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Let's get back, back to reality

We arrived home from Austria on Tuesday evening and I've been in to work yesterday and today, so I've still got that rather flat feeling you have when you get back (and the house seems dingy and dusty). The holiday was absolutely wonderful - one of our best ever. Vienna is such an amazing city, with beautiful buildings and parks all around you and fascinating museums, galleries, and royal palaces to investigate. I did take pictures, but of course they're still on my camera and I need to pep up the battery before I can download them. We spent four days and nights in Vienna and then went to a village called Sattendorf on the Ossiachersee. I stayed there often as a child, but I had strangely vague memories of what it is actually like. Well, it's small and there isn't a real shop, but a magnificent setting on a lake (which is really warm enough to swim in comfortably) and under a mountain (Gerlitzen) means we had lots of fun. We walked up to the three waterfalls, where I remember seeing a salamander when I was small. There was no salamander in sight this time, but there were lots of h u g e snails. They were the biggest I've seen outside Africa (that sounds so posey, doesn't it!). We went up to the top of the mountain in a cable car and chair lifts and had a lovely walk in some woods. We did lots of swimming, took a boat trip  and visited the towns Villach and Klagenfurt (state capital of Carinthia). I'll tell you more another time about the weird Kirchtag in Villach (sort of beer festival cum dressing up in tracht (national costume) event).

Blocking

I finally bought some blocking wires at I Knit London on Thursday evening and so I have been blocking my Swallowtail shawl. Wires make such a difference to this job!

My own little Hatfield (and other things)

I may not have a stately home, but sometimes the garden looks OK - or at least bits of it work at different times. Here are a couple of portions that are looking good at the moment.

 

A pink hardy fuchsia, lady's mantle, a viticella clematis and a red/pink persicaria (knotweed).

I've been enjoying my daylilies on the other side of the garden. I have two different yellows and this lovely red:

 

As you can see, these photos were taken last week when we had all the sunshine!

I mentioned a few posts ago that I bought a nice niddy noddy at Woolfest. Here it is, with some rather special laceweight yarn on it that I have dyed.

 

The unusual thing about the niddy noddy is the handle. Usually you hold them on the central shaft and that's perfectly OK, but it's just a little easier to have a handle. Now for the yarn. I've found a source (strictly hush hush) of undyed Uruguayan laceweight merino which seems to me to be indistinguishable from M*******o. I'm experimenting with dyeing it at the moment.

I have nearly finished the Baktus scarf, but it has been relegated to commuter knitting. At home I'm knitting the Lily of the Valley scarf from Nancy Bush's book, using the cashmere I bought at Woolfest. I'm finding the pattern about as hard as I want to attempt. There are quite a few mistakes in my knitting (including some nupps not quite knitted through properly), but overall it's very pretty. I think there may be an error in the chart, too.

Hatfield and allotment

On Thursday (hottest day?) a friend and I went to Hatfield House (Herts - home of Marquis of Salisbury) to see the private gardens which are only open on Thursdays. Lady Salisbury (now dowager I think) designed them and included an organic kitchen garden. She also designed Prince Charles's garden at Highgrove. We walked round very, very slowly. The garden did look a bit hot and dusty but beautiful nevertheless.

Meanwhile, the allotment is getting on well. I've started pulling Little Gem lettuces (below) even though they haven't properly hearted up yet, to give the others more room to grow. Behind them is a row of leeks, then a row of onions, and potatoes at the back.

The beans are really climbing now: (Lady Salisbury's were much taller than mine - sniff)

The white tunnelly thing is protecting my cavalo nero from pigeons and butterflies.