08 August 2011

Callum's Report Card

Callum Ree

  • sleeping     exlent
  • playing     exlent
  • criing     ned enpruevement
  • herting   ned enpruevment
Anya Ree

About Time

I’ve been untrue.  To myself, that is.

All my life I’ve been a writer, reader and artist, and lately I have been none of those things.  Why?  I’ve been knitting.  It’s not like I think that knitting is so much more fabulous than writing, reading or drawing.  It’s just that the knitting grows slowly, too slowly to finish in an afternoon, but just fast enough that I can see how it’s going to be so much bigger in just a few more days.  I think, “If I just do two more rows right now...” and the next thing I know, it’s way past when I should have gone to bed.

Anyway, that's my attempt to explain the lack of blogging.  The other reason, of course, is my new (-ish) job with longer days and more intense involvement.  When I’m not knitting, I seem to spend a lot of my spare time thinking about work or doing stuff around the edges to try to keep the work on track.  I guess that’s one benefit of knitting.  It’s something completely different to be thinking about and concentrating on.

A friend taught me to knit and crochet last October.  I started simply, with a couple of scarves (I didn’t mean to make two, but each child claimed one), then progressed to a small pair of pants for a six month old (my first experience of shaping a garment),and most recently I completed a baby blanket with a lace pattern (my first experience with cabling, too) which took over three months of my spare time.  Now I’m finally making something for myself, the “Sideways Top” (Jo Sharp, Saturday).

Other than that, this weekend I went rollerblading -- with the rest of the family on bikes – David gave me some new blades for my birthday, as my old ones shattered when I put them on a month ago.  I’ve only had them since about 1990, so I guess it’s fair enough.  Rollerblading is just about the right speed to keep up with the kids and a huge improvement over running.  I am just not a runner.  All that foot impact and wobbling bits just feel wrong to me.

We also attended a massage course.  I’m still sore!  Not from receiving, from giving.  It is hard work giving a massage.  I went first, and was practicing on David for about two and a half hours.  By the end of it, I was starting to feel overheated.  After lunch it was my turn to lie on the table, and I passed out in the middle of it.  We have a massage table at home, so I’m looking forward to many practice sessions.  (No doubt, so are all our friends and family...)