Extreme Knitting Redhead: One year ends and another begins

Monday, January 2, 2012

One year ends and another begins

Doesn't time seem to go much quicker the older one is!

I've decided not to upload all my sky photos and just to be selective as they are really slowing down my page. So, although I will still be taking photos and squirreling them away in true geeky fashion, I won't be clogging up my blog with any (unless they are really special or as in this one are on a significant date).

This one was taken on 31/12/11 and 1/01/2012 was so dark, dreary and wet that I didn't even bother snapping it!

I did, however, go out for a lovely run first thing before the weather really worsened. 7 hilly miles with few people around; no doubt nursing hangovers. I also made sure that I ran on the last day of 2011 just for completeness and so I felt as if I'd earned my large glass of Macallan and ice

My serious training for 2012 starts tomorrow.

On Boxing Day I joined the Hippocampus Mittens KAL over on Ravelry.

I've never made mittens before as I haven't worn them since I was a small child but the pattern looked so gorgeous that I just had to have a go as I adore seahorses.

The yarn is Fleece Artist 'Trail Socks' which has been lying around for a couple of years so it was about time I used it. The colours are glorious shades of mauve and turquoise but sadly it doesn't show up very well in the photos. It will go beautifully with one of my favourite winter jackets.

There was only one bit of consternation when I didn't read the chart properly and made a sticky-out thumb gusset instead of the afterthought thumb gusset marked here by the 2 needles.

Thankfully I only had to rip back a few rows.

In other news, we had a trip into London to see the exhibition entitled 'The tomb of the unknown craftsman' curated by Grayson Perry at the British museum. It was an excellent exhibition and his pottery is stunning.

What a treat. Grayson Perry has a dark, satirical humour and it is well worth a visit if you are in London. The piece de resistance is a ship built out of cast iron and decorated with artefacts from the museum. The centrepiece is a tomb containing a flint, representing the tool used by the first craftsman on earth.

Some are put off by his cross-dressing transvesticism (sp?) and his overtly sexual imagery but if you can get past that then his craftsmanship is superb. I love the way he has forged his own path in the world of modern art as a lot of people are really dismissive of crafts such as pottery. The thing that must really irk him is even though he won the Turner prize and is now well established, the thing that people often focus upon is his alter ego, named Claire, rather than the work he has produced.

After the exhibition we trotted off to one of our favourite Indian restaurants - Veeraswamy. If you click on the link you'll see bits of the interior which was revamped a few years ago.

It was a successul visit on 3 counts:

i) The food, as always, was sublime!
ii) I loved these motifs on the stair carpet leading up to the toilets as I think it could be a good starting image for a rag rug for our front door. Using different colours though.
iii) Mike took some lovely photos of the dining room and has been inspired to paint a scene of the restaurant in oils!

He hasn't been painting in oils for very long (about 18 months I think) but he's obviously a natural as he has a really good eye.

Here's a painting, based on a Gauguin, he was working on before Christmas. I'm not usually a fan of Gauguin but I do love this painting.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.