Ghosts and other strange things!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ONE AND ALL!



from the ghostly figure of Ronan




and Robert as a pirate skeleton from Pirates of the Caribbean,







and a flesh-eating zombie (Lewis) and a pumpkin (Duncan, son of Spinningfishwife)







and lastly from the wickedest witch ever (gg herself!!!!)




We were all dressed up for the Mini Section Halloween party last Friday night.

BTW I do have a pic of spinningfishwife but I promised her I wouldn't blog it this time!!!!

2 days left!

Hey, ya all need to go visit my "soul sisters" blog. It was her 2 year blogversary on the 25th and she is holding a competition....closing date 1st Nov, so hurry up and visit her.

Happy belated blogversary to you and a happy belated birthday to your DD, appologise to her....I missed it :(

Missing Pix

Hopefully blogger will allow me to upload the pix that were missing from yesterdays post about the Zoo!!!

Yiphee, we have success this time.......well for the moment anyway!




Here is Robert watching the penguin parade. Both the boys really love watching the parade...having said that so do I! (I guess I'm just a big kid at heart!!!)






We were fascinated to watch a group of penguins swimming above water ........











......then totally mesmerised to watch them swimming underwater. In fact we stood for ages just watching how graceful they were underwater compared to what they are like on land!




I couldn't resist taking this pic of the boys cuddling "Mumble" from "Happy Feet!!!









OK, so getting back to my previous posts title....koalas in Edinburgh.....well here they are! (Well one of them at least)


That's it, all the pix that were missing from yesterdays post. I promise a knitting post soon :)

Koalas in Edinburgh?

Occasionally gg and family decide they will be tourists for the day and go visit places of interest in and around Edinburgh. So a few weeks ago when the kids had nagged on at me for several weeks I decided to give in and took them to Edinburgh Zoo. To let you understand Edinburgh Zoo is actually only about 10 mins on the bus from the centre of Edinburgh. On a nice sunny day it is a wonderful place to be, but on a rainy day...... However the day we decided to go was a beautiful sunny day and lots of pix were taken of the animals. (So please bare with me there will be lots of animal piccies to follow!)

Edinburgh Zoo is owned by The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. The Society was founded by an Edinburgh lawyer, Thomas Gillespie in March 1909. He was a visionary and enthusiast and it only took four years for him to gather enough support and money to enable the Society to buy an 85 acre site to the west of Edinburgh. He bought it for £17,000 with help from the City of Edinburgh Council.

Edinburgh Zoo was opened to the public on 22 July 1913, and was incorporated by Royal Charter later that year. However, it was only in 1948, following a visit by HRH King George VI, that the Society was granted the privilege of adding the prefix 'Royal' to its name. It remains the only zoo with a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom.

Anyway I digress.....what about our visit? Well we took the shuttle "bus" up to the top of the hill to begin out tour. (Easier to walk down the hill that up!!!) There were a few "must see" animals on our list, especially the Saki Monkeys.

This is a White Faced Saki Monkey. Saki monkeys can be found in northern and central South America, extending from the south of Colombia over Peru in northern Bolivia and into the central part of Brazil.



Why were these monkeys on our "list"....well the boys school sponsor the Saki Monkeys at Edinburgh Zoo, and Robert is a Saki Monkey monitor! (That is NOT easy to say!!!) What does the Saki Monkey Monitor do? Well he is responsible for collecting the money from his class mates every Wednesday. Because of this he wanted to see a real one. Good enough reason for me! We actually spend quite a while watching the monkeys "play" in there enclosure.

As we wandered down through this vast site on the hill we passed may animals, like

the Jaguar (I'm quite pleased with this pic, as you wouldn't think there was a thick piece of toughened glass between it and me!)

Greater one horned rhino








Madagascar Ring-tailed lemur. Boy were they fun to watch, frolicking in the sunshine. This one was sitting eating an apple and much easier to catch on camera.....the others were far to quick for the shutter speed on my ancient digital camera!





However I think my favorites have to be the penguins, and if you ever visit Edinburgh Zoo, be sure to be there at around 2pm, as they let the penguins out of their enclosure and have a penguin parade!

At this point I was going to put a pic of Robert watching the penguin parade but blogger wont let me! I was then going to post some pix of the penguins swimming underwater, coz that is really fascinating to watch, but again no can do!

OK so why the title of my post? Well earlier this year Edinburgh Zoo got two Koalas from a Californian Zoo. Ronan wanted to go see them as he is doing a project on Australia at school. I would have posted a pic here of the Koalas but again blogger has let me down! I will try and post the pix later when blogger allows!

One last thing before I go, British Summertime is officially over! The clocks went back an hour last night, so early dark and dark in the mornings.....yeuch!

RWC knitting and a FO

Yup, I've done it.......I've finished all my RWC knitting and a UFO as well. All 3 hours before the start of the South Africa V England final. Am I pleased.......You bet I am!!!

I even have a pic to prove it too!





This is the Koigu KPPPM sox in the waterfall pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch that I blogged about yesterday.





They are lying on a baby blanket which I finished this afternoon. It is knitted in King Cole Sprinkles and baby DK in liliac and white. I hated every minute of knitting this blanket as the "yarn" is 100% polyester........am I a yarn snob or what? Yes I am I hate knitting with acrylic yarns!..........yeugh! That is probably why it has taken me ages to actually finish the blanket.

Ravelry and RWC knitting

I have not posted about me having been invited to joined Ravelry way back in June. However since then I have been enjoying immersing myself in all things Ravelry since!!! (Just like many others it would seem!)I have joined several groups and met and made some new friends and met some old ones too!

One of the groups I joined was the RWC (Rugby World Cup) KAL. At the begining of the RWC I decided I would knit a copuple of things, one was a pair of short sox in Scotlands colours of blue and white. I just had enough yarn to actually complete them. Yes they are finished, infact they have been done for a few weeks now and claimed by Ronan! Since I had finished my "portable" knitting I needed an other small project so I decided to knit an other pair of sox, this time for moi! I had some really nice Koigu KPPPM yarn that I had been wanting to knit with for some time so I decided to knit my favoirite sock pattern......the Opal ladies lacey sock one!



This is a picture which I took on Monday once they were done. I then needed a further portable project so I then dug out some more sock yarn, this time, Koigu KPPPM in beautiful purple heues. (No pic as yet!) I am on the second sock, knitting it in the waterfall rib pattern from Sensational Knitted socks by Charlene Schurch.


I also cast on a large project and I mean large coz it was a jacket for myself!




It was the Long Line Jacket by Twileys of Stamford. It was knitted in the Freedom yarn, in the claret colour and on 9mm and 10mm needles.





and here it is, resplendant in all it's glory, hanging from my shower rail as this was the only place I seemed to be able to get a half decent pic!




Oh well I hope to get my second Koigu sock finished before the final whistle is blown tomorrow after the South Africa V England game. Unfortunately I probably won't be able to watch the final since I will be at work :(

Profound Statement!

I took this pic on a visit to Edinburgh Zoo with the boys on Saturday. I liked what it said and decided to put it here!

Incase you can't read it, it says......."We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are all just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love.........and then we return home"!

I found the link for this on spinningfishwife's blog and couldn't resist doing it too!



I have also just noticed that I have passed the 200 blog entry mark with this one (201). Hell when I started doing this nearly 2 years ago i thought i would striggle to reach 10 entries, how wrong one can be.