In a tangle

Tuesday

 I only have a few minutes as am due to meet a friend for breakfast this morning. I was also meant to be going for a swim with another friend but the weather is honestly awful today and I think we were both relieved to give it a miss. 

As often they are, but especially at the moment a week and a half from payday, my thoughts are on money matters. It's been a more expensive month this month, I'm not sure why, just one little thing and another. Smallish purchases, some essential, some not, but for a while it seemed like we were spending money like water. There isn't as much now and it doesn't take a lot to take out the bulk of our disposable income. That's if we truly have a disposable income - can you when you don't really have savings?

I have been turning to my wartime-era books for inspiration. You get in big trouble if you romanticize the past, but there can be no doubt that during WW2, as well as the periods directly before and after, people had to make sure they accounted for all of their resources, and made them stretch as far as they could. It's hard to get to grips with in this throwaway society, we don't even realise how wasteful we are. I have 'waste not want not' as a mantra in my head on loop at the minute and am doing my best to be very careful before I throw anything away. 

I had another little reminder yesterday. My oven gloves are starting to wear thin and I mentioned to Will a couple of days ago that I needed to buy a new pair. Then yesterday I was looking at them and said perhaps I should just see if I can make some, I think we have an old towel we can spare. Then Will said - didn't you buy two separate oven gloves a couple of years ago? I'd completely forgotten that I did. I bought them from the botanic gardens and they were quite expensive actually. I've hardly used them because I always used my joined up pair, so they're in new condition. So I brought them out and was about to throw away my old ones when i had a look at them and thought, besides being a bit mucky the middle section is actually fine - it never comes in contact with the heat so is still heat proof. Why not butcher that and make a couple of pan handles for the fire. So that is what I intend to do. 

Thursday

Evidently time got away with me on that one. I had breakfast with my friend on Tuesday in a cafe that is very nice looking but does frankly disgusting food. I haven't been there in years and the few times I did it was borderline inedible, and I thought it might have changed, but alas not. Obviously it suits a lot of people as they're still going strong!

I did manage to make a pan handle from a butchered piece of old oven glove, and have enough left to make another, but my fingers needed a rest from that sharp little needle. I was extra thrifty and salvaged the bias from around the glove to finish it off. It just need a good soak in something degreasing and we'll be good to go. 

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm not usually super excited by birthdays, mine, and if I'm honest, other peoples' too. But I had a lovely day, the girls and Will made a big fuss of me, and I was given a lot of very thoughtful presents. In the day while the girls were in school Will and I drove to Laugharne. I love Laugharne, and wanted to to to the silversmith as we bought our wedding rings from there years ago, and have since bought other pieces and had an item repaired as well. My engagement ring has needed resetting for many years so I decided it's finally time to get it sorted, and who could we trust more? We were saddened to hear a couple of years ago that the owner had had a stroke and was very poorly, but his daughter took over the business. So it was a wonderful surprise anyway to find him in the shop yesterday and still full of rage and fighting spirit after all he had been through. A day of counting my blessings. 

This morning I went for a swim in the sea with my friend. The sea was bumpy and fun, and it kept pouring with rain. We got a cup of coffee in Mumbles after before heading home.

I have my knitting club tonight. My lovely Mum bought me some Merino/alpaca blend yarn for my birthday, far fancier than anything I'd buy for myself, and I knew just want I wanted to make with it. A couple of years ago I found a free pattern online for a very sweet vintage style keyhole scarf, something like this: 

So I have begun work on that already. I have had an issue with the keyhole section - somehow when I was joining the two pieces of knitting we got a twist there rather than flat ribbing as in the picture. It was so fiddly to do that I was really reluctant to rip it back, so I'm persevering and hoping that it will look nice, and rather than being flat might instead look more like the knot of a tie. If it really doesn't work I'll rip back the whole lot and start again. 

My mum sent me four skeins, each in a different colour. I have gone with the middle shade to complete the scarf. Noticably different but the same tone, so I'm hoping that will work out. 

Making it into balls was going fine until the cat turned up. 

Time for me to finish my coffee and crack on with my jobs now before  it's time to get the girls.