Tag: KAL

Posted on by — Leave a comment

I Feel Good!

We got home from Bath this afternoon, after a few days there to celebrate my turning 50. It’s where I went for my 40th and I had such a good time (coupled with the fact that two of my old school friends lived there at the time, and one of them still does), that I wanted to go back!

Different things were done during this visit from the previous one. I had hoped to visit the Fashion Museum, but had somehow missed the fact that the Assembly Rooms, in whose basement the museum was housed, has been taken over by the National Trust and is being restored. All the clothes went into storage last December before they move to a new home! However, as part of our 12.6km walk yesterday (!), we happened across a small textile exhibition taking place in a building on Queen’s Square and enjoyed visiting that instead.

I remember visiting Wool 10 years ago. We went there again and this time we also visited A Yarn Story, at the top of Walcot Street.

Also on Walcot Street was The Yellow Shop, outside which I did my ‘lego princess’ impression.

It was a long walk between the two wool shops, but definitely worth the effort. And of course, I bagged some goodies in both shops!

1 ball of Zauberball from Wool

My old school friend who lives in Bath plays violin in the Pump Room Trio. She very kindly booked us in for Afternoon Tea (thank you Lucy!), and we got to enjoy the splendour of the Pump Room and an extraordinary vegan afternoon tea, all whilst the piano trio (piano, violin and cello – not as I once thought, three pianos) played beautiful music. There was a massive range of styles – elegant classical era pieces, the theme tune from Desert Island discs, a lovely piece of Fauré, ‘Maria’ from West Side Story, Mad World, and a rendition of Happy Birthday as two extra mini cakes were brought out – one for me and one for the other person celebrating their birthday during that sitting. We should have photographed the full spread, but we were so busy in the moment that we forgot, so I just snapped the extra (also vegan) cake:

I have to say that with spending lots of quality time with my lovely wife since Friday, our trip away to Bath (we stayed at Dorian House, which I highly recommend) and all the wonderful messages from everyone on social media, I am thoroughly enjoying being fifty. I feel good! Ronnie says he feels good too – but I’m not quite up to his level of acrobatics. This shot was taken in front of the Royal Crescent:

You may have seen that I have finished Part One of Barragán Shawl – the Knitalong being published in The Knitter.

You can still get the yarn kit as a subscription gift with the mag or order one from McIntosh (that’s an affiliate link) if you’d like to! Now, of course I do have the whole pattern already, but as I’m ‘knitting along’ I’m not going to start Part Two until the next issue of the magazine (issue 195) comes out. That should be around November 1st I think.

I’ve also been doing more sock knitting, finally returning to the sock I began for Sue a while back on the tiny tiny circular needle. I’ve decided that it’s not the best needle type for me after all, and having switched to magic loop (which I mentioned a few weeks ago) I’m now making much better progress. During the drive home I even got to the heel flap! I can’t remember what the yarn is – I bought it eons ago on eBay. I can tell you that I’m using 2mm needles, 80 sts and my usual plain top down style with a reinforced slip stitch heel.

The other knitting you might be interested in seeing this week is the progress I’ve made on the adult version of Honeybun. I’ve extended the colour work section at the bottom, so that proportionally it fills a similar amount of the body to the child’s cardigan, and I’m now heading up to the armpits. I will need another name for this pattern as it will be published separately from the original Honeybun for children, but I need them to be clearly linked by their names. Have you got any ideas? Suggestions in the comments, please!

Finally, there are still spaces available on Twisted, the two-part workshop being held at Yarn O’clock on November 2nd and 16th. Come and learn how to knit two-colour brioche in a moebius ring! £50 for the two sessions (6.30-9pm both Thursdays), including yarn to knit this cowl and the pattern which includes a larger version as well – book your place with Anne at Yarn O’clock – 01352 – 218082.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Friendship

We have a couple of dear friends who we see about once a year. We meet up in a different place each year, stay overnight somewhere, eat out, explore the local area and generally have a great time. A couple of years ago we went to Lichfield – which led to the cardigan of the same name! Even though we don’t see each other very often, it never feels as though a year has passed since the last time.

(Speaking of Lichfield the cardigan, I was right about the sleeve cap length after all: the added rows didn’t work once I seamed the pieces together. There were other errors that had crept in to the pattern during the editing process too, so if you are knitting Lichfield, please check out the errata page!)

Last weekend we met up with our friends in Leek. None of us had been there before and we didn’t know it was the same weekend as the Leek Blues and Americana Festival, so the town was pretty full. It was nice to hear live music coming from lots of venues while we were there. We stayed at The Fountain Inn, which had a really cosy and friendly atmosphere, and the room was very well appointed. Before we went out to dinner at The Napoli (awesome vegan options!), we had drinks in the snug and I was able to just nip upstairs to grab my knitting! I find I’m able to follow conversations and relax more when I have my knitting in hand.

The photo I took was of an almost completed first sleeve of my Umbriel.

That sleeve is now done and the second sleeve is well on the way, with the short row sleeve cap nearly completed.

Whilst in Leek we had a good mooch around the shops. Naturally I found the yarn shop, Love My Socks, which is also called Moorlands Wool and Crafts. I had a lovely chat with Amanda, the lady who owns the shop, while I was buying a gorgeous skein of &KnitCo sock yarn, and it turned out that we’d met and nattered at the Buxton Wool Gathering in May!

I popped back on Sunday and got a few more little treats as well: a Chiaogoo 2mm 80cm circular needle (I’m embracing Magic Loop for socks), an Emma Ball tin for my larger stitch markers and a little tin of stitch holder cables from Ducky Darlings.

These are the same type of cords I got from All Wool That Ends Wool and I’m very pleased to say they all fit in the same tin!

Sue (my lovely wife) has quite a collection of googly eyes and every now and then they come out to play – she got some cracking shots on Saturday evening.

My version was a little more sedate, but the pizza box looks quite happy!

This was another brilliant feature of The Napoli – although our sharing starter was so huge (and delicious) that we couldn’t finish our pizzas, they were very happy to box up the rest for us to take away.

All in all we had a fabulous trip to Leek, despite the weather – it rained most of the time. We also very much enjoyed the craft/flea market in the town on Sunday morning.

This morning I got my new lenses fitted into my glasses frame. I can see brilliantly at distance (trees have leaves even when they’re far off – who knew?!?) and close up reading again, but you should see me at the moment; I keep shifting position trying to get the right distance between me and the laptop screen for optimum focus whilst experimenting with which part of the lenses to look through! The joy of varifocal lenses – I will work it out fairly soon, I’m sure.

As promised, my Bodelwyddan sock pattern was released on October 1st (after we got back from Leek!) and 50% of all sales throughout October will be going to Treasure Chest YGC. If you are a sock knitter or know someone who is, please consider buying this pattern and helping to support a great cause. Truly Hooked also has a wonderful colour way that she’s dyed especially for Treasure Chest and 50% of proceeds from that will also be donated. So you could knit Bodelwyddan using the Treasure Chest sock colour way and even store them in the limited edition project bag made by The Woolly Tangle! £10 from the sale of each of these bags will be going to Treasure Chest YGC during October. And they’re sweater sized project bags too.

I am very excited about Barragán Shawl Knitalong beginning in The Knitter. The shawl is going on some adventures this evening that I should be able to tell you all about next week!

Issue 194 is out tomorrow containing Part One of the pattern! I have wound my yarn and am ready to cast on with everyone. The 150g skeins are huge when wound – and they actually weigh about 160g. You even get a woven fabric label if you get a McIntosh yarn kit.

Remember you can still sign up to subscribe to The Knitter and get the yarn kit as a free gift (although there are limited quantities of the yarn for the subscription offer, so check carefully! Your first issue would be Issue 195, so you’d still need to buy Issue 194).If you don’t want to subscribe to the mag (or already do), but really like this yarn – and who wouldn’t as it’s hand-dyed 100% British Bluefaced Leicester – you can buy a yarn kit direct from James McIntosh.

I’m going to leave you with this little teaser.

It’s called Twisted and it’s a brioche moebius cowl. There is a two-part workshop next month (2nd and 16th November) at Yarn O’clock where you can learn how to knit it! I’ll tell you more next week.

Until then, take care and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Harvest Time

The past week has been so busy, and my intention of picking raspberries every couple of days has gone slightly sideways. The high winds today have done some other harvesting for us and there are quite a few windfalls on the grass waiting to be picked up tomorrow. The last two tomatoes are ripening on the kitchen window sill – they are tigerella tomatoes and their stripes are emerging nicely as they change colour.

Various projects I have been working on have also come to fruition and are ready to harvest this week! Partly as a result of these I have been updating my homepage of the website and I have to say I’m pleased with how it’s looking.

You may have seen on my newsletter or social media posts that I have something very exciting happening with The Knitter. Barragán Shawl is The Knitter’s Autumn 2023 knit-along, designed by me in McIntosh’s BFL (Bluefaced Leicester) yarn. It’s a gorgeous British wool and the colours I chose, MY Serenity and MY Joy, are stunning.

The shawl is called Barragán, named after the Mexican architect, Louis Barragán (1902 – 1988) who is quoted as saying, “A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy”. With serenity and joy being the names of the colourways I chose it seemed absolute serendipity when I came across this quote and I had to name the shawl after him.

You can pre-order a yarn kit direct from McIntosh. (By using this link, if you decide to buy a kit, I get a little commission!). Part One of the KAL is out in Issue 194 of The Knitter on October 4th, so in order to receive your yarn kit in time, pre-order by September 29th.

Another piece of exciting design release news relates to my Petulia shawl which I designed for RiverKnits. It is going to be launched at Yarndale, this coming weekend (September 23rd and 24th)!

There are still some tickets available for timed entry to Yarndale on the Sunday if you haven’t got one yet. The pattern is a big one; there are two shawl shapes within the one pattern. Both versions use the same two-colour brioche leaf motif as a structural building block. The smaller version of Petulia is symmetrical and uses 2 x 50g skeins of Chimera and 1 x 100g skein of Nene 4ply, the other is larger, asymmetrical and flamboyant and uses 3 x 50g skeins of Chimera and 2 x 100g skeins of Nene 4ply. If you’re going to Yarndale look out for my large Petulia shawl on the RiverKnits stand – they’re on stand F1!

Just as with Tiffany and Agnes, Petulia will be available exclusively from RiverKnits for the first six months, after which I will be selling the pattern as well.

I finished sewing the zipped project bags on Thursday and was really pleased with how they turned out. I even discovered that my sewing machine has a thread cutter on the side, which I had no idea about, despite having had my sewing machine for over 6 years – doh!

Sewing the tabs on the side was the trickiest part – 12 layers of fabric, 2 layers of fusible fleece and a zip to keep lined up! I’ll be adding them to the website later this week.

Yarn Gathering on Sunday was fantastic. We had a dozen wonderful vendors and over 160 visitors. I really loved seeing all the people in The Daniel Owen Centre having a good time, chatting about yarn, weaving, crochet, knitting and dyeing.

Some of the best moments of the day for me were when knitters came to show me their finished projects, either on a photo or in real life – I wish I’d thought to take some pics of them, but it only occurred to me afterwards…

There have been some great posts on social media, with folk showing off their purchases. The day ran smoothly, after the slightly scary moment when we opened the fire doors to the car park and the alarm went off! Fortunately one of the lovely people from the venue arrived a few minutes later, turned it off and all was quiet again!

My workshops at Shaz’s Shabby Chic are going well and I’ve booked some more dates in for October – more details to follow very soon. Working with Colour – Slip Stitch Knitting is tomorrow (you can still book a place!) and I’ve had fun digging out samples of my designs that use slip stitches to create colour patterns.

If you want to expand (or begin) your knitting skills why not sign up for a workshop? The October workshops will be available to book by the end of week.

Yet again, the day is running away from me and I need to get this posted. I will tell you all about how tomorrow’s workshop goes next week and hopefully I’ll have some news about how Petulia was received at Yarndale.

Until then, take care one and all, K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Join In

My current design is coming along well now and I only have the final edging section left to knit! But you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist making a start on the crochet blanket, didn’t you?

I’ve also just finished going through the tech editing process on another design and I hope to be able to share details of when that will be coming out soon. It’s very cool and is effectively two patterns in one.

You may notice the main menu of the website is looking a little different – I’m aiming for a sleeker look that is easier to navigate, with more drop-down options and fewer things to read initially. So, instead of ‘Patterns’, ‘Kits’ and ‘Wooden Things’ each having their own space in the menu bar, they are now drop-down options under ‘Shop’.

It’s a small change, but one I hope will help people find their way around when visiting the website.

During the past few days I have been taking part in an Instagram challenge to share images of my work each day and to nominate another artist each day to do the same. The format of the posts is as follows:

“I was nominated by @deunynknits to present 1 piece of my work each day for 10 days, with a nomination of another artist to do the same.
–
10 images, 10 nominations, no explanations, all to promote creativity, passion, the love of what we do and support our artistic friends.
–
Today I nominate…”

I thought it would be nice to share the images I have selected so far with you as well!

The designs are: (top row) Maid Marion Shawl, Nevern Throw and Diamonds in the Breeze and (bottom row) Of Night and Light, Into the Vortex and Angel of the North.

Marianne Half Hap Socks Yeah

Summer KAL

I’m going to be running a Summer Knit-along in my Facebook group and you are warmly invited to join us.

It will start on June 21st and run until the end of July. After running a poll in the Facebook group, I have decided that it will be an ‘open’ KAL – that is, you can take part by knitting any of my designs. And there will of course be prizes!

We’ll have a cast-on party via Zoom on Wednesday 21st June (7.30-9pm) and two more Zoom events during the KAL. Finalised details will be published on Facebook, Instagram and my website with links to book tickets for the zoom events.

I have decided that my project for the Summer KAL will be a new sample for my Marianne Half Hap Shawl. You, of course, are welcome to join in by knitting any of my designs!

The shawl was originally knit in a sport-weight yarn, and then in this 4ply/sock yarn (Socks Yeah!) and I’m now going to knit the pattern up in a lace-weight yarn. I’m going to use two skeins of RiverKnits’ Northampton Shear Lace. 

Next week I’m going to tell you a little bit more about this! 🥳

Until then, take care, keep an eye out for the KAL info and enjoy the sunshine (carefully) if you can. Kx

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Heart of Love

Calon Cariad is Welsh for ‘the heart of love’.

This Friday is the Show & Tell Zoom for our Calon Cariad Knit-along! It seems to have come around really quickly, even though I moved this final event back a week. There are prizes for contributions on social media and anyone who has completed their shawl gets the chance of winning a fabulous book of shawls; Nordic Shawls by Karen Skriver Lauger. If you click on the photo, you get taken to yesterday’s social media post which has more info.

Yesterday, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I went to a friend’s house for lunch. It seems like such a small thing but, apart from eating at my Mum’s house and my in-laws’, I don’t think I’ve had a meal at someone else’s house since the start of the pandemic. It was lovely! Homemade carrot and spinach soup with sourdough bread and a homemade vegan pear and date crumble.

Another thing that happened yesterday was that I took delivery of a VERY large Kaffe Fassett blanket that needed to have the centre seamed with the four pieces of the border. This was not knitted by me, but by a lovely chap whose hand-knitted, but *literally* moth-eaten, jumpers I rescued a few years ago. I’ve already seamed the four edge pieces together and now just need to insert the middle. That’s about six metres of mattress stitch, possibly more. We couldn’t lay it out flat on my lounge floor as it is just too big, so I may end up spreading it on the bed to line up the edges and secure them with lockable stitch markers before bundling it back up again and just having the area I’m working on over my knees. I’ll get a photograph of it somehow once it’s all sewn together and share it with you all as long as Chris (the knitter and owner of the blanket) doesn’t mind.

There has been some progress on my Gridlock Mitts by Karen Butler. I’ve nearly finished the second one!! Some knitting was done at the dentist last Friday and some this morning. I got a temporary filling at the dentist – my first instinct had been correct and pretty much the entire filling had come out. That led to discovery of another tooth with fractures through it and X-rays which showed a few other things. So, a permanent filling and fixing of the fractures is scheduled for the next available appointment – in May! This seems to be a recurrent theme at present – one thing gets investigated and something else gets picked up along the way. Hurrah for the NHS!

Spring is definitely making its presence felt this week – the bumble bees are giant and the spring flowers are really getting going. I’m even typing this outside in the garden. We planted some red cowslips last year that I’d completely forgotten about until this week when I saw them in flower again. Aren’t they fab?

Do you remember the colour repeats I was trying out with coloured pencils in my journal last week? I thought I had chosen exactly the right one, but 32 rows in I had to admit that it just wasn’t working for me. That meant pulling out (frogging) 24 rows and picking the stitches back up, then returning to my original plan, which (guess what?) actually works. That doesn’t sound too bad does it? 24 rows. Now, think about the fact that each of those rows has 673 stitches in it. Can you see why I stayed in denial for so long, before I admitted I wasn’t happy with how the design was looking?

The rows are very long, but there are several good reasons for that. This is a design that has a lot of stitches in one pattern repeat and it creates a zig-zag effect, so those stitches take up far less width than they would on a straight row. Also, being a zig-zag means that you need fewer rows overall to get the height of the finished item AND by working the pattern along the long edge there are fewer colour changes and therefore fewer ends to weave in. So, whilst it might seem like a silly number of stitches, it will be worth it. And I’ve already re-worked four of the rows I had to rip out. It will be a while until I can share this design with you, but I do love it. Which is why I had to get the colour order/depth exactly right.

Sitting here on the patio I’m looking at the veg patch and thinking it really needs hoeing. That will be one of tomorrow’s jobs I think, as I can’t actually plant the veg seed until the forget-me-nots have made room!

Take care, get out in the sunshine if you can and keep knitting. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

All These Things That I’ve Done

Last week I finished by telling you I had marmalade to make when I got home. And indeed I did. However, the lovely Chris from Hampton Farm Shop had popped in the last few of the Seville oranges in addition to the ones I’d asked for, so rather than 1.4kg (3lb) of oranges, I had 2kg (4.5lb)!!

Marmalade was made on Thursday AND on Friday. It’s rather gorgeous in both colour and taste and I have found a solution to the skin withering tendency of the oranges when squeezing and chopping them – wear gloves! Obvious really, but it’s taken me until now…

This coming Friday sees the launch of our latest KAL – Calon Cariad and I’m really pleased that a number of people will be knitting along with us. The invites to the Cast-on Party on Zoom have started going out and I have got my chosen yarn all balled up; three skeins of CoopKnits Socks Yeah! in Xenon, which is a truly NEON pink.

I’ve also finally done some more embroidery and I *think* I may nearly be done with the black thread.

The spinning is coming on too – the 15 minutes per colour seems to be working well!!

I’m also working on a new pattern that is due for release next month (if you’re in my Facebook group you’ll have seen a sneak peek pic of it!).

I have blocked my Water Dragon Shawl and I love it. I still have the ends to weave in, but apart from that it is done! The top left image is straight after I cast off. The next is whilst blocking and the other two are after blocking.

This month’s pattern (due at the end of the month) is the re-launch of Of Night and Light, the colourwork vest that appeared in Knit Now Issue 134 last October – the rights return to me this month and I will get the pattern formatted into my standard layout and some new photos taken over the next couple of weeks.

But it’s not all been about the new things this week.

Today I have been mending my favourite cardigan (again). It’s three and a half years old and I wear it A LOT. The repairs and re-knits it has had deserve a post all to themselves and that will be what I tell you all about next week.

Have a good one and do stuff that makes you smile. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Keep On Keeping On

I have lots of stuff to tell you about, but it’s been quite a day and it’s late, so I will keep it short and show more than tell.

First up, there’s a new pattern in the world! Small Acts is a pattern for a scarf AND a cowl. I even put lippy on for the pics. Click on the link for all the info, including where the name came from.

Next, I’m getting excited about our Calon Cariad KAL – it starts on Feb 11th, which is actually next week!! If you want to get a kit from me or from Yarn O’clock, there’s still time, but you need to choose your yarn quickly! I have a new pic of the Erika Knight sample of Calon Cariad to share with you:

Spring is starting to make its presence felt in the garden:

And I finished my Water Dragon Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs!! The lace section took longer than expected, partly because I kept working on other things and partly because there were 1121 stitches per row. I added three extra garter stitch rows at the bottom and then cast off. The cast off was very satisfying. A great re-use of a lot of Colinette Jitterbug that had previously been an unworn cabled vest.

I’ll block it when I get home. Thursday is going to be a busy day too – haircut, kit to post, shawl to block AND… marmalade to make!

See you next week 😊 K x

Posted on by — 2 Comments

And, breathe…

Last week I finished by promising to tell you about the spinning and baking I’ve been doing, as well as how the workshops went and all about next month’s knit-a-long!

Let’s start with the workshops. It was probably the longest amount of time I had (a) been on my feet and (b) spoken for, in over three and a half years. In other words, since I left the classroom!

Five hours of workshops went SO fast. Not just for me, but also for the lovely knitters who were there. In both the morning and afternoon sessions phrases such as “It’s not that time already, is it?!”, “I’ve never known two and a half hours go so quickly” and “Really? Only 10 minutes left? No!” could be heard. (Of course, because we were all so focused I completely missed the opportunity to take any photographs of their progress. Must do better next time!).

Lots was learnt, including the magic that is mattress stitch as part of the Finishing Techniques workshop. I love seeing the faces of knitters during this process. Most don’t believe they won’t be able to see the lime green yarn they are seaming their grey squares with, and when it proves to be true, it’s just a delight. Also we unpicked why different types of decrease are used and the importance of mirrored decreases to make your project look balanced.

The Introduction to Sock Knitting in the afternoon went even faster than I had anticipated, and everyone turned a heel successfully. I had an email yesterday from one of the attendees that made me so happy and I’m going to share part of it with you (with her permission):

“Thanks a million for all your guidance on Saturday. Just learning to knit on 4 needles was great, but to become a wool engineer apprentice and turn a heel was brilliant!”

Yvonne

We didn’t manage to get the graft done at the toe, however, so I promised to record a video showing how this is done and I have now uploaded this to my social media platforms. I wanted to get this up as soon as I could for my workshop attendees, but now I also need to add closed captions to the video.

This is the third little techniques video I have recorded and put on Facebook etc and this morning it occurred to me that they should really be on my website too. So, the Knitting Tuition page now has a new section: Free Video Tutorials! I’ll get the captions done on the toe graft video before uploading that one, but there are two others you can have a look at already. It will give you a little flavour of my Craftucation courses as well (though none of the videos are duplicated from there).

A still shot from a short knitting techniques video. My hands are holding needles and yarn with a multicoloured shawl in progress underneath them. The knitting is resting on a wooden desk with a coaster partly in view to the left.

Another addition to the website today is a section for next month’s Knit-A-Long! We are knitting Calon Cariad together, a lovely shawl whose name means ‘The Heart of Love’. We begin on February 11th with a Cast-On Party on Zoom at 7pm!! We’ll run the KAL over five weeks and there will be prizes 🎁. If you want to join in, the click ‘going’ on the KAL event and/or the KAL Cast-on Party event on my Facebook page, or just send me a message! All the details are here.

There are even kits available – I’m especially fond of the Erika Knight Wool Local which knits up beautifully in this pattern.

In other news, I have finished the scarf sample for Small Acts and that just needs blocking and photographing properly. I’m aiming to get the pattern out by the weekend. If you’re a subscriber look out for an extra (short) email with a discount code!

A large mid-indigo blue scarf lies in a heap on an oatmeal coloured carpet. There are two large mirrored cables running up the centre, flanked by two small mirrored cables at the sides. In between the cables are columns of moss stitch and the scarf has a narrow garter stitch edging.

Spinning is fun at the moment and I have starting on my second batch of Colours of Cambria fibre (this colour way is ‘Coast’). I wanted to create fairly regular repeats of the colours but I am not confident at judging the quantity when dividing the fibre into sections, so I came up with another approach. I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes. I spin one colour from the sequence during that time and when the timer goes off, I stop and break that colour, ready to start with the next one when I spin again. Not only is this hopefully going to give me some good stripes/blocks of colour in the yarn, it also encourages me to spin more on a daily basis, even when I am busy, as 15 minutes can usually be slotted in somewhere!

An overhead shot of a bobbin on the spinning wheel. There is some soft green fibre at the bottom of the image waiting to be spun next. On the bobbin can be seen two shades of blue, a golden yellow and a little of the green. The yarn is spun quite finely.

I made the sourdough bagels that I have been wanting to try for a while. They weren’t as hard as I had anticipated, but I do think I over-baked them a little. It was a good taste, and nicely chewy, but a little too crunchy/firm on the outside. Next time, check five minutes sooner!

Eight uncooked bagels sit on a dark grey baking sheet waiting to be boiled before baking.
Cooked bagels on a cooling rack with the bamboo kitchen worktop visible behind. Four bagels are fully visible, with two partially shown on the left and one on the right. They are dark golden brown in colour with lighter centres.

We even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Little Orme where we saw the largest group of Seals I’ve ever seen there. They looked so happy and relaxed on the beach and were chatting away to each other quite a lot! It made us relax too, and even though there were quite a few people up there on Sunday (some even had telephoto lenses and tripods for their cameras, so the word about the seals must have got about), it was really peaceful. We sat on a bench and ate a little homemade picnic, all wrapped up against the wind and it was lovely. The perfect balance to the ‘business’ of the day before.

A pebble beach covered with 30-40 seals as well as some larger stones and big rocks. Seen from the cliff edge above with a bit of the sea-glass coloured sea visible on the right and the cliff wall on the far side of beach showing at the top of the picture.

Take care, stay warm and do more of what makes you happy, K x