Burn baby burn

Hello all!

Tasteless title, but the Old Man gets cremated on Thursday and then we were going to have a BBQ but looks like a cool change will hit and it'll be a wash out. I find it amusing that the wake will be a meat fest and was to be a BBQ....

Thank you to everyone who has been so kind over the last couple of days. I much appreciate it. It has left a hollow but really the hollow was there before my father died, it just got more final. I've been here before - mum died 14 years ago after a year long battle with cancer.

Anyway, onto more pleasant things.

I am bad.

Very bad.

I bought lots of hand-dyed silk tops to spin into various tops and rovings that I have, and the chocolate brown alpaca I am sometimes spinning up at present. I think I have bought over FIFTY DOLLARS of silk. I am a very very bad girl and should be spanked thoroughly (it might make me happier!). No pics cos the light was atrocious today.

I bought some yarn yesterday cos it is bright and cheery and very me, especially when I need a pick-me-up. Bad me.

But almost best of all, I dyed this up and sent someone a birthday present:



and she likes it :-)

I cut such a forlorn figure standing outside the Oakleigh post office on Sunday. You see I had put the yarn into an express post envelope, but the express post box is INSIDE the post office and of course the PO wasn't open.... but the nice postie who was emptying the normal mail box took the package for me :-)

Books from Amazon

The very nice people at Amazon finally pulled their fingers out and mailed out my books. Here is the box, with the happy smiley on the side (note I am wearing a skirt cos Thursday, when the books arrived, was a warm day in the mid 20s, unusual for late April here):


And here is the BOOKBOOKBOOK (still have to think hard to type that right....):


and another couple of books:


and the other book I really wanted:


(this means that you two, you know who you are, your book arrived too!)

I shamefully admit I have not read them all yet. I have had other things on my mind, like keeping madly busy whilst doing very little.

A warning for people who eat fish in southern Australia

Approach all fish sold as "butterfish" with EXTREME caution. Butterfish is technically only found in tropical waters. There are several southern (cold water) species that are sold in the markets in Australia's south.

Why should you avoid this fish? It is very very yummy fish - very palatable indeed. I gobbled mine down on Saturday night. So moist and delicious! Gobble gobble gobble - I even ate faster than Nathan! So what is the problem? The fish sold under this name are not butterfish but other sorts of fish, at least a couple of species of which contain certain sorts of fat. Fish normally contain good fats. Omega-3s, etc. Unfortunately, these non-butterfish have >90% of their fats in the form of wax esters. What is wrong with wax esters I hear you say? Well, for starters, they are undigestible by humans. Then they are liquid at human body temperature. So you don't absorb them and they are runny. Can you guess where this is going? If you really want some gruesome details, have a look at this link (scroll down the page a bit until you see the pics of the fish. Prepare to be grossed out). Or read this bit - you really really really DON'T want to fart after eating "butterfish." And it takes anywhere from a day to four days for the effect to wear off. And the oil is really really hard to wash out.

It was really something that I didn't need to help contaminate Sunday further. It had started off so nicely - a visit to the SKINC plant sale (very nice tubes of indigenous plants of an area not quite ours but hey....) and a wander along the St Kilda craft market and a visit to the Olds' first home together. Then we got home and got the phone messages. Sorta put a downer on my whole day.

However, on a good note Nathan got sick of the printer not working so he looked into it. For some reason the driver wasn't on the computer. So he downloaded the driver and HOORAY! I now can print (so can Nathan). As long as I only want B&W cos the printer is out of colour ink. D'OH! (Boo hiss!) So now the vintage capelet from Spun is on my radar, along with Bella Paquita from Marnie MacLean. She really does some nice stuff - check out the little lace cardi she has almost finished.

I still haven't finished either the jacket or the pink top. Haven't even finished the front of the pink top yet. Best get a wriggle on. Or make my hat in the bright yarn I bought yesterday. Yeah. Easy knitting in pretty colours. Yeah.

Here's a pic of sweet Nutty, annoying Nathan by looking avidly at the bathtub fishpond.



Cheshire is commanding me to pat her by knocking my hand off the mouse and the keyboard. Guess this is

anon!