crimble crumble

Our Christmas wasn't quite this jolly, tho it has the right number of contestants.

Ma sat stolidly in our new armchair for two days[not that anyone would notice as it was draped in the same scarlet fabric, but I knew that if it slipped it would no longer reveal dirty, worn arms.] Took 4 months to arrive, one would think, that needing the business, firms would get their hammer and nails out pronto, but no.

K [from Denmark] gave me some prints of some Danish? dancing ladies [maybe a calendar originally] which really tickled me so I have started making these, only hand sized .....actually more difficult than I thought to get something zingy. Dunno what to do with them, maybe make cards, maybe make a dancey pic a la Beryl Cook.

No Book Tokens so far! Outrageous. Ma decided she was down with the kids, and I wouldn't need them now I have a Kindle. Not true, a book is a book is a book. A Kindle is a convenience.

Son and daughter however were pleased with theirs and we got several extra phone calls as they fought to set them up. Daunting Daughter then complained she was up till 2.30 a.m. reading her first download Val McDermid.

RP knowing me better bought me the new Belinda Bauer in Hard back [at full price, there's dedication] which I am romping thru, wanting to go slower but also wanting to reach the denouement. Was reading Camomile Lawn as I have Mary Wesley's biography; it's a strange collision of the refreshingly but ultimately rather repetitious sex scenes, an un-nerving variety of couplings amongst somewhat priviledged the young people during WW2. Didn't see the TV series.

MW started late into authorship so maybe I should be encouraged. I have to write the outline and beginnings of a novel for my Open University................oh dear. It's like opening the gate onto a huge empty field and thinking which blade of grass do I need to pick. Or I can do a half hour film script/stage play. same problem tho.

Maybe as I get older I have lost the strength of belief./opinion/something. I would quite like to write a scenario involving an irascible old woman, Stephanie Plum's grandma, a grouchier Miss Marple..........dunno.

Have to go to Diamond wedding celebration of the in-laws this week, with associated family. That should mean I return twisted lipped with all the words I couldn't say marinating in bile. Mount that horse and ride it ............

cat trix

Still besotted with the cats.

Gertie has a fairly amazing trick where she jumps up at a closed door handle [horizontal bar shape] and clings on till her weight pulls the handle down and the door opens

Wish we could catch her at it for YouTube but she chooses her times. Last time was opening the bedroom door at 5 a.m. this morning.

Daisy's only oddity, so far, is that she runs into the bathroom whenever I am on the loo and sits purring on my lap.

Got to go and do the veggie shopping tomorrow, doubtless the shops will be very busy as folks seem to panic and act as if they have to stock up for a siege, where actually the shops hardly shut at all.

Turkey is waiting for us until Saturday at the village butchers.

Bought a cheap reprint ppb of a Jonathon Kellerman,- The Web - at the Co-op, goodness knows where they get them from. It was only £1.99; not much cop IMO, so possibly overpriced after all.

Also chose new Belinda Baeur [that doesn't look right] as a pressi when I wandered into Waterstones [some kind of magnetic field Hadron Collider should investigate]wrapped now so can't check. Her last two were excellent, so couldn't resist, which was silly as I can smell Xmas Book Tokens coming my way. Going to need a good book to get me thru.

Walked by river today, sunny and mild and many oyster catchers and redshanks and curlews and LBJs to keep us company. Can't take a cat for a walk, which is just as well for birds, Gert and Daisy still gnash their teeth daily at the window at all feathered friends. So far they have only caught spiders in the bathroom, which is very laudable .

why

I guess because I have always drawn women, even when I was a kid, then as a teenager taught myself to draw the very skinny clothes horse types with high heels and pencil straight skirts.

Now I mostly want to avoid the stereotype of the celebrity aspirational, the thin but sexily curved image that isn't real. Most women by that standard are "fat" and so my women are everywoman, they resist judgement because they revel in their female shape, even if they are sad sometimes. But mostly they celebrate.

Sometimes especially when I work in clay I find myself making thin fragile women but I think they represent early puberty to me, and when I come to think of it old women in my mind are also skinny usually, maybe with a tummy, so I guess to me us fat women are strong women.

And sometimes I do flowers!

waving mostly

Cold and wet outside, a bit of snow mixed in but nothing to make it pretty yet. We have a full compliment of oil and coal for heating and did a big shop yesterday. I have three jumpers on, the cats are sitting as close to the radiator as they can physically achieve without actually being on top.

I have been working on another Dancers piece, am a bit stuck at the mo as to how to proceed, thus various false starts or Samples as we call them in the trade/profession. NB The multi dancers piece is about a dozen times bigger than the next one. This is the smallest one [pin size is a clue].

I am thinking along the lines of Waving not Drowning..........

Christopher Hitchens has died, he gets two ticks on my mental lists of those who go before me- cancer and old age. A very irritating curmudgeon but always engaging. Him being a celeb I have "seen" him infrequently, lately in a mag article still arguefying and then suddenly he is gone.

Better get on with my ladies while I have time. Strangely knowing this I waste oodles of time, watching the gog, reading books [just read an excellent one by Tana French] and am really pleased when trying to write my script for homework that I have eaten up another hour without noticing it.

I guess it is the empty times when I am bored or brooding I am trying to avoid; always pushing myself along. Definitely faulty potty training. Glorious Grandson is 3 and still resisting, goodness knows how that will turn out.

No snow, just wind and rain and grey grey skies.

priorities

Xmas - again. Not much to look forward to really, just more life [hopefully and which can't be bad, I am grateful, honest] but no Daunting Daughter, Gorgeous Grandson or Cycling Son. Just him indoors, me and mother. Plus the cats of course. We have opened the cat flaps now, but so far they have taken one look at the outside world and declined. They would rather sit in the window and continue to promise the birds what they will do to them - one day. Loudly and with much tail twitching and teeth chattering.

Gerti has discovered Fire.

I have down loaded the pattern for the jumper Sarah wears in the Killing, as I have actually finished my Jayne Hat on same mysterious knit in circles needles [shorter ones]. Obviously it is too big as the pattern was for a pin head, so I added some stitches, then some more, maybe too many. I know I can undo and knit up again as it takes very little time, and even at my age I have some time to spare. But, I can't make myself frog it, note technical term learnt from Heidi.

It does suggest tho, that if I attempt Sophie's jumper it will not end up the right size, as usual...............and I do have other things to cock up first.

fight/flight club

Had my last social engagement [Xmas lunch with SLAPPERS] today, no outside jollies for a month, so no excuses about getting some work done.

We had roast pork at Jimmies Rare Breed Farm, poor piggies looked very happy in the fields, little did they know. Hopefully.

No I remember now we have one more engagement, supper out with P&R, very festive.

After that it is just him, me and mother; plus the beautiful cats, as long as when we let them out tomorrow, for the first time, they return to base..

This is a piece being worked by friend Ruth, based on Kew. If you enlarge you can see the excellent design. Sadly she wants to cover this with a transparent layer with embroidered flowers.

I am fighting her tooth and nail.

Have been struggling with my script for the next Open University assignment, each time I come back to it I tweak, probably I should blitz and start again. It is due in after Xmas, but I am aiming to get it done before as it would be nice for no-one if I was still whittling about it. Xmas celebrations may provide me with Pinteresque plot I suppose.

I am working on my sketch of dancing? woman. I have cut a printing block and done various bits of her which now have to come together, but obviously I am fighting tooth and nail with that too.

It was extremely windy oop North yesterday apparently........165 mile an hour gusts, [ on top of Ben Whatsit] not much down here, tho the river was over the road in three places when I tried to drive off the peninsula to piggy heaven this morning.

Many birds when the tide goes out, always lots of oyster catchers, geese, ducks, a heron and cormorant or two but now there are zillions of little dunlins, or knots or plovers -whatever, little tiny brown jobs anyway.

They look like scatterings of little white bellied pebbles on the sand till they all rise together and fly in a twinkling cloud two yards further down the river. Easy to love the world we live in when I see such sights.

Sadly it is all Euro crash and save the Libraries/NHS/ anything worth while and all is doomed.

Merry Xmas all.

knitted brows

Serendipitous Opportunknitty blogged that she is making Jayne hats, apparently featured in a SF series Firefly, haven't seen that but am taken with hat so this may solve my need to "knit" as it descends each winter. I did explore the possibility of knitting Sofie's jumper from The Killing as featured in Radio Times. However the wool comes from Denmark and goes round long circular needles, no can't be doing with it.

Hat also needs circular needles but I have hopes...............
Ma knitted this helmet for the Gorgeous Grandson for his third birthday which the Daunting daughter believes may stay on his head longer than usual as it fits under and round his chin and neck.
His waistcoat is my knitting contribution which will probably only appear on this occasion no matter how much she says s/he likes it, but it is the thought that counts. Ma also knitted him some squares which I made up into a kind of tabard. DD found this hilarious. Can't please everyone.

I am now lusting for knitting wool, I Need it, but enough to drive into town........................?