Tuesday 21 October 2008

West Shore Camp – The House

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I have barely knitted a stitch since I have arrived in Canada. I did manage to pop along to a knitting meet up at The Grind (a coffee shop for those of you with minds as wayward as my own!) on Sunday but the fact that there was a very large skip (bin) sitting in the back yard at home was enough to cause me fidget uncomfortably with my needles.

How long have I been here now - two weeks? Is it three? Where are the weeks going? It's a bit different being somewhere to live, rather than being someplace on holiday. We did go to the Vancouver Aquarium with the Fella's son at Thanksgiving but otherwise, I haven't been anywhere much or done anything specifically exciting. Actually, the past three weeks have been a bit odd. Despite being:

  • jetlagged
  • exhausted after everything that needed to be done in the UK
  • spending three days scrubbing clean (literally) the main room of the Fella's house in preparation for his family's descent at Thanksgiving...

...by Wednesday evening of the first week I had almost dashed my own brains out against the walls of the house, out of frustration of not having anything proper to do - y'know, the not being at work thing? I was climbing the walls. How do people without work cope?

Luckily, I regained my sense of perspective and focus when I attended the first day of my course the next day - I am not sure that I have ever been more pleased to be trapped at a professional development event, in a darkened, stuffy ballroom with all of the curtains drawn for the projector. It seems that the university are running all of my course modules in a hotel - so I expect more of the same between now and March.

I was further cheered up by the arrival of my yarn and fabric stash boxes via Fedex on Friday of the first week that I was here - so why, with everything delivered, haven't I thrown myself into my stash and got on with everything I know that I should be doing? After all, my Christmas knitting is not going to take care of itself!

Well, although I feel now that I could allow a ball of yarn to roll across the floor here without it picking up a thick, bachelor coating of dust and other dubious, unidentified debris, I have heard myself blaming Thanksgiving, that there is nowhere set up for me to unpack my stash into and there's not much point trying to set up any of my sewing stuff without a sewing machine. Rubbish, eh? If I wanted to do something, I am sure that I could.

I suspect that it is closer to the truth that I find it difficult to justify sitting down to either knit or sew when there is so much around me in terms of the house and its garden that needs to be sorted out? A year ago, when I came to visit the Fella in Vancouver, we discussed the things that he would like to do to his house. I was very encouraging as his house was long overdue some care and maintenance. We created a list on the blog that we set up as one of our long distance communications tools.

To his credit, the Fella has tackled as many of the tasks as work and regular visits to the UK have allowed - however, the list was, and still is, long. So, as this is my home for the next six months, as I tend to climb the walls without enough to do and it seems that I cannot settle to knit with so much around me that needs to be done – I guess that it is natural for me to pitch in and help?

After all, the sooner that it is done, the sooner I can unpack my stash?!

So for the next few weeks there may not be a great deal of knitting to see on my blog. I will do my best to share some of the work that is going on at the house instead!

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