August involved recording the sounds of craft which you can read about on the KNITSONIK website.

This month has also involved some test knitting for Brenda, and Tom respectively.

As you saw from my last post, there has also been a new arrival to Mark’s extended family.

And August has also involved some beautiful meetings with beasties such as this pony, who took a healthy interest in our lunch when we picknicked in a fine picnic spot in the New Forest en route to Weymouth a couple of weekends back.

This August I also spotted this Buzzard* whose magnificence I was unable to fully capture even with the considerable advantages of having an SLR and a telephoto lens.

The month has also seen the introduction of other (less pleasant) creatures into our lives; the fleas, for instance, which have infested the cat and the house and whose riddance has eaten up innumerable days with 60 degree wash-cycles, a rigorous hoovering schedule, and enough pesticide about the house (poisoned TWICE from top to bottom) to make the cat sickly and inclined to vomit. (Nice). Be gone, foul pestilence! My legs are like halal kebabs from all the bites, and I don’t think poor Joey has enjoyed the fleas much either.

There has been further work; I have been editing away on the Tuned City files along with the fabulous Valeria Merlini to make the fourth short to add to the growing archive of documentation relating to the festival. If you are searching for some interesting audio, I would really recommend going through all the recordings of the Tuned City lectures which John Grzinich has recorded and uploaded to the documentation page on the site.

I love editing the sounds and reliving the time spent in Tallinn in spaces like the derelict Linahall pictured below and the beach beside the prison which I wrote about at the start of this month.

…so documentation of Tuned City continues, and there is a radio show to now produce for Framework, so I’m not done yet with all the amazing Tallinn sounds.

I’ve also been working a bit with Brenda taking photos for a tutorial and doing some of the last packaging jobs associated with our artist edition release of A Knitter’s Manifesto. It is very exciting for something I worked on to be for sale on Amazon, though I must confess to having a love for the physical CD and all its associated ephemera, too.

Happily there has been time for play as well as work;

And time to notice such things as lichens and Scarlet Pimpernels.

Also, I’ve spent time running various Etsy orders to the post office. I have acquired a 1980s Vogue knitting magazine, so there will be an ’80s series of knitting badges coming out in the Autumn. In the meantime, these have all found good homes, and I am delighted.

Almost as much fun as making badges is the making of cakes. I baked a big fruit cake yesterday, because the other thing which happens in August is the birthday of my very favourite person.

Happy Birthday, Mark.

*Admittedly not as exciting as Liz’s snake!