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).

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!

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.

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.