After being locked down together for well over a year now, DH and I have heard all of the other person's wellworn rants about work colleagues, malfunctioning IT systems, stupid customers, pointless meetings and so on. We have reduced this to a shorthand of 'rant', as in 'How's work'? Answer: 'rant rant' to mean that the usual sorts of frustrations are being encountered. 'And how's yours?' 'Rant'. I was doing a lot of 'ranting' earlier this week as I struggled to get to grips with my new phone. Is there anything else more guaranteed to make you feel old? Why does it have to be so different from my old phone? Why do I have to swipe to answer a call instead of just stabbing the obvious green round button - why is it a button if you can't press it?? Grrrr. Not to mention all the obnoxious whale music ringtones and notification sounds, and a kazillion bloatware apps that are cluttering up the screens. After several hours and much resorting to Google and Youtube tutorials, I have managed to bash the new phone into a facsimile of my old phone - only with better battery life. I expect I'll get used to it.
We are also hoping to get used to our new leisure activity in the caravan which we will be picking up next week. The pile of purchases in the living room has been augmented by almost daily deliveries from Amazon and Royal Mail. We've watched various instructional Youtube videos and I have prepared many checklists and packing lists. Today we weighed everything we have bought so far by dint of DH standing on the bathroom scales holding a laundry basket which I kept refilling. That's because we only have a payload of 119kg on our little caravan so we have to be quite careful about what we are putting into it. It's all starting to feel more 'do-able' - let's hope the weather cooperates. It's been quite stormy and windy this week, and the Facebook caravan groups have been full of stories of awnings blown away and caravans rocking in the wind. Not what you want for your first trip out.
So once again not a lot of new crafting going on, apart from the usual in-front-of-the-TV activities such as cross stitch, handquilting and knitting. I did manage to finish the next repeat of my Bucks point butterfly mat that was in hibernation for a long time. I only work on it during my weekly Zoom call with my lacemaking friends, so it's slow going.
I did some sewing for the caravan: sewing hanging loops onto teatowels and sewing together pairs of duvet covers to make sleeping rolls open on three sides. Then I actually did a bit of patchwork: I've had a box of paired-up triangles hanging about since I finished the Disappearing 4-patch quilt top six months ago - they were the waste scraps cut off the blocks. I saved them as they were already paired up RST. So I sewed them all into half-square triangles this week and then trimmed them all down to 2-inch square blocks to end up with 17 sets of four. Pinwheels seemed the obvious choice, in a 4x4 grid (so one block left over) and a border from some Aldi fabric, and now I have a little mat to quilt up. It's looks sort of vintage I think and cheerful. Perhaps I will put it in the caravan.
Also looking a bit vintage is the pretty coloured cotton thread that arrived this week so I can have a go at knitting one of the lace mats from the book I posted about last week. In fact, it would be quite nice to use all three colours to make a graduated colour mat but I don't know if it would be too hard to disguise the ends in a lace mat because it's so see-through.
I had a call today from the organiser of a lace day which had been postponed from last June until this June, and she was calling to say it is being postponed again until 2022. I think it's the right decision. My gardening club is hoping to restart in September according to the latest email, I think almost all the members are pensioners so they will probably all have had their jabs, but still I question it. The OIDFA lace congress in Estonia that was rescheduled from last summer to this summer has also at long last been officially cancelled, so hopefully I will soon get back the substantial sum of money they have been holding all this time (the payment for workshops and the various sightseeing tours that I had booked). We pre-empted this week's relaxation of lockdown restrictions with a trip to the in-laws last Sunday - the first time that DS and I had seen them in person for over a year, although DH had driven down a couple of times in between lockdowns. We kept our masks on and ate a buffet lunch on our laps in the livingroom (which had the garden door open for ventilation) rather than crowding around a table. DS was probably most at risk being jabless but he wanted to see them. It was nice to be there but also felt very strange, sort of normal/not normal at the same time. My m-i-l threw caution to the winds and hugged us all as we left, she was so overcome at seeing us all again.
Are you returning to previous activities yet? or is it too soon?
2 comments:
Stores are starting to lift mask requirements. I’m surprised to walk in and see massless faces. I’m just going to use judgement as it goes.
I can tell your excitement in talking about your caravan. We tow a motorcycle in our camper so I can’t imagine what’s weight restriction would be like! Just have fun my friend.
So does all hell break loose if you put 120kg in the caravan?!
We are still being fairly cautious, although I'm on site at work almost all the time now and, of course, the small person is at school in a classroom with 65 others in it, so that's more "cautious" than anything else. I only had my second jab a few days ago. My mum seems to have thrown caution to the winds and has been breaking lockdown rules right left and centre, which is why we haven't seen her yet(!), although once I'm 3 weeks post jab can't really put it off any longer!
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