Last weekend Mr. Gadget and I had dinner with some friends--our cruising buddies, to be exact. We all traveled together last spring to the British Isles and Europe.
During the dinner conversation, one of them asked if we had seen the PBS show, Doc Martin. Neither of us had, but I said I'd heard good reviews. So now I'm hooked. Lucky for me, Mr. Gadget had recorded the whole series, since at one time I had told him I might want to watch it someday.
If you aren't familiar with the series, it's filmed in Cornwall in a picturesque coastal village called Portwenn (known in real life as Port Isaac). It looks very much like Polperro--the small village we enjoyed visiting during a stop on our cruise.
Thanks to the Brits there's finally some high quality TV. I'd almost lost hope. Yep, I've got Downton Abbey in the queue too.
And in knitting news, I'm going to finish up my current scarf project and then cease and desist. I've got enough scarves to outfit an Eskimo village. The other day, while looking through a trunk for the unfinished Plymouth sweater (circa 2007)*, I found 5 or 6 more scarves I didn't even remember knitting. Next up is to finish the Plymouth sweater which just needs one more front.
*yarn and pattern were purchased in Plymouth, Mass. in 2007 where I joined some other crazy women for a ghost-hunting weekend.
So now I must tidy up in preparation for a visit from Big City Girl this weekend. I plan to open up the trunk of forgotten scarves and let her have at it. The big city is just the place for hand-knitted scarves. They're just the thing for keeping a neck nice and warm....and they also make very fashionable dustmops.....
Here's a little yarny project I've been working on--and it's guaranteed to cover any hint of a turkey neck.
It's the kind of project that goes on and on and on. There's no definite stopping point. There aren't even any directions. You just call it quits when enough is enough.
I started with a 2-1/2 inch wide strip knitted in garter stitch. I knitted until it was as long as I wanted the scarf.....which in this case is about 60 inches.
Next, I cut strips of different funky yarns...about 7 inches long. Then with a crochet hook, I attached them randomly to one side of the knitted strip.
This can be a little tedious, so I attack it in small doses....usually while watching Jeopardy. I have more to go, but it won't be long before I'll declare it finished.
I do, of course, need to worry about the shedding factor. There are hundreds of yarn ends. But I don't plan to wear it with anything fancy. I'll keep my lint brush handy and just pretend I have a cat.
I remember having a conversation with Big City Girl several years ago during which we discussed dating and finding Mr. Right. "Don't look too hard," I told her, "because you'll just be wasting your time." Then I added this little gem:
"The harder you look, the more elusive Mr. Right will be." Sometimes I amaze myself with my wisdom.
I think I may have given her a few examples from people I've known, about how they met in the unlikeliest of places and under the quirkiest of circumstances. Like my friend Barbara who decided to move from California to Arizona, bought a small house there, and had to send the renter packing.....only to fall madly in love with him. Or another friend who went on a cruise with her mother and ended up marrying one of the ship's officers. When the time is right, I told her, some sort of mystical magic happens. "So just become the best person you can be, get out and about, make lots of friends, and do good things in the world," I said, "and everything will work out."
So now for the woodcarving. This carving set belonged to my grandfather. He passed it on to dear-ol'-dad, and somewhere along the line I ended up with it. I probably planned to give it to Tech Guy, but TG wasn't always careful with special things so I put it away in a closet for safe-keeping. I did briefly give some thought to trying my hand at it but never got around to it. Plus, I've never considered myself a sculptor...you know, one of those people like Michelangelo who said something like, "Just take away the stuff that doesn't belong."
This past week I noticed a flyer at the senior center when I went there for my knitting group. They're going to start up a new interest group. Woodcarving. So I signed up and I'm going to give it a whirl. The tools will be coming out of the closet soon. I hope we can make beautiful music together. Let the dancing begin!
I know I threatened you with a trip report. Walk away now if you have something better to do. I won't be offended.
On January 23, we sailed from the port of San Pedro--about a 20-minute taxi ride from the Calcondo. We were headed to the Panama Canal with plans to end up in Ft. Lauderdale on Feb. 6.
After 5 days at sea, we arrived at Puentarenas, Costa Rica--where we shared the pier with the Queen Elizabeth. I was curious to know if she'd fit through the Panama Canal. I never found out. We didn't see her there. But I'm pretty sure she would have had to leave her purse behind.
Here she is, still at the pier, as we sailed away that evening.
After a day at sea, we anchored off of Panama City--just a short ways from the entrance to the canal. We stayed here for a day and a night so passengers could take tours on shore. Mr. Gadget and I, with our slug-like tendencies, stayed glued to our deck chairs.
In fact, we found our air-conditioned stateroom to be the ideal place to watch the canal passage on our flat screen TV.
But we didn't stay there all day. We spent some time in the air-conditioned indoor pool area and watched the passing ships from the comfort of nicely-padded lounge chairs. Here's the Pacific Princess--a sister ship to ours (but considerably smaller)--passing us in the opposite direction. This called for much horn-honking. The woman sitting next to me--with bare feet and an expensive pedicure--was playing games on her iPad.
This huge ship was passing through the canal in the lane next to us. It's a car carrier--known as a roro in the nautical world. The loading process involves lots of rolling on and rolling off.
Here's a good view of a lock gate and the different water levels. This picture was taken from the stern looking behind our ship. We were moving out of the lock after the water level has been raised.
Here's a whole herd of mules--small locomotives that help guide the ships. Each one holds two ropes that are attached to the sides of the ship. There were 4 mules on each side of ours. The ropes are held taut to keep the ship from hitting the sides of the canal. There is, at most, a foot to spare. In spite of modern technology, the ropes are secured as they've been for almost 100 years--with the help of 2 men in a rowboat.
This is the end of the canal on the Atlantic Ocean side. The canal operates day and night, 7 days a week. After dark, the arrow is lighted to alert approaching ships to pass on either the right or the left.
After leaving the canal (the 48-mile distance takes about 8 hours) we had a rough night of sailing to Cartagena, Colombia--the only rough seas of the trip--but fortunately it was during the night. Neither of us fell out of bed. Our 4-course dinner most likely provided extra ballast.
Our final stop was Aruba. There's lots of good shopping there if you're into jewelry and gemstones, but we aren't. We usually just stop in for a local beer and hobnob with the friendly critters--which were in plentiful supply.
So now we're back to real life.....and counting our blessings that we weren't on that other ship. I can't even imagine....
We got a little snow.
I'm not sure how much, but a good guess would be about 14" The wind was whipping and the snow was drifting, so it's hard to tell for sure.
The crews have done a good job clearing it from the roads and driveways, although yesterday was proclaimed a no-drive day until late afternoon. Fortunately, we did not lose power. So, all-in-all, not a difficult storm for us to deal with. Others in our state were not so lucky.
The frog-o-meter didn't turn out to be a good measuring device. Within a few hours he was covered to his eyeballs.
I gave up on the idea when I couldn't find a hippo, and Mr. Gadget wouldn't let me snoop through his office or his tool room. Luckily, there was the Weather Channel to keep us informed. That Jim Cantore.....he's a real trooper, isn't he?
So I was going to give you a trip report, but Mr. Gadget has not downloaded his pictures yet, and I'm sure he has some that are much better than the pathetic bunch I took. I'll do a little nagging.
Meanwhile, I'm planning to go into witch production soon. Someone who attended the October hotel show contacted me to see if I had more in my inventory....that he had gone back to buy a couple only to find they had been snatched up. I sent him a nice response and told him that inventory is not a word in my vocabulary....I mean, that I didn't have any currently available, but that I would be willing to make a couple when I returned from my travels.
It's nice to be back in the Treehouse and I'm anxious to start a new project. I'm just not sure where my witchy fabric is. I'm going to have to do a little digging. I hope I don't have to go any deeper than the Neolithic Era.
Mr. Gadget and I are back at the Concondo and awaiting the blizzard of potentially epic proportions. What were we thinking? We should have just stayed on the boat.
Just a week ago we were sweating in 90-degree heat in Cartagena (even though we look cool as cucumbers....trust me, I only had one thing on my mind and that was going into an air-conditioned shop). Which I did, and where I bought a cute little purse.
I owe you all an apology. I had planned to blog during the cruise, and after I published my first post I checked with a very reliable source--Big City Girl--who informed me there was nothing new on the blog since the silly cartoon--which I didn't draw by the way. I "borrowed" it. Sometimes you have to do that when you find something that is so much better than you could have ever done yourself.
I'll be blogging more regularly now, since I'm back and have nothing to do except laundry and grocery shopping, and maybe a little dusting. I'll write more about the trip in my next post. Right now I have to worry about the snow, and finish the pot of stew I've got simmering. It's possible we'll lose power, and then I won't be back for a day or two....or five. Don't worry about us. We'll have stew.....and a little Chex Mix.
I've set up a frog-o-meter out on the back deck to measure the snow.
When it gets up to his eyeballs we will have had about 3-1/2". I'm going to have to put him on something higher very soon I think. If I only had a hippopotamus.
