King's Landing

Dear Knittah,

Eep! Noricum is click-happy with her camera! We weeded down the photos some, and then split them between her blog and this one. But still... there are *so* many photos! After you're done here, if you aren't tired of King's Landing, check out Noricum's post.

In summary: we had a fantastic time at King's Landing! Now for the photos...

This was our chariot for the weekend:

We made sure to document it (licence plate too) in case we had trouble finding it again. ;) (It turns out we needn't have worried... we were the *last* people leaving, so the parking lot was just as empty as when we arrived. We were so late out the door that they had to turn the credit-card machine back on so Noricum could buy some books.)

I was the navigator... but I had trouble seeing over the dashboard, and our map didn't extend beyond Fredericton.

However, we made it there and back despite my difficulties! See:

(We just happened to take different routes there and back... oh well... at least we made it!)



We tried to take lots of fiber-related photos for you. In this shot, one lady is sewing bits of wool felt on a backing for a rug. These bits of felt were too small to be used for other things, but *nothing* was wasted back then.



Aside: You see those wooden things in the background? We saw then in a few houses, but couldn't figure out what they were. The one lady we asked didn't know... she was new. We forgot to ask anyone else.
Aside 2: The wreath in the photo contains human hair. (Nothing wasted!) Um... ew.

See this house?

That's the second story. A lot of houses were built into hillsides. That way they could have cool larders without a lot of digging, plus save the flat land for farming. Again, *nothing* wasted!

Signs of spinning were everywhere!


Here's some weaving of suspenders:

(Another shot with actual suspenders comes later.)

A peddler!

He said that if we had come a day earlier we could have bought his horse. That would have been more fun than a rental car! But slower... and that would likely have meant less time at King's Landing. :(

The weaver wasn't in when we stopped by here:

But her cloth was pretty.

(She was using commercially produced cotton, though.)



Look at the lovely colours of natually dyed yarn!


This one was dyed with ferns and alum as a mordant. It is *much* prettier in person. The camera really doesn't do it justice.

This friendly lady let Noricum try her spinning wheel. She had so much fun! However, she couldn't manage treadling and spinning at the same time, so the lady spun the wheel while Noricum drafted. Treadling is much harder than it looks. When Noricum took her photo, she managed to catch her when the wool got tangled:

So we made sure to get proof that her spinning is much nicer than the previous photo shows:

She was very impressed with Noricum's ability to spin (even though she can't treadle), and says that Noricum definitely deserves to have a wheel. ;) Noricum also demonstrated how to use the drop spindle, since these two ladies hadn't been shown properly, and couldn't figure it out. They didn't try it while she was there, but appreciated being shown. Leaving the house, Noricum heard some thuds and giggles. ;)

The food at the King's Head Inn was *delicious*!!! We had salmon chowder with a biscuit and lemonade:

Followed by warm gingerbread cake with real whipped cream:

Lunch was to *die* for!







All the doorstops were these pretty woven-cloth covered bricks:


Noricum and I like this photo:

Don't you think it would make a pretty card?









We got to see flax processing demonstrated! Neat!


Here piggy, piggy, piggy!

You can't tell from these photos, but that's one big piggy!

What a neat stove!

This was in one of the churches.







This is the photo with the suspenders:






These fellows were big too:

And look at those horns! Don't mess with them!





Hey... these are by the same artist that did the ones for city hall:


Well... was that enough photos for you? We have more. ;)

King's Landing is neat... all of the houses are ones that would have been flooded when the hydro dam was built, so they were all moved to this location and set up as a living history museum. Each house represents a specific time period, so you get to see how things changed over time... from open hearth cooking to fancy stoves, etc. The cabin housing the flax demonstration was just a single room with an unused loft. Other houses were practically mansions. It was really neat. One day wasn't enough to see everything!

Love,
Swatchy

Sorta CFS Tuesday

Not really part of our ongoing series about life with CFS.

I'm recruiting. Recruiting, I tell you! There are some amazing upcoming knitting events that I cannot attend. If you, or someone you know, is going to one of these events and would like to carry a Swatchy, give me a holler!

1. Stitches East - Miles of yarn in the Baltimore Convention Center and a bunch of classes I wish I could take. October 11-14, 2007.

2. Rhinebeck - The legendary New York Sheep and Wool. Knitting luminaries, lots of sheep and other fiber beasts, and LOTS of yarn. October 20-21, 2007.

3. Knitting in Italy - Dudes! Italy, knitting and Brenda Dayne! Gah! October 23-30, 2007.

4. Sea Socks '08 - A knitting cruise to Alaska with (take a deep breath) MamaE, Amy Singer, Chrissy Gardiner and Brenda Dayne! Departs May 9, 2008 from Seattle for 7 day cruise.

Is there a knitting event in your area? Are you going somewhere calm/exciting/fabulous/wonderul for summer vacation? Wanna carry a Swatchy? Gimme a holler here: knittahsp9 AT yahoo DOT com.

Catching Up - Salmon and Fiddlehead Dinner

Dear Knittah,

I've fallen a bit behind on my correspondence... I'll try to catch up. This post isn't about last weekend, but the weekend before.

Friday night we went to the Riverfest salmon and fiddlehead dinner. Mmmm! Noricum and I had never had fiddleheads before. Boy, were they ever tasty! (And so was the Atlantic salmon!) Sadly, we pigged out on them before we remembered to get a photo. Whoops! Well, here are some photos from that evening that we *did* remember to take.

Waiting in line to go in:


The musical entertainment:

This was really useful for those at the end of the line. Noricum and I happened to be in the first set allowed to go get food, and we were done *well* before the last had their chance. The music was very enjoyable. Here's a little sample:


Sheesh... you can't take Noricum anywhere. She, um, "doodled" on the paper tablecloths:


I hung out with the beavers for a bit:

They truly are proud and noble animals.

Okay, I'm off to select some more photos for uploading...

Love,
Swatchy

Shopping for Yarn in the Highlands

Knittah having a one-track mind and all (I should be careful--most of you reading this do too), a pressing task for this trip was to buy some locally spun yarn. Arriving in Ullapool, we went to the LYS and were directed around the corner to the Saturday market...



One of the local residents, Hilda, has a flock of sheep and hand-spins yarn (including cheviot, hebridean, and shetland). Hilda's neighbor occasionally represents her at the Saturday market, offering her knit goods and yarns. We were in luck.

The catch was that all of the skeins were represented in terms of grams. Eliza doesn't think in terms of grams. Eliza thinks in terms of yards. Eliza thinks that with about 1500-2000 yards of some sort of yarn, you can probably make some kind of sweater. Thus, Eliza had a problem. Hilda's neighbor (I wish Eliza had gotten his name) doesn't knit, so he called over the couple from the neighboring stall (again, sadly no names). I'll call the wife Mrs. Scot (she's in the green jacket in the photos that follow). Mrs. Scot knits. She also thinks about yarn in a different way altogether: by volume. She bunched up one of Hilda's scarves and then mushed up some skeins of Hilda's yarn to show that that's how she would guesstimate how many skeins she needs to make something.

Mrs. Scot's solution: since the yarn is in grams, weigh one of Hilda's sweaters and then buy that much yarn. Having nothing else to go on...

Mr. Scot (of the potatoes, above) contributed the digital scale from his stall.



Mrs. Scot folded up one of Hilda's sweaters.



Hilda's neighbor carefully balanced the sweater on the scale.



And with that, Eliza had a number to go on. Knittah, we really tried... I can't post the photo of the yarn here because that would spoil the surprise. We hope it's enough to make something good, anyway.

Thanks to all the Ullapoolians for their valiant assistance in this endeavor!!!

CFS Tuesday

Part of our ongoing series about life with CFS.

I am becoming more aware of how little it takes to upset my physical equilibrium.

My physical therapist has given me a home program that requires a certain level of activity every other day. Last week's IBS had such a strong effect on my overall energy level that I missed two days of the program. Even after twelve years of living with CFS, I am still amazed at the fragility of my equilibrium.

I keep records of my daily activity, symptoms and medication. The more detailed my record keeping becomes, the more fragility I see. Anything can upset the equilibrium. Bad news, an IBS flare, too long a wait time in the doctor's office - those are just a few examples. If I'm lucky, it only takes a few days to get back to "normal." Sometimes though, it can take months.

I see my equilibrium for what it is: a teeter-totter at the point of balance. Even the weight of a small bird can tip it in one direction or another. So what do I do? In order to protect this fragile balance, I would have to avoid unpredictability. It would be easy to take that to an extreme. Do I avoid talking to people on the phone? Do I carry food with me, and only eat what I am able to cook for myself? Do I limit my activity to that small amount I can easily tolerate, and never go to the movies or dinner at a friend's?

Or is it worth tipping the teeter-totter in order to enjoy a little more of life?

Arriving in the UK

I travelled with Eliza to the UK--England actually was a means to an end, which was Scotland. We were joining an REI Adventures trip hiking in the northwest highlands and on the Isle of Skye.

We planned to take the the train up to Inverness from London and had some time to kill at King's Cross.



Eliza wasn't sure how much of this was new since the 2005 bombings--she didn't pay that much attention last time she I was there. But this time, standing in one spot in Kings Cross, looking 180 degrees, we could see 20 security cameras. Here's a view of the crowd watching the board for arrival/departure info:



Despite my efforts, Eliza insisted on sitting at a nearby Starbucks--she pointed out the nice cushy chair next to the window and claimed fatigue from the overnight flight, as though that would make up for the fact we were patronizing corporate America in London of all places...It was, however, a nice view on the London sidewalk scene.



We regrettably did not get one photo: a late 20s guy with Beatles-style hair and a new-style suit (skinny legs etc), rushing down the sidewalk, talking frenetically into his cell phone, and the stranger passing him the other way, noticing a critical detail, and gesturing that his fly was undone, and the young guy trying to zip up his fly while talking on the phone cupped between chin and shoulder, and holding on to a leather portfolio. Sort of a classic London moment.

Night At The Art Gallery

Dear Knittah,

Last night Noricum and I had a nice picnic in the cemetery (falafels in a pita), followed by a visit to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. We didn't take photos because the art we really wanted to take photos of we weren't allowed to. Oh well.

They had a neat craft exhibit. The commentary was interesting too. One thing mentioned was how craft used to be valued as income and providing necessary items for the family, but now tends to be looked down upon.

One interesting fact about the gallery is that an heir to the person that the gallery is named after and who donated much of the art to the gallery is claiming that the art was just "on loan" by the Beaverbrook Foundation, not gifts. He wants some of the art back so that he can sell it to raise funds to fix up a historical building in England... which he happens to live in. A friend of Noricum described this to her. We think it sounds a little self-serving. Especially since some of the paintings he wants are Salvidor Dali portraits of Lady Beaverbrook (from when she was Lady Dunn) and Lord Dunn, and this heir is by Lord Beaverbrook's prior wife.

When we were at the gallery there was a class being given on making an art doll. Looking at the gallery website, it seems that there are individual classes held (nearly) every Thursday night, and they only cost $10. Noricum is considering looking into taking one. (It looks like there isn't one next week, and there's only one Thursday left after that.)

Love,
Swatchy

CFS Tuesday

Part of our ongoing series on life with CFS.

CFS Tuesday snuck up on me again. I have a mental list of topics I want to write about, and I always plan to write a bunch of these mini-articles in advance. But it's Tuesday and I'm winging it again.

A year or two into my life with CFS, I developed irritable bowel syndrome. Up until recently, my IBS was pretty well controlled. I have never been able to identify what will trigger a flare, but I got better at taking my preventive medication. With the pain meds I'm on now, the IBS had largely disappeared. But in the last month, I've had a couple dramatic flares.

I have no idea what will trigger an episode. I've been unable to identify any foods that seem associated with the flares, not consistently anyway. It's very frustrating. I'll be feeling ok, and then wham! - full onset.

I don't know if other CFS patients experience this, but whenever I have an exacerbation of a symptom - headache, IBS, etc. - my whole body stops. It's like the flaring symptom sucks the life out of the rest of me. Before CFS, I took aspirin for a headache and kept working. Not anymore. Any upset in the symptom balance undermines my whole body. The only thing to do is lie down and wait for balance to return.

So now you know why CFS Tuesday snuck up on me again. I'm lying down, waiting.

Swatchy's Adventures on Friday and Saturday

Dear Knittah,

Swatchy has been a bit bored hanging around while I do research, so Friday after work and Saturday I took him out for some fun.

Friday we went to Think Play, a toy store where playing with the toys is encouraged. :)


Can you guess what we played with?

Afterwards I showed Swatchy the local yarn shop that just happens to be across the street:

Will you look at all that sock yarn:

It's a small store with a small selection, but what they have is pretty nice. :) (The above photo only shows about half the yarn area.)

Saturday the plan was to see the market and the Owls Nest:



Here we go!


The market was pretty cool... groceries (meat, bread, jams, etc), crafts (everything from crocheted kitch to gorgeous jewelry to custom iron smithing) and food! Some parts were inside:

some were outside:

Swatchy may have bought you a small surprise at this shop, Raven Glass Studio:

Swatchy suggests you keep an eye on your mailbox. Well... not just yet. I haven't taken him to the post office yet.

Afterwards we went to the Owl's Nest bookstore, which is right across from city hall:


We ended up going back and forth between the two... after browsing the books for a bit, I needed to use the washroom (location: city hall), then browsed some more, then back to city hall for a tour of the tapestries, then back to browse even more! The photos ended up in a bit of a jumble. ;) Here they are, in chronological order:

(Someone had put soap in the fountain.)


Swatchy pretended to be the mayor while I got the tour of the tapestries:




In case you can't read the good stuff, here's a close-up:


On the way home we passed through the old burial grounds:


Seeing how some tombstones stood the test of time and others were eroding faster got me to thinking. If I were to have a memorial, would I want it to stick around long after I'm gone, or fade with the memory of me?

Cheers,
Noricum