Poddling on

I'm not sure how current "poddling" is as a word these days. You know, fossicking about, doing a little of this and that, moving slowly and dare I say it probably in a rather ungainly fashion. We all do it from time to time, but some of us more than others perhaps.

Or is it a word that got itself invented by a group I may have been associated with at the time, that I have trailed after me through life to end up here confounding people? Like brems? Which come to think of it had a meaning somewhat akin to poddling with less action involved, but then we were teenage at the time. If I can dredge up a few more shards of memory, the origin was from Brems, which may or may not have been a make of jukebox. I am not kidding about this - its the sort of thing that me and my ilk used to do (and I am not actually the culprit in this one, but there could well be other instances in which I was.)

What, I am sure anyone left reading beyond this point in which select group I include myself in years to come is asking, the hell is she on about this time? I am musing (I really like musing, it is soothing) about the internet and my love affair with it.

I have been in this relationship for several years now, maybe eight which in internet terms is one heck of a long time. I have by many been deemed odd for this predilection, but have never cared (unusual). The internet has provided me unstintingly (well, once I got on to broadband, anyway) with friends, fun, information and more. I began with email lists, and can still remember those first heady days of the Spinlist, when it was all so thrilling. Until the same stuff had been around, asked and answered for the nth time, and I got just a tad jaded, although I could still see the use and the faded charm. I'm still on lists, of course. Then I discovered the heady pleasure of search engines, eventually Google, before Google was attempting to take over the world, but probably won't succeed because Microsoft and Apple are there first. Or the Yahooborg. But it is only in the nature of capitalism, and the cool thing about the internet is how it positively encourages the free and anarchic, not that I claim to be either of those things, of course.

I'm rambling again.

Self-evidently there came blogging, which satisfies on so many different levels.

But now, I have discovered podcasts. (There - a point at last.) And specifically, fibre arts podcasts. I have only found a tiny handful so far, which is probably just as well, as time in the day has this strange habit of being predetermined with lots of it spoken for by boring things that can't be done near the computer and I can't download podcasts to my ipod because I have an audiobook on it and if I do I will LOSE MY PLACE (my ability with technology is considerably circumscribed.)

Knitcast, Fibercast and Cast-On are the fibre ones I have found so far, and the cast is I think my favourite. Difficult to tell. Knitcast is maybe the most informative but the woman who does Cast-On has a great voice, and it is extremely pleasant to work away at whatever whilst she talks.


And I have been doing things whilst listening - a simple spiral rope to hold a pendant that I bought recently (and I do know that it is not on the list, but I am allowed to be spontaneous sometimes) and getting back to the crochet jacket at least a little. Plus spinning the polwarth and silk which is quite yummy, and if I have said that before, well, it is so there.

I'm away from tomorrow until Sunday on a knitting course. Freeform. I've never done any sort of knitting course before and do hope that I don't reduce the tutor to tears. I can be - klutzy. Don't like that word, I need to go invent another.