Firstly.......

AAAAAAAAARRGGH.

Imagine me, if you will, crawling out from the tunnel, a limp and dispirited figure with bedraggled hair and pale visage. Trembling, oh so piteously, and holding out a hand in supplication.

I'm so sorry. I realise that I am a pathetic creature, but when I tell you that I have been two entire days, a whole forty eight hours without my broadband connection, maybe some understanding if not sympathy will flutter in a bosom somewhere. No? Oh, well, then, never mind.

I was on the phone to the mater (aside....could there be some deeper significance here?) when the line started wurbling, breaking, squeaking, echoing and finally we were back to the damn thing going ringringringring&etc again. So I rushed upstairs, logged on and attempted to report the fault via the BT website, but failed, so emailed the DSM. Went away and got on with real life for a bit, came back, attempted to log on, and that was when....It was a terrible moment, if only in that I realised the extent of my dependence.

Still, one good thing about BT, they do work weekends! So, all day Saturday they were sending messages of one sort or another to the DSM's mobile telling him that yes, there was a fault on the line. On Sunday afternoon, the landline rang with an engineer telling me that we were all fixed now. And let us hope that we are at the end of it......

So, Saturday, the workshop, went ok, I think. Nice to see some old friends again. The DSM was able to spend the entire time knitting the border on to the 90th birthday shawl, and in fact finishing it, although he did redo the final join on Sunday morning. We washed it, rolled it in towels and got it to a remarkable state of dryness just doing that - it was too murky outside to bother trying to drape it out somewhere. So, now it is pinned out on the spare room floor - there is just room - and hopefully it will be dry enough to pack by Thursday.



In this next one, you can see something of the pattern.



DMIL was a terrific bridge player until a very few years ago, and in hunting through books on lace patterns, the DSM found a couple with hearts and I think diamonds. So he set to and charted spades and clubs to go with them - amazing. He has done a lovely job. Mind you, every time anyone handles it, the very first thing they comment on is the softness, which is down to my spinning, so I did play my part in this enterprise. Still, I couldn't have designed it, or executed it for that matter, and I am very pleased for him as it mattered a lot to him that it came out well. I will put up a photo of it draped when it comes up off the spare room floor!

While I was fossicking around with the digital camera. Max did his getting on the porch roof and yelling to come in routine, and I couldn't resist teasing him.



The slight blurriness of the image is actually caused by the dirtiness of our window. I would be ashamed of us if we were not spending all our time on much more satisfying creative enterprises!