Advent Calendar Day 13

Today we move on to lucky 13. I’m sure it must be lucky because yesterday was largely a day of thwarted effort, so today has to be better, right?

The day didn’t get off to a great start, with DD running late and getting into a panic, and an unpleasantly soggy dog walk. To be fair, it wasn’t all bad, though. I did get some work done, but not quite as much as I’d have liked. The lack of progress may have had something to do with DH dragging me off to the pub for lunch, because you know how much I hate being treated to good beer and an excellent fish and chip lunch with mushy peas and probably the best tartare sauce I’ve ever had. It was pure torture, I tell you! 😉

Amongst the other frustrations, I didn’t manage to attempt the glass repair, totally failed to find a beast for Sunday lunch, the supermarket self-checkout refused to sell me ham (recalled product, it announced) and there was no oak-smoked cheddar. First World problems or what?

Then there were my less than successful attempts to cast on DS’ Christmas mitts (for the second attempt) using a Tubular Cast On. I’ve done that particular one before on a flat piece, but at 9pm attempting to do it in the round for the first time just proved too much of a challenge. The annoying thing is that on the original mitt (frogged due to being mahoosive), I used quite a nice tubular rib cast on that was quite easy to execute in the round, but I’m damned if I remember what it was. Thwarted again :/ *sigh*

Fortunately, the supermarket was prepared sell me wine, so all was well. On that merrier note, I will shut up about such trivia and get on with the calendar, as I’m sure you’re dying to know the deck and card for today 🙂

Today’s deck, chosen by my freshly-shorn son, (one of yesterday’s minor successes was hacking through the swathes of his thatch),  is the Fantastical Creatures, and since he chose the deck, I thought he should also choose the card, which is…the Four of Pentacles.

The card did come out reversed, again, which is a shame since upright it indicates financial stability. The image shows a Firedrake, a type of small dragon which can cause fires, so perhaps not so bad that the card is reversed after all 🙂

Less positively, the dragon’s cache of loot is going to be tipped out with the card in this position, quite probably straight into the pockets of the energy company judging by that flame. The dining room, which is also my work room, is in the conservatory and, as you can imagine, not the warmest room in winter. The underfloor heating is very effective, but costs an absolute fortune to run.

Not the most positive of cards, maybe not such a lucky 13, but hardly surprising at this time of year with cash flowing out in a Niagara Falls of seasonal spending, however hard one tries to be restrained. Large families (and children) inevitably require a large budget. At least it’s only once a year. Bah Hunbug! 😀