Derby Healing (Post of the day 1)

Okay, so here's the deal.  I've just checked when I last posted and it was well over a week ago.  Man, it started so well.  And for a change, it isn't actually because I've lacked things to talk about.  I agree, it's partly because I've been feeling so out of it and in a... erm, how shall I put it?  A funny mood?  But I'm determined to get myself out of it, and I know that being in Derby has gone a long way to get me started on that front.  So... anyways, the afore mentioned deal is that I'm going to attempt to put up two posts today.  The first all about Derby, and the second a quick catch up about what else has been going on.  That is, if I can remember all of Derby coherently!  It's been a while!

Thursday: a little bit of a lie in (whatelse is new!?) and then after rattling round the empty house, I decided to gate crash Sarah's.  And I walked!  (surprisingly on 32mins door to door, why did I never think to do it before?).  Just the quiet, loud, peace chaos of having little people running around.  Even if they are sleepy and are thus just perfect for long snuggly cuddles when Mummy needs the loo!:

(hehe, sorry for stealing the photo Sarah, but it's cute!!)
And then there was good food, crafting talk and doing, catching up.  And just being.  Sarah is very good at letting me do this.  Just being.  It's hard to describe.  It's nothing "special" in particular but it's perfection in stillness and unwinding (just spent ages searching for the right word, and I'm still not happy, but that will have to do!).  I don't feel the pressure to be anything but myself.  Which sounds like a stupid statement.  Do I really go through life not being myself?  No, not really.  But I'm usually a label, myself, but a particular version of it.  A medical student.  A nursing assistant.  Enthusiastic about going out.  Alone but not minding.  Crowded but not minding.  Running around.  But in these quiet moments (well, it's quiet in a different way, I mean, come on, how quiet can you be with three littles running around!?) I'm none of those labels.  And it's so good for me to stop, and be unlabelled!  And I always feel calmer and safe and more at peace from my life's stress after these times.  I'm not forced to be something, and always being something is draining.  I need a break, but I don't always realise it. 

And before I realised it, it was late.  Where had the time gone?!  And a very kind Martin drove me home.  But not before I had started to make plans for a very busy Friday.

Friday:  Met Emma and Connor at 1pm for some lunch and a wonder around some shops.  A lovely catch up and time to spend with two very dear and special people to me.  Even if the poor loves were both feeling under the weather following a nasty cold.  I can't believe how much Connor has grown.  And he's so lovely, so smilely and ready to give me his very biggest grin!  Aww, how can I resist such charm! 

Then we met up with a solo Sarah, whilst Martin took the girls to a dad's group.  Girlie day out!  Going wool shopping and wool-lusting.  Picking out colours for new projects, and in my case picking up wool for the sake of it.... well, because it was on special, and they were both yarns I have been wanting to try out... now what to do with them!?  And going to tea and cake.  Can't remember the last time we did this.  Just the three (and a bit) of us. 

And then time to tag team out friends, and meet more!  Lol!   My hot sexy SamSam (hehehe! ;) hehe!)  and Simon.  Dinner at Nandos, with sangria, then back to Sam's for more sangria, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Buzz.  Lots of giggles and chatting and catching up with Sam.  Trying to get me tipsy!  lol!  Until Kev came home and again it was a case of a day that flew by.  And again, a lovely beautiful day of contrasts and such a wonderful reminder of why I'm so lucky.  I have such amazing friends, who all bring out something different in me, and know so well how to keep me entertained and to cheer me up about all the recent events.

Saturday:  I had originally planned to go to dinner at Sarah's again, and have a little bit of a games night.  But I was getting the distinct impression that my parents were getting miffed about me coming home and STILL not seeing them!  So, I cancelled dinner and did the dutiful thing of staying in and relaxing with them.  Laughing with my mum in the kitchen as we washed up and got things ready for a birthday meal for my aunt.  Awww... I will miss them not being around when I go back to Derby for Easter.  It will be so strange being in their house without them.  But I'm sure I'll cope.

Sunday:  Family day of note!  Grandparents, aunt, cousin, parents.  Tasty roast.  I never get round to doing roasts for just me.  I ate so much that I never got round to having pudding, even though mums made a very tasty (looking) pavlova and a sticky toffee pudding.  I got my laptop out and showed Gran and Hayley all my knitting and displayed all my crazy new knowledge about knitting techniques, yarn characteristics and dyeing.  I think I may have lost them.  I did get to show off my newly completed scarf for Farah.  It looks so pretty and in sunlight looks much more muted than I was expecting.  I'm dead proud on my first lace knitting attempt.  I still need to block it so that the pattern shows off properly.  But it looks a little like this:

Monday:  Story time at the library with Sarah and Emma and their respective babes.  Hehe.  Playing games like "where's Morgan?  Have you seen Morgan, Daddy?  I wonder where she's got to..." and running around with Jenna.  I love so much spending time with these kids.  I think it has a lot to do with the kid philosophy of living for the moment and making life's purpose about the pursuit of fun.  And what's wrong with that?  More tea drinking and then back to Sarahs.  On the bus for me, with a angelically behaved Jenna who asked to come along.  Only a few dodgy looks when she started talking about how everyone would be thinking "That woman came into town alone, but now, what's going on?  She's got a kid with her!"  Ermm... shhhhhhhhh Jenna!  People frown upon things like that!  I honestly haven't stolen you and your parents know where you are!  And you know where you are!  Don't make the good citizens of Derby want to lynch me!

Tuesday:  Mumsie's day off.  So quality Mumsie time.  Chilling out at home watching rubbish tv movies and nipping into town and browsing round M&S.  Such a mummy thing to do!  lol!  Only spoilt by the gaggle of chav school girls who insisted that my mother had knocked a little toddler that was with them (don't know why they had a kid with them, I'm sure most of them were in uniform).  Thing was my mum hadn't even moved her chair!  And they were really quite agressive about it.  And my mum's not really the sort who handles herself well in these situations.  They really bullied her.  Annoying bunch of little such and suchs, really upset her.

Wednesday:  Special day.  I got to see my Godmother, who I've not seen in like a decade.  It was lovely to see her.  And to feel her love and her positive effect on my parents.  She's a cousin (of some sort!) of my dad and when my parents were newly wed with little kids, and my mom's parents lived in England, she was a proxy mum for my mum.  She has a very special place in our hearts.  How lovely to still be in touch with her and for her to visit. 

And then it was time to go back to Bristol.  Already put off by a day so I could see Auntie Vonnie. 

As you may have noted, I've not mentioned my audit report.  It was really pushed to the back of my mind and instead was left as a joy for Bristol. 

Derby did exactly what I wanted and needed it to do.  It healed me.  It destressed me.  After the month I had had, I needed the love and support of my friends and family close to me.  I wasn't coping very well by myself.  I was feeling so low, and on the verge of tears that never came. And so I went back to Bristol with a lighter heart and more at peace with the crash and all it's stress.  Some good will come of it (and I think it may already have) and I needed some time, support and perspective.  And I've had that now.  I feel more relaxed about it.  I still feel very sad about it all, and obviously I wish it had never happened.  But I'm finally okay with it having happened.  I'm still not back to my normal bouncy self.  I still feel a little depressed and amotivated but it's improving.  And that's what I've got to focus on.

Escape to Derby

Now that's a phrase I never really thought I'd say!  But here I am, so relieved to be back in Derby, surrounded by my loved ones.  My cheque came today and has been duely deposited and then as fast as I could, I got my flat in order and packed up to come to Derby.  Part of me wants to say home, but I really do view Bristol as home.  My flat, my space, my rules, my life.  But at the same time... Derby does have it's charms I suppose.  And if we go by the old saying "home is where your heart is", I've very torn.  Bristol usually wins, hands down.  But as of late, with recent events, and probably the events of the last near year, Derby has edged back in.  It was where I came to heal over the summer last year, and it's where I find myself again, in need of more healing.

My mom had decided that I wasn't likely to be back today, so there was a mad rush to feed me this evening, having only got food ready for themselves.  But they were insistant that I would be eating in with them, despite Sarah's very kind and generous offer to feed me.

And there's only one slight problem.  I was supposed to have got the majority of my audit write up done before I came to Derby (plan for months, even before recent uphevels) but I've been a bit of a lazy, moppy such-and-such and haven't really made much progress on that.  Then comes the hiccup.  I've left my work in Bristol - well the data that I had collected over the last couple of weeks.  I've got my laptop (obviously) and all the background stuff I have researched, plus access to internet for anything else that I need to lookup.  It's just hard to write up results and conclusions when you don't have the data.  So I'm going to have to see how organised I can be and get as much of it as humanly possible done, so that when I get back to Bristol, I just need to spend a couple of hours on it.  I know vaguely what the data showed, so I suppose that I can just leave a bunch of blanks for specific values and fill them in later.  A bit of a hassle, but oooooh well...!

And now, off to bed.  I can't wait to get cracking tomorrow on seeing people, even though my lack of car will make it a little tricky!  I will have to familiarise myself with bus routes to friends and also do a lot more walking... mmm, but thought, didn't bring proper walking shoes... just my boots (ok, but heeled, so will hurt sooner or later) and my brown shoes, which will just have to do the job!  Ahhhh, what adventures await!

Catching up... again

It's been ages.  And quite a tough stressful ages.  The car issue has been dragged out and I've been back in Bristol, dealing with the stress of sorting it all out and dealing with it all alone.  I know that this is a decision that I have made for myself, and I honestly don't mind, but I don't think I've ever felt it as much as I have over the last couple of weeks.  I have been in touch with my friends and family loads, but knocking around my flat by myself, time has dragged, and the loneliness dreadful.  I've felt so restless at times and so trapped at others.  I've wanted to scream and then cry.  You'll be glad to know that I haven't!  But I've felt like it!

But in amongst it all there have been positive moments, with the support of my wonderful friends.  So here it is, the story of the last few weeks.

The car:  I ended up accompanying the car, on a flat bed truck, to the insurance appointed garage, which was beyond Bristol.  Fortunately, the very lovely recovery truck driver gave me a lift back to Gloucester, from where I was able to jump on a bus and get back to Cheltenham, at the end of a very long day.  The burnt smell of the airbags lingering on me, all I wanted to do was shower and wash my hair.  And then just curl up in a ball and sleep.  I resisted the urge though, and instead went out for dinner with my coursemates, to celebrate the end of our time in Cheltenham.  I think getting out and about was good for me, to be surrounded by people and to have some distraction.

Thursday, I did allow myself to wallow.  I was suddenly hurt.  I'm not sure if it was a seatbelt injury, or if it was from holding myself tensely and shivering and shaking so much the previous day.  But I was so very sore across my chest.  And exhausted, I had barely slept.  So I stayed at home, did a little knitting, watched some stuff on my laptop and then ended up sleeping all afternoon.  Then we went out to dinner as a flat, a final bonding experience for the three of us, who had individually gone through so much in that flat, that we had shared and supported each other through.  I'm so glad to have bonded such lovely girls who I'm sure we will always look back at our time fondly and be grateful for.

Friday brought new adventures - driving again.  I had a courtesy car from my insurance company.  And I was dreading driving.  First time after my crash and also because I've hardly driven any other car since I learnt to drive.  Pleased to say, in a slightly strange, lacking kind of way, it was fine.  It was just driving.  Once I was in the car, it was almost as if nothing had happened.  One of my friends agreed to come back to Bristol with me, to act as some morale support and as a very soothing, calming influence.  And she was wonderful.  Thanks Charlotte.

And life goes on... it was back to work at the weekend.  And then the nightmare of sorting it all out.  Last week Tuesday was an overwhelming day.
1)  I learnt that the driver of the other car is making a personal claim, via a very snooty, aggressive, intimidating letter.  (Which luckily, I have legal cover with the insurance, so all I had to do was forward the letter onto the insurance company and let them deal with it all, so glad about that).  I was very upset and thrown by this letter, but I have been reassured by everyone that it's just par for the course following an accident these days.
2)  I found out about my jobs.  I will be spending the first two years if my working life in Yeovil, a place I've never been to before.  I will be doing the following rotations: F1 - endocrinology; gastric surgery; general medicine.  F2 - GP (mmmm, not something I really wanted); trauma & orthopaedics (something I wanted even less!) and finally Obstetrics and gynaecology (yay, at least I got this!).  I'm sure these two years will be full of all sorts of adventures and learning experiences
3)  The engineer from my insurance company phoned to confirm that the car is a definite write off and to let me know how much I will be receiving.

In amongst this all - the slightly more positives.
My birthday - was on a Sunday.  Was lovely and lazy, full of loving messages, and a evening meal at a pan-Asian buffet in town with some of my friends.
Uni - am currently spending four weeks doing a GP audit.  I have collected my data and then trying to get motivated enough to start writing up the results!
Knitting - Ru wristwarmers are finished.  And so are two gorgeous vests for two lovely little girls.  And now I'm busy working on a lacey scarf for Farrah, using one of the balls of hand dyed that I painted at the workshop.
Friends - random pancake evenings, random relaxing at home, watching 24, playing on the Wii, and general distractions
Visits - the Clarks came and spent an evening with me last weekend.  I crazy, busy, joyous afternoon and evening.  My little flat hasn't had that much noise in weeks combined.  It was great, and just what I needed.  Company.  We didn't do very much, we went shopping (much to the girl's horror, and only redeemed by going to the best toy shop ever!), and a lazy dinner of naan bread pizzas, and all things yarn!  It was lovely, thanks guys, and we have to do it again!

And I think that is a fairly brief summary of things.  I'm still waiting for the cheque to come through, the insurance company have had some silly delays caused by people going on holiday without filing reports.  I'm hoping to get it in the next couple of days.  And then I'm hoping to go home to Derby for a long weekend, to see my parents before they go off on holiday over Easter and to have some company to cheer me up.  I need the soothing, cathartic influence of being around those I love.

And now, some photos:
Firstly, the yarn all dried and looking so amazing, I'm so proud of my creativity and can't wait to see what it all turns out like when knitted.

Sock yarn - pink with purple lowlights

Sock yarn - much brighter green than originally intended

Final sock yarn

Silk hankie

DK for Sarah, was supposed to be turquoise and purple, but ended up blue and purple

DK in gold and earthy red tones

Scrumptious Lace (45% silk, 55% merino) in semisolid plummy colour

Scrumptious Chunky in various shades of blue, purple and red

Ru's wristwarmer's - it's very difficult to take a photo of both your hands when you're by yourself!

Playing with my new toy, a wool winder

Getting ready to start Farrah's scarf

Little vests:

Close up of Jenna's armholes, unintended two tone as I was sooooo close to running out of wool

And they fit!

And finally, my flat being filled with people

The girls helped me wind the left over wool from Morgi's vest and made just-for-her wool of Sarah's.  And not the DVDs aren't all neatly lined up.  Apparently best game in my flat for little bean hands is to pull them all off the shelves until you're sitting in a pile bigger than you!

Apparently wool-winders are great toys for all ages, not just for me!

Just looking through these photos and it amazes me just how busy and full the last few weeks have been, filled with so much bad and yet so much good.  No wonder I feel drained and not myself.  Such a rollercoaster.  But I suppose that's just life...

The week that was

It's now been about a week since I last posted, and how much can happen in a week, so of which has needed a bit of time for me to be able to talk about easily (ish).

The week started lovely with another trip to Cirencester to meet up with Lorri for dinner.  We went to a wonderful Indian restuarant, and had a lovely time.  And Lorri treated me as an early birthday pressie, since we aren't sure if she's likely to see me nearer the time.

Tuesday was a quiet night in, when I finally got round to finishing Ru's wristwarmers, (well, I say finish, I haven't quite got round to sewing in the tails).  It was a huge relief, really happy with the way they look, but am very glad to be moving onto something new, and more colourful.  Which I did, I started my latest project, a little vest for Morgan.

Then Wednesday came...  My heart starts beating faster everytime I even think about what happened on that day.  How much it changed everything.  All the negative emotions that well up in me.  I was going on a hospice visit, out in the back of beyond, and on a windy, confusing, unfamiliar country lane, I crashed my car.  I did not realise that the road wasn't a straight  road, but was actually a t-junction until too late.  I slammed on the brakes, and for the briefest time, I thought to myself, it's going to be close, I'm going to stop, I'll be shaken, but everything will be okay.  But then... I don't think I even realised until I was sitting in my car, smoke filling the air and the airbag deflating in front of me, that I couldn't avoid it.  The road was wet and slippery, and it was a slight downhill.  I had crashed into another car.  Everyone is mostly okay.  The other lady seemed to have a seatbelt injury,  and my passenger hurt her ankle somehow.  And me, I have a small graze on my knee, and a bruise from the seatbelt (I assume) and have for the last few days, some muscular pain across my chest.  My beloved Ernie is much worse for wear, and everyone who has seen him said they thought he'd be a write off, but I'm still waiting to hear from the insurance company with regards to this.   Everyone has been calm, patient and effecient.  All the emergancy services that attended the scene were fantastic and helpful.  I was so shocked and just a tad hysterical and mostly useless, so I am very grateful indeed for all the help I recieved.  And I'm very grateful for all my fantastic friends, both near and far who have been supportive and been there for me, reassuring, caring and wonderful.  There's just so much I could say about the day, and go into so much more detail, but it's hard, and I don't really have the energy to deal with it, and I don't think I particularly need to.  So that's all I'm going to say about the incident.

And for now, that's all I'm going to say about the week.  There's so much more that's happened since, so I'll tackle that tomorrow :)

Blue Hands

What a wonderful, busy, exhausting weekend, full of colour, laughing, experimenting and friends, both old and new.  On Saturday, I went to a hand-dye your own wool, at my favouritest wool shop, Get Knitted in Bristol.  And what wonderous fun it was.  It was run by Jeni, from Fyberspates (check her stuff out, absolutely stunning!) and she was so patient, generous and knowledgable.  She took us through the basics of hand-painting wool, and just allowed us all to experiment with different yarns and colours and effects.  I have to admit, I'm slightly jealous of some of the amazing things that some of the other ladies came up with, but only slightly, because I am just soooo proud of my own little collection.  The course covered three yarns (a lace, a sock and a double/chunky) but I managed to come away with eight, and only paying £5 extra for one skein, as Jeni was kind enough to give us some freebies.  So here's a little run down of the dying process:

 

Pre-soak yarn and lay out on suitable surface

 

Wear gloves (!) and mix up dye and fixer in steamy hot water

 

Start painting!

 

And a little more (this being my neighbour who was doing the same colours as me)

 

Ensure wool all covered (assuming that's what you want!) and a good bit of table coverage for good measure!

 

Have a nosy around at everyone else!  Oh and get a bag ready, and carefully shove yarn in

Place in steamer until water in bag becomes colourless

 

Allow to cool sufficiently to handle

Rinse thoroughly

 

Allow to dry (a process that will prob only be finished at the end of the week)

Select next yarn to play with!

And repeat

 

and again

And so forth... until:

 

Your clothes horse ends up looking like this, and despite your fairly best efforts with wearing gloves your hands end up like this:

 

Oh dear, what would the patient's say?

They all seem to be taking ages to dry, which is annoying when all you want to do is play!  The dye is fading on my hands, but my cuticles still seem fairly worse for wear!  Ooops! 

I love the colour of my lace skein (the middle row, middle skein).  I spent ages mixing the colours (suggested by Jeni) to get the right colour that I was after.  And I'm very happy with it.  It's only one colour, but with varying pentrance of the dye to get a semi-solid colour effect.  A lovely grapey/mullberry colour.  The green was the less successful colour experiment, I wasn't really wanting such bright limey greens, but I love it all the same!  I was aiming for more natural shades.  

Here are some of the other yarns I liked the looks of:

(some of these are mine)

 

 

I could go on, but I won't!  It is after all beyond my bedtime.  Sweet colourful dreams everyone!

Catching up

Wow, this really is a slippery slope.  Just a few days without posting everyday and then it just gets longer and longer between posts.  Oooops.  There's no particular reason for having not posted for nearly four days, it's a combo of having really dull days followed by very busy days.  And the now usual lack of sleep in Cheltenham making me exhausted.  So here we go, a quick catch up over lunch, and I have loads to say, so let's see how far I get.

I slept absolutely awfully on Sunday night, but fortunately I didn't have anything going on on Monday besides my nine o'clock seminar.  So I yawned my way home and curled up in bed and ended up sleeping for about three hours!  It was soooo needed that I don't feel entirely guilty for avoiding going to the wards and clerking.  I really don't think I would have got much benefit out of it.

Tuesday was by far my busiest day so far this week.  Nine o'clock seminar.  Followed by clerking with a friend.  First clerking I've done in weeks so it was really good to have someone there with me, as (a) kind of obliges me to get on with it! and (b) good for feedback on things that need improving on or are just a little rusty from having not done it for a while.  In the middle of my clerking, one of the other medical students came and dragged me to the corridor.  Just to let me know (at 11am) that I would be having my first exam of the year at 2pm.  Ahh, advance warning always so great!  The organisation here in Cheltenham has been rather questionable!  But there you go.  So after rattling around for a bit at lunchtime, moaning via text to Sarah (thanks for listening!) and trying to get it straight in my head how I felt about it all.  The exam was an observed long case - a new introduction to have them so early in the year this year, but basically the exam format which is responsible for me still being here at medical school rather than being out there in the big bad world, actually being a doctor.  How could I feel anything but negativity toward this exam?  Fortunately, it never really dawned in properly or felt real, so that avoided a lot of the nasty nerves.  I was surprisingly relaxed during the exam, much more so than during the exams last year.  I don't know what to make of it, but I got some very positive feedback, and I got a chance to really talk it through with the doctor who was examining me, and she said "there were no major pass/fail points" which I don't know if that meant I passed overall, or there was no one big thing that I would fail on that I really messed up.... so who knows.  I don't know when I'm likely to find out what I scored/if I passed.  So I'm just in limbo, but feeling relatively happy about it.

Then Tuesday evening I drove to Cirencester to meet up with Lorri and have dinner.  Which was lovely, and just what I needed after the unexpected exam.  I love catching up with Lorri, and she spoils me rotten when we have dinner, taking pity on the poor student.  We have a deal that with my first pay cheque, I'm going to repay the favour, but at this rate, I'm going to have to take her to Paris for a meal or maybe the Ritz or something crazy like that, either way, something big!  Lol!  I'm so lucky to have such amazing friends.  It was an okay meal, Lorri's steak was over cooked, and the humous wasn't humous, but I did have a very very tasty ginger and honey icecream for desert.  Mmmm *licks lips*!  And it was lovely just to be with a friend, and have a really good catch up.  Lorri is working and staying in Swindon at the moment, hence meeting in Cirencester, which is more of less half way between Cheltenham and Swindon, taking us each almost exactly half an hour to get there.  We're planning to do it again next week, choosing a different restaurant this time though.

Yesterday I had about as lazy a day as possible.  I was exhausted and didn't really have anything on in the hospital, so I stayed in bed (in the morning) and in my pjs most of the day.  Watched stuff on my laptop, dozed, and eventually got round to knitting a little bit, making a start on the second wrist warmer.  Eventually at about 5, I decided enough was enough and put some clothes on and forced myself to go to get milk!  Ohhh, it's a tough life I lead. Then in the evening I went with one of my course mates to go see Sherlock Holmes, making the most of Orange Wednesdays and having a cinema about a minute's walk away.  It was pretty good.  Predictably a bit about the violence and explosions.  But I did quite enjoy it, and I've been meaning to see it for ages now.  So can cross it off the list!

And here we are, back to Thursday.  I overslept this morning so was late to my teaching first thing.  Ooops.  Then am about to head in for "on call", whatever that will entail and maybe have some consultant teaching.

So I had better get going.  I have a few more things to say about my weekend, but I will have to leave that for now, but I am well excited about my plans!

Back in stinky Cheltenham

No, it actually does stink, well, in the kitchen at least (full bin and crazy heating.... mmmm, tasty smells there!)

So the delights of being back to Cheltenham, and after a weekend of... well, not much.  I'm really finding it hard to think of things to talk about here that aren't tedious running commentries of my life or moans that I've already had. 

Work was work.  Actually a very barable shift.  Nice patients, nice nurses, enough work to keep me busy and not twiddling my thumbs but not too busy to actually get everything done whilst still chatting to patients.  So that was good.  I honestly really find it hard to say that I enjoy work, I just don't find it a particularly rewarding job, it's just a means to an end.  And it makes me crave being a doctor and doing what I feel passionate about all the more.

This morning I finally got round to getting out of bed early enough to go to my local CofE church, as part of my quest to find a church that will give me what I need/want/think I need out of church.  It was a nice short walk up there, listening to the bells.  Very old school traditional!  It was Candlemas today, so it was interesting to see, as I've never been to a Candlemas  before, but I suppose it wasn't their usual sort of service, so I think I will try to make it back next week and try a more run of the mill kind of mass.  There was a lot of pomp and ceremony, which I do find a little needless in Christianity.  But I did get to take communion, for the first time in years, so that was nice, as I do believe it is an important part of church and practising Christianity.  I definitely left the church feeling very moved, relaxed and content.  I don't know if I learnt anything necessarily faith-strengthening, but I did enjoy it, and I'm hoping next week will be good too.  And they were very friendly and welcoming, so that definitely counts in their favour.

And finally, the wristwarmer is still not done, but very nearly.  I'm just debating on the length of the palm part, but hopefully will finish that tomorrow, along with the thumb, which shouldn't take too long at all.  So yipee, nearly half way!

 

(not entirely sure why I looks so shocked and dazed in this pic... I took it, I knew it was coming... lol!)