Da Bomb

I found this most amusing on my commute to work on Friday:

I love the fact that in London, history occasionally rears its head and reminds us that, no matter how shiny and modern we might think we are, this is a city with two millennia of heritage (one day soon I'll visit here).  I love knowing that we walk the same streets as the Romans, and mediaeval peasants, and cheeky chappie Cockney sparrows who survived the Blitz.  I also love the deadpan way in which London Underground manages to respond to such situations.  On the other hand, they might just be pleased to have an excuse that's not actually their fault, for once...

Bookish

It was my irregular book club night tonight, celebrated with much wine and a remarkably unified set of opinions over our latest book (Death At Intervals by José Saramago). The consensus seemed to be that the idea was great, but that we weren't keen on the execution - we prefer some punctuation, and possibly some actual characters. But the man has a Nobel Prize for Literature so who are we to judge?

Still feeling literary afterwards, I spent a pleasant, slightly tipsy hour wandering around Borders on Oxford Street, refreshing my list of books to read in the near future, and enjoying the fact that they were playing Leonard Cohen (two weeks to the concert!). Books are such things of joy to me. I'm sure I'd go without food sooner than give up buying books (but please don't test me on that). My family are the same - growing up, even if pocket money was being withheld for whatever reason, I could always persuade my parents to buy me a book, because every parent wants their child to enjoy reading. Their problem was more how to punish me, as being sent to my room, my place of books, was no hardship to me - I was there anyway most of the time. Forcing me to go outside and climb a tree would have been far worse...

I was somewhat sad to visit the craft section and see the following:

Books everywhere, piled haphazardly on shelves, and all over the floor in such disarray. Why? I can't believe that the shop assistants have particular disregard for this section. I can only imagine that overenthusiastic crafters get so book-happy that they spend hours poring over them and don't put them back properly. So my dears, if you're reading this, please put them back nicely, OK?

Incidentally, not that this happened tonight, and not that I need it these days, but Borders on Oxford Street is one of the prime pulling locations in central London in my opinion. The number of times I've been approached by nice young men in there whilst I've been browsing... Far more often than in any other location. This seems to be particularly prevalent if I'm sat reading in the science section - clearly geeky men (I love geeks, I am one) need to establish that their quarry can actually read long words before they move in. Oh, and Borders have fairly alright, free loos, which is always a plus. If only I could live in a bookshop... I'd probably be even more happy imprisoned in one than in a yarn shop, which is saying something.

Last night our Wednesday night knitting group had an outing to the Etcetera Theatre in Camden, to where Tingles has "run away to join the theatre", as I keep putting it. You go, girl! The play was The Pilgrimage of the Heart, featuring a somewhat startling incest-based storyline. Ting, aka Tina, was fantastic - sweetie you absolutely made me forget that we normally see you grinning at us over a set of DPNs! I'll say again for future nights: break a leg!

Tube booze chaos!

The new Mayor of London, our Boris, has just banned drinking alcohol on the Underground. Quite right too, I say. It might help with all the scary, lager-swilling football fans getting drunk and lairy on the Tube every time there's a match or concert on round my way (every day at the moment it seems), although I'm not sure the tramps with their cans of cider will be unduly worried by the "softly softly" approach that TfL are planning on taking. I was astonished to discover that boozing on the Tube wasn't actually illegal already - I always thought it was, and in my clubbing days back at uni we always used to top up little bottles of Diet Coke with vodka to get lashed for cheap on the way out, thinking we'd get arrested if seen drinking the hard stuff openly. It turns out we could have been as blatant as we liked! Oh well, it all added to the frisson of being a teenager, I suppose.

So, alcohol on the Tube became illegal at as of 1 June 2008. How did Londoners react? By organising an almighty booze-up on the Circle Line on the evening of 31 May, starting at 9pm, going westbound from Liverpool Street. This was never going to end well.

We were on our way to a proper party in a proper bar at about 9.10pm on Saturday night, with plans to change at King's Cross. It didn't occur to us that we'd collide with the Tube party; I even vaguely wondered where all those people were going with wine bottles. Then we got to the Circle Line platform:

Most of those people there had alcohol - you can see the standard off-licence blue carrier bags, and the ever-so-classy Bacardi Breezer (yuk). A whole load of people in fright wigs arrived just after that, as the party train was pulling in. We weren't participating, but we had to get where we were going, and it all seemed pretty good humoured. Not much going on in our carriage but we could hear the noises from further down the train where the party was really getting started, with cheering every time we arrived at a station, and a "time" bell being rung in harmony with the door opening and closing beeps. At Great Portland Street, we saw these girls realising with horror that they were on the wrong platform, and trying to leg it over to the train:

When we disembarked at Baker Street, we could see for ourselves what was happening in the party carriages:

Standing room only for the partygoers, girls all dressed up, men in fancy dress, and plenty of alcohol. What I didn't manage to get photos of were the balloons, disco balls, the sound system in one carriage, the full TV camera and boom microphone in another... It all looked like quite a laugh.

Unfortunately these things never seem to stay pleasant, and apparently it all got rather rowdy not much later on, with fights, vomiting and ripping up of train upholstery. Stations were closed, except Liverpool Street where the best they could do was to corral the party on the main concourse all night. Glad we didn't stick around. We had to walk for ages on our way back home because, surprise surprise, the station we needed was shut because of the trouble. I still have the blisters.  Bloody high heels.

What else have I been up to? Well, most excitingly, I popped down south to check out a wedding venue, and it was gorgeous, and it's now booked for next September! As a consequence of which, I've been hitting the gym in the evenings, as I only have 14 months to look good enough for all the photos. At least that's fairly likely to be enough to augment my paltry willpower when it comes to such things. Must not eat chocolate... except when bought for me as a celebratory pressie by the lovely Lotta and Anna, with whom I spent a lovely Tuesday evening sipping champagne cocktails in the Moët Bar in Selfridges. They also bought me a stunning orchid from Paula Pryke at Liberty, and I'm working really hard to ensure that this is the one plant that I manage to keep alive. Thank you again my dears! But no more chocolate, please, I beg you...

Enough, already

Just got back this evening from a weekend up in the Midlands, near the Welsh border, studying bats. Whilst it was very interesting, particularly in terms of all the technical stuff I got to discuss about the physics of bat calls for echolocation (harmonics, frequency modulation, heterodyne, FFT... check out the pipistrelle call sample on that Wikipedia page for what we were hearing on our surveys), we really should not have gone to this straight after getting back from South America. Not that we knew when the holiday would be back when we booked the course, but still.

Anyway, I am dog tired and slightly disturbed that I am also away for, er, every weekend until the end of June. Next weekend I need to go down to the south coast to view a potential wedding venue, then I'm off up north to visit my dear friend Gloria, then attending a wedding in Shropshire, then Manchester to see Leonard Cohen in concert (yay!), then hopefully Woolfest in Cumbria... Sigh. I would quite like to spend a weekend in my own little flat at some point, but that doesn't look terribly likely, does it?

Oh well, I suspect I'm just particularly grumpy tonight because I can detect the lingering smell of dead bat specimens about my person, and cannot get rid of it.

Incidentally, it amused us this week to see signs on the way into Shrewsbury, where we were staying, proclaiming it to be the birthplace of Charles Darwin. Can't get away from the bugger at the moment, can we?

We also saw a lorry emblazoned with the intriguing crest of "The Sheep Show". Having just looked it up online, I am bemused: "A humorous educational live stage show about sheep and wool.  Edu-tainment at it's best. 9 breeds introduced onto their own stage. Don’t miss the Dancing Sheep." Huh? And can I get them for the wedding?

Finally thank you all for your lovely comments/e-mails/texts/calls/cards about the engagement. If anybody's around tomorrow and fancies a celebratory drink on a bank holiday Monday, we'll be at The Old Dairy in Finsbury Park (it's raining). Cheers!

An announcement, or two

Announcement #1

I'm back! And in one piece no less, having braved rope bridges, sheer drops, sharks and scary carpenter ants over the last few weeks. I'll be writing it all up as soon as I can, promise! Thank deity-of-choice that it's a bank holiday here in the UK on Monday, so I might just be able to process some of the literally hundreds and hundreds of photos I have.

Announcement #2, even more exciting

On my travels, I managed to pick up this little sparkler:

Courtesy of my darling boyfriend, or, as he is now, my fiancé! Yes, the Galapagos Islands were that inspiring to his biologist-ness, that he was moved to propose in the cathedral of evolution. Awww. And of course I said yes.

The ring is a beauty, a big mandarin garnet (aka spessartite), because I'd said before that I didn't fancy a diamond like everyone else, and to go with my hair. Isn't he a sweetheart? Big hugs to Lotta and Anna for helping him with the ring creation, you are stars (but as I said, secretive little minxes). Oh, the stone, if anyone's interested, is from AJS Gems in Thailand, who I've used before and who are really, really good. The ring itself was set by Van Den Berg in Soho.

Am now in a whirl of planning - we will hopefully be getting hitched in September 2009. My dear mother is already in overdrive, suggesting venues, putting notices in The Times and the like. I will try my best not to turn into either a raving lunatic or a bore.

Finally, congratulations to Hels, who is expecting! Baby knitting time!

Knit in peace

I shouldn't be blogging at all from on holiday, but I found out today (Friday here) that our dear friend and fellow knitter Tash died on Sunday. I am terribly sad not to have been around at the end, for her and for all you lovely Wednesday night girls and her husband Mark, and especially to have missed today's memorial service. I am thinking of you all.

This afternoon, just after I heard the news, we went out hummingbird spotting here in the cloud forests. They are such beautiful creatures, so quick, bright, remarkably feisty (we even saw one chase off a hawk), in love with colour (the flowers they feed on, the gorgeous metallic greens, purples, blues and golds of their own feathers) and gone far, far too soon, just like Tash. We'll miss you, sweetie.

Clap your hands say yeah!

It's finished! The giant green clapotis is finished!

According to the boyfriend, I should drop dead now, this being my "death shroud" as he puts it. Or perhaps he suspects that I have been ripping it out, like Penelope, every night. Not true, I was just bored with all the straight repeats.

It is large, being about six feet by two feet of cuddly emerald Noro Cash Iroha, nearly seven balls. I think it's rather lovely. I'd almost like to launch straight into another one, as mine is solid - a gorgeous glowing solid green of course - and I've seen some inspiring ones in variegated yarns, silks especially. On the other hand I think I really need to not be doing all those bloody repeats for a little while, and I probably only need one clap.

What else can I write about it? Nothing that's not said far more eloquently here.

I have no photo yet (I finished sewing the ends in only five minutes ago) but I promise to take some pictures in the sunshine when I get to Ecuador... tomorrow! Yes, our big South American adventure is finally here after three years of waiting. We will be at altitude in Quito this time tomorrow, deep in the Amazon rainforest the day after that, and afterwards we're heading to the cloud forests in the mountains then the Galapagos Islands. We'll be back in about three weeks' time.

One final anecdote before I go - when I first heard people refer to a clapotis, I had no idea they were talking about a shawl pattern. Eventually I became aware that it must be a famous pattern, but I thought it was called a clafoutis, like the cherry pudding. But the physics term for a standing wave fits the rippling pattern, and my own loves, much better.  Science triumphs over sponge!

Adios!