Shrug it off?

Today did not get off to a good start. At 4 am our phone appeared to have a nervous breakdown; not ringing in the ring-ring, ring-ring normal sort of oh my god if it's ringing at four in the morning who has died sort of way. But an hysterical ring-ring-ring-ring-ring and so on ad infinitum sort of way. If "answered", it would stop briefly, then start up again. I gently suggested to the DSM that we unplugged the phones and attempted to get back to sleep; he opted for phoning the engineers, and we then had more ring-ring-ringing until he unplugged the phones at about five. I gently suggested that we decreed it a very early rising kind of a day,and compensated at the other end, but we settled back down and I at least didn't fall asleep until sevenish, waking at eight thirty feeling like...well, you can imagine.

The phone is now dead - BT do at least say it is their problem, not ours; and hopefully will fix it in the next 24 hours. And - thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I have a broadband connection, so I Will Survive.

However, things improved after that. I had ordered a Bosworth Moosie for someone else a while back, and then found that I could have another for me if I liked. Decided to get it, as the first was so pretty and a much better spindle than I had expected. Not only did it arrive, and yes, it is lovely, but it didn't get caught by Customs. Sheila had spun a little glittery fluff on it, and although the colour co-ordination doesn't show quite accurately in this photo (it looks more orange and less purpley), I do assure you the match with what I was wearing this morning was marked!




I then had an email from the (young?) woman who I was supposed to be giving a spinning lesson to yesterday morning. It is really annoying to keep a Sunday morning free, get up and moving promptly, organise stuff for teaching, not to mention getting psyched up ditto - and then have a no-show. Still, she has now apologised, but not, I am not sorry to say, rebooked. Too much hassle!

I'm going to go awol from one or two email lists that I am on for a while. The tragedy in New Orleans has unleashed not only a tide of generosity and kindness, but also one of idiocy. At every opportunity, and this is one, there is a small group of usual suspects who crank out the same nonsense on a couple of topics, and there are only so many times that I can watch it go by without saying something that I shall maybe regret. (There is no point in trying for a reasonable debate here, positions are far to entrenched.) I think though that I have heard the most criminally stupid thing to date, that one individual keeps not only weapons, but ammunition for it in their vehicle at all times, just in case....the mind does rather more than boggle. I would find it hard to think that could be legal, but......

Anyway, I have been intrigued by hearing some of the interviews with returning Brits who have finally been air-lifted out telling us not to believe all the tales of atrocities on the part of some of the citizens; and also repeated interviews with one of the BBC guys, who is obviously very angry and upset by some of the things he has seen some of "the authorities" do - or not do. At least now things do seem to be improving for those poor souls, but what will happen over then next few months is anyone's guess.

Oh, let's get back to fibre. I finished spinning the grey Falklands - finally! It turned out to be very mixed in colour and quality. I need to spin some colour to go with it, and then assess the entire lot. This is the promised photo of the infant shrug:



not.

(The colour is not quite accurate here, either - it is closer to British Racing Green.) It quickly became apparent that there was not going to be enough yarn for a shrug, so it is, of course, going to grow up to be yet another shawl. But I think, the best yet - lovely cushy yarn, with a nice gleam of silk. Although I was so rude about it in the spinning, washed and dyed is another matter entirely, a lot of the inconsistency of it has vanished in the fulling and it is nice and bouncy. Good to knit with.

Time to feed the mogs, and get me a cup of tea to help keep me awake......