It's That Time of Year

Yes, that time when we cast aside the bonds of employment and take off for one of our marathon travel-and-sightseeing experiences.  This year, we went back to the UK to see sights in the north of England and Scotland.  A fantastic trip, I'll be putting up trip reports as soon as we finish captioning photos.

While we weren't nearly as aggressive about it, we did try to do some preparatory walking to get ready for the trip.  The weekend before we left we spent a lovely afternoon walking on Plum Island.

I also in a fit of ambition cut out a pair of cropped pants that I wanted to take on the trip.  Unfortunately that that was as far as I got with the project.   Despite receiving extremely enthusiastic assistance.

Fortunately Cookie and Jake are a lot more laid back about sewing.  If by laid back, you understand that they find it a complete snoozefest.

Of course the most important bit of packing was the yarn.  The cranberry Nutkin socks did not go.  Even if I hadn't just had to rip out the heel of the second sock and reknit it due to having entirely failed to align the heel with the pattern in a way that matched the first sock- I really didn't want to bring a project that was three-quarters done.  In all our previous trips, I had never before finished a pair of socks.  So I resisted the urge to bring way too much yarn and packed a single skein of sock yarn.

Of course, this would be the trip where I actually did finish a pair of socks.

However this meant I had the perfect excuse to get souvenir yarn.  I found a couple of skeins of lovely yarn at a charming yarn shop in Glasgow, Queen of Purls.  I was extremely tempted by some gorgeous Scottish yarn, but I would have wanted to make a sweater and with all the sweaters queued up (and the lack of space in my backpack), I restricted myself to sock yarn, so I could cast on another small project.

And while I'm posting FO pictures, here is the little pair of mittens I made before I left, because I desperately needed to finish something.

Next up- the intrepid travelers set out for Peterborough via London.

Sisyphean

While sisyphean is a good description for my rolling to-do list in general, yard work is the part that feels endless to me.  The darned weeds just keep on growing and all I need is a couple of weekends booked with social events, a little rain, and the whole thing careens wildly out of control.    The worst offenders are the vines.  They pop up everywhere.  And some of the folks in my area just chuck them down the gully behind our houses where they take root again and send insidious tendrils back into my yard.  I swear, they're out to get me.

So, after surveying the situation earlier in the week (house about to be submerged in tidal wave of evil green tentacles),  I selected one section of the yard to focus on last weekend.  Here's the before.

And after hours of ripping up vines, dripping sweat, raking the debris from last winter, and then mowing what was left...it could still use some more vine suppression around the edges, but it's a lot better.

That drives back the vines closest to the house.  I've got two more areas of the yard to tackle.  And then my sawzall and I have to go after the weeds that have gotten too big to just rip out.

In the front, by happy contrast, things are humming right along.   Irises and blue flags are glorious. I put them in 12 years ago, and they have thrived under my policy of benign neglect.

The rhododendrons are blooming contentedly.

The side flower garden was in-between for a couple of  weeks- the violets and lilies of the valley gone by, nothing else really blooming.  But the first Siberian iris opened its petals on Sunday, swiftly followed by more, and the lupines are blooming.

And I had been feeling silly about trying nasturtiums again (after nothing sprouted when I planted them last year).   But this year, they have responded beautifully, and I've got seedlings throughout the bed... with any luck they'll be ready to bloom by the time the Siberian irises and lupines have gone by.   I'd feel quite smug about having flowers staged to bloom throughout the summer if it wasn't that it was a complete accident- all I was doing was trying to find something that will survive in this darned space!

Inside is a bit of a wreck what with all the focus on the outdoors, but at least Biscuit is keeping an eye on the laundry for me.  Behind the socks is his favorite place to hide.  No one sees you behind the socks!

On the knitting front, same old.  I'm on to the second Nutkin sock, I've knit more stockinette vest.  And I've cast on more mittens, because - really?  Two weeks plus and no FOs?  It's embarrassing!

Lightyears Beyond Parcheesi

As I think I mentioned, we had a board games part Memorial Day weekend.  (Actually a weekend-long board-game marathon.)   When I talk to someone about our board game parties, I often get a puzzled look and the question, 'like Monopoly or Scrabble?'.   Well- I'm not one to dis Scrabble, which I love, but there are a lot of other great games out there.  Settlers of Cataan and Carcassonne (the basic version) are great games for families, and people new to board gaming.

There are a bunch of strategy games in the 90 minute plus-or-minus range, with varying degrees of complexity.  You can farm in the 1600s in Agricola, colonize Puerto Rico,  build the German postal service in Thurn and Taxis, or try to dominate the electric market in Power Grid.   But when my parents stopped by to say hello last weekend, this was what was on the table:

It's a game called Eclipse, wherein you explore strange new worlds, plant colonies and have space battles. Explore star systems, research technologies, outfit your space fleet, fight aliens (not to mention the other players) and try to dominate the galaxy.  And if you're me, knit a sock while waiting for the other players to decide on their strategy.  Kind of hard core.

The look on my parents' face was a bit non-plussed- I think there's a difference between hearing about our penchant for 'board games' and seeing for yourself the depths of your child's geekitude.

 (Thanks to our friend Bill for the game photo. If you're curious, I was soundly drubbed in this game, after our friend Vi cruelly and maliciously blew up my whole space fleet *and* my starbases, nuked my colonies and then stole my planets for her own star empire.  Not that I'm bitter. :) But I got my revenge later in a different game.)