I am starting to think that a change is something that I have been needing for a little while. Since I’ve moved here, I’ve gone quite out of my normal comfort zone, sometimes several times in one day. For instance, I started a fiber group this past week. Sure, no one showed-up to the first meeting other than me but I had the balls to announce who I was and why I was there to an entire pub’s worth of folks and then sit there and crochet alone for an hour and a half. This is surely not me. Every time I get into a car I do things that are almost unthinkable in the states. Things like blindly pull-out into the wrong side of a very narrow two-lane road that my side has been fully taken-up by cars parked there. If you don’t do this here you will never get anywhere yet it is so completely not in my nature to do this sort of thing. I go faster on much narrower and curvier roads than I would even consider in the US.
The Chilterns are so lovely that I want to learn how to take better photographs. I know that even with a good camera, I cannot do the landscape here anything close to justice. On my (almost) daily walks with the dogs I keep seeing things that make me think, “man, I wish that I could show everybody how cool or beautiful that is!”. I want to take a class on photography. I’m sure that y’all would thank me for this too:-)
I also find myself inspired in my crochet. For some reason the peacefulness here is very conducive to reading patterns. That being said, I’m still not following them all from start to stop, but I do seem to understand them better. I’ve also been inspired to branch out a little in my crochet. The other day I was looking out the window when the group of daffodils across the road caught my eye. I decided then and there to make one. So, here it is…
Not bad for a first try I think. I was running up and down the stairs to the yarn attic trying to match the yellows and the whites by holding them up to the window and comparing to the daffs outside. I restrained myself from actually going outside as I thought that crazy American woman holding yarn up to daffodils at the side of the road might just edge me over the line from eccentric to full-on woo-woo.
(The pattern is from Crochet Bouquet by Suzann Thompson)
Tomorrow, it looks as though I’ll be taking a day trip to Bath, one of my favorite towns anywhere. The last time that I was there they had a great exhibit at the art museum that featured quite a few Kaffe Fassett originals. Hopefully, I’ll have a few pictures and stories to tell!
As for now, I am off for our first vet’s visit! Wish me luck driving 3 cats and 2 dogs there!
Sarah Jane Humke 