Saturday 30 May 2009

knitters...sitting comfortably?


the last project on my needles, way back in February and still, sad to say, a UFO

first of all, a huge thank you to all of you who were so positive in reply to my last post. It meant a lot to have so many nice messages telling me not to stop. Indeed so much so that I am quite convinced to continue, and not to feel guilt about the erracticness and random nature of my posting. So here I am, almost another three weeks later...hello...

I got an email during the week from the lovely Tanya Shoop. Tanya is the sister of a very good friend of mine who I met when studying for my MA in Art Theory at Chelsea School of Art here in London. The people I met on that course were far and away the best thing about it (suffice it to say the level of theoretisation ( is this a word?) I needed to apply during the course rendered me incapable of making art since...someday this will change I am sure...but not today or tomorrow I suspect) Anyway, I digress. Tanya is a great knitter (and one day we will knit together at our local Stitch'n'Bitch in the local pub, once I resolve my reservations about mixing booze and knitting, or at least learn the wisdom of the soft drink). Anyway. Not only is Ms Shoop a wonderful knitter but also a very gifted Alexander Technique therapist/teacher. Luckily for me her email contained this article, all about knitting in a way that should ensure you can keep on doing so past your forties. You knitters should all take note. Thanks Tanya. The knitting community salute you!

By the way, Tanya's website is well worth a visit, lots of hints and tips on there even if you happen not to be a knitter...


hot on the needles...new cardi for Ms Bester (who is still struggling into the one I knit her 4 years ago, age 8 months, and plaintively asking each time when I am going to knit her another...luckily for me she is the patient kind)


I wasn't quite practising what Tanya preaches down in the park this afternoon I'm afraid, but I excuse myself on the grounds that it's the first time I've picked up my needles since February so I was a tad overexcited...Once this overexcitement wears off it'll be straight backed chairs rather than picnic rugs for me, I swear...(as long as I can get a variation on the straight backed chair I can drag along to the park that is)

me, looking grim, I wasn't grim, honestly, I think it is just old age (and bad knitting posture, obviously)

As you can see the weather here in London is stunning. Our new garden is complete, it only took 13 months hard toil (well, erraticly spaced toil I should make plain, with lots of gaps for tea) and so we really are enjoying the mini-heatwave we've been treated to over the past week. Here are some snaps for my dad, who has been badly treated in terms of regular snaps of the work (he is interested in things like this, he used to be a carpenter, and a fine one at that)


look dad, a patio! some beds! steps! a lawn!


some tired landscape gardeners taking a well deserved rest and glass of bubbly


gratuitous shot of the table outside, later that night (I'm riveting dinner company with my camera around my neck I tell you)

Hope the sun is shining wherever you are...

Monday 11 May 2009

going and returning...

I can't quite believe it has been over a month since I last wrote here, I wonder what to do...should I stop altogether? this blog seems to be the last thing to get attention in my crammed full existence...but I love it...I love the friends I have made...I love the fact that I have somewhere to show my creative endeavours which somehow stimulates me to keep them up (although this has suffered much of late, hence the resounding silence I guess)...I love the knowledge that there is a little space out there over which I preside, where I can witter to my hearts content and no one can tell me not to...so I guess I'll keep it going for now, but as things remain crazy in my physical domain the posting is likely to be sporadic for a time...I'm sorry about that...

things are changing...I am changing...it's interesting and frightening and enlivening and liberating...but that's probably enough to say here, am not quite sure I am ready to share my soul completely...my crafts and other nonsense...absolutely, for sure!

so, not much crafting... Mr G flew away to Australia leaving me in sole charge of the smallfry...I did what any sane 40 year old mother of two would do...ran home to daddy!!! luckily I have a wonderful father who put his home and car at my disposal so we three ran amok on the highroads and byroads of the emerald isle. It was blissful.

Highlights of the trip:

spending Easter with my sister and her family in Co. Kildare...

Visiting the beautiful Japanese Gardens there and watching her two sons play Gaelic Football (not in the Japanese Gardens I hasten to add)

Walking on the gorse covered Curragh and smelling that evocative scent of coconut that magically emanates from those bushes...

visiting Fota Wildlife Park with my brother, his wife, one of my gorgeous grown up nephews, his girlfriend and her daughter...

native to Ireland? err, don't think so...


Laughing so much with my sister in law that tears were rolling down my face and I nearly had to pull the car over (dad, it's not true, really, I swear)....

Being cooked the most amazing curry by another of my gorgeous grown up nephews...

btw if you want to know more visit the company Eoin cooks for : Green Saffron. Their spices are incredible and I believe they are about to start selling into Selfridges, Harrods and on Portobello Market

visiting the beach with my old friend Lisa and spending two hours or more in a beach side playground while the smallfry hung and jumped and swung and we chatted...


driving around East Cork where the sky seems bigger than in any other place on earth and the hills do roll and the tiny men who stop you to divert you on country boithrins (roads) tell you "ye're a fine pair of women, have a great day, all fine women deserve that" which stimulates the older of the smallfry to wonder why...for quite some time...

visiting the home of my other gorgeous grown up nephew, seeing the beautiful photographs he is working on and being impressed yet again by his talent (and his kindness)...

going to Summercove with my father and the girls and sitting on my raincoat on the grass overlooking the water eating apples. Bumping into my sister there by accident and having an impromptu lunch at the pub sitting outside in the sunshine...

meeting my four oldest friends for dinner (the "big party this year girls on tour" as Siobhan calls us), getting drunk and planning further 40th birthday celebratory weekends...

coming home to find my apple tree had blossomed...


hope you have all been well too...