okay, so it's a cat

The face of a cat interrupted mid-canoodle with her snowman. Yes, I've told her it's Summer, and Santa isn't coming for another six months, and she will not be rewarded with an imminent shower of kitty treats, but what can you do with a cat who can't read a calendar.

Don't you hate how long sleeves take. And I'm not even thinking about button bands. Bets on to finish a cardi by Woolfest?

sharing (and mental disorganisation)

I think I've worked out what happened. You see, some friends of mine went on holiday (France, blah, blah, blah, good food, blah, blah, blah, good drink, blah, blah, blah), and even though I was stuck here, cleaning out the cat box, and scrubbing the kitchen floor (I am so very downtrodden), I think my subconscious took some kind of holiday too. It wasn't me, it was my id.

That, and as it turns out I have some serious thinking to do, which involves major avoidance of the room the computer should live in (but hey, laptop, and wireless, who needs to be constrained by walls). Nothing bad thinking, just grown-up thinking, state of the nation type stuff, which does have a fairly fast approaching deadline, which snuck up, despite the use of calendars. So my brain has been elsewhere. And the knitting has been slow, because when it gets hot I get all icky sweaty palms (me, not the silk, Carrie K., I'm the one who gums things together, so I'm sure your WIP will be just dandy.) And the tragedy of that is, though I cast on for a new summer cardi, in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed, which drapes beautifully, but gives off bits of catkin like fluff like nobodies business (completely ignoring the evil cardi that almost was, bah to you, cotton), with acres of stocking stitch which were meant to be easy and relaxing, I miss lace. I miss lace, I miss the shetland shawl, in cobweb wool, and I miss the wedding ring shawl, with a gnawing, finger twitching hunger. Maybe I should just stay up all night, and knit in the cool depths of 4am dawns.

What else, what else.

Oh, time to welcome a new blogger, Piglet - who is an insanely good lace knitter in the making, and I cannot wait until she is properly suck(er)ed in. And next time you drop round, I will introduce you to my weeds. Which are so grand and large I am thinking of naming them .... Moonbell buttercup to your left, in the back not hiding at all, is Chrissy, Dave and Benjamin James, the dock twins, at the front, Sweetie Pie Fluffy Plumps bang dead centre ....

And La (of JenLa infamy) you are wonderful, but sneaky, and I fully maintain the rights to only half participate in your memes.

And the people from Amazing Lace, up to challenge 3 already, I admit my uselessness. But you are still so inspiring, and if only I lived in an igloo.

And finally, I shall leave you with some homework. Mine, from many, many years ago, aged 9, when I had clearly been having some kind of disagreement with the parents. Please forgive the pretentious food references. And by the way, I still think the teacher was just a little bit wrong.

Grown Ups, by me, aged 9

Grown ups I find hardly ever use their common sense to find their ways out of problems, and us children who know the easy way out are never allowed to tell them. Very rarely do you find someone who knows a lot and makes it sound interesting to everyone and anyone. Most people go on and on about themselves, which is alright but you yourself can never get a word in. Adults are always fussy about children going to bed early and getting up early, while they go to bed around 12.00 o’clock and sleep through half the next day. Apart from the working mothers who get their children ready for school and then flop back into bed. Children are always being told not to do this and not to do that while they themselves do it a few minutes later. We are always limited to the amount of food and have to eat it whether we like it or not. They always eat a lot whether it is good for them or bad for them, while we have to eat plain meat and things that are healthy for us whether we like it or not. They always eat a lot of lobster or something like that and when we ask for a little they say it is not fit for children, and the next day it disagrees with them “because it had gone bad”, but it was because they had eaten too much.

They say we never take enough exercise but they just lounge about drinking gin and tonic and whisky, and white and red wine at the table, chatting all the time. Also with coffee and port if it is Sunday and they have guests.

Grown ups are nearly always unfair and children never lead a free childhood. But children always love their parents and parents always love their children and try to do their best for us but if they left us alone we could get on better.

[Teacher's comment: Some interesting thoughts. I think you will change some of your opinions when you are older.]

What an irritating child I must have been.

lazy summer days

I've been a bad blogger, and not much of a better knitter, recently. Why? Because lazy summer days are here, and I want to go back to my childhood and reclaim those scratching through the woods expeditions, dangling feet in sweet salty water, coming home attached to leaves and twigs, covered in sunburn and thick black ozone sticky mud.

But the world doesn't work like that, for even if the university undergraduates can run away, I can't. So instead I've been just plain wilting, persuading cats that now is really not the time to use me as their kneadable mattress, and just feeling too plain sticky to knit.

So I leave you with a photo of some of the few plants that aren't officially weeds, to go and wilt some more. (And wish I had finished the cotton cardigan from last year, which became so traumatic that I gave away much of the remaining yarn, and now I can't finish it at all. And realised that now is a really silly time to be knitting a 44" chest gansey. And silk gets really sticky in the heat, which should be a good thing, but isn't.)