I've been finishing a lot of stuff off. As of this morning I only have Wimbledon Wetland (which only needs a hood, the GAAA and Alex's socks on the needles!
I have done some more spinning this week; I spun the remainder of the purple and black up. I'm getting better at plying; the second lot is much better balanced, but then the spinning isn't as slubby either. I might make something similar to Ishbel - half stocking stitch with a lacy edging to it then I can use the loose slubby stuff on the stocking stitch and the nice finer balanced stuff on the lace. I have already contacted the manufacturers and asked if they can do me another 100g in the same (or near as possible) dye lot and they have agreed.
I'm so excited by all this that my head has been exploding with various mixtures of colours I can do, I'm going to try blending at the wheel too to see what that looks like!
Unfortunately, I have been restricted in the amount that I could spin as I woke on Monday morning with a sore shoulder. I must've slept funny and I assumed it would sort itself in a day or two. Well it's still causing me grief and I think I've got a trapped nerve so it's going to be a while yet, but this is seriously cutting into knitting and spinning time *grumble grumble*
Yesterday was very bad; but playing taxi for 40 odd miles for the kids didn't help. After dropping mum off at work last night, I came home and had a very hot shower. Then just before bed I took a dihydrocodiene.
I had a very strange dream that I was at a World Knitting Weekend - people from all over the world were there - it was great! But for some reason it was decided that I wasn't allowed to stay and they all told me I was banished. I actually woke in tears - physically crying to match the crying in my dreams. Weird!
I'm going out tonight; first night out in aaaaaaaaaaages! It was Mel's birthday on Wednesday so we're going on a pub crawl!
Definitely no medication tonight LOL
I bought a Mac!
I decided last week I would buy one, especially as Microsoft have just announced the release of Windows 7; this totally pissed me off because Windows Vista is still such a piece of crap!
So, Jess and I decided to visit the Apple store in Southampton.
Of course, I completely forgot that last week was Cowes Week!
I got to Cowes and there was NOWHERE to park! It was full. Cowes is a very strange place. No road parking unless you have a residential permit. There only seems to be one big car park and it's a fair distance from the passenger ferry (which doesn't offer any parking at all). The other two car parks are very small, one belongs to the Co-Op and the other is short stay only. Someone suggested I try the overspill car parks (these are opened purely for events). I drove around and was told I would have to pay £5 for the privilege of parking in a field! I informed the lady that I had a blue badge (disability badge which entitles me to park in the car park next door for free!) and she said I still had to pay £5. I got a bit annoyed at this point and said that I was an Islander, I had absolutely no interest in a stupid boat race; I just wanted to go to Southampton to do a bit of shopping!
She just sort of gave me a shrug and held her hand out for the money, I told her to forget it and that I'd leave. She then told me I'd have to drive right around the overspill "car park" because there wasn't turning room.
I drove forward to the end of a line of cars with the intention of turning around there (there was room, no one was in danger and I certainly wasn't driving around their car park!) and another woman had a go at me telling me to slow down.
I must admit I lost it at this point. I told her to mind her own business, to teach her grandmother to suck eggs and I barrelled out of that car park at top speed!
I drove around but all the other places were either full or you had to pay an outrageous amount. The only other place to park was Cowes High School, but that's far too far away from the ferry for me to walk.
Then I drove to the park and ride thinking we could park up and bus back to the ferry. That car park was also full and the fare for busing back into town was £2.50.
After that I decided I'd buy it online but I'd get the peripherals locally at least so I popped into Newport to buy the monitor and a trackball mouse. I went to PC World and stood waiting for a member of staff to appear for about five minutes. Then I shouted out "Is anyone working today?" before leaving and going into Curry's next door.
Unfortunately they didn't have the monitor I wanted and it seems like trackballs are going out of fashion or something because they didn't have any!
Then I went down to Staples. They didn't have any trackballs either but they did have the monitor I was after. I asked the rather scared looking (Well, Jess and I were in full goth gear) CSR if I could have one, only to be told they were out of stock. He nearly died when I looked (OK, glared!) at him. So I asked in an ultra-polite voice if I could buy the display one. He did a huge swallow and said very quietly that he wasn't allowed to sell it to me that because they were expecting more stock in.
Then I asked him about trackballs (I had to explain what a trackball explorer was first) and he said they didn't sell those anymore. To his credit, he then asked if I wanted anything they did have! I said I was going home to bed and that I totally gave up on the day!
I was ready to bite things at this point! So I drove home. All I had to show for my big shopping trip was a pack of 2 DVD-RW discs that I bought in Staples.
I ended up ordering a Mac Mini from Apple and I actually got a reconditioned one for slightly more money, but it has slightly better specs so I reckoned it was a good deal.
I went into Newport on Monday to get a monitor thinking Staples would have them in stock by this point. The new stock hadn't arrived!
I explained - very patiently - to the manager that I wanted THAT monitor and that I was told more would be in this week. I think he realised I was ready to kill and they sold me the display model with 10% off.
Over the weekend I also purchased a keyboard with an inbuilt trackball from eBay.
By Tuesday, everything was here and on Thursday I started to get it set up.
Of course, it just wasn't going to go that easily!
The monitor only has a VGA port and the Mac Mini has a mini display port or a mini DVI port. I have been to every shop in Newport and no one does the adapter (not even PC World and they sell Apple products) so I've had to order that from Apple too. That will hopefully arrive on Tuesday!
This bloody computer better be worth it!
I still haven't plied the fibre I showed you in my last post, I started spinning some merino and tencel that Josie sent me a year or so ago and am now trying to get that finished - looks like I have a huge plying session awaiting me!
