Living in the country part 653 some presents and recent knitting

I know that I've mentioned before that we're not on 'town' water out here. My supply comes off the roofs and into a 113,000 litre [ 25,000 gallon] concrete tank. This is more than ample for two adults. Simple enough but the part of the equation that non-country dwellers fail to appreciate [ which includes me before I moved out here ] is no electricity = no pump = no water.
Think about that

It's been HOT all week. Hovering in the high 30s [ near the hundred mark for those of you still using farenheit ]. Scorching.

lot of my time has been spent stretched out in front of the tv and the aircon.


except for yesterday afternoon.


That's when the power went out over a third of the state for four hours.

That's when I was glad that large amounts of money [ mine ] and energy [ mainly Chris' ] had been expended putting a 4500 litre water tank up the top of the hill so that there would be gravity-fed water in the event of a power outage.

Last time this happened I had to slog up to the shed with buckets to get enough to flush the you-know-what, and do a run into town for bottled water to drink.


Not any more :]


I filled a bath with cold water and just kept dunking David in it regularly. I settled for sitting on the end of the bath with a good book, a glass and with my feet in the water.
Not quite heaven but under the circumstances, pretty close.

and now for the photos:
Maz
decided that I needed covered coathangers that matched the colours in my wardrobe, so she made me these. Like I'm not already anal enough!











She also gave me four balls of knitting cotton. The teal is unidentified, the variegated is Panda Regal and the other two are Sullivans and seem to be thinner than usual.

This is a woman who really knows my colours!

the coathangers were completely in addition to my Chrissie pressies:

... another Maneki Nekko for my collection, a cat-on-chair thimble holder and this sweet little sheepie tape measure from lantern Moon.


Can't think of a clever segue so moving on:

Not that it will come as a surprise to anyone who really knows me, but I do admit to just occasionally being a weeny bit obsessive. What? you didn't know that about me? Really?


... a NORMAL person probably wouldn't be knitting in this weather and I will admit that during the worst of the day I'm confining myself to pouring through my gazillions of quilting , crochet and knitting books and mags, but even so, I have managed to finish another project or three this week:
in the spirit of Knit From Your Stash '07, I ran up a couple more baby hats in odd balls
and something else

here is the mystery project being blocked yesterday morning
I sewed them up last night
and so finally


I present to you...


the obligatory drumroll please maestro...


yet another pair of self-designed, totally out of season wristwarmers.


These are 4-ply [ fingering weight ] mystery pure wool in a simple lace pattern on the cuff and back of the hand. The palm is plain old stocking[ette] stitch with 1x1 ribbing to shape the wrist. I really like patterns where the alternate rows are just plain old purl. Gives me some breathing space.