Tuesday 12 June 2012

Some piffling thoughts and a worthy cause

There have been some problems with Google over the last few days, but no problems with non-Google internet sites. All very aggravating. Especially when you get told that the problem is with your internet service provider. And suddenly, the number of spam items arriving in the inbox, offering to hugely enhance and enlarge certain body parts (which I do not have), has at least quadrupled. What is going on? I am afraid that I have no desire to take up any of these offers and thereby be transformed into a Real Man.

There seems to be little which can compare with the rage and frustration these problems provoke. There is no one (that I know of) to whom I can complain. Thus I cast my thoughts onto the ambient air, and I know not what the ambient air will do with them, other than waft them further into the ether.

The substitute batch of quince jelly seems fine, although I wonder whether its consistency is a little stiff. I think it tastes good though. And it is quite true, as Joan commented, that it is when one is on a roll and being super-efficient, that mistakes and disasters smite the hapless would-be super-person. Just to keep you from becoming smug and self-satisfied.

Forget all that, though. Let's talk about the weather. The sky has not been beautifully blue, although probably the glass is rising very high, and it has not continued fine. And yet it rained but yesterday.

Didn't it rain! children! Talk about the rain, oh my Lord, didn't it, didn't it, didn't it, oh my Lord, didn't it rain!

All day and a fair part of the night it rained, poured, bucketed down, drenching everything. The drain outside my house could not cope and the water was all over the road. Fortunately none got into the house, and the roof did not leak.  There were lots of traffic jams, floods, fallen trees all over the city.  I sat inside the house, and not much got done. What a cold and miserable day it was. I wondered how people who generally endure Diamond Jubilee sort of weather cope and keep up their spirits.

I have been doing a lot of crocheting, mostly for the continuing project fostered by our ABC, Wrap with Love, (see www.artsandcraftsnsw.com.au/images/wrap/WWLOnePager.pdf) whereby lots of people get together and knit or crochet squares which are then joined to make wraps, or small blankets. Local libraries support groups who get together once a month to work away, and once a year there is a huge get-together at the ABC when squares get joined up. I have not been to the annual event, but this year I have done enough, so far, to make three blankets. The trouble comes in selecting the colours and trying to make the assorted combinations look good together. I use wool rather than synthetic fibres, as I do not like working with synthetics.

At the local second-hand market, amongst all the myriad items on offer, there are lots of granny square blankets, as well as used linen, embroidered and with crocheted edges. I noticed, when Dr P was in the nursing home, that many of the old people had such blankets draped over their chairs and beds. So it seems there is still a use for them.

At the same time I want to make another garment, so have been busy going through old patterns to try and choose one of them. Making squares is very repetitive work, although it is portable, and does not need close attention. I take it along to the opera study group and work away. Nobody seems to mind, fortunately, and it gets people talking together. But it is time to start something else.

When  my girls were small I made them lots of crocheted things, little dresses, and ponchos. Such hand-made things need careful laundering, and they cannot just be bunged into the washing machine to be belted roughly around.

And who has time for hand-washing these days?

4 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

I am so pleased to hear that other people are being offered enhancements to non-existent body parts. And yes, it makes me a tad antsy as well.
I envy you your crocheting skills. It is something I never learnt and my recalcitrant fingers would not let me now. You are right that these wraps continue to be used and to me at least they signify loving care.

Friko said...

Luckily all these enhancements are being filtered out before I am tempted to throw caution to the wind and avail myself of them.

As for the rain, you are never complaining, are you? You should come and have to put up with our sort of summer. You could do a wonderful dance dodging the showers.

Keep on making granny squares, the world needs them.

Pam said...

An enjoyable post; thanks for sharing your musings.

Jan said...

Those emails all end up in my Spam folder, but they have done a great job of enlarging the folder and filling it out. I find gmail is usually fairly reliable about such filters but I have wondered where it has all suddenly come from. Perhaps the storm of spam is related to the deluges we've been having.