Road rash

The City Authority for Lawn and Shrubbery is repairing the paths in the parks. It is quite laudable an idea but the performance is worse. At the time being, there are stone-paved paths that are an example of bumpiness, the flagstones are falling out and there are large areas of dirt in between, and new tarmac paths which are interrupted by unfinished bits.
I planned a little trip on Saturday. The weather forecast was horrid but when it was sunny, I decided to get out a bit before it starts snowing. My camera finally stopped working after the fall in early 2011 so I rode to the office to borrow mom's. She keeps her camera at hand at the bottom of her office drawer so that she could readily document family events and such.

I left and rode to the train station. Via the park. At the dirt and gravel bit of the road, just around the corner from the street, a family consisting of three people and a dog took most of the width of the road and in order to avoid collision, I slipped and fell into the dirt. I cussed like a sailor (the genes!) and the first thing I checked was whether my hoodie came out intact.

Only at the railway station I noticed that I was actually bleeding. I was pissed because usually I carry some band aid with me but not this time and that I'm going for a trip with my elbow scratched in a big way but at the end, I slapped a piece of tissue in the wound to prevent too much leakage and went on to botanize.

Later inspection showed that unless I get the wound cleaned, I'll get a nice dirt tattoo. Having a low pain threshold, I disinfected it, slathered it with a lidocain ointment which shouldn't go into open wounds but I needed to dress the wound without screaming.

Today I checked and it all got nicely inflamed. The dinner with Doc is going to be one of the more interesting ones. I may throw in a picture of some pus tomorrow.

I may be on to something.

The other day, I was gardening and when going back home, I went to say hello to the neighbour two houses down who was sweeping the sidewalk. We started chatting and among other things, he told me that it's nice that someone is doing something about the abandoned garden.

Yesterday I went to the post office (surprise yarn and candies from Sweden! Yay!) and on my way back, I met the neigbours two houses down in the other direction. They have a cute 6 months old puppy and I played with him and ranted with the neighbours. They told me that they noticed that I was clearing the garden, that it's nice that someone is doing something about the abandoned plot and that they can help me if I want.

Maybe humankind is not entirely doomed yet.

The crisp and fresh morning smells of RoundUp....

... and the whole thing will be tougher than expected.

I expected that I would just pull the weeds and turn the soil. No biggie, a bit of work.
The problems
1) the weeds include vines growing all over, rooted wherever they were given a chance.
2) dry stems of perennial herbs everywhere
3) wild roses between them for extra scratchiness
4) Aegopodium podagraria everywhere. Probably in layers. One of the most obnoxious weeds.
5) at parts of the plot, bits of wood all over. There is a huge walnut tree which is sort of falling apart, walnut twigs are fragile and there're bits of them in a huge layer
6) shitloads of all these
7) trash including chunks of concrete joyfully interspersed among the bushes and growths
8) bits of fence collapsed or stolen, a sort of public path recently used by a bulldozer going across the garden

I resorted to herbicides. I wouldn't be able to weed the whole place before there would be new seeds all over. RoundUp is not renowned as a nutritious skin lotion, it actually does nothing but a bit of stink and I hold hopes. There'll be quite some weeding anyway, I didn't want to kill the wild asparagus, tulips and the field of scillas. I like bulb plants, that's it.

Yesterday's plan was to clear a plot for the potatoes and use rubbish, including the particularly spiky bits, to fill the hole in the fence. And some spray-killing, obviously. I partially managed. Hole is filled with sticks and twigs and it means that another bit of land was cleared. I discovered more trash to be dealt with. My potato planting optimism was premature, though. It took me a hour to dig into the compressed soil and to pull out all the aegopodium roots, which took half of the soil volume, to clear around half a metre of land. I victoriously planted twelve potatoes; I have five kilos so there's still a lot to go.

I feel good, though. Someone commented my squat gardening agreeingly, that it's just evil to let good land go to waste.

Later on, I ranted with the neighbour (it ended in a street party but that's another story) who said that it's cool that someone takes care. And that I'm cool for starting a vegetable garden there. It felt good.

I left my ugly, Roundup soaked work gloves on the fence where mom saw them in the morning. She gave a hissy fit about my awful intolerable messiness. She dislikes my potato plantation and other gardening enterprises but she couldn't feel morally superior if she told me off for weeding so she's finding substitutes to express her disagreement. To which I respond 'Whatevs' and go laugh in the shrubbery.

Winter knitting in spring.

I got a heap of beautinominous yarn for my birthday - one gets the best gifts oneself - and knitted and knitted and knitted and made more than a half of a nice sweater.

The problem appeared around that time. I had 14 balls of the base colour and, well, now I'm below armpits, some 40 cm of body to go, one ball makes around 6 cm of width, I have one ball left. The yarn seems to be discontinued and it's not available in this friggin' country. I already contacted my Parisian knitterly friend who craves after plum jam which is cheap and readily available here and something will happen.

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In the morning, I was browsing my mails today and got a newsletter that there's 15% discount on everything in that store where I got my latest sari. Wait, wait, this is knitting-related. I got another sari, some embroidered trimmings and a Kerala scarf and I missed the 24hour sale by a few minutes, apparently, but bite it.
While browsing the site, I noticed quite some designs of various textiles, some of which could be well adapted for knitting. Accidentally, yesterday I picked a random book and a huge print of a pic of a sweater with lots of stranded work (that's the reindeer stuff) fell to my feet and I got an itch.

I'll waste the rest of my shift and then I need to rummage through my stash for some suitable yarns.

Spring knitting

Oh well. Last year I started a bright green sweater to wear in the intermittent season between freaking cold and too hot for sweaters. It got finished in around November.

Being the eternal optimist, I started another spring green thingy.


Lang's Seta Tweed in colour 44 and Eisaku Noro's Ganpi Abaka Surabu, alternating rows, 2,5mm needles, it goes slowly. The Seta Tweed in chartreuse green is somewhat wild; not that I wouldn't stand it but the hay-coloured paper yarn just complements it too well to miss this opportunity. If I manage to finish it within reasonable timespan, I may wear it for summer hiking.

In other news, I got my laptop back. They fixed the damaged varnish but I got it back with all the data and no need to reinstall anything. There'll be blogging with pictures again.r

I can haz paycheck?

So that I can spend it immediately?

I scored Lancome's vintage Cuir and then Dawamesk and I need to pay my fleabay bills, that's it. And some due bills but who cares about electricity.

My laptop was accepted for warranty repairs. Since one of the complains was peeling varnish, I'm really curious how will they repair it. In fact, I'm slightly worried that our IT guy put only the borked USB ports in the papers, he was too sure that they're exchanging it piece for pie. If I'll get it back with the peeled designer varnish, there'll be screaming.

Anyhow, in some ten days, I might have my own lappy with my own Photoshop and things. Or I at least hope so.

Computerless

Not really or else I wouldn't be able to publish this.

My laptop is gone for warranty evaluation and hopefully, exchange for a new one with all USB ports working properly and expensive design veneer staying in place. Call me superficial but if I pay extra for the looks, I want the looks to stay. I'm using an antiquity I found in the office; it sort of works but I'm not installing Photoshop on it or it would collapse all and guessing from the general state of cooling, melt. Both the computer and Photoshop, probably creating a colourful blob of grey plastic.

Until further notice, there'll be only words.

Spring is coming, as it sometimes happens around this time of year. We have eastern winds which means clear cold air and lots of sun and after the long winter suffering, I'm feeling normal. I do things, I'm not exhausted only from a bit of breathing and so far, life seems to be fine.

I went cycling on Saturday and in a way it was awful, I'm terribly out of shape but I was outside, it was pleasantly chilly and I fully intend to go again next weekend because the forests are all flooded and swampy and I want to do some pictures. The only green bits I saw were some Gallium sp. leaves but I hold hopes for new plants appearing soon. There are already some snowdrops and stuff visible in the city.

I am proud of myself, too. Yesterday and today I
- mended two bras from wireless back to fully wired
- shortened straps at one potentially fave top, designed by someone who thinks that boobage starts somewhere around the waist
- spun the rest of the yak fibre
- finished a sleeve of the burgundy sweater and found out that I might not run out of one of the yarns used (yay!)
- sorted out various papers and stuff, sorted them by subject and put them into nice little heaps
- bought file organizers to put the papers in
- paid several outstanding bills
- fixed three appointments at various docs
- worked out.

I feel good about myself. Not the bestest ever but... good. Until it starts raining, no more whines, dear readers.