The French Probably have a Word For This

Why is it that I have my best ideas at 4am and then never remember them later? At 4 am this morning, I was lying in bed, having got up to comfort a sick child (now son – daughter better) and was thinking about knitting (as you do) and the blog (as you do), and came up with a wonderful, wise, witty yet highly amusing take on life, the universe, and everything. Unfortunately, I have no idea now what I was thinking about then.

So unless it suddenly comes back to me, you’ve missed out!

Spring is definitely here.

These are living proof of why laziness is a wonderful thing – as is the fine art of procrastination. The first year we moved back to Tasmania (2000), I planted tulips in what was then a flower bed. Seven years later, we’ve ditched the flower bed, but I never moved the tulips, despite fully intending to for at least 4 years. They have now naturalised, and come up happily every year, spreading over a wider and wider area (which then can’t be mowed because of the tulips). Ain’t they grand?!?

Additional proof of spring is supplied by this:

This is the weeping cherry with the Mt Fuji ornamental cherry in the background. Don’t they look fine? Normally I don’t approve of pointless trees – especially those which only look good for about 2 weeks a year – but when they look good, they certainly look great!

My favourites are fruit trees, because they look great, then you get fruit. This garden has been established for a loooooonnnngg time. We have evergreen magnolias well over 15 metres tall, we have camellia trees – not bushes, trees over 10 metres tall (just ask Kate), quinces and apples, enormous old mulberry trees held together with equally enormous bolts and every spring flower you can think of.

The poor garden is horribly neglected, but does its best to look good under the most trying of circumstances. I have tomatoes I must plant out, but I am a bit loath to do so, give the fact that we’ve had gales and hail, rain and wind, sunshine and there’s STILL snow on the mountains.

It’s hard to believe that NSW and the ACT are sweltering, when it’s so cold here.

On the knitting front, I’ve been working on a sock design for SSS and hope to have it written up and on the needles next week. Some of it baffled me when I tried to translate a lace stitch into not only knitting in the round, but knitting in the round inside out and upside down. We’ll see.

The Happy Clappy will be finished tonight (having said that so confidently, I am bound to be struck down by the knitting Goddess, so I’ll re-phrase it). I hope to have the Clappy finished tonight – It looks beautiful, even if I do say so myself, and I can definitely see another one sometime in the future.

The Princess has improved, healthwise at least – I’ve considered listing her on eBay several times in the past week, but I doubt anyone would bid. Now Destructoboy has been struck down. It’s an odd lurgy, this one. Mild fever, general lassitude and off the food-ness, some headache and sleepiness, and a high level of whinginess and clinginess. Just what a mother needs!

The sad fact is, that when they’re REALLY sick, they’re actually terribly nice. Small, snuggly and sweet. When they’re on the mend they’re whiny, whingy and annoying – prone to tantrums and unexplained storms. When they started fighting and yelling at each other last week, we knew the Princess was well enough for school.

So, she only attended half the circus class, but did manage her entire 45 minute first swimming class yesterday and actually swam – huge excitement all round.

That’s more than enough. We’re off tomorrow to the northern Capital for a surprise party (ssshhhh! Don’t tell!) and I will finally get some sock knitting in on the lovely Tulip feather and fans. Hurrah!!

Hopefully life will return to what we fondly regard as normal by next week!

And the Answer Is........

Well, in answer to the question posed in a recent blog, most of you seemed to think there was rather a dead heat between knitting and sex, but that knitting while talking about knitting (and eating Kate’s orange and dried cherry brownies) was pretty darn good (notice how I get my ‘G’ rating). There was some thought that knitting during sex was probably NOT a great idea, but that crying out ‘Yarn over, mohair oh mohair!’ during the throes of passion may also cause a little trouble in the marital bed!

On the plus side, life has remained fairly good, as although the Accountant is away on business, my wonderful and entirely un-evil stepmother is staying which means I have an adult to talk to during the day and, as she knits, I have an adult knitter who loves my children to talk to during the day – a wonderful state of affairs.

The Princess finally went to her first class at Circus School and thinks it is wonderful. She’s the littlest one in the class, but was trying to hula hoop while spinning herself (don’t bother trying it – it really doesn’t work!), doing forward rolls, balancing on a board on a cylinder and suspending herself upside down from the uneven bars – heaven in fact!

Destructoboy has used his powers moderately wisely in recent times – not destroying too much, but is enjoying Grandma’s visit.

I have knitted on my Clapotis, popped some pictures up on Ravelry – made a mistake about when SSS was starting and fallen off the wagon in both the yarn and shoe departments. Oh, and the book department, too – just in case I forget later.

I have ordered some Neon from Bendigo, received some glorious sock yarn from Donyale (Rosered and Burnt Butter – too, too gorgeous – I had to snap them up, and now I feel like a yarn pig but they’re mine, mine I tell you hahahahahahahaaa… Sorry – just lapsed there for a moment).

The mistake was casting on a sock for a party, and then knitting a bit while chatting to the Knitting Knight. What? Of course you take a sock when you go to a party. This meant I jumped the SSS gun, so, while I did consider frogging and starting over, I have decided I would offer a compromise. As I have spent around 2.5 hours knitting this sock, I offer the option of taking a handicap. I suggest that I don’t start the SSS KAL until the 2nd of October, which would make me about even with the 2.5 hours of knitting I’ve done and therefore, fit into the spirit of the KAL and salve my conscience.

What do you think? Would honour be satisfied with this solution?

In the throwing myself wholeheartedly off the wagon department, while roaming childlessly through our local CBD, I saw, fell in love with and bought these:

These are very high and very narrow red polka dot wedges which I couldn’t resist. I also bought 3 bras on sale, so my ‘IN’ count in the de-cluttering report will be rather higher than I was thinking. (And my ‘OUT’ count not as high as I was hoping).

Visit SSS and sign up – even if you think you might only knit one pair – it’ll be fun and I am looking forward to it. For those of you who think I’ve rather stuck my neck out on the personal challenge front, consider that one pair of socks could satisfy nearly all my challenges – if I, for instance, were to knit a toe-up pair of fairisle cotton socks with a cable! (I’m not really planning to but…)

I also think that Donni’s Rosered yarn demands something very lacy and sexy (perhaps that I cold wear with high polka dot shoes?). I’ll get back to you on that one.

Return to Sickbay

It’s been General Hospital around here lately. Yesterday was the call and in keeping with repairmen arriving 5 hours early, our doctor’s appointment was actually ON TIME!

I only had to pretend to be Wonderparent for around 5 minutes, and in the surgery itself – remarkable! Of course, the doctor wasn’t on for having to put drops in the wriggling Princess’s eyes every 4 hours – was he?? – nononono!!

Georgie has suggested a Clapotis KAL. Me – I think it’s a great idea – we’ll work out details at some point – it sounds like we both have a tiny procrastination gene in our make-up, so maybe we can errrrrr ‘encourage’ each other! I somehow don’t think I’ll be making it in the 4 skeins of Lion and Lamb suggested, so we’ll need to consult with the experts about appropriate substitutes (for appropriate please read ‘inexpensive or already in stash!’). By the way – Experts means you lot! RoseRed, what did you do your first one in?

Have you noticed that the Fall Interweave is meant to be out – I shall now harass the local post office on a frequent basis until it arrives – they have some very nice sock patterns on the website though (another load of download – maybe I should sneak that in while the Accountant is post-operative).

Yes, that’s the other General Hospital moment. The Accountant is having day surgery (read - the local health system is in too much disarray to actually admit you for this procedure, and we haven’t yet received the Prime Minister’s promised 45 million dollar pork barrel, sorry, election bribe, no sorry, what came over me, ummm ‘well considered assistance to the state’s health care sector and addressing of community concerns over the down-grading of the local hospital). Mind you, we’ll take the money to keep our local hospital functioning at a reasonable level – it serves around 70,000 people, so you would think we might need it.

So I took him in and watched him wheeled out toward the operating theatre. He was wearing a rather dashing hospital gown – very demure – my gowns for both C-sections seemed to be very open down the back, displaying areas of me to the world which I have worked quite hard to keep covered in mixed company for many years. His actually overlapped and tied at the side – how unfair is that.

At least I got to laugh at the paper pants – they only come in three sizes, - large, vast and hilariously enormous. Pregnant ladies and the Accountant get Hilarious! My turn to laugh uproariously at the great unsexiness of paper underwear!!

I go to pick him up in a couple of hours. My wonderful Stepmother (the Wonderful Step Mum) is minding children and staying the night in case I need assistance.

Friday is my own GP appointment (the wonderful pap smear) so despite the fact that the household generally go years between appointments with our local medical centre 3 out of 4 family members have required medical assistance in 4 days!

All I need is for Destructoboy….. Nope, not going to say it – that’s just asking for trouble. I’ll pack the knitting – Knitting while husband is post-operative is OK – groggy people need no amusing – a quiet domestic presence should qualify me for wifely sainthood!

As the house will turn into a convalescent home tomorrow, there will probably be no update on health and temper until Friday (my temper will probably be somewhere between ‘hair-trigger’ and ‘hellfire’ by then, but we’ll see).

In the meantime, I will try to keep him from noticing how much broadband I have used until – oohhh Monday or Tuesday should do! You might even get photos by then!