Ania M

I attended the funeral of my dear friend Dee today. It was both wonderful and agonising. I am not good with funerals – I find death very difficult to cope with, but because Dee and I had spoken about the possibility on a number of occasions and I had found so many happy memories in the last couple of weeks, I thought it would be alright. I really wanted to say something in memory of my friend, but when it came to it, it was so much harder than I imagined. The good thing about it though, was the opportunity to meet some if her other lovely friends and a comfort to know how well loved she had been.
I have attached a pdf copy of what I said at the funeral here.
My Eulogy

How does one begin to express the sense of loss felt over the death of a close friend without resorting to cliche and platitiude. Perhaps it is best not to try, since such expressions become cliched because they embody instantly understandable emotions in a comfortingly familiar form and thus spare one the anguish of groping for words to express the raw and personal pain.

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I’ve had the winter blues lately – cold and a pervading desire to hibernate, so I haven’t felt very much like writing here. Today’s snow has made life a little more fun though 😀

The garden

Monday is usually the day that the post doesn’t make it any further into the house than the doormat. Yes, Monday is junk mail day. However, something curious happened this morning…the junk mail was actually worthwhile and interesting! No pointless double glazing leaflets or improbable free solar power offers. None of the usual Monday rubbish that is picked up and deposited straight into the recycle bin. No, today there were useful offers and money-off vouchers and even some free lightbulbs. Some vouchers for Cargo, ostensibly selling homewares and of little interest usually, but at this time of year, purveyors of quirky gifts for those hard-to-buy-for relatives that you only see at Christmas. Another flyer with discount vouchers for a recently opened local cinema (I was planning a Christmas holdiay treat to Madagascar 2 for the children). And finally, not junk mail, but renewed membership cards for CAMRA containing £20 worth of beer vouchers – and a very merry Christmas to you all. Hic! 😀

My October Esther sock is coming along nicely, though I am finding knitting on two circulars rather tedious. IMO using DPNs is far and away faster, though using circulars does allow me to knit two at a time, so I will persevere. Just about to start on the heel now, so with a following wind, they should be all done by the end of the month.

The pattern is coming out very nicely, though you can’t see it very well in the picture. I’ve alternated the direction of the cables so that there is more of a knotwork feel to the pattern. I hadn’t intended to do this originally, but reached the second cable and thought it might be more fun to do it this way.

…blue and red.

Another wedding and another bride, well, two actually. I have a fascination for the unusual and it is always more fun creating dresses that are not your usual bridal attire. On this occasion, the gowns had a Victorian flavour and did not involve white, ivory or any of the usual shades associated with brides. One bride was in a full length red coat-dress and the other was corseted and bustled in blue, as you can see below.

I hope to have more pictures of both brides to post up soon. Both looked absolutely stunning, though it may be immodest to say so, but I did get a great deal of pleasure in seeing them in my gowns.
The brides also invited me to the reception, so I got a rare opportunity to dance my stockings off (and anyone who knows me will know how much I enjoy that) 😀

I’ve started yet another sock, this time for the October SKA Sockdown on Ravelry. The pattern is Esther by Steffi Linden and it’s my first time doing a picot edge cuff. As always, I’m using luscious merino yarn from Violet Green. Here are the first few rows:

I’ve split the skein into two balls and as soon as I have knitted the picot cuffs on DPNs, I’m going to have a go at knitting both socks at once on a pair of circulars. This should make it easier to get both socks identical 😀

Well, here it is. I cast on Cookie A’s Flicker sock last night so I’m off and running for the September SKA (Sock Knitters Anonymous) Sockdown on Ravelry. Yay! It’s a gorgeous colour and matches my hair 😀

I was so excited to have received my invitation to join Ravelry the other day. I’ve joined the Sock Knitters Anonymous group there and will be participating in the Challenge, where you have to knit a different pair of socks each month. For September’s Challenge, my dilemma is which of the wonderful Cookie A patterns to opt for. I have a few of her freebies from Knitty in my archives and the Twisted Flower, but they are all so gorgeous, it is hard to choose between them :S Whichever, I do, the rest of the patterns are on my wishlist (cheap Christmas presents 😉 Either way, opting for Cookie A was a no-brainer as the alternative was to knit and orange sock and orange is just not my colour at all. Besides, I still have loads of lovely Violet Green yarn in my stash to use up 😀 Watch this space for updates on my progress.

I had a go on a friend’s Wii the other day and was completely and utterly hooked. Not on the video gaming aspect, but on the sports. Now I am not a sporty, exercise-y type of person and the idea of going to a gym fills me with horror at the anticipated boredom and sweatiness of it all, but I have discovered that I love exercising on the Wii. We had to have one and as luck would have it, even managed to find a Wii Fit board (they being as rare as hen’s teeth at the moment). Now I’m doing 45+ minutes of Yoga, Aerobics and workouts every day on the Wii Fit and we spend most evenings playing Tennis, Bowling and even Boxing on the Wii Sport game. It’s great fun and beats blobbing in front of the Telly every night, but the best thing is that the whole family (without exception) absolutely love it and we can play together. My DS has shown an unexpected talent for Ski-jumping and my DD at the tender age of 5 has a curiously effective bowling technique. The other really great thing is that according to my responses on the Fit board, the Wii calculates my age as anything between 6 and 13 years younger than I actually am, which is an ego boost that has to be worth having 😀