Oops, I meant to post about this a couple of weeks ago. I did invite various people that I thought would be interested on facebook, so some of you know and some of you are coming.

Tomorrow, Saturday, a bookcrossing friend is hosting a craft day in Damer Hall (under the Unitarian Church, I believe) on Stephen's Green. It's a fiver in, which includes tea & coffee. There'll also be slices of home made cake for sale.

Bring whatever crafts you're working on. Or just chat and eat cake. Also there'll be taster workshops for a small additional fee. I'm going to do a silk painting one. Other people will be doing crochet, cross stitch, various paper crafts.

The charity is Semonkong Mohair in Lesotho. There's bit more info here: http://sheknitupthatball.blogspot.com/2009/11/jill-and-african-mohair.html

It's from 11 till 4. I'll be there most of the day.

Inspired by String Revolution, here's a photo of something from my stash.

This is Louisa Harding's Grace Silk and Wool from This Is Knit. I don't remember what I bought these three for, probably a scarf, but I did buy them to go together.

I also bought two balls of a lovely red. They were definitely meant for a scarf, and I did start crocheting one. But I put it down, and forgot what pattern I was using (something from a Japanese book of stitch patterns, I'm almost certain). And I hadn't got much done anyway. So I bit the bullet and frogged it recently. I was going to use it to knit a lace scarf, but found a small, simple-lace bag pattern, so I've started that instead. It's paused now at a block-before-continuing stage. I seem to be stuck there. I'm sure once I block something I'll find it easy to others, but for now, I seem to have The Fear.

I started the same bag in acrylic yarn, which there's no point in blocking, so I've got a bit further in that - the edges are seamed. Next step is to pick up stitches and do the strap. I seem to have stopped knitting (or any crafting) for the last few weeks. Life has conspired to prevent me going to the Wednesday morning knits in Powerscourt or having caturah and over for the crafting evenings we had been doing. The strap shouldn't take too long once I've started though. Then I'll decide if I want to line it. That'll involve sewing, which also fills me with The Fear, but hopefully I'll continue to think of it as a knitting project and that will get me through. Hmm... the yarn for this second Isabeau bag is also from a frogged project. Coincidence?

I may use a pattern from the Japanese book for these three. Maybe a
ripple one. Don't be too impressed by the Japanese—the patterns are done in symbols, which I believe are international. They're worth learning even for patterns that also have words, as it saves the British/American confusion.


Like many other Irish people, I grew up saying "wool" rather than "yarn", whether it came from sheep or not. I'm getting so used to correcting this, that I've just noticed I've been calling this yarn "Grace Silk and Yarn" instead of "Grace Silk and Wool"! Both in this post, and in the photo I uploaded months ago. *goes to fix*

Here's the fabric I'm thinking of using for the bedroom curtains. Purple of course!

I've been meaning to do a proper house update with photos and all for the last ages. Instead, here's a mini one.

It's now liveable, but not homely. We spend an essentially random number of nights in it each week. We're here now, from yesterday evening to either Sunday or Monday night. The longest we've stayed so far is four nights.

For the past while, the top four things that needed to be done are:

• Driving licence for me
  
• Curtains in the bedroom
  
• Drinkable and safe for appliances water
  
• Post box
  

I've started back on driving lessons. I had been practising in the meantime, so I basically can drive, just amn't good enough to pass a test. I applied for the test anyway, but with an old form, so they sent it back looking for more money. That's almost ready to send again - just need to get a stamp. My hill starts are generally good; my reversing around a corner is terrible. I'm not looking forward to living here without being able to drive on my own, because I'll essentially be trapped.

We have blinds in the bedroom, so we're ok for privacy, but they let an awful lot of light in. At the moment, we're taping cardboard up to block the light. We have some curtain poles bought, but not put up yet. I've more or less chosen curtain material and style, but need to get prices. I don't really know what's a reasonable price for curtains, but this fabric is not the cheapest :-( I'm also trying to sort curtains and blinds for a couple of other rooms, but finding the decision making hard. I think I'm going to start with choosing the paint in the kitchen first. I've painted up some boards with various shades of green. Probably going for either a sage or a lime green. The ones we initially chose are too pale.

Our water has too much iron and manganese and an unpleasant smell. Also some probably harmless biology. The coliforms can probably be dealt with by a once off treatment (there was water standing around the well & flowing back in; that's sorted now). Nuteile is investigating filter providers. He's found lots. Now it's a matter of choosing between them.

Bought a post box in Argos yesterday. Nuteile has just attached it to the gate while I was writing thing. Yay! We've no house numbers or names, just the townlon, so next step is to let the post office know. Post is one of the top things because our Dublin lease is up next month, so we need an address.

Is anyone opting in to this "Your Journal - Your Money" thing? I was going to opt in to see other people's ads, for the time being at least, but it doesn't seem I can without signing up to show them too.

Look! It's a post! :-)

I'm still uploading photos from New Zealand. Here's some from the Mud House winery, the first stop on the post convention wine tour.

Here's the rest of the trip so far, starting in Singapore.

16:32 Water tank installed & plumbing done. All excited trying out the various taps till the later ran out! Wah! #

16:33 Er... Water, not later #

16:36 Kitchen tap works though. And @nuteile discovered the pump was off & a stopcock closed. Cisterns filling up now. Yay! #

17:08 I just washed my hands in our own water from our own taps. Eeeee! #

17:28 twitpic.com/8kr4g - The water tank. And room left for zuchini to stick a sleeping bag & suitcase in it when we let her stay :-) #

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And we stayed the night! Woke up this morning in our own house! Many times in fact. Need to get some thick curtains at that window to block the light. Have blinds for privacy, but they let a lot of light through.

I finally made the lentil version of the chickpea & veg stew that you helped me with a few weeks ago.

( recipe )

It's sort of meaty. Due to the lentils, I reckon, rather than the chorizo.

I would have taken a photo, but it's ugly :-)

Edit 09/07/09: ( photo during cooking )

Vote in the lj advisory board elections: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/
Preferably for kylecassidy.

I'm especially thinking of elhamisabel for this one.

Of course, you've got to allow for the changing costumes and lighting, but most of it just works really, really well.

Wow. Googlers viewing my images yesterday were obsessed with one topic:

	Linked from	Views
1	amanda palmer neil gaiman	9
2	neil gaiman amanda palmer	7
3	neil gaiman and amanda palmer	4
4	kitchen layout picture	3
5	amanda palmer and neil gaiman	3
6	"neil gaiman" "amanda palmer"	2
7	quilling wedding	2
8	amanda palmer gaiman	2
9	tetris shape	1
10	"amanda palmer" +neil gaiman	1
11	neil gaiman aanda palmer	1
12	phallic stones	1
13	fibres	1

I'm going to Art In Action this weekend. Anyone else interested? I plan on going all three days.

http://www.artinaction.ie

I've paid for extra icons again. I can finally get my old default icon back.

There's a lot it doesn't know, but when it does, it does. For example, it can multiple the average velocity of an unladen (European) swallow by the answer to life, the universe and everything:

velocity of unladen swallow * life, universe, everything (Tell it to use estimated average cruising airspeed of an unladen European swallow instead of African)

Less whacky and more astronomical things include locating Hubble, the International Space Station and planets:

Where is Hubble?
where is the international space station?
Where is Mars?
pluto position next week

or comparing them:
international space station, hubble
Jupiter, saturn, uranus


Want to know where your mortgage repayments are going? mortgage payment 230,000 euro for 30 years at 1.95%
Crazy maths! cube root finnish televisions*pi^pi/gdp andorra times a million/golden ratio
Dunno how useful this is, but nice that they can do it: dunsink observatory, greenwich observatory


For real use, rather than just seeing what it can do, I reckon it's the astronomy that'll bring me back.

solar eclipse
solar eclipse dublin

Or maybe the food: cake

Embarrassed by my initial question, I asked in a locked post about cooking tonight with stuff I had in the kitchen. With a lot of advice from that post (thank you unav, glitzfrau and unblinkered) I cooked something much more palatable than I had originally come up with. While I can't claim it was instinct cooking, as I ran back and forth between cooker and computer, hopefully it'll help me cook by instinct in future. Plus it tasted good now, which is the important thing :-)

So, I suppose it was a chickpea stew, with brown rice. Writing it up for those who are interested and future reference.

Ingredients
The not so good bits left over from the onion half I used yesterday (see previous post), chopped
a clove of garlic, chopped
a carrot and a bit. Call it a big carrot. Sliced.
half a nearly dodgy red pepper, chopped
a courgette (not as elderly as I had feared), chopped very small cos I'm not keen on them
tin of chickpeas, drained & rinsed
half a knorr vegtable stock cup mixed into a mug of hot water
around a cup of santini tomatoes, mixed red & yellow, halved
two normal tomatoes, chopped
small amount of frozen green beans, defrosted in hot water, chopped.
tumeric
ground ginger
oregano
chilli powder
salt & pepper
a teaspoon or so of tomato paste
sunflower oil for frying

It was suggested that I sweat the onion, but I didn't know how to do that and the internet was inconsistent (bad internet, no stew). I fried it and the garlic gently in a bit of oil. That maybe sweating it, I don't know.

Add the carrots, red pepper, courgette. Saute (or possibly just fry) for a while.

Add the chickpeas and about half the stock. Turn up the heat to start it simmering. Add both types of tomatoes, and the rest of the stock, or as much as fits. Simmer.

Add the green beans, herbs, spices, seasoning.

I tasted it after a bit and decided it needed something else, hence the tomato paste.

Not sure how long I simmered for. Probably about 15 mins. The rice went on just before I started frying (2 cups brown rice in rice cooker) and finished around the time the stew was a good texture, with plenty of the liquid gone. Pure luck. So... simmer till the chickpeas and carrots are softening and the liquid is reduced.

Serve on brown rice.

Probably enough for three. So that's my lunch tomorrow sorted.


I still felt it needed something more when I tasted it again after adding the puree, but it was grand when served. Don't know if it was the reducing, or the rice, or what.


I'd like to try something similar with lentils and probably a bit of chorizo. And get more confidence with the spices.

Recipe made up last night when I realised I didn't have enough eggs to make scrambled eggs on toast for two, as I had thought of doing.

the best bits of a half peeled onion that has been drying in the fridge, chopped
frozen peas, cooked. A cup?
two eggs, beaten
butter for frying
soy sauce
pinch of sugar

Fry the onion in plenty of butter.
Add the soy sauce and sugar to the egg and mix. Add to the onion and start scrambling. Don't turn the heat down so much that it just sits there being liquid, like I did :-)
Add the peas and continue scrambling till done.
Serve in small bowls. I garnished with two tomato quarters each for colour.

Obviously, this is too small for two people. I cooked soba noodles (where I did the opposite, leaving the heat too high, so it boiled over and I had to add more water); put a packet of instant miso soup into each of two bowls; split a portion or so of noodles between both; filled with hot water; mixed; and put some spare peas in the middle.

I didn't like the soup in the end. Nuteile did, though he added more soup mix to it.


I'd cooked too many peas and noodles. I turned the rest into a lunchbox meal for nuteile. The peas fit perfectly into the removable dish part of my bento box; the soba fit perfectly into the rest of that layer. Fate! The last packet of soup mix could squeeze into the lid (there's space for chopsticks and a serviette). Hot water and a bowl from work & he was able to make up noodle soup in the office.

Bottom layer was rather random. Chocolate cake cut to fit; a couple of Japanese sweets; raw carrot and santini tomatoes (grape sized ones).

01:19 Another #bookcrossing catch and new member! bookcrossing.com/journal/6555820 #

01:21 Tried getting to the airport early to get a good seat. Couldn't even get aisle seats together. Bah. Stupid overbooked flights. #

01:22 Not overbooked enough though - thought we were in with a chance of another day in Singapore for free, but no such luck. #

03:16 We're in the comfy seats! Woo hoo! #

15:48 First impression of Germany: very foggy #

22:15 At the top of a tower, looking out over Frankfurt with Elham. It's much sunnier than I thought it would be this morning, but distance hazy. #

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19:03 In a non air conditioned food hall in Singapore. Thank goodness it's not as hot as when we were here a couple of weeks ago! Still v hot tho' #

19:06 Despite it being a food hall, we've both ordered from the same stall - duck rice and duck noodles. Side from a different one - calimari. #

23:07 We had 20 minute back massages involving elbows. Painful bliss :-) #

23:10 Tried taking photos of #geocaching travel bug dangly things, but they keep coming out blurry. Bah. Must learn more about camera #photography #

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