Sunday, December 11, 2005

The run up to Christmas and knitting do not mix

Tis not the season to be jolly – no sirree. I don’t want to carp during the season of happiness (well actually you just know I am going to), but Christmas pays havoc with my stash. I am slowly losing the plot moving yarn, and then parcels into where the yarn was, then moving the yarn again and making way for other parcels, or decanting parcels into collaborative parcels and oh it is all too much, this is eating into valuable knitting time of which I have precious little at the moment. The fact that I haven’t felt inclined to pick up my knitting this weekend despite good intentions is besides the point, if I had felt like knitting I would not have had the time or been able to find the project.

Actually it has brought back memories of when I was young at home and my paternal grandmother would come for Christmas day much to my mother’s ill-suppressed fury. Grannie had gone slightly dotty by the time I was 12 (something to do with it being the only coping mechanism for dealing with my then recently departed, very cantankerous grandfather – vague waftiness completely nulified his Alf-Garnet-type rantings). Anyway at Christmas she would often sit at the head of the table floating in and out of our familial orbit (or at least that is how she played it) admiring the going-ons on board ship, as she was always convinced she was on a cruise when she came to our house (strangely the ship had summer-yellowed lawns with parched leggy petunias in the flower beds and was surrounded by the Port Hills that were bleached with heat and now and then they caught fire – which is odd in the middle of a nameless ocean). Grannie however was not conned – this was a cruise and we were floating gently towards Lord-alone knows where, with the odd swell of the boat brought on by pink fizzy plonk that went with the inappropriately large roast dinner. After admiring the trappings of the cruise “Nice service, but that waitress is a little surly y’know – she keeps giving me the evil eye….” (that would be my fizzing mother - glaring silently at my helpless father pinned between wife and mother duties), she would then get up and for some unknown reason begin to rearrange the furniture…..

I feel very close to my late Grannie with all this bag and knitting shifting.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

finally - proof that I am certifiable

Well first they sent me the invite to the graduation despite not knowing if the thing-that-must-not-be-mentioned had passed (so raising the question of what had I graduated with). Then they sent me the results of the first two years (I'd had those marks back at the time but I guess it needed confirmation) and then finally I got this!!! O.K now we can mention it, its a M.Sc in Health Informatics, 3 years worth of distance study and after 3 years if you understand the health system and provision/organisation of health information within the NHS then you are deeply deluded.

So now I am certifiable - worthy of a "stifikit" as my daughter would call it, but not yet the proud recipient, so as we are in the holding pen of pre-stifikit-but-worthy-of-one, then the only possible term to apply to such a state is just that - certifiable. I do hope when the stifikit comes in January (?) it is sparkly. I do like glitter and spangly bits, but I fear it will be something tasteful.

Anyway, what does three years hard slog, whilst owner-operating three ravenous offspring, one workaholic husband and a full time job with an organisation that has been "dissolved" as it is officially deemed to have failed-and-is-pulling-itself-apart-from-the-inside-out-give-you???

Well, the evidence suggests from a photo, an office-clearing colleague sent over to me that was taken just prior to starting the course, is approximately 2 clothing sizes and nearly three stone. So naturally I have celebrated the stifikation (sounds just short of deification if you say it like that) with a large family sized bag of maltesers just for me (disgusting). However no one in the Brown household seemed that impressed with the occasion so it is only fair and proper that I kept the Maltesers for myself. Oh o.k they did get a big fancy (reduced price) chocolate cake from Tesco - as wheat sends me orbital after 24 hours - they got that all to themselves.

Funnily enough, I haven't gone on a massive celebratory yarn expedition yet, as I am actually trying a bit of a yarn detox - ie using a bit of what I have as the husband as started making sad noises as he trips over little bags or parcels displaced from their usual hidey holes to make way for Christmassy things for offspring. The only knitting progress to report at the moment is Thelma - a pink Jaeger Fur rabbit so far armless and legless and missing her snazzy sunglasses. A pink fur rabbit needs arms and legs and sunglasses, so guess what I'll be doing this weekend - however as she is being knit on the wing so to speak I have no idea what sort of arms and legs etc to knit, still she needs done with - so this weekend is cut off point for her. Wish me luck.