Sunday, March 06, 2011

The Kitchen Table - a snapshot

I like taking still shots of the kitchen table from time to time, because they tell a very accurate story of what is going on in my life.

The hat box full of knitting: my almost finished red and purple loop jumper - I just have to sew it all together and weave in the hundreds of ends and after six years in the making it will actually be finished. I can hardly believe it. For about five minutes after I'd knitted the neckband yesterday I thought of writing a strongly-worded letter of complaint to the designer. The pattern structure and maths were perfect, but the repeating loop pattern was very badly explained. It took me knitting all of the back (to her exact instructions) to realise that if I did it on a circular needle (instead of two straight needles) with two balls of the red wool, and one ball of the purple wool on the go at any one time, I wouldn't have to keep cutting the wool and re-joining it (the repeating loop pattern is such that the next colour of wool you need to knit with is very often at the wrong end of the needles). Also in the box is green wool for a pair of socks, and upstairs on the bed (not strictly on the table but only because I took it to bed with me last night) I've started my bee jumper already.

Other stuff on the table: my hot water bottle, because I'm constantly cold in this house; herbal sleeping pills and ibuprofen because I have so much going on that I need these to knock me out at night and shut my brain up; flour on the scales ready to make bread rolls for lunch; Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, which I had to take out of the library yesterday because Hagos is in Hong Kong and he took our copy with him; daffodils to cheer up the kitchen and me; the Radio Times to plan my TV watching for the day (at a push I might watch Dancing on Ice while I'm having dinner, only because there's nothing else on I want to watch, unlike last time where BBC 2 dedicated the whole evening to World Book Night, which I lapped up); wine given to us by our friends for helping them to move; my breakfast bowl; and packing tape. I need a lot of packing tape at the moment.

We're currently packing up the house to move. It's a huge job. I've already gone through my book shelves and have a huge box full of books to somehow make disappear. We also went through our CD collection (hundreds) and have sold some to a company that takes CDs and binned all the rubbish and kept the ones we like.

Well, I think I might go back to bed while my bread is rising.

1 comment:

Susan said...

Moving is such a lot of work--I don't envy you!

I love the idea of photographing the kitchen table; it really is the center or our lives isn't it?

I always wonder why more patterns aren't knit in the round. I mean, unless it is necessary to place a seam, WHY? Kudos to you for finishing that sweater after six years. I have unfinished projects tucked away in my closet that I know I will never finish, but the thought of unraveling my work makes me feel faint ;-)

The daffodils are lovely. Nothing is more cheerful, or a better harbinger of spring.