Express Lane Socks and Saturday Roast

D - I finally managed to make a picture of the Express Lane Socks I knitted for M (lovely pattern! I just had to make the socks slightly shorter as I was knitting with leftovers from my previous project: Dream in Colour, Smooshy, Colourway: Beach Fog).

When I woke up at 7.30am this morning, the beautiful awareness trickled into my conscience, that it was SATURDAY! The day to turn over in bed and sleep or doze another hour or so... no squeezing into the tube (London Underground) or fighting your way through masses of city dwellers on their way to work, to make it to work just in time (as the London Underground train had to park in the tunnel once again and took 30 minutes for a supposed 10 minute journey...)

So I turned over in bed and enjoyed the sun that tentatively shone its way through the clouds and into my window. K could unfortunately not make it to our weekly mosaique meeting and rehearsal today, so M and I had a nice long breakfast, knitted a few rows and listned to Ella Fitzgerald (Ella Swings Lightly). Such a lovely chilled and cozy morning.

A little later, we got this ready (here it is just going into the oven):


Oh so yummy pork roast on a bed of roast potatoes, tomatoes and onions.... mmmmh...
A, who is studying in the UK for a year (or more..), came by for lunch and we had a lovely - and, lets face it, fattening - meal and nice chat. In a couple of weeks' time M and I will be staying with her parents in Salem, OR :-) I can hardly wait - Seattle, Portland, Salem, Bend, Cannon Beach, Crater Lake.... here we come!!

Until then I shall knit a little faster to be able to finish my gifts for our lovely OR hosts, and I might add a couple of items to my USA shopping wish list...

Paris for the day

Finally we did it! We went to Paris, just for the day so don't get too jealous here. It was a fantastic day, though. Right from the - very early - start to the - late - end of it. We managed to meet up with our good friend (and former house mate) H who had finished playing for a masterclass and stayed on for half a day to see us.

After the 4am start and journey on the Eurostar from London to Paris, our (second) start of the day was a breakfast at the riverbank of the Seine, then (after some walking around) lunch at my favourite restaurant - my family has been going to this place since 1978. We spent some time around Sacre Coeur which as you can see in the mosaic (below) involved some knitting and buying very cool materials for sewing (pictures to come soon). A coffee stop on the roof terrace of the Printemps gave us enough time to recover (see picture above - took some time to merge my 5 photos in Photoshop!) and a quick jump to the Champs Elysées finished our trip.
Sunday we were barely able to move! But G's tried out the sewing machine and finished her felted bag adding a lining and a shoulder strap. More sewing is planned for the weekend as well as my final sprint for the Olympic Sock - 35% still to knit - that should be manageable if no disaster strikes. G has finished hers, so she's allowed the sewing and taking pictures of the FOs.

Madness - and gratefulness

Is it ever going to be summer this year? This morning the sky was bright and blue and enthusiastically I was wearing a skirt to meet our friend HC for breakfast before she starts her estival activities in the UK this year coaching in Glyndebourne. G, HC and I used to share a house for a while and I really miss her and our crazy Monday morning conversations about the meaning of life. But coming back to the summer outfit, by the time we went home at about 1pm my legs had a nice blue-ish colour and for the rest of the day I abandoned the idea of summer clothes.

I'll leave the story with the 'cat Nazi' and the slight madness that followed to G for another post. In any case, instead of visiting the cat we went to Ikea last weekend and bought lots of stuff and an assortment of boxes and shelves to organise all our things: music, CDs, DVDs, books and - yarn!

With order re-established, I virtually didn't leave the room in days in order to finish our press pack for our Body&Voice - Voice unlimited Project! From about 20 hours of material (concerts, workshops etc) we created a short video about our ensemble - only 2 minutes long and not too bad for someone who's not a technician in the first place. Eventually we'll put it on our YouTube site, so you can see for yourselves.
I'm so proud of our Body&Voice Project. A project that unites singing and body works with a team of experienced singers and practitioners; oh, just go over to our Body&Voice website where G just put the English site in place.
I had this idea for years, but only last year I found a team of practitioners who believed in the project. We received the most amazing feedback in our workshops last year. In about a day our amateur singers (who generally only sung in the shower) not only learned a couple of opera choruses (some in two parts) but happily performed them at the end in a mini staged version - and last but not least had loads of fun.
As an interesting side effect, our practitioners loved the singing so much that they joined in the singing classes like it would be the most natural thing to do and one of the participants has now joined a choral society. We usually get a lot of comments from people who think they are 'not cool enough' or 'not good enough' to join a singing workshop. Excuse me, but if you love to sing then you are definitely cool and good enough to do it (I'm not saying you will become an instant professional).
Who knows - you might find that you're actually much cooler or better than you think you are - and let me tell you the surroundings of the abbey where we will be doing the course this September are spectacular. So grab your favourite partner and/or friend and go to Germany for a weekend. There is loads to discover!

And it's our turn

Diane has tagged us for a bit of Meme. Well let's have it then.

Rules:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. Ten years ago

Tournesol: Ten years ago I took my first steps back into life after being struck by CFIDS 12 years ago (I didn't know it was CFIDS at that time tough), I went on holiday to Paris with my friend A (something we promised ourselves we would do if we ever recovered from our respective illnesses - and yes, it was a very dark winter night when we made the promise, and we tried to be up-beat by thinking we'd make it through this!), I was busy living my 'second life', started on the auditions/competitions circuit again, looked for a new singing teacher (only would find him a year later), made one CD recording of a Mozart Mass and worked as a singing teacher for a school choir.

Tigerduck: I had just moved to Tampa, FL working with a Christian ministry (helping churches locally, going into Juvenile Detention Centres working with the young people there, sending Polynesian dance teams all over the place, and many more things). I also went to Australia (near Brisbane) for 3 months - hmm lots of things come to mind, but the years already start to blur a bit. I was only 23 then!


2. Five things on today's "to do" list (in no particular order)

Tournesol:
* eat lunch
* doing some admin work for our singing ensemble
* have a look if I can fix the external hard drive
* do my laundry
* go over that list of music for three voices and see if I can track down the sheet music

Tigerduck
*get up at 6.30am and don't fall asleep again
*find the right clothes to wear to work and don't curse too loudly when my hair does what it wants (clearly against my will and the higher powers of blow drier and hair straightener)
*stay calm at work and get as much done as quickly as possible while enjoying myself as well
*buy some yarn to knit baby garments (cotton and RYC CashSoftDK)
*watch House

3. Snacks I enjoy

Tournesol: Difficult, depending on the time of day chocolate (the sugar free version), carrot sticks with houmous, muesli bar (I recently discovered a sugar free version at home), and lately rice cakes with Amaranth and Apfelschmaus, salty black licorice (sugar free)

Tigerduck: Chocolate (sugar free = headache free!), crisps with guacamole, carrot sticks (!!) with Humous, cherry tomatoes, Lärabars (esp. lemon!), Salzstangen, salty black licorice (again of the sugar free variety - has to be)


4. Things I would do if I would be a billionaire

Tournesol: Buy flats in London and Paris (and probably somewhere else too but I can't think about it now), send my parents on that holiday they dream of, do the same for my sister, do a lot of charity with kids and music (and not be worried about being paid for a change), give to research, enjoy life without the pressure of money - wow that sounds good!

Tigerduck:Yes. Me too - although I don't really think my parents would actually enjoy going away all that much (they just got a dog in February) - but there is always time for that. There are so many fantastic things to do and to give to, projects that allow people to build up a living and have hope in their communities. The possibilities are endless.


5. Places I have lived

Tournesol: Really lived in (like in stayed for more than 3 month), Hamm (Westfalen), Dortmund, Münster, Paris and London

Tigerduck:Hamburg (Germany), a ship (while in Dakar - Senegal, Lome - Togo, St. Vincent - Caribbean, Jacksonville, FL, Wilminton, NC and Norfolk, Virginia - USA, France), Salem, OR (USA), Tampa, FL (USA), Budapest (Hungary), Rostov-on-Don (Russia), Klaipeda (Lithuania), Carbrook (near Brisbane, Australia), Big Island of Hawaii, London (UK).... hmm might be a few more - point is I have moved around a bit.


People I want to know more about
This is tricky.... Ali, Daisy, Rachel, Laurie, Eusebius,

A little trip to Amsterdam

Two weeks of wonderful sunshine here in London, and then a trip with work colleagues to Amsterdam.... pouring rain!! However, it cleared towards the middle of the day, and it turned out to be a great time on a boat, going through the Amsterdam canals.

Although I have been to Amsterdam many times before, I had never had the opportunity to see some of the little hidden courtyards - originally mostly built out of charity by organisations or individuals - that can be found in the centre of the city. Here is a picture taken in such a courtyard.

It was a bit too late for shopping by the time we came off the boat, but I just had to take a picture of this cheese store.... Really makes me want to go back some time soon (sigh). Besides... there must be some nice little yarn and crafts stores just waiting to be explored.