Quick catch-up in photos

Running out of time and haven't had much to blog this week at all so thought I'd at least just post a few photos that I have taken during the week. I had a good week and have still been feeling bad. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up a stomach bug or else I ate something bad at the barbeque I was at yesterday so I spent a goodly portion of the night draped over the toilet and, well, although I did make it out to go walking with friends this morning, let's just say that fasting today was not at all difficult to do. Even though it wasn't actually a planned fast day. But c'est la vie.

A lot of my time this week was taken up with knitting a present for a friend. Short notice invite to a party after contacting a friend to say happy 40th even though we've lost touch over the last five years or so. At any rate, I had been wanting to try out this stormy weather shawl pattern that I saw on mortgagefreeinthree (I've been working my way through the archives over the last while and it's just one of those blogs that makes everything seem so simple even I can give it a go).

I had the blue and the half ball of green already in my stash and used a voucher to pay for most of the three new balls. I also had another slightly less bright ball of blue, which is the one I ended up using. The colours aren't quite right in this picture but you get the idea.

My other crafty activity this week was making a paper chain. Each ring on this chain represents twenty euro and the whole lot is how much I will need to enable me to take a month off work in November. So, now I'll have a visual reminder hanging in my living room every day. And the satisfaction of seeing it get shorter and shorter.

I started the shawl on Wednesday evening and spent perhaps three hours on it. Then the same again on Thursday and up early on Friday to spend an hour on it before work. Another couple of hours on Friday evening before I literally ran out of time. And also wool. Although it wasn't perfect, it came out pretty well. I did my best to block it although probably could have done with another day to block it again, stretching it out a bit more. 

I don't really know how to crochet properly so didn't do the fancy scallop edge from the pattern and just finished it with another line of plain in the last of the yellow. The sharp-eyed among you might notice that I actually ended up using the yellow to finish off the last of the last line of blue - that block is an entire 100g of wool. 

I made a tomato tart to bring to the party with me, as well. Shortcrust pastry spread with mustard, topped with grated cheese, sliced, seeded tomatoes and topped with slices of mozzarella (since it was a special occasion) and plenty of oregano. 

Just for my own information this one. Smaller shop this week but included a couple of tins for the storecupboard, too. 11.75 this time.

At various points in the forest I went for a walk in today, there are signs showing various exercises to do or things like this to do exercises on. These are bars to use to do push-ups on. I can't even do one fake girly push-up but I gave it a go anyway. Using the higher one I did five - but barely managed to move down or up more than about an inch. So, something to work on there. There was also a pile of logs at this station, which you put on your shoulders to swing from side to side (you can see the shadow of my friend doing that in the back left of the photo.

So that's that. And now I'm off to bed. Hoping that by tomorrow morning I'll be feeling much more like a real, live, human being. :)