Weekly Rundown: The Catch Up Edition

It’s been a pretty busy fortnight, since I last wrote a proper Weekly Rundown. Last week’s doesn’t exactly count as it was just a thrown together post about the socks I am knitting. I’m still knitting that first one though I’ve started work on the heel now. It’s a different sort of heel now to the one I’ve done before so it’s proved to be a bit of a learning experience but aside from creating a slight hole which I'll have to close up later, I'd done pretty well I think.

The last fortnight has involved a fair bit of family catching up. I’ve been catching up with family members who I’ve not had proper contact with for way too long. It’s really good to see what we’ve got in common. Plus I’ve had a family wedding as well which meant lots of celebrating, plus getting dressed up and travelling four hundred miles to attend.

The journey down south (and back) was quite the experience. It was great to see my family down south and the wedding was fantastic. I looked pretty good in my nice dress too. It was kind of a trial run for the graduation dress, which will be paired with sensible shoes and no funky fascinator (a great find by Mr Click) for the big day in October.

I'm also trying to get caught up on other blogs. What with the connection issues I had on my phone, when I have been able to get online I've not been reading blogs as much because I've been looking at things I would normally check out during the week. I'm about 100 blog posts behind at the moment across all the blogs I follow, that's about three weeks behind, so don't be alarmed if you suddenly see me commenting on blog posts you wrote back in July!

So, what else have I been up to?

Well, on the knitting front, I’m still working on the same sock that I was before I left. I’ve still got to finish knitting my duck family as well, but I’m taking a break from them for the aforementioned sock. The sock was actually inspired by my reading material before I went away; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Hermione takes up knitting with a passion and there are frequent references to hats and socks. I have a very suggestive personality.

I actually really need to do some of the hats from Charmed Knits as well. I need me some Elf Hats!
For a while it didn’t look like I was going to finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix before I went away. At one point I was going to need to read eight chapters a day to get finished in time. Well I managed it! It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to take it away with me, it’s just that it’s a massive book and weighs a bit. I already had plenty to take with me so I didn’t want to add to the weight.

Luckily I finished it the night before I left and so moved onto the next books in Terry Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell trilogy Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb. I ended up taking both away with me but didn’t realise that the one I thought came second was actually the third (Johnny and the Bomb). I don’t think it spoiled anything at all. The books have the same characters but the stories stand alone quite well. I think the major thing that’s significant is that Johnny’s parents have now separated but they were arguing a lot of the time in the first book so it made sense.

I read it the whole time I was away and finished it just as the ferry was docking back on the island so I’ve put Johnny and the Dead back on the bookcase to read in a few weeks time. I’ve gone on to read The Plague Dogs which is by Richard Adams who wrote Watership Down (which I read about this time last year). I inherited my copy of the latter from my great-uncle John and heard that he’d written The Plague Dogs so when I found it in a charity shop I picked it up, then stuck it away and never got around to reading it.

Until now.

Like Watership Down it’s taking me quite a while to get through. Adams has a peculiar way of writing and his use of dialect slows me down as well. I’ve been at it almost a week and I’m not even halfway through yet. I am quite enjoying it though, well as much as you can enjoy a story about dogs escaping from an animal testing facility.

Obviously we’ve not watching quite as much recently, what with going away. Now I’m back we’re getting back on track. We’ve almost come to the end of the sixth series of Criminal Minds and have been watching The Persuaders before we go to bed each night too. We’ve only got one more series of Criminal Minds left on DVD and I’m not sure whether we’ll go ahead and order the next ones or move on to watching The Mentalist (which Mr Click got me for my birthday).

As for film viewing, well after the sad news of Robin Williams’s death this week, we chose to watch the Aladdin films yesterday. We have surprisingly few of his films now but I’m going to have to get Patch Adams as a matter of some urgency.

Plans for this week ahead?

Well, not a whole lot. I’m hoping that I might actually get to the end of my sock and cast on the next one. I’m also hoping to finish reading The Plague Dogs because I don’t like reading the same book for more than a week. Then again, I’m planning on reading The Silmarillion next which’ll probably take me a wee while too.


Other than that? It’s going to be a little bit busier than usual with dog training starting up again and the Highland Games next week. Going to be tiring but fun.