Things to do before Easy Week

After two weeks busy with work I finally get a break and another easy week coming up. Somehow it feels like whenever they do, I'm so busy catching up that by the time I get to plan fun stuff with friends, people drop over from pneumonia and I have to work extra shifts.

This weekend will see me at the last Maerquin Short Adventure of the year, playing Yfke the archer. I hope the weather will be somewhat dry, but we'll see. My coat has been treated with waterproofing spray, but it's only cotton after all.

As for the rest, I need to plan trips to various caretakers (GP, dentist for a check-up, skin specialist for a laser treatment). There's also homework to be done: tracing my new pattern and finishing the hem of my dress so it's really really done. *squee*

Personal goals for next week are to start on another mundanewear project. I still have a half-circle skirt planned with a brown poppy fabric. There's also another dress just like the one I made for school in the planning, but I need to alter the pattern a bit first and add a real sleeve (it's no use having two exactly the same dresses, now is there?) but I can do this after tracing my homework so I've got all the pattern mashing done with in one go.

As for knitting goals, I would like to finish my first ever sock -- a ghastly knee-stocking for a gnome. I'm not sure whether I'll try my hand at the second one, or just take it all off the needles. I've also bought yarn for a present for my mother, so I need to knit a test-swatch. I'd like to try my hand at ajour, it seems simple enough and I've got knit-two-together down to an art.

If I'm not cycling to work every day next week, I'll take up my morning walks again. It felt good being complimented by Arto that I was getting slimmer, it's a trend I'd like to continue and perhaps it helps with the dreaded winter depression that's creeping up on me.

And there was something about housekeeping too. Vacuuming, doing dishes... ah well. I'll see if I remember when I do. *wink*

Garden update

While life goes on, in the most literal sense of the word, so does the garden. While I sometimes take the time to reroute the tendrils^* of my pumpkin plant, today I noticed something really spiffy. On its way to world domination the pumpkin has found the tomato's support structure and is literally making its way up to the roof of the shed. Whether this is to be desired remains to be seen.


The large leaves and yellow trumpet flower is the pumpkin. The rest, also known as The Degrading Mess is what remains of my tomato plants.

To make matters even more interesting: in the category of "what you don't see won't hurt you", my courgette plant is planning to take over the world in its own way. Under a mass of leaves (both courgette and pumpkin, who are both overgrowing the spring onions between them) lies a dormant shape. I still expect it to burst open at any moment, sprouting a mass of thousands of courgette-coloured Giger aliens. (Since there's fanart on the internet already I suppose this happens more often.)
I guess to grow a monster courgette, you just need to lose it for a while under a mass of leaves and you end up with a 45 cm specimen (pictorial proof below). Actually, part of me is rather curious how much larger it will grow, and what will happen once we get night frost, and whether the ant colony has already made it their winter ski lodge.


There are more coming, all those small stalks with dead flowers on their butts will one glorious day make me a lot of soup.

Meanwhile, the Oak I placed in the cupboard spontaneously sprouted new leaves, the kidney-root (Eupatorium purpurea) is now in bloom after its near brush with death when I uprooted it to get rid of the firethorn a few weeks back, the galinsoga is brave enough to return despite my previous wrath & scorn^tm, the california poppies have survived my scouring of the weed ghetto, and I really shouldn't forget there's still spring onions to be harvested and eaten.

Even when I don't pay attention to it, the Garden Will Gloriously Go On.

-----
*) "Om de tuin leiden" noemen we dat.