Extreme Knitting Redhead: Just sneaking in an October update!

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Just sneaking in an October update!

This month can be summarised in one word "changeable" in so many ways! I decided not to run the Beachy Head marathon, my favourite trail event, because it was a mass start rather than the safer staged start approach. I was sad but then glad when I heard that part of the route had been flooded and they turned it into a 2 lap event which missed out some of my favourite bits! People ended up getting faster times than usual as the route was far less challenging. Instead I trotted off to Betteshanger to do the SVN 500th event run, which had a field of less than 40 people, at which I achieved marathon 201 and got a huge medal:

Given the state of the pandemic I suspect I'll be doing more virtual marathons again this winter; we'll see anyway. On the knitting front I started Skog from Laine magazine 10. I loved this sweater as soon as I saw it and finally got round to starting it last week.

The yarn used is from Biches & Buches in the grey/green colourway and I love it! It's got a lovely knobbly tweedy texture. I did try swatching with mohair added to make the fabric a bit thicker, as I saw someone had done that, but it lost all the definition of the green tweed so I abandoned that idea.

I had to learn a new stretchy cast-on method for the hem ribbing. It took me ages to master it but I persevered and finally it all clicked into place (old dog/new tricks!!!) and I whizzed through the cast-on. The weather has been so changeable that one day it would be unseasonably hot, the next it was cold, wet and windy! I even wore my favourite wet-weather poncho to go to Yoga class one day:

I can't help but feel happy when wearing it! At the moment I've been taking lots of photos of the sky each day, morning and evening, so I'll share a few of my favourites here. We are blessed to have such a great expanse of sky and I never tire of looking at it - one of my favourites is the first one of the most perfect Harvest Moon I'd ever seen.

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.