Tag: TV

235: red hot chillies and tiny hats

This week has seen the return of the crafty mojo after my worst craft stall ever at Copped Hall on bank holiday weekend – I sold two pairs of earrings all day, which tends to make you wonder why you’re bothering. Even the two tiny dachshund puppies I made friends with didn’t quite make up for it…it’s surprising how much impact one off day can have!

I pulled myself together enough to put in my application for a stall at Epping Christmas Market and went back to crocheting chilli peppers on the tube in the hope that the next stall will be more successful. An Italian lady who bought a pair of chilli pepper earrings told me that in Italy chilli peppers are hung up to ward off stop people gossiping about you and to bring good luck, and who doesn’t need that? Perhaps I should start hanging them over the stall.

This year’s decorations will probably not include pigs in blankets unless people ask me really nicely, but there may well be cats as Thing 2 has decided that’s what’s missing from my stall after scrutinising everyone else at the event. There will also be mince pies and mice, and probably penguins. Let’s see where they get me….

I’ve also been making a couple of cross stitch gifts but can’t share them till they’ve been handed over, so you’ll just have to wait.

Tiny twins in Sprite hats. Aren’t they adorable? Just don’t ask me which is which

And tiny baby hats in multiples of two using yarn from the stash, for Arlo and Bohdi, who I finally got to cuddle last Sunday after taking Thing 2 to the cinema to see Despicable Me 4 (we loved it). They are so, so small and so laidback, which I’m quite sure won’t last once they find their voices. We were entranced by the way they mirror each other’s movements. Thing 3 was terrified when we first handed him a baby but got quite relaxed after a while, while proud Grandad was his usual baby expert self. We know he’s proud as he accosted all the neighbours when TT1 popped round last Saturday with the words ‘Grandchildren! Look!’ which is positively effusive for him.

During the evening crafting sessions I’ve been binging the excellent Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman and the ridiculously elegant Kristin Scott Thomas. I’ve so loved the books and was assured that the series was just as good, and – for once – it is. Hopefully Apple TV’s adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s Bad Monkey will be just as good – the soundtrack of Tom Petty covers is a good start, as is the casting of Vince Vaughn. We’ve also been watching Brassic, a Sky programme which is very ‘it’s him! from that!’ and extremely funny with it. The hims and thats in this case are Joseph Gilgun from Preacher, and Ryan Sampson from Plebs, both of which we enjoyed.

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Fountain pens. I have the urge to write letters to people just to write with one. I feel I should be that person, and live with the misguided hope that perhaps a beautiful pen with real ink would miraculously render my atrocious handwriting legible.
  • Six month health checks for Teddy and Bailey, who do not need to be wrangled into the cat basket at serious risk to my wellbeing, and who are both very doing very well. Lulu, on the other hand, requires a pincer movement, two people and ideally steel gauntlets, full armour and a welding mask. Even then you should have the first aid kit handy.
  • Washing machine insurance. Mine apparently requires a new drum, a new PCB (whatever one of those is), a new seal and a new front.
  • Early morning coffee with Amanda.
  • Impending autumn, with chillier mornings and not melting on the tube.
  • Visiting the new Islington Museum ‘People of Islington’ exhibition, celebrating local artists and makers. They have a section of elm pipe from the New River which I’m quite jealous of. I wonder if they’d miss it?
  • The rather elegant cat below, who I met on my way home from Islington Museum. He was waiting impatiently for someone to come home and let him in.

And that’s it from me for the week – next weekend you can find me at the British Library’s ‘Marvellous Me‘ Family Day with illustrator Beth Suzanna making paper portraits. This is the last of our pop-ups for the summer and we’ll be alongside a whole lot of other excellent organisations so do come on down.

Same time next week then!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Skeleton Road/Out of Bounds/Broken Ground – Val McDermid

The Masquerades of Spring – Ben Aaronovitch

Murder at the Monastery – Rev. Richard Coles

That Mitchell and Webb Sound (Audible)

216: it’s 1973, almost dinner time…

…I’m ‘avin ‘oops.

This week, having worked our way through all 27 series of Silent Witness, we’ve been watching the brilliant Life on Mars which has just appeared on Netflix. For anyone who missed this gem the first time round, the premise was that Manchester copper Sam Tyler (John Simm) was hit by a car, went into a coma and woke up in 1973. He’s been ‘transferred’ from Hyde where policing is a little more progressive. He’s confronted with sexism, racism, Neanderthal attitudes, ‘old-school’ policing and a camel-coated, gun-toting DCI called Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) who zooms around in a Cortina and shouts a lot (I love him. So. Much.). He spends two series attempting to reform the Gene Genie, hearing voices from various bits of electrical equipment linking him back to his comatose life in the 1990s. There’s a love interest, a truly excellent soundtrack, great clothes and good storylines. I really liked the ending though my Beloved always picks holes in these things, being very bad at suspending his disbelief.

Things 1 and 2 have dropped in and out of the series with us, especially Thing 2 who gets quite engaged with these things – she got very involved with Silent Witness too. About halfway through one episode she said ‘I wish I’d been there for all the feminism stuff, I think it would have been really exciting, really important.’ I’ve been thinking about that quite a lot – I probably should have questioned her a bit more about what she sees as having changed in the last 50 years but I was too busy thinking about how much she’s changed in the last year or so.

Thing 2 was desperately shy as a small person – I had to go to all birthday parties with her and she’d rarely leave my side. I called her my limpet as she’d cling on to me with her arms and legs at all times, which at least left me hands-free. Strange relatives in the house would have her posting notes under the door informing us that she wasn’t coming in the room as she was too shy. It usually took several hours for her to get round to talking to them. Combined with her legendary (inherited – karma strikes hard) stubbornness, this could make things like getting her into school quite difficult. Speech therapy was a trial as she refused to speak to the therapist for the first several weeks. She was seven before I could go to a school assembly without her clambering across every row of people to get to me rather than take part – when she finally managed it I was so proud I cried. She still hates answering questions in class and for her English speaking assessments we have to arrange for her to do her presentation to the teacher and some of her friends rather than the whole class. She hates speaking to waiters which drives her Aunty Tan mad.

What she does have, however, is a fierce sense of what’s right and wrong, and this is when she speaks out – she stands up for her sister when she’s in trouble, she speaks up for friends in school. On one memorable occasion last year our next door neighbours were having a barney outside – my Beloved phoned the police, Thing 1 was monitoring the situation and Thing 2 flung open the front door, puffed herself up to twice her size like an angry cat and stormed out of the house shouting ‘WHAT THE F**K, B…?’ He was so surprised he stopped what he was doing and legged it before the police arrived. His wife brought flowers to Thing 2 the following day which flustered her completely. She was worried that I’d tell her off for swearing – on this occasion I let her off! See? Fierce. Far from telling her off, I’d like to get it printed on a commemorative t-shirt or mug for her. She might not say much but when she does it makes a difference.

Gene Hunt makes his return this evening as we start Ashes to Ashes – similar premise, except our time traveller is a woman heading back to 1981. Fire up the Quattro!

Other things making me happy this week

  • Coffees with lovely people: a fellow crocheter who’s currently working at the Museum of the Order of St John, with Amanda, and with my team.
  • Lunch with Panagiota, the friend I made a few weeks ago – we managed to find a date at last!
  • The prospect of a long weekend with a couple of swims
  • Two encounters with the Bella-dog, who is unfailingly pleased to see me and lets me know with boisterous enthusiasm
  • A visit from Timeshare Teenager 1 and No 1 Grandson this afternoon
  • A gorgeous sunny walk through the lanes today after several days of torrential downpours this week
  • The return of Disco Jesus to the church just down from our site
Sunshine and flowers!

Enjoy your Bank Holiday Monday!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Mrs England/The Foundling– Stacey Halls

A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson (Audible)

Necropolis – Catharine Arnold

Bubbles Unbound/Bubbles in Trouble/Bubbles Ablaze –Sarah Strohmeyer

(Cover image: https://contra.com/p/U6k3LMvr-are-spaghetti-hoops-vegan)