Thursday, February 19, 2015

Well, the big news is, I got my iPadAir2. Goodness, it's wonderful. I should be doing more adventurous things with it – watching movies, or making them. Would iPad for Dummies help?

Even with the Post Office gone, and staying out of Poundland, I had a lot of errands to do up the hill yesterday. John Lewis was part of the circuit, and there were the iPads, and I trust their service, so I just bought it there. The man at the till offered to set it up for me for £20 – there were notices up about that option– but I declined so he offered to set it up for me for free. I am pleased to say that I didn't disgrace myself by forgetting my identity or either of the necessary passwords.

The set-up included registering it so it ought to be findable now with the Find-My-iPad app.

So I still haven't seen the Apple Shop.

I've reinstalled Zite, after a bit of password fuss, and it remembers my “magazine”. I've got Kindle-for-iPad, too. The cloud is full of my old books, sure enough, but I think the ones I had on the Device aren't there any more, understandably. I bought a book, just to see whether Amazon would deliver it to the missing iPad, but no, Amazon has automatically named the new one “Jean's 2nd iPad” and the book came there.

(It is “This House of Grief”, a real-life account of an Australian murder trial, very well reviewed lately and with lots of stars on Amazon. It starts with a disconcerting jauntiness but may settle down.)

As for knitting, I went on with the sock. There are about 20 rounds to go before the toe shaping.

I was right – I have two more skeins of Pakokku “Into the Whirled”, Brandywine and Gwydir. And also a skein of Rowan Fine Art. I thought that one was all natural, and therefore perhaps not tough enough for socks, but it has 25% polyamide like everybody else, and should do fine. On the other hand, is it sightly finer than other sock yarns?

I now need to put my husband's socks and shoes on for him which has given me a new and interesting viewpoint on socks. I remember trying some variations of fit for him, but my notes, alas! don't make it clear which variation applies to which pair of socks. Some are distinctly better than others.

I like the way the Oliver shaping fits, although I now can't remember how it's done. It should be easy enough to recover. For at least one pair, I used 72 stitches insead of 64 for the leg, and then narrowed down for the foot in the course of the gusset shaping. I think that's too floppy. Perhaps I could try counting stitches the next time he's wearing a sock that really seems to fit smartly.

Non-knit, weather

I'm sorry to hear America is still having so much winter – my sister says the same of CT.

Groundhog Day used to puzzle me as a child. Of course there are six more weeks of winter on February 2. I have since learned that it originates as a belief in the north of England, rather like the one about St Swithin's day later on in the year, no mention of groundhogs but the same idea – a dull day means spring, a bright one, more winter. It makes much more sense, here. Either might happen.


February 2nd is the Feast of the Purification. The groundhog effectively removes any religious connotation which might offend American sensibilities.

9 comments:

  1. skeindalous11:36 AM

    Now, in my family, I would assume that once a replacement object was bought, the original would float to the surface!

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  2. Anonymous11:38 AM

    Have fun Jean, you're worth it!

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  3. I found the Rowan Fine Art to be the splittiest sock yarn I ever used. I won't use it again. The colors were nice, but it was too much work. I made the socks as a gift so I don't know how well they wear. It is a fairly thin sock yarn, which I like, but too splitty.

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  4. We had Candlemas, and our throats blessed, on Feb. 2, the feast of St. Blaise. Little mention of the Purification. I always thought the St. Blaise and the Groundhog were to rid us of that pagan reference.

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  5. You should be able to download the books you've purchased back onto your ipad. In the Kindle App along the bottom, you can select either cloud or device. Click on the cloud then tap any book you want to re-download and it should start downloading when you go back to device.

    Alternatively, you can go to amazon.com and look under manage my device (under my account). You should see a list of all the books you've purchased. Select the ones you want then under action choose "deliver".

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  6. What a feeling of satisfaction to negotiate the maze of all that technology.

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  7. I wish we were having winter in my part of America (western U.S.), Super dry and unseasonably warm. It's been dreadful.

    You do realize that now that you have a new iPad, you'll find the old one. You should definitely make some movies!

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:57 PM

      Agree with you on both points, Holly.
      -- stashdragon

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  8. Your sister and I had reason to be in contact recently. They seem to have feet of snow. It's a pity I can't exchange some of it for our heat - forecast 39'C today - which means it will probably be 40-41'C at least. It is too hot to knit!

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