"...Twice is co-incidence..."

I had no idea Ian Fleming said that whole thing - I do love it, I have to say, having first read it in a book by one of my favourite authors, Lois McMaster Bujold.  The whole saying goes "First time is happenstance, second time is co-incidence, third time is enemy action".  Lying here in bed with my second bout of the nasty for this year makes me wonder if this little maxim applies to me... and then I started wondering what a maxim actually was...

You see, Gentle Readers, where my brain takes me when I'm ill?  Into the weird and arcane world of words.  I was reading "My Grammar and I" the other night, loving the way it changed my view about "people who" and "things that", but supported my view about nouns of mass - "no amount of things here" - and wondering if that made me truly odd.  And then I thought "probably".  I've been firming up my vocabulary quite nicely by playing Wordfeud a bit, with a bunch of people, and I've used great words like 'thine' and 'sucre' and 'drib' and 'fart' and 'turd', so you can see it's not great works of academe... but it is improving.

Digressing (see?) somewhat, I've just been to see my lovely Dottoressa*, who's given me the rest of the week off - again.  Man.  The only way this could be any better is if I wasn't sick, so I could knit, write, sew, cook, clean.  Hey, let's not get carried away here...

My lovely Ma & Hank are off to Bali tomorrow morning at 6.00am (shudder) for 10 days of warmth and sun, MGF Kaz & Az are in Europe enjoying the last days of summer in England, then moving across to France, for Vintage, in Burgundy, no kidding.  Bastards, all of them.

In other news of huge importance, I took up the fantastic suggestion from The Peppermint Penguin and flicked over to Ravelry, where I probably haven't been for more than a year, to look for patterns for hats for little boys.  I found a couple of goodies:



http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/gooseberry-hat (free download)




http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/aston (free download)


http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/easy-peasy-newborn-sock-hat (free download)

I love Ravelry.  Such a nice feeling about a site where people are kind enough to share their patterns, no crap about "you can do this or that with them".  Even the patterns for sale are very reasonably priced - 

Even the one I bought today (for me, not the Bub) was only C$6.50.  That's almost unheard of here, where patterns, like yarn, are relatively expensive.  My favourite Filatura Di Crosa yarn is retailing at US$11.00 on the net, but we're being charged A$14.50/ball.  And the Aussie dollar is above the US Dollar.  Makes me mad... and our shops wonder why we don't buy from them anymore?

Off to the needles.  Ciao!



 *Doctor