A day then to catch up with stuff:
....programme the new cordless phones for example. How come I was suddenly the only person left in the room when this job came up for grabs? It's a horrid, fiddly task which I force myself to do conscientiously - knowing that I will only curse sometime down the line when a number is incorrect. I am not very good at checking and my 'number blindness' is not helped by a particularly bad numeric display and the phone I am using as reference switching itself off in between keying in numbers. It takes a little under 2 hours.
...buy the Glam. Ass. some train tickets. We (I) tried this yesterday online. I learned a lot about buying railway tickets yesterday. It could be my specialist subject. Online was, for whatever reason, inaccessible so we (I) took the telephone route. There will be, providing we can intercept the postie - who is loathe to come either up or down the lane - plenty of time to get tickets posted to us. Firstly we (I) have to overcome the first obstacle - interrogation by voice recognition. This is actually pretty impressive and the robot which poses the questions I imagine to be a pretty cool dude. Pretty cool dude though gets pretty confused when Wilson barks and is unable to interpret woofs as answers. I give up and try again. And again. It appears when I eventually get to talk to a person and go over my details again that all bookings are outsourced to India. The unfailing courteous ticket-wallahs tell me it will not be possible to get tickets posted to me in time....all of this takes a little under 2 hours. I wail and lose the will to live. Later I log on to the Wrexham - Shropshire - Marylebone Railway's website. This is surely the nicest of all possible train routes; it stops in Shrewsbury and its online service exemplary . I buy a ticket on line - I print it out and all my passenger will have to do is turn up with this sheet of A4 paper. Job done. 5 mins. Brill.
...I pick up the nasty knitting. I have at last got together 2 fronts, 1 back and two sleeves. Before I knit the waist band and ties - it is a sort of wrap/cardigan - I must sew it together. This is a job which has been on the go for a couple of years. I just don't love it but I'm damned if it's going to beat me now. The yarn looked so beguiling in the wool shop window; as did the finished garment artfully draped to tempt would-be knitters. I was hooked. I think it took casting on for me to suspect that I wasn't going to enjoy knitting it up - it's been a bugger. Slippery, slithery on the needles, unyielding, prone to catching on rough fingers - can't find a good point. Curiously after sewing it together it does have a little more substance and perhaps, just perhaps, it and I have a future...and right now, running between ceiling and floor above my head is a mouse. Not good. Maybe not nasty, but not good.
11 comments:
Well I admire your fortitude but must admit knitting looks suspiciously like medieval chainmail form here! Bon Courage!
I bought a ball of that wool to try, put hastily decided it was more suited to tarting up cards and presents than knitting. Well done though for persevering.
That was a very cheering catalogue of misery, and I enjoyed it very much! So much to identify with in there... Vile weather - check. Almost no sleep because of howling gale/lashing rain. Programming phones - check. Mine needs to have its wayward date/time thingy altered every single day, until you stop caring exactly when the message came in. Buying anything over the phone or through an Indian call centre - even if successful, the super-politeness is a bit daunting - check. Robot/voice recognition terror - check.
Nasty knitting looks amazing, and rather terrifying - I had to click/enlarge to see what it was. Hope you are going to model it for us when done?
WV is digni. Indignant but dignified, that's me.
Some wool is not meant to be knitted .... but your perseverance is exemplary .
What with that and the phone you deserve a medal , not a mouse .
The word verif is DOMICAT and I was just going to offer you one to catch that mouse ..........
I'm impressed at how you did press on to get all those projects/tasks taken care of. (I also have had trouble with voice recognition phone systems ... don't think they can cope when I let my southern accent take over the numbers, like five or nine, that have the vowel i. This always seems to summon up a liiive person at the other end of the call.)
Do post a picture of the knitted top when you've got it all together. I can see why you wanted to try that yarn, and why it was tricky to work with.
xo
Kniting must be in the air! I haven't knitted for about 20 years and find myself with circular needles and a pattern for a hat and a curious urge to have a go. I can see why your wool looked tempting and I am v impressed by your stickability!
Not sure I understand why you singular are buying the tickets for him, glamorous though he is? Hope he realises how fortunate he is.
I've been using the Wrexham & Shropshire trains down to Marylebone for the past 12 months or so and it is such a fresh air compared to the other services from Shrewsbury to London... No changing trains and there's a food carriage etc. And, so far, they're usually on time!
Reminds me of the apocryphal story of the traveller from South Wales who tries to buy a rail ticket to Delhi and finds it of course impossible, on or off line. But when he enquires at the Delhi booking office (thinking that they will never have heard of South Wales let alone his village of Cwm Tyrch) he is asked 'yes sir, Upper Cwm Tyrch or Lower Cwm Tyrch!
The Marylebone Line seems to have a good reputation.
Don't get me started on trains - we used to have a great system, but now it's just a tourist thing and tickets are only available at a travel agent, not at the station. Crazy.
The sweater looks interesting - can we see a photo of the finished product?.....and re the mouse, chin up, - it means you don't have rats!
if you'd knit sleeves for my past projects I'd sew yours together. I just can't stand the increasing or decreasing and then the sleeves are supposed to match! I preferred knitting in the '80s when things were just boxy!
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