Friday, May 12, 2006

full-time score

Coffee vs Knitting

Coffee 0 :: Knitting 23

Sorry for being all cryptic - and I only wish, Mary-Lou, that life had taken over because of fun things, like birthdays!

No, just one of those silly, silly times when everything just gets far too busy, and there was NO TIME FOR KNITTING. You know, when suddenly you feel like you have to spend your life in the car, and being the driver, you CAN'T KNIT, or you get put on a quiz team, and you CAN'T KNIT, or there are 8,001 people round wanting drinks and food, and you spend your time jumping up and down getting coffee and tea and water and wine and nibbles and olives and cheese and dinner and crisps and you CAN'T KNIT. And then you have to do the washing up of the 8,001 people who wanted all the coffee and tea and so on, so you CAN'T KNIT. And then all the washing up has made your hands cracky spodgy prunes, so even if you had the time, you CAN'T KNIT. And then, what with all the driving around, and the driving of the others around, you decide that the car really is just a little bit sick and old, and if you were going to spend far too much money fixing the car, you might just as well spend far too much money getting a new car, so you have to go and test drive possibly new cars, and you REALLY CAN'T KNIT driving a strange car. And then you have to do all the 'how much? You must think I came down in the last shower' conversations with the car people, and although sharp pointy needles can be just a bit threatening, I'm not sure that they really work when you are trying to be all hard-nosed and no I haven't fallen in love with this car, which by the way was officially registered on my birthday, and I really, really want it, and I'm makin
g it a set of fluffy dice right now, and then maybe a car cosy, so you CAN'T KNIT. (Now, there is an idea, handmade fluffy dice....)

But, I think I have now reclaimed the balance - or rather that knitting has reclaimed its rightful place as in charge. For this morning, I took delivery of both my regular supply of coffee beans, and a second-hand, but absolutely untouched Gansey kit, which must have come from these people (bought in 1987, cost £32.80, 'cos they left the receipt in the bag, and lookie, lookie, it would cost me £67.35 now, and the friend it came from wouldn't even take any money for it - so we compromised and left cash for charity).

Coffee is precious to me. I hold my hands up and admit that I am one of those sad people that cannot function with caffine - do not ever talk to me first thing in the morning unless I have had my coffee - and the beans, all 3.5kg of them, live in the bottom of the fridge-freezer, in the special coffee beans only drawer. Each delivery, the packages are carefully unwrapped, stroked, sniffed, and lovingly placed away until needed, welcome, Costa Rica, ah, the Nepalese, how nice to have some of you again, my old friend Mocha, and Mysore, hiding in the back there. But the gansey kit? There is a chance, that although untouched by human hands, it might have played host to a few little critters, there was just a hint of something crusty that might once have been the casing for some moth larva - only on the 2 'spare' balls, which had been left loose, to fend for themselves (how my heart bleeds). But needs must, and now the coffee has to fend for itself, not even taken out of its cardboard box, as each of the 12 balls has been unwrapped, had a quick examination, and then put away, in the bottom drawer of the fridge-freezer, until I have both strength and time to carefully, carefully, carefully crawl along each and every inch of each and every ball, to see what else might have been crawling along.

So, you see, all is as it should be now. The wool has taken over. I've even been making non-progress progress over on the FotRS.

And now, I must leave, to go and get a 'new' car (it makes fancy bleeping noises, I've never had a car that bleeped at you before, and had buttons to press and make bleeping noises, and told you to put your seat-belt on! How long before I start bleeping back at it?)

Can you cross you fingers, so that I at least get it home without pranging it?