Solitary confinement

Today is going to be dull. I haven't had a really bad cold since July when I went to Germany, but the last couple of days I could feel it coming on and today I have a cold in earnest. It has snowed over night quite a bit, so the two things combined have convinced me to stay inside all day. Ezzie has gone to the allotment for the day. He has projects galore on the go there and all of it is DIY, so it's not really for me.



Being in means juggling my time between two things: knitting and marking. I love my job in many ways but I hate marking. I think I teach the kids way too much because there is just too much work to mark. Even in four weeks they have done loads. It is mind-numbing so I've just done a good two and half hours and am now going to reward myself with a bit of knitting.



I know I am supposed to be saving money at the moment, but I used some birthday money from my Grandma to buy some gorgeous hand-spun yarn from Caroline. It is gorgeous, really soft and I love the colours. I've called the yarn 'Horizon' because it reminds me of the different colours you get on a clear day as the sun goes down. Caroline saw the 'fluff' (as she calls it) and the orange made her think of me. How could I resist? The yarn is merino so it won't be very hard-wearing, so these are going to be nice bed socks for my coffin-cold feet.




















Lucy has dyed me some gorgeous alpaca yarn in bright colours as well. This was custom-dyed to my specification and she has done an amazing job. This yarn doesn't have a name yet, but it will in due time. I know some really talented people.





















I went knitting with the forum gang on Wednesday and had a really great evening. I made good progress on my toe-up spiral socks and was well on my way up the leg on Thursday night when I made another mistake with the spirals and decided to rip it all the way back again. Once again I am left with this:



















I am seriously wondering whether this yarn will ever make it into a pair of socks.



I would like to praise Granby today because he went to the vets yesterday and was really well behaved. He was having his check-up and jabs and stuff. Ezzie and I were cooing over him like doting parents on parents' evening because he did himself proud. It made the expensive bill easier to swallow.