Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday.  We've had sunshine here and it's been lovely to have it for more than a day!

On Saturday evening I decided to try something I'd seen last year.  Bunny rolls!

Looks simple, doesn't it?

Oh ho ho.  The first attempts were so terrible I took one photo and then tried again.


Jo suggested to cut the ears the other way and fold them back.  I forgot to take a photo pre-baking of the two possibunnies and the demented slipper.  These are the end result:







The demented slipper's head tore open.  I can think of one redheaded reader and pupil at the school who possibly might smile at demented slipper's unfortunate incident.


We've had a busy weekend.  Saturday was the Easter Fayre.  I helped man the Tapestry Group table selling our card sets.  I found Nemo!



It also turns out there is such a thing as a free lunch:


It was a wonderful day for it.


We had this weather pretty much all weekend.


The weather was so nice that on Sunday we entertained folk to the first BBQ of the season.  Alas, the coals I got were terrible so we ended up putting all the food under the grill inside and then smoking it over the coals for flavour.  No photos, enjoying company too much.  We also broke one friend with this Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch:


On Sunday Jo went to a dawn service near the Manse, alas one of the front trike tyres punctured on the driveway.  So the trike stayed there until Monday.  There'd been a wedding last week where the sound system at the church had been very uncooperative so I went in to work out the exact problem and find out what we do about it.  Turned out it was a dual issue.  The front woofer/amplifier had sprung a fault that didn't clear and someone had seriously damaged the audio input cable so it only worked if you wiggled it just right.  I still have no idea how the 3.5mm jack got bent; that takes great force on such a tiny thing.  So after a phone call to the lovely man who set us up with all the bits Jo and I set to dismantling "big Dave".

16 metal screws and 1 wood screw later and we had about half the weight of the behemoth.  The manufacturer are actually happy to take back the panel with all the electronics on it and repair/replace that rather than the whole thing.  So the giant box gets to stay on the island and the extremely heavy panel gets to go back.  I hope the manufacturer either pay for or refund the postage, this is NOT going to be cheap!

After doing that we headed to the Manse and decided it was easier to replace the inner tube than repair it again.  Especially after said tube looked like it had been sanded with gravel.  So that was replaced, inflated and all was well.  Jo cycled us both home via the Co and I knit from Scarinish to home.



It was a fairly smooth ride and rather pleasant with no real wind as such and gorgeous sunshine all around.

Now, apologies in advance to those who find moths disturbing, if you do, skip the next two photos quickly!

May I introduce the first divebomber of the season, the Belted Beauty:



Why "divebomber"?  Because they fly into the bathroom after dusk and have a habit of bouncing off you and any other surface while you're in there.  The first time it happens can be a bit shocking.

But just LOOK at that amazing detail!


So much work in something so small.  These guys (the females look like fuzzy bugs) are extremely rare in England and fairly rare up North but abundant in the areas they are in.  I.e. Tiree.

Thinking of amazing, the sunrise this morning was breathtaking and well worth being awake at 5:30 am.







Actually, those were all *before* the sun came up.  The actual sunrise was awesome too.


Just perched on the hill in Balephetrish





That's it really.  Studying goes well, so does the filing at An Iodhlann where I am off to later.

TTFN

Pretty update

Nothing much of note to report at the moment.  Spring is finally here (for today at least) and the washing machine has done SIX loads of doggy laundry.  The living room now doesn't smell of fusty dog, and nor does the dog who got a shower and then soaked the bathroom shaking off.

But the pretty!

I've spent the last month-ish working on a shawl.  Usually this isn't much of note except that the chart provided stopped before the repeating sections really settled out and I can NOT follow written instructions without making a right mess.  So I set about working out what repeats and charting it myself.  The designer was delighted with my pdf and has even added it to the pattern site.

I got to the end of the original chart:


All going well except for that one mistake that I refused to go back to and decided to leave in because I don't like to be Perfect.

Today I knit and knit and then cast off.  The original pattern suggests around 960yds, I used over 1000 but strangely did not extra repeats.  Not that I really care, I was aiming for full colour repeats.

So, off the needles I had a snazzy but floppy ... thing.


A soak in some warm water and the bathroom starts to smell of warm sheep.


The water came off a little dirty and very lanolin-smelling.

While it was soaking I got out my blocking sheet (old sheet that protects my knitting from the doghair infused rug) and wires.  Time to block!



I'm actually very happy with how easy it was to block.  Usually shawls give me cause for swearing and sore knees but this one just worked.


To give an idea of scale, this is a yard rule (3feet long):


Yep, nice big, cosy shawl.

And that's it really.  Got the go ahead at a committee meeting at An Iodhlann to order files for the huge number of print outs Duncan (the genealogy person) and I hunted down and those should be here by the end of the week.  Lots of filing ahead!  I also volunteered to add to a spreadsheet someone started years ago and type up every birth, marriage, and death from 1855 to 1920 (1913 in the case of births).  Yeah, that's going to take me a while.

Studying continues.  I am getting in the swing of studying little and often.  I also had a quick shot at the first online assessment and am now far less panicked.

I shall leave you with a shot of Da Moon I took this morning, it was so bright you could have gone for a beach walk at 2am.



TTFN