Sunday 3 Jan 2010 - I am a duffer

WHO SAID CROCHET WAS EASY???  Come on, 'fess up.  It never is.  You need 3 hands - at least.  One to hold the hook in one of the two prescribed positions;  one to have the wool wrapped around the fingers somehow or other;  the third to scroll down the instructions with your mouse.   You could really do with a fourth in case the phone rings.

I managed , over the course of 2 or 3 hours, to do a 6" 'foundation' row.  Then it got complicated talking about slip stitches and double crochet ...... and I couldn't keep the wool taut ..... and I  kept loosing hold of the dangly bit that I was supposed to be keeping hold of.  I give up.  I can't do it.  Well I probably could if I did nothing else for days and days but frankly I can't be arsed.  Pardon my language but such is the power of a crochet hook on a non-artist.  I'd rather darn socks!

Enough of that  I'll just have to BUY a few dish cloths and be done with it!

 

I got some good books at Christmas, which was just as well as I was wondering where the next read was coming from.  I was down to reading some more of Gloria Hunniford's autobiog.  My apologies to Gloria in case anyone knows her but I just do not like that book.  The one I've just finished is Pam Ayres' "Surgically Enhanced", and I cackling away at her CD's as we speak.   She became very popular as a poet and raconteuse in the '70s after she won a TV talent contest (nothing at all like X-Factor).  I'm not sure  how far across the world her fame spread  at the time - not far probably - but I liked her then and I do now.  Her poems and stories are incredibly funny.  Poignant too sometimes. 
Nothing that needs too much thinking about.

 
Alan Bennett's next.   A gentle humour here, he's mostly a playwright and I can get lost in what he writes.  We all know his characters:  they're our mums or grans or the woman up the street's second cousin twice removed!  This little volume starts off on the assumption that we all secretly think the Queen is just 'one of us' at heart.

This will be only the second of Jodie Picoult's I've read.  The first was "!Handle with Care" which centred on a family coping with a child who has my own condition - osteogenesis imperfecta - and which was written using multiple narrative voices.  It was a very good book and I think I shall enjoy this one just as much.
I'm saving Patricia Cornwell 'til last.    I just adore her Scarpetta novels.  A bit of blood and thunder and gore while you nod off - can't beat it!

Who's read Marie's Sunday Six Smilemakers?  I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find myself among her Sunday Six.  She has a picture of me when we were lucky enough to visit with Marie and Todd in October.  I've made lots of friends since I've been blogging and each one is special to me but Marie is even more so cos we've met in person.   In the photo I'm on the phone to someone else who means a lot to me, Grammy Staffy.  She phoned all the way from California, knowing I would be at Marie's that day.  Lovely.

Starting this entry yesterday (Sunday) and finishing it today, I'm not sure which date will appear but in case it's 4th GUESS WHAT????  I have two very nice chatty men clattering away replacing my windows.  Yes, after all this time the job is finally under way - not with the original firm of course.  Just think, by the end of the week.........

OK, I'm going to go stick some spuds in the oven now for lunch.

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