I've done very little sewing or knitting this year. I've been reading and writing more. Out of necessity, I made these two phone covers for myself and Hagos. Hagos likes the Kaffe Fasset black material, so every time his phone cover wears out I make him the exact same cover. I like to change my phone covers, so when mine wears out I choose from all the scraps I have. I love this material. It reminds me of petals, or pistachios, or ice cream, as my little friend Willow thought they were.
I also did a massive clear out of all of my wool and fabric leftovers. It's been a job I've been meaning to do for ages. It took ages as well and I had to be really honest about whether I would ever use some of the scraps I had left. I think I was fairly realistic with what I would never use again (10 year old Halloween fabric). Sorting the wool has been great though, and it's let me see what I have to work with. I have a few full balls as well as scraps, so will be able to turn those into mittens and socks and Christmas balls!
I've been on holiday from work this last 10 days. It's been bliss! I had booked a whole fortnight off over the Book Festival, but Hagos ended up being away on tour so I didn't want to use all of my annual leave while he was away, but I really needed a break of more than a few days from work so I took a week, which with my usual Friday off gave me 10 whole days. I went to a couple of Book Festival events - Eimear McBride and Garth Greenwell was the first. It was an event in conjunction with a MOOC (massive open online course) run by Edinburgh University called How to Read a Novel, which I've been doing. Both books were shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (McBride won). The second event I went to was Denise Mina.
So I've been home alone for the past five weeks. One more week to go before Hagos returns from tour. The photo above is at Shepherd's Bush Empire. You can just see Hagos in the bottom left corner at the mixing desk. This was with Kate Nash. I went to the KN gig in Edinburgh, first time I've seen her live. I was impressed by her vocals (I've been to lots of gigs - not all singers can sing!), and by her audience engagement (some bands enter and exit stage without acknowledging the audience is even there!).
Hagos then jumped straight onto the Ash tour. Their second gig was at Party at the Palace at Linlithgow, so I went along with my friend Noosh, the drummer's wife, and their daughters. This is us setting off!
It was the first time Willow had seen her dad play a gig. The girls had a friend there too and they all had inflatable microphones to play with, which distracted them for a while, along with the smoke machine, which they loved. Towards the end they were dancing around.
I love this photo Noosh took of Willow with Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs. Moments before she had tried to get a selfie with Gok Wan, who was NOT in the mood. But Ricky was very obliging and good fun. I love that Willow just wants her inflatable microphone back. Don't forget who the real star is here, Ricky!
This is me soon after being forced to climb up and then slide down a huge inflatable slide. The girls wanted to go on. The man with the slide assured me Willow wasn't too wee to go on it. Of course she got stuck almost at the top of the inflatable steps and the man said to me, it's fine for you to go and help her! Nothing except rescuing a child or animal in need would have made me climb up those steps but by this point she was stuck in the side of the steps with no way of getting up or down, so up I went, got her to the top thinking I would just get her to slide down and then I'd climb down by myself, but she wouldn't slide down by herself, and there were so many kids piling up the steps and then THROWING themselves down the slide, so down we both slid. Of course as soon as we were at the bottom she started climbing straight back up again, so up I went again, and down we both slid again. Thankfully by this time our time was up as it had taken so long to do two runs! I was starting to enjoy it after the second slide.
The rest of my time has been hanging out with the animals, and re-watching Christmas Bake Off from last year. Made me a bit nostalgic, it was so good.
I'm looking forward to Autumn proper. Summer is my least favourite season. I like the light, and I like that I can wear just a skirt and top to go out, but I love Autumn and Spring the best, love seeing the seasons and countryside change, and I like cosying up too.
