January - part 5. A tottering pile of books!

I'll just say that again - a tottering pile of books! Actually it's not really tottering, but is a satisfyingly substantial pile of books, most of which were Christmas presents. The Robert Macfarlane one was one I got for £1.50 in the sale at a discount bookshop, and the Susan Cooper one at the top is one I often re-read at this time of year as it's set at Christmas. I read Marsali Taylor's Death on a Longship on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and loved it - Shetland setting and boats and a mystery, pretty much ideal for me.

I started this post hours ago with the intention of writing a more substantial post than yesterday's, but got interrupted. It's been a very long day so I'm off to bed now. So much for a post of substance!

toasty

I have been fairly flattened by a lurgy, a proper head cold, which meant I slept until nearly midday today. I can only hear out of one ear, I seem to have conjunctivitis and everything is fuzzy. At least I've got my voice back though! I can sing, tralala (don't worry, I'm not really singing). Luckily there was no need to do anything much today other than veg out in a satisfyingly lazy manner. I finished my library book (What Would Mary Berry Do? by Clare Sandy) which I enjoyed very much, just what I needed when feeling grotty. I'm trying very hard not to think about my next OU assignment which is due in next Friday. I did start work on it before Christmas and was feeling okay about it but looking at the OU forums and Facebook pages has left me feeling as if I'm not taking it seriously enough. Which is silly. 

I would like to be witty and sparkling at this point but alas it seems that wit and sparkle only appear with a head not full of swamp ooze. Also typing on a tablet is a pain in the bum  - the visible area of text while typing is minute and I keep losing my train of thought, always assuming I had one in the first place. I should probably write my posts as haikus. Not sure why autocorrect wanted to apostrophise that.

So, the first of January - as pointless as ever! I have no particular resolutions apart from the perennial 'be more organised' which I should probably get tattooed on my body somewhere. The back of my left hand probably. Followed by 'buy milk' and 'don't forget that thing' (which actually reminds that the kids have got dental checkups next week and I Must Not Forget).  On that random note, good night all!

Post-viral crochet

Last week was a bit rubbish - I had a viral thing I think, and felt very drained and just not right. I persevered with everything because it felt as if it was just about to turn into a cold and then I'd know I was ill. Yet it never did.  In the end I gave in to it and consequently spent most of Wednesday and Thursday asleep. And felt much better for it!  I don't think I'm completely over it yet, but at least I'm functioning again. However the upside of last week was that I decided to treat myself to Rachel Coopey's Toasty as I'd come across on one of her hat patterns that looked nice on Ravelry, and then another and another, and then I realised they were all from this one book which was entirely too easy to order online. No regrets though, it's a lovely book with loads of nice patterns and actually useful information. And it smells nice too. I like book smells.

So have I immediately leapt into action and cast-on a gorgeous hat using the wool left from my Hitchhiker scarf, which after all was the reason I was looking for hat patterns in the first place?  No, not exactly. Actually, after an idle conversation with my mother-in-law, I took the notion to try crochet yet again and have been making a trapezium. Only now I think I've cracked it and it's an actual rectangle. Ish. Big strides forward!

However once I've found the wool and my circular needle of appropriate size and have decided which of the several gorgeous hat patterns in Toasty I'm going to use, the hat will start. Just in time for spring, no doubt.

Incidentally I looked up 'trapezium' to check it was the shape I was thinking of and discovered that apparently, according to the online dictionary I consulted (so it may be complete bollocks), trapezium means one thing in the US and something else in the rest of the world. In the US they use trapezoid where we'd say trapezium, and a trapezium is some related shape but not quite the same (without any parallel sides perhaps?). Divided by a common language indeed. Language fascinates me, especially the differences between the different forms of English. You find yourself wondering when and why the forms diverged. As a knitter the whole clothing thing is very evident every time I browse Ravelry  - sweater/jumper, jumper/bizarre pinafore thing, waistcoat/vest, vest/I dunno, undershirt?  Why those things and not, say, 'hat' and 'shoes'? Did they go through an intermediate phase where nobody actually knew what they were wearing? I imagine not or every garment would called a 'thingy' and Ravelry would be so much trickier to search.  Perhaps a thneed is what we need!