Bottled Water

I saw this news story about how Bundanoon, a town in Australia, has banned bottled water, and I thought “Yay! Good for them!” And then felt a guilty stab at the many plastic water bottles that surround me. I have them at home, I have them at the office, I leave a trail of water bottles wherever I go.

In fairness to myself, most of these haven’t seen the original water in many a long day, and have been filled from various taps of my acquaintance. But the fact is that, ultimately, these bottles are still going to have to go somewhere. Yes, I will take some of them to a recycling point (wouldn’t it be easier if plastic bottles were part of residential recycling collections!? I’m told it will be later this year, in my area, but in the meantime…) but for some of them, frankly, that somewhere will be landfill. And wouldn’t it be better if, rather than recycling them, I just never had them. If I had a nice reusable water bottle that I took everywhere with me and filled from lowly taps? Well, yes. I’d save myself some money too!

So, that’s what I’m going to do. Over the next week I am going to hunt out some nice, practical, reusable bottles. I’ve seen some lovely ones in camping shops, so it isn’t like I have to settle for something utilitarian and ugly just for my principles! Basically, there isn’t a good reason not to do this. So, I shall!

Stats

One of the things I like best about WordPress is that it gives me stats without my really needing to do anything. I could do it myself (and have done in the past), but I’m not that fussed about it, so am happy to take the easy option!

I like knowing how many people come to my blog and, above all, where they come from. For example, yesterday someone came here from Twitter. I would love to know who and why, but I probably  never will. I even logged into my Twitter account (which I don’t use, I signed up out of curiosity and it’s not really my thing) to see if I could find anything. No hints. Also, I get a lot of people searching for songs and/or poems where I have used them for subject headings. I suspect these people are a little disappointed by my lack of information! I also get many people searching for Cthulu dice, with which I cannot help, and for reviews on the books I’ve talked about. Many of my readers come from Ravelry, even though I’m not particularly active over there, which comes as a constant surprise. I love that the stats let me know all this!

An especially favoured feature is the one that tells me what my average daily visitor count has been year by year. I like this because from it I know that my daily visitor count is, slowly, rising. This is not a particularly popular blog, and that’s fine by me (not that I’m against popularity, it’s just that isn’t why I do this!), but it’s nice to know that over the three years the blog has existed, more people have been finding something interesting to look at.

Book Review — Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum

A few days ago, on the train, I finished reading Kate Atkinson’s first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. This was an impulse buy in Waterstones when a third book on the 3 for 2 offer was needed, and given that, a choice that worked out very well indeed!

It tells the story of Ruby Lennox by Ruby Lennox, all the way from conception well into her grown up life. Amidst this story she flits back and forth to the lives of her ancestors. Both stories are very well told and full of so many characters that you would think the writer would struggle to keep them all three dimensional — but she doesn’t struggle at all! Each character is clearly its own, and realistically none of them are wholly good or wholly bad. The story of Ruby’s life, and her family’s keeps you hanging, as you realise that something is slightly awry with what you’re reading.

This is the first book in a long time that I have tried to eke out and to savour. I didn’t want it to end, at all. So much so that, having finished it, I went out and bought another Kate Atkinson book, Human Croquet. It’s eminently readable, and full of lovely touches like anthropomorphism of teddy bears and pre-birth narration. Overall this book is lovely, touching, and well worth a read!

Adventures in Spinning

Last night I did my first piece of post Woolfest spinning, and now have a mini-skein to call my own. It’s about 70/30 natural white Swaledale and black Jacob. I love the look of it. It is variegated greys with occasional elements of the two original fibres. It is, however, not a particularly soft yarn. It feels quite wirey in places. Neither of these comes as a surprise, as they are both quite robust fibres in their own right. I’m thinking it might be a good combination for a knitted (or felted!) bag, or something. Definitely not for clothing, unless you want to be itching a lot!

Here is the fruit of my labours:

As I say, I love the look of it, it’s all salt and peppery. It also fascinates me that although so much more of the fibre was the white swaledale, the colour is so dark!

Embracing Monogamy

I have never been into knitting project monogamy. I’ve generally tried to keep things to a sane level, but that hasn’t always happened either. Lately, though, I’ve been becoming more monogamous. It isn’t that I am knitting something so utterly engrossing that I can’t put it down, so it doesn’t come out of enthusiasm.

I think, actually, it has come partly out of my increasing knitting ambivalence. I still enjoy knitting, but I have been experiencing a change in how I feel about knitting, about the knitting community, and about the place of knitting in my life. Essentially, knitting is not the key relaxation place it once was. I find much about the online knitting community intensely irritating. And I just don’t love knitting as much as I did. I still enjoy it, I sometimes still crave it, but it isn’t the same.

The other part, I think, comes from a sense of the value of my time which grows as I begin to seriously contemplate the end of my PhD, and the notion of my life afterwards. 2010 will be “All change, please!”, and so there is the idea of potential, of being able to change how I do things, what I do, when I do it, and where. There is a light at the end of the tunnel which emphasises my current situation. I don’t have much time to play with right now, and so not seeing results for the hours I put in is becoming increasingly unpalatable. If I do something (or nothing!) I want to get out of it as much as possible. Working on three or four knitting projects at once means I take a long time to finish something, I don’t feel like I’m making progress (you know, this is starting to sound like the PhD…), and that frustrates me because I need to feel like I’m moving forward.

And so I find myself in a situation where I am mentally queuing my projects. I want to finish the Spring Forward socks I’m working on now. I want to knit the baby jumper for a colleague of my Mum’s. I want to knit the pair of socks I promised my boyfriend’s mother. I have absolutely no desire to be working on all these things at once. In fact, the idea makes me feel distinctly panicked.

It is very strange and unexpected to me how my reactions to knitting has changed over the past couple of years, and actually, I suspect it is well documented by this blog, started at the height of my knitting fervour but now something I get a lot more pleasure out of as knitting becomes a decreasing part of its subject matter.

Woolfest 2009

As some of you may know, Woolfest took place over the weekend just gone. For those who didn’t know, Woolfest took place over the weekend just gone. Woolfest is pretty much what it sounds like. It is a place to buy wool (although not exclusively!) for spinning, knitting, weaving, felting…whatever you might want to use wool for. It is also a place to buy the various accoutrements for these practices.

I went last year, and I had a very nice time indeed. So this year I was keen to go back. As a result, on Saturday morning my boyfriend and I drove up (actually he drove and I…didn’t. Because I can’t!) to Cumbria to visit Woolfest.

We began with a wander around, without the intention of buying very much at first — recconaissance is always good! Then later I did the major part of the buying on my own while he read his book. I am now in possession of a large amount of fibre for spinning, a set of beautiful little carders, a small niddy noddy (my current one is huge, and not always what I need), and a lovely book on carding. I was happy.

Having said that, I think the whole thing was really marked much more by experiences. Seeing all the sheep, alpacas, etc. I have to say that some of them looked deeply unhappy. It was a warm and muggy day, and so not the greatest day to be an unshorn sheep in a small pen.

I dare say they were ok really, but I bet they were happy to get home! There were some alpaca rabbits too, which looked, frankly, terrified. Perhaps it was just the heat, but it did seem a shame for them to look so unhappy.

One thing I loved was that Ashford had a stand there. I don’t remember whether or not they had one last year, at that point I was just beginning to use a drop spindle, and really wasn’t interested in taking it any further. However, they were there this year, and I think that was great. They weren’t actually selling — they didn’t need to be, everyone else was selling their products — but they had lots of their products to look at. They had a selection of wheels, a drum carder (which was being demonstrated), books, examples of fibre, lazy kates…I suspect examples of the greater part of their production line.

Especially fascinating for me was the chance to see the new four speed flyers in person. When they first came out I was very excited. My wheel is rather old and has only two ratios, and I was filled with a sense that of course I needed a four speed flyer with a sliding hook mechanism, rather than those question mark shaped hooks you screw in. But what I discovered at the weekend is that I don’t like the look of the flyer. It’s just too modern for me. If I had another wheel, a more modern looking one, I would probably go for it. But it would look completely wrong on my old fashioned little wheel!

I also got to meet Elizabeth Ashford who completely threw me by a) being Elizabeth Ashford — it never occurred to me that there were actual people called Ashford, at least, not any more (I’m pessimistic. I assume little companies are bought out by bigger companies and become completely dehumanised) and b) asking me whether I had my own sheep. I really liked her though. I liked the fact that they were there, I loved that she included my boyfriend in the conversation rather than assuming that only the woman would be interested/involved in spinning etc (he isn’t involved particularly, but there’s no reason to assume that!), and I loved being told I could have a go on one of the wheels. The thing about something like this is that it gives a company a face, and makes you feel that when you’re buying from them you’re buying from someone who was nice and friendly to you once. Which never hurts.

Throughout the day I was also looking at the various wheels on display, and found that I love mine more than any of them. When I was looking into buying one I was leaning much more towards a Kromski Sonata, but I couldn’t find a second hand one, and so bought an Ashford Traveller. And now, I’m glad. The Sonata is nice, absolutely, I just like mine better.

And here, just for good measure, is a wooly animal montage!

All things considered, it was a wonderful weekend, and a wonderful Woolfest!

Book Review: The Return, Victoria Hislop

I have just finished The Return, by Victoria Hislop. This is a book with two connected stories. One dealing with a woman called Sonia who loves to dance and goes on holiday to Spain to do so. The other deals with the experiences of the Ramirez family who run a cafe (of which Sonia becomes a regular in the modern day) during the Spanish civil war.

The story about Sonia I did not like. I found it (and Sonia) quite annoying. It was distinctly unconvincing, yet highly predictable, and decidedly unnecessary as far as the second story was concerned. In fact, I really felt it devalued the other story, and the book as a hole. The second story was (as far as I can tell) well researched, it was interesting, held my attention, and taught me a lot about Spain’s history. I was happy to learn as Spain is a country I have never actually been to and one I know very little about. Overall, I really enjoyed this part of the book.

I think it is a shame that the author chose the modern day framing device. The story of the Ramirez family would have stood alone without it, and would have stood with greater strength, I feel. The modern day elements made the whole book feel less realistic and I found it very distracting.  As the bulk of the book is focused on the Ramirez family, with Sonia’s story occuring mainly at the beginning and the end of the book, I have to admit that by and large, I enjoyed this book, and in fairness, this is more than I expected from the blurb on the back. But to say so rankles, just a little, as I maintain it would have been a better book had it just focused on the Spanish Civil War story.

BubbleTimer and the PhD

Yes, another BubbleTimer post. But this one is a little different. You see, someone suggested that it might be interesting if I wrote a more general post about exactly why I find it so useful. And I thought, actually, good point. I know what it is about Bubble Timer that makes it stand out for me, but I haven’t really expressed that here, just made update posts that are largely for my own reference.

I’ve always had a bit of a thing for time management books, software, websites… and lately this has mainly manifested itself in to do lists. But I have had real frustrations with them. They are brilliant when I’m at work. My tasks are “email so and so”; “take this form to that office”; “change this on the website”. They are each finite, definable tasks. Ones which you can make a realistic estimate about how much time they will take you. By and large, they don’t take too long, and you get the joy of ticking or crossing them off your list.

However, every time I have tried to use a to do list to keep track of my PhD it goes badly wrong. The tasks for the PhD are so much more amorphous, often much larger, and liable to change at no notice whatsoever. It’s one super-project (write PhD) made up of many very chunky projects (write chapter 1). These chunky projects can be broken down into smaller projects or rather large tasks (read and make notes on book A). These too can be broken down, if you so desire (go to library to get book A; read chapter 1 of book A). The problem for me is that the further you go down this path the more tasks you have to complete, and the more overwhelming the whole thing becomes — both to do, and to keep track of. There is no finite number of tasks, they tend to be still quite large, and very hard to make a time estimate for. A book you think you can skim over in half an hour turns out to be more useful than you thought and you end up spending the next three days reading it closely, for example. Basically, I end up either with so many tasks I want to crawl into a hole and cry for the next ten years; or such large tasks that I never feel like I make any progress and want to crawl into a hole and cry for the next ten years. And this is where Bubble Timer comes in.

Ultimately, the PhD is so much of my time, my thoughts, probably even my identity, that I don’t need a to do list. I know what needs to be done. I keep a list of books I need to get and/or read, but I don’t need a list of what I need to do with them. I just know this. The problem isn’t knowing what to do, it’s feeling like I’m doing it; feeling like I’m working, progressing; and that there really is light at the end of the tunnel. We’re back to that idea of spending three days reading a book and getting a couple of footnotes out of it. Important footnotes, probably, but footnotes nevertheless. It is hard to feel like you’re working and getting things done in these circumstances. And so what I get with BubbleTimer is that reassurance. I am working. Look, I worked on my PhD for four hours yesterday. Yes my word count on my Introduction increased a mere 150 words, but I spent four hours on it, and actually did a lot of research and read several articles. Perhaps more would be better, but I am working. I am progressing.

So, on the one hand, BubbleTimer gives me reassurance and perspective. What it also gives me is motivation. I have a goal of four hours a day (except work days and Sundays) that I want to complete of PhD work. And when I get to three or three and a half hours it is so much easier to do that last half hour or so, knowing that it will make me complete my goal. Completing this totally manageable goal (which, over time, I do plan to increase) makes me feel proud and joyful and, most importantly, accomplished. The other way it motivates me is that I can see what else I’m doing with my time. Combined with the sense that I’m not working very hard or very much has always been a sense that I just waste time. I spend hours looking at Facebook and Ravelry and generally just messing around on the internet, and I should behave myself so much better. Bad Penny! And actually, what I’m learning is that I don’t spend as much time aimlessly lurking about the web or watching television as I thought. Which deals with some of that PhD guilt, and motivates me to keep the time spent on these things to a reasonable amount.

I’m sure that I won’t always find BubbleTimer as valuable as I do now. These things don’t tend to work for you forever, but for the moment I am really happy with it. I’m actually enjoying it! Despite not having a list of things I need to do, I feel more on top of things because I can see where my time is going; I have the motivation to do just a little bit more before I stop for the day; and the knowledge that even though it doesn’t always feel like it, I am making progress with my PhD.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A week or so ago, I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini). I’d read The Kite Runner, as someone suggested it at book group. I really wasn’t sure about The Kite Runner. I found it very hard to handle in some ways, and was left with a huge sense of frustration with the protagonist. Overall I was quit ambivalent about the book, and this ambivalence led to my standing in front of the “Buy One, Get One Half Price” stand in W H Smiths at the railway station and wondering what I should buy in addition to The Reader. A Thousand Splendid Suns wasn’t really top of the list, but with the limited selection, was what I bought. Interestingly, it was then the book I began on the train, not The Reader. I had seen the film of The Reader, knew exactly what was coming to me, and didn’t want that on that particular day. In fact, it remains unread on my shelf, but I’ll get to it one day.

This book, I enjoyed much more than The Kite Runner. Over the length of the book I did manage to start liking some of the characters, even where I found them or their situations very annoying. Possibly because it is very clear who the “baddies” are, for the most part. I enjoyed how the main characters manufactured themselves a happy ending of sorts and how that happy ending wasn’t fairy-tale castles and happily ever afters. You knew things would still be a bit (or a lot) crap from time to time. Having said that, this isn’t a book without some distinctly harrowing moments. In fact, at one point I put it down, said “Ugh” (literally) and didn’t pick it up again for a week. Some days you don’t need harrowing. Overall, though, it was interesting, engaging, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone, even if they didn’t like The Kite Runner. What’s more, if Khaled Hosseini writes any other books, while I won’t be running out on launch day, I will be very interested to read them.

More on Wheat-Free Bread

Today I am making bread. It is sitting in the bread machine doing its thing, and in a couple of hours I will be restraining myself from eating the whole loaf slice by slice, covered in peanut butter and honey (yes, together). I am feeling very optimistic because I think my last loaf may have been subject to a slight error.

You see, as I was gathering together my ingredients I took an open bag of flour out of the cupboard. At the last moment I noticed that this was plain flour, not bread flour. So I took out a second open bag of flour. Which, as it turns out, was also plain flour. So, I can’t be sure, but I suspect my last loaf may have been made with plain flour and if so, this would explain why it was such a failure. So…we will see. Hopefully this loaf will be rather better!