We're getting there

 Things keeping me going in January are:

A little bit of snow last week. I even have snowballing pictures but the kids wouldn't like it if I made them public. But it was great seeing them have fun in the snow!

The first daffodils in the shops

My new diary insert (by Morgan Le Fae's Trinkets - I love these; this particular layout suits me perfectly).  This took a random route from the Netherlands and I thought it had got irretrievably lost. Monique had posted it well before Christmas so goodness knows where it went on its travels!

Winding more wool.

And today I watched Rams (Hrútar) which I'd been meaning to watch for ages, and loved it. I even knitted while I watched, though it was only a sample to check how the variegated wool knitted up. I was meaning to make a hat with it but all my circular needles seem to have vanished. I must have put them somewhere particularly safe...

We're all more or less recovered from our various lurgies now, and although the first couple of weeks were pretty awful even by January standards, I think settling back into the normal routine has helped.

a better picture

1. a better picture of the wool, in daylight and all fluffed back up.

2. a picture of the moon, possibly the least fuzzy I've ever taken.

The anti-sickness tablets also turn out to be anti-sleep tablets* so after four days of insomnia** I've decided to stop them and just hope I don't throw up too much.  I've only three more days of the antibiotics left. I'm sure it'll be fine. FINE. When making 'January bearable' amounts to not being sick there's not really much you can illustrate it with...

*surprisingly - the first dose knocked me out.

** actually on adding it up it's been three nights of insomnia. Addled.

flat

 I got a package in the post today - it was flattish with odd lumps. When I opened it I realised it was some wool I'd ordered which had been packed in the most awesome and cool way - it had been vacuum-packed.  Yes, it looks like plasticene.

The best fun I had today was cutting a tiny hole in the packaging and watching it inflate (reflate? reinflate..?). Call me easily amused but it made me laugh. It also made Miss M laugh so it's not just me. That said, we've both been giggling at really bad cracker jokes this evening..

The pictures are dark and gloomy once again because once again I pretty much missed daylight. I had to go back to the doctor because the current antibiotics were making me very queasy. But as they do seem to be working on the chest infection, rather than stop them she's given me anti-nausea tablets to go with them. These are a kind of antihistamine, most of which make me sleepy, so I spent most of this afternoon sleeping or dozing. On the upside, no nausea, and it's only until I finish the antibiotics so just a few days. A few days of sleeping? Why thank you!

A coffee and a chocolate biscuit

That's a very dark picture.

So we're five days into January and I'm clutching at straws here but, dammit, I'm going to enjoy that coffee!

There are other things making January bearable but I keep forgetting to photograph them in daylight - daylight being in short supply at the moment. And anyway the antibiotics I'm taking have dire warnings on the packaging about avoiding daylight, even on overcast days - apparently they've turned me into a vampire. I'm not sure what'll happen if I do go into the sunlight but I'm imagining some Buffy-like crumbling into dust. Or perhaps not. So perhaps the dark, mysterious picture of my coffee is entirely appropriate!

Throw Another Log on the Fire

We don't have an open fire or a wood-burning stove. Or even one of those gas fake fires. But we have a Youtube video of a burning fireplace and a spare television. So our cats do get to curl up in front of the fire!

Our favourite video has just the right balance of crackling and burning sounds and the odd spitting log, and it's all very restful - and no ashes to clean out either. Alas, of course, no actual heat, but that's probably just as well given how close Boycat is to the 'flames'!

Without any real intention, this is turning into a series of 'things to make January bearable' posts. It's no secret (i.e. I whinge about this every year) that I always find January a bit of a slog, and at the moment I'm on a second course of antibiotics for a chest infection so obviously it's my least healthy time of the year as well (last year it was 'flu, the year before it was conjunctivitis and an ear infection..). The obvious answer to this is to make December less frenetic and look after myself better next year (and I'm typing this partly as reminder to the me of Autumn 2017), but for now I'm just aiming to enjoy what I can out of January.  Even if it's just the little things, like a pretend logfire.

Wool and books

We wound another ball of wool today - this is one of my home-dyed efforts (anthemis tinctoria).

And I'm reading The Tempest, which I haven't read for years.

Also I've pulled muscle and it hurts too much to type, so a short post it is!

January and Jigsaws

We have a jigsaw on the go for idle moments. Miss M got the current one for Christmas and was a bit confused about the Christmas tree in the water. It turns out that the painting is of Bourton on the Water in the Cotswolds, where they do in fact put a Christmas tree in the middle of the river. I don't know how - a crane perhaps? So we've learned something new, if completely useless. The jigsaw itself is surprisingly tough (for a 500-piece jigsaw) because there are so many similar patches of snow, patches of river and patches of sky. If it were a 1000-piece jigsaw I'd be crying into my coffee by now.

Before we did the Bourton at Christmas one we did the books one in the middle of the picture.  That was brilliant - so much colour, and interesting without being too frustrating. We'll probably do the top one next - that's a portion of Benozzo Gozzoli's Procession of the Magi, and is great because there's so much detail. Also because I have soft spot for Renaissance art. And then I'll dig out the 1000-piece jigsaws...

A New Year's Day walk

The wind finally dropped and the rain finally stopped (it feels as if it's been wet and windy for weeks), and although there was a frost this morning it had gone by lunchtime. So the Boychild and I went for a walk in the mid-afternoon. He's a good companion for a walk - not chatty, but quite happy to be wander peacefully and enjoy the scenery and weather. And patient when I stop to take pictures. These were all taken with my 'phone, so I didn't have much control over how they turned out, but they're okay I think.

I never did get any knitting done last night. We all sat around reading until midnight, at which point fireworks went off in various directions and bagpipes resounded (not kidding - the boy over the road plays the pipes and did a quick rendition of Scotland the Brave as midnight struck). Miss M and I wrapped ourselves in a blanket and watched the fireworks from her bedroom window. The gentlemen of the house are largely disinterested in fireworks but Miss M and I like sparkly stuff. And then we all went to sleep, even the cats.