Learning to spin

I've been spinning. Not on a bike in a sweaty gym, not as in whirling dervish, but with a drop spindle and a couple of hundred grams of New Zealand Haunui and Blue Faced Leicester, and with a bit of instruction from Craftsy and Drucilla Pettibone (good name). And it's brilliant! In a week I've gone from a lumpy, bumpy, two-ply super bulky yarn, through a wobbly two-ply worsted, to a much more consistent navajo three-ply double knit. I'm starting to work out how to be in control of the fibre drafting, how thin I can spin a single before it breaks and the spindle clatters to the floor (that's where it gets its name...) and I have to twizzle the split ends back together yet again, and how much twist I need to put in when plying to get a nice relaxed yarn. All you need is a stick with a hook on it - simple but effective! And a lot more practice to get really good...

Toddler photos

It's just like monkeys and Shakespeare. If you give a two year old a digital camera, you'll eventually get some great portrait shots. And an awful lot of pictures of his feet.
All photos (c) Evan Ó Dochartaigh.

Woolfest stash

A few weeks ago I did something I've never done before. I went on a day trip, on a coach, with a gang of other woman, to a wool festival. Actually, that's many things I'd never done before. And in spite of really not seeing myself as a coach trip kind of person, I had a really fun day. Woolfest, held in a livestock auction house on the outskirts of Cockermouth in Cumbria, was, not surprisingly, a candy shop for wool botherers; a temple of fibre delights: aisle upon aisle of stalls selling yarn of all colours and all textures; tops and rovings and hanks of wool from Jacobs and Bluefaced Leicester and Gotlands and Herdwicks, from alpaca and even from camel; bats of gorgeous silks; buttons and fastenings galore; spinning wheels and spindles and looms. And so many inspirational beautiful works of craft and art: knits and felts and carved woods and ceramics. And pens of actual sheep and goats, resplendently horned; and demonstrations of shearing and weaving and spinning and - well, you get the picture!

I was very restrained on the yarn front, only coming home with three skeins - two of softest alpaca, both destined for socks - one mustard yellow and one soft brown - and one glorious pure silk in the brightest golden copper sunshine, which I think is going to be a shawl when it grows up. But I did buy an awful lot of raw wool - carded and prepared Black Welsh and Bluefaced Leicester and New Zealand Haunui; broken Merino tops; a bit of unwashed Shetland roo'd fleece; and a couple of little Ryeland rovings - and a handful of mixed silks. Oh, and a drop spindle. All part of my latest mission to learn how to spin, although I hope there'll be some needlefelt pictures coming out of all this as well. 

But that's all on hold, because it's way too warm at the moment for much in the way of woolly activity, and because I seem to be spending most of my spare time at the beach, making the most of the fantastic summer that's come upon us. Oh, ok, I have got a pair of lacy alpaca socks on the go: too small to cause any overheating, perfect for hot summer knitting!

Artisan bread

Artisan bread is, apparently, bread with big holes in it. Those holes in the middle of the loaf, which are formed by the irregular fermentation and rising which happens when dough is kneaded and stretched by hand. The right kind of holes are the mark of good bread. Or so my bread baking teacher says. I've been learning more about bread making from an online course on Craftsy, which was an inspired birthday present from Lorna. (If you're craftily inclined, by the way, Craftsy has online classes on everything from hand painting cakes to couture sewing techniques to rigid heddle weaving - guess you'd have to do the course to find out about that one...)

I've been trying to make better bread for about a year and a half now. I started off, ambitiously, with sourdough, which I realise now is way harder than yeasted bread to make well. My sourdough is nice toasted, but nowhere near perfect. Now I have a really good standby recipe for a no-knead yeasted bread, which Jess in Canada passed on, that produces a pretty decent loaf full of tasty seeds and nuts, and most importantly is easy make on an office day, as you can mix the dough in the morning, leave it to rise all day, and bake it after work. 

But I know that to make really good bread you have to put a lot more work in. So I spent a morning trying out the first class of my Craftsy class: basic French bread. The teacher is very enthusiastic and sometimes annoyingly American, but full of useful information. I mixed to the right proportions (68% moisture), kneaded and stretched at 20 minute intervals, shaped loaves and left them to prove in satisfyingly traditional looking bowls and linens, made a mess of transferring them to the baking tray (a bread peel is clearly an invaluable tool, although a quickly washed piece of wooden shelf board is a reasonable substitute), and finally baked them in a hot oven with the requisite amount of steam. And the results? Well, they're definitely not perfect - not enough holes. But the crust was pretty good and the crumb wasn't too bad at all, and it tasted fantastic still warm with a thick spread of butter (but then what bread doesn't!). I think I just need more practice...

la rhubarbe and other allotment news

I finally got down to the allotment today after three weeks of having no time to attend to it - two weekends away, in London and the Lakes, and lots of things to do on weekday evenings. It looked surprisingly good, not too many weeds in the beds at all - only thigh-high grass and comfrey bordering most of the plot, which is a necessary evil given how little time I spend down there. I don't really mind the grass - although I do feel bad about the way it's choking off the fruit bushes - and the comfrey isn't a weed at all, making itself useful as a mulch (comfrey tea smells so bad I don't bother anymore). Every so often I make a token effort at ripping the grass up, but it's much more industrious than me and just keeps coming back.

That aside, the plot actually looks fairly presentable - which is also thanks to Orsi's hard work weeding and stocking it with Hungarian plants! Most things have been saved from the slugs and snails - although quite a few French beans, red cabbages and cavolo nero have been munched. I made myself busy between the rain showers weeding, putting in pea sticks and tying in the broad beans. And at last starting to collect the first of the early summer harvest! Tonight's tea included green onions, fennel stalks, and broad bean tops - a seasonal delicacy. And the last of the rhubarb, which went to top up the pickled rhubarb I made a few weeks ago, because it's utterly delicious. The recipe is from Diana Henry's 'Salt, Sugar, Smoke', my go to book for preserves this year. But why is it that 'pickled rhubarb' sounds so much better in French?

Wild swimming

I've always loved swimming in the sea, although because most of my life I've lived close to the coast of Scotland, Ireland or Wales, I don't do it very often. One of my favourite holiday things in the world has been swimming in Greece, diving in off a smooth, sun warmed rock, or a yacht, and cutting through clear blue cool waters, welcome in the heat of the day.

But I've decided that you can't live your life longing for perfection and something that comes along every five or ten years, and so a couple of weeks ago I bought a sleek, snug, swimming wetsuit. Yes, it's Scotland. Yes, it's the North Sea. But give a girl a few millimetres of neoprene and the ocean is my oyster. I tried it out first at a reservoir in the Pentlands, with 120 mostly keen triathletes - fun, but a bit serious. And then I found the Wild Ones, a relaxed and welcoming bunch of people who swim every Sunday, and after work on summer evenings, at Edinburgh's own beach, Portobello, just for the enjoyment of being in the water. And most of them without wetsuits! I was impressed.

Someone from the Wild Ones posted this wonderful video of a Faroese lady - the swimming granny. Forget wearing purple, I think this is what I aspire to in my old age. Crazy in many people's eyes, but happy!

Shetland things

I just spent a wonderful week in Shetland. It's been on my 'To Go' list for years - maybe ever since Mum told me she found out she was pregnant with me while she and Dad were there touring around on his old motorbike - when apparently it cost just £1.50 a night to rent a cottage for two. I stayed with a friend with her friends on Bressay, a 10 minute ferry commute from Lerwick harbour, where no one locks their houses, strangers pull over to offer you lifts, I spotted a porpoise from the living room window, and got to bolster the numbers of the Bressay community choir - five women (including me...) with an old piano.

So many things about Shetland to like. Knockout archaeology - Jarlshof and Mousa and Scatness and countless other sites. Brochs and Norse longhouses all over the place. World beating wildlife - bonxies swooping overhead, thousands of gannets diving and calling, busy bobbing puffins, watching a nesting guillemot colony get decimated by a rabbit, seeing otters feeding metres away. Mind-bending geology, sheer cliffs, soft turf, broad green straths, beautiful beaches, white sands, turquoise bays, freezing waters, ponies, crazy bus shelters, cold winds, and warm cafes. Sheep and wool and spinning and knitting inspiration everywhere! Ferries and islands and friendly people and music and late nights and whisky. Going back one day, I hope.

 

Dedication....that's what you need

I can still hear Roy Castle's trumpet. If I'd only believed him at the time. Still, better late than never - because, not to get too over-dramatic about this, for about the first time in my life I decided I wanted something and actually went out and worked to get it. I didn't just get too lazy, or too laid back, or too scared of failure, and give up early. Because then you've always got the excuse that you didn't really try, right?

But this was different. I decided back in March that I wanted to beat my previous best time for running 10km - seven years ago! - of 54 minutes and 26 seconds. So I signed up for the Glasgow Women's 10K, printed off an 8 week training schedule, and started following it. And kept following it. Even when I was tired. Even when my knees hurt. Even in Iceland when it meant getting up at 5.30am and running for 80 minutes in the snow or the wind before a day's fieldwork carrying heavy kit up onto a glacier. And it worked. Yesterday, I didn't just beat my best time. My secret wish was a sub-50 minute 10K - which until a few weeks ago I never even considered I could do. 

I am my own personal record breaker :-D

Full on spring at last

The weather's been warmer for a few weeks and things are finally starting to grow at the allotment. The perennial French sorrel and chives are always the first spring crop - the last week they've gone into salads as well as a sauce for cod, and an omelette with English asparagus. And then the rhubarb of course - I've already made rhubarb, rose and cardamom jam, and this weekend I'm trying out rhubarb vodka for the first time :-) Of this year's sowings and plantings, the shallots and broad beans started to push through the soil surface first, and this week the potatoes (Charlotte, again). The comfrey was tall enough to take a first cutting today, for a mulch on the potatoes, the fruit bushes are in full leaf, and the damson tree is blossoming. Hoping we don't have a late frost like last year, which meant no damsons at all (and no sloes... and more to the point, no sloe gin!). And oh yes, all the weeds are getting into their stride too...

 

Lopi

I couldn't resist it. I brought back a basketful of wool from Iceland. Lopi is Icelandic wool, & I'm a bit in love with it. So now I have enough in my stash for a Lettlopi cardigan, some Alafosslopi socks, a hat, a pair of mittens.... oh, and the lace-weight Einband I got in September which is still to be knitted up into a shawl. These fingers are itching to be knitting!

Melting snow

Sandur

A sandur is the outwash plain formed by meltwater rivers carrying sediment away from glaciers. The sandur in front of the Virkis glacier is where I've mostly been working in Iceland. I spent nearly a month out there last summer, and most of the last week too. It's a completely different environment for me. A wide, flat, empty expanse of stony ground, stretching about 10km to the sea, but so flat the sea isn't visible except on a really windy day when you can see the spray from waves breaking on the horizon. And yet if you turn around the view is to 2km high mountains topped by an ice cap with glaciers flowing towards you.

Two views on the sandur

Close to the river the ground is bare stones and old, dry river channels with only a patch of moss here and there; further away it's covered in moss and grass and scrub vegetation - dwarf willow on which the first fluffy, palest green catkins are just out, blaeberries, the first tiny pink flowers just appearing.

When you're on your own out there and it's not windy, and you're far enough away from the meltwater river that you can't hear the rushing water, it's so quiet it makes your ears ring. Except the occasional birds calling - skeins of geese recently arrived back from wintering in the south, great skuas gliding low overhead, curlew calling, and snipes and ptarmigan flying up from almost under my feet. The ptarmigan are still in their pure white winter colours and perfectly camoflauged for the snowy mornings we've been having.



Geese flying over Öræfajökull

Ptargmigan in winter clothes



In the summer it can be warm and lush; on a day like today it's a tundra-like expanse of snow, and when the wind blows it's harsh and wild. And it does a great line in dramatic clouds rushing across the sky. The birds thrive there, and sheep and horses graze, and although it feels remote, I've loved spending days there on my own enjoying the views, the silence and the sounds, and the sandur soap opera. Last summer I spent a whole lunchtime watching a great skua tenaciously kill a large gull, pluck it and eat it - gruesome but strangely compelling. Hmmm. Maybe it's not such a good thing to spend too long out there with noone to talk to....

Virkisjokull sandur



Iceland busy busy

All my blogging energy has been going into Geoblogy - some updates on Iceland fieldwork are there. A couple of shots from the last few days:

The Virkisjokull icefall

Virkisjokull G&T. With glacier ice. Fabulous.





Ice and rain

This morning I took a walk on the glacier with the rest of the team while we decided what we're going to be doing for the next week or so. Most of my work isn't on the glacier itself but I'll be helping out on the ice later in the trip. There was lots of talk of thrusting and sinkholes and geophysical techniques and ablation stakes. The glacier hasn't stopped melting over the winter - its surface has lowered by at least 2m since September. Then after lunch I took the big gold Nissan Patrol out on the sandur on my own to check out how my boreholes were doing. Had a lot of fun bumping around remembering how to get to them; and all the loggers are still working, which was very cheering. Although the increasingly wild wind and rain wasn't, really. But still, coming home with six months of groundwater level and temperature data, and some stable isotope samples, on my first day in the field isn't bad. Just in time for baked fish, red wine and an evening of graphs, Kraftwerk, Bob Marley, and bad jokes.
 


This morning was like this

This afternoon mostly like this

The lower slopes of Virkisjokull. For reasons still unknown, there is quite a lot of hay.

 

Back in Iceland

I came back to Iceland yesterday with a team from the BGS Iceland project. We flew from Glasgow to Keflavik, where Jez met us with the two BGS trucks, and drove straight to Svinafell. The sea was blue and the sun was setting behind the ice caps and there was still a bit of snow on the cliffs; the mossy lava fields looked just as alien and the horses on the grassy plains just as beautiful - it really is a fantastic country. Except maybe for the food at the truck stops. I spent a month in Svinafell last summer, drilling and testing boreholes on the sandur. It felt brilliant to arrive back here last night, seeing the glaciers get bigger and bigger as we drove across the desolate grey Skeidurur sandur. Everything's unpacked now and it's back to work at Virkisjokull this morning!

Sun setting over Myrdallsjokull



London town

A weekend in London. Strange to go back when things are very different from the last time. And stressful in the run up. But it turned out just right. First a productive work trip - Friday was a training day at the Royal Society for exhibitors at their 2013 Summer Science Exhibition, where the Iceland project I'm working on will be showing off its achievements. It looks like it's going to be a whole lot of work to get together something really good to wow the thousands of visitors to the exhibition, but fun too!

The rest of the time was a too-rare chance to hang out with old friends. To talk, laugh, cook, eat and drink oh so well and copiously, and feel better about the world. And we got to go to the Ice Age art exhibition at the British Museum, which I loved. Incredible Palaeolithic carved bone, antler and stone, and ceramics, with such accurate representations of the world around them, and yet such confident artistic freedom. They make people from ten, twenty, forty thousand years ago - our ancestors! - come vividly to life.

A couple of photos from the weekend:

Big red socks

I finally knitted the socks I've been meaning to, using the rich red Alafoss Lopi bought in Iceland last summer. Thick, extra-warm long socks with reinforced heels and toes, designed to be worn inside wellies. The pattern was a mix of ideas from the knitting gurus Elizabeth Zimmerman and Ann Budd, with a suggestion from Caroline's mum, Maureen for the decreases on the legs. They were knitted partly in Edinburgh, partly in Torridon, and partly in Kathryn's car driving across Scotland at Easter. And tested out down at the allotment last Saturday. Very happy with them!

Easter in Torridon

Scotland's northwest is one of the finest places in the world, and Torridon is particularly special. It has knockout landscape, geology, mountains, scenery, sea lochs and mountain lochans, remoteness, peace, wildlife, people: and when all that's combined with wall to wall sunshine, just enough snow on the tops for even more spectacular walking, and stunningly clear air - views all the way from the Cairngorms to the Outer Hebrides - well, it makes for a fantastic weekend. We stayed, unusually, at the youth hostel - well run and comfortable and full of happy hill walkers and climbers. Decided that in the wintry conditions we weren't up for scrambling the ridge of Liathach, one of the Torridon 'giants', which I've been longing to climb for years, and instead chose two lesser in stature but no less wonderful hills. Slioch on Saturday, and Sgorr nan Lochain Uaine (the peak of the blue lochans, although they're icy white lochans at the moment) on Sunday. We bumped into two people in total over the two days, slapped on the sunscreen, slogged up snowy corrie slopes and precariously stepped across narrow snowy ridges, and were rewarded with about the best views in the country. And lots of Easter chocolate too, of course!

Liathach morning reflections

Southwest ridge of Sgorr nan Lochan Uaine

The sportingly snowy east ridge of Slioch

Torridon sunset

Live donkeys

This weekend Jo and I had planned our annual catch up. It was to be a two day, relaxed spring walk in the Lake District: we'd leave the car at Keswick on Saturday morning, walk over the hills to Honister youth hostel, carrying as little as we could get away with, and saunter back a different way on Sunday. Except British weather happened. All week we watched the forecast get worse, until on Friday the Lakes and surrounding areas had their worst snow of the winter. Thousands of homes without power. Roads blocked. Mayhem and turmoil.

We called the youth hostel on Friday night, found that the roads were still passable - just; decided if we could get there, we would give it a go, and downgraded our plans to a nice valley walk from Keswick to Honister - with crampons and ice axe and clothes to weather the predicted gales and -20 degree windchill. Hmmm. But on Saturday morning it looked like things were getting better, so I set off from Edinburgh bright and early to meet Jo at Penrith train station. It was dry in Edinburgh, if bitterly cold. But the road south had quite a bit of drifting snow, spindrift blowing over drystone walls, even the sheep in the windswept fields looking cold and dispirited, and by Biggar - 30 miles down the road - it had started snowing again. By the time snow ploughs were outnumbering even the white vans on the road, I had a feeling we were being overly optimistic. When I called her, Jo agreed. Disappointing to have to abandon our weekend, but the hills will still be there another day. As Jo said, better to be Shackleton than Scott.

So I drove the slippy road home again, and instead of battling through Borrowdale in a blizzard, went to see 'Robot and Frank' at the Cameo, met friends for coffee and cake, and then other friends for pizza and wine. Shackleton would no doubt have approved.

St Patrick's Day at Ashgill

Ashgill is the care home where Dad's lived for nearly five years. It's a small home in Milton in Glasgow's east end, near Bishopbriggs and Springburn, which cares for the frail elderly and people with dementia. The staff at Ashgill are amazing people. They're always cheerful and positive, and they treat each of the residents as individuals, with all their quirks and likes and dislikes and fads. It's so easy just to see dementia. Ashgill's staff see the person still there behind the illness.

One of their especially nice habits is putting on afternoon tea parties for the residents and their families in order to celebrate just about anything - Mother's Day, the Jubilee, the Olympics, the World Cup, Easter, Christmas, Burns night, you name it. Joanne and Charlene, the  activities organisers, go the whole hog with care and attention to decorate the dining room and arrange things; the cook makes themed cakes; they put on appropriate music; and there's often singing and a wee bit of dancing in between the tables. I made it to their Paddy's day party on Sunday, got there in time to help cut out some paper shamrocks for the tables, found some of Dad's Dubliners CDs, and stayed for the craic. OK, so the music was too loud, and some of the residents - Dad included - can't take part in the whole spirit of the thing and it mostly seems to pass them by. But even Dad seemed to enjoy his Guinness shandy - a bit! - and soda bread, and it was great to see the residents who did, enjoying it; and the few families and friends who came in, and the staff themselves. A cheerful atmosphere in a old folks' home; a pretty good achievement.