monday three

 I only have the colours to choose for three more complete ones. A couple of new colours arrived this morning, so I'll focus on those. The mauvey shade in the foreground is new, and more heathery in life. Am rather fond of it, can you tell? The dark mulberry is the same brand as other, soft yarns I've bought, but as scratchy as a seventies nighty. Shame, that.

Six complete piles of eight. One pile of six complete, two centres. One scattering of four centres and a diddy middle.

Then the next bit of learning starts.

sunday two.

 Up to today I've made I don't know. I don't know the number. This many:

Mr Bailey says he doesn't know either, he's a cat not a mathematician, and where's his Something? His yummy Something? No, he doesn't know what yummy Something he would like, but I should, and could he have it please? Now would be good.

I had to mix up my nice neat piles of eights to get an idea of which colour combinations I've used, to avoid repeats. It's a pain for counting reasons but, you know, seeing them spread out like this in the pic is useful. I'll get another rattled off with a pale green outer, and an additional cream outer would hurt either. I'm going in.

In other day news, today I made the discovery that G and I have shared enough Feb 14ths to be John Cooper Clarke sympatico.

saturday two

 Forty-six and two innards. Sixteen and two outards to do.

Today I made a right mess. Every time. Every bloomin time I tell myself it'll be easy to make a few biscuits then chuck some icing and sprinkles on them. Every time. This happens.

I doubt even the apologetic distribution of the final smarties from my Christmas tube can save this one.

I used to be able to blame my icing failings on the kids, but now one kid is nearly twenty-five and the other, who is twenty-one and conveniently wibbly with CP therefore really I *could* blame him, is reading LotR in his room and far too wise to get anywhere near the kitchen when there's icing sugar and his mother together. The rotter.

I think even the five year old these are for (and his mum: his mum loves dinosaurs and they both love Mary Anning) will be tepid in his appraisal. Bet they taste good though.

Ne'ermind.

One more thing...

BREAK ALL THE RULES. 

friday two

 Forty-three and two daisy centres. Two suffragette daisy centres (I don't live at the tippy top of Greater Manchester for nothing). These are definitely my favourite so far; they gave me a happy solidity to crochet. I have to admit that, Manchester notwithstanding, cast off the shackles of yesterday, today it's Glynis Johns I'm channelling.

Though we adore men individually / We agree that as a breed they're rather stupid.

thursday two

 Thirty-nine.

Twenty-five to go. That is doable.

I love a Thursday: always have. In current times I'm having a go at trying to cook something a bit different on a Thursday, or to cook something a bit differently. A couple of weeks ago it was Ottolenghi's swoonable aubergine dumplings and my game and my world changed. Adore that soft-spoken man. Last week it was the prosaically sweetcorn fritters. They tasted of doughnut, the house smelt of oil, but I'd do them again, in massive quantities with doors and windows open.

Today is very simple. The simplest thing ever but something new to me. I have never ever used coconut milk, which sounds ridiculous: I'm fifty in a couple of weeks, for fecksake. So, yeah, today it's the last of the turkey, in a curry, with coconut milk. I was going to do a daal too, but want to ramp up the veggies, so I'll throw together a generic veggie curry with some mung daal added.

Also new to me today: this unexpected hit is the mix of breakfast cereal, peanuts and peas you never knew you wanted.

All this eating and cooking and New means there will be fewer newer granny squares tomorrow, but look and respect at how two new colours were delivered today. Letter box yarn delivery. It's the future. But right now. On a Thursday.

wednesday two

Thirty-two.

Thirty-two.

Thirty-two-thirty-twothirtytwothirtytwothirtytwothirtytwo

32

Halfway.

okay, I still have to weave in the last two, nevertheless.

It was a late night. I have crochet elbow.

And, just as I felt all granny squared out, the cerise arrived. A shot of adrenaline in the neck.

tuesday two

 Twenty-bloomin-four. Twenty-bloomin-four and a bit of a cock-up. Can you spot the cock-up on the flower resting on the pattern book? I didn't, until I tried to complete the grey outer square. I was able to unravel the grey to reuse on the second try.

Some bits of my brain have folded in on themselves; until they are back working I'm going to do simple colour flips. Did I say my plan is to have no colour repeats?

The claret and blue flip pair is unintentional, but yay, go Burnley. The only football match I've ever attended and never need repeat. Unless there's a Klopp about. A Klopp never hurts.

Twenty-bloomin-four down. Forty more to go. Another eight and I'll be halfway.

Woo.

monday two

 

Twenty. I'm up to twenty. I'm seeing double treble. And this is the scene on the kitchen table:

It's not going to get any better for a while, is it. Particularly because, once I reached thirteen* and laid out a single-line seven by seven, I decided that eight by eight would be a better fit. That sent the granny square requirement soaring from forty-nine to sixty-four. Forty-four to go.

Poor Cosmos, long-suffering at the end, would quite like a walk now please. 

*In honesty, I reached fourteen, because my poor brain failed to realise that a single line seven across plus seven down is thirteen.

sunday one

 Today my make is roasting a feck off turkey. Bought reduced from one of the magical supermarket fairies who leave food and loo roll at my door, who have found themselves with a frozen surfeit of unwieldy +6kg Feeds 13 birds because people just didn't get together in those numbers this year. We didn't eat turkey at all this Christmas. Veggie Moo was here (neg tested) so we veggied with her. 

Now it's the two chaps and me filling in for the Feeds 13 I thought it time. But the animals! Really I excuse buying a reduced yet mahoosive high welfare bird because the cats! The dog! Even the cherry shrimp will all go a bit of turkins and, in honest truth and actual fact will fade without it and I can't have that.

My Nanna is with me again when I cook a turkey. Growing up, I'd watch as she wrapped the Sunday chicken  in saved butter papers: an effective everyday frugality I adopt in kitchen essence, but which is tricky to reproduce Feeds 13 turkey-size. Plus, turkeys are celebration, right? My saved butter paper is an entire block of butter slather-smeared across of sheet of baking parchment, and frugality belongs with the pints of turkey stock I'll eventually slide into the freezer.

I lovingly wrap the turkey bird in its butter blanky.

Tuck it up into foil and away we go, for a good couple of hours of warm snooze in the oven before I even have to think about waking it for a baster bath.

Roasties, stuffing, yorkshire pud, veggies, gravy, Radio 4 throughout because Sunday-days are for Radio 4, sneaking in a bit of granny square in the gaps, then leftovers. Oh, the leftovers.

saturday one

 Today I took it up to eleven.

The burnt orange arrived this morning. It is a very Moo colour, and because of this made me smile to use.

Thirty-eight to go.

snowdrop

 

In the garden this morning, in between picking up poo and scattering mealworms, I've made conversation with the slip between winter and spring.

Is anything more appropriately named than the snowdrop? 

Crocuses always a happy second to arrive.

The current granny square total is 7. That is a seventh of the total I'll need. I laid them in a row to check, yes, they should cover Moo's knees, or make a nice splodge of home in the middle of her bed, or chucked over a chair. 

The ole ginger arsehole Mojo Beans, Mighty of Battlesqueak (checker of crochet and stealer of workspace), is her cat. Found cold, thin, and hungry by a postbox in Leeds, he followed students into their warm, tuna-ed house, and never left. Spayed, not chipped, cared for at one time although wary of big men, except, now, for G, whom he adores. Posters and social media were actively ignored by his wise ex-owner so across the border he came. And stayed, when she moved into a rental that wasn't suitable for pets. If he didn't square up to the dog and my beloved Mr. Bailey (also spayed, large, tabby, stealer of morning bed book space) all would be well. But the ginger arsehole is, indeed, an arsehole.

I can't imagine ever being acquired by a cat by any means other than need or accident. Cats just happen. I think all my formative years of Nanna, who was systematically similarly acquired, plonking me in charge of the book stall at Bury Stray Cat Fund and Cats' Protection League jumble sales marked me out as a shortcut.

goal

 

Today, I have made a goal.

No, that's an untruth: I made the goal yesterday evening. Today, I'm making a little bit of progress on it.

The granny squares I make will be stitched together, given a border, and given to my daughter on her birthday. She turns 25 late March.

Moo's 25th has been stuck in my head since she arrived, a few weeks after my 25th. When she turns 25, I realised, I will have just turned 50. 50. Wowsers. Nearly there, chaps.

Moo moved into a flat with a friend last summer. It's in a brilliant part of Manchester to be mid-twenties, in usual times. Still not terrible pandemically, however the pandemic is a cold metal restraint between here and her that we both feel. Sometimes she struggles and when she struggles, here should be a soft place to return to for a breather.

I'm doing my best. Last week she had a struggle and, whereas I could normally feed here, I jumped on d*liveroo and within half an hour had Booths feed her there instead: salad hummous wraps, clotted cream rice pud, fresh berries, that sort of thing. A mix of health and comfort to sustain. It worked.

This higgledy first try at granny square warmth will go to her to. It won't be as large as the one in the pattern, but I estimate if I make another 46 1/2 of them she'll have something large enough for her legs, which could warm something infinitely larger.

Things would be easier if a certain ginger arsehole didn't claim workspace as ginger arse space.

cornered

 

Today I made a cock-up of the corner, but I completed my first granny square. 

That noise you can hear? That's The Pogues Fiesta.

 Just look at that corner. Behold the might of that cock-up. 

I sort-of completely know what I cocked-up*, which is hopeful regarding not cocking-up the next one. I am sort-of completely confident that I can fudge it into nothing when I stitch squares together. This I will accomplish by the gift of the simple ineptitude of my stitching, which is mighty, and is sort-of completely guaranteed to remove attention from the corner cock-up. 

Am genius.

*summink summink, joined colours when pattern said to snip one off and tie new one in, summink summink started at a different part which felt more suitable for the join, summink summink QUASH future feelings QUASH THEM FLAT.

Right, am off. I need a wee. I always need a wee.

nor so wide as a church-door

 

Today I have made an effort to follow instructions.

Not sure about the greeny grey next to the blue, but my choice of wooly stuff that's not sickly sixties baby cardigan is limited, because I bought a pack of mixed acrylic to see if I took to the crochet thing. (Geniuses will be flexing their mighty minds to anticipate near future moves here.)  

Circles in squares. Next stitch steps are to finish the circle stuff in the blue, then switch to a proper grey for the outside square. I'm the Greynaissance's bitch as much as the next bitch, and grey is my first and so far only single colour batch buy.

Today I've also made: a discovery about stopping glasses from sliding down my nose, without making that slippery slope miraculously matte; a big hole in the snow for the birds' mealworms; an inroad into user-testing some font accessibility thing; myself more than a little queasy on mini stroopwafel, and shortly I'll make tea. 

That's a small cluster of makes, but twill suffice. It'll do. In these days and weeks and months of wheels falling off, it'll do.

knot

 This morning I’ve made a pile of every scrap of crochet I’ve attempted.

I’m not a natural crafter. As I type that I can feel a tumble of sharp thoughts. Thoughts with hard, straight edges and stabby corners. Geometric weaponry. Left it too late to start. Slow, stiff arthriticy fingers. Glasses forever sliding down my nose. Should be doing something more productive. Keep forgetting what you’ve learnt and having to go back and relearn it again. That neck light’s a pain in the arse. Why aren’t you knitting instead? Why don’t you know how to use your sewing machine? You’ll only give it up after splurging a load of cash.

Instagram says I did my first yarn over, pull through on the 23^rd of October last year. I kept company with youtube videos and did… okay. A lovely friend did a lovely thing and sent a book on Granny Squares to me instead of to the charity shop. She said they were really easy. My head blocked up. Christmas arrived and I packed up the stuff on the kitchen table. This included, of course, the crochet. Of course it did. And of course it stayed packed up until this morning.

So, I’m slow, I’m uncertain, with a full head of sharp, bouncing plastic geometry. I would like a head of soft wool. Of colours and patterns. Of warm things to give. Let’s see how it goes.

yarn over, pull through

My refusal to acknowledge a shift from 2020 to 2021 has nothing to do with covid yet everything to do with loss. 

No auld lang syne. No opening the back door to let out the old before opening the front door to welcome the new. 

No bubbles. This evening I'll sip a glass of Italian or Spanish or Portuguese or French red, and pour one out for our bond with the EU. Brexit can get to fuck.

soap

 I think maybe what I need is to live in a soap. When you live in a soap you turn up with a career, or pick one up over two episodes (so within a week). When you change careers you get another job top speed: usually working in a cafe. Were I in a soap, instead of still wondering what the hell I want to do when I grow up (I'm fifty in Feb) I would be working in a cafe. In Roy's Rolls. With Roy. (Currently take-away only: Tier 4 tomorrow.) Roy. I would rock that.

Also, when you live in a soap, your house decorates its sweet self. In between episodes. I would sit at my kitchen table with a brew and the feature wall would shift and shape around me. Like Bradbury's jungle wallpaper, but with a floral yet geometric repeat design you could never acutally choose, but why be picky? It's done for you, whilst you dunk the last of the Danish butter cookies into your PG Tips (now compostable plastic-free).

When you live in a soap you have to take your turn with seventeen divorces, three spousal deaths, one spousal re-appearance, a daughter who believes you are her big sister, a big sister who is your mother, a brother who steals your laptop for drugs, your own drug habit that ends with a beard and homelessness, three train crashes, a tram crash, two plane crashes, too many hospital stays with a beep beep machine to count, twelve court appearances (eight aquittals), three prison terms, a body under the patio, and at least one stint as a landlady. At the very least. Fair doos. But alongside all that soap life gubbins you get regular employment and a quickly decorated residence. I could do soap life.

scrap

 I got locked out of my head. I'd noted the password down on a scrap. I'd put that scrap between the pages of a story. I forgot which.

I stared at all the stories, with all the pages, and all the scraps. To flick through would cause disruption at a time when things need a flick of tidy. Blimey, though, I could use a good story. One with wolves which curl up to sleep deeply, ogres which become distracted by flickering lights, and flickering lights which susurrate as starlings.

I looked away from the stories. The password, a docile thing which avoids a direct gaze, rose on its soggy scrap, and softly, silently, I think I picked it up. Did I pick it up? Can I?

trip hazard

 

Over there today the tangerine cretin continues to claim he has evidence of anomalies in the Dominion Voting Systems machines, dead people voting, and corruption in Democrat-run cities that were won comfortably by Biden/Harris but you don't know her, she goes to a different school.

Over here today the craven entitleds bray that a vaccine co-developed by the German biotech firm of the child of Turkish immigrants and manufactured in Belgium is a British triumph, and that grabbing it first is a feat of Brexit, even though the supply was authorised using provisions under European law. 

I expected the tory sonic boom as misdirection of the cliff edge of the 31st of December that is some Thomas Hardy shit, but the lies, the straight-up deceit? Why do these... perfidious, I'll say perfidious, it's a cracking word... lies still shock? Why, when we've lived this since we tripped over the cat into that rip in the space time continuum that was 2016, does my stomach still cement in an impotent fury that really can't be healthy? 

Summon the court physician. Call an intermission.

Why did Danny Kay not add a verse noting that the boy who observed that the king was in the altogether was strung up on a lamppost and left, spit-soaked, until his small, decayed limbs dropped off one by one?

It's altogether too chilly a morn.

troll

FuckSAKE

what has she done now?

She says she hates using icing sugar with a passion. She's only saying that because she saw on my gingerbread Instagram that I hate using icing sugar with a passion.

that must be the answer

She's got my Lakrids. Only she calls them bonbons. Bonbons, I ask you.

what's she making with those?

Nothing. They are in her liquorice case, next to the dragees... I had no idea you said it that way... and the pellets she's using to make a sauce for the burnt Basque cheesecake I was going to make next week before she stepped in and made it this week for everyone to see.

you can still make it. it would be nice.

It Won't Be The Same. And there was my crispy chilli, the same jar, my sweet smoked paprika, the same tin, my kimchi, and my posh tinned toms, and I keep those right at the back of the cupboard. She must be coming in at night and having a right old ruttle. I think she hides out the back in a hedge and peers in through the door.

like julianne moore?

Would that make you happy, love?

yes. very happy.

Just like Julianne Moore, but with the exact same Danish dough whisk I just gave to Mrs Parker for her birthday.

is there no end to it?

Then, just to rub it in, she put black banana peels in a curry. She knows I can't eat ripe/cooked bananas because ripe/cooked bananas give me sinus ache.

what a cow.

And she eats what she does, like she does, yet looks like she does, and says she never diets. She's sent to try me. I tell you, if she comes for the fairylights, she's a goner.

that'll show her.

Zig has got me her book for Christmas, like I hinted, hasn't he?