It has been a slow time here on the edge of the mountain...

... since the last post, because both PP and I got sick in the horrible cold-flu that is whisping around in these neighborhoods.  We have been coughing, sniffling, and headaching, and used up more cold medicines this past week than we usually use in a whole year.  Bad stuffy noses and sinuses...

Since there wasn't much else to do than to let the viruses run their course in our bodies we have also watched some movies and finished some projects.  Clint Eastwood has graced our TV screen with his face several times (the Gauntlet, not one of this best) as has Robert de Niro (New York cop with a son in trouble in City by the Sea). Gosford Park is an English 1920s murder mystery where everybody could have done it, and it portrays the servants in a the giant mansion in an unusual and interesting detail.  Maybe a bit too slow and long, but that could have been because of the medicines too. A Perfect World with Kevin Costner was great, about a prisoner on the run who kidnaps a boy and their developing relationship, probably 1940s - not the usual good vs. bad people movie, and of course Clint Eastwood directed and acted in it too.

Still, my current favorite is Ken Burn's Civil War series, a documentary in 9 episodes made for PBS.  It is great, and captures the history and people involved in the Civil War in US.  All interview, still-life photos and he lets the story take its time, and it is the opposite to the snippet-rush-fast-special effects-stress movies and documentaries that are more common today.  For me that never really learned much about American history in school, this is like a wonderful education and charting new historical territory.

While watching movies I knit and knit, mostly scarves and hats, but also other things.  My favorite online knitting site is a mecca for free patterns and ideas - check out Ravelry.com (it is free to sign up). Right now I am working on a gray 1940s WWII Watch cap, not sure for whom, and is just about to start a lacy scarf for myself in a color called neptune.  There will also be new knitted cotton dishcloths that can be thrown in the washer every week, instead of linen ones that are thin and fall apart, or wettex that turn slimy and gross.  Here are some hats I have knitted recently.