Thursday, March 13, 2014

New follower, welcome!

Health

Here we are – Thursday. Doctor appt day. Do I perhaps feel a smidgen better? My sister is sure I have damaged my heart with excessive cider-drinking. It will be more than a bit embarrassing if she proves to be right.

Miscellaneous

That picture we tried and failed to buy in New York in February, has turned up in the trade already. A dealer got in touch with my husband about it yesterday. It has gone to the big art fair in Maastricht. They are offering it as “by” My Husband's Artist (not “attributed to” or “after” or “school of”). Presumably they don't have much to say about its history or provenance, nor do we know the asking price. If it fails to sell there, it'll come to their Edinburgh branch and we can actually see it.

It is sad to know that it was bought for money, not for love. It's such a nice thing. It is some comfort to think how much our bidding cost the dealer.

Chick peas: Dragonwagon says that the way to peel them is to wrap in a clean tea-towel and rub, after the initial cooking, of course. That works, up to a point. It was a nice, peaceful sitty-down job, at least.

Mary Lou, I am delighted to learn that you enjoyed Mansfield Park. Some people don't.

Janette, in looking up the link for Mary Lou, I found your comment which had just arrived. Alas, the link doesn't work – “web page unavailable” or something like that. I then spent too long trying without success to find a cure for this endless spam myself. Archie's going to have to crack it at the weekend.

So that doesn't leave enough time to write about

Knitting

I had a good day with the Unst Bridal Shawl yesterday. I am now well embarked of the 14th repeat of the centre pattern (18 ½ being the target), with no repeat of Tuesday's near disaster. I think the dubious passage will be swallowed by the whole. If not, I think it can be improved with a needle. I'll take a picture today. It still doesn't look remotely like a potential square.


The Dutch Traditional Ganseys book turned up yesterday, and it's good. My husband asked about Dutch wool – a subject of which I find I know nothing. I'll have to look.

9 comments:

  1. I hope the appointment is illuminating and positive (as a girl from cider country, I do hope that isnt the culprit...)

    As for pulses - I was listening to Radio 4's Kitchen Cabinet the other day. They were talking about beans and pulses. Jay Rayner (the host) canvassed opinion about tinned or dried: the panel was split. Jay suggested that tinned were no longer inferior, because dried beans/pulses are often from multiple sources (different farms & countries), which means that they never quite cook at the same time - unlike tinned which are from the same batch. In any case, he suggested that the snobbery about tinned pulses/beans was now misplaced..

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  2. Hope the appointment goes well

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  3. Ruth in Ontario, Canada1:07 PM

    Ditto Bonnie's sentiment. Oddly, the Dutch gansey book won't be released in Canada until later this summer, but have pre-ordered it on the strength of Meg's and your comments about it.

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  4. I'm anxious to hear you are fixable, if that is necessary. Wishing you well,

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  5. Your sister's remark--surely she was just teasing you? Thanks for the interesting news about the painting. Perhaps you'll be able to have another go at buying it. Hope it goes well at the doctor's.

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  6. It makes me sad, also, when people collect art for money rather than love. I never buy art I don't love, but had a colleague who bought some prints at our University's print sale (print students and invited faculty and staff make a series of 8x10" prints that go for sale at the annual holiday sale with the proceeds going to the print department, usually to help fund the students' trip to a print makers' exposition) for the sole reason that it was the only way he could afford a couple of the artists' works and they might be worth something one day. He didn't even like them, just liked their potential resale value. I couldn't understand it.

    Thank you for the review on the dutch gansey book as well. As of yesterday there was only one pattern from the book on ravelry and the sources I've seen just don't have that much information yet. I do love ganseys.

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  7. For a long time, I attributed my husband's heart problems (congestive heart disease) to his excessive smoking and drinking of gin . . . until my sister-in-law told me their mother (non-smoker, non-drinker) had exactly the same condition. Apparently, it was genetic! And I doubt you could be drinking enough cider to cause problems -- how would you keep your knitting straight in that condition?

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  8. Janette8:08 PM

    Hi again Jean,
    I just copied and pasted the link into the URL address bar and the link seems to work fine. You'll have to do that as the comments section doesn't automatically convert web addresses into links. Make sure you copy the whole address (from http, ending -chrome). I'm pretty certain this is the problem causing the annoying pop-ups :)


    http://features.m.en.softonic.com/how-to-remove-toolbars-in-chrome

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  9. Anonymous1:28 AM

    All the best to you. And it couldn't possibly be cider - just fruit, right?

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