-::- Food to warm the soul: a chicken stew with Leffe beer and a slice of ginger bread, spread with Belgian mustard. Yummy.

-::- Like many bloggers, I am engrossed in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. I have had it on my good old Kindle ever since it came out, but I let the hype, as well as a few mitigated reviews in the press, hold me back. It was only when I came across this enthusiastic review on dovergreyreader scribbles that I decided to give it a go. Soon I found myself completely absorbed and just wanting to read on. It’s Dickensian and totally addictive.

-::- Entre les deux mon coeur balance. I have been wanting to knit another Shetland shawl for a  while now; hesitating between Gudrun Johnston’s Flukra and the Rock Island Shawl, a design by Jared Flood. Both gorgeous shawls, impossible to chose between the two. After some deliberation, I decided to cast on the latter and am now in the process of knitting 71 (!) repeats of the edging chart. A bit tricky as the Drops Lace yarn is very thin and keeps slipping off my needles. But as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say, “all in a day’s work”. And well worth it. I hope.