Coming up for air.......

The age of miracles is not yet over - I have actually managed to get in to the studio, on my own!, again. So time to squeeze in a quick blog post before getting down to anything else. In my personal reckoning, that counts. It is surprisingly difficult to manage to do it at home, given the large numbers of kittens trampling about on the keys and husbands who decide to make marmalade just as I am about to get the lap top out.

Last Saturday, we taught a spinning workshop at the studios as part of their regular programme. It went very well - we had seven participants, which is counted to be a good number for a newish class, and they all thrived, enjoying their day very much and making excellent progress. I always seem to feel very apprehensive before a class. This is in part because in order to make one viable, we have to be prepared to take all levels in one group and then deal with them appropriately, something made much easier by there being two of us. But you never can be quite sure just what you are going to be faced with, and there is no denying that it can be quite tiring!

We had the usual mix, I suppose, from the "whee! this is great, I'm getting it!" to the "I will never ever ever get this I am so useless (but she did!) via the one with the unstated problem, perhaps having had a stroke, but sticking to it gamely and getting to a good place in the end. This was a particularly rewarding group, that will have given birth to some real new spinners, I am glad to say.

I have talked before about the "tribe". There are different but overlapping groups within the tribe, and the class situation is one. Not quite the same as the "family" tribe of Guild, or dare I mention it, SOAR, but equally important to me. We shall see in August how the DSM and I get on with a class of twenty five! at Summer School. I am sure that I have said before that doing a week-long class is so particularly rewarding, and I am really looking forward to it. Although I still have a mountain of work to do before then in preparation.........

Of late - little bit of spinning, little bit of knitting. The Spiral shawl is growing and has moved on to a longer cir. It remains my only live knitting project at the moment. Must do something about that.

The kittens are gorgeous, affectionate little beasts and really, not too naughty. All four are getting on pretty well, we leave them together when we are both out now, and this weekend, they are going in to the cattery together. We are off to Cambridge for a few days.



And, my sister - has finished chemo. Quite where that leaves us, I don't know. I read an interview in the Guardian yesterday with a GP who said that she liked being one better than working in hospitals because a hospital doctor treated a condition, a GP a patient. Yes! It is very frustrating, especially as the bystander, not the patient. We see a different member of the team at each appointment, sometimes someone who has very obviously only just read the case notes. They tell us what we already know, or rather, some variant of it. Each time, we are promised a fuller review - next time. I am not doubting the standard of the medical care one bit, but yes, my sister has a condition and is not a real person. As exemplified by her being given an appointment to an 8am blood transfusion the day after the last clinic appointment, despite a plea for it being a bit early when it means a two hour+ drive through rush hour traffic. And not explaining that a first ever transfusion has to be done very slowly, and then a second unit given rather faster, so that it is going to take all day, sending us home just in time for the afternoon rush hour.....A five minute explanation would have been nice! However - it did a good job, and she is feeling much better. Fingers crossed that this is the start of a good bit.

Onward and upward, eh?