Canberra has finally acknowledged the existence of spring and today is a beautiful, warm (although astonishingly windy) day. I’m wearing a skirt and sandals for the first time in a year, the cat has emereged from the doona… and my neighbour’s young children can plainly be heard now that we both have our windows wide open. It makes me wonder what happened to our childhood ability to make glass shatter. Do we lose that super power as we become adults?
Apart from the usual shrieking (both from the children and the harried sounding mother) I overheard this gem from the little girl:
"Mummy, David’s peed all over the bathroom floor!"* (Multiply this by 10, with each repetition of the sentence louder each time - I’m sure office workers heard her in Civic.)
As I prepared to do my repetitive (and oh so peaceful!) ironing, I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Motherhood may truly be a wonderful thing (despite all the screeching and crying going on next door), but I’ve never been so relieved that I haven’t embarked on that particular adventure in life.
* Name changed because a) you’re supposed to and, b) little fuzzy on the kid’s actual name.
I’ve had a little more success with the dreaded knitting today. Mum came around to do our weekly shopping today and showed me a different way that rings a bit of a bell in the dark recesses of my memory. Seems I was trying to force my Australian-but-wannabe-English brain how to cast on the American way and strangely enough it was having none of that! Nanna was English and so she naturally taught me the way her mother had taught her etc etc. Luckily Nanna had also taught my Mum the same way so Mum was able to refresh my memory okay. Well, sort of okay. There was a lot of confusion with "just flick that over" and "wait, that doesn’t look right - give it back to me again", but we got it eventually.
So I have one row or something cast on and tonight I’ll have a go at umm… binding it? Sealing it? Making it neater anyway - Mum didn’t know what it was called, just that it makes the initial stitches stronger and you do it before you start the actual knitting. Either way I’m pretty confident I remember how it went so I’m not anticipating any problems. Then I can start knitting my very boring beginner scarve in the strange multi-coloured wool I have that I suspect all beginner knitters use in the beginning because it makes the stitches stand out from each other. Eventually I’ll have to ask Mum to show me how to stop I suppose!
I’ve changed my mind: I don’t want to learn how to knit. It sucks, I hate it, knitting has defeated me. If only I could go back in time, find the person who invented knitting and stop them from ever picking up two sticks and some string!
Many moons ago (my birthday probably) Mum & Dad got me a "how to knit" kit and a big ball of wool (or is it yarn? who knows?) because I’d said often enough that now that I’m living in a colder climate I really should learn how to knit. Seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea and my grandmother had taught me a little when I was young after all. Arthritis stopped her knitting almost completely not long after she’d taught me a few basics and it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten most of it. But still, I’d learnt once and surely I could learn again.
Apparently not. The instructions came complete with diagrams that made me quite cross-eyed, and the written directions weren’t much better. So after a few attempts, with each one leaving me crankier than the last, I finally turned to YouTube for assistance which helped me at least master the slip knot. No, I’ve never had occasion to make a slip knot before except, presumably, for the last time I learnt how to knit.
Encouraged by how quickly I got the slip knot down, I turned to the next step: casting on. Found another great little video and, much swearing later, thought I’d worked out how to do it and was feeling quite proud of myself. That is until I looked at the video again and saw I was doing one step the wrong way. Trouble was when I did it the way the video said to all I got was a big mess.
It’s still so cold! Somebody hasn’t told the weather that it’s been officially spring for a few weeks now. Kali has taken to not getting out of bed until well into the afternoon. I’ve been feeling so sorry for her that I don’t make the bed until much later in the day just so she can keep snuggling under the blankets and staying warm. Wish I could join her!
