Extreme Knitting Redhead: pied wagtail

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Skies and birds

I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas. Ours was quiet as usual but as a change we did a Zoom call with Mike's sister and her family rather than the usual phone call. It took a bit of fiddling around before it got set up OK, thanks to Mike, and it was so nice to actually see them all in the flesh. I'm still taking photos of the skies and was very excited when 2 winter visitors arrived on the patio - a Pied Wagtail and a Grey Wagtail most likely taking a Winter visit down South to our slightly warmer clime than Scotland where most of them live in large flocks. Such sweet little birds!

Now for some more skies:

Thursday, May 8, 2014

The heart of the matter

I've now undone most of the crochet chain from the London marathon and have started work on the second lap blanket. I need to get a move on now as I will be giving them to their new owners next week. I wanted it to have a heart in the middle, as I did for the one I started on my way to the London marathon, but I wanted something a bit different.

I knew I'd seen a heart with popcorn stitch in the middle somewhere and thought I'd got a pattern in one of my old books but couldn't find it. No worries, I just made a cup of tea, sat down by the window and got stuck in.

It was just getting light when I started and my first visitors were Titch and Quackers who came and tapped on the door! I didn't have my camera nearby at the time.

Then came Mrs Duck:

She was followed was this pretty little pied wagtail who is a regular visitor.

The one who made me laugh most was this pheasant who tried to attract my attention by jumping up onto the sun-lounger and staring at me.

Now where was I? Ah yes, the crochet. Here's what I ended up with after a lot of playing around. I wanted lots of textural interest and this fits the bill. It should block out nicely and will make a good centrepiece. The rest of the blanket will be just trebles and chains so will grow really quickly, especially with this thick yarn (Lion Brand Hometown USA).

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.