Sunday 3rd Feb 2019 - Tea, biscuits, Sunday afternoon

Amaryllis

     I promised a picture of the amaryllis;

Saturday afternoon

It was the best part of the view out of the sitting room window yesterday -
six E N O R M O U S flowers on one stalk. I have no idea how the flowers that are even as I type emerging from the buds on the second stalk will find any room to expand their petals. I wondered what they looked like in the wild; there are pictures on the www.pacificbulbsociety.org website, but I haven't copied the pictures here as I expect they are copyright protected.

Today is a better day, weatherwise, but still cold. We considered going out, and we considered drinking tea and eating a biscuit or two, and here we are.

Sunday afternoon

Church

I was playing for the morning church service today (first Sunday of the month). I really do need to change my glasses, or at least get some kind of Very Strong reading glasses. I wear varifocals, and can't work out which lens to look through when I am reading the music. It seems to make no difference whether I look through the top, middle or bottom. Those little dots and squiggles scattered over the pages remain vanishingly small and wriggly.  Today I had the horrid experience of losing my place in the music halfway through the verse of the last song. I ploughed on using a mixture of memory, luck and  guesswork to get to then end; unfortunately I had forgotten what key we were in, but found my way home in what I hope was a musical manner.

Knitting (and a short 'tale of the unexpected')  

As part of making an effort to play less freecell, I have cast on stitches for a scarf using a ball of wool I bought back last Summer, when we were staying in a showman's caravan in Bodiam. We took the steam train to Tenterden, and, my oh my, there was a superb wool shop!

I had been resisting starting anything with this wool until I had finished a few other things and now seemed the opportunity. The wool is called 'zauberball'; I have an idea that 'zauber' is German for 'magic', and the wool 'magically' changes colourways as it unwinds. I have come to the conclusion that this is one of the attractions of yarn; watching the different colours slip through my fingers as I go.

The pattern for the scarf is only 'slightly' interesting, but that is the whole point - I play freecell because it is 'slightly' interesting, because it is repetitive, because it is easy, because (and after a long teaching day this is very important) it doesn't talk to me, ask questions, or require decisions and answers. Very much like this knitting
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
That was all a bit sudden. Somehow, as I put my mug of tea down it sort of bounced (how? dunno) and the tea leapt out of the mug and onto the keyboard. (I don't think it would be helpful to mention at this juncture that the keyboard needed a bit of a clean. )

He went from sitting semi-comatose in the chair beside me, reading a book, to full action stations in a nano second; emergency shut down of computer and cleaning tea out of the keyboard... which is now drying off in the airing cupboard for a while while I was still wondering what ha happened and how.

I have moved to another part of the sitting room and am using the laptop! Here's hoping that I haven't destroyed the keyboard.

Now, where was I?

I honestly can't remember. Except my mug is now empty; perhaps I should put the kettle on?