Articles in “Life, the Universe, and Everything”

I’ve mentioned before that I dislike having idle hands, because it makes me restless. And as the year cools down a bit, I’m ratcheting up the knitting. It makes Nick a bit anxious, because he worries that it aggravates the odd upper-back injury I’ve given myself somehow, but it keeps me calm. Ultimately, anything that means less shouting is likely to get Nick’s vote.

But I’ve been between projects, while waiting on a second delivery of the special wool for the super-secret (not at all secret) birthday afghan project. So I experimented with a new pattern, one that creates a lovely lacy effect, almost like a honeycomb:

It’s not a difficult pattern, of course (I’m not up to difficult patterns), but it does look pretty, especially in a fluffy variegated wool (leftovers from my tiny baby niece’s fancy baby blanket):

Then I added tassels, because who doesn’t like tassels?

This is intended for a friend, but I like the effect so much that I’m thinking the next project (after the afghan) might be a loose, lacy, honeycomby jumper.

After Christmas, my parents fancied a day trip out somewhere. I was still pretty shaky with the chest infection, so we settled on a slow (and slightly wheezy) walk along the dam wall at the Avon Dam.

We used to go to the Avon Dam all the time when we were little, for company picnics and casual weekend walks. But none of us had been for years. Nick had never been.

It was hot and bright and very, very Australian summer.

I took photos that I couldn’t judge, because the sun was glaring off the iPhone screen. We walked slowly (and slightly wheezingly) along the dam wall and then down a path under an overhanging rock face: my mother insisted we walk single file and with a reasonable space between us, so that at least one of us would survive if the rock face fell on us.

Then we walked slowly back to the car, in the relative shade of which Nick and I flipped through our photos to see if any of them were in focus.

Then I completely forgot to blog about it until just now.