Blown a Gasket!

I haven't been blogging for a while due to not feeling too well lately, plus I've been busy typing, formatting and printing our church newsletter again, for a bi-monthly it seems to come round rather quickly; and I'm counting my last Air Ambulance cans, two more batches and I'm done, permanently, we decided it was getting to be too much as we cover a very large area, so we are retiring as voluntary collectors.

Last week was quite stressful, the car was playing up, we'd blown a gasket, no we hadn't, Oh yes we had! Two days ago, in a cloud of steam, we crawled into our local friendly garage and they confirmed it, a crack in the head gasket was spewing water. Today we managed to drive it the 8 miles into our local wreckers yard, poor thing wasn't worth saving, not at approximately a £700.00 cost to fit a new gasket. I remember back in the 60's I actually cut out a gasket from a sheet of cork for a vehicle we had then, things have become so complicated and expensive. If it wasn't for Veterinary bills I'd be tempted to go back to a horse and buggy! (With a bucket and shovel on board for the Rose fertiliser!) So for the time being we are without transport. We caught the bus back to the next village to ours, (we don't have a a decent bus service to our village) and started walking, fortunately halfway home a neighbour drove up and gave us a lift the rest of the way, as Bill Cosby might say, "It's up hill both ways." Sounds crazy but it's true.

This week I started knitting Deluxe Chux Tux for my friend Margaret, she lives in the village with the bus service! She has just aquired 4 rescued chuks, one isn't too badly off for feathers, two are partially clad and one is practically bald, poor things were classified as 'Free Range' in spite of the fact they only got to see the inside of a barn with thousands of other chuks. They arrived home yesterday and this morning Margaret found three eggs waiting for her, they were busily exploring their new domain this afternoon and scratching around the apple trees, they sounded happy.

I've also started knitting a pair of Raspberry Bedsocks, (Ravelry Database) but I will be using them as slippers when we go down for an overnight trip to London later this month. Got to travel light, that will be a major accomplishment for me! I'm knitting the small size in Aran instead of DK yarn, and on 4.5mm and 5mm needles instead of 3.25mm and 3.50mm needles as the pattern doesn't have my size listed. (And no, I am not Big Foot!) They seem to be working out OK so far.