More cards and a Bonus Life Lesson!

Quick update to show you a few more Christmas cards, and to tell you the meaning of life (if you get to the end)! Now, on Saturday I logged on and read this lovely post from Mumma Troll and was quite delighted even though it takes quite a lot to get through my steely emotional defences, so, thank you Mumma Troll, and also what a lovely card you made. I have realised the recipient of Mumma Troll’s card doesn’t have a blog and I know it was posted long enough ago that hopefully we are not spoiling the surprise, so Eileen, I hope you have the card safe, and that you liked it. Leileigh has also updated on the card she received from Emma, in a lovely blog post about Christmas in Germany, go and have a look! And here is my mother’s card from Halfpint.

With heel shaping! This is hardcore

Isn’t that clever? That looks to me like a proper tiny sock with all the proper shaping! And I love how the fireplace is done as a line drawing as a contrast to the stocking, very clever. And this is my mother’s card which she sent out

This may come as a surprise to you, but my mother lives in Derbyshire

To Mumma Troll, who I know has got it now and who is going to blog about it tomorrow (so mother, go and look tomorrow!).

Also wanted to quickly share this link which Susie from First Floor Flat sent me: I love this. I’ve been looking for a pattern for a hat with earflaps on Ravelry, and you’d be surprised how difficult it is to actually find a straightforward one. I almost bought one off the market. Which had eyes on. So I’d like to cast on for this straight away, but I’ll have to see if I’ve got any suitable wool. Talking of which, I’m hoping to have an interview on the blog perhaps this Friday with Sandra, who owns Ely Wool Shop, and I’m thinking I might have to say to her, please don’t let me buy any wool while I am interviewing you. Because otherwise I know I am going to leave not only wiser about the commercial realities of the wool trade but also clutching a skein of malabrigo chunky, and I am supposed to be saving money.

And to end, a heartening story of personal success (this is ‘success’ in a ‘not really success at all’ kind of sense. Just call me Pollyanna. But! Bear with, bear with, as they say on Miranda. Do you watch it? It’s very funny). So. One of the things I am very bad at in life, and which, if I was better at it would make me a better person, is that I am not good at doggedness, routine, and repetitive effort. If you ever have a crisis which can only be solved by a huge one-off coup de foudre, personal dynamism and an innovative solution, I’m your woman. If you need someone to do something boring on a regular basis, I’m going to make you very frustrated (although, when we have a crisis due to it not having been done on a regular basis – I’m your woman!). Anyway, I realise this and I try to address it in myself by finding repetitive things and doing them regularly (I bet I’m selling you on this). So for instance, last year I took up running. When I say running, I mean lurching round the park looking like death and fending off the advances of various surprisingly furry dogs, because dogs love me, even at inappropriate moments. And when I started I literally could not run for a minute at a time. But I stuck with it and by summer I could run for – 3 minutes at a time! (You have to understand quite how unathletic I am to be impressed by this, because I agree it doesn’t sound all that impressive). However in late summer I kind of got out of the rhythm and stopped, and I thought now that all my progress would be for naught and I would have to start again, getting to 30 seconds and falling over on a passing Spaniel and crying. But no, I have been ‘running’ again today, and although I would not say I can just take up where I left off, I can get back on the Couch to 5K programme (well, at the beginning, but, you know), and start again! All is not lost! And the moral I am taking from that, is, that even if you break your routine/ stop practising something, don’t give up, because actually what you have done is you have created a path through the undergrowth of Life, and when you next choose to go down that path, although it may have overgrown a bit, there will never again be a great big hedge in your way like there was to start with.

I hope you found that encouraging. ;-). Me, I shall be ‘running’ again tomorrow. Yay!