An alphabet of thankfulness

An A-Z, variable importance, non-exhaustive list:

A - alpaca yarn
B - books
C - chocolate!
D - doctors
E - eyesight
F - family and friends
G - God
H - home
I - idiosyncrasies
J - job
K -knitting
L - love
M - music
N - neighbours
O - onomatopoeia
P - purple shoes
Q - quilts
R - rainbows
S - socks and scarves
T - telephones
U - underwear
V - views across the countryside
W - water (specifically clean drinking water)
X - X chromosomes
Y - you people who read this
Z - zephyrs

Take a step back

Take time to breathe. And relax.

This year has been quite eventful for me. While overall my health has been continuing to improve or plateauing, a lot of other things have gone on - being made redundant, setting myself up as self-employed and freelancing, then starting a new job being three of the most obvious.

As the end of the year approaches, I've gone a little into overdrive, trying to get everything done that I thought I'd get done this year (and a few other things as well). Setting myself numerous targets and trying to attain them. I had a moment of sanity a couple of months ago, when I decided that I wouldn't be making presents for people this year as it was too much. But that seems to have been a rare moment. Mostly I've been trying, and failing, to be perfect at everything all at once.

Also, having said above about my health improving, I've had several sore throats over the last couple of months and a couple of digestive niggles, and it's possible that I'm getting a bit run down. I don't want to overdo things and make the ME worse again, so I need to be sensible.

The moment of revelation for me came the other evening when I cried on my husband because I'd come to realise that the shawl I finished casting on on Saturday was not going to be finished by tonight - particularly not if I was going to work and sleep. He pointed out that it didn't matter if I didn't finish it by then and as we talked I realised that it was only me who had given me this unattainable deadline - yes I did have a good reason for it, but nobody else was expecting me to have finished it by then.

So I need to take a step back. If I don't blog for a few days it's quite likely nobody will notice given the frequency I've blogged in the past. I can say 'no' to people at work if I know adding a job to my workload will mean I don't have time to do things properly. While it would be nice if the house was decluttered, sorted, clean and tidy, it doesn't have to look like a magazine spread all at once. The world won't end if I don't get everything I'd like to do done in the time I'd like to do it!

Relaxing, reduced to-do lists and sensible bedtimes are the way forward.

And having said that. I'm off to bed.

In remembrance

Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen

What passing bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in the eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

25 Soldiers of the Great War - copyright BRITISH WAR GRAVES 

For The Fallen - Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Source: Wikipedia. Original photograph copyright Eric Hill

An equal and opposite reaction

I have a habit of hanging skeins of a handy arm of a chair or something rather than winding them into balls before using them. Most of the time this works out, but occasionally it is not a timesaver as the yarn gets tangled and then I have to untangle it and make a ball. Or sometimes a skein just seems to be tangled. I have one that I decided to wind into a ball before I started using it and so far I have spent about 6 hours doing this - I might be halfway through; I'm certainly not any further. Having to untangle yarn can be so very, very annoying!

But just sometimes, I can sit with the tangle in my lap, untwisting, threading through here and there, following the strands to work out where they go and slowly, slowly reducing the mess and creating a gradually growing ball, and find it incredibly soothing.

Still silent

My internet connection was capricious over the weekend, so I didn't get online much - and not for long enough to get round to blogging. Instead of internetting, I watched TV - and when the TV box played up, I watched DVDs (House of Eliott; my husband gave me the first two series for our anniversary earlier this year and I am enjoying it very much) - and knitted. Definitely my knitting productivity benefitted from lack of Internet. Every project in my knitting basket got a bit of attention, even if only for a few rows. There may have been casting on of a couple of new projects as well. Well, if I'm going to knit myself a hat for the cold weather, I need to get started on it now, not when I've finished everything else I've got on the go! My previous hat attempt a year or two ago ended up  being frogged - I hope this one is more successful. Those trees in the last post now just have a few leaves clinging to them, so I know hat weather is definitely on its way.

Peace and quiet

... for my husband at least, as I have laryngitis (again!) and am under orders to try to use my voice as little as possible, so he gets a respite from being nagged ;)

"Peace and quiet" makes me think of Silent Night. Is it too soon for Christmas music? After all, now that the clocks have changed and the nights are dark, it feels like Christmas is almost upon us.

I can understand why Christmas and Yule had the time of year they have picked for them. There is definitely a need for something to look forward to when it's getting darker and colder. Is there some kind of equivalent in the Southern Hemisphere at our midsummer?

It's not quite all dark yet, though. In the mornings when I'm driving to work I go between hedges that are currently glorious colours - and no two bushes are quite the same. They glow like gold in the sunshine or on a day like today when it's damp, the rain brings out their colours, making them bright and glorious. Orange is possibly my least favourite colour, but the autumn leaves may just make me change my mind.

You can see why!



I would now go off and wander round the house humming Christmas carols if only I had a voice!

Tonight's knit night

I had all sorts of ideas of what to blog this evening, but I'm dashing off to Knit Night once I've sorted out my knitting to take with me. I'm planning to take the shawl, which has been resting for a couple of weeks as I ran out of yarn, but when I went to the shop and ordered some more, they said they'd try to get it in for me tonight. But just in case they don't have that in, I need to take another project with me as well. I'm torn, but I think it will be my September project cardigan. My August project is now all finished apart from sewing up. Hmmm  perhaps I should take that and just get the sewing up over and done with. Or I could take the waistcoat I'm knitting for my mother-in-law's last birthday. And then of course I shall take a sock, because I nearly have a sock (or something else on dpns) on the go and it fits nicely in the case with my thingamajigs.

Another month begins

So November is here already! Happy All Saints' Day.

I have just seen a challenge to blog every day in November. What are the chances of me managing to do that eh?

I was going to blog last night about October Unprocessed and how I got on with it, but instead I got caught up in a very serious discussion on facebook.* This evening I'm feeling too tired to think about it properly, but I shall try to write it sometime this week. I want to reflect on it for my own benefit as well as to waffle away to anyone who happens to read it.

It's been a while since I posted a photo, so here's a random one I took of a sunrise earlier this year to brighten the place up a little.

*I would be fibbing if I said it had absolutely nothing to do with wheelbarrows, balaclavas or pantries.