Since I no longer have to go house hunting, I have less excuses for adventures out of the house. Combined with the grey weather and the early sun down, the days are becoming a bit dull and it all feels the same.
Our office social team has organised a “surprise conversation club”. The organisers prepared a series of bizarre dilemmas to discuss and then the participants had to talk about which one they will choose and why.
It was nice to break the isolation of being alone at home all the time.
I guess its fair to say that if I wake up early on a Saturday morning and jump out of bed to start working on my hobby, I definitely like it.
That was the case today, when I woke up really early for any day, no least a Saturday, and started working on a sewing project that I have been working on for years in my head.
Before leaving Peru, I visited the Gamarra textile market with a local friend, and I bought a bit of fabric. Nothing fancy, just warm and cosy sweater material. I bought enough to leave my options open for whatever I wanted to do in future, but in one of the shops was a long sweater jacket, and that really caught my eye.
I have been thinking and thinking about this project over time, and my ideas, and plans for patterns changed more than a few times. And then I realised: I have it! I am going to make a sweater dress. A what you ask?
Well, its a sweater, but long enough to be considered a dress. Its the perfect garment for cool days where I spend all day inside anyway, but it is decent enough to wear outside as well!
All my sewing courses over the years (since my teenager days, and as a young adult, and even more recently as an adult adult) has taught me the value of proper planning and also patience and precision when it comes to finishing a garment, and I must say I am really proud with how it came out! The pocket and the hems came out really neat and the whole garment is just like I wanted it to be.
It is such a satisfying thing, to see something take shape, exactly as I planned.
Since my day started so early, I had a lot more day left at the end of my story! I decided to take my mountainbike (remember the bike shop saga?) to Den Haag, so Marinus and I can explore on wheels. This meant sitting in a different part of the train, which may not be as comfy as the rest, but it has unexpected benefits: i.e. DOGS!
Along the way a guy came in with a dog on a leash, a lovely young Staffy with a shiney coat. She seemed a bit uneasy about the train movement, but never disruptive and most of the time she sat by her human, or stood near him. At some point she came over to say hi to me, and I got to pet her (BONUS!) and then I noticed her human reach over to his backpack, and GASP!!! he had another dog in there! A long haired Chihuahua who was sitting there as calm as a mountain brook, looking at the world. I had a brief chat with the human, as uncomfortable as one can have a chat in a strange language with a mask on, and I asked him if I could take a pic. They didn’t come out the best, but it was a great moment anyway.
So if yesterday’s day was symmetrical, today’s feels like its just a one away from a bad pin code.
Fun fact: When I was a kid I would play number games with things, especially car registration plates. It doesn’t make any sense, but does it ever?
Let say for example there was a number plate
DAY 234 EC (totally fictional, for the purposes of illustration)
Then I would say D is the 4th letter in the alphabet, and A is the first, so if you count one backwards from Z, you end up at Y.
Then because the number “one” is clearly our wildcard here, you cannot start counting from 1, but you can start from 2. if you count one up, you get 3. If you add the two together, you get 5, but then you subtract the one again and get 4.
Like I said, no logic, whatsoever, but it was fun in anyway. Kind of like life in Corona times.
Speaking of fun. The sun was out today, and after a few weeks of rainy weather it was really pleasant, so I went out for a little walk by the canal at the end of the day. It is good for the soul.
I thought the most interesting thing about today was the pleasing symmetry in the number 232, but then I realised that symmetry is quite an interesting word to spell. Honestly, English is an interesting language to spell in.
On the odd occasion that I read, I am working my way through the Bill Bryson work: Mother Tongue, that takes the reader on a journey through the development of the English language. It is by no means the full story, does the full story even exist? But it is a fun and entertaining account of a language that I have enjoyed speaking, reading and writing in for many years.
The days are getting shorter now, which means that winter is really near now. At least I can say I don’t have to cycle home in the dark this year, because I am home already.
mcharlottesmith 