Untangled

In my post on the third of June, whilst explaining the general lack of posts/completed challenges, I wrote that I was making good progress on the learning a craft challenge and that I hoped to have some photos of my finished handiwork – well on schedule I have completed challenge no. 4!

Back on New Years Eve 2013/2014 Ann suggested that I could complete challenge 4 by making friendship bracelets for the adjudicating panel. I have had a go at this (I’ve finished 3 so far – see crafty blog post from February). But I did think at the time that this was wimping out a bit, I can make a friendship bracelet relatively easily and this wasn’t exactly out of the comfort zone. I wanted to upscale things a bit. It occurred to me that knitting might fit the bill – I remember knitting being a nightmare of knots, frayed bits and frustration during home economics classes when I was at school. Plus this has the advantage of bucking a bit of gender stereotyping. It is now many years since I was at high school and the few things I could remember about how to do it I’d long since forgotten – perfect!

To start off I got some supplies from John Lewis and was given some slightly bemused advice from a helpful sales assistant. Her main tip was “use thick wool and big needles” and “check that the wool is all from the same batch”, she then advised me that there were lots of knitting for beginners videos on you tube and a scarf would be the best thing to begin with. I had thought wool would be quite cheap, but 5 balls of wool and two very chunky knitting needles cost me, well……… more money than I expected anyway.

I found a suitable you tube video (they all seemed to be American) and set to work knitting a scarf – casting on was easy but then the first couple of lines of actual knitting were less so - I kept missing bits or doing too many knots on the same loop – the first attempt had to be unpicked and I started again. This time the knitting came a bit easier but after using up the first ball of wool I realised that this would be the widest and shortest scarf in history. So attempt no.2 was unpicked and I started yet again.

The third attempt was a little narrower but then I ran in to a new problem – this scarf was going to be fish shaped – I just couldn't keep the width constant. So with a sigh attempt 3 was unpicked and I began once more.

The beginnings of attempt 2- the scarf would have been a foot wide! 

The mark 4 scarf began well – but for various reasons there were some interruptions in getting in finished. The knitting itself, once I got past the first ball of wall ,was quite easy (actually it's quite a relaxing thing to do if you want to clear your head – a little bit zen) – this had me worrying it was now too easy and not really in compliance with the spirit of the challenges.

I had hoped to have the scarf ready for in time to give it to Laura (de facto head of the adjudicating panel) for her birthday at the end of June but it just wasn't quite done. But this did provide an opportunity to go a little deeper into the challenge. Seven of us went for a weekend on the welsh borders to celebrate Laura’s birthday and whilst we were there we stopped by a little village fete (sorry Laura, I can’t remember the name of the village). There were various craft demonstrations on show (including a cocktail mixing master class – not something I’d associated with that part of the world but very entertaining/tasty) – another of the demos was wool spinning. Needing little encouragement I sidled up and asked if I could have a go on the spinning wheel – the woman doing the demo was more than happy to oblige and showed me which bits to turn, pull, step on, keep my fingers away from. It’s really quite tricky, a bit like trying to tap your head and rub your stomach at different tempos but after five minutes or so I did manage to make some reasonable wool thread. My instructor was trying to line me up to enrol in her spinning class and disappointed when I explained that it would be a bit of commute from the north east.

"this is bloody difficult"

in the zone

 

This gave me the impetus I needed to finish the job off and you can see the result in the photo below. Yet another challenge I’ve enjoyed doing and may do some more of – and again one that started out quite tricky and became surprisingly quite fun J

the finished article!

No man may twice visit the same country

We’re well past halfway point of year 2 of the challenges and despite the setbacks and slow progress I’m still very much enjoying trying to complete them. As regular readers of the blog will know I do like to go back and repeat some of the activities I’ve particularly enjoyed – baking being the most obvious case.

Another of the challenges I’ve been enjoying has been travelling to new countries (with the exception of Romania late last year – I’ve never blogged about it as it would turn into a bit of an angry rant about the Romanian Geological Society and one member of it particularly). I’m very lucky in that my work gets me travelling quite a lot and one of my recent trips was sufficiently full of out of the comfort zone incidents that it is worth blogging about.

The trip in question was to Nice and the Park National Geologique around Digne les Bains in France. Ah! You may be thinking, surley you’ve been to France before! Well, yes, I have been there a few times in the last 3 years, several times with work for short visits to Paris and two of the nicest, most relaxing holidays I’ve ever had with the Wilmott family in Boise. Another trip to France doesn’t then obviously fit with out of the comfort zone theme of this blog. However, on this particular trip everything that could go wrong did go wrong and hence my mis-quote from Heraclitus in the title.

In May I was asked to assist with an MSc Engineering Geology field trip to southern France. This should have been wonderful – a week of tramping through the mountains looking at rocks, what could be more fun? Well it started with forgetting my drivers licence and catching the plane by the skin of my teeth then arriving in Nice to find they had no record of my reservation at the hotel – but this was just a warm-up for what was to come.

A couple of shots of some of the glorious weather and scenery we had (when things weren't going wrong!)

The following day I had to drive my car load of students (6) into the centre of Nice to get them their dinner. Southern French drivers have a “relaxed” attitude towards the rules of the road and the safety other road users/pedestrians/pets but thankfully, with less than half a dozen near misses, I made it to the town centre and squeezed the Ford Galaxy into a multi storey carpark. We had a lovely meal in Nice and then it was time to head back to the hotel – sadly this involved having an argument with a French parking attendant – who finished our animated discussion with “entente cordiale fini – dead, dead!” accompanied by making throat slitting gestures (I did get the car out though!).

The following days continued in the same spirit – too many incidents to mention, but the highlights were…………..

·         Driving along many many narrow roads with 300 foot drops and no safety barriers (and having to hang the back end of the people carrier off the edge of a cliff Italian Job style whilst doing a 3 point turn.

·         Losing a wheel on the hire car due a collision with, ironically enough, a landslide.

·         A 100km taxi ride to Gap to pick up a new hire car (see above) with a suicidal French taxi driver.

·         Getting lost in Monaco and accidentally doing a la of the Grand Prix circuit (it was in full GP set-up with painted curbs and everything J

·         One student leaving a ruc-sack by the side of the road, subsequently stolen with passport and purse in it.

·         One student getting sprained ankle on side of mountain and another being stung by a madussa jelly fish.

·         Leaving two students behind in Nice as they weren’t let on the flight home (see stolen passport above – it’s ok they’re home now though).

·         Another student being accused of shoplifting at Nice airport (he was innocent and released in time to catch the plane).

One of the students attempted to write a list of what had happened half way through the week  (see photo). Thankfully we all made it home ok in the end despite all the incidents it was still a good trip away – some wonderful scenery and a fantastic visit to Monaco at the end – driving on the Mediterranean coast in the chaos started stressful as hell but became v enjoyable in the end – and that is what being out of the comfort zone is all about J.

Matt's list of everything that had happened by day 5

 

Monaco

 

Team China - two of them had to stay behind in Paris for 2 weeks due to the lost passport (at Newcastle Uni's expense)

 

This little dog stole one of the lecturers shoes!