Spitting Yarn

Thank you for all your suggestions for sweater vests, I shall pour over them and think on it. I think a vest would make a nice Autumn project, so I shall keep it in reserve.

I had a monstrous week at work. I didn’t get home before 10pm on Monday through Thursday, and I was often in work before 8am. Consequently, I half hoped to snooze my through the weekend, but it ended up being rather full, though nice.

We breakfasted at the Armadillo Cafe on Bramley Road in W10. This is our latest find, and I think it wins my personal Best Coffee in London Award. In fact, its pretty impressive on all fronts. DB had a small English breakfast which featured some truly fantastic sausages. I had some gorgeous shop-made granola (with a hint of cinnamon), with almost weightless natural yoghurt and fresh fruits. On top of all of that it churns its own ice-cream, an important USP in our hot little corner of West London. It’s very slightly off the beaten track, but if you’re heading to Notting Hill or Portobello one Saturday, make sure you start your day at Armadillo.

My daily knitting has yielded a short stretch of scarf.

It’s the Bestotted scarf, but I’m not besotted with it. I can’t really say why, except that there’s a mistake early on, which I don’t seem to be able to take my usual zen attitude towards. I’m also slightly concerned that I don’t have enough yarn to knit a scarf of a good length. Because of my indecision over whether to frog or not (and if I do frog, whether to start again with this yarn), I just keep on knitting. With Giotto and Maggie also stalled, I’m a bit disenchanted with my knitting. What to do?

This evening DB and I sat down to a perfect summer supper of spaghetti and pesto, and a tomato, red onion and mozzarella salad (made by DB – he is Head Chef). I made a nice dessert: granita made from pear juice and white wine infused with cloves and cinammon, and sliced pears poached in caramel. We are a good cooking team, sometimes.

I also whipped up some of Yarnstorm’s flapjacks. I tried the recipe last weekend and over-cooked them a little. Today, they were perfect. Chewy and moreish and lovely. The ‘jacks reach optimum chewiness after only 30 mins (as opposed to the 40-45 mins in the recipe) in my ferocious oven. I had them with a glass of chilled, white burgandy!

DB and I also tackled our balcony this weekend and now have some window boxes sown with salad leaves and herbs. There’s nothing much to see as yet, but I’ll keep you updated! It has reminded us how much we would like a garden, something on our tick-sheet for our next home.