A Cold, Wet Winter

We are now into our sixth day of spring and it has finally warmed up a bit.  The winter has been wet, windy and cold and I finally went out and bought myself an electric blanket, something which I haven't felt the need for since I invested in a down duvet many years ago.

I have been doing the usual spinning, reading and knitting as well as getting back into researching family history.  I am finding that the new FTM doesn't do its charts the way the old one did; it adds too much detail where it is not needed in the descendant chart but that is really a minor problem as  it generally works and syncs well.

I have reconnected with a third cousin once removed who gave me a huge amount of help in my early days of genealogy research and hopefully I will get to meet her sometime soon as she lives in an outer suburb  -  really a satellite city of Perth, Western Australia.  It is two hours each way by public transport to visit Mandurah but she comes up to Perth frequently.

I have knitted thirteen beanies for the homeless people sleeping rough and a couple of others in my knitting group are also knitting for the homeless so between us we have done well but the rush is now off and I have started on a cowl-necked sweater in "eco-fibre" from New Zealand where it is called "merino  possum".  While possums are protected here in Australia they are an out-of-control pest in New Zealand and the fibre is very light and extremely warm.

I knitted a possum cowl some months ago and it is great to wear when waiting at the railway station as the south wild screams down the line and there is no shelter from it.

The cats are well and sleep a lot during the day now but seeing the state of the apartment in the mornings I suspect that they riot when I am asleep.  They are both on a diet but have not lost any noticeable weight but we still have about six months before the Vet weighs them again.

Parsifal has finally achieved his greatest goal  -  getting behind the TV cabinet  -  and he did it when I was about to head out to COTA.  I knew that he had hidden himself away somewhere but couldn't find him and had to rush to catch the train so I left all the doors, cupboards and drawers open just in case he had, yet again, shut himself in somewhere.  When I got home he was very much in evidence and very, very dusty so the next time D2 came to do a car swap we pulled the cabinet out and I cleaned out behind it.  Now Poppy has been behind as well  -  amongst all the cords and cables and she actually managed to unplug the power to the DVD player.  *sigh*