Don't faint.........

I'm alive.

There have been concerns expressed. And nagging. Thank you for caring!

Basically, I am fine and there has been plenty of stuff going on. (Not necessarily blog-worthy.) It is true that in quite a short space of time, I had two cats, one aunt-by-marriage and one mother disappear from my life, which did leave me a tiny bit shell-shocked and lacking in concentration. It is also true that the ongoing state of horrible chaos in what is supposed to be a work room (and where the desk top is located) is not conducive to creating anything other than a nervous breakdown, and I do not find my beloved iPad a good tool for writing.

But - the biggest obstacle to blog or other writing or making of any sort - or anything very much at all - has been the endless pursuit of kitten watching.





We haven't been entirely idle or boring. We have had a couple of trips up to Gibson Mill, one for demonstrating cotton spinning, one for stewarding at the Bradford Guild exhibition.

We have had a weekend way down south, visiting family and going to a lovely birthday party.





They took ages to getting round to actually cutting that cake........

What I am working on at the moment is not particulalrly blogworthy, certainly. Nice, but slow-growing. In knitting, a commercial cotton yarn baby blanket. (What?? Yes!! I am going to be a Great Aunt! Love it!) My Wensleydale and silk stole, which took me ages and ages to decide on a stitch pattern for. Unfortunately, the one that looked by far the best is also the most boring to knit, so this is going to be a very slow labour of love. Good job I have all those blankets and teddies and Baby Surprises to conjure up.

And as for spinning, well I am still working on the lush pale grey alpaca and silk. The reason being that a certain two felines rush, positively rush to help me if I sit at my spinning wheel. (And just don't even think about spindling!) But I have managed to spin half the fibre and I have very nearly finished plying that - should be on to the second bag very soon now.

I am spindling - I decided to rerun the which sort of spindle can you get more fibre on experiment, but began with the bottom whorls as I like those less - I knew I would never finish if I did the top whorl part first, light-weight that I am.

Then yesterday, we went over to Liverpool. There is an exhibition at the Tate of later works by Turner, Monet and Twombly, and I had really wanted to see it. So glad we went - most interesting. I had never seen any work by Cy Twombly before, but I liked most of what was there. The juxtapositions worked really well, and I found the whole thing very stimulating.

No photographs, of course. But I did take this on Albert Dock.



Love it.

Then, coming home, the sunset was extraordinary, and we stopped up on the moor.





Good day, that.

Now, I will try very hard to produce another post in the next couple of weeks, but in just under, we are off to the States. Mega trip planned, and I will no doubt be inspired to blog more then. Anyway - it is nice to be back.