Post 509 Lots happening this week

On Wednesday I came into my living room almost ready to leave for WES Group, to find my 18 year old grandson sitting at the dining room table absorbed in his laptop. Surprisingly, I didn’t get a fright, and took it in my stride. He had come to do his last University exam for the year, using my wifi. He had woken to find  Optus, his home Internet provider, had been down since 4am - across Australia! His laptop frequently connects to my wifi, which does not use Optus, so he rushed here, connected and was in the midst of his exam. Enterprising. The outage was major. Train services stopped in Melbourne,  Ambulance services lost connectivity, courts could not access documents, businesses could only deal in cash, students missed exams and internet-dependent health services went down - for somewhere between 12 and 14 hours. Full credit to Fionn for finding a solution - as he always has when the path runs out. What the country needs.

At WES Group, unaffected by the outage, we managed our presentation - Moroccan Textile  Magic, drawing on Keryn's several trips, her extensive knowledge and collection.  Again, the group was very engaged. It always takes me a while to follow up afterwards, sending out a summary and notes. It looks as if the Guild's new office manager will set the projector up for us in future, which will be a great help. Keryn touched on textiles to ward off the evil eye. She corresponds with an archeologist in The Netherlands who has the best  evil eye explanation I’ve encountered. I’ve been following up. A couple more books on the way - another rabbit hole!  I've also been wearing some of my Turbo smaragdus opercula (cat's eyes) which, it seems, are evil eye amulets.

On Thursday I had a fasting blood test, getting to the pathology clinic just after 8am. After Pilates I called at the Guild, went grocery shopping and set about organising the cards and bookmarks I've been having printed.  The container is 30cmx45cm, so I am not going to run out of greeting cards or bookmarks any time soon!  I ended up really tired.

More bookmarks arrived today. I’ve decide on a bookmark for each decade for Di’s birthday today. She’ll like that. 

I had planned to visit Gallery M on Friday, where the Handspinners and Weavers Guild has an exhibition of Braids, but  with the temperature forecast at 42C I decided to stay at home and sent my electricity bill soaring. I got a lot of WES Admin done - and read Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith, which I enjoyed. It reached C40.2 but I stayed cool.

On Saturday Fionn asked if I could mend a pair of his trousers that had split from the waist to the bottom of the back pocket. Because of the position, I could use the edge of the pocket as reinforcement - so a relatively unobtrusive mend. The pocket is still usable, though Fionn assured me he is 'not a back pocket man'. Pleased to be able to help.

While on the topic of trousers....

The promised photos of the travelling pants arrived this week, the first on the flight and the second in a resort. Hopefully, as well as being comfortable, they are lucky pants - keeping the wearer safe while travelling.

There's still a bit more scope for repair if they can't stand the strain.....

Yesterday I bought a copy of December’s The Australian Women's Weekly, the first issue, I think, I've bought in about 50 years. It has a six page article about Sophie's Legacy, the foundation set up by Garry and Kate Putland, whose daughter, a 33 year-old Vet, committed suicide in September 2020. I worked with Garry in the 1990s and am full of admiration, and sadness, for the work of Sophie's Legacy. It's a very good article, outlining what amounts to a crisis in the Vet industry, and the steps being taken to address it.

The hat I was knitting a week or so ago is now with its owner and the detail is in my embroidery blog. 

I've also finished and delivered the alpaca shawl. 

I had thought about holding the link over to next week, since this post is a bit crowded,  but I've put it off for a couple of weeks, so here it is.

I've begun knitting the Buggiflooer Beanie in the Jamieson and Smith wool. It demands concentration because every row is different, but  is looking good. I have undone quite a bit, but I'm using stitch markers between each 34 stitch repeat, so I haven't had to undo more than 33 stitches at a time!

Today I had my annual checkup with my GP. My kidney and sugar readings were OK but still in the keep-on-eye-on range. We discussed weight loss at length, agreeing to rule out injectables at the moment. We've settled on an approach, I've cancelled the appointment with the nutritionist and made another appointment with my GP in 11 weeks time.   I had gone to today's appointment, made months ago, prepared for a 7km dash to my Aquafit class afterwards, but with 8 minutes to make it across town and into the pool, reluctantly gave up. Instead I called at Wakefield Press to pick up a copy of their just-released Adelaide Art Scene. I'm a little disappointed that its 740 pages focus on movements and galleries rather than artists, but it certainly has a wealth of local information for future projects.

I was clearly premature in my fear the jacarandas would not deliver this year. Carrington Street is glorious. 

The lorikeets still prefer the native frangipani. 

More to do in the coming week - to look forward to and be grateful for.