide told us a bit about the history of the tunnel, it was built back in 1925, and mostly uses all the original stuff. Apparently it is a lot better than the other Mersey Tunnel that was built more recently! When it was built it was the largest (by volume I think) underwater tunnel in the World, that stayed the case until the 1990s.

We got taken through a lot of the ventilation bits - huge fans, and into part of the tunnel. The ventilation is so impressive that the air is cleaner in the tunnel than parts of the city center - partly cos the tunnel fumes probably end up in the city center!

All in all it was pretty fun, and interesting to see how well 1920s engineering has lasted. Hopefully our 1880's house was built with as much care :)

My hip seems to have survived the walk there and back and all the stairs on the tour which is great. I am undecided whether to run today or not though.

Pain :(

The ibuprofen I took last night helped my hip a bit. But it definitely hurts this morning, I am wondering what it is, and hoping it will go away soon.

My wrist is hurting too - I think this is an RSI type thing from my PhD, particularly the last ~30 hours of solid work with no sleep and not many breaks. And my shoulder/back hurts too. This is kind of my own fault - I adjusted my computer chair higher to make my wrist hurt less, but that makes my shoulder hurt...

I think I am falling apart!

On a more positive note, I finished the primary-colour crochet hat this morning. I will photo it when Olly wakes up, and probably list in my Etsy shop tonight.

Getting Stuff Done!

I have managed to get more done today. Made a lot of progress on the expo accounts, not too much left to do thankfully.

Went for a run, through the park and to Asda. Thus acheiving (a)fresh air (b)excersie (c)food shopping. I was going to go through the cemetery which is shorter but it was getting dark, so I played safe and took the boring route round the road. This meant I ran further and had to walk a bit at the end to get to Asda. Wouldn't have been a problem except my hip really hurt :( I think it might be time for some new running shoes, these have done 230 miles running, plus a reasonable amount of walking (maybe another 100 miles?) I have just had some ibuprofen, so hopefully that will fix it...

Just put pizza dough in the bread maker, so pizza will cheer me up at least!

Spiral Hat listed on Etsy

I listed the hat I finished the other day on my Etsy shop last night. This is the maroon one with a cream spiral crocheted on top. It wasn't very easy to photo sadly, and it looks better in real life.

I find it really hard to price the hats, especially with the current dollar exchange rate! I listed it at $14, a couple of dollars cheaper than the other adult hats because it was quicker to make (especially compared with the green spiral hat).

Next I am making a red and blue spiral hat, kind of like the practise spiral I made the other day. I might do the edging in yellow, so a primary colours type hat for kids. I figure that too much kids stuff is in cute baby colours.

Must Get More Done...

Last night I finished the hat I started the night before. It looks quite cool (photo coming later when Olly wakes up) , it is a maroon with a cream spiral crocheted on the outside. I think it would have looked better if I had used a longer stitch for the maroon, then you would see relatively more of it compared to the cream. Anyway, I will photo it later and add it to my Etsy shop this evening hopefully.

I didn't get all that much work done yesterday, but I did sort through loads of my emails (my inbox is less than 2/3 the size it was!). So I could at least find a couple of emails I needed so I could tick off one PhD job and one accounts job. I really want to finish the accounts this week (partly because I am owed over 400 quid, and partly because I should have done it ages ago).

Wasted a lot of the afternoon helping Olly complete a quiz that took a lot of looking up for some of the answers (there was a question for each day in November). We do at least now know the Tube Station with the longest name and no repeated letters. Not sure if that will ever be useful knowledge, but hey.

I just discovered that this has a spell checking feature like Gmail, hooray!

I thought that this blog could serve as a kind of To Do List. Maybe that way I will make better use of my time...

So far today I have done a load of clothes washing (and am hoping they dry before it rains), put a loaf of bread in the breadmaker and worked out how to make a two colour crochet spiral.



The crochet spiral worked out pretty cool, so I think I will make a hat like that soon, just need to decide which 2 colours, and finish the hat I started last night.

What I actually need to have been doing today is making the changes to my thesis, and sorting out the expo accounts...

Well this is my first blog entry.
Hello to anyone who is reading it...