Raining, because beach volleyball

Although it never rains in Canberra, it is raining today, because number two son has a day of inter-school beach volleyball on some nice sandy courts outside. I was not aware he played beach volleyball until the note came home ... apparently the school has put together a team. They are not confident of success, but it should be fun. Or it would be if it wasn't bucketing down - although he might still have a good time.

He is mostly excited to use his new debit card, which we finally set him up with; a grown up account with his pocket money going in automatically and a shiny card to pay for hot chips. It took forever to get around to because the bank he is with is most unhelpfully not open on the weekends, and closes at 4 on weekdays, except a special late night on Friday, where they close at five. So last Friday I picked him up, picked the other one up, dropped off and sped into the bank to get there at 4.30 to open a new account.

"You need an appointment to open an account" said the man at the front, to which I said (a) you are SHITTING me, isn't that your core business? then (b, after thought) do you need an appointment to close an account? Noooooo, said the man, so I told him I wanted to close an account, and sat down. Other banks in the mall are open on weekends, so win/win. After a couple of moments a lady came out and said "so, I hear you want to open an account?" and what do you know, she could do it in five minutes, no appointment needed. Idiots. Poor number two son was just trailing along, but he got what he was after, and no-one was (physically) injured in the process.

On a more cheerful note, I used this unusual variegated plied yarn in two scarves. The grey is wool, and the colours are cotton. It is lovely and fine, and pretty, so I thought I would use it in both the warp and the weft, to give a slight plaid effect.





The effect is great, but using it in the warp was a NIGHTMARE. It was easy enough at the beginning, but as it got further along the strands started separating, and tangling up, and would not form any kind of shed to put the weft through. I struggled for a while because it was making a lovely cloth, but in the end I put the scissors to it. So it's not really a scarf length - perhaps a table runner? Or just a bit of cloth....



Given that, the next experiment was weft only. I found a beautiful lace weight grey from a proper wool shop (i.e. expensive, but lovely) that went on the warp beautifully, and then the variegated yarn on the warp. It turned out very soft and with interesting colour repeats. Well, random colour repeats really, but I liked it. And the whole scarf feels very soft, like the colour scheme, and grey as the skies today! Good for the plants.