The other week was - and I'm not even exaggerating - a bit of a week. There was an excess of trouble that I longed to bury deep in the compost heap of history under several centimetres of turnip peelings. It was nothing terrible, and I do have some perspective on my comparatively privileged life, and there's DEFINITELY NO NEED TO POST ALL THE COMPENSATORY WINE TO ME HERE AT TWISTED TOWERS, OXFORDSHIRE, UK, RIGHT NOW. NO, NONE AT ALL. But in addition to the usual daily rigmarole, this particular Continue Reading
Crochet therapy
The end of a stressful day of tantrumming toddler twinnage. The rainbow stained glass window is progressing well, assisted by a two-hour bout of insomnia last night. Can you see the little popcorn stitches? I've reached about 60cm diameter (24 inches), and the final thing will be about 2 metres (>2 yards) across. I love this pattern! It's by Julene Watson, and the increases and pattern are perfectly calculated so that it remains beautifully flat as it grows. And it's cheaper than Continue Reading
Knitting in the real world: PART ONE.
When I passed my driving test (23 years ago - yeek!) my lovely but delightfully eccentric driving instructor looked at me seriously and said, "And now, you must learn to drive." He meant, of course, that learning to pass one's test is a little different from learning to be a competent driver. He had a point. (This was one of the more conventional things that he said, bless 'im. During our lessons in rural south Wales, he'd always make me drive over one particular crossroads in the middle of the Continue Reading