A Day at Home

I had a perfect day yesterday. Since I dropped to working part-time I've been feeling a bit isolated at home and have felt the need to get out often and see people, which is all very good, but it's important to appreciate and feel happy at home too. So yesterday (after dropping Hagos at the bus station at 1.30am so he could get an overnight bus to T5 for a flight to Hungary for the weekend) I went into town fairly early to do a few essential things: taking library books back, buying wool, buying salad and pitta for lunch, and returned home before midday. And I was really happy to know I was going to be at home, by myself, for the rest of the day. So I pottered around, ate a lovely leisurely lunch, read, and then in the afternoon I went for a walk, because I was suddenly determined that this year I'm going to make bramble jam, as I've been promising every year since we moved here and never have.I noticed the small bramble bush at the end of my drive had fairly ripe brambles on it so I thought the brambles down the lane would be ready but they're not quite. It's a shame because I thought it would have been funny to have presented Hagos with bramble jam on his return home from Hungary tonight. He says I always say I'm going to make jam and never do.
There should be quite a lot of brambles once they do ripen though so perhaps next weekend or the weekend after I'll be able to collect some.
I finally decided to buy wool for new winter accessories. I couldn't stop thinking about the Rowan cocoon. It's so lovely and soft and luxurious to feel. I considered copying my current purple and blue scarf pattern that I got from Vintage Knits, as I do really like the effect, but I wanted something different and decided on a cable pattern for the ends, then a 1x1 rib for the middle section. I got the cable pattern out of my Good Housekeeping Knitting book that I got at a coffee morning years ago. I also chose this cable pattern because the it's very similar to my silver necklace I lost last year.
I wasn't sure about buying the wool because I'm saving money and because I know that knitting can take over and I get nothing else done while I'm working on a garment. But I decided I really do need a new scarf, hat and mittens, and I'll confine my knitting to when I'm watching telly, which is usually an hour before I go to bed. And actually the scarf so far has knitted up incredibly quickly. I should have it finished in two more sittings. The hat will knit up in one sitting, it's just the mittens that will take longer.

So, I had a very happy day indeed.