441 Wool, plants, ravens - winter in a pandemic.

 

On Wednesday morning I had the additional blood test in relation to my eyes. The promised gold pack hadn't arrived, but the nurse sent her assistant to the nearby Wakefield hospital to pick one up. When it arrived 10 minutes later, it turned out to contain another 4 vials. This time I followed instructions not to lift anything - including my bag on the arm used, and I avoided the bruise.

At Frewville I bought, amongst other things. a pack of wooden knives to use as labels in my bush plants, The paper versions disintegrated within 2 weeks. This is a quick and easy replacement.

I also called at Create in Stitch to pick up the DMC Broder collection they have put together.  It isn't a thread you can easily get when you need it. This was the first embroidery thread I ever used - when I was 8 - and it hasn't lost its charm. The colours have certainly improved!

 

I also like these tins for keeping and finding particular threads - the best and tidiest organiser I've found to date. Buying it led me to sort out a few other things like wool left over from recent projects.

This is the wool left over from the four small Marie Wallin projects I have knitted in the last couple of years. I feel a few hats coming on. 

I opted out of Pilates on Thursday, nervous about Covid and still having stitches in my leg. I got stuck into the Arnie and Carlos knitting and also added a thousand or so words to the story of my maternal grandmother. 

I've agreed to deposit a friend's contribution to the Guild's SALA Exhibition in August for her next weekend. We arranged for her to drop them in to me on Sunday afternoon, because my Saturday had three commitments. On Friday, all three commitments were cancelled one because of a medical emergency, one because my friend's retirement village was recommending residents stay home to avoid Covid, and the third because family had managed to secure tickets, on the last weekend of the school holidays, to Illuminate Adelaide at the Botanic Gardens. I'm so glad they managed to have this adventure together at the end of what has been a difficult school holiday for all of them. By all accounts it was a bit magic.

I made the freed-up Saturday time productive, doing some shopping for Monday night, and in the afternoon found a sunny spot spent on the western balcony to  read, knit and listen to the ravens dominating the Square. They wheel and call, with dominant birds seeming to direct operations from the tallest tree.

It is lovely to sit there, on afternoons such as this, surrounded by the balcony plants, the sky and trees.  I'm not, as my mother was, a great gardener, but the plants I've been able to plant and nurture on my balcony, even the simplest. are an important part of my wellbeing.

On Friday, I had  a calming and pleasurable afternoon stitching at Susan's. 

She has a Gymea about to flower. This is amazing in an Adelaide garden. These are plants of the more humid Sydney climate. The stem is about  6 metres high and the giant flower is now forming at the top. It's not open yet, and not easy to photograph in situ but truly exciting to see, especially in a suburban garden.

This is a cut  one I bought and photographed in 2011- a single Gymea lily with two waratahs - and waratahs are not tiny!

I finished the Arnie and Carlos Jaeger cowl (for want of a better term). I really, really like it - although I suspect it is not the most useful thing I've ever made. I think I might just try wearing it one day, on a black jumper. It needs to be worn under a suit coat, not something I have these days.  Hopefully, one day someone will see it as part of their wardrobe. It has been a very pleasant thing to knit.

     

I progressed to the Shetland Wool Week 2022 hat, beginning with 4 ply cotton from my stash, and I'm liking the result. I can see this in quite a few yarns and colourways that I have on hand - family members be warned!

Sunday was dominated by books - Book Club discussion followed by my Guild friend dropping her exhibition entries in. Our discussion turned to books and resulted in another list of things to read and some now reserved for ebook delivery from the library.  I've also started reading This Golden Fleece, by Esther Rutter - a fascinating delve into UK wool.

On Monday Brigid and the friend with whom she is house-sitting, both tested positive to Covid. They are isolating at the house-sit. I had erred on the side of generosity with two pork shoulder roasts for dinner - a lot was consumed and the left overs packaged up for delivery to the house-sitters. One granddaughter had her first training session for her first after-school job and another headed off to footy training.  This is a new normal. The enthusiasm of the latter two was uplfting. 

Today my stitches were taken out. The wound is apparently healing very well. I now have taped sutures that have to be kept dry for 24 hours and stay in place for another week, during which I can walk, but not vigorously! The mole was benign. 

I celebrated with Panayoula over coffee, and by buying a couple more plants for the balcony at the IGA around the corner from our coffee venue - dwarf sansevieria, or snake plants. I've been after more since the one I bought at the Guild market day has done well. These are chunkier and very healthy. I think I need to do a bit of repotting and rearranging to do justice to them.

It has been a week of plants, animals, friends, family, creation and healing,  all the time trying to stay safe in a community with increasing illness and infection.  C'est la vie it seems.  A fortunate life, nevertheless.

Post 400

Amazing - the 400th post in what was meant to be a 28 day travel blog! Little did I guess how long it would be when I agreed to continue until we were through the Covid disruption! 

On Wednesday evening, after I had written up the report of our WES Group meeting, I went to close the balcony doors and heard a racket of 'Ark, ark" noises. It turned out to be 6-8 birds in one of the trees on our apartment block. Roughly half of them were black and half mostly grey. I assume it was some kind of territorial dispute.

The black birds were, I'm sure, Australian ravens. 

I wasn't sure if the grey ones were also ravens, or butcher birds. The calls were definitely raven calls, so I reckon they were all ravens.

It went on for a good ten minutes, with various members of the group flying away, returning, flying away again. This black one stayed put throughout and only left after all others had gone.

If s/he was defending territory, or holding his ground, s/he won.

The WES Group meeting went well. Members engaged with the issues around Viking embroidery, several bought some of Peter Sanderson's lucets to try and there were lots of contributions and questions. It's a great group.              

I had duck soup for dinner, using the stock from the bones of Monday night's duck and the bok choi I forgot to add to the stir fry. Delicious.

On Thursday my Pilates class was cancelled at short notice, so I was able to upload Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers to the National Electronic Deposit website and fulfil a couple of other commitments I made to friends before doing a bit of shopping for Monday's family meal. 

I also worked out a way to finish stitching the Christmas gift that caused my wrist problem last week. I stitched it to a piece of cotton by overstitching the edges, cut the back of the cotton away in a cross shape and folded back the resulting triangles to expose the back and mounted it in a hoop. Now I should be able to stitch it without holding it. With a bit of luck the cotton mounting will be reusable for the other three pieces in the kit.

I haven't got to it yet, but will try it soon.

On Friday Susan and I sat and stitched, then we went out to dinner at Port Adelaide with other friends.  On Saturday I picked Brigid up from school when she arrived back from assisting at a school camp and took her to her Surf Lifesaving duty. We all met up at Grange for a meal. Niamh missed JEMS because she had two teeth removed. Katherine was at Synod all day. Busy lives.

The cards I ordered from Officeworks as an experiment were also ready and I picked them up. I'm very pleased with them. I called at the Guild to discuss whether the shop would like some. These are close-ups of the Agave plant at the Guild. I've now ordered some cards of the full plant. The Guild shop has rather too many cards already but I think some members of WES will like them anyway.

In the meantime, Conversations has been arriving for those who ordered a copy. The response is very positive. My brother, bless his little cotton socks, is organising a book launch dinner among his friends who participated, now that they are emerging from lockdown.

Sunday was my last formal Guild class for the year - Christine Bishop's Punto in Aria starfish. It was slow going, because there's no way around completing the whole edge before moving in row by row. In class I  almost completed the second- and hardest- row and moved into the needlelace at home. I finished it on Monday night. I thought I might have to make a box to put it on. Alison Cole no longer has the fabric covered boxes I was planning to use.

One suggestion was to mount it on an abalone shell, but it needs to be glued, so I think I'll give that a miss even though I have a shell. Then overnight it occurred to me that I could add it to the Kantha cushion I made a few years ago.  

I washed the cover this morning (a good drying day!) and added it this afternoon. The loops needed to be stitched down securely but it's a good result. Voilà! 

Looks like it's always been there, and belongs.

It's been a week of medical treatments for my grandchildren. Niamh had teeth removed, orthodontic bands restored and she and Veronica had their second Covid vac today. Fionn had an operation yesterday to reset an old break in his wrist which was not picked up in the scan when it happened a couple of years ago. His wrist will be in plaster and various forms of immobilisation for eight weeks - a significant trial and setback for a budding athlete. However, he's a determined and persistent young man and will come out strong.

This afternoon I finished the colourwork on the Leadlight Counted pouch. I've now got the borders and edges to do before lining it.

While stitching it I've been thinking about having some bookshelves made for my living room. I'm hoping to pay a visit to Nordic Furniture at Norwood to discuss my idea with them. It would be good to do something with the piles of books on my chairs and table. I also need to get rid of a cupboard I'm using for storage in my carpark area, against Strata rules. Looks like a storage reorganisation week coming up.