Our insurance of course is being picked up by EQC, unfortunately there is no timeline on this despite me phoning them once a fortnight. Although we've replaced the washing machine we can't afford to do the oven as well. We've rung Fisher and Paykel and they've basically said with the number of things not working properly and that it's 10 years old it should be replaced, not repaired so we have to wait. In the newspaper there was a tiny wee article on EQC and contents claims. Apparently they expect to have them all sorted and paid (assuming you're being honest of course) by the end of the year. I don't know if our oven will last that long, I do know that the interest free term for the washing machine won't last that long. I wonder if they'll cover interest payments under the insurance claim? I suspect not; in the meantime we're paying it off as fast as we can and if need be we'll use the revolving mortgage to pay it off; technically we shouldn't have to. But then technically no-one should have their lives affected by natural disasters like many Cantabrians have (we've got it easy, house intact and only a couple of big items affected; many have it much worse).
Right, back onto the spinning and knitting. Just over 5 weeks ago I ordered a skein of Madelinetosh Pashmina in Robins Egg to make my Andrea's Shawl. It arrived finally on Tuesday, after I'd emailed The Loopy Ewe to say that it'd still not arrived and they'd emailed back to say they'd resend it. I immediately let them know the original had turned up, and luckily although they'd packed the new one it wasn't yet posted so they could stop it; which was fantastic! I got the yarn balled up ready to go, but couldn't start knitting that day due to work commitments. The next day I got started, and the yarn I'd ordered from The Loopy Ewe last week also arrived (what on earth do the post office do to get a 5.1 week delay and then a 1 week delay?).
3 days of frantic knitting followed; and last night I blocked the finished shawl, though really despite being the medium size it's a shawlette; I think the small might fit a child, but not me. Here she is in her glory, she's beautiful!
Onto the Tour de Fleece. I've been doing lots of spinning too, finished 4 yarns so far including the two in my previous post. I forgot the rest day and plied 2 on that day, whoops. Of course the last 3 days had seen just token spinning while I frantically knit the shawl, but now that it's finished I spent 2 hours this morning working on the latest spinning.
Here we have:
My Romney which was 2 lots of hand-dyed that I then plied together. Love it, I've called it Hagley Park as it reminds me of the various spring flowers poking their heads out of the grass. It's more of a bulky yarn.
6 comments:
I can sympathise with your problems with EQC. We haven't heard from them for months, apart from the stock newsletters. Our work, cosmetic damage, is in the 10k+ bracket and so comes under Fletchers' jurisdiction - to carried out maybe in 3-5 years??? I recently found out, through a much friendlier EQC rep who was inspecting my Dad's place, that we can actually opt out of Fletchers and get a quote from a builder of our choice. Our builder, though, is self-employed with one employee. Would I feel comfortable asking him to run the risk of going months before being paid by EQC? Not really, and that is presuming that he can get ongoing payments as the work progresses and not wait until all the work is finished. So we're between a rock and a hard place right now, with almost the whole house needing to be regibbed and painted but having to wait, perhaps, for up to 5 years before it will be done. Yay.
Kathy I hadn't even considered the implications for the actual house. We haven't been assessed from the September event yet and we've got the paint and flooring covering to do our dining room, kitchen and laundry; we had them before the initial earthquake and haven't been able to do anything with them till we get assessed, and from what you've been told probably another 5 years after that; the paint will be toast by then!
The shawl is lovely and so is the yarn.
Good luck with the insurance - I hope it all works out for you!
Nothing like having your life put on hold by bureaucracy, is there?
Poor you! You sound like you are bearing up very well considering all the inconveniences you are suffering. Love your spinning! And that shawl is gorgeous!!! I'm sure you know already about this place: http://www.littlecountrywools.bigcartel.com/ selling Malabrigo and Madelintosh via mail order in NZ? I haven't bought from her and I'm not sure how it compares to UK prices, but thought I'd point it out in case you didn't know.
@kiwiyarns
Yes I do know about her, but I've been buying stuff through TLE for a while and I wanted to do camp loopy which means I have to purchase through them for the project. Might try Little Country Wools at some point though, shipping would be cheaper and faster too I'd imagine!
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