All I have to Show

So this is how we get it to rain in this part of the world - we take delivery of a new paddling pool and the downpour starts a couple of hours later. Yesterday it was 32 degrees here. This evening it's freezing. I will bring Ella 2 out of hiding to keep me company this evening. Speaking of Ellas, I have managed a few rows of Ella 3 but just haven't felt much like it (or anything else except drinking beer, really) in the heat.

But you see the above several rows of ribbing? Well that is all I have to show for several days work (well, a few hours spread over several days, you understand). I cast-on my stitches and finished all the ribbing for two socks and a few repeats of the lace Oblique Openwork stitch but found the combination of the particular stitch and yarn quite uncomfortable to work with. I do think it makes sense to use a solid colour for lace anyway, so it doesn't really matter that the yarn isn't suited to lace on 2mm needles! So I frogged the embryo socks completely, although I suppose they were foetus socks (yuk, what a horrible analogy, since I wouldn't really have frogged a foetus-but let's get away from that). Started again with the ribbing and knitted a few repeats of the yarn-over cable, which, despite not being knit in a solid colour, looked rather smashing. Just to make sure of the size (it was alright the first time I tried) I threaded some waste-yarn through and tried on for size and "oh for bloody goodness' sake (or words to that effect)-what the bloody hell is going on" (rhetorical question aimed or not aimed at OH). They nearly cut off my blood supply. So they got frogged again. I have tentatively cast on the same number of stitches but on 2.5mm needles. I'm wondering if that will help with the size. One thing though, I've noticed that my lovely bamboo needles, the ones I usually use for socks, feel quite "sticky" compared with the metal ones, a thing I'd failed to notice before. Mmmmm, maybe I'll swap them all to the slick metal ones (only for socks, mind). Anyway, I might knit the whole sock in the 1 x 1 ribbing. I like the look of the stitches.

A note about the bed episode: it didn't really happen! We did get the fab bed for Charlie Townes but he admires it so much that he just gets on top of it (hasn't figured out the duvet yet, always had a grobag) and goes to sleep. Sometimes he does a couple of quick laps around the room first, but we haven't had any trouble at all. And in the morning I still get up before he does and we still drink our respective black coffee and warm-milk drinks and we still chat or sit in companionable silence. Great. I must say that so far Charles has gone through all the usual baby stages with grace and aplomb! We haven't hit the potty/toilet stuff yet so it could all change. And then there's nursery, big proper school and oh dear something is sure to crop up. But he's always been so easy-going, never needed a dummy or a fave toy to take everywhere. Cripes, lucky he's not too aloof for cuddles!

Right, off to get a small beer. To cheer me up in the rain, of course.

PS May I reassure those of you with concerns about my alcohol consumption that I have not had a hangover nor suffered from the ill-effects of drinking alcohol since new year's day 1994. (Not because I am now immune! But because I learned that drinking too much is bad for you). And the fact that my two-year-old says, "mamma-me- pub" is because we took him once so far to a country pub garden with a bouncy castle. Honestly. Not the Charles Bukowski life for me.