Non progredi est regredi

Well, the funeral went off ok - as well as might be expected I mean. We got there very early as it was a very cold, crisp day, and our most direct route was country lanes, so we sat in the car nursing hot coffee purchased en route. When asked, "Did it go ok?", the mischievous part of me always wants to say, no actually, they dropped the coffin, or, I went to the wrong chapel. I'm afraid I had to walk away from one relative at the wake - life's short enough, without listening to repeated bitterness about events that took place, that cannot be undone or apologised for (I had 90 minutes of it earlier in the week anyway). I probably should have said something, but I'm very English and hate causing a scene. My grandma wasn't perfect by any means - no parent, no human being, ever is - but she will still be missed nonetheless. It is done. She is at peace now. It's time to let it all go and move on - revisiting the hurt of the past will never bring release. The whole point of a funeral is to remember the good stuff, the fun times. There were lots of those too.

But what really brought it all into sharp perspective for me? Surprisingly, it wasn't the first funeral of the day at 9.45am. The first hearse that arrived contained a tiny wooden coffin, not much bigger than a box of A4 paper. I didn't see any other cars or mourners around, just a few gardeners heading off to their travails. That poor little mite probably never even got the chance to draw breath, or if it did, there were precious few of them. So often we forget what a dangerous process being born is - that all of us are lucky we are even here at all. So to waste a moment of that precious gift of life seems incredibly ungrateful, in the grand scheme of things.

We had a small amount of snow at the end of last week - not enough to cause serious problems, but enough drifts to block some local roads and cause travel problems. So my busy weekend of helping someone in Bromsgrove and then onto Birmingham for drinks with a friend got postponed - leaving me plenty of time to start some actual machine knitting. Yes, you might well faint in surprise - I decided to make another handkerchief hem skirt, this time in a beautiful turquoise Grigna. The weekend was further disrupted on discovery that the Cog's battery was dead as a doornail, thus meaning he had to be picked up for a gig on Saturday night, and thus stranding me at home (not enough room in the car for me, and no way to get my car out either). Oh well, them's tha breaks - the chap from Green Flag was pretty good and managed to get the fancypants Kuga going again on Sunday morning, albeit with some minor surgery to get the dead battery out of the car long enough to get it jump-started. It was really hard to get out, being half under the windscreen drain. I'll stick with my little Fiesta, thanks - no fancy computer and gadgets to drain my battery. The Cog is now obsessively measuring his voltage. I think it was just a blip (the car is not yet four years old). The theory is that some snow got into the car a bit and drained the battery - entirely possible.

I also cast on "Sigh" - a simple cable-fronted jumper in Rowan Colourscape chunky - a discontinued yarn that cost too much to give up on. Some yarn is decidedly bad at telling me what it wants to be - this is one of them! :)

Still struggling somewhat with the black dog. Fed up of winter now - it's gone on entirely too long. Couple that with work and other issues, and I'd be quite happy to go home and just sleep for a few months hoping things are better when I wake up.

Current mood: thoughtful

* To not go forward is to go backward

Literally doing nothing..

I feel I ought to apologise for the paucity and lack of posting lately. The family stuff knocked me for six for a week or two - the continued winter encouraged the "black dog" a little. Luckily I am just too bushed to do anything really silly - the insomnia continues so I can't be bothered to think of ways to top myself. Well, it's nice to have SOMETHING ya can rely upon! :(

The thing about sudden deaths in the family is that, somehow, they bring back previous ones - my father, my aunty, Thomas the beloved cat and surrogate baby. One questions one's own situation and realises that time here is finite. I don't know why that is - when I go to a wedding or christening, I don't hark back to previous ones. I've been keeping busy, helping redistribute / dispose of Nan's belongings and collecting photos digitally to be used in a slideshow after the funeral. Debating on whether there's time tomorrow to bake some cheesy biscuits for the wake. Digging out HDMI cables and trying to figure out how to turn colour slides into digital pictures (luckily I've had some offers for that). Turns out it feels pretty weird going through someone else's stuff - vulture springs to mind. Most of the stuff I took to various charity shops. The clear out seemed pretty quick, but she was renting a lovely little retirement flat. On the positive side, we got her cat Tudor rehomed in about 4 days - because the alternatives for a 17 year old tabby weren't looking good. Bereavement is not an illness! He went to a friend of a friend and is doing very well in his new home, having spent four days mostly hiding behind the tv.

Anyroad, I'm 50% through making a simple Chanel-style jacket from some fabulous pink woven fabric I acquired some time ago for free. It's a beautiful woven check, but a very loose one - the fabric is threatening to dissolve at the edges, despite my zigzagging the edges in an effort to prevent it. Yes, I've given up with using the overlocker, it serges the edges fine but turns everything into ripply seaweed edges, which is disconcerting for a novice sewist. It's been kind of fun using the Brother LS14 - the teacher's machine - though my shoulder seems to have healed well so I am cautiously thinking I'd like to either go back to my own machine or buy a basic lightweight one for class. The LS14 has straight stitch and zigzag and not much else really - but like the very complex tumbledryer we bought (now depositing oil and eating shirts, thankyou Hotpoint for your Friday afternoon machine! Pah...), 14 different settings but you only ever need a few really. Straight and zigzag is actually more than enough. I think on my washing machine I use 5 (synthetics) turned down to 30 degs mostly. The only other setting I ever use is Bed and Bath, for sheets. And it's the same with sewing machines, as it turns out. I'm also using black cotton because (a) it was easier and (b) the fabric is so loosely woven that the stitches are disappearing into it anyway (and the fabric includes lots of colours, one of them is black, so...)

Anyway, that's all for now folks. It's 7.44 and I think I'm ready to wake himself and start some brekko...

Current mood: apathetic

RIP

Yeah, the winter of 2017/18 just keeps on getting better...

My grandma passed away suddenly last week. She was only poorly for the last week (and still active). The first anyone knew about it was a phone call asking us to retrieve our relative (!) as they wanted the bed back - now I'm wondering if she insisted nobody was contacted. Got her home to her bed and she had massive heart failure. Best way to go - pretty quickly - but still a shock for the rest of us. As to why I'm so sad, it's complicated. Let's just say there was a major rift, to which she was the bridge and the key, and leave it at that.

Current mood: depressed