A Constitutional Preamble

I thought I'd add a little introduction to the parks phase of this literary affair, instead of whipping out a pile of tree photos for you to ogle at with no prior communiqué whatsoever. A twigger warning, if you will.  (I may apologise for that later.)

I started going for walks primarily as a means of finding interesting doors to photograph.  If you know me on facebook, or have had a look at my other blog here, you'll know I have a passion for portals that started with a visit to Vézelay in France last August, a destination to which I brought my brand-new (though not new in terms of tech) Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7". This darling machine connected to the internet if there was WiFi around, and as I couldn't afford a laptop, this was the next best thing! And it took photos, so in that respect it was WAY better than a laptop! Oh my! I didn't own a smart phone (and I still don't), but this piece of kit was quite the Welcome To The Smart Age just the same, and I had a whale of a time taking photos, editing them, and slapping them all over my facebook page.  All from the comfort of my own hotel room!  

Yes, the quality isn't fabulous, but for a night-time photo basically taken with a big-ass fake phone, it turned out rather well.  (Abbaye Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay.)

The town is an ancient hill-top settlement, originally going back to Roman times, and it became the start of one of four important pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela, so the tiny township is filled with steep roads, and ancient buildings that offer a plethora of characterful doorways to capture on cyber film. And a facebook photo album was born.

baby's first portal photo

At the time I wasn't thinking about the health benefits of going for walks, although after this entry (I may apologies for that later, too) to the joys of pounding the pavement in search of additions to my album, it became more obvious the further I travelled afield that the exercise was actually doing me good. I discovered that I liked walking, coupled with capturing moments on memory card that had already captured my imagination.  

I was tempted to add the portals to this blog, but as I'm at around four hundred doors and counting, I think they deserve their own piece of internet real-estate. Instead, I am happy to share with you in future posts some of the things that have stirred my fantasy on walks throughout this city, and elsewhere, but I'll leave this post with a couple more doors - one that shows the sloping nature of the roads I was talking about, and the other simply because I love that it's absolutely chock-full of texture!  What a story it could tell!

A First Time For Everything

"Nic tried on a pair of jeans today. A pair of jeans in a high-street shop, not a 'plus-size' shop. And in a 'normal' department of said high-street shop, not in a 'plus-size' department of the self-same high-street shop.

(This, it must be pointed out, is a first-time experience in the life of your author.)

And you know what? They fit!"

I do tend to sound glib when expressing myself in relation to my weight loss sometimes, of this I am aware. I have a habit of making things sound a lot less important to me than they really are, and part of that is out of habit - if no-one thinks it's important to me there's less chance of it being belittled/nicked/broken (which is a very old and very hard habit to break), and part of it is because I like to make people laugh. Or chortle. I can settle for snort, too. You'll find a lot of funny people (much funnier than I) who became funnier still primarily as a means to deflect hate, whether by, for example, self-mockery (hey, if I get the fat joke in first, that means people will laugh with me and not at me), or observational comedy (check out this thing that everyone does but doesn't realise how hilarious it is, instead of ridiculing me) to name just two methods of diversion.

So, when I sound a little flippant about about this brand-new shopping experience, believe me, it's covering up the utter and profound joy of potentially finding a bigger range of clothes to choose from, a bigger range of styles, shapes, colours, and at prices that don't penalise the plump for using up a few inches of fabric more than the same garment in a non-plus size. 

Reader, I bought the jeans.

Psych 666

"Nic really wishes she understood the absolutely hilarious reply to the Dutch equivalent of "Jesus, what's with fat chicks and knitting?" that was uttered by one of the ten or so gobby young 'men' on the train, because she's absolutely positive it must have been intelligent and insightful."

Yes, yes, societal norms, the fitting-in with your fellows, pack mentality etc etc etc. Everything can be explained in a psychological manner.

The kid who came out with the first comment may have been trying to assert his place of power within the group by drawing everyone's attention to him, via me. He might have confidence issues, he might have a problem with authority figures, he probably has something about himself that he doesn't like so is perhaps always the first to point out weaknesses in others, in the hope that no-one will notice his.

The comic of the group may want attention just as much as the leader, but perhaps realises that he doesn't quite have the strength to battle for that position, so deflects this flaw into making people laugh instead. He can hog the limelight as much as the leader, but because he's taken the role of fool, he'll never be considered a threat. The comic may also have sadness to bear in his life, depression, grief. It's not for nothing that you hear the greatest comedians are those who have the intelligence to make despair sound funny.

The rest are pack animals. Snarling for scraps of the action, trying to be accepted by copying the leaders, probably just hoping they won't be picked on next for any of their own perceived flaws.

Or they could all just be little devils with no consciences sent to make my day miserable.  

It hardly matters because trying to find reasons to justify their behaviour doesn't make the outcome any different. They come across as little shits, and I go home feeling like one.

Everything In The Garden's...

... boozy.

It's been a while since I opened up the drinks cabinet of my imagination. I am glad to report that it hasn't been emptied by teenage thoughts in the interim, although I'm still not sure how that bottle of Advocaat came into being...  Mind you, doesn't the Snowball cocktail use that...?  And the Bombardino?  Hey, there's also the Fluffy Duck... 

(My mind: a dangerous place in which to get lost.)

But I digress.  Slightly.   What I'm really here to bring you is the 'Summer Vegetable Most-Unhealthy Use' prize of 2014:  Peapod Wine.

peapod wine socks by yours truly
bbknits superwash sock in 'seagrass'

Yes indeed, this fruity little number... erm vegetally little number... has been grown from the seed of home-made wine memories of my youth. My Dad's home-made wines, that is.  The fruit or vegetable mash in the big tub which would slowly make its way to demijohns with their blip-blooping airlocks and finally to their final (temporary) destination in corked bottles under the floor where it was dark and cool.  It must be pointed out that Dad never actually made peapod wine, and although his raspberry, his rhubarb, and above all his parsnip wine shall forever live in our slightly hazy memories, there's not really anything sock-worthy about tipsy root vegetables.

  

So for inspiration I went instead to the rest of his garden, where the potatoes (great for chips, crap for socks), lettuce (can you even have boozy salad?), and carrots (pff, if you're not having them with dinner, then the only other decent and proper use is in cake) were passed over for the tendrilly fragrant vines that would climb up the old bamboo frames and present us with pods full of pea-popping sweetness. Perfect!

So I started the socks just how the pea plant starts - at the bottom with tendrils of vine, dividing up into stalks, ready to climb...

I have to admit I'm fond of this peapod pattern...  I wasn't sure whether I should make the pods in a cabled fashion, but in the end some natty, and slightly modified, skps did the trick!

But you know?  I think I'm most fond of the calyx cuff.  It's amazing what some twist cables and a little contrasting purling can do!

But really, this is a raised glass to my Dad, in sock form!!

The Peapod Wine Sock is worked from a pea-shoot toe up, with a peapod pattern foot and leg, short-row heel, and a calyx cuff, and you can find the pattern page on Ravelry HERE.  (You don't need to be a member to view the page!)

Or, should you be so inclined, you can just jump straight to buying this little gem by clicking on the button below!  At only €3 ($3.94, £2.37, or ¥410) it's a tipsy garden delight without the weeds, or the hangover!

(At)tempting Weight

"Note to self: these weigh twice as much as the last ones. Stopping distances will vary drastically from previous efforts. Probably best not to proceed without necessary face protection until arms become considerably stronger, if results like the last time want to be avoided..."

It appears that I'm a glutton for punishment.

I'm sure you'll excuse me if I don't let you know if something happens. This time.  

A Tale Of Two (And A Half) Storeys

"Nic was pondering, mid-climb of a dead escalator and struggling with a 20-kilo suitcase, that she used to have to do everything with nearly double the weight of that laden valise on her actual person... Quite a revelation!"

I got the same heavy suitcase up the two-and-a-half (the house has a strange layout) floors up to my flat boggling at every step. I used to carry twice the weight of this wardrobe on wheels wrapped around me, lagging my legs, encasing my arms, enveloping my body in layers of flesh, a corpulent cocoon out of which I am only starting to emerge.  

It seems such an abstract concept somehow. I, me, this person, used to live, to walk, to work with twice as much weight on them as this very heavy thing I've just hauled up the stairs. It feels like there should be a punchline. Not that I mean I think the whole thing's a joke; on the contrary, although I can't quite explain it yet, somehow it feels like this whole notion is approaching that almost unbelievable end of the seriously real spectrum.  

Where impossible reaches possible.

Snake-Oil Salesmen

"Nic was reading an article about an amazing woman who lost 172 lbs and was going to be featured in a fitness magazine, but after being given a true 'after' photo of her wearing a bikini (losing oodles of weight means that there are things that will never look 'normal' without the help of plastic surgery) she was asked for a different photo with clothes that covered her completely... O_o  And then there was the comments section.

Comments. I should learn never to read the comments on articles like this..."

(Actually, I should never read the comments on any article, anywhere. Unless it's on the Oatmeal, or on ridiculous items from Amazon.com.)

But you know? I think I'm in the wrong job. I should be working for some aspect of the diet industry, because it appears there's a LOT of money to be made out of criticising, cajoling, counterfeit caring, cautioning, comforting, corrupting, and 'curing', and that's just the Cs.  

You're too fat. Try this diet aid. C'mon, you're obviously just not trying - you're still too fat. Here, this diet aid is better. Please, your fatness is offending everyone because they don't want to be reminded that they're not living up to their own warped ideals of perfection. Try this NEW and IMPROVED diet aid. No THIS one, because that one is so last year, darling. STOP - they are all wrong - it's THIS ONE that will solve all your problems. And only ten ninety-nine per fortnightly serving of self-hate conditioning. Twenty-nine ninety-nine for this DVD explaining the ninety-seven steps you can take to be just like them. Fifty-six ninety-nine for twelve monthly magazines brain-washing you into buying more diet aids and more DVDs outlining forty ways to stop offending everyone with your existence and they're so expensive because we CARE about YOU and the HORRIBLE THINGS you have obviously done to yourself to be so very far away from what we think should be normal but WE can help YOU, you poor thing. Bless your probably clogged, surely unloved, unconventional heart.

Oh. Well now. You've lost half your body weight? You're exercising, eating well and enjoying a more fruitful life without us prodding you and selling things to you and constantly telling you you're not good enough?

You're DISGUSTING. How could you do that to yourself? Ugh - all that excess skin and health and contentment. Everyone!!! Do you SEE what happens to you when you're selfish and don't care about yourself and are swallowed up by our awful, uncaring society? But WE care. Try this diet aid and you won't ever have to be as embarrassing or as sickening as this creature...

repeat ad nauseam