Remeber you're a Woomble!

So this weekend was Collette's birthday, in a bizarre twist of fate one of Colette's closest friends from university was one of my close friends from college (we had no idea of this before we met, and indeed only found out via facebook sometime after). Me and the mutual friend (Joey) had been planning to go and see folk/idlewild legend Roddy Woomble and his band at the Union Chapel in London (that was the closest gig to Oxford) and happily that weekend was also Collette's birthday, so she came too! We travelled down on the Sun morning (a bit later than planned due to the hour coming off) and met up with the rest of the Nottingham uni crowd Pip and Liz. We then went to meet Joey and another college friend Stu (who is now a Russian translator) at a pub near the venue. Unfortunately for us Brazil were playing Scotland at football so there were drunk scots all over the pavement, not so good. We sought sanctuary in the gig venue and what a place! The Union Chapel as it's name would suggest is indeed a church half the time and accoustic gig venue outside church hours (stained glass, pews and everything). Roddy Woomble (lead singer of Idlewild, my favourite band in the world) was as always magical playing most of his new solo record and some previous material but most of the audience seemed to reserve their biggest cheer for the accoustic version of Idlewild's 'You held the world in your arms' (and why not, awesome song).

After the gig we headed back to Liz & Pips to crash out on their sofa, not wanting to arrive back in Oxford exhausted we booked the Monday off so the morning was spent wandering round Camden market (ad buying a few pretty things) and then heading over to meet Joey at work for lunch in the American Embassy (we had to have our passports and go through security to get in and the building is surrounded by armed guards but even more scary has a giant American Eagle on the top, eeek!) Once inside it was really really like America (they have a shopette selling American goods and lots of famous American paintings/photographs on the walls), so we ate at the diner and smiled when the man serving us told us to have a nice day now. All too soon (but not before posing beside a radom elephant) it was time to return to Oxford, but what a weekend :-)

How wonderful is Wood?

So this weekend I went on the long awaited whittling course, it was run by the Northmoor trust who are the charity who manage local beauty spot whittenham clumps (more info on both these things can be found here www.northmoortrust.co.uk) . I've wanted to have a go as whittling for ages (I have a very talented uncle who makes chairs, bending the wood by steam generated from his aga, picture of the chair he made for me included below, isn't he brilliant?!?). Can't say I have any hope of competing with Uncle Julian any time soon but the course was aimed at those starting out so I signed myself up. Well what a day! In the morning we went off up the clumps with a couple of rangers, they explained briefly about the different types of wood, what natural characteristics we should be looking for for each of the different things we could make (I chose to attempt a spoon and a spurtle, it being my ambition to bespurtle the entirity of this isle). Then we each selected a few bits of wood (they regularly coppice so there was quite a bit of seasoned wood on the forest floor, I chose cherry for the spoon (which gets redder with age) and Hazel for the spurtle. We also manageed to find a baby deer in one of the piles, which bounded off as soon as it saw us). Wood gathered it was back to base where our guides lit a fire and explained the basics of cutting safely (always away from you) and handed out tools (a knife and a spoon gouge, that was pretty much it!). I've got to admit it was pretty addictive, and it was lunchtime before we knew what was happening (unfortunately I lost concentration at one point and cut myself, oops, managed not to bleed over my wood though, which is the main thing). The afternoon passed in much the same way and before I knew what was happening it was time to go home. My cherry spoon was certainly taking shape but I just couldn't stop staring at the colour of the wood, beautiful. The trust very kindly said I could bring some more home to practice on so I now have a small pile of wood waiting for a rainy day in my porch. The other brilliant thing that happened was that a chap who teaches woodwork turned up just as we were leaving. Turns out he teaches woodwork in the evening at a local school, which is literally just round the corner from me. He has given he his details so I'll have to see if I can arrange a more perminant time to whittle! I should also mention the title of this post was nicked from the wonderful telling the bees, a live version of the song can be found here, I think the chap has a point, it is pretty amazing!

A severe case of finish-itus

This week it's been head down, finishing some of the projects I started a while ago. First up it was the wedding commision from my friend at work. seven cravats with matching hankies for her main men (I got a bit behind with this as the day I'd set aside to finish the hankies we had a plumber round to fix the hot water, instead he turned off the heating and my fingers were too cold to sew!). Here is just one set. All weekend I was looking after top dog Holly, but on Sunday night after 'walkies' I managed to curl up in front of countryfile and finish Amelia's blanket. Now I find myself with nothing that pressing to finish, or so I thought until I looked at the pile beside my bed and found the scarf I started for my brother last Christmas. Lets hope the finish-itus lasts and I can get that off the needles too (I'm going down to visit my nanna at the weekend & Kip is coming, getting it finished for then however may be pushing it... :-) P.S due to some highly useful knitting time whilst watching Scotland get trounced at rugby I did manage to get Kip's scarf finished. Here he is wearing the finished thing :-)