Mountain Views and Gummies on a Log

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end. — Ursula K. Le Guin

We were away this weekend on a little mini-break which was sorta to celebrate my birthday and sorta for just getting a change of scenery. We decided to go someplace new, to a rented suite overlooking the Sooke Hills on the southern end of Vancouver Island. It was a last-minute change: we had originally booked a weekend right in Victoria, but the threat of rain with a little doggy in tow would make for a very difficult weekend where he'd have to stay locked up in the car for most of the trip. Not a great choice for Mr. Seymour:

I was really hoping it would turn out ok, and I was quite relieved to see what a nice place it was, sparkling clean and very quiet with spectacular views. I am not oblivious to the fact that much of North America is sitting under ice and snow right about now, so I am extraordinarily grateful to get a chance to share this view with all of you:

People always ask us what we get up to while we're away, and I'm always somewhat embarrassed to say that we don't do very much. We go for lots of walks, stop in at shops (if there are any around), find a nice place to have lunch, and then go for another walk before coming back to have a nap and a cup of tea and muse about where we might find some dinner. It's enough for us, and certainly enough for the pup:

As usual, I got distracted by a few pretty sights along the way. I liked the look of these dark dried out seed pods against the dried out grass behind them. It was like a giant had flicked a big, inky pen across the landscape:

And this fungus growing on a fallen log was such a pretty colour of orange that, if I didn't know better, I would think the tree had sprouted a gummy bear:

I also took the time to work on an ongoing project that I'm still picking away at. I THINK it's going to be a wall-hanging, but I'm really not sure yet how it's all going to work out. It's made from three separate charts, two of which I had to chart out myself from the written pattern. I'm quite amazed I made it to the end of the tree without too many mistakes. I can't say I'm going to try doing that again. Hear me friends: never try to knit a cable chart when you're feeling tired. Never. Ever.

The central tree is by Ariel Barton, and is a cable pattern I have admired for a long time. It did bend my brain quite a bit, because the charts only include half the pattern - you have to knit to the centre and then go back and knit all of the instructions backwards to get the mirrored effect. I've been knitting cables long enough to be able to decipher the intended stitch without having to read every instruction, but I have to admit that some of them where quite a doozy for me to figure out. I made it through with one glaring error at the bottom branches, and I agonized for a while about how I was going to fix it. In the end, I decided I'm just going to leave it. I've got plans for a way to hide that problem later on:

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts today because all of a sudden I feel bombarded by Christmas muzak and holiday markets and Black Friday adverts all around me. I'm not really in the mood for it all this year... at least not yet. I'm hoping that will change. The shock of it all has bamboozled me enough to mess up a batch of scones I made this afternoon. They were an alien shade of purple earlier, the result of forgetting to put in all of the flour until all the wet ingredients were added in. The blueberries had started to bleed their colour into the batter and I had a huge soupy mess for a while. I think they remedied themselves by turning a lovely golden brown in the oven, but the proof will be in the tasting...

I best get to it. Scones must be taste-tested, after wall. Have a lovely week!