Post 571 The Eyes Have It.

 

It’s been a week of relentless heat, at least 35C every day and 40C yesterday as the girls made  their way here on foot  from school and working in the city. Troopers. 

The city provided inspirational light to those still out when the sun set around 8.45pm.

I’ve spent most of the week inside, reading, researching, stitching or writing without the use of my right index finger. I shopped a couple of times, and spent Saturday making a pasta bake for Monday, because my big adventure was lunch at friends’ house on Sunday. It was great to catch up in their cool house and feast on gazpacho and seafood.

I cancelled Pilates on Thursday after a lot of thought. It's important exercise for me, but even exercises on legs and torso usually involve gripping something, and I really don’t want to knock or stress my recovering finger.

 Yesterday the 8 stitches were removed. One bled, so I had a dressing on it until midday today. The routine is now pressure bandage overnight for about 6 weeks to disperse fluid and, from Thursday, twice-daily massages of wound to ensure scar tissue doesn’t harden, plus regular mild bending (beware overuse!). It’s a bit sore around the wound.

My main focus has been on stitching the third Evil Eye mandala, which I finished yesterday. Details, of course, in my embroidery blog. 

Inevitably, as I stitched it, I was thinking about history and meaning for my presentation later in the year, so while the bolognese sauce was simmering on Saturday I got out my books and worked on the it. The PowerPoint is now almost prepared. There’s another embroidery I want to do, but fundamentally it’s there. 

On Friday I had a fasting blood test. Foolishly, I had it in my left arm, as usual. The vein seemed to have recovered from the cannula for the finger operation, but by the time I got home it was bleeding messily, so I applied pressure and sat for half an hour. It is still bruised, but OK. I get the results tomorrow.🤞🏼

Progress on the Certificate Course Aida project has been much slower. I'm discovering the limitations of Aida as an embroidery medium - which may, of course, be the point of the exercise. More to come. Before I progress it, I'm trying to make the last two tassels for the Aquile, which, if I succeed, will also go in the Guild Exhibition. I seem to be managing the knots without my index finger.  240 down, 720 to go! I'm on desk duty at the Guild tomorrow, so maybe I'll get some more done.

The kit I ordered from Tanya Bentham arrived today. At the moment working in wool is not attractive, although the design is.

While I have made inroads in my book pile, I haven't eliminated it and another book arrived today. After the knots, it might be time to redress the reading/stitching balance.