In which there is a missing year

In which there is a missing year

It is well over a year since I posted anything, I have thought about writing something a lot of times this year – there were the really furry blue monster paw gloves for the monster who is friends with the bear and I failed to get a picture of, there was the Charlotte’s Dream blanket which kept me sane in the staffroom through the start of the year and while stuff was crazy at home (although I had to arrange the colours more in a more orderly manner than the pattern to satisfy that bit of my brain), there were baby clothes for a friend that needed finishing before we moved away in June and the baby is now two and a half months old, there was a big cross stitch which I started before I had the Smalls and which I finished in the eight weeks after we moved and had no furniture of our own, there was the Hygge shawl that I just fancied making and took to do on the plane but ended up watching lots of films instead (the Tom Stoppard Anna Karenina one is really good if you like that sort of thing – kind of a condensed theatrical version) and finished afterwards.

Every time I thought about writing something I couldn’t work out how to explain what was going on at home without getting really grumpy or sad and I thought that wouldn’t be nice to read. After more than a year of getting used to the idea I finally worked out that anybody who reads this probably knows what has been going on, where we are living and how I feel about it anyway so I have resorted to just carrying on without explaining and if you don’t know then a) tough titties, b) you’ll probably work it out as we go along and c) thank you for reading but I’m not sure why you are…

This is the view from my garden this afternoon – it is nearly 30°C, normally the sky is relentlessly blue but I hung my washing out and wanted to take a picture outside so it decided to be grey:

 

I had planned to come home for Christmas and left all the Christmas stuff behind but flights cost silly money so we are still here and last month I realised that we would need some Christmas stockings, they have been a bit slow because I am notoriously bad at knitting the same pattern more than once so making the same thing four times was a bit of a challenge but finally here are four stockings just in time:

 

And I get bonus points for using up lots of odds and ends out of the stash.

Mine has got my real name on the other side but since joining the Scouts here and needing a new name I have been reminded that when Tiny was more tiny than she is now she used to call me ‘Mouse’ so I added that too, this is my favourite bit:

Happy Christmas and I will try to write a bit more frequently now I have got past the not-writing-at-all bit!