A wet Monday morning.......

....after a glorious weekend.

Most of Saturday was spent in what felt like a catacomb, but is actually an above-ground room that holds a guild meeting very nicely. (I think the catacomb-thing came from my brain.) Freyalynn was showing a whole mob of people how to paint tops and skeins, some nice stuff was produced, but not by me. I just sat spinning, I'm afraid.

Home via Tesco, and I then just crashed for a while. Since Thursday, it has definitely been a case of the wading-through treacle syndrome - I pretty much can see why, and won't bore anyone least of all myself, with all the reasons, just deal with them.

Which I did yesterday, which was an even nicer day. More or less clear blue sky, warm, but not excessively so, gently breeze. We colonised the upper sitting place, me doing my favourite basket of goodies thing. I collect book, papers, personal stereo, knitting and in this case beading in to a large basket, add lots of mineral water (in a bottle, idiot!) and a couple of cushions, and head out for the long haul. Anyone would think that this was a trek of a mile or three, not a handful of feet (sic). But there is nothing more annoying than getting perfectly comfortable, cushions in just the right place, occupation of choice perfectly positioned, freshly fizzing glass of mineral water precisely to hand, and two tons of cat balanced somewhere about the person - only to realise that you have forgotten something essential and having to undo the entire well-constructed edifice to go get it....

The DSM had a fit of violent activity wrenching overgrown leafage from somewhere or other and then came to join me. Lunch was thrown in to the mix at some point, this including a couple of beers which always helps, and there we stayed until about three thirty when I realised that I was slowly broiling, so retreated to the shade with my knitting. Somewhere round about then, I also realised that we actually had the wherewithal for a barbecue, I had bought two lovely ears of corn and some veggie sausages yesterday. So we did that.

Now, the DSM and I have a history with barbecues. Mostly because he used to assume that three briquettes with a match to them two minutes before needing to start cooking was the way to go. A few fairly violent altercations and choice phrases from moi, and we simply stopped trying. But a couple of years ago, for whatever reason, it was all of a sudden a good idea to give it another go. We had a long and serious talk, and thus far, all is ok. Last evening, though, he had to resort to some twigs and half a bottle of methylated spirit to get the thing going as the starter fluid had disappeared somewhere. But it worked, and was fun. What is more, we didn't even get totally chewed to death by the famous midges.

I was going to decree all this an "antidote" but it would only be partly true. I'm halfway there. It was just one of those weeks. But I have been working slowly on - the second fondant icing sock has reached the heel flap, which is truly speedy for me. The grey falklands top is very nearly finished - then I have to assess just how much I have, how much of it is usable in the same garment (for whatever reason, probably because of having been spun under so many different conditions and on two different wheels, consistent it ain't) and whether or not I dye some of it or spin some coloured stuff to do the contrast squares/whatever. Then, I have added a few more inches to the herringbone spiral, also not consistent to my extreme annoyance. You would think that practice would make perfect, but seemingly not in my case. Mind you, the beads are very irregular. Also, I succumbed to another quick beading project (which is turning out to be not so quick) involving a shell (pau?) disc and some strung seed beads plus a few extras. I kept on seeing things like that around peoples necks and really liking them, so decided to have a go - photo soon.

I have decided that I am not going to worry about any new major projects until after the trip to Cornwall, I have plenty of small stuff to keep me going. And speaking of Cornwall, we have the gruesome photo session to get through on Friday evening...I simply would not do this for anybody else but my ma-in-law!

gw