Sunday 9th February - last week

Last week? Or the bits I can remember anyway.

Some of the bits could even be the week before...

I was in Sainsbury's the other day - did I mention this already? They had a Valentines's section - all pink and red and hearts and Lurve and stuff

and an Easter section - all yellow and green and Cadbury coloured

but no Lent section. Actually, that's not true, come to think about it - everybody 'knows' that Lent lasts only one day - Pancake Tuesday. (Which is the day BEFORE Lent)

I suppose the Lent section would just be a row of empty shelves.

I've knitted another pair of slippers to the same pattern as before. It is rare for me to knit the same pattern twice, but I still can't get over the magic way the shapes form themselves as you knit and purl and turn and pass slipped stitch over. I've managed to use up a reasonable amount of some rather dreary greenish-greyish wool I bought several years - decades? - ago. The colour wasn't anywhere near are dull once they were knitted up. Watch out - I may be producing greenish-greyish slippers for everyone for Christmas. Or maybe they would be a suitable subfusc shade for Lent.

However, you may yet all be saved from penitential slippers, as THIS came my way;

Felted Potholders!

You knit them all of a piece, going half way or all the way or some of the way along each row, and I am so looking forward to seeing how they are constructed. I'm just waiting for the wool to be delivered, and then all other work will cease. Once you have made them, you wash them in the washing machine to make it become felt.

It's the topology that I find fascinating; how a single strand can be manipulated into the three-dimensional shape. I once knitted a little jacket for number one son when he was a baby - the whole thing was knitted all in one piece and then folded together like this and like that and sewn up here and there and - surprise! - a jacket. I've kept it - one day I'll inflict a photograph on you.

There is no other news - we've refilled the bird feeders, I've changed the January wreath outside the front door for a crochet twine bag of daffodils. You can have a picture of that in the morning if it is still there; storm Ciara is currently trying to undo the wire holding it in place and it is dark and rainy and wet out there. McCavity the cat hasn't sneezed for a week, apart from this afternoon - she was sneezing for a whole week at the end of January. 

We have snowdrops and crocuseses and primulas in the garden. One of the new shrubs looks as though it might have spring flowers but we'll just have to wait and see. The birds are making themselves heard as though it might even be Spring.

As I said - no real news. After the ups and downs ever since last Autumn, I'm more than happy with that.