Where's Bertie? He's still exactly where he was yesterday, looking at the Mediterranean Sea at Puçol.
Weather: Blue sky to the east and west of us, but stubbornly cloudy overhead. Temperature low of 13 degrees and high of 17 degrees.
Having walked a short distance north along the coast yesterday, this morning we ambled off southwards. We'd no sooner stepped off the dirt road and onto tarmac at the start of the next resort, when the tarmac disappeared again:
More evidence of winter storm(s).
A few hundred metres of soft sand and we came out on a promenade, which might have been a pleasant place to be if it hadn't been for the mishmash of local architecture being so awful.
I'm not sure this snap conveys how unattractive this place is.
There were no signs that our surroundings were going to get any nicer, so we didn't push on in the hope of finding a bar or cafe. Heading back the way we'd come our conclusion was that after less than a day, it was time to move on.
There ensued a good hour or so of this...
...at the end of which we decided to stay here another night after all, purely because I've a long run on the agenda tomorrow and I'd already plotted a route nearby that looks like it will work well. I didn't want to move elsewhere to find myself either needing to cross lots of side roads or running 15 laps of a small block.
What to do with the rest of our day? Not much! We took ourselves for a walk to the very far end of the beachside promenade in Puçol this afternoon (so much more pleasant a place than its neighbour), finding about half of the restaurants along there to be open, but with very few customers (I'm sure they're all heaving in summer and was surprised, with how few people there are around, to find so many open now).
I also took the opportunity, whilst it was daylight, to create a short video of me knitting. At the end of our last trip Conrad expressed an interest in seeing how fast I knit. At that time I didn't have any knitting on the go as I was crocheting a blanket, which led to a little video snippet of crochet, but I promised a video of knitting in due course. Here it is:
https://youtu.be/gGVcLI2xdpI
(Due to issues with operating the camera, it took three attempts to record this. As I wanted to capture both plain knitting and cabling, in between each attempt I had to complete two more rounds of the pattern to get me back to a suitable spot to try again. Thanks go to the cameraman for his patience.
Slightly random footnote: One of the many warranty issues we had with Bertie was that the lower catch on his main door wouldn't latch properly, leaving the bottom of the door sticking out a bit. We raised it repeatedly with the dealer, who kept telling us that the door was warped and needed to be modified with a strengthening kit. I felt sure that the real issue was a matter of adjusting the catches, but didn't much care what they did, as long as they fixed it. The problem was that they kept not fixing it. Eventually, after I expressed my displeasure quite rantingly at the end of one visit, they showed me that the door would close properly, as long as you slammed it really hard. After a bit more discussion, they conceded that it wasn't acceptable to have to apply that much force. Bertie was taken back into the workshop, the catches were adjusted and half an hour later he had a door that would shut properly with only a small amount of persuasion. It has remained like that until three days ago when I pulled it to very gently (as I usually do unless we're locking up to go to bed, or going out) and noticed that it had latched properly. When it did the same three times in a row I pointed it out to Mick and hypothesised that it was because we were parked on a side slope. But no: three days later it is still closing every time, without any undue force being required. The dealer had the door apart last week to fit a new blind (another warranty issue) and I'm wondering if they happened to bend the door slightly (in a good way) in so doing. The question now is whether it's fixed for life, or whether we'll be back to 'closing firmly' in due course.)
Weather: Blue sky to the east and west of us, but stubbornly cloudy overhead. Temperature low of 13 degrees and high of 17 degrees.
Having walked a short distance north along the coast yesterday, this morning we ambled off southwards. We'd no sooner stepped off the dirt road and onto tarmac at the start of the next resort, when the tarmac disappeared again:
A few hundred metres of soft sand and we came out on a promenade, which might have been a pleasant place to be if it hadn't been for the mishmash of local architecture being so awful.
There were no signs that our surroundings were going to get any nicer, so we didn't push on in the hope of finding a bar or cafe. Heading back the way we'd come our conclusion was that after less than a day, it was time to move on.
There ensued a good hour or so of this...
...at the end of which we decided to stay here another night after all, purely because I've a long run on the agenda tomorrow and I'd already plotted a route nearby that looks like it will work well. I didn't want to move elsewhere to find myself either needing to cross lots of side roads or running 15 laps of a small block.
What to do with the rest of our day? Not much! We took ourselves for a walk to the very far end of the beachside promenade in Puçol this afternoon (so much more pleasant a place than its neighbour), finding about half of the restaurants along there to be open, but with very few customers (I'm sure they're all heaving in summer and was surprised, with how few people there are around, to find so many open now).
I also took the opportunity, whilst it was daylight, to create a short video of me knitting. At the end of our last trip Conrad expressed an interest in seeing how fast I knit. At that time I didn't have any knitting on the go as I was crocheting a blanket, which led to a little video snippet of crochet, but I promised a video of knitting in due course. Here it is:
https://youtu.be/gGVcLI2xdpI
(Due to issues with operating the camera, it took three attempts to record this. As I wanted to capture both plain knitting and cabling, in between each attempt I had to complete two more rounds of the pattern to get me back to a suitable spot to try again. Thanks go to the cameraman for his patience.
Slightly random footnote: One of the many warranty issues we had with Bertie was that the lower catch on his main door wouldn't latch properly, leaving the bottom of the door sticking out a bit. We raised it repeatedly with the dealer, who kept telling us that the door was warped and needed to be modified with a strengthening kit. I felt sure that the real issue was a matter of adjusting the catches, but didn't much care what they did, as long as they fixed it. The problem was that they kept not fixing it. Eventually, after I expressed my displeasure quite rantingly at the end of one visit, they showed me that the door would close properly, as long as you slammed it really hard. After a bit more discussion, they conceded that it wasn't acceptable to have to apply that much force. Bertie was taken back into the workshop, the catches were adjusted and half an hour later he had a door that would shut properly with only a small amount of persuasion. It has remained like that until three days ago when I pulled it to very gently (as I usually do unless we're locking up to go to bed, or going out) and noticed that it had latched properly. When it did the same three times in a row I pointed it out to Mick and hypothesised that it was because we were parked on a side slope. But no: three days later it is still closing every time, without any undue force being required. The dealer had the door apart last week to fit a new blind (another warranty issue) and I'm wondering if they happened to bend the door slightly (in a good way) in so doing. The question now is whether it's fixed for life, or whether we'll be back to 'closing firmly' in due course.)
Wow! That video is impressive. Do you have a mental picture of what you are doing as you go along? Thanks to you and the cameraman - well done Mick.
ReplyDeleteI have a post that takes in the subject of knitting - here is an extract:
"Here was the home of the Dent Knitters, also known as The Terrible Knitters of Dent operating a thriving home knitting industry for centuries. They employed a unique method with one of the needles fixed to a belt enabling these industrious women to demonstrate, so long ago, the ladies' ability to multi-task by additionally churning butter or whatever other pursuit suited. They were often in trouble for continuing to knit during the long sermons in church."
If you want to read the whole post including the comments go to:
http://conradwalks.blogspot.com/search?q=dent+knitters
So, I reckon you need to work out the device thing then the next video should include you doing a bit of multi-tasking, I wont insist on having you making butter.
It seems to take me a while to get to grips with the pattern such that I don't have to constantly refer to the written instructions (or chart, in this case), but after a while it starts to make sense such that I can look at what I did in the previous row and see what it is I need to do in the current row.
DeleteFor Christmas 2018 I was given a fascinating (to me!) book by a chap called Michael Pearson who, in the 1980s, toured fishing communities throughout the UK to research and document their traditional knitting patterns (mainly Ganseys) before they were lost. He not only refers to the knitting belt attachment thing (the name of which, annoyingly, currently escapes me) but also states that the contract knitters could achieve speeds of up to 200 stitches per minute - a speed that I struggle to imagine. The reason they could manage that speed was because the one needle was held in the belt attachment, allowing them a free hand to shuffle the stitches along, which would otherwise disrupt their rhythm. I searched YouTube a while ago trying to find some footage demonstrating the technique, but failed.
My interest was only a passing one. I'm more than happy to stick with my circular needles, rather than switching to double pointed ones or having to knit individual pattern pieces back-and-forth.
I'm very impressed by your speedy knitting style. I never learned how to do that and my "throwing over" mode takes a lot longer. In my defence, I knit for pleasure so it really doesn't matter how long it takes and pure wool is expensive!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first took up knitting a couple of years ago I set about it in the 'English' style as I was taught as a child. Within about 20 rounds of the that first sock I was finding my technique so laborious that I did a bit of searching on the 'European' method. I took to that much better (although I've recently found that my technique is actually Norwegian) and immediately doubled my speed, although, of course, if I'd persisted with the English method I undoubtedly would have got more efficient in time.
DeleteWhat I didn't realise, until I watched the video back yesterday, was how speedy my fingers look. I don't feel like I'm going that fast! I have, however, made a rod for my own back with my speed: 1) as you say, yarn is expensive; and 2) there are only so many knitted items I reasonably need in my wardrobe and I've already exceeded that number!