Older and wiser?

I'm so much older than since I last blogged. I've entered a new decade and my age now has a zero at the end. A lot of my friends are turning the same age as well, but it doesn't seem so bad to me as I think all the great things in life are yet to happen. I went out for two lovely meals for my birthday and am going to the Ritz for afternoon tea later in the year. I got lots of lovely cards, some money and some lovely presents.

Amongst other things I received a felting set with some wool to felt and a lovely book with instructions. Some of it looks hard! I think that will be a long term project. I also received some gorgeous sock yarn and some wool to spin. The sock yarn is Colinette Jitterbug in Raspberry and has beautiful pink and purple colours. The wool for spinning is also pink and purple. Half is Merino tops and the other half is a merino and silk mix. Pink is clearly a theme! They are both going to turn into gorgeous socks for me!

I've not been blogging much as last week was manic at school. We've had a health drive and all sorts of activities were organised. It went really well, though it did affect my health as I was not sleeping for all the worry. As far as I am aware, there were no glitches, so this weekend I took it easy and caught up on some sleep.

My friend Di has been in the UK for a few weeks. Her holidays in Australia are during our winter as it is their summer. It was really nice to spend time with her and such a shame that she has now gone back. She still wants me to go out there as it'll be another year before she can visit here again. I want to see her, but I have no appetite for Australia or the inevitable long journey. I need to think about what to do.

This weekend a group of us went with Di to see Slumdog Millionaire. What a film! It was brilliant, from start to finish. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this film. There are some awful moments in it and I couldn't watch parts of it because it was too grusome, but if you can go and see it, I strongly recommend it. The child actors at the beginning are amazing. It has every human emotion and a great story as well.

Tonight I'm missing my Mandarin class. I'm off to the theatre. I have been working hard on my Chinese recently and am learning more of the characters. It's hard going, but it's bound to be. I just have to accept that progress is slow but that with perseverence I will manage it.

On the knitting front, it won't surprise you to see more socks. I may be older, but a leopard doesn't change its spots, especially an old leopard. These socks are Opal Acapulco 1306 and are for a friend at school's wife. The yarn has been in my stash for over a year and I can't even remember buying it, but I think it looks great and I'm sure the recipient will like them. I've still got quite a bit of yarn left so I am going to make some stashbusters using black yarn.

At the moment I am knitting a pair of socks for an old friend I met many years ago in Switzerland. We've not seen one another for nine years, but we still have contact from time to time. I'm sure he will love these socks, but he'll be surprised that I made them because I knew him in my non-knitting days. They are Regia 4 ply Line Steps Color in 05368. They initially look plain but there are odd stripes and dashes of colour, which I think gives them depth.

When these are finished I'm going to finish Ezzie's pixie socks as I have Second Sock Syndrome at the moment and he keeps reminding me about it. I'm then going to start some socks for me. If I don't blog before next week, Happy Chinese New Year!