Hello, radio silence is over.

How can it be nearly a month since I last posted. It isn't like nothing has happened. I can only put it down to year end at work. It is a horrible time to be there. My job involves keeping salespeople safe from themselves and helping the company do sensible, profitable business. This means that I get to spend the last 6 - 8 weeks of the year chasing other people's tails running after every conceivable sale so that people make their targets and bonuses. It totally sucks the spirit out of the time of year for me. You would think after 13 years of it I'd be resigned to it by now, but it still sneaks up and slaps me each time. Sigh.

Anyhoo, enough moaning and excuses. I have FOs. Including a Christmas FO at that.

I have finished, and worn the Soho Cowl and Mitts. They were a lovely quick knit. I used 4 balls of Debbie Bliss Soho, 2 on the cowl, and 1 each for the mitts, with very little left over. I have been surprised at just how warm the fingerless gloves have kept my hands. The cowl is based on the fpea Quickie Cowl again, and the mitts were taken from LMKGs.

Excuse the picture of me looking barely raised from the dead, and needing an indecent amount of moisturiser... The colours are great because my good winter coat is charcoal grey with a fuchsia lining, and my winter jacket is a lovely olive-y green.

I have also finished, sewn up, felted and created the inner for (i.e. totally done) the hot wheatie bottle for Ma for Christmas. More accurately speaking it is a hot pearl barley bottle, but as we are amongst friends I am sure you will let it pass. It has turned out ok. Better than hoped for. I had to put it through the machine twice to get it to felt much. I used the yarn specified and it hasn't felted as completely as other wools I have used. The flap has spread a little too. But, it was begun when I knew nothing about anything, and it will be toasty and cosy, which is the point of it all.

The knitted bit is from the Rowan Felted Collection. The inner is from my head; some left over linen from a skirt I made, doubled up to give the lining some body and made into a little envelope, with a bit of bias along the top to keep it all good and closed, and a little felt heart rustically (being the politest term for my hand sewing) sewn to the front.

This leaves Fred's jumper outstanding, and even that is making good progress. I have completed the front and am 2/3s done with the back. SG III is on the home stretch too (thank goodness). It has been a real test in the ability to go through the stocking stitch pain barrier, but is going to look fine and dandy when it is done. I have also added one more project to the list, which was to make something for my sis, so that everyone in the family gets to open a hand knit at Christmas. I wish to make myself universally unpopular with everyone sharing the need to be polite in the face of their handcrafted offerings :-D. The project added is a simple hat and fingerless glove set. I am looking forward to getting Christmas gifts done though. I have a bunch of things on the back burner that I want to do, in particular getting some more socks knitted so that I can wear handmade all the time.

At what point does employment become oppresive cruelty?

I made the decision a few years ago. Where I could afford to, I would employ people to do things that I either didn't enjoy doing, or didn't have the time to do. This includes cleaning the house, because as much as I hate living in a pig-pit I won't get off my arse to do anything about it because I hate hate HATE cleaning. This also includes gardening. Gardening falls into the 2nd category though. I love my garden. I love the garden when it looks all pretty. I love the garden when the leaves are all over the lawn in the autumn, and again when it has been mowed and the leaves have all disappeared. I love planning for new borders, picking out the plants, but in the list of activities that I can choose to fill my free time with, I'd rather bake, or sew or, erm, what's the other one? Oh yes. Knit.

That said on Sunday I ended up at a plant auction. It was held in Midhurst at the Grammar School. There were many good reasons to go; I'd never been to MGS and always wanted to, my friend Rachel had suggested it would be good fun (and R is rarely wrong - statistical anomaly rarely), it was an auction, what's more it was an auction selling plants.

3 of us ended up going, R, Debs and me. I ended up with our bidding card. This was possibly a bad move. I haven't been to many auctions before, and only bought things by email bids. I think I got bidding fever. Don't get me wrong there were some serious bargains. D bought a plum tree for £7. A whole tree. That will make plums. For seven pounds. It only has to produce a kilo of plums to have paid for itself. Where was I before I got carried away with plums? Oh yes. Carried away. I bought some bulbs.

215 bulbs.

Even as I bought them I realised that I probably wouldn't be the one to plant them. I got a little worried, and then a lot worried, that actually presenting Andy, the world's loveliest gardener, with 215 bulbs and the plans for the new borders that are going to need to be made to fit them in actually constituted cruelty.

I am still worried, but Andy came over today and I showed him the bulbs, and showed him the un-tilled earth that is to be the bulbs new home, and he is still just about talking to me. I may get away with it, albeit with a slightly tarnished reputation as a nice, kind employer.

And to think I thought this was going to be a post about my employer!