Gregarius » Edithmatilda. Well, Miriam really.

Edithmatilda. Well, Miriam really. (10 unread)

I have an amazingly twee advent calendar ...

Posted: November 22nd, 2007, 6:03am MST

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I have an amazingly twee advent calendar which consists of tiny rusty buckets tied together with ribbon, with numbers clipped to them by tiny clothes pegs. It is clearly fab but requires 24 Things to go in the buckets. So far I have:

6 assorted miniatures from Fenwick's booze department
2 tiny boxes of enormously overpriced chocolates
2 small tins of mints, 1 Flower Fairy and 1 Jemima Puddleduck, destined to have new life as paracetamol-and-decongestant tins
2 tiny wee boxes of jelly beans in case I don't find anything better

This is all clearly a pricey enterprise, given that I have filled a maximum of 12 buckets so far and it doesn't count towards Actual Christmas. Nevertheless, I have to think of twelve more things, and I've already done the massively unoriginal booze-and-choc bit. Arse. Also, Moo and prob Eleri will be here during Advent so I will need them-specific things also, to be reshuffled to suitable dates upon confirmation thereof.

Things need to be:

small
not completely shit
not so expensive that I can't buy actual Christmas

I shall probably get something frivolous from Boots with my accumulated advantage card points, but this is pretty much limited to self and Eleri, so that won't be that many days covered. I am probably also allowed a couple of intensely childish things like Silly Putty to maintain the illusion that this is not just a very expensive way of avoiding sobriety throughout December. And arg it is all efforty and makes me have to MOVE booo.

So, any ideas, anyone? I require Stuff!
It is very very cold badness badness.

Posted: November 21st, 2007, 6:09am MST

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It is very very cold badness badness.

Here are pigs.

The End

Permalink for 'Edithmatilda._Well__Miriam_really./2007/11/21/Ate_nt_Dead'

The annoying thing about the physical bits of depression (apart from their basic existence booo) is the way they crop up for no good reason at all. Also, Soreness makes Bad Sleep happen and then Bad Sleep makes Overthinking happen. It's all beautifully worked out like a vast row of dominoes spelling YOU WILL SUFFER MWA HA HA HA HA. Depression is quite impressively self-perpetuating. My autoimmune metaphor still stands.

Our heating is broken. Imagine my joy.

I had to restart my second bedsock twice while in Paisley, then finished the whole thing the day I got home. Conclusion: I can't mix lace knitting and conversation. Said socks are very warm and pleasing, and their girliness makes me snigger. Hurrah.

Am knitting this. There are a lot of ends to darn in. Joy.

I also have wool for this half price from Jenners' haberdashery closing-down thingy (much thank to

diarytypething) which I will make next and which will fill a definite Girly Frock Cover-Up gap in my wardrobe. I am warpedly enjoying tweeness at present. Hope have not become a girl.

I do not intend to knit this. I don't think anyone does. Even the person who made the one for the magazine probably did it by accident and is now in counselling. You should click on it for the full impact, but what it basically is is a 139cm wide x 260cm long beige mohair curtain. Yes. There are some stripes at the bottom and the beige is sparkly, just to fuck with your head, but that is basically what it is. It is knitted in fine wool on 4mm needles, which means it will be about eight thousand stitches and half a million rows. Of beige. There is a bit of a pattern on it, but what has basically happened here is that someone has been paid real money to write the words "buy £150 of beige wool, cast on eleven billion stitches, knit until you want to die, then knit some more". I am not sure whether to laugh or be really bitter that I didn't think of it first. Maybe I could submit them a pattern for an £8000 angora lawn warmer?

I like hats because (a) you can more or less make the patterns up and (b) they can be knitted quite fastly in between bits of Long Stripy Rectangle. I now have to go and buy some full-price (shock horror) Alpaca Soft^TM because I am quite jealous of the hat I knitted for Yak and it seems to be non-itchy. Also it helps to break up the Long Stripy Rectangle procedure further.

I am getting that grumpy feeling where you wish you could get to be the person who falls to bits and has other people pick them up. Just for a bit. It is horrid of me.

Bah. Generally gloomy and not really doing well at thinking of things to say when sod-all is happening. Might have a bath with Stuff in it to try and make the back pain go away a bit, or might just knit.

Haiku² for edithmatilda
and welcome the moth sadly i am far too late to do is to
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Created by Grahame

Arse. Sleep broken as all hell, self ...

Posted: November 1st, 2007, 3:24am MST

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Arse. Sleep broken as all hell, self due out in time for a twelve-something trane and still not remotely awake.

I have to clean out a pig cage and pack a bag, basically, but I am still going to complain.

Those linkable tube things the pigs have are genius. I am already used to sleeping through the sound of high-speed cavies zooming through them like tiny furry tube trains, and when I wake up I can play Guess The Exit and cheat by seeing which tube is madly shaking.

I wonder if I can be arsed to photocopy the one page of pattern in my heavy knitting book? I horribly doubt it.
Two Things

Posted: October 30th, 2007, 3:14pm MST

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The first thing is that one of the teenage girls on the bus on whom I was shamelessly if somewhat involuntarily eavesdropping described a thirty-year-old man as good-looking "for his age". I feel quite amazingly old and/or scared now.

The second thing is that Pets at Home had a "right pet for you" sign up on which they described guinea pigs as "an ideal first pet for small children". I am boiling with the sort of scary rage you get on animal forums now. I mean, why not just come out and say "semi-disposable animal" while they're at it? (They deemed rabbits suitable only for older children, presumably because they are slightly bigger and can kick back when some unsupervised toddler decides to pick 'em up by the eyes.) And also, no animal is a suitable pet for a child. Suitable for a family with a child, yes. Suitable to suffer because some idiot parent wants to "teach the children responsibility"? No, no and no.

From the website: "Guinea Pigs are the world’s most popular pets. They are inexpensive, undemanding, hardy and sociable creatures." PLEASE NEGLECT YOUR CHEAP UNIMPORTANT PET IT NEEDS NO ATTENTION.

The scary thing is, said giant evil chain is not actually that dreadful as such places go. This is why I try to avoid shops that sell animals: I have yet to encounter one that didn't cause hackle-raising, and I have to struggle not to return home with a menagerie and thus further support their EVIL. Today I coveted chinchillas, but who doesn't?

Alas I was a wuss and did not walk out indignantly because I had trailed all the way to the Metro Centre and my beasts wanted that snuggly bed. I also succumbed to tunnels that can be velcroed together to make a labyrinth, which are currently proving very popular on the floor behind me. I have a large four-foot spring-out tunnel thing designed for rabbits but these are pig-sized and can be joined up into a funner toy without requiring me to throw out my bed.

Then I had to get cat treats because (a)she likes them and (b)favouritism guilt. Ho hum.

I am now planning a Stern Email. In which I do not think I will mention that I gave them all my money anyway. I think the "family with a child" thing is important and not just an annoying quibble.

Oh, and rats weren't on the chart at all. Boo prejudice grr.
Isn't she lovely ...

Posted: October 29th, 2007, 8:55am MST

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Isn't she lovely and/or pointless?
Hiding Update/The Second Sock/Wool Shop Whine

Posted: October 29th, 2007, 6:08am MST

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Still hiding. No particular reason. Feel dull mainly.

Just embarked on second pointless lacy bedsock, will endeavour not to leave it unfinished but it is cruel of socks to come in pairs like that. (Yes it is better than only having one leg and I am being ungrateful.)

Sleep broken also. Up all night. Have to go out to buy shampoo, soap, pink thread for the SECOND LAST CLANGER and a cosy pig bed. I bought this a while back and pigs were underwhelmed, but now it is colder they are quite keen so I must go forth and buy another one or suffer GUILT.

Also, SECOND LAST CLANGER. The last is the Seventies Porn Colin one which will require location of 'fro-able wool. I could knit it out of mohair or such but wool that is already bumpy works very well and would be easy to find in a town that had ANY WOOL SHOPS AT ALL. Fenwick's and Bainbridge's both have pitifully small selections, and Bainbridge's in particular almost never have a garment's worth of any one colour. Which is pointless of them because who the hell buys expensive wool without being sure of matching the dye lot?

So. Any suggestions for online stockists of Silly Wool welcome. The stuff I used for Priest the Blaxploitation Clanger was brilliant 100% artificial stuff with lumps in but alas I have lost the ball band and it is no longer stocked in Useless Fenwick's.

I have wool for a cardigan. It is 70% silk, 30% cotton and 100% completely unjustifiably decadent. Then there is a bed jacket I'd like to make, and a jumper and another cardigan. It will all be worth it to stop me from attempting Shetland lace, which could only end in tangly tears.

I might even wear some of this stuff. The one bedsock is very cosy, which means the second one may get finished and not languish for all time.

I have not just been knitting, by the way. No. I have also listened to music and watched television and read books. I am quite proud of this, sadly. Especially the books bit. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was in Moo's house. It is very sweet/twisted and only took a few hours so is clearly a good use of time. Moo's books are all horribly weighty, so it is good that he lives with someone who occasionally reads non-tomes.

I have also slept a lot.

I may slay the comments backlog. This is bad but better than allowing it to stop me answering any comments ever.

Tea now. I have also consumed tea. Tea is good.
My brain has gone a bit wrong ...

Posted: October 16th, 2007, 5:34pm MST

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My brain has gone a bit wrong with germs. This is a poor plan when you are going out to sit in a hall full of people but I do not think I went openly mad. I have a problem at gigs of not being able to stay unnaturally still when there is music and when my head has gone fuzzy it is worse, but also I was too out of it to remember to cringe, so that was OK.

Yak has worse germs I think which is bad but he seems saner than me. Maybe I am just intrinsically a bit wrong. I also was going to say a thing in this post but I have forgotten what it was because as I may have mentioned I am a bit confused at present. Actually of the available flu symptoms being slightly giggly and peculiar is one of the better ones. Backache and nausea and dizziness and stuff are about also but I don't seem to mind much because everything has gone a bit unusual in a not too dreadful way. Although I did get a wee bit lost in the lacy sock I was knitting and have to undo it all, but I had only done a bit and anyway I sat marvelling at how soft and pretty the wool was and more or less forgot to be annoyed.

In conclusion, I recommend these germs so far and hope they continue to be odd instead of sore. Well, they are a bit sore but it turns out that soreness is currently an intriguing and baffling phenomenon rather than proper soreness. I bet I just have ordinary boring germs tomorrow.

I am a bit peeved that I can't remember what this post was about.
I find that somewhere in my head ...

Posted: October 12th, 2007, 4:36am MST

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I find that somewhere in my head my default belief is that Shada is a nuthouse and not a high-security prison, and I keep having to correct myself. This is incriminating.

Um, probably Time Lords equate criminality and insanity in some way because surely the proper sensible thing to do is to get on with your responsible orderly Time Lord life and any deviation from this, whether it is blowing up galaxies or merely wearing your pants on your head and insisting on being addresssed as the Jockstrap of Rassilon, is regarded in much the same light, as a tiresome and inconvenient deviation which must regrettably be dealt with by locking you in a box for ever and ever.

So, er, my brain is not just being silly.

In other news, I am broke and I want wool NOW. Expensive fancy stuff made of alpaca and silk and GOLD. Booo.

Also, this optical illusion has been hypnotising me. The left brain/right brain blurb is obvious horseshit (I default to clockwise for what it's worth, and I am a fairly middle-brained human) but the thing is nevertheless compulsive. Make it stop please?
Gwyneth Update, Clothes Grumble

Posted: October 11th, 2007, 10:09pm MST

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Much thank to people who offered advice re: dampened MP3 player. She is designed in a cramped way so that she needs taking apart to get at her battery, which is hidden under her hard drive. Thus she has spend a week cut open and spreadeagled in a hanky box, and seems now to be working. Other people telling me to open her up (which I had already done) was very helpful in making me less panicky while awaiting dryness and has prevented much insanity. Well done.

It is very unfair of expensive wool to be so bloody nice. It is nicer to knit with, nicer to wear and less likely to bring me out in a rash. (There is something positively unholy about mohair that I can wear next to my skin.) Thus I am scheming jumpers which are absurdly expensive by the pauper standards I am supposed to have, but which I would wear and enjoy rather than be scratched to bits by. Clearly, affordable wool is a false economy. And that is what I shall tell myself when I see my bank balance.

I do need warmer clothes. I have lots of jumpers but an alarming number of those are various former school V-necks, which come in a lovely range of, er, grey and bottle green (Mummy's green one even has pale blue stripes at the neck - truly adventurous!) and no brown because even I have limits. My favourite jumper is a grey one with at least one indelible stain and much unravelling to the point of appearing to be some form of ancient and slightly unpleasant lace. Wonderful though this undoubtedly is, there are limits to its potential for more formal occasions. You can't wear it to the shrink or he thinks you're the tragic emo adolescent you, erm, probably are. And if you wear it to debtor's court they think you're overdoing it and are probably a lying millionaire. And for some reason one is supposed to wear ugly uncomfortable stuff to things like weddings. Thus it might be good if I had things that kept out the vicious biting cold without making me look like a tramp. Tedious, but probably a good plan.

Also, I have grown out of several things. Mostly these are things I have had since the age of fifteen, but I am still annoyed. I am quite happy to be this size, and it is warmer and less sore and generally good, but it is most unfair of my clothes to remain malnourished. The only reason I have any clothes at all is because I stayed the same size for so long and inherited a stack of my mother's me-sized clothes. I generally don't like things that are within my price range so end up buying sod-all. It is useful in expense terms but less so now that I realise just how few of the things I own have been bought within the last five years. Or ten, even.

Obviously it does not help that I occasionally go nuts and buy a lovely and useless frock but let us not go into that.

So. Clothes annoying, Gwyneth OK. A good day on balance, I think.

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Edithmatilda. Well, Miriam really. (10 unread)

I have an amazingly twee advent calendar ...

Posted: November 22nd, 2007, 6:03am MST

Tags: [edit]

It is very very cold badness badness.

Posted: November 21st, 2007, 6:09am MST

Tags: [edit]

Ate'nt Dead

Posted: November 21st, 2007, 3:36am MST

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Arse. Sleep broken as all hell, self ...

Posted: November 1st, 2007, 3:24am MST

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Two Things

Posted: October 30th, 2007, 3:14pm MST

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Isn't she lovely ...

Posted: October 29th, 2007, 8:55am MST

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Hiding Update/The Second Sock/Wool Shop Whine

Posted: October 29th, 2007, 6:08am MST

Tags: [edit]

My brain has gone a bit wrong ...

Posted: October 16th, 2007, 5:34pm MST

Tags: [edit]

I find that somewhere in my head ...

Posted: October 12th, 2007, 4:36am MST

Tags: [edit]

Gwyneth Update, Clothes Grumble

Posted: October 11th, 2007, 10:09pm MST

Tags: [edit]