A crafty year!

Would you believe me if I told you that it has taken me an entire year to realise that I can make the photos in my posts bigger? Yes. Read it and weep uncontrollably, for it is sadly so. Worse, I have even reflected, from time to time, on what a shame it is that the photos are so small. In the words of the immortal Bart: doh!

All buttoned up!

Cosily ensconced in our holiday cottage in Purbeck, Dorset we now finally and undeniably are and, indeed, have so been ever since late last Friday afternoon, when we arrived – having taken more than an hour to get out of London’s trafficky clutches and then completed the remainder of the journey in a relative flash – in definite need of some serious relaxation and unwinding. Two glorious weeks and this warming open fire lie before us: heaven!

Our first ever open fire!

You may be forgiven for thinking – given the picture above – that we have not yet stirred out of our Grade II listed Purbeck Stone quarryman’s cottage which dates back to 1772. You may be forgiven, but you’d be wrong.

A shedload of yarn

This time next week, we’ll have been cosily ensconced in our holiday cottage in Purbeck, Dorset, for two whole days. Our long-awaited break is almost upon us – and not a moment too soon! On Friday, having made the third and final of three enormous work-related deadlines, I went for a walk to release some adrenaline. After ten minutes, my body reacted – suddenly and decidedly – to the relief and it was all I could do to convince one foot to follow the other until I got back home. ‘The fatigue is come upon me’, cried the Lady of Crouch End – or, at least, she would have done, had she had sufficient strength for more than a whimper.

Beads, button holes and belly buttons

This week, readers, I am wondering whether my holiday – long overdue and now pretty desperately awaited – will ever actually arrive. It will, of course (at least, I do hope it will!), but this is one of those weeks where each day seems hell-bent on producing – with quite some skill, I might add – a new and hitherto mercifully unappreciated form of mental torture. And the migraine is just the icing on the cake.

Those of you who read my last post (thanking you kindly!), may recall my vigorously announced intention – after a not-so-successful Week 3 of my beaded jewellery making course at City Lit – of rising phoenix-like from the ashes of beading despair. And did I triumph? 

Cushions, cats and catastrophe

The irony! Even I couldn’t have dreamt this one up.

You may remember that I’ve been knitting away to finish an enormous bolster cushion cover. You may even recall that I’m nearly there, with just the flap (and dreaded button holes) to complete. Well…

Getting into a flap!

Monstrously enormous excitement (and some trepidation)! I may be saved from having to accept the role of Thirteenth Doctor should Peter Capaldi ever decide he’s had enough. And, let’s face it, previous incumbents have all moved on eventually (or we’d still be on Doctor Number One), so it’s quite likely that Capaldi, too, will at some point pass on the trick of piloting the TARDIS to another. It’s a shame, really, that I may no longer be available, as I look so very fetching in the scarf

When is a scarf not a scarf?

When it’s a humongous cover for a bolster cushion, naturally.

It all started in the late summer of 2012 when I developed terrible and apparently interminable back and neck pain. Goodness knows what triggered this. Suspects at the time – none of whom were then or have since been brought adequately to justice – included a poor understanding of what to do with my neck at yoga (I was then but a mere novice, squeaky in my shiny newness), my inexcusably poor posture while seated at my desk during office hours, and my inconvenient habit of sleeping on my front.