L is for Looking back and Looking forward

The first New Year after I started this blog I used this well-known quote.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

 That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

 From 2015 to 2018 I had the same New Year resolution

In 2019 I amended it to

Be even more awesome than last year!

2020 I seem to have ignored the new year!

Back at the beginning of 2021 I found this quote from Tennyson

"Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘It will be happier.’" 

At the beginning of 2022 my quote was from Ann Frank

"What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't even happened yet.”

I love New Year!  I know it's fashionable to poo-poo resolutions but I enjoy the planning, the permission to make a new start.  I have been truly blessed in 2022 and I'm looking forward to 2023.   I hope you will be too.

If you think the "Looking back, looking forward" (Janus) at the top of this post is a little unusual, you are right.  It shows Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine, implacable opponents over the poll tax.  22nd November 1990 was the date Mrs Thatcher resigned.  The carving is on a half timbered building in Shrewsbury.  

K is for Knitting

 I don't think of myself as a knitter.  I don't do fancy stitches or work with a multitude of colours.  I just cast on around ninety stitches on a circular needle and start to knit.

I like the rhythm of knitting.  I'm not a great TV watcher but I like my audiobooks so I knit to a background of silence or a great story.  The knitting occupies my fingers and my mind can wander where it wills.  

And what I knit with those ninety stitches is scarves.  I have two in progress most of the time.  The first uses any wools that I am given and a few that I have bought.  I knit two inch stripes until the scarf is almost six feet long then I cast off and add a fringe. Those scarves go to a local charity helping homeless people.  

The other scarf is destined for my own neck.  I record the highest temperature reached in Caistor (where I live) every day.  I have a different colour for each degree Celsius and I started with one row a day on my seventieth birthday and will end on my seventy second birthday. 

 

Lunch

 

One of our local churches is having a lunch tomorrow for people who live alone.  I wanted to help so I offered to make some gifts for people to take home.

It took quite a while!

Robbie

Robbie the tartan reindeer. 

 What did Santa say when he and Mrs Claus gazed up into the sky?

It looks like rain, dear!

Another item to escape from my sewing machine.

Gnome,sweet gnome

 There seems to be an invasion of little fellas.  I think Santa may remove them.  Each has consumed a whole bottle of prosecco, so they may be on his naughty list.

What will my sewing machine get up to next?

Head above parapet

 

I had great ideas for December but on the first day of the month I woke crying out with pain.  I think I may have slept very awkwardly but the pain took several days to subside.  Then the dizziness started.  I've never had this problem before but Christmas lights in a spinning room adds a certain originality to the season.  

Anyway the spinning has downgraded itself to the occasional pirouette so I am now starting on the usual December things except that I won't drive.

Focussing on one very definite  thing seemed to help my head so I was able to sew.  These are a couple of the bags I have made.