Friday 8th May - cow pats from male cows and AI... chickens and a good read.

 Don't be put off because this article by the renowned knitting designer Kate Davies is, at first sight, about knitting. It actually has a lot of important things to to say about AI in general (plus some extraordinary and rather disconcerting AI generated images for the prompt 'lovely knitting').

Actually, the article is well worth a click just for the images; they are enough to raise the alarm bells on this whole ghastly side of AI.

There's a clue to the title of the article in the title of this post.

I read as a therapy after trying again to do cables in knitting. Perhaps different needles would help, that wouldn't split the yarn so easily? Or maybe a different yarn with a tighter twist? Maybe the needles were too slippery to be able to control the yarn? Or a different cable needle? 

Or perhaps just rip it all out, cut off the tangled bit and go and have a coffee. Perhaps cables shouldn't be attempted on days with a 'y' in the spelling.

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I'm playing 'yarn chicken' with one project; the solution was to start the next ball of yarn, searching for a section which had an approximate colour match. Now I can relax.

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BB and I are both playing 'oxygen cylinder chicken' with the daily walks. This morning I did a stock check;

2 full and 2 quarter-full cylinders in the hall

1 three-quarter full cylinder in the dining room for use in zooms

2 full and one empty in the shed

 I need to reserve three for meeting up with a friend for the day on Monday - I'll probably only use 2, but it's always better to have some contingency.

So today I carried a quarter full one and BB a full one; by the time we got home mine was empty and his was just over half full.

Tomorrow I'll carry the other quarter cylinder and he'll carry the one he had today - there should be about a quarter left.

On Sunday I'll carry that one, and he'll take the three-quarter cylinder from the dining room; if it looks like we're going to run out, he can stride home, fetch one of 'Monday's cylinders' and rescue me. I wouldn't have far to go; if I just sit on someone's garden wall, turn the flow rate down and wait I'll be fine. That's how you play oxygen cylinder chicken; just as in knitting, going faster doesn't make the yarn or the oxygen last longer!

The big mistake today, I think, was going for the walk too soon after lunch. I'll leave it a bit longer tomorrow! Also, I had a shower this morning, and that's always a bit of an energy-sapper. 

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I've just finished reading Barbara O'Neal's books, 'The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth'

It's a good one; food, world travel, mysterious back stories revealed as an initially mismatched trio journey together, two with their own personal tragedies to overcome so that they can begin to live their lives again. Plus ghosts...