Sunday, 26 January 2025

2025 Week 4

This week, I have definitely felt a little more like I'm winning - possibly because there has been plenty of knitting under a blanket. I have divided the cardigan for the sleeves now so I am about 11 inches through a purported 19 inch body. I am considering options - for body length, sleeve length and button band. It's meant to have a garter stitch button band with two buttons at the top, but I am (a) not sure about only 2 buttons and (b) devoid of suitable buttons. I just tried it on and the edges meet comfortably, so I'm now considering an icord edging and a zip. I have been fondly remembering the early days of my teaching career, when I lived in bobbly zip-up cardigans and cheap polyester trousers. I don't miss the trousers but there might be a place for those cardigans again.

Anyway. So then I need to decide the best order to knit it in so that I can use up all the yarn and continue to knit alternate skeins to avoid pooling. I might have to do it one sleeve at a time, ugh. 

Goodness, the problems I face now are just crazy, aren't they? Sometimes I remember the glory days of when I started this blog in the 90s and had really good gossip and actual problems. 

I have also managed to be a little more productive at work and have ticked off a few non-school work things from the list as well. Summer exam contracts finally came through and they are more inviting than I was expecting...given the wild changes they are making to the process, all bets were off. I am still not sure I can continue with it in the long-term but for now - OK. 

I finished watching Joan, which I enjoyed a lot - anything with a bolshy female lead and a kicking 80s soundtrack gets my vote. I gave up on Lockerbie because I just got so sad that this guy had given up the last 30+ years of his life chasing a conspiracy. Obvs I hope that I never have anything so horrible befall my loved ones, that I lose all sense of perspective and fail to concentrate on the ones left behind; and I can sort of understand the absolute desperate need to know what really happened. But it's still pretty grim and I didn't fancy watching two hours of conspiracies about Palestine, especially given the current state of affairs, so I gave up.

Instead, I finally managed to get hold of series 2 of The Great, which is a superb retelling of bits of the story of Catherine the Great with lots of artistic licence. I loved the first series (see 'bolshy female lead') and the second is proving to be very engaging. This evening, Mr Z and I watched Conclave, which was entertaining and brooding. I like Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci, which helped. It sort of had a hint of Death of Stalin about it but in a totally uncomedy way. 

Not much else happened in the early part of the week. I went to dinner with Charlotte on Thursday (Japanese food and Swoon, swoon) and then to see Sathnam Sanghera speak - this was the 4th time, including the time I did the interview; he's not my favourite, because he doesn't really listen to the questions and just says what he wants to say, but he is entertaining and I am pleased he has finally stopped saying that he's not a historian. 

I spoke at the university on Friday and so (went to Swoon twice in two days and) made it home early and had a really good nap, giving me enough energy to get little things like sorting the washing and some cleaning and the grocery shop done before bed. This has made all the difference to my weekend, actually. Mr Z and I went out to brunch at a new cafe up the 'wood, I found some useful articles for my next assignment, I made it into the gym before 9am this morning, I marked a whole set of y11 exams (the universe forced me into this by raining harder every time I thought about leaving Starbucks) and I put together some outfits for the week. 

See - winning.

I have just been thinking about where I want to go on holiday all week, though. 

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