ArRiva Round-up (!)
A couple of years ago I got some Riva in one of This Is Knit’s brilliant sales and literally made up this sweater for Jane as I went along – you’ll have heard about Jane before: she’s like family - When I went to meet her last week she was wearing it. In its own right, it's nothing particularly remarkable, but the fact that it’s still on the go and looking well on her is amazingly gratifying. The pattern (so far as I can remember what I did) is hereby copyrighted as "Jane" by Karen Duggan!
Then I met my godson, Jonathan, who’s more or less family too (although his blood relations may have a thing or two to say about that). And he's just in for the holiday season. But woohoo -look - the scarf!
Best part of this time of year is everyone coming home - my son is due to get on a flight shortly too - safe home, Tom! See you soon!
It's a time that doesn't always bring out the best though. Fractiousness, when you're not immediately available to accept a hassled friend's goodwill, is endemic, as is bah-humbug when you realise that you now have to go out and buy another gift, because someone upped and broke the habit of a lifetime and gave you something for nothing - something, as it happens too, that you really didn't want (and now they've signed you up, you're just going to have to take those classes with that person) (or some equally dismal outlook)
A few years ago we had the only white Christmas in my memory, and just as well it was the only one, because a madness came over Dublin city: we don't fare well in snow. We all had wildness in our faces and moved about, slipping and sliding with spiritual clubs in hand, generally acting like grappling elemental creatures on a slow downslide...literally and figuratively. And - one-hundred percent true and no exaggeration - on Christmas Eve that year I saw real fists fly over a parking space at our local shops...the two individuals involved seemed to have lost the point that they were likely to meet each other again, probably once a week at least, for pretty much the rest of their lives (unless their wives and children were prepared to up sticks, and move houses, jobs and schools to save their faces)(which at the time they seemed so intent on smashing up in any case)
"You know what you can do with your peace and goodwill to all men...?!"
I thought it was kind of funny, even though at that point I myself was tortuously making my way home, crammed shopping bags strung over arms and feeding street railings into my hands in order to stay upright on the packed ice.. As we don't generally get much snow anytime, there's no tradition whatsoever of any obligation to clear pavements. I was also possibly feeling fairly smug that for once I had everything done...
And while I'm on that theme...
"Have you got everything done?"
"Are you all set?"
Ask me either of those at the wrong time on the wrong day, and who knows what I might be capable of doing myself...
Funny ole time alright! What are YOU lookin' at?