Loving these days

What do you do after two weeks of runny noses, coughs and fever?  Head to the beach of course!!!  Winter is finally coming to a close and, just to prove it, Mother Nature has sent us a week of the most beautiful Spring weather.  Sunshine all day and barely a cloud in sight.

There was so much pleasure in packing up a picnic basket and getting out of this house at last, leaving all thoughts of sickness behind us and just getting out there to enjoy ourselves.  Well, we were still cautious - more so than most it seems.  My lot did tend to stand out as they still had long sleeves, long pants and gumboots so they could go sploshing into the water and explore with warm, dry feet.  Around them, children were splashing about in bathers, shorts, t-shirts and (gasp) bare feet!  It did look lovely to enjoy such freedom but I am not prepared to risk going back to another two weeks of being house bound with four sick children.  Summer is coming and there will be plenty of time for bare feet.

It has also been a wonderful time in the garden with fruit trees beginning to blossom, promising crops of juicy plums, apricots and peaches.  Oh, yum!!!!  We also managed a trip to the plant nursery to choose a shade tree for the back garden.  At the moment it is still a rather tall and very bare twig but with time, will grow into a beautiful, frilly, white flowering Crepe Myrtle big enough for the children to climb and for those of us too old for tree-climbing, to sit beneath with a cool drink.  I am so looking forward to seeing it grow.

My Creative Space.......my what???!!!!!!!

Please....ahem......excuse me.......Just a moment while I  pick    myself     up.....humph....off the floor and dust myself off, which could take a while since the floors are so horribly....well, lets not mention the floors.  However, I was down there laughing mirthlessly at seeing the words "my" and "space" in the same sentence.  And as for the word "creative"?  Well!!  The only creative things going on around here lately have been finding 'creative' ways to ignore the gathering debris under the kitchen table and 'interesting and delightful' new ways to step over the mess everywhere else in the house because if I bent over to pick anything up I was rewarded with a massive pain ripping through my skull.

You see, a rascally flu virus took up residence in our house two weeks ago and settled in.  I could tell it was planning to stay for a while because it unpacked all its' bags, put everything neatly into the drawers and carefully placed a photo of its' family next to the bed.  So I have had to spend the better part of each day and night looking after the dratted thing, bringing it cups of chamomile tea / hot soup / cooling water / fresh juicy fruit, filling up the hot water bottle, soothing its'distressing cries when the nightmare inducing fevers hit, keeping a supply of clean hankies on hand.  It really has been the most ridiculously over-demanding house guest one could imagine and one we will not be sorry to say goodbye to. 

Some flues, in comparison, seem relatively meek and well behaved.  They settle gently over the household, lay you low for a day or two and then they are on their way.  If it were possible to choose ones flu virus, I would certainly be selecting one of these little numbers, perhaps in a nice shade of turquoise.  But our visitor has been nothing but greedy, violent and completely lacking in manners.   It landed suddenly (obviously uninvited), smacked us all about the head and neck, tied our shoe-laces together and roughly knocked us over, stuffed our heads with cotton wool and our noses with glue then applied tight torniques around our brains, lit bonfires in our throats and then sat back in our best chair, put its feet up on the table and demanded service.

You will understand then, why the idea of having had any "my space" in the last two weeks seems not only laughable but cryable (is there such a word?).  Throw the concept of creativity into the mix and I will be throwing myself on the floor once more, in a fit of sobbing this time for all of that lost opportunity.  Actually, I just had a quick look around me and there isn't really enough uncluttered floor space to throw myself on.  I could do myself an injury.  It would have to be a very well calculated throw, taking into account bits of furniture, baskets of wool, piles of paper, childrens toys that have snuck into what really is supposed to be "my space",  and a metal filing tray that doesn't know where it belongs.

Although it has been a tough two weeks, it hasn't been all bad.  I did make a sufficient recovery after one week to mow the disastrously overgrown back lawn and tidy up the yard which had become so bad I didn't like going out there anymore.  I'm pretty sure it set back a full recovery by a few days but I think it may have been worth it.  So nice to be able to walk outside and not feel like crying.  It has also given us time to watch...are you ready for it?......a Little House on the Prairie DVD set I bought months ago but haven't been able to sit long enough to watch.  The children are loving it, just as I did thirty odd years ago and join me in exclaiming at how nasty and horrible Nellie Olson is, not to mention her mother Harriet.  Oooohhhhh, just the thought of them...!!  I'm quietly hoping that some of Laura Ingles' work ethic will rub off on the children, along with some of Charles and Caroline's wholesome-ness. 

Another positive to come out of it is that our visitor has shown the children that they can find within themselves the strength to fight.  Some took to the challenge more readily and with more strength than others.  Jovanka has amazed me with her resilience and quiet determination.  She didn't want medicine (which I keep on hand as a last resort) even when she was in the grip of fever and could barely walk.  She lay silently on the couch with her pillow, her blanket and her favourite soft toy and stared off into space while her body did what it needed to do.  The following day she was up and about, still tired, but ready to get on with things.  The boys were, well....let's just say, they needed rather more help but they have both found their way through and we have had a biology lesson along the way on viruses, antibodies, blood circulation etc, etc.

At this point in my (aiming for) regular "Creative Space" posts I usually zip off and link into the Our Creative Spaces site to share what I've done with other crafters there.  I think I'll spare them this one but it's always worth a visit there anyway to see what everyone else has been up to.  And now that we're on the mend, I'm feeling open to a little inspiration.  Care to join me?  Just click here and we'll be on our way.

Hope your house-guests are of the welcome variety.

My Creative Space- almost matching socks

A few weeks ago...ah......four to be exact, I proudly put up a picture of this half finished sock, confident that by the following week I would be able to add a picture of the completed pair.  Well.......um......now I feel like a student having to explain why their homework has not been handed in on time.  You see, we went away on a little holiday to Warburton to play in the snow for a week,

then we got home and there was a LOT of washing to be done and then there was Jovankas' third birthday and David designed a special cake which was sufficiently complex enough as to require a practice run but it all turned out splendidly and here it is:

Davids' Chocolate crepe, choc mousse, strawberry layer cake with a chocolate dome.

and then I needed a little rest and finally I got to sit down for a couple of evenings and finish these things off and here they are.

I did actually finish the first sock before we went away.  Jovanka was so excited she put it on, hot off the needles and proceeded to wear it with any other sock she laid her hands on.  Before I had even begun the second sock, this first one had already been on adventures.  It went on holidays with us so she at least had one nice warm foot when she was playing in the snow.  It went for a walk in the shallow edges of the upper Yarra River near where we were staying, and then it went in the not so shallow edges and got soaking wet.  It then got mixed in with the rest of the river sodden clothing and put in the washing machine and dryer

(uh-oh).  Consequently it is a little out of shape and slightly baggy - it's the one on the left. 

 A little aside here, it is a constant curiosity to me that I can say something to the children like "If you go any deeper in the water, your boots will fill up and you'll have wet feet" - fine in summer, not so good on a cold winters day, then they walk in deeper water, get boots full of water, soggy socks and cold, wet feet and then look at me as if to say "Why didn't you keep us out of the deep water?  Why didn't you tell us?  Now I've got wet feet and they're cold and how am I going to walk home like this?"

So now with the socks finished, I can get on with the cardi I started for Jovanka in May.  At this current rate of progress it should be ready in a couple of years.  Good thing she has a little sister to grow into it.