A slight case of overblogging

Mike's Socks
Originally uploaded by lnr_blair

I've been knitting these for Mike since late October, but now they're finished, yay! Hopefully clicking through will find you the photoset which also contains an action shot of Mike modeling the socks beautifully.

Those of you who are on Ravelry can see more details of the project here: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/lnr.

Friday 22nd of September Sock Wars officially began, but there was a problem emailing out the dossiers with target info and the pattern in. As a result the pattern was posted on the Yarn Monkey blog, where I picked it up on the Saturday morning and started knitting on the train to Oxford and at Chris' house. Sunday I spent cycling. When I got back I had my dossier so knew what size I was knitting and could finish the first one on Monday and get started on the next, since I had the day off work. I finished the second on Tuesday 26th just before work and put them straight in the post to Florida.

Today (well at 4am) I received an email saying they've arrived at their destination and my target is dead and will be posting her unfinished socks to me so I can try kill her target too. Although my assassin is definitely on my heels she too is in the US so death will come slowly.

On Saturday Mike and I got up early and braved National Express (and I can't believe I only *just* thought of the Divine Comedy song) to get to London around 11:30 and joined some of his friends from uni in a Monopoly pub crawl. We kept notes as we went round, including all signing in at the front of the notebook, starting with Si, Nesta and Joe, then me and Mike, and later joined (twice) by Bev and then Matt (not Bob). Nesta has promised to eventually email me the list of pubs we visited, but Mike and I made it to 11 of them (they did a few the previous night and before we arrived and apparently another couple after we had to leave). I do however remember Euston Road, Oxford Street, (old) Park Lane, Piccadilly, Coventry Street, Vine Street (no pub), Trafalgar Square (ditto), Regent Street (a cafe), Whitehall, Northumberland Ave, Pall Mall and Bow Street at the very least. It was a great fun day, though I can't quite work out why I went from feeling drunker and drunker to starting to feel more sober without stopping drinking.

We actually passed through Trafalgar Square just as Belle and Sebastian were about to come on stage and stopped for long enough to hear most of their first song. Amused I texted Tom and he turned out to be there too, and joined us in the Whitehall pub for a drink (and the loo) once they'd finished. Nice to see him and his friend Tori who I've met once before, though it took us a while to remember where (missed the other friend's name). Having been at Bath overlapping with all the others I think he vaguely remembered Mike now he finally met him in person again, but didn't remember the others, apparently not having associated with first years when he was a finalist. This amused me somewhat given I met Tom when I was doing my finals and he was doing his first year in Oxford.

Mike and I left the others just before 11 at the Bow Street pub anyway (which was quite a nice one) and headed off thinking we had plenty of time to get Victoria by 11:30. We ended up with a sudden change of plan in Charing Cross tube station when the train in one direction wasn't going to arrive for 6 mins and a mad dash through Oxford Circus trying to find the Victoria line, and then a very quick walk/jog from Victoria tube to the coach station, arriving to find the bus was thankfully still there, despite us being technically 3 minutes late for it.

We had to get back to Cambridge because Mike had invited them and several other friends to come over for at least the day to celebrate his birthday (which was last weekend actually but he waited til I was back, aww!). In the end Rae made it over from Bath via her gran's yesterday) and Matt and Joe joined us again from London rather late in the afternoon, but no-one else could make it, which was a shame. Rae seems lovely too anyway, and we had a pleasant day, with Old Rosie on the grass outside the Mill, where me and Rae had our lives read by a chap with a bunch of cards. His insights were mostly wishy washy but rather cracked us up, especially as he expanded on what I should be trying to do in the relationship with my lover - Mike having gone to meet the other two walking from the station at that point. It gave us half an hour's amusement anyway, and more turned up later as a chap came over to ask what I was kniting, expressed amazement and awe at it being a sock, and then asked if he could have it. I pointed out it was unfinished, and that obviously he couldn't have the needles, and it would unravel, but no, he wanted it enough to give me two cans of cheap lager in return, so amused I accepted. There's still enough wool left to finish it from scratch (I finished the first on the way back from Whitby, will post pics when they're both done).

We moved inside shortly after than to finish our drinks because it was beginning to get cold, then went in search of food. We ended up with only a drink in the Eagle, where we discovered just how horrible the folk festival ticket queue had been and still was, because they only did pizza. Next we failed to be let in the Regal, and eventually had dinner at the Saffron (mmm Lamb Tikka Dansak). We considered buyng booze in the co-op and heading back to Mike's but were foiled by their till's clock, so we finished off with a quick one in the Castle which was the only other nearby pub still open after 10:30. We all seemed too tired to carry on into the wee hours, and were hampered by lack of booze anyway. Still, it was a good day, if a bit shorter and less peopleful than anticipated and hoped for.

Today I only plan to get some washing done, though the clouds are ominous enough I doubt I'll be drying it outside or getting the lawn mowed. Tomorrow we may do WUS, ah drat but my mum was just *really* recommended Teddy Thompson who she saw last week and who is playing the Junction tomorrow too. Hmm, decisions. I have decided Bmovie on Friday is a no-go - If we could stay in London between it and MFATGG on Sunday maybe it would be OK, but we have to be back for Matthew and Sally's wedding. Libby can't join me and Ernie for the gig on Sunday after all, which is a shame but not surprising given how busy she is right now. Will have to find some way to make up for it given she missed Whitby too. Mike's going to come along instead I think, so at least she won't have to pay for the ticket. Should be a good week anyway.

Bmovie was great, we arrived in plenty of time, joined by ernie since the people he's spending the weekend with didn't have any interesting plans for this evening. Had a couple of drinks and then hit the dancefloor, and as suspected in advance didn't leave it except to go to the loo, fetch a glass of water, and hug E-J goodbye, until it was time to go home. 4 hours of solid dancing is good for the soul, though less good for the soles, and in my case quite bad for the knees. Still I had a great time, and I think Mike did too. 80s night is a bit cheating as your first BMovie though, still it means I have an excuse to go to a proper one.

Andrew and Ali put us up in their spare room, and acquired a Jan and Owen on the futon in the living room too, which meant for a sociable morning with coffee and toast and hangovers round the kitchen table, before heading back to Kings Cross for lunch and the train home. I shopped on the way back through town: a 4 way plug, portable headphones that go over-ear rather than in-ear, and 63 quid on underwear in M&S. Still, that was on 13 items, so not *quite* so horrendous. I shall see if the bra is as impressively push-up as it claims.

And when I got home I took some pics of my new scarf:

Colinette Point 5 scarf Click for rest of images

Next plan is to quietly geek for another hour or so then head back into town to meet Mike and his colleagues for dinner, celebrating someone's birthday with a curry at the Saffron. Which may be interesting, given I've only been in before with ernie and friends, and got to know George the manager quite well. It should be good anyway, since they have excellent curry. I'm a wee bit tired so may not drink much.

I could be at post-pizza (hell I could have gone to pizza too but more on that anon) but why? Beer's no good if I'm not drinking. I don't even have the excuse of going to see the new format Grauniad 'cso rjk bought a copy. So that leaves the company and well, I'm fed up which makes just hanging out with the usual crowd of people unappealing. Not because of who they are but because I just don't feel like I can engage in anything that's going on, I don't know if that makes sense. And the part of me that really wants to see Mike is overruled by the part of me that thinks I'm pathetic and that I can't let myself rely on him for company, and besides I don't feel like risking making him feel even less like I'm a fun person to be with and risk a friendship as well as having lost more than that. So instead I'm home alone and a little lonely.

More positively, and yes at least partly because of conversations with Mike but not just that, I've somewhere found a little hard knot of resolve in me, and I *am* going to lose some weight again. I don't think it's just a flash in the pan this time. This morning's graph was in one way a new beginning, and in one way an end. Next week's data will go on file, and the following week there'll be new graphs, starting from today. I know it's cheating to be always making new starts, but I think this time it will actually help, and the failures of the past need to stop dragging me down. I'm going to ask Richard to take some photos of me when I get in. I don't expect them to be pretty. And I don't intend to look at them all the time and wince. But I want to make a record of how things are now.

Anyway as a result of this I went shopping at lunchtime and bought vast heaps of food :-) An odd way to start a diet perhaps, but I now have in my desk drawers a selection of stuff which can be filling, not unhealthy lunches, snacks and if necessary breakfast. All stuff that will keep, with the exception of the fruit selection on the windowsill. Living on pre-pack sandwiches with the need for extra variety being filled by crisps or chocolate or the occasional pork pie is the way of the expanding waist line, and the empty pocket too. This way it shouldn't matter that I just don't have the energy to make myself decent food for lunch when I get up in the morning. And that's my main reason for not going to pizza, which is a shame, as post-pizza would probably feel more worthwhile that way.

I've had conversations before with people (OK, mostly Ian, hi:-) where it was felt that diets of any sort just don't work. That even if you're apparently "successful" like I was then once the willpower wears off the pounds come back. The suggested alternative is to instead of changing your diet change your lifestyle so you get more exercise, burn off more calories and hopefully boost your metabolism long term. The thing is as far as I'm concerned this takes just as much if not *more* willpower, and certainly more time, than dieting. And equally if you stop you'll just go back to step one again in the same way. It's good to make sure you get a healthy amount of exercise but I would argue that in 15 mins cycling (more like 20, while I'm this overweight and unfit) twice a day 5 times a week I already do get enough exercise. [sorry, that's a little rant that's been nagging me since I worked it out after the last instance of this conversation]

So yeah. Stuff. And I'm knitting and crocheting various odds and ends. Don't show any sign of finishing anything else soon, having completed the second version of the hat in the icon using the same pink yarn I used for the top for Col and Kirsten's wedding. I could do with spending more time out of the house and with other people, but as usual for me I built my life too much around one person and don't know quite what to do any more.

Just need to weave in all the loose ends, then "pin out to correct measurements, cover with damp cloths and leave to dry". Towards the end I was worried it was going to end up too small, but on balance I think it's about right, and it is meant to be snug.

Photos of it at various stages:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~eleanorb/gallery/pics/knitting