My house is full of spiders

The fact that I am eating my dinner outside is all about the weather... Definitely nothing to do with the giant spider in the sitting room.

Joking aside, the weather is amazing for September in the UK.
I can get used to dining alfresco in Autumn.

The Sunday roast

Superold photo

Today has been very lazy. This morning it was too cold and miserable and rainy to go out.
So instead I watched sections of the pride and prejudice movie and played along with the songs on my violin, whilst huddled in my monkey onesy.

At about midday, Jenni and Therese got up and went out in search of breakfast and I was shamed into getting dressed.

I spent most of the afternoon tidying. I put my shorts into storage and pulled out the knitwear as I have accepted that summer is over.
I sorted the drawers and cleaned my dressing table.
I found a photo of me from college, I'm not more than 17. I can't believe it's survived this long. I definitely have more wrinkles now!

We went to PC world to do some research. On the way we thought we found Studmuffin. But we didn't. It was studmuffin's dad! He's really friendly and truly ancient at more than 15 years old. You can see the family resemblance though!

Traff made us all a Sunday dinner. So that's a good end to a lazy day.

Swindon open studios

Swindon Open Studios is an annual community exhibition during which artists invite members of the public into their studios and homes for a chance to see where and how their art is made during two weekends each September with a chance to buy original pieces of art.

Jenni, Therese, Tracey and I braved the sideways rain and gale force winds and walked to studios until our feet were entirely soaked.

Definitely worth getting rained on. 😁

The internet just keeps delivering

I found this on my commute home today.
It's brilliant.
You're welcome.

London

Today I was helping to bring a workshop at the ATI, which is inside the British library.

I got my train to London with Jenni, as she's currently commuting to Wokingham via Reading. Then I traveled on the London.
The tube was crazy so I had a coffee and breakfast in little Venice before attempting it. I had intended to eat on the train but the queue was up the stairs. It was very squashy.

It was a good workshop and a nice day despite getting rained on. (Although the tail end of this crazy storm was an excuse to wear my Gozo jumper). I definitely couldn't work in London. It's waayyy too busy!

New book

Ok, so you know how everyone has a crush on someone totally inappropriate?
My guilty geek crush is Neil Oliver, who presents coast.
I think I just like a man with an accent.

Anyway, my family think that this is hilarious and so as a holiday present my Mum has presented me with a new book to read.
So far, it's a worthwhile read 

Walking to the gym

It's starting to get dark really early! Autumn is upon us!

Good advice

Productive Sunday

Today has been unusually productive. Usually I consider Sundays to be my very literally day of leisure so I laze around on different surfaces emulating the cat.

I got up early because Marley was fussing, and I thought one of us deserved a lie in...
I read the news and the post secrets and had drank my tea. It was really nice.

Tracey and I went to the gym. I ran 4k today in 34 minutes. Which is my best time for that distance yet!

After running, Tracey, Jenni and I made sushi ready for next week's lunches. We're becoming those young people who do exercises and meal prep!

Then a spent my afternoon doing laundry and reading a book about influential female artists.

Back to Healthy September... Sort of..

We went back to Saturday swimming!
And then we went back to the Italian deli for Arancini and pastries too...

Ah well, we tried.. 😂

This is why I can't have nice things...

So, when we were on Gozo, I bought some traditional knitwear.
I bought Jenni a jumper for looking after Marles, I also bought myself and Ray a jumper each.
They're beautifully created by an army of Nannas.

Jenni was really pleased with hers and Ray looks like she will manage not to tumble dry hers so that it will only fit the cat.
I however, managed to rip a hole in mine with my watch as soon as I put it on.

So I've spent my evening watching anime and using my embroidery silk to repair the damage.
You can't see the hole any more, so I'm very pleased with my invisible stitches!

Holiday injury

This is my epic car bumper bruise!
It's huge!

I was wearing a sundress with my ugly modesty shorts underneath which was lucky as they took the brunt of the scratches so at least my leg is only bruised, not cut.

Malta day 6

Traveling home day 😂

Malta day 5

Today we went to Gozo by ferry boat. Traff hadn't ever driven into a ferry before, this caused some confusion.
But after 3 goes around the port we finally managed to get in a lane to board.

I managed to injure my leg on the ferry, I caught my leg on the hanging off bumper of a parked car.
The bruise is really developing interestingly. So many colours.

We drove around Gozo and stopped off at a few smaller towns and a shrine before heading to see fungus rock and what would have been the Azure window.
We ended up swimming in the harbour pool that adjoins the blue lagoon. It was pretty awesome to be honest.

Then we went to Victoria/Rabat and I was rewarded with traditional knitwear! I kept reading that Gozo was famous for knitwear but only found a few rubbish jumpers in a craft village. We found a really tiny shop in the square in Victoria/Rabat which has an army of Nannas knitting traditional jumpers. Each one takes over a week.
I bought myself one, and one for Ray as a holiday present and one for Jenni to thank her for looking after Marles (who's been a bit difficult, so she earned her fancy, handspun, handmade, cotton, wool and silk yarn jumper).

We drove back and cashed in our free hotel dinner voucher. It was a farce, the old guy on the table behind us wouldn't stop farting really loudly but didn't seem to be able to hear it!
It was so bad!

Malta day 4

Today has been a lazy day. We slept in late after our swimming and walking day yesterday, and had a swim in the pool before heading out to Hagar Quim, which is the oldest neolithic temple in the world.
It's really impressive and the views are stunning.

Then we went to Marsaxlokk which has been my favourite town so far. We had pizza with Maltese sheep cheese for lunch and had a look around the town.

The drive back was terrifying. Avoid driving in Malta between 4 and 5.30pm if you want to live.

After that we had a relaxing swim and a gelato adventure. 😁
I sent my postcards too!!