And .. relax.

They have suspected it for a long time and now our neighbours are sure: Casa Bookish is a really weird household. Taking photos of brickwork? Yes, weird but it could be for an art project. Taking photos of rusty iron gates? Quite weird, but could just be interested in getting stuff fixed. Photographing a bit of knitting? Totally and utterly weird. The project? Ah, I'm glad you asked. I have finally begun knitting Geno from Rowan 43 after procrastinating for about a year. I started it some days ago and have been knitting up a storm .. on size 2.75mm needles which means I have about 8 inches done. It is not exactly an instant gratification project, but it is gratifying nonetheless. I'm using Rowan Fine Milk Cotton in "Water Bomb" (a duck's-egg-blue) and the yarn is surprisingly velvety. It's a good summer project.

True to fashion I'm obsessing over which buttons to use. I have bought some bog-standard mother-of-pearl buttons from John Lewis, but they are rather .. bog-standard. So I began sorting through my vintage button stash and came up with various possibilities.

In the top-left corner you get some fake-ivory buttons, on the right you can juuust make out some carved mother-of-pearl(?) flowers with some nice staining and on the bottom you get some utterly adorable red plastic flowers (1960s?). I rather fancy the red flowers but I only have four of those and the pattern calls for at least six. I'm also very, very, very taken by these buttons found on Etsy (of course).

Maybe I should just keep knitting?

Maybe I should just do that and relax a bit seeing as the majority of this weekend has involved me poking about the inside of our PC. Long story short: what I thought was a relatively simply problem with overheating turned out slightly more complicated. I'm now extremely tired of computer parts salesmen ignoring me and talking to D. exclusively - just because I'm a woman. Unfortunately (for them) I'm also the computer savvy one, so their über-complicated "you need a new motherboard" sales talk with D. was all in vain. Anyhow, new fan-cradle and CPU fan has been installed and I resisted the lure of shiny new RAM.

PS. This entry has been written on-and-off whilst renegade kids, the Fire Brigade and the Police have been passing by our door. I am in dire need of relaxation now. Knitting, here I come.

Love Letters

Don't you just love waking up to little hand-written notes left by your Other Half?

The computer was acting funny this morning - I couldn't get as far as logging in - it said there was a CPU overheat. Nothing works. Have a lovely day.

So pre-coffee I had to open the cabinet, take out a defunct harddisk (it's been dead for months), fiddle with wires and finally clean out the clogged-up cooler. I suspect that my vague plans of getting a PC upgrade have just become significantly less vague (although I think getting a new cooler and investing in a bit of RAM might just do it for now).

Plans for my Denmark trip are taking shape. Apart from visiting my mum's local yarn shop (which remains the most mind-blowing LYS I have ever seen), I'm thinking of also visiting Salina (which combines a "homegrown" wool business with Cavalier King Charles puppies!), Jorun Garn (big on Icelandic and Faroese yarn) and the Handler haberdashery. Oh, and watching the Eurovision Song Contest with my friends. Huzzah!

A Beautiful Day

It's going to be a beautiful day so the bluebirds sing. I have booked myself a short, but much-needed flight home to Denmark in May. I need to spend time with the Danish part of myself, I have decided. Going back is always odd because it invariably ends up being a long series of meet-ups with everybody I have ever known in Denmark. I cannot remember the last time I spent a few hours in Copenhagen just, you know, hanging out with myself. I am not complaining. It just feels strange after having spent fifteen years in Copenhagen and suddenly the way I engage with my city is transformed. I think this is something most expats experience.

Linkage, then:

+ When I read "Glasgow Artist Restores Lost Mural" on the BBC website, I knew exactly who and what they were talking about. Wooh! + Cover Versions: "Classic records lost in time and format, remerged as Pelican books." + Speaking of which .. Pelican paperbacks. I used to own a lot of them. + Art-House Book Trailers. Just as vile as the name suggests. + CraftGawker. Look, be inspired, create. + This Is Not A Riot: An effective, non-violent response to riot police. (I miss going to demonstrations) + The Fall of the Spanish Hapsburgs, or why marrying your first cousin is a bad, bad idea. See also this pictorial guide to the Spanish Hapsburgs. Ouch. + As seen everywhere on the web: Uncomfortable plot summaries. To wit: "Groundhog Day: Misanthropic creep exploits space/time anomaly to stalk coworker." + And as seen on John's blog: "Over the weekend, sharp-eyed Cassini-watchers on unmannedspaceflight.com noticed a series of way-cool photos on the mission's raw images website." Mindblowingly cool photos.

I finished reading The Time-Traveller's Wife. It was rather "girly". I have also begun yet another knitting project: Geno in duck's-egg-blue milk-cotton. It's rather lovely and very summery.

The Song is Who?

"Based on the books in your collection," the Facebook notification read, " we thought you might like the New York Times best-selling author, Arthur Phillips', new book The Song is You." A quick google-search came up with a book which the New York Times described as "[reading] like a maladroit mash-up of the romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle” (..)  and one of those creepy, straight-to-video movies, in which a famous beauty is pursued around the world by an obsessive fan." and which its publisher is trying to promote using the tag-line "Julian Donahue is in love with his iPod."

Some days I wish I were still running my literary blog, so I wouldn't be so out of the loop. Has Facebook moved into target-marketing literary geeks - or am I just super-priviledged? Is Arthur Phillips Spring '09's Jonathan Safran Foer or just a random no-name author whose publisher has paid hefty sums to social networks in a desperate attempt to shift copies? Should I even care enough to blog about this?

Regardless, I am not the reader you are looking for, dear Facebook notification. The book in question sounds absolutely vile and quite unlike anything I'd even consider reading.

In unrelated news, I have contracted the girly version of manflu which means I'm on the verge of dying. In lieu of flowers, please send skeins of Malabrigo or Noro Cashmere Island .. *cough, splutter, cough*

Bibliophilia

Do you think reality TV beckons me? I'm thinking of entering one of those "Britain's Got Talent!" shows with my uncanny ability to acquire a massive amount of books without spending much money. This week's haul is pictured to the left. Fourteen books adding up to a whopping total of £4.50. Okay, so the top one was a bookmooch and the bottom four were purchased with a five-pound note I found on the street, but it is still not bad going.

The selection is suitably eclectic (for me, anyways): some bestsellers, some fluffy Georgette Heyers, a historical novel which had been recommended to me by my old mentor, some Booker nominees/winners, a bonafide classic and some slightly obscure novels.

I'm a chapter into Heyer's Cousin Kate and will also start Crumey's Mr Mee as soon as possible.

Some links for your perusal:

• When disability becomes superability: Aimee Mullins: ".. the myth of being dis-abled, the truth of being super-abled, why individual shifts in consciousness work and a new definition for wearable art. " (thank you, David)
• The Forbidden Railway: Travelling from Vienna  to Pyonyang: "In September of 2008, two Europeans go by rail from Vienna to Pyongyang without asking permission or going through the official North Korean travel agency." A fascinating travelogue with photos from inside North Korea. (via)
• My arty uncle finally has his own website. I grew up with his paintings on the walls and today David and I have one of his collographic prints in our living room.
• Nine Words You Thought Came From Science, But Actually Came from Science Fiction. Zero-gravity, anyone? Like the commentators, I'm slightly irritated that Karel Capek has not been given credit for "robot" (I did a secondary school project on early science fiction novels, you see).
• Finally, James Earl Jones recites the alphabet. As good as it gets.

There And Back Again

Today we saw ..

.. our new nephew (three weeks old!)..

.. the "Eye of Grampian" ferris wheel..

.. and Aberdeen beach where I found lava rocks.

(Thank you so much for your helpful and insightful comments. I'll reply to each and everyone of you once I've had some much needed sleep. We've been on quite a bus journey today.)