Big day ahead!

As the weekend draws to an end, I find myself becoming impatient, yet at the same time, wanting to freeze time.  I have my last exam tomorrow, and it's one that I'm not particularly worried about.  In a strange way, it's actually a fun kind of exam that I've always secretly liked (at the risk of being lynched by my coursemates!).  It's practical, requires you to think on your feet, snappy, flies by, varied, basically an interesting way to do exams.  There's a couple of things that I want to go over before it, but otherwise, it's kind of hard to revise for, as it's not purely knowledge based.

But my anticipation and anxiety actually stems from the fact that I'll partially find out my fate tomorrow evening.  At some point after 4pm tomorrow, the med school is going to email the people who are required to sit a second long case.  So if I get an email, it's time to absolutely panic, and try to think of things to do by Friday to improve before the repeat.  No email, then, I'm... well, safe.  And pretty much home and dry, assuming that I haven't cocked up the exams that I passed last year.  I just don't know what to think.  I'm scared, so scared.  I know that checking my email tomorrow afternoon will be a strange compulsion, that I really don't want to do, but I can't help but do every five minutes until I know.  And then every five minutes afterwards until whatever news awaits me sinks in.  In all honesty, I don't know how I'm going to cope...

But on a happier note.  My weekend.  I've actually had a really nice one.  On Friday, I discovered that a new green grocer has opened about a three minute walk from my front door.  I had a nice chat with him, and he's sourced the vast majority of his produce in the UK, mainly locally.  And not only has he got fruit and veg, he's also stocking a range of preserves and chutneys and a small selection of olives (one of the few non-UK items!) and cheeses.   Mmmmm, couldn't help but stock up on some tasties for lunch and the weekend.

Lovely!  I love the way my road supports all things local and independent.

I finally finished my shawl/stole/wide scarf that I've been working on since Easter, on and off, in amongst other projects.  It's currently blocking on my floor and looking glorious.  I can wait to take photos of it once it's been unpinned!  But for now:

On Friday, I finished my latest spinning project.  I decided to experiment with making some low twist singles.  And I used one of my new(ish) spindles that I hadn't really used before, other than a quick trial.  I have no idea how much it weighs, but it's quite heavy, and has a super long handle, so I was able to squeeze all 100g on in one long long (344m) piece.  I took it off, skeined it (my clothes horse makes a very good skeiner!) and then, in an act of utter faith, having never done any felting, I felted the skein to give strength to the singles.  I set the twist overnight in the shower then in the sunshine.  I seemed to have felted in just right.  The strands were defnitely felted and required teasing apart which made winding a ball take forever!  But they came apart very easily and without any knots, headaches, breakages or other heartaches.  It's quite textured, and so I've decided to make a very simple shawl pattern with it, to really show off the gorgeous colours (was really unconvienced with the fibres, but I adore it now, so pretty!) and texture.

Pre-felting and setting the twist.  Quite good representation of the colours.

The finished, dried hank, slightly out of focus, but still pretty cool.

Close up of the singles, before I wound it.  Really good idea of the texture and thickness, but less so with the colours.

The start of the shawl.  I love how triangular shawls grow.  I'm loving how gentle the colour changes are.  It's not the bold stripes of the 198yards of heaven shawl I made with my last handspun.

My craft corner was looking a mess, so I decided I had to tidy it up, and this was it, mid-sort out.

On Saturday night, I had Mary and Paddy round for a BBQ.  It was lovely, and really mellow.  And we had such a great catch up.  I'm so lucky to have such amazing friends, I do really miss them though, I hardly get round to see them, especially lately with being in Weston and revision, and clashing with Mary's schedule.

And now.... I wait.  I wait for sleep, and peace, and those silly emails tomorrow.  I can barely think of my exam, in comparison to that email.  Last year, I didn't think about it, didn't really expect the email.  But it was the email that caused my life to collapse in on itself.  How can I now be expected to think of anything else?