Time

  I've been juggling things around a bit. When I first started reading people's blogs and blogging myself (my first post, a fuzzy photo of some Adriafil Stars yarn, seems to have been towards the end of May 2005), way back in the dim and distant past of five years ago (where did that time go?!) I used to read blogs over breakfast before setting off on an endless journey to the back of beyond, not to return for several days. Now, seven house moves, one job, two ex-boyfriends, lots of books and an enormous quantity of knitting later life is a bit different. I go to work on the train. I rarely get up in enough time to catch the train without running around like a mad thing. I no longer read blogs over breakfast. I used to write my blog on Sunday afternoons, but now I do things like gardening then instead.

  And I miss reading blogs. I hate missing out on what people are doing, especially as I've been fortunate enough to meet many of the people whose blogs I read. My latest approach is to try reading blogs during my lunch hour. I used to go for a walk then, but the latest house move has ensured I now spend 50 minutes a day walking to and from the station, so there's no need to be energetic at lunchtime too. It doesn't work if I've run out to the Post Office during lunch, or gone to get some shopping, or gone into town to meet the OH for lunch. I've been through the usual slightly existential melt-downs about whether to carry on blogging etc and reached the conclusion that I enjoy blogging, and I enjoy reading other people's blogs, and I still want that to be part of my life. Soooo, here we go....

Knitting-wise I've finished the body of Thermal, and have been knitting away on the first sleeve. I started off with the smallest size sleeve, as the body is the smallest size, but the sleeve seemed really tight, so this is progress so far two sizes up from that. It fits, but still quite snuggly, and I'm not sure if I'll have enough yarn to do both sleeves this length. I'm considering starting the second sleeve, but casting on more stitches and making it more of a 3/4 length, then trying on the first sleeve and the 3/4 one and seeing which I like best. I've had a look on Ravelry but haven't found anyone else having sleeve problems.

I am beginning to get slightly bored with the stitch pattern...

Staines Knitting Group is going from strength to strength. We now have 27 members on Ravelry and, although we've never had more than 8 people at the pub at any one meeting, it seems to be very popular and we're now meeting 5 or 6 times a month (we're having a weekly meeting, plus a once-a-month Sunday afternoon one). Sarah has even been teaching Cat, the barmaid, to knit.

I'm amazed at the difference it makes to the week, I spend all of Tuesday looking forward to getting to the pub to meet up with the others. It makes the first two days of the week at work a lot easier to get through with knitting group to look forward to.

House-wise we have finished unpacking! Just don't open any cupboards... I have put all my stash in my old wardrobe, so it's all in one place, the first time ever I've had it in one place!

 We've been busy with the garden too. The OH has been attacking the lawn with moss killer with a vengeance. I've been emptying the old containers (left behind by the previous owner) and refilling with new compost and planting things. The previous owner was quite elderly so I'm not sure when the containers were last looked at, but the soil inside was extremely compacted - I ended up bashing a hand fork in with a mallet to loosen the soil a bit!

I did these three first. One has now been planted with Aubretia, the other two with fuchsias I got from a special offer in the Guardian. They do slightly mad, "order 5 plants get 300 more free!!" type offers. But it seemed a good way of filling some containers. Only the fuchsias have arrived so far, but I've got lavender, penstemons and a hydrangea on the way too.

Think that's all for now!