S-cks! The Miserable Things... And Everyone Likes Them.... For Christmas : \

Oh ho ho ho.... Santa's got Socks this year.... I am now on my second pair of socks. I knew that once I did it (turned a heel) the first time there would be no going back... I'm production spinning and knitting socks left right and centre....!!!  Ok well... that might be a bit of a exaggeration... but I'm hard at the socks this year. I turned out my first pair which I'm waiting for vinegar to throw in the dye pot before I'm totally satisfied with them... They will be for my brother in law... now I'm working on a pair of socks for my nephew.  I've just about finished one sock for him and will try to finish the second one by the weekend. Then a scarf for my sister, which is done, and hopefully I can get that in the mail on Monday. (I never have to worry about my sister reading this... she always forgets to read here and hasn't since last January.)

Then I have to knit socks for my good friends S and G who recently went to Europe... (see previous posts). And if I can swing it socks for four in a family who live nearby and are really good friends... then a pair of mittens for Teapot and Daughter#1 and Daughter #2. I can do it right?! 25 days to finish 7 pairs of socks and 3 pairs of mittens.... OMG! I'm dreaming.... what am I thinking?

Well if Yarn harlot can do it so can I....

Sure and I knit as fast as the Yarn Harlot.... in my dreams!

I think I need a rum spiked eggnog for breakfast.... that will get me going... in fact, I'm sure of it!

Ooops.. that stuff is so yummy I had to take a picture... only I had a sip first!

What's In A Name

Unusual cruelty for me... at least that's what it feels like...

My name is one of those strange names that can be shortened in a variety of ways. That is.... my real name. Frankie is not my real name.  Frankie, is the name the Teapot gave me when we first started going out together.

When I told him about all the surgery I've had in years gone by and how I spent several months in traction when I was in my early teens he said that it sounded like a scene out of Frankenstein.... Frankie stuck and I've been called that by most people ever since. (I'm ok with it really!)

Meanwhile my real name is what I sign to documents... and how I introduce myself to most people when I first meet them. Usually this leads to an interesting discussion regarding my name when the new person realizes that most of the people I know call me by Frankie instead of my real name. I proceed to tell them the above story and usually people will either be horrified that my husband calls me Frankie, short for Frankenstein, or they will be greatly amused and think it is a neat nickname. The problem comes from my real name which is Barbara.

My mother and father, gave me the name Barbara for a girl who grew up in their community who was a really nice girl and a friend of the family. She died quite young of tuberculosis. Her mother and father had no other children and so became close friends with my grandparents and were lovely always to my mother because of their friendship with my grandparents.... but also to my father who lived next door to them. So when I came along my parents felt that it would be fitting to name me as an honour to their friends.

I don't know when it started or why but my name got barbarized from Barbara to Barbie somehow along the way. As long as I can remember I have been called Barbie by all of my family. Mom, Dad, sister, Aunts and Uncles, cousins.... they all called me Barbie. When I hit about 13 years of age I rebelled. Barbie was that stupid doll that Mattel put out ..... Barbie meant everything commercial.... Barbie meant pink! How putrid could my name be. I suddenly insisted that I be called Barbara and if that was too much then I would tolerate Barb... but never... ever... would I put up with Barbie (the old bag) ever never again!!!

Now most people came to respect my wishes and began to call me Barbara... or Barb.  All through high school I was Barb.... and more and more that stuck. But then I started to drift away from family members.... I had a life of my own.... I became independent.  The people who surrounded me were not the aunts, uncles, and cousins of my younger years. I moved away from home and met Teapot and then things changed drastically for me... as I said even Barb became a rarity.... I feel like Frankie, truth be told, though my parents and sister still call me Barb as do my in-laws and a few horrified friends who refuse to insult me with Frankie (!???)

But every now and again, the people who knew me in my youth and really don't know much about my adult life, will come back into my life and call me the dreadful name from my youth.  If you really want to piss me off just call me Barbie and see what happens... though I would suggest you duck if you are in close standing otherwise you may walk away with a black eye.

And so it came to pass that a cousin contacted me this week and asked me to join a website for our family.... being computer savy (snork), I felt this was something I could do. So I followed all the links to join the website and set up an account.... problem: my cousin had set up the account for me with my name as Barbie.....

Yesterday I spent several hours trying to change it because every time I see it my teeth start to grind! (I'll have no teeth left soon).  I couldn't get it to change. It kept insisting that I am Barbie_------- !!!! Oh horror of horrors.... pink, blond, bubblegum.... Mattel... what a burden I am left to bear.

Barbie!... oh please....

If you read this, oh cousin of mine, please please change that thing for me..... or I'll start calling you Sweet Davy! (and I'll send you flowered underwear... because, remember, I know where you live!)
 : )
Have a good day!

Travel.... What A Way To Go.... Part The End

At last our friends headed back to Amsterdam and on into Poland. That's when they got to see the Wieliczka Salt Mine that I talked about back at the beginning of this series.  However, our friends did get to spend some time in Warsaw. There they visited Lazienk Royal Park.

A prettier spot you couldn't find I am inclined to believe. Warsaw was mostly destroyed at the end of the second world war. In being rebuilt there was some thought put into its design. It is now a thoroughly modern city that mixes the old and the new quite well. You are likely to see archtecture looking like this....

And this...

But it will always be combined with architecture like this...

or this...

S and G had no trouble getting around there and though they spoke no Polish were able to feel confident and free in their moving around although the y did find this somewhat daunting.....

It made for a lovely trip to feel that they could move around the city with no fear or angst.


After Poland, they made their way back to Amsterdam and further into the Netherlands where S had family to visit.

Amsterdam was a city of cafes and canals....

and when asked about the drug situation... S and G said they did not see it and were not concerned about it at all.

I'm sure that if you are like me then you think of the Netherlands as this....

and indeed S and G were able to bring back flower bulbs of different varieties to us. Except that not all bulbs can be brought out of the Netherlands and into Canada. They have to be specifically marked as checked and ok for Canadian customs. An interesting fact to remember if I ever get to visit.

Finally Sand G headed off into the country to visit with S's relatives but while there they were able to visit a working windmill and while I don't have pictures of it I was able to find this which is similar to the one that my friends visited.

I also was able to find this video of a working wind mill... please have a look because it is quite interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNlc8Jj1F-Q

So I hope over the last few installments of Traveling to Europe with me has been interesting and informative... and if any of you happen to get over there because of these blog posts I would love to hear from you....

I do have to say that I feel like I have been on a mini vacation over the last week. I guess reality needs to finally hit home and bring me back to Hudson's Hope where for the last two days we have been getting higher than normal temperatures and with it has come freezing rain and slippery ice everywhere. Christmas as of today (being the first day of Advent) has brought a new atmosphere to us in our neck of the woods. teapot has been away in the bush winter camping with the Rangers ans so while the cat's away... the mice have played.... that being the Daughters and I. Teapot came home today to a Christmas tree and much decorating going on... I'm biting the bullet and thinking ahead... Now I just have to get those gifts sorted out.
 
I hope you will come back tomorrow and join me as we approach Christmas and all that goes with it. I will be back to working on my workbook for level 5 and knitting those S-cks... I can't believe how nicely they are turning out. So far there's be nary a complaint from the toes.... I think they are comatose from being stunk out in my now overly worn and seriously forlorn Christmas slippers of 2010. I may just have to knit them a pair of their very own socks!

Travel... What A Way To Go... Part 4

Back In Switzerland, our friends did some traveling around and so they went to the hometown of the husband of the couple that  they were visiting.  He comes from a town call Brienz. In Brienz you will find beautiful scenery like this...

towering 5800 ft above Lake Brienz is the Rothorn (mountain). Our friends stepped aboard a  steam engine driven train which took them to the summit. The train in their photos looked quite benign but when I went looking for pictures of it I found these.... and they look anything but benign....

and this...

Brienz is a town where wood carvings abound and once I saw the pictures of it I realized why when in Canada the husband who came from there would do so much with wood carvings...his wood carvings were very folksy.  Still it brings them back to Canada ocasionally as they enjoy entering the ice carving contest in FSJ.

Next our friends went to Lake Lucerne. Lake Lucerne is surrounded by picturesque scenery and opulent buildings/vacation homes.  when I saw it I thought of the movie The Sound Of Music and the scene where Maria and the children down a country lane on bike singing Do Ra Me.... (only that actually happened in Saltzburg, Austria).

Have a look at these vistas....

The area is steeped in history ...

...and houses are traditional in the Swiss style....

But land is expensive... $4,000,000 for the smallest and steepest of pieces of property. I can only imagine how difficult it is to purchase land anywhere in Switzerland.

After Lucerne our friends were fortunate to be able to take in the local pumpkin festival.  Now here I ran into problems. I wasn't able to find any pictures from the pumpkin festival. Evedently the Swiss are absolutely besotted with pumpkins. They don't only carve them but build great structures riminicent of the rose bowl parade only not with roses... no indeed.... the Swiss like to use pumpkins. They build all manner of things from cows to hands held high in the air and the use pumpkins to do it.

I will end here today... and tomorrow I will bring you the last installment of Travel...  What A Way To Go. We will be visiting Warsaw Poland and we will be visiting a wind mill in the Netherlands. So come back and join me....

Travel.... What A Way To Go... Part 3

So our friends wanted to see Mount Vesuvius... and they were driving. This meant requiring a small car like most Europeans favour, and a heart stone and nerves of steel. S had the forethought to take some video of driving in Italy. Aside from the fact that the roads are narrow, every turn brought new dangers.  I can only imagine how it was likely very exhilarating to drive around a corner where convex mirrors were placed to help you see what was coming in the other direction.

Now imagine a motor cycle coming out of nowhere down the mid-line between the traffic ahead.... Ahhh,!  That's all I can say!

Then out of nowhere would pop a motorcycle or moped driving toward you on the mid line between the oncoming traffic and the line of traffic that you are driving in. I think I might get out of the car and walk! The most impressive thing about the drive was the fact that every turn you went around brought vistas of beauty and interest.

Beautiful views here...

...and here.

 G said that it was one city after another but they were small cities. You would hit a city and then shortly after you would be out of the city and heading into the country and then back into the next city.
And the communities were beautiful...

One after another towns of various sizes revealed themselves.... and each one with it's own unique appeal.

Teapot marvelled at how the homes were built so steeply on the cliffs with one house acting as the garden for the house above.

There were beaches too.... some near the towns and some that really were all to themselves...

Overlooking everything were feudal castles dating back to who knows how long ago...

And all the time the atmosphere was steeped in historical wealth, dreamy Mediterranean culture, and beauty above all. It is easy to understand why so many people travel to this part of the world.

Our friends stayed in a lovely domicile where they cooked their own meals each day after traveling to all the local spots of interest.

And of course the spot of interest that was of most curiosity to them was Mount Vesuvius... and the ancient town site of Pompeii.

Mount Vesuvius is best known for it's eruption in AD 79 when it spit forth lava and destroyed the Roman townsite of Pompeii.

Mount Vesuvius now looks like this...

and this...

and this...

 You can now go to the edge of the crater but it really is an active volcano, though it hasn't erupted since 1944.

The nearest community/city is Naples. But at one time the nearest city was Pompeii. Pompeii... the city of mythology was destroyed in AD79 and thereafter was forgotten and disappeared from memory until the 1800s when the town site of Pompeii was rediscovered.  Today it looks like this...

It is open to the public to wander about and see the effects of this devastating eruption that ended so many lives.

The bath houses of Pompeii look like this now....

and there is the remains of their amphitheatre....

then there are the remains of restaurants in what might have been a mall type of area.....

There are open ovens where bread would have been cooks and then there are holes in the surfaces of what might possible have been there to purposely hold bowls or pots of some kind. S had his picture taken next to one of these.

And though my friends didn't take pictures of it, the reality of Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius really hits home when you see images like this...

How easy it is to forget the reality of natural disasters when they are so far away.  But by traveling or at least seeing the pictures of someone else traveling to these places will remind us that we are humans and it encourages us to have a depth of feeling that we might not have otherwise.

This is the reason for my desire to travel....

I will end here and let you know that tomorrow we head back to Switzerland to Lake Lucerne, and to Bienz and to a pumpkin festival.... see you then...

Travel.... Wait I don't Have Time This Morning

So just a quick post this morning since I have to make a mad dash into town with the Dear Ones.... will be back later today and will try to get that post finished...

...will be talking about Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii, Naples and the west coast of Italy. Stay tuned....

Meanwhile....

Guess what I've been working on.....

(It's a s-ck)

I'm using yarn I spun back when I was in level 1. The yarn is sucky but was dyed with nature dyes and looks horrible but for my first pair I felt that I should try some of the not so good yarn... and look at it... just look at it... I made my way through my first turned heel!!!!! Once I have them finished I will throw them into a dye pot with some lovely bright coloured dye... and some lucky person on my Christmas list will be receiving them.

It's great to sit in my chair with this little fellow loving me...

and knit, knit, knit.....
Level 5... well it's on hold again while I get these socks finished. Oops! I've done it now. I said the word socks.... there will be no end to the complaints from the toes now.

Travel.... What A Way To Go.... Part 2

Now one of the places that our friends went to visit was Tuscany, Italy.  I don't know about you but when I think of Tuscany my thoughts have always been of this kind of thing....

or maybe this....

But after being at my friend's house last weekend and having seen their pictures from there I will think of Tuscany no more, in the way that I did. The reason is because until Sunday night I had never heard of a wonderful artist by the name of Niki de Saint Phalle.  This wonderful artist has built a garden dedicated to the concept behind Tarot Cards. She has given the Tuscan countryside something a little different to look at.  When she died in 2002 she left a legacy of inspiration for modern artist and architects alike. I did not take any of the photos from my friends to post here but once again I spent a little time researching the Tarot Garden and finding pictures similar to the ones we saw at our frind's house on Sunday night.... If these are not inspirational I don't know what is!

This is a building.... to be exact... it is the home of Niki until she died.

Inside of her home you will find the kitchen as seen here.

Add to it spaces such as this and her architecture/art may be somewhat overwhelming if one had to live there permanently.

As if the house is not distinct enough as it is, there is a pillar of hands....

Moving out into the garden there are beautiful views framed by wonderful mosaics.

And then you see the Tarot Garden....

where fountains splash....

and every turn gives you something to look at.... and think about.....

Whimsical is a word to describe the statuesque....

...but gripping and somehow essential.

G and I discussed how all artists should go  to Europe and experience the freedom of expression that seems to be so fundamentally a part of their culture.... North Americans somehow seem not to revere art the way Europeans do.... (this is just a thought)... When faced with art of this nature most North Americans will be quick to judge the work as strange... and perhaps it is.... but there is something compelling about being free enough to expand boundaries through the expression of ones ideas.

And while this art is not necessarily something that I love... I can see the value of the artist expression. The house is overwhelming and I need much more sublime surroundings for peace and tranquility.... I could not live in such a dwelling. But I would love to go and visit this site and see the work of this great artist. Another reason for wanting to travel....

If you would like to see more of Niki de Saint Phalle's art

the garden is called Il Giradino Dei Tarocchi, and her web site is www.nikidesaintphalle.com

See you tomorrow with views of further south in Italy.