My father-in-law is not a man to idle away his retirement years alphabetising his sock drawer or polishing the cat. In fact, he spent the first part of his 'retirement' (I use the word loosely) teaching part-time at the roughest school in his area, where one's ability to teach was secondary to one's skill in crowd-control. As a result, he became master of the withering one-liner, for when those nine-foot-tall, hormonal, teens tried giving him jip. The meanest class bully soon learned not to push Continue Reading
Knit, And The World Knits With You (Sometimes)
Imagine the following scenario, yarn-lovers. You're out for the evening, and you arrive at the venue a little before the friend whom you've arranged to meet. So you order a glass of rioja, and look around for somewhere to sit. The bar area is crowded, and there are no tables free. You recognize a vague acquaintance, but you don't really know them well enough to table-crash, so you smile/wave to them and move on. Eventually you find a low shelf thingy at the back of the room, so you settle Continue Reading
In Which You All Get To Laugh At Me.
Smugness comes before a fall. Every time. I really should have learned that life-lesson by now. It never ends well when I start getting smug about anything at all. As soon as I do, life smirks to itself and throws a slippery banana skin in my path. Anyway, I mention this now because of running. I still dislike running. It still hurts. But I grudgingly admit that it's brought health/energy benefits and I'm definitely getting faster. I can even run up hills without concerned bystanders offering Continue Reading