Rushing About

 Recently, like most of us, I've been busy trying to get things for Christmas done, gifts bought and posted before it’s too late (failed already on that one) and generally try to get the house “Christmas Ready”.

Yesterday I started the day by knitting a few rows of this hat that I'm making for Chris, using Noro Silk Garden sock yarn.  It's been on the back burner whilst I've been making presents and cards but finally I can get on with it a bit more.  I've never attempted a hat in the round before but after knitting socks, I'm sure I'll be able to work it out.  It's a pretty enormous hat, even for a man with a large head - but then at 6ft6” he'd look a bit odd with a tiny head.

After that I spent the morning finishing off some more cards of a partridge in a pear tree (which my son described as a pigeon….hmmm…)

I blitzed the house for a couple of hours, hoovering and polishing the hall and stairs with my recently purchased “Lord Sheraton” polish.  The house (in my imagination) now smells of Downton Abbey.

Afterwards I went through the town to buy a few things, post some parcels and admired the new gallery which looks very “Whitstabubbly'' and would have beckoned me in if I hadn’t had to rush down to mum’s flat to check for post and read the meters.  She hasn't been able to stay there since February and this time, the flat had that feeling of not being lived in for a long time - that empty smell and it made me feel sad.  I'm going to go back next week and give it a thorough airing and polish (with Lord Sheraton) and cheer it up a bit.  I'll be so pleased when I can go round and my mum will be there with a cup of tea and a Mr Kipling.  Fingers crossed it might be in the spring.

It was dark when I walked home and because I went to the hardware shop to buy some gold paint,  I walked along the seafront way home to look at the fancy houses.  One has been painted a deep orange since I last walked there.  I like looking in at their big Christmas trees in the windows. 

I added gold to the cards and varnished them and that really will have to do for handmade cards this year.  I have run out of time, as always.  I have enjoyed painting them so much.  Using this gold reminded me of the work I used to do at the start of my degree.  I was very interested in decorative art and illuminated manuscripts at that time.  At some point during my degree, I changed direction as I probably wanted to be seen as more contemporary.  I wasn't confident or secure in my own style, what I liked and was easily influenced by what I was seeing around me.  Now that I'm older, I feel more freedom to acknowledge what I do like and not worry too much about whether it is seen as “relevant”.  I think one of the good things about ageing is becoming more true to yourself and giving less of a flying fig what other people think!