Woman off the edge

Grrrrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrr oh lordy am I an angry woman these days. It may be because the dissertation write-up is getting to me or it may be working in an officially failing organisation, perhaps it is both. But whatever the reason, I am getting decidedly cranky – take this morning on the way to work for example. I am driving along kind of late to work (as the dissertation requires nightly word mangling in the wee small hours when all in the house have gone to bed) admiring the Scottish countryside as one does (well, it is all so green and pretty) when I get to the little humpy, dumpy, one track stone bridge. I check to see no traffic and begin to mosey my way over, when I get almost half way across this BMW 4WD kind of thingy hurtles up the other side and stops inches – I mean inches from me. Hello – I am already on the bridge, is this woman blind??? So anyway there we are on a single lane bridge and she flicks her shiny yummy-mummy hair in a self important way and motions in a you-go-back-there kind of gesture, this would be a bit difficult as there are three other cars behind me and I don’t necessarily appreciate being wafted by her condescending limp hand movements. I smile (in a friendly kind of way, no teeth bared yet) and shake my head and motion at the 3 cars behind me. She flicks her hair in a slightly more self-important way and then gestures the same gesture, I shake my head. She can’t believe it, here she is, in her big swanky car that could transport a small nation in the back seat on her way to do very important coffee with other women-who-have-had-children-but-have-retained-their-flat-tummies and there is what looks like a troll in a Renault Megane waving and gurning like a complete idiot! I can tell what she’s thinking - doesn’t that peasant person in the other car know that trolls go under bridges and not ON them??? S’anyway she obviously has the most important places to go and I am heading for work, only given the way things are at the moment I am not that keen to get there. So she begins looking cross in a very snotty manner and I think to myself hmmmmmm you’re keen to get where you are going but not so keen as to reverse, and I am not keen to get where I am going, so what’s a little old librarian that looks like a troll with floaty hair to do? Especially as I am an angry, grumpy librarian with hair that would never, just never flick (too floaty), I am not that kind of yummy mummy (I’m only yummy if I have sat on toast or cereal and it is sticking to me) and I have a vendetta (deep rooted jealousy thing) against bimbos that drive huge cars that cost more than many peoples houses along tiny, skinny, little roads where they just don’t fit. By now she is looking distinctly frosty so the limb-waving loony look is obviously not working on her, still I am made of strong stuff (solidified coffee granules in these days of constant study) and start to examine her – I could spend all day just idly imagining her life – big hunky rugger-bugger husband with one syllable name, 3 ballet dancing, dainty, little girls with pretentious names, say Poppy, Floppy and Hoppy (what happens when these kids hit fifty and they are sad and fat in a one bedroom council house and they spend all their days talking to the t.v and drinking vodka – will they hate their delicious yummy-mummy and one syllable-monikered daddy who gave them such silly names that all their lives they have been snickered at by librarians children??? especially as they are names more suited to their pet rabbits, and their lives are just completely ruined, ruined), oh but I am digressing and there is a Labrador and big house and au pair and everything….. But heck, I don’t really want to go to work, I could sit here all day, in fact I would prefer it, just how do I convey this to Madam?

So, then I realise, I have the perfect weapon right next to me in my bag, and so I lean slowly over and withdraw my knitting. I pick the project up just so she can see it through my steering wheel and slowly knit a couple of stitches (well it is 100% alpaca – one does tend to want to savour such gorgeous buttery yarn as one knits it, so mustn’t rush), I glance at her to make sure she can see what I am doing and her face has changed colour slightly. Now I don’t know if she is desperate for her colonic or if she has a deep-seated phobia about knitters but I can see she has definitely changed somehow, so I go back to concentrate on the knitting and do another 10 or so stitches and then look up again.

She gives in – she puts the huge nonsensical chugging beast in reverse and slowly inches back (maybe she didn’t know she had that gear – perhaps she only has to go forwards as other people get out of her way all the time), so I drop the knitting and zip past her with at least 6 cars on my tail.

See – work and study are not good for me, normally I’d have sidled the car into some bushes to get outta the womans way and to make for an easy life, more importantly, knitting is the ultimate weapon and the moral of the story is she who knits, wins and if only all politicians knitted we’d have world peace.

I like to think the experience did the woman some good.

knit projects - proof I don't just knit things that are green

I am currently debating an important ethical issue - how soon can a loving mother borrow her son's digital camera if she gave it to him for Christmas? Currently I am using a conventional Pentax Espio 200 but Number1 has a camera that he wanted but just hasn't got interested enough to use. I thought maybe if I figured out how to work it and whatnot I would be doing him a favour, you know there are moral dimensions to this.... although it would save me shooting film and getting it developed and then the good people at Boots sending it back to the labs as they had clearly marked CD on the packet but that just never happened and then having to wait.... However if Number1 child isn't bothered how does that help him? However if it is not going to get used maybe it would be a good thing to pick it up and .... Oh I could go on and on. Actually I do go on and on, truth is I have to find the camera and then the instructions and then any connecting twiddly bits - it all seems such a lot of effort.

Found piccies to brighten the blog up and to cheer myself with the happy thought that the needles will soon be flying again once the dissertation is over and I mean needles flying in a productive way, not through the air in frustration that my brain is now seriously fried and I can't think what to have for dinner let alone clever things to put in the 20K words to be handed in just as soon as (or 3 weeks in normal terms).

Anyway, whodathunkit - not all the items are knitted in green yarn (actually I lost my photos of my two fave items which are both green). The two that escaped are a Kidsilk Haze long sleeve tee in gooseberry (Icy from Rowan Book Nr 30) which compels people to stroke me (dangerous thing to do that - librarians and hamsters can be a bit nippy if handled by unfamiliar/overfamiliar? people) and Tess in a softer matching green RowanspunDK in moss stitch (also in Rowan Book Nr 30) and has definite "binkie" qualities. I am feeling infinitely more perked up now I have looked at knitting stuff - I may even go further and indulge in a nice glass of NZ Shingle Peak Pinot Noir, now normally I am a kiwi blond kind of woman (with the odd leaning towards - or is that after? Aussie reds) but that was the only Shingle Peak in the shop and I was homesick and hankering after a bit of kiwi sunshine even if was a year or so old sunshine and came in a bottle and besides my aunty used to live on a farm near where it comes from, oh happy memories.... too many reasons are perhaps giving the impression I am desperate, well given the brain-jam I am currently undergoing (sent off the methodology for criticism last night and believe me that was a trauma and a half as after struggling with it, I have realised I am just not methodical and having to justify something I am just not, well it just about did for me) well just maybe I am a leetle stressed.

Kaffe Fasset Cardigan from Rowan

knitted last year and not 100% successful in my opinion

Berrocco Seude Jersey, no pattern

like the yarn and wanted a simple no-brainer to knit, worked out better than I expected

Yarn from Ashford (makers of all those spinning wheels), NZ; no pattern

yarn from Ashford in Ashburton bought eons ago during a visit home

testing testing testing

Anything could happen, anything quite likely is. This is probably a dumb time to enter the world of blogdom. The husband is upstairs doing unspeakable things to a kit from IKEA (a bed for the daughter (number3 child) should you ask, or actually half a bed as he bought half and realised later there was another half to buy, so it is actually more of a cage for a 10 year old which is kind of apt considering). Number2 child is prowling the kitchen like a feral beast on a quest for food (we did the supermarket shop today and already he has eaten a fair amount of it) and number1 child is watching something about dinosaurs. So in between husband thumping and crashing (in a non planned way), number2 thumping and crashing in a food-seeking way, number1 thumping and crashing in a trying-to-get-comfortable kind of way that could wreck the sofa and number3 just thumping and crashing because she is that kind of kid... I'm not sure I really can concentrate. Still fingers crossed (can one type with crossed fingers?).

Get a life.....

Well, I think they (number1, number2 and number3 children) are kind of gone to bed (the thumping and crashing has generally moved upstairs). So I thought I would try and post some pictures of the other grand passion in my life - knitting. This photo is a sweater I knitted last year when I had a life, in other words pre-dissertation. I vaguely remember what that was like, to go hither and frolic merrily here and there (well mainly in yarn shops actually) without the guilty feeling that it was all about to cave in on me. Oh yes, I remember, sort of... Anyway onto more important things like knitting, and more specifically this jumper - I'd had the idea in my head for oooh ages and then finally gave up the procrastination to actually knit it (after sitting on the floor with colouring in pencils and graph paper and sellotape and scissors and ....), as even though I left the yarn and needles lying 'round it just wouldn't knit itself. It is supposedly inspired by scabious flowers which is why the flower centres are checkered like pin cushions. I was so suprised when it finally worked out, but it took kind a bit of brain power to work out the centre and and repeats and shaping (oh, yes I believe in shaping - otherwise yours truly looks like the missing link between hamsters and humans, trust me they can mingle). I had a ceremonial burning of the scrappy bits of paper when I had finished it and a big bag of wotsits were eaten mmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmm. So what else did I knit last year? (this year has been so taken over by studying, so much so that I am almost an educated kinda gal, which is boring, boring and boring and as the dissertation is on health literacy they won't accept a pile of knitted things so I have had to resort to actually putting words to paper or screen rather than stitches to swatch).

Well, I know I have pictures somewhere of things I knitted, mostly they are green things. I have a thing about green, I know it, I recognise it, I plan yarn visits around avoiding green but somehow I usually come out with green yarn. There must be a deep seated void within that can only be met with green yarn... yup that must be it. Yarn should be available on prescription. You heard it from a health information professional.