An apology and a giveaway

Ok as I have managed to terrify my Mum with that last post, and on re-reading it I sounded very ungrateful to my friends.

My friends are wonderful, over the past few days I've needed distracting from my big messy home life and they have done the job beautifully. Some have fed me more than a bottle of wine, and kept me up till 3am talking, others have cooked for me, and others have just let me know they still know who I am. It's all very appreciated, and has provided much fun over the past couple of days. However this not disguise the fact that my once beautiful flat is no longer a place I wish to spend much time in, I am always on my own here and it just allows my brain to wander and ponder at the mess I am in.

Anyhow, I have found a new house for next year with two of my friends, it is lovely and 5 minutes from one of my favourite pubs! I've started looking for jobs, but none are being advertised in our local area.

Also my gift from Niobe has finally made it here. She's printed off 3 of her lovely photos, and they are waiting to be put in to frames. So in the spirit of gift giving I thought I'd offer to do the same. I don't quite know what I'm going to make yet, but I will craft something for you. First 5 people to leave me a comment, and send me an email (hilltopkatie at gmail dot com) will be sent something. the only condition being you make the same offer on your own blog.

Misery guts

I've just sat for 5 minutes staring at this screen trying to think what to say. I think I've come to the conclusion that no words can express what I feel right now. Is it wrong to want someone to put me first now and again, I seem to spend so much time doing stuff for everyone else, but right now I don't think I even know how to put me first, I can't seem to take help or open up to people about the soggy mess in my head right now.

Fear not though, your normal cheery service will resume shortly, in the meantime I will return to my knitting, I can see today being a productive evening.

I can see clearly now ...

(best sung un-tunefully into a hairbrush)
Crikey I hadn't realised how poor my eyesight had become, anyway here, for your approval are my new glasses


You can tell I like them, as I'm actually wearing them, for years anybody who hasn't seen me just before I go to sleep would have no idea that I had poor eyesight, I lived in contacts.

I've just had my first day back at university, and blimey the place is dead, you even struggle to get some lunch as most of the food places in the union are closed.

Some pictures

All the snow had melted by the next morning, so I'm glad I went out in it, as we just don't get that much snow anymore. The photos aren't the greatest, but they do show just how little fell, unlike in some areas of the UK where there is currently an avalanche risk!





I've started making the leaves that are making up my blanket, and I'm very pleased with them, my Mum felt I had maybe bitten off a bit too much, but so far it seems ok. There are 3 leaves here, one is my Mums to show me what the pattern should look like, and two are mine, both with a couple of mistakes, but not ones that will be visible in the finished project. the yarn is far more purple than it looks in these pictures. When I've made 48 like this they're sewed together and make up a blanket, with a knitted border.



Tonight I'm off to be a casualty for a mountain rescue exercise, should be cold, temperatures are below freezing at night right now.

Not quite a white christmas

Well I'm nearly done transferring posts over to the new blog, it's taken a while, but it's slow going as I have to copy each post individually and paste it in to the new post box, and then I have to sort out the date otherwise the whole thing would be a mess. Once it's all done posts from here will be deleted. While I've changed some details, you could still probably work out who I am in real life, but it will be a little trickier, at least the blog will no longer appear if you type my name in to google, something that was a problem with the old one.
I've taken down all the christmas decorations, and crikey the house looks bare, however we had a decoration of snow outside last night, it's barely 1cm, but it does look pretty with more forecasted for later today. I need togo out to the bank, so when I do I'll take my camera and see if I can take any decent pictures. However for now I'm stuck at home, I'm expecting a parcel, and knowing my luck it will be delivered just as I go out, and then I'm stuck with waiting 3 days until I can collect it.
Job for today is to proof read the essays I've written, go to the bank, and to sort out the pile of district commissioner stuff up the corner that I've tried to ignore for a while.

I spy...

a very big bill. I went to the opticians today for the first time in a while. I've worn glasses since I was about 13, contacts since I was about 17, I know my eye sight sucks, but today really rubbed it in. My left eye has stayed the same it's -2.5 with astigmatism, but my right eye was -3.5, and is now -4.25. I now have the sort of prescription that made me gasp when I heard other people say it.
as it urns out my eye sight is now so bad that I need ultra thin lens in my glasses at a price that made me gasp to. Turns out if I don't pay about £90 per lens I will look like I'm wearing milk bottles, and only be able to have horrible glasses. As it happens I had to put back half the ones I really liked as I need a full frame around the lens even with ultra thin lenses. All in all having eye sight this bad sucks, and at £300 for my glasses plus about £15 a month for contacts I can see it won't be long until laser surgery actually becomes a cheaper option!

Cold house

So I'm back. I've had a lovely week, of very un-Christmassy weather. I now realise I need to re-waterproof several items of clothing. First job, is to properly unpack. I have unloaded the car, but I don't think having a pile of bags containing damp clothing really constitutes unpacking!
Christmas presents, errrr is it wrong that the thing I'm most excited about is the thermometer in my new first aid kit? Though my sewing machine is quite cool, I could be spending quite a bit of money on fabric very shortly, as I have a few things I want to have a go at making!
I'm still defrosting the house, I'm wishing I'd been a bit more generous with the thermostat while I was away as the house is a little chilly! Right, the washing machine is calling. I'll post some photos as soon as my Mum sends them to me.