Attention all knitters: a free pattern giveaway till New Year's Day

 Strike while the iron is hot,
TinCanKnits are giving away a free pattern of your choice, so I am sharing the love and letting you know about this, but it only applies up to Jan 1st 2013, so as I said already, Strike now while the iron is hot, (Lika bra att passa på!)

God Jul, Happy Christmas, Nollaig Shona díbh

God Jul på er allihopa,
Happy Christmas to you all,
Nollaig Shona díbh go léir,
I hope you all had a peaceful day today and that you were able to enjoy it in the company of your loved ones.
I certainly enjoyed a peaceful day at home with my husband and children. We went to Mass for Christmas at 7.30pm on Christmas Eve night, then home and left out a little tray with milk and mince pie and a carrot for Santy and his reindeer. Amazingly, the children slept through till 8.03am before they woke to see if Santa had come. After that, dinner was cooked and eaten, and dessert taken, and all is well with the world for now.
Good night!

one more sleep...

...to the day of the holidays, woo-hoo!!
We get our Christmas holidays tomorrow, hooray!
First, there's a Christmas mass for all the pupils and staff and we will sing some favourite Christmas carols, like Away in a Manger and Silent Night. My pupils will be the ones reading the readings and prayers tomorrow. I will have to take them down slightly earlier than usual to the church to give them a chance to practise in the church.
On the way back to school, we may even get a little look at the Living Crib in the old Forge building in the village, where there's a donkey, (who loves company I've been told) and 2 ewes and 4 lambs, as well as statues of Mary and Joseph.
Then we go back to school, make a few more Christmas cards, eat a bit of chocolate and all will go home happy at midday.
And then I'm free!!!
For 2 weeks, what luxury.

Saturday night, just taking it easy...

The copies are done and the computer is on, I am supposed to be doing school paperwork, but as always when the laptop is turned on and I sit in front of it, I check my few sites, ie gmail, Ravelry, Blogger/blogspot and FB, for any messages.
I will have to make myself do that paperwork, but this surfing time is  relaxing and a bit of fun, a bit of a diversion before I have to do the Hard Work!
On Thursday this week, my father's aunt Mary had her birthday, she was 89. So my mum organised a cake and a little get-together for Mary at her nursing home, and my siblings and I went to visit her for a bit.
My mother-in-law, Inger,  in Karlstad, Sweden will be 90 next summer, and already we (ie the Swede, my husband) has looked at flights and has a proposed date of departure in mind! We will hopefully spend 2 weeks in Sweden, Farmor (Grannny) has her birthday on 14th July, and we will be there for it.
Sad news this autumn included the death of two close and dearly loved members of my husband's family/friends in Sweden, his godmother Karin, who was very close to Inger, passed away and, more recently, my husband's aunt's husband Nisse in Kristinehamn also passed away. Nisse's funeral is next week, but it doesn't look like my husband will be able to go to it. Both Karin and Nisse have played a big part in our lives and more especially my husband's life, and it is very sad to witness their passing.
My husband has a small family, his father died in 1998, so he has just his mother, his aunt, his brother and his brother's family (wife, 2 children) and his cousin and partner in Sweden.
I on the other hand have 10 aunts and uncles on my mother's side, I am the second eldest of a group of about 36 cousins on Mum's side and my father has a large family too.
I am the eldest of 8 siblings in my own family and my mother now has 17 grandchildren,and there could yet be more!

No words I can say can possibly ever convey the depth of the sadness and grief and horror I feel at the deaths of the 28 children and staff in the Sandy Hook school in Connecticut, I offer my sincerest sympathies to the families of all concerned and am praying for them.

ahhh, the weekend....

The best part of the weekend is Friday evening when all the potential of the weekend ahead lies before one, with all those raised expectations (not yet dashed), all those wonderful plans (not yet shelved by unforeseen circumstances), all the great things I promise I will do and best of all, the sense of having all the time in the world to do all the things I want to do.
So the weekend starts here tonight, and already I have marked about 75 copies out of 120, so that is a huge relief to have them done. Plenty more to do where they came from, but I am at least on the right track.

last week of school coming up, phew...
Oh how I long for the first wonderful days next weekend when I do not have to set an alarm clock!
Roll on Friday 21st!

På svenska, och en tävling för ullintresserade

ibland skriver jag på svenska,
om det finns någon som är intresserad av att vara med i en tävling för ull och stickor och ett mönster, kolla in tävlingen i  denna blogg: Garnasinne
Ju fler som deltar desto mer man kan vinna!
Tävlingen är nu förlängd, så  lika bra att passa på nu, tycker jag !

Nativity show tonight

Tonight our pupils will put on a little show for the parents, in our parish church. It's the story of the Nativity, in song and narration.
The songs are so joyful that they were easy to teach, and the fact of having everyone on the altar at the same time means less stress, I think, anyway.
My task tonight is to remember to strike a wooden bar 3 times at the point when little Joseph knocks on the door of an inn. I am trying very hard to make myself remember this and not get carried away with organising everything else and worrying about the angle of the shepherds'(6 of my pupils) headgear (tea-towels!)
Otherwise there is much to do before Christmas, both at work and at home. It will all get done to some degree and then the prize, the glorious reward, is 2 weeks of blissful peace and quiet and freedom from routine! Yippee!!
I had such a good time spinning on Sunday at the craft fair that I can't wait to have the time to do some more spinning and showing the results here and on ravelry. I hope to get plenty spinning done during the holidays. I aim to get some done this coming weekend too!
I struck lucky last month,  I got 3 fleeces free from a local Open Farm, 2 alpaca and one Jacob sheep. They are in the shed at the moment. I will have to wait till the weather is warmer and drier before I get them out and clean them and wash them etc.
I love this time of year, the pared back bareness of nature, the upcoming wonder of the Winter Solstice, the stars at night, the moon, the rivers ever flowing, the frost, the joy in feeding wild birds, the shape of a tree, all lacy branches spreading blackly against the colours of the sunset. Nature is truly an antidote to the overconsumption and shopping madness that we Homo Sapiens engage in at this time of year.

A Craft Fair, daughter bakes and I spin!

Today was the first ever local very tiny Craft fair for Christmas, in our newly renovated tiny community centre, which is actually the old Railway station-house, but the trains do not stop here anymore.
My 12-year old daughter heard about the Craft fair 4 or 5 weeks ago and decided that she had to have a stall at it, she was going to bake. Moi, I was a bit terrified at the work that that would entail, but I bowed to her wishes and rang the organisers and booked a stall. Sure enough yesterday turned into a major baking day, she baked and baked, and I was sent to the shop often to buy extra ingredients.
Well, she did very well, she sold most of her baked goods. I mustn't forget my mother's help here, Mam donated a Christmas cake, (cut into slices and wrapped, thankfully!) and bags of home-made fruit scones. Neither can I omit a certain friend who loyally helped out with the selling end of things and kept my daughter company at the stall.
In my innocence a few weeks ago I also booked a space for myself, so I could demonstrate spinning at the Craft fair.
And so today, I spent 3 and a half hours sitting happily spinning on alternative wheels (I have two wheels now), talking to people about spinning and sheep and wheels and wool and spindles and carders, etc.
I was delighted, it was the best ever way to destress after the marathon baking and packaging session that took up yesterday and this morning.
Photos coming when I get them from hubby's camera.

This was the weekend that all my daughters earned money - eldest worked two days in 2 different petrol/service stations, second daughter did babysitting and third daughter baked and sold her wares at the Craft fair. Very satisfying feeling, let me tell you.
Cold weather coming this week, and we will be getting frost, I believe.
My van isn't quite right yet, it needs a new water pump, mechanic says, so I am waiting for that to arrive and be installed, some time this coming week.
Off to do some school prep now, marking exercise books(we call them copies) took a back seat this weekend, but gotta get down to it now. sigh....

Back from an appointment with the Speech and Language therapist

For about 11 years, I was a Learning Support Teacher in my school, that all changed last September twelve-months, ie, September 2011, when I was re-allocated to a mainstream class.
For 11 years, I would have had ongoing contact with the local Speech and Language therapists in our public health system, as I referred children to them for assessments and help.
Now since I am back in the classroom, it turns out that I still have contact with some of the same therapists, but this time it is not for children, no, this time it is for me!
I have always had voice problems, well, since the first year in Teacher training college, I mean. I lost my voice during my first Teaching Practice after only 4 months in college. My mother and sister who also were/are teachers have voice problems, as in, school and teaching make us become hoarse and lose our voices
While I was a Learning Support teacher, I had very little problems with my voice, but now that I am back in a class, I find that my voice problems are back.
The last time I taught mainstream was with the Junior Infants, (the Reception class, you could say). That played total havoc with my voice, working with up to 28  4- and 5-yr olds, all chatting and all full of  energy. In those years, I would have had quite a bit of laryngitis. Then when I was in Learning Support, I had very little laryngitis.
And now back in a classroom of normal (or boisterous, to a normal degree) pupils, I have voice trouble again.
I have seen my GP, was referred to and have been examined by an ENT specialist. I have no nodules or growths on my vocal chords, so that's a relief. Then I was referred to a Speech and Language therapist.
Tonight I was at my second appointment with my Speech and Language therapist.
I have to think of spreading my facial muscles and bringing my voice up and out.
It is very interesting, even if I am a very poor pupil and forget to do my 'homework' most of the time.
I do hope that the program will help me, as there is nothing worse than waking up without a voice and having to go to school to teach and talk all day.....
Hope all is well with ye, out there in the world, there is severe snow in Sweden I hear, Stockholm shut down today because of the snow.
There may be some snow and sleet here on high ground tonight,
I hope we all stay safe and warm tonight!
regards
liz

November gone, December here

November passed by in a flurry, and now December is here.
November is called  Mí na Shamhna in Irish/Gaelic, literally ' the month of Samhain', a word which comes from the Gaelic and which means The end of Summer.
So truly summer is over.
December is called Mí na Nollag, the month of Christmas, with Nollaig being the Irish word for Noel.

The weather here at the moment is wet and cold but not so cold as to threaten snow. We had some frosty mornings last week, the car windscreens had to be scraped, but the roads around us were not very icy at all, thank Goodness.At present, the weather is back to rain. I just hope we don't get the bad winters we had 2 years ago.

My laptop broke, turns out I need a new internal drive for it, which I will probably sort in the next week or so; but I bought myself a new laptop in the meantime. I also got a gadget which allows Wifi in the house for up to 5 devices at a time, before this I had only one dongle to allow broadband on one device at a time.

My van broke down on Saturday just gone, when I was in Tipperary town, with my daughter for her orthodontist appointment. The appointment only took 8 minutes, the van breaking down meant we were in Tipperary for almost 4 hours. Shiverrrrr, it was getting cold by the time the nice mechanic,  whom the Insurance company sent to our assistance,  finally got the van onto his towtruck and got us all home.
I got the van back today, turns out it was a faulty thermostat, thankfully it wasn't a blown gasket or damaged radiator. I am so pleased to have the car back! And I think my Dear Swedish Husband is also delighted that I have my van back, as I borrowed his car today and he had to get a lift to work.....

We are rehearsing a  musical Nativity play at work with the children, which they will perform for their parents in a week's time, in the local church. The songs are so joyful that they are easy to teach.

Sara, who has a lovely heart-warming blog about her adventures in a wooden house in the woods in Sweden, has asked me to write a little about my childhood in Ireland.
Well, here's a tiny snippet: I am the eldest of 8 children, (3 girls, 5 boys). I was born in the mid 1960's. My mother was a primary school teacher and my father worked in a large hardware shop in town, ie Limerick City.
I went to school either when I was 3 and 11 months old, or when I turned 4, as my mother just took me to school with her, and the rules were not so strict then. In school, the younger children wrote on small blackboards, (chalkboards) with chalk. We called them cláiríní, meaning small boards. The school building was very old and draughty, it was surely 100 years old when I was there, a stone building, with thick stone walls, dusty wooden floorboarsd and  tall windows that started well above eye-level. There were only 3 classrooms, the toilets were in an outside block.
We didn't wear uniforms then, although most schools now do have uniforms. I remember wearing a duffle-coat to school and if you fell in the mud in winter time, you were put standing in front of a gas heater with your coat on, and wet muddy trousers off.
I also remember picking rose hips in autumn , lots of them they were being collected to make Rose-Hip syrup, for some reason. If you took a rose-hip and opened it up, there were short hairs under the skin and if you put that down a person's shirt, the hairs would itch like mad. We called rose-hips Itchy-backs!

Oktober, Deireadh Fomhair, och hösten kommer krypande, drypande....

Hej på er!
Oktober, eller Sista Månaden i Hösten som det heter på Gaeliska, dvs Deireadh Fomhair.
Tillbaks på jobbet och det enda jag längtar efter är att få sova ut ordentligt.
I och för sig så är det inte så farligt, bara nu ikväll borde jag bara gå lägga mig och inte sitta uppe länge framför datorn.
Lättare sagt än gjort.
Borde ta och rätta en hög med mina elevers matteböcker, men vet ni vad, jag tror inte jag gör det ikväll, de får duga som de är.
Hösten har minsann kommit, krypande, och drypande,  milt väder för det mesta, men vått, förstås!
Hoppas ni har det bra där ni befinner er,
Hälsningar,
liz

Summer's over

Well,
I'm back at work. Summer 2012 came and went in a flurry of Rain. Sometimes it drizzled, sometimes it flogged, on at least  one occasion it veritably rained cats and dogs; these wet days were interspersed with soft days (Irish euphemism for rainy day), damp days, muggy humid days and thunderstorms, but boy, did it rain.....
Apparently the wettest summer since 1956? or was it 1596? yes, wet it indeed was....

Sweden was also wettter than usual, but that did not deter us, as we Irish knew that no matter how rainy it was in Sweden, it was inevitably much much worse back home on the ould sod, (aka Ireland). All they get in Sweden is the leftover drizzle after the Atlantic has unburdened itself wholeheartedly over Ireland. Ah, the Swedes, I don't think they know how good they have it....

The summer passed in a (damp, humid) haze of days we didn't actually count as Summer because the essential element of Summer, (the Sun), never made an appearance.
We went to the beach in Fanore and people were wearing army surplus store jackets, hats, scarves and everything they could find in the boot of the car, to shelter from the strong wind. That day, I rented a child's Winter-weight wetsuit, with long sleeves and full length legs and matching shoes, for my son (6 yrs old),  just so he could go in the water and paddle. He loved it.

My children got into the habit very early on in the holidays of sleeping late and staying up till all hours, so when I was making lunch, children emerged looking for rice crispies. Nothing like that to mess up any plans to actually 'do anything' on a day, so nothing much got done this summer....

And now I'm back at work. Hoarse, voice dry and rasping already, (occupational hazard); over-worked, tired,  but trying to keep it all  together.

Oh, and I bought me a beautiful Ashford spinning wheel, an Elizabeth, a beautiful wheel.

glorious freedom

I. Am. On. Holidays.
Never has it felt so good, after all the intensity of the last weeks in June, to finally be on holidays and to be free.
Wonderful.
Long sigh of relief.
I do not mind if it rains. I do not mind if it pours. I am just glad to be free.
Here's to Sweden, spinning, knitting, crochet, walking, reading and sleeping.
Bliss.

displacement activities and lots of rain, cold rain...

Isn't it amazing how you can find all manner of things to do when really you should be tackling a pile of paperwork for school, which will not tackle itself, unfortunately....
This is why I am here writing a post in my blog, when ideally I should be writing reports and compiling tests,
oh, sigh......
Weather? well, it rains and rains, and is cold and damp.
Today the sun came out, and the backlog of laundry made it to the washing line, but the rain is forecast to return tomorrow.
Two more weeks of work, then holidays,
let's hope I can start tackling that pile of papers now, soon...
Happy June to you, hope you are having better weather than us.
liz

Survived, and lots of sun

Well we had a great day. The daughter got confirmed. The sun came out and shone, the visitors came, the house was clean, there was plenty food, the visitors stayed, chatted and ate. We had a great day altogether. I was wrecked tired after it, slept a few hours midday on Saturday.
Today Sunday was another lovely day, and my sister's children came to visit, so it was like a mini-party all over again. More cake got eaten and hurling was played in the garden. Hurling was watched on the telly, too, but Limerick lost, to Tipperary, sadly.
Still, all's well that ends well.
My batteries are recharged and I hope I have the energy required to get through. Luckily, I have two days off, midweek, Wednesday and Thursday, so it really is not such a big deal to work on just Monday and Tuesday.
Photos? well, that's just too much for my tired brain to manage yet. Sorry.....

Confirmation on Friday

Our third daughter will be confirmed on Friday. This is a big day, and we will be having a party at the house afterwards. I'm not really able to focus on the spiritual side of it all, as I am so preoccupied with cleaning the house and buying the food. Tomorrow, I have taken a day of my Extra Personal Vacation days so I will be cleaning and shopping....
It'll be warm on Friday, they say, 25 or 26 degrees, this after weeks of temperatures lower than average, so how we will survive the heat I do not know....!
I'll be back to you all at the weekend with a summary if the day's events and whether or not I survivied the stress of it all!
regards
liz

a missing post and its replacement

Don't you just hate it when you've written a long-ish and very satisfying blogpost, only to discover when you press Publish, that the witty and indeed long-overdue post cannot be saved nor published because your silly laptop lost internet connection back at sentence 2, and all that's saved is one daft little sentence.......

Suffice to say that I am not much impressed at laptop for developing a mind of it's own...

The event just described took place on Sunday evening, and it has taken me about 3 days to recover sufficiently from the disappointment to write again. Of course, I will never be able to write what I wrote then, so you will all have to be happy with a simple summary of the last month or so, bullet point style!

* spent Easter holidays worrying about daughter's broken wrist. She took off 2 of the temporary type casts, one after the other, and then after about 6 days of wearing it, she proceeded to take off the Unremovable Bright Pink permanent cast, the one that was supposed to be on for 6 weeks, not 6 days, and removed by a Doctor, not a Teenager....

* took same daughter back to hospital yesterday and got the all-clear, x-ray showed all is well and healed, so she is good to go again.

* daughter nr 3 has her Confirmation coming up at the end of May. This house will require some very serious tidying up. Nuff said about that.

* my knitting machine and ribber have been seen and sorted by knitting machine repair man in Shannon, only problem is the table for the knitting machine is not level so it has to be sorted before I can set up the machine and ribber and get knitting. My fingers itch to get knitting, that cone of chunky purple acryclic is calling my name from the inside of the wardrobe!

* the weather is cold, just goes to show the truth of the saying: Don't cast a clout till May is out. (clout is possibly an old word for clothes) I wore my gloves, hat, scarf and leg-warmers today on Yard Duty. The breeze was cold. Forecast tonight is for wind and rain, although the weather will then improve on Friday, and the weekend should be good.

* I have a thick head-cold which means co-incidentally enough that I also have a thick head. Tiredness reigns supreme. I need to go to bed early. Just 30 English copies to correct and then I can go to bed....

* Hälsningar till dom som föredrar svenska, det var länge sedan jag skrev på svenska, känns det som. Vi lever och har det bra, vi skall till Sverige (GBG och Karlstad) i juli, 2 veckor. Jag ser fram emot det, det är roligt att åka till Sverige. Vi kommer att bada, gå på Ikea, gå på lekplatser, bada, äta pizza och dricka folköl, träffa folk., fika, bada, äta Calzone, och så vidare.


PS. can anyone tell me why this new version of Blogger does not seem to recognise it when I press Enter to start a new line? all my sentences are on top of each other in the published version of this post, even though I had nicely spaced paragraphs in the post when I was writing it... must send a note to Blogger about it!
PPS went back to the old Blogger interface and I think I now have new paragraphs, apparently the lack of paragraphs is part of the new Blogger, you have to use some code to get a line break, but I haven't been able to find out the code. I am very afraid that I may have to move to another provider if this continues, I couldn't bear to have all my posts not have automatic line breaks when I press the Enter key. Off to research the other providers.

end of the holidays...

...and so tomorrow, it's back to school and routine again.
I'm sitting here getting my final paperwork sorted for the week, I probably should have done it during the 2 weeks off, but who is going to waste a lovely bright fresh day by sitting down at a computer with bundles of schoolbooks....
anyway I work best with a deadline,ie tonight, gulp.....

We are all dazed and very shocked and saddened at a very tragic car accident in the nearest village, suffice to say, I will be driving slowly in built-up areas and keeping my eyes wide open for pedestrians. Expect the unexpected, especially from chilren. Life can change in a split second, for the worse...
Back to the books now, planning for upcoming week and writing a report for last month.
Thing is I can hardly remember last time I was in school, it was more than 2 weeks ago!

There are 7 weeks left in school for the 2 big girls in this house, and 11 weeks for the rest of us. In the next week we will find out if dear daughter #2 gets a place in Transition Year next year, fingers crossed that she does. Then in the following weeks we will find out which subjects DD#1 will get in her subject choice for the Leaving Certificate (State school-leaving exam here in Ireland) in 2 years time. Interesting days ahead...

All well here otherwise, thankfully.

Best of luck to all who are returning to school or Uni tomorrow.

ps Wish me luck next Saturday, my van goes for it's State car test, the NCT. It has already failed, but I hope the work done this weekend will suffice to have it pass next time.
and next Sunday if there are no matches, I will hopefully go to a Craft Brunch in a cafe in town, for 2 hours, oh how yummy! wheel and spindle and needles and yarn and fleece ooooooo....

Fracture Clinic

Today was the day I had to go back to the fracture clinic with my 15yr old daughter(middle daughter), to have her temporary cast removed and replaced by a firmer cast which she will wear for the next 6 weeks or so.
The clinic waiting room was full of people, however the wait went much quicker than I expected. (This may have been because I happened to meet a nurse at the reception desk who recognised me as being from the same area as herself! Not that I asked or anything, but a wait of only 15 minutes to be called is unheard of.... Just sayin'...)

Daughter got a bright pink cast and we left the hospital within an hour. Daughter is not very impressed with the need to wear a cast, but it is indeed a necessary fact of life that when you crack your radius, you need to wear a cast. Daughter has a State exam coming up in June, the Junior Certificate exams. She cannot write at the moment, so I just have to write a letter to the school next week explaining the situation and hope that daughter gets something out of the school day, even if she cannot write. I may not like the situatiion, but there really is nothing I can do to change things so we just have to accept things and battle on.

The weather in Ireland is real April weather, showery, a bit cold, bright sun, followed by huge dark clouds and showers of biting rain, or hail.

Son loves his new red and black bike, and is cycling it like a pro, using no stabilisers. He had a great birthday, even if I say so myself.

Eldest daughter earned a Special Merit in the Texaco Art competition for children. She will not be able to attend the awards ceremony, unfortunately, as it clashes with her Transition year Graduation Evening in school.

Third daughter will have her confirmation at the end of May. So food will have to be ordered and clothes bought. Hopefully we will have a good day, both weather-wise and fun-wise!

Easter Holidays are nearly done, I've still some more things to do here, car to go to mechanic, dental appointments, collecting my new glasses, getting my knitting machine serviced and finally working here at home, knitting up more of my stash, figuring out why my spinning wheel is not doing as I want it to do right now, oh and getting sorted for school next week, of course....bleurgh....
Hoppas att ni har det bra allihopa som läser detta,
hoppas att våren har kommit till er som bor i norra halvklotet,
ha det så bra allihopa!
special greetings to all who have visited from Ravelry!
liz

Easter Saturday and spring-cleaning

Back to the old Google interface for me today,as I just can't find my way around the new interface as easily as the old.
My daughter's first cast came off her arm, when the swelling went down, I suppose. So we had to go back to the doctor and then the hospital, to have another cast put on. So that was another chunk of a day given over to hospitals etc.
It was Good Friday yesterday, Langfredag in Swedish. Years ago, when I was a kid, the shops were all closed, and it used to be a day for staying at home, eating a fish dinner, then ceremonies in the church at 3pm. Times have changed, yesterday on the way back from the hospital, we called in to a large shopping centre, and it was full of people. On the otherhand I would say that attendances at the Easter cceremonies have gone down....
Today is Easter Saturday, tomorrow Easter Sunday. You can be sure that my children are only thinking of how many Easter eggs they might get.
On Monday, it will be my son's 6th birthday! He learned to cycle his bike without stabilisers/training wheels, and he has also had a growth spurt so he may be getting a new bicycle for his birthday(!) I have cleared out his clothes and today I am giving away 4 bags of clothes he has outgrown to 4 friends. Luckily I was given a lot of clothes by friends as my son was growing up, so I feel I want to pass on the clothes to others when he is finished with them.
There is plenty more to declutter! Spring-cleaning here I come....!

a day well spent...!

April, and Easter Holidays... a blessed 2 weeks off school, not worrying about uniforms, or hoemwork, or housework or lunches....
Today however my plans to tidy up this house came to nothing. First I had an appointment for the NCT (national car test) in Limerick city at 8.40am. Sad to say, my van failed, so I will have to take it to the mechanic and have the brakes checked. Then home to rouse the slumbering darlings.
One slumbering darling had hurt her hand last night in a Gaelic Football match and it had developed a small bump last night, plus more bruising today, so off to the doctor with her. It took 1 and a half hours to be seen at the doctor, and then, well, it was as I feared/realised, we were sent to the hospital in Limerick city for an x-ray as the doctor thought that there was a fracture.

Almost 3 hours later, after an x-ray and some waiting, we were told daughter had indeed a small fracture and they put a cast on her, and we could leave. I still had to go by a shop to get some food, no point in arriving home to 3 starving kids and having to venture out again to buy food, so we went by Lidl and bought some food.

By the time I got home at 4.30, I was wrecked tired. My (late) lunch and hot cup of tea was delicious and all I could manage. I am now propped up in bed, writing this. The weather is cold, apparently the wind is from the North. Scotland had temperatures up to 23degrees Centigrade last week and today had 18cm of snow....! Ireland had temperatures up to 20 degrees and today we have hail showers and it is blowing cold and bitter from the North.

Holidays are great, but all too short. I am cramming in appointments, such as a clinic check-up yesterday, the NCT today, an eye-test tomorrow, a service for the knitting machine on Friday morning, a dental check up for me and one daughter next week, and I have to sort hairdresser appointments also. Now I will have a visit to a Fracture clinic next Tuesday, as well.I also want to get some spring-cleaning and decluttereing done, it is impossible with 4 children and work to keep the house streamlined and spartan. I need to move on the clothes and stuff that the children have outgrown. I also need to recycle the items that require a trip to the Recycling centre. I just hope I can get it all done by 15th April!

Spinning and knitting are going well, I gave a spinning demo in the Community Centre for our local Community Expo back in February. I enjoyed it enormously, people were fascinated, I think , and the organisers were delighted. I am daft enough to have started looking for a second spinning wheel, where will I fit that, I ask myself!

I am knitting a scarf using a stitch which I read about in a Swedish craft magazine Hemslöjden, the stitch involves yarn+overs and slip stitches, and it gives a woven look, which is very suitable for the wool I am using, which has various colours in it, so the stitch brings out rows of different colours. I guess I should photograph the scarf and put it up here, later, maybe, when I get up again....

Best wishes to you all out there, thanks very much to the people who come by and visit this blog often, I appreciate seeing the visitors views increase and seeing your locations all over the world.

regards
liz
ps sorry that there are no paragraphs in this, I have no idea why the new Blogger layout does not recognise my paragraph spacing when i write a blogpost.
pps, went back to the old interface and edited this post , so now it has paragraphs!

Spring is in the air

Hej på er allihopa, Hi everyone! Spring is in the air here in Ireland. So far we have escaped the chilly weather that struck Europe recently, and we have daytime temperatures of around 8 degrees Celsius. I got a photos of these snowdrops near my grandaunt's house, I cannot believe that these are nearly dying back already! I thought I had plenty of time to get a shot of them.

I have seen daffodils blooming and even primroses, (vårviva, i think), but not in a place where I could safely stop and take a photo. I have been spinning on my trusty Dutch spinning wheel, Birgitte. I finally got this spun up and plied, Phaeleonopsis, it's called, which refers to the Orchid flower. I love the green and pink.

Then I did some quick samples of Renee's wool, Renee lives in Jämtland in Sweden and keeps sheep. She also spins and has a webshop where she sells her wool and other wool that she buys in UK and other places. Her webste is called enuldenaffaer.dk and it's in Danish mostly. Here is a yarn with some pink and grey and black , as well as a Merino with mustard and olive green tones, plied with dark grey.

Then I spun up this Merino called Stormy Day. I am afraid it will be a bit too brown and dull in patches when I ply it, but I am going to ply it and see how it goes.

This lovely week off is almost over, and what have I achieved? well i have nursed a terrible cold and improved thankfully. I cleaned the bathroom this morning, down-on-my-knees-scrubbing clean. I have refreshed my head and can face another 6 weeks of work, and then it will be Easter holidays, I think. Then it's the home stretch after that, then Summer! Hope you are experiencing some sort of Spring wherever you are, unless you are in Oz and New Zealand/rest of Southern hemisphere, in which case you will have Autumn now. Bye from me for now,

Spring walk

God Morgon! G'Morn! Morning! Morning! It's a beautiful Spring morning, and I am free, we have a week off school. My 2 little ones have school, which means we wake up at 8am. This is a good thing, as it means I am up and out and ready to do stuff at 9am, when the two littlies go in to school. This morning I went for a wlk along my road, it's a small little country road. I love it. I saw these daffodils and this view.

I hope you all have a wonderful St Valentiine's Day, and that you get to enjoy the nature at some point today!

my neglected Blog and the joys of living in Ireland

Oh my poor neglected blog,and you wonderful people who keep coming back in here! January came and went, and already it is 5th of February! We are so lucky here in Ireland not to be suffering the very cold temperatures the rest of Europe is currently struggling with. Today we had a mild damp day. Three important matches were played today. My 14 r old's soccer team had a draw in their match this morning, my 11 yr old's soccer team lost and Ireland lost their rugby match against Wales. Still, I give thanks that we were under damp Irish skies, and not looking out on frozen landscapes and snow as a lot of people in Europe have to do these last 10 days. Work and Housework takes all my time, apologies to the poor people who pop in here hoping for an update and there never is one! Livet går vidare, vi får snart en hel veckas ledighet, det är jag väldigt glad för, då ska det här städas, och putsas, och rensas bland kläder och böcker, och då ska jag läsa och sticka och ta promenader.... minsann... Life goes on, next week I have one whole week off, Yippee!! I plan to knit and read and spring clean, and declutter clothes and books and toys and take walks, yes sirree, that's the plan!!! Have a good February , I hope the weather is kind to you, wherever you are, regards liz

A wedding, 2 parties and a New Year.

So the brother's wedding went great, a fun day was had by all, and brother and his new wife are now relaxing in Lanzarote on their honeymoon.
We came home tired but happy on Friday afternoon. After a long sleep on Friday night we were ready to face the world again. I went to town on Saturday to return my son's hired pageboy suit and to have a little peep at the sales in the yarn shops in Limerick. My 'yarn-diet' starts on 1st January so I figured I was still allowed to go yarn shopping on 31st of December. Which I duly did, managing to purchase about 16 different skeins of yarn between the 3 yarn shops.
All good diets start with a binge the day before, right???!

Last night, New Year's Eve, another brother invited us to his house for a party to see in the New Year. My children and husband stayed home, due to various prior engagements or assorted coughs, but I went to the party and had a great time! Lots of my own family there as well as my brother's in-laws, so plenty of chat. Plus Yummy food, tasty desserts, a chocolate fountain, (I didn't taste the chocolate and marshmallows, just admired them from a distance) and then a countdown at 12 midnight and champagne or in my case, Sprite! Home by 1pm, to husband and crisp-eating children.
My middle daughter had complained yesterday of a strange and sharp pain in her ribs when she took a breath. Thankfully, this potential 'chest-infection' had gone by this morning, probably just a pulled muscle. Phew.....
And today, off to another party, this time a 50th Birthday celebration for a good friend, and once again the children stayed home together with another friend. They had pizzas and chips, we went to the party and had Jambalaya, Prawn stir-fry, and more delicious desserts.
So now I am feeling very satisified, I have had a very sociable Christmas and New Year. And it is not over yet, there is a niece's birthday on this week and we got an invitation to another very good friend next weekend! Yoohoo!
And now it is 2012. It will take some time to get used to writing the correct date on the blackboard when I go back to school in a week's time.
It is 2 years since I started blogging. I am still here, still blogging away.
I apologise for not having so many photos as I would like, let's see if I can snaffle some photos from Hubbby's camera to add to this post.
To all of you I wish a Happy New year!
Gott Nytt År!
Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir!