Go Mussie Go

Two posts in one day! (and neither about knitting, both about the kids rugby!!!!!)

Well Musselburgh Rugby Club (Mini Section) had an other brilliant day today. It was their own tournament and we had teams from North Berwick, Preston Lodge, Lasswade and Stirling County participating at most levels from primary 4 up to primary 7 (8 years to 11 years)and the primary 3 teams had their own tournament where everyone won and they received a certificate of participation. Basically the younger ones just had a festival of fun and left the more serious stuff to the bigger kids!!!!

Unfortunately I didn't see too much of the rugby, despite being one of the P3 coaches coz I was stuck on the "Hook-a-duck" stall, where we had a small pool of water with some plastic ducks with small rings on their tails so they could be hooked out of the pool with hooks on sticks. It proved to be a great attraction for the kids, and I only had one person fall in, but he managed to do it twice!!!!! We also had a tombolla stall, a cake stall, a sweet stall (for the kids) and a burger stall. We had a great turn out and even the sun graced us with its company all afternoon which was great!!!! OK back to the rugby........



Robert played a stormer as team captain, even if he did get disheartened at times coz his team weren't doing as he asked, but I suppose that's to be expected coz they are predominately 6 years old.

He was really pleased coz at the end of it he received the "Man of the match" trophy.

Here he is with the trophy outside the clubhouse!!!!!







I managed to see some of Ronan's games as they were playing nearer the stall! He did score a few tries, including this one.( The picture was taken by Mr Spinning Fishwife).
The pads on his knees were for protection coz the ground was so hard and he might have been hurt when he landed at speed, as seen below when he scored this try!!!


Ronan was once again in the winning P5 team. This is the second week running Musselburgh have won at all age groups from P4 to P7 in a tournament. Musselburgh also won The Robin MacLaine Shield, this is awarded to the team with the most points for all the ages combined, we had 43 points.


Here they both are outside the club house, Robert with his "Man of the Match" trophy and Ronan with his P5 winners medal. Both with blue and white hair, as seems to be a bit of a tradition with the kids at the tournaments and when away on tour!!!!



I promise I'll write about knitting next time!!!! Unfortrunately I haven't had much time for doing that this week as I seem to have been busy with other things.

Big day today.........

Today is a big day for the kids, well I suppose it is for me too, not only as a parent but as one of P3 team coaches. Today is the Musselburgh Mini Section Rugby Tournament.....One of the main events in our year. The kids are all fired up and ready to go and its still just gone 8am.....They don't kick off till 12 noon!!!!!!

I suppose they are all fired up after last weeks wins.


Robert and the rest of his P3 team mates won their first ever tournament at a neighbouring club in Portobello. You have to remember that this team is made up predominately of P2's which means that most of the team are only 6 years old and consistently are playing against kids who are 7 or 8.
Here is Robert with his winning medal sitting in our club house.




Ronan and the rest of the Mini teams from P4 up to P7 were playing at an other tournament at Murrayfield Wanderers in Edinburgh, which was played on pitches in the shadow of Murrayfield, Scotlands' National Rugby Stadium. Musselburgh won all age groups in this tournament much to the kids, coaches and parents delight.


Here is Ronan (2nd from the left in the middle row)with the rest of the winning P5 team and their coaches. Murrayfield Stadium is in the background. The P5 team has two girls in it, they are Jenny (3rd from left in front row) and Amanda (3rd from right in front row) and believe me they go in harder than most of the boys!!!! They are both brilliant players and its great to see girls playing rugby. (There isn't too many of them around)

Good luck to all the teams who are playing at Musselburgh today.

The week that was!

As I had said in a previous post I had been troubled with back problems which had kept me confined to the chair for most of last week. Well as you can imagine that was just wonderful for the knitting, I got lots of stuff finished. I have already told you the sockpalooza sock saga so I don't need to say more on that, except the second pair was finished and the third pair was done too, as well as a knitted elephant!


This elephant, complete with wooly jumper and "kilt" was part of a birthday present to my friend "Spinning Fishwife's husband who turned 50 on Sunday. It was knitted as a joke, as he has a collection of elephants that he has seemingly amassed over the years, but despite this it appears he doesn't really like them!!! Also he is always teasing us about our knitting so really I had to knit something for him, and an elephant seemed a good idea! According to Spinning Fishwife, whom I met for coffee earlier today he appears to be bemused by it and has it sitting beside his computer!



I also started to crochet a scarf as part of my last package to my secret pal, but as I have left it in the car I do not have any photos of it as yet. But I will try and remember to take one before I send the package off. I know it will be a few days late, but last week was a disaster for me and I am all behind with collecting things together to send. However I have emailed my secret pal to inform her of this possible delay.

On the subject of my back, it appears to be greatly improved and I have acctually managed my first drug free day today!!!! Way hay, I'm not spaced out on medication today.....I've had to face the real world!!!!!! I ventured out for the first time on Saturday afternoon for a spot of lunch and some shopping (not grocery) I was really sore and tired, so tired infact that I had to get David to lift my leg into the car!!!! I then had a sleep for a couple of hours then got organised and went out to Spinning Fishwife's husbands birthday bash, where I spend all night sitting drinking diet coke..... but I had a great time, and no hangover on Sunday morning for me!

Leg update

I have had several emails asking how the celulitis on my left leg is. Thankfully it seems to be improving, well it should be after 3 different lots of antibiotics and a course of diuretics to reduce the fluid which was gathering in my leg (and leaking out of the broken areas....yeuch!)

Having said that being confined to the house (and chair) this week with a back injury has meant that I have had limited movement so the leg has had plenty of rest!!!! So I suppose my back injury was a blessing in disguise! It has also meant that DH and the kids have been attending to my every whim..... Mmmmmmm wonder if I could make it last an other week?

A special mention and a BIG THANK YOU has to go to my good friend Isabella (Spinning Fishwife) who picked up my kids from school every day this week, without her my kids would have been abandoned and welfare would have been knocking my door!!!!!!

Ok so how did I hurt my back? Well I have a long standing on/off problem with lower back pain.......(can't have been a nurse for nearly 30 years and not have that!) Any way it happened last Sunday, when I twisted awkwardly getting up of the toilet (yes you can laugh...I would too if it didn't hurt so much!) Didn't seem too bad at the time, had the odd twinge when I moved, but realised just how bad it was when it took me over 3 hours to get out of bed on Monday morning! DH had to call the doctor out and he gave me an injection of pain medication and diazepam to relax the muscles in my lower back, still took a further 30 mins to get out of bed. Thankfully the kids were off school on Monday so there was no major hurry to get up. Basically I have spent the week sitting in a chair, "spaced out" on strong pain medication and Diazepam!!! I have not been to bed all week as I've been far to frightened to go incase I couldn't get up, so I've also been sleeping in the chair. Today I woke up and the pain seems less so I have not needed the diazepam or pain medication (so far). Things are looking up and if they keep going that way I might actually sleep in my bed for the first time in 5 nights.....bliss (I hope!) and all being well might manage to get out of the house tomorrow (we need a grocery shop!!!!!).

The up side of this is that thankfully my arms and hands weren't affected so I have done a power of knitting....how often do we manage to get a whole 5 days to just sit and knit and not have to work, look after the family etc....a knitters dream!!!!

Pics of the FO's later as one is a pressie for Mr Spinning Fishwife's birthday!!!!

Third time lucky!

I wrote in a previous post about my sockpalooza sox. Well all did not go to plan...


The first pair was too small and I sent them to a friend in Brooklyn NY.






The second pair was coming along great,I had managed to get it to work out that they would be identical twin sox, then the yarn threw me, an extra pink piece of yarn mysteriously appeared mid way down the leg part of the sock. As I was knitting the second sock when I was away for the weekend and I didn't have the first one with me, I didn't realise the problem till I came home and by this point it was too late, both sox were finished. I know I could send a pair of fraternal sox to my sockpalooza pal, but I'm a perfectionist and no way can I do that. They are too small for me, but I think I will give them to my mum to wear when she goes walking.



You can see the discrepancy better in this picture.







THIRD TIME LUCKY........................

Here are the final sox that I have knitted for my sockpal. I hope she likes them.

They have a lacy top and are knitted from Opal sock yarn...75% superwash virgin wool and 25% polyamide.
They are identical twins.

I'm back...............

I'm back.......Where have I been, I hear you ask? Well as some of you know I was off down to Redcar with the kids to watch them play rugby on weekend 7th-9th April. (More about that later), but when I arrived home I discovered I had a problem with my internet server and could not get on line. I phoned them, but because David ( dear hubby!) is the account holder they refused to discuss the problem with me....Hey ho. I asked David to phone, but it took me over two weeks to persuade him to actually make the call and when he did it only took 15 minutes to get us back up and running. Awwwwwwwwwwwww MEN!!!!!! However all is well, and now I can update you all with the comings and goings of Gourdongirl!

Firstly when I arrived back from Redcar there was a card from the post office telling me I had a package to pick up, so off I went on the Monday morning to the collection office to collect said package. It was my last package from my Secret Pal 6....Oh boy I was so excited and couldn't wait to open it. I wanted to savour the moment so put it in the trunk of the car and took it,(along with the kids) out to David's work. The museum where he works has opened for the season and they do a nice coffee, so I decided that would be where I would open it.

Ooooooooooooooooooh it was full of goodies. Just look at what was inside:-


This is a skein of hand dyed pure Merino Wool in purple and green colours. It is approx 980 yards, 3.5 oz of lace weight yarn. I really love this yarn it is so so very soft and I can't help touching it and hugging it on a regular basis!!!!!!!

The yarn came from www.handpaintedyarn.com .

Also in the package was.......

a "Fiber Trends" pattern for an Estonia Garden Wrap and Scarf. Just ideal for the hand painted yarn also in the package!, an "S" fridge magnet and a pack of 4 smaller fridge magnets, a tin of "Davies Gate" All Spice Pink Grapefruit Powder Sugar Bath Soak, which smells just delightful and I can't wait to use, also a pack of "post its" and last but not least a large pack of Reese's miniature Peanut Butter Cups, yummmmmmmmy. There was also a card introducing my VERY generous Secret pal..... She is Lucia Tedesco from California. (Well I think that is what CA stands for in the abbreviations of the States....Still have to get to grips with them!!!!!!)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH LUCIA FOR YOUR WONDERFUL PACKAGES.

As I said earlier I opened my package out at David's work....Prestongrange Industrial Heritage Museum, on the bottom road between Musselburgh and Prestonpans in East Lothian Scotland. The above pictures were taken in the garden in front of the Museum cafe. The "rock" they are taken on is actually a fossilised tree which was found on the beach just across the road from the Museum and is thought to have originally come from a coal seam.

Sockpalooza sox update

The above sox were originally for my sockpalooza pal, but after I had finished them I realised they were smaller than the size specification she had given and they were way too small for me so they are, as I write, winging their merry way across the "pond" to a friend from Knitty who lives in Brooklyn. I hope they fit ok.

I started an other pair of sox late last night for my sockpalooza pal and have reached the heel flap already. They are knitted from Opal Cotton in blues, greys and pinks. I hope to have them finished over the weekend and ready for posting as soon as I know who to post them too! (Photo to follow as camera is packed in my bag all ready for us going off on Ronan's Rugby Trip this weekend)

Knitting update

Today I went into my LYS as I hadn't been in there for a few weeks and guess what she had hanging up? ........Skeins and skeins of Colinette Yarn. WOW the colours and textures were just amazing....Could I resist? Don't be silly, of course I bought some. I bought 2 skeins of Colinette Lasso in colourway Raphael 70, which as you can see is a variegated yarn in purples, pinks, turquoise and blues. There is 205m in each 100g skein, don't know what I am going to knit with it, but one day I will wake up and it will "talk" to me!!!!! I also bought 2 balls of Lana Grossa sock yarn...Yes I know I have lots of sock yarn, but hey you can NEVER have too much sock yarn!!! She has just started stocking it too along with some other Lana Grossa yarns.


My Opal Zebra socks are now finished, I started them when I was at SKIPnorth. I really like them, but haven't actually worn them yet as I have a problem with a swollen left foot and lower leg (more on that later) and I am unable to get them on, well I suppose I could if I stretched them but I don't want to do that!!
I also finished these lacy socks, knitted in Online cotton sock yarn. I really liked knitting them. I had decided they were for my Sockpalooza pal, but I'm not sure if the foot is wide enough for her, so have decided to knit an other pair for her with some of the Lana Grossa I bought today. They will also be lacy but not that one. I will have to look through my patterns to see what I can find.


Here is a picture of my swollen left leg!
Not a pretty sight....Is it?
It is not really clear from this picture but from the ankle up to mid shin is red and has small bumps under the skin. This area of my leg is extremely itchy and sore to touch, and can be quite hot at times. The "band" round my ankle is the mark of my sock where it has cut into the puffiness of my leg. I noticed that my leg was swollen and oedematous a couple of weeks ago, but I'd had it before years ago and it had gone on its own, without medical intervention, however this was not the case this time. Over last weekend a small red itchy area appeared on the front of my shin, unfortunately this spread to most of the front of my lower leg. I dug out my medical books and after reading a few possibilities I thought it would be better to pay my Doctor a visit, so off I went first thing on Monday morning. So what is the problem....Well they think I have a cellulitis and have been given 2 strong antibiotics to take 4 times a day over the next 7 days. I am hoping this will work and at the end of the 7 days my leg will be back to normal and I will be able to wear my new socks!!!!