Weekend in Amsterdam

We spent this past weekend in Amsterdam, hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend. We had a blast!

Our favorite things:

Drinking beer from Dutch microbreweries at t'Arendsnest (thank you New York Times article).

Looking at flowers

Going on a Mike's Bike Tour (Countryside edition) with the Wackiest Guide Ever.

Pretending I'm the owner of said Wacky Guide's Awesome Orange (of course) Fiets.

The end of the garbage-men strike (24 hours after we arrived; they had 12 days' worth in the city!)

 ::no pictures - that's a good thing::

Wandering aimlessly through the streets, taking random pictures of wonky houses

Waving at tourists on boats (and getting them to wave back)

Looking at (the wrong kind of) bells

Coveting bicycles (especially Bakfietsen)

Drinking more beer

Eating frites and frikandel, from the frituur recommended by the bartender at t'Arendsnest

Lifting up tiny cars

  Dutch trains, especially the doobledockers (sp?)

 Taking the ferry back and forth (Husband's idea)

Eating a really yummy lunch after finding a gaggle of happy Dutch people sitting outside a cafe, eating food that looked great

There are more pictures on Flickr but they're behind the "friends and family" wall - friend me if you want to see them!

Mysterious blue knitted thing: revealed

I happen to know a very cute 1-year-old. Which is, I think, mutually beneficial. I saw this pattern by Tora Froseth on Ravelry and HAD to make it.

I nearly made it in time for said 1-year-old's birthday, but got distracted by all the ninja-gardening when my mom was here.

The yarn was a Debbie Bliss Rialto fingering-weight that was incredible to knit with - it's really soft and just seemed to flow across the needles.

Combined with some really cute buttons that my mom found (at Wibbling Wools, of course), I think it was a huge success. I'm really glad that I made the 18-month size rather than the 12 month size. She's a tall one!

John & Kate Plus Houseguests, Episode 2

The guest bed had just about cooled down after my mom left, when one of my Colby buddies arrived to hang out with us for a Sunday afternoon. She's "Coburn Freshman Hall Resident Now In A Relationship With A Brit" No.3. They must have been putting something in the water...

Anyway, because of the whims and vagaries of Sunday rail replacement busses, we realised that in order for her to get back to where she was staying before midnight she'd have to leave Stowmarket at 3pm. Having arrived at noon. BUMMER.

I suggested she stay over and take normal trains back on Monday morning. WOOHOO! So we kidnapped her and took her to Kentwell Hall, followed by a sojourn to the now world-famous Radhuni.

Kentwell was a blast - we took the cross-country route.

Kate: "The speed limit on this [single track, winding] road is now 50 miles per hour."
Viv: "Um, what??"

John later commented that Viv and I were both knitting, chatting, looking out the window, and I was also navigating. He said that had he been attempting to do all of those things simultaneously, his brain would have fused.

Here's a sneak-peek at what I was making. It's a birthday present that hasn't been given yet - finished product pictures soon!

While at Kentwell, we took inspiration for what I need to do with hedging in our front garden:

Parts of the house have a higgldy-piggldy feel to them - this lookeed like they just kept adding bits on.

I loved the sign on this ex-greenhouse.

We were bad and got put in the stocks:

And Mr. Peacock decided that Vivienne was the bee's knees and kept showing her his tail feathers. Um, she's taken, Mr. Peacock, but I guess you would still fall into the English Boyfriend category!

Viv also showed me some knitting tips - I've been doing my M1 increases all wrong, leaving a trail of little holes behind me. This is now resolved. I was also weaving in my ends wrong. All future knitting projects (and the previously-pictured blue mystery project) will have awesomely woven-in ends. Phew.

John & Kate Plus Houseguests, Episode 1

My mom came to visit us for a week. Somehow, she managed to land the day before they closed Europe, and then she left on her scheduled flight the day they reopened everything. We'd had a small amount of excitement when they cancelled her flight the day before, but they reinstated it a few hours later and off she went. 

True to form, we did some Ninja Gardening, had lots of yummy pub lunches, hung out with the inlaws and the sm. boy, rang bells (well, I rang, Mom read and "Flip"-ped, went on walks and ate curry. We had one dining fail - we tried a new restaurant in Stowmarket that produced what is definitely in the top 5 worst meals I've ever eaten. Maybe they'll get better, so I'm not going to leave a trail of hate on the interwebs. If you're testing out a new restaurant in Stow, though, email me. And WATCH OUT.

Much better were these flowers (thank you SLR).

 And this hodgepodge street in Norwich:

 And standing outside Orford church:

And the extremely yummy Butley Orford Oysterage. Eat there. Even though it's in the boonies.

While it's tough to live 3,500 miles away from my parents, we Skype all the time and it's really fun to have a week of concentrated MomAndKate time, which I imagine we wouldn't have if we lived around the corner from each other.

Review: The Magician's Elephant

Kristin Cashore recommended The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DeCamillo, on her blog. Yeah, I know. If Cashore tells the interwebs to read a book, I'm going to read it.

In fairness, I didn't LOVE Knowledge of Angels, but I agree with her that it was riveting.

I did, however, love The Magician's Elephant.

It is, unsurprisingly, about a Magician and an Elephant. But it's mostly about a small boy, and the things that happen when he dares to hope. It's relatively short, but every word and every sentence seemed somehow exactly right. In the same way that Mozart sounds right, and vaguely inevitable.

The copy I had from the library was hardbound, and I don't know enough about paper to really weigh in on it, but the paper seemed sort of onion-skin-y, and the shapes of the (gorgeous) font bled through to the following and previous pages.

If you haven't read it, you should. It'll take you an hour or two, at most. But savour it. (Especially you, C.)

And now for something completely different (although still from KC): Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. I'm on volume 1 of 3. It's translated from the Norwegian, the library copy that I have was printed in 1969, it takes place in 14th Century Norway, and it's riveting. Never heard of the book or the author before, but I'm glad I have now!

Where to?

I took this photo a few weeks ago and haven't had a reason to post it. Except that I like it. So now it's posted!

And then we watched some movies

In the last week, I've caught up on all the kids' movies that I'd wanted to see.

We've watched:

How to Train Your Dragon (cute, and fun, but not as amazing as the interwebs would have you believe)

Eragon (not as terrible as the interwebs would have you believe)

Flushed Away (hilarious - how did I miss it?)

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (very cute, with a great Al Roker cameo)

We also watched the new Matt Smith Doctor Who. Great writing and a super-spunky sidekick. And even though he's NOT David Tennant, I think Matt Smith can stay. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure that the BBC have already decided that.

I bought a pillow form last weekend - my plan is to make a quilted pillow for the couch, inspired by this beautiful (and sold out) one made by Manda of TreeFall. There are also some really inspiring ones on flickr, here. Especially this one. 

I think some of these might make an appearance...

Oh, and Moose made me post this one. He likes the quilt. A lot.

The End (of the quilt and of Doctor David Tennant)

Last night we watched the final David Tennant Doctor Who episodes. I'd missed them at Christmas when they originally aired, and the iPlayer download that I had was corrupted. NOOOOOO!

As much as I want D.T. and Catherine Tate to be "The Doctor and Donna" forever, I thought the last episode was really good. A little nostalgia, a lot of running, and some silly jokes. And then a regeneration. 11th Doctor? Not sure how I feel about him yet. The first episode of the newly Tennant-less Doctor Who is tonight...we'll see how it goes.

While we were watching, I finished binding my quilt. I love how it turned out. There are some really gorgeous ones in the Flickr pool - go check them out!

I love how bright it is - and since I finished it midway through the tv-watching last night, I can also vouch for the fact that it's soft and reasonably warm.

We're having a mad weather-day today - it's either pouring or bright sunshine and nothing in between. I don't think I'm brave enough to hang the washing out on the line but I may break out the e-cloth and wash some windows. Spring!!

Herdy!

We went to Bury yesterday afternoon and John bought me a copy of the April Martha Stewart Living. I'm not sure how it got into WHSmith in Bury - it was by itself, with no other MSL mags around it, and no other American mags to be found. One of life's great mysteries, I guess.

It turns out to be a special "best of" issue, with lots of fun springy Martha-esque ideas in it AND recipes for "the best" brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate cake. Extensive testing will be necessary.

I'm now on the binding phase of the quilt - I've finished all of the quilting. The binding is taking forever, though - it's machine-sewn onto the front of the quilt and then hand-sewn on the back. Maybe the stitches I'm doing are too close together? I can't really tell. And I can't seem to tuck them under the seams, either - they're out there for the whole world to see. My binding fabric is the creamy floral in the middle of the picture below - if I had it to do again I'd probably bind with one of the blues or the orange.
It still looks pretty awesome, though.

When we were in Clare last weekend, I spotted this shop window display. OMG SHEEP! AND LAMBS! I didn't catch the name of the store. It was filled with great stuff, but it was closed (Sunday afternoon). Probably a good thing, in terms of my wallet. The company that makes all the sheep stuff is called The Herdy Company, although I couldn't find the mugs from the display on their website. Sigh. They DO have some really gorgeous wool blankets and throws, made from Herdwick wool. I think the blue and grey throw wants to come and live with us. I can hear it calling my name.

And this sundial was on the wall of the church, above the entrance. I love the message, "Go about your Business." As in, stop standing here and gawping at the sundial, you lazy bum. Heh. Off you go, then!

Boy, reflected

A self-portrait, by James:

And a gloriously old post box, in Clare. It predates Queenie so has to be from at least the 1950s.

Bach Choir: St John Passion - THIS WEEKEND!

In case any of you are wondering what I'm up to this weekend (you were waiting to plan your lives around mine, obv.), look no further.

Bach Choir. Bach. Jesus. Philip Salmon. What more do you need?

Saturday 27^th March 2010 at 7.30pm (ends approx. 9.45pm)

St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds

Stephen Varcoe - Christus
Philip Salmon - Evangelist
Nicki Kennedy - soprano
James Bowman - counter-tenor
Richard Edgar-Wilson - tenor
Gavin Carr - bass

Bury Bach Choir

Suffolk Baroque Players

Philip Reed - conductor

This performance of Bach’s St John Passion comes at the start of Holy Week, the week before Easter.

It tells the story of this extraordinary week – the Last Supper, Jesus’ trial before Pilate, and finally his crucifixion.  Six vocal soloists, together with the choir and orchestra, dramatize these world-changing events with sensitivity, integrity and often, raw emotion.  As the drama unfolds, prepare for rapid contrasts, for a verbal, spiritual, musical and indeed psychological roller coaster as we are dragged step by step towards the ultimate conclusion.

The soloists tonight are second to none, the orchestra pure baroque, and the choir will be at their best.  This will be a performance to remember.  Don’t miss it!

Casio's customer service

For my birthday 2 years ago, my brother gave me a really nice camera: a Casio Exilim. I had a few months last fall where the only camera I was using was the SLR, mostly because it's so good at taking pictures like this:

So after a season of neglect, I went to get my Casio out to take with us on an afternoon out. And the battery was dead. Not just dead, but un-chargeable. I consulted Teh Interwebs, who told me that this was the result of a problem with the particular batteries that come with the cameras. OH BOTHER.

I went on Amazon and bought a replacement (non-Casio, as I was feeling skittish) battery. Which I charged, took a few pictures with, and left in the camera for about 6 weeks. When I went to take the camera on the Ladies' Guild outing a few weeks ago, I checked the camera for charge before I left the house. No juice.

I opened the battery cover and flipped the little switch that's supposed to eject the battery. And flipped it again. The battery stayed put. DOUBLE BOTHER. After an intervention with tweezers, a paperclip, and lots of bad words, I got the battery out. It had swollen in the camera and gotten stuck.

I emailed the Amazon e-seller who was extremely gracious and refunded my £ (and I sent back the battery so they could make a claim with their supplier), and then I emailed Casio UK in a last-ditch effort to get a new battery for my camera (as I was going to stay away from the non-branded ones and Casio don't sell the NP-20 batteries on their website). They took my camera's serial number and the battery number, and emailed back within 48 hours with the promise of a new (free!) battery. Which arrived today and is charging happily upstairs.

We'll see how it goes, but I'm (a) impressed with Casio's speedy customer service and battery replacement skills, (b) marginally annoyed that I had to go through the Amazon rigmarole rather than just contacting Casio in the first place, and (c) vaguely irritated that Casio made such a crappy battery for what is otherwise an awesome camera. So if anyone else out there has an Exilim from 2007 with a dead battery, email Casio and they'll hook you up.

A final update, which is long overdue: my dad's now-finished needlepoint (it's not quite done in this picture), made from a photograph he took. I think I will still have to claim this as the Best Christmas Present Idea Ever. And I like the needlepoint even better than the original picture.

Spring!

Spring is finally here. As demonstrated by our garden: 

And our "Easter tree". The boys think I've lost my marbles. But I love it. This little dude is rockin' his branch.

And, no the front hall table doesn't normally look like that. I cleared all the clutter off first. :)

And, finally, since the rest of the "on the road to spring" quilt-along peeps have finished their quilts, I bit the bullet and did some free motion quilting. Some of the stitches are very small and perfect, some are really teeny and a little bit scrunched, and some are h u g e and rather spread out. Oh well - when you look at it from a distance, it's perfect. I love the crinkly look that it gives the quilt - it makes it look very casual.

I was reading a Sainsbury's Magazine at the in-laws yesterday, and came across a recipe for tomato, olive & spinach quiche with sauteed leeks, in the "quick meals" feature. I got all excited.

Then, I read the recipe.

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 200C.
Step 2: Open a 400g packet of Tomato, Olive & Spinach quiche, and put it in the oven.

EPIC FAIL.

My brain on music

Anna at twelve22 recommended Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music, about how we hear music in neurological terms. It's riveting. My only problem is that I need to be by myself when I'm reading it, since I'm compelled to read chunks out to whoever's around at the time.

I'm only about 50 pages in, but I can see that it's the kind of book that a Colby music prof would assign as an extra-credit project. I'm actually enjoying reading it just to read it, rather than reading it knowing that I need to write a paper on it or answer questions on it on my next midterm.

(This is a random picture of a clock from one of the church towers we visited last weekend)

In other music news, I seem to have come out from under my rock to find Owl City (warning: music auto-plays). I normally find auto-tune stuff to be really irritating, but for some reason I think it's really catchy. Embarrassingly, I didn't find out about them (him?) on the radio like a normal person. No, I heard about it because someone at work asked if we would be buying in the matching folio. In case you're wondering, the answer is yes.

When's my movie?

So I'm no longer the only person on the planet who hasn't seen Julie & Julia. It's finally out on DVD in the UK and we rented it this afternoon. And I LOVED it. I was Julie...I was Julia...I was Julie again, then back to Julia. 

::sigh:: 

There was a lot of criticism that the movie was overly schmaltzy and that Amy Adams was wooden, but I thought she was the perfect combination of neurotic, repellent, and endearing. And of course Meryl was fabulous. John thought her Julia Child accent was annoying, but I thought she nailed it (and I forgot about it after 5 minutes).

And then we saw Frances Sternhagen (who of course stole the scene she was in) and John had his first "HEY that's Frannie and I know her and she's in that movie and she came to our wedding and she's great and isn't that cool??!" moment. I've been having them for years, and yes, it's cool.

Continuing the New Yawk foodie theme, John picked up some Italian spicy sausages at Waitrose last week, so we had penne with sausage, fennel and tomato sauce. It was exceedingly tasty and very New York Italian-tasting. I just needed the glass tumbler of parmesan with the metal lid and the experience would have been complet.

I spent yesterday with the Ladies' Guild (Eastern District) for the annual district meeting and four bell towers. We all thought his spindly rope holder was really cool, and I'm glad this picture came out as well as it did.

This was taken a few minutes before, during the ringing.

So when are the publishers and Hollywood-types coming to make a movie of my blog? Huh?

The BBC

This week, on the BBC (cue dramatic music): Lambwatch, LIVE! Five, one-hour, (mostly) live programs, direct from a lamb shed in Wales. Honestly. No, really, I'm not kidding.

Where will YOU be at 8pm?

More Ginger Ale

I wasn't feeling well at all on Friday. Achy, a v. unhappy stomach, and general ickyness. We left work a little bit early, and the ickyness continued. So much so that on Saturday, John brought home a Mr. Men thermometer and some flowers, along with some ginger ale. Which, obviously, made me feel much better.

 Yellow chrystanthemumbles. Very nice. And rather springy.

I finally found our Easter decorations, too. My favorite is this little chap. I mean, c'mon. A bunny, riding on a carrot, with a purple egg for company? What's not to like? Now I just need to snaffle a spring-y twig/stick thing for the front hall table so I can hang all of the decorations on it. Yes, there are more.

In honor of spring, and the fact that I was feeling better, and the glorious sunshine we had today, we went to visit the lambs at Baylham House farm. I always feel a little weird going there without a small child, but nobody seemed to notice. The lambs are several weeks old, so rather than being in the lambing shed, they were out in the fields, springing! Ok, not this guy, but what a face!

James managed to catch this action shot - the little guy in the center of the picture has all four feet in the air. SPRING lamb! I could have stood there for hours, but the boys were getting cold, so we walked back to the car. Which has now been washed and vacuumed. Spring, indeed.