Author: SpinningStreak

How unseasonal can you get?

Only two months late. Lots going on, that’s all. Main memory of January – grey, grey and more grey. And some difficult moments, of course – four years now since everything changed.

Moving swiftly on. Some intimations of spring, for sure – violets, daffodils and even tulips getting going in the gardens opposite. And – at last – a bit of time for spinning again. I have a lot of plans for this. But first, finishing off some fractal spun art yarns that have been cluttering up my wheels for some weeks now. Feels good to have caught up – and I know of at least one person who will be glad to get some of it into a weaving project! The rest are heading for my Etsy shop.

Trees and toddlers

Do not mix. Enough said. This was supposed to have been decorated and installed in its traditional corner today, so that I could focus on the staircase tomorrow. Fat chance.

I am sceptical it will ever be persuaded into its corner. Seven feet tall is perfect, but this splendid beast is almost as wide and risks reaching up to the fireplace…

And the lights don’t work. Well , they did, but then they didn’t and then they blew the circuit. ( What DOES happen to them every year, carefully stored in plastic in a box in the roof ?!)

So they had to be unpeeled off the branches, and I will have to go out in quest of more tomorrow.

This is the end of Blogvember, though clearly not the end of the Christmas saga. I will try and post a photo if I ever succeed…

The beginning….

Of Christmas. Always looks daunting. Stage 1: attack the roof space – Christmas is to the right.

Some hours later – a tunnel dug through the crazy heaps, 17 bags removed and carried down three floors, enough of the rest returned to the roof to give us back access to our bed tonight.

This weekend turns out to be the only one free for all this hassle – so the traditional tree party will set out tomorrow!

Débrouillarde!

Resourceful, with slightly sneaky overtones.

That’s what I’ve had to be this evening (and incidentally, in a recent survey, the most popular adjective chosen by Parisian males to describe themselves…)

Found out today that my 10 month old MacBook Pro cannot be repaired ‘in the given delays’ – whatever that means. Can’t even bear to think about it tonight. But I did need to get an order in for some Christmas cards made from my daughter’s designs. So – it had to be done between an ancient Mac which won’t load pictures and a mobile phone that fits in the little zip in my bag….Don’t think they’re going to be my finest collection and I ended up only using a few designs- but, hey, there’s always next year!

The Other Place

When I was first shown into the computer classroom above I could not stop staring in amazement. Such an extraordinary building – and, yes, such a contrast with yesterday’s setting. Very different vibes going on here – but curiously just the same sense of harmony. I love them both.

I was told that this was the oldest continuously used classroom in England – over 400 years of it. Whether or not this was true (and I’m sure places like Winchester would contest it) it doesn’t hold good any more – sadly, it was decided that the building was no longer fit for purpose (!) and the new Academy chain closed it and offered it for sale.

There are, of course, multiple restrictions on what can be done with such an important listed building – so I am optimistic that it will one day reopen as some suitable museum. I certainly hope there will be public access.