October Round Up

 Is it too far into November to recap October?  Tough, I'm doing it anyway.

We spent Thanksgiving in the Nation's Capital with family.  And Science Girl of course who was very excited to see  her parents and brother  the dog.  A nice week-end of too much food, too much wine.  A lot of dog walking by the river.

Puppy Dog and I finished up 7 weeks of Primary Obedience school and much to my surprise, she was Top Dog in the class.  This doesn't mean anything except that she did as she was told for that hour on that day.  She got some nice parting gifts though.  I've signed us up for the Intermediate class.

Science Girl had her Commencement Ceremony as well.  She flew home the day after all the goings-on on Parliament Hill.  She had been locked down in the chemistry class for 6 hours while armed, not just with a pistol but with some kind of scary looking gun, RCMP and Ottawa Police and who knows who all else, scoured downtown Ottawa looking for possible other gunmen.  There were reports early in the day that there shots fired at a mall just down the street from Parliament Hill.  That mall is about a 5 minute walk from SG's campus.  It turned out not to be true but I was sick to my stomach for a few hours. 

And this is a problem I see with social media;  all these reports were coming in via Twitter without any filter or other investigation, maybe from a CBC reporter or  maybe not and Peter Mansbridge, bless his heart, was just reporting them as they came in.

Here she is whizzing past in the Recessional.  The blurriness is partly because of my shite camera and partly because of the fact that she was whizzing past.

 

She received several monetary awards in different subject and was told in the congratulatory letter and by a teacher to write a thank-you letter to the sponsor of the award.  I don't know which was more disturbing  - that fact that these kids had to be told to write a thank you letter or the fact that I had to spend 1 hour on Skype with SG helping her write the letters.  And not just content but format as well.  Do they not teach this in school anymore?  No, Hen they don't just like they don't teach cursive writing.  Oh, don't get me started.  I'm just gearing up for Lego Boy's Parent-Teacher Interview on Friday.

 

I finally got my plants in the ground.  There are no pictures because they're just little roots and sticks that don't look like they'll survive.  I did remember to make note of what I planted though.  Some coneflowers (that I just saw the hydro man walk on), phlox, and a mauve-ish poppy. I still have 55 tulips to get planted but there's lots of time yet.  Hopefully, pictures to follow in the Spring.

I read this:

 

This is the second in the Laurence Bartram series and takes him to the village of Easton Deadall to help refurbish the chapel at the manor house but he gets caught up in the mystery of the disappearance of the daughter of the house 10 or so years earlier.

 

I also read this:

 

 

Set in 1350's Cambridge with Matthew Bartholomew, one of the town's physicians and Brother Michael, the Senior Proctor of the University trying to solve the mystery of several of the town's scholars.  They're dropping like flies and the suspects are many. Tensions mount between the students and the townsfolk as the University prepares to open for the Term and there's a new College which is annoying the rest of the University with its policies.  Matt, in addition to helping Brother Michael with all of this brewing trouble, is also trying to console his recently widowed sister and deal with his patients and unruly students.  A nice bit of historical fiction.

 

Got some knitting done. 

 

They both just need little tassels to hang from the earflaps.  The yarn (Snuggly Baby Crofter DK) was pretty cool to knit up; it makes a Fair Isle effect as you knit.  The one on the left is for a new little baby boy and the one on the right is for his 2 year old sister.  I think I'll knit some mitts to go with them. 

 

I've also got an infinity scarf of the go for SG.  She picked the yarn and the pattern so there might be a chance she'll wear it.

 

So most of the leaves are down off the trees, Himself has put away all the outside stuff, the time has changed and it's supposed to get colder and snowy later in the week.

 

I'm in the mood for hunkering down for the winter.