The Here & Now.

Gus is not sure about the accordion

It's arrived! Gus hid under Christopher's desk when I first started playing, but I think he'll get used to it. It is so so much fun. I love it already. It came in a big, musty-smelling box that looks like an old sewing machine case. Where am I going to keep it? Well... now that the dulcimer is in the closet and the cellos guard either side of the living room.... who knows. I may very well walk around with it strapped to my chest at ALL TIMES!

Leaving the house is good for you, I've heard

So leaving the house gets a bit stressful when you've been alone in your house with your dog and your husband for awhile... not really talking to many other people. Except the pizza man. And stressed out shopgirls.

I've been pottering, knitting lots, writing some music, cooking, hanging out with Gusdog... I've been loving my jumper I finished the other day. Though it's more of a loose, comfy thing than the close-fitting perfect looking jumper in the book, but so it goes.

The scarf is going well - but it's a bit daunting to come through a set of complicated (to me anyway) rows, to get the instructions: 'Now repeat those rows 27 times.'

I should go practise cello. Did I mention the accordion?? Oh god I'm so excited, it's in the post. Like I need another instrument to learn...

Lurkey

Roasting a turkey seems like a good idea at the time, but then there's the sixteen tonnes of leftover to deal with. So far I've branched out into black bean turkey stir fry, but I'm pretty sick of the taste of it. There's still chili and soup to go I suppose.

I've been loving the vegbox discussions on the Observer site - initially started as a blog by someone who decided to get a vegbox but really couldn't cook. The comments are the most useful, with ideas for everything from brussel sprouts to kale to vast quantities of leeks.
Here are the posts, as they're close to impossible to find on the Observer site normally.

Week One (courgettes, sweet potatoes, bananas and carrots)
Week Two (swede, apples, squash and white cabbage)
Week Three (turnips, apples and parsnips)
Week Four (spinach, broccoli and cauliflower)
Week Five (curly kale and brussel sprouts)
Week Six (pumpkin)
Week Seven (pumpkin, leeks & jerusalem artichokes)
Week Eight (carrots)

Completed things, new things, resisting temptation

I finished knitting my first jumper. Well, truth be told, not the very very first, but the first one I've actually thought about wearing in public. Calm, from Kim Hargreaves' Heartfelt - The Dark House Collection. I used the Kidsilk Aura suggested, in purple, and it's lovely stuff, but it sheds more than Gusdog. I kept finding fuzz everywhere, in my tea, stuck to the counter in the kitchen, on the bathroom floor, floating in the bath. I was shedding it everywhere I went.

I'm a bit addicted to the book and have started knitting Haven as well. In grey. Which is pretty, but not all that helpful as the coat I've been wearing all winter is a busy black and white pattern. I'm not always practical when I pick yarn colours.

I was in John Lewis today to pick up another skein of Cocoon for the scarf, and hadn't properly clocked what the combination of 'Boxing Day sale' and 'yarn department' would mean. A huge table full of bags of marked down loveliness, and mad women with huge baskets tossing things into the middle when it wasn't what they wanted. I soon merged into the slowly rotating crowd and came close to convincing someone else to buy a bag of Jaeger soft alpaca in a beautiful grey (yes this is a theme). I restrained myself though.... barely. I escaped with my one skein of Cocoon and two sale skeins of Jaeger Roma in a nice dusky pinky-grey for these mermaid fingerless gloves. Though this may be a recipe for disaster as I have yet to knit successfully with double-pointed needles. Let alone a slightly complicated pattern.... ah well. In for a penny.

Bottled

Christmas light testing at work