Overnight kitchen madness

It's been noted last week that I was rather "run down".  That was an understatement to be honest, I was on the verge of crashing.

Yesterday Jo was home all day due to illness; other than waking up at 8am to phone him in sick I slept from 8:30pm Wednesday night to 8:49pm Thursday night.  Yep, near 24 hours of sleep!  It wasn't even poor sleep, it was outright needed dead-to-the-world sleep.

So, after getting up I chatted to Jo about what we were going to make to give to friends.  Cue me boiling sugar and melting chocolate into the wee hours.

I made chocolate truffle mix (low carb diet friendly!)

I made tablet:


And I (hopefully) made fudge:


It's a Delia recipe but I think it needed to get a bit hotter.  We shall see once it's cooled.

In other news I have new specs!



Yep, they're blue.  You see, while a UK specs making firm will have to charge you £300 to get your specs coloured there's a US firm that do it for a lot less so long as you only want either blue, green or yellow.  Fortunately for me; my "disability" (I use that term loosely) is sorted by blue tint.

These arrived on Tuesday and while I'm not quite brave enough to wear them in public yet, I wear them at home and they are FANTASTIC!  For the first time in my memory I can read without the text changing thickness or moving or going fuzzy.  I spent 3 hours reading things on my computer on Wednesday morning and instead of having the usual headache and tired feeling I was fine and the information had gone in.  I can also count squares on a knitting chart more reliably and follow the lines easier.

I cannot express how much of a difference this has made.  Finally I can read books to the point where I want to stop rather than my head aches.

Hurrah for Meares and Irlen for discovering this mental issue and hurrah for optical firms providing the service.  Long may it continue!

Well, this is probably the final update before Christmas and perhaps new year; so Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year to all from myself, Jo, Pippa the dog and Rumble, Nushu and Fred the ferrets.

TTFN

*corncrakes*

Oops!

It's not that I'm not busy, it's just that it's mundane life stuff.  Combined with the winter weather being here and so me not really getting out and about and the blog goes quiet.

So, random pictures from the past month:


We've had some lovely mornings




Friday was the Lunch Club Christmas lunch and our friday group were invited.  The Cobbled Cow put on a fantastic meal with crackers and pass the parcel.



Marg is probably going to murder me for this; but she looked so good!





Yep, that's a full body Rudolph outfit/onesie.  The nose contains a squeaker.  There were lots of "will you leave my tail alone!" exclamations during the meal :p

I've designed a cushion cover.







It's called "Lamb below the waves" and is inspired by Tiree's nickname "Land below the waves".  I'm not selling the pattern but I am selling the covers with or without stuffers.

The Woolly Ferret is slowly gaining interest.  I've got some new yarn to update it with this week.

Oh, we had a Christmas sale!

Good grief, really must update more often.

So, yes, 30th November was the Tiree Christmas Fayre.  I didn't want to go all out and get a whole table; partly because I wasn't sure I'd have enough stock and partly because if nothing sold that'd be me £12 out of pocket and a bit sad.  So, I chatted to Amanda of Grommity and we shared.  She made good sales with her keyrings; prints and sold a painting too!



I sold a little over half the baubles; a couple of hair elastics and lots of yarn.  Considering I only had sock yarn on sale  I was most impressed!

No, the cushions didn't sell; it's not quite sunk into the Public Mind that hand crafted doesn't nescessarily mean "made poorly by hobbyists" so the idea of paying over £40 for a cushion is still a little baulk worthy.  Still, that's a bargain when you consider the yarn alone cost £15

What else?  Oh, we lost internet for a good portion of the day a couple of weeks back and I was feeling slightly energetic.  I have a thing for knitting socks (you might have noticed) but I really cannot stand knitting them from the cuff down; it usually involves picking up gusset stitches and I always end up with huge holes.

But I really like a pattern that has Escher's lizards on it.  So I spent about 4 hours crunching numbers; knitting a swatch (a rarity for me!); measuring and working out how to reverse a pattern.



After some utterly daft mistakes I had success!





And that is as far as it's gotten because I have been doing Christmas knitting; had a week lost due to cold and been doing more stuff for the shop.

Hmm, considering I didn't think I had much to blog about, this isn't exactly a short post!

Finally, I shall leave you with some socks I knit for an island friend:



(I did wash them before sending them!)

TTFN

(belated) Happy Birthday Peter!

You know the friend who's been working on model Tiree houses?





He turned mumblemumble years old on Monday and had a birthday party on Sunday.

On Friday I took round our biggest cake tin and the hand mixer.  17 eggs and 1.5hours' cooking later we had a huuuuge cake!



We used two mixing bowls as I wasn't sure on their capacity.  Started with an 8 egg mix, that wasn't enough, weighed the remaining marge and went up to 17 eggs.



I also used bicarb instead of baking powder to make the cake rise and was warned it was going to taste disgusting.  Nope!  Most delicious.

The party went great.

The cake had been decorated and was candled:


Guests were given gold plates with expensive napkins!


One guest really liked those:


Snackerels were provided:


I was asked to light the candles and Jo, being the strong man, was asked to bring the cake through...







It really was as hot as he makes it look!

With one puff the birthday boy blew out all the candles!





Oh yes... erm...we might have set the smoke alarm off in the kitchen lighting all those candles.

A happy afternoon had by all and lots of cake to enjoy.

TTFN

Community Bonfire Night

I didn't go to this last year, instead I enjoyed the display from home (all the visuals, not so much bang).  This time though it was moved a day forward due to weather so it was on before tapestry group.  I did take some photos of early fireworks and the fire as I walked down but a combination of poor timing, passing cars, and shaky tripod made those a bit too poor.

I did take video of some of the display, but do turn your volume down!  I wasn't very far from the display and these were loud (funnily enough, what with it being explosives!)

Video 1:


Video 2:


I also engaged the camera's fireworks mode.  This is basically a mode that holds the shutter open for 4 seconds and captures all that light it gets during that time.  So, instead of what the eye sees, you get a combination.  It made for some pretty photos, quite a few of which look like palm fronds and flowers:  Apologies for the odd one with a strange black shape infront; I was behind a fence and the post was sometimes in the way.











































































The bonfire was lovely too:





Once the display was over I headed on to tapestry.  I think it was a successful night, even with the short notice day move.  Now, back to knitting!

TTFN