No wheels on my wagon......

Well so much for my no-alcohol-until-after-the-Brighton-marathon nonsense. We had a lovely get-together with nearly 50 of the villagers in the local pub last night and it would have been rude not to raise a glass now wouldn't it (said very tongue-in-cheek!).

My marathon training is going well, touch wood etc etc but the speedwork is quite hard as I'm not used to doing it. The good news is that entries for the Liverpool marathon are now open and I am in which will complete my series of marathons for this year. I lived near and worked in Liverpool for many years, met Mike there and generally had a wonderful time as the people of Liverpool are great so it will be a real trip down memory lane. I'm currently working on a link between revisiting my past and how the brains of dementia sufferers change as the disease progresses.

In knitting news I'm well ahead with Two although the sizing is small even though my tension is spot-on which is rather annoying as I didn't really want a close fitting garment.

There is, however, an elephant in the room. More specifically it's in my favourite hiding place alongside the settee and it's in a knitting bag. I've tried to ignore it but it's too lovely a piece to leave as a UFO for any longer.

Its the beautiful Oregon cardigan in the Autumn colourway.

I put her to one side when Mike went into hospital at the end of 2009, finished off the first sleeve when he came out of hospital in January 2010 but then I put her to one side because I associated her with bad things happening (yes I know it's silly!).

Every so often I'd notice the bag when I was hoovering the carpet but then I would turn away again.

Now I've decided I need to get her finished as I need a more interesting knit to get my teeth into whilst I finish off Two. So, tomorrow evening I shall make a start. That may sound as if I'm procrastinating by not doing anything this evening but I can't because I shall be at my German evening class. I started learning German at the end of last year and although it isn't easy it's a good challenge.

Cute cards

I had two Christmas cards that made me smile:




This stripey cartoon sheep looking like a mint humbug.












This sweet little knitted reindeer.













This is published by Mint Publishing where I found that the reindeer was knitted by the girls from the Harborough Ladies knitting circle who seem to have produced a whole range of knitted characters for all sorts of cards.

What fun and how very enterprising of them!

Now we're into the New Year my training has started to take over. No more alcohol until after the Brighton marathon in April (crikey!) and my training schedule is starting to look pretty darned serious (gulp!). Last weekend I ran 6 miles on Saturday and 12 miles on Sunday and this weekend will be 7 and 14 miles respectively.

I'm a good way into the front of Two and I like how it's turning out so far.

Happy New Year to everyone!

May 2011 be a happy, healthy and peaceful year for everyone.

I made a start on Two last night and I quite like the effect of the eyelet pattern. Apart from the heart pattern which comes next, it is a very boring stocking stitch pattern so I'll probably alternate between this and some bargello. I quite like to have some mindless knitting on the go as it's useful for if I'm watching TV and I don't need to worry about colour changes or counting stitches.

My first run in 2011 went well. I had to run 6 miles at my target marathon pace so I found a route that had at least a few (actually 3.5 miles) of flat ground which made it a bit easier. It's quite hilly round here and so chugging up the hills can really slow my pace down. I felt OK afterwards but I was quite sluggish this afternoon. I need to shake off this post Christmas lethargy!