Now to start the year proper…….

February 1st 2016 – our Big Girl’s birthday. Happy Birthday J.   Born (at home) during one of the worst winter England had experienced.  Know as The Big Freeze of 1963 all I can say is central heating was still a luxury – we had poky little coal fires in the big old house we lived in and it was cold!  But we survived lol

So here we are at the start of the second month of this year – time to start the year proper.  All the Christmas and New Year festivities are definitely over and done with, people are back at work, business’ are trading again, our dollar is still sinking, the school bus is going past a 8am which means the schools are back after the long summer break.  That fact was reinforced last week by the the usual tv coverage of 5yr olds, some putting on a very brave face as well as many sets of twins, making their way into class rooms for the first time.  Oh and Federal MPs returned to Canberra today after their long summer break – wonder what unknown surprises they have in store for us there ??  Raising the GST ??

The Australian Open tennis tournament finished yesterday, no surprises in that Novac Djokovic beat Andy Murray (who might get more support if he spent more time thinking about his game and less mouthing off at all and sundry) and a big surprise win for Angelique Kerber over Serina Williams (who was very gracious in defeat).

Cricket seemed to come good towards the end of the season – there were many visiting overseas teams (West Indies, India, Pakistan,New Zealand), there were Test matches which included a first ever day/night Test and also some very ho hum matches which seemed to go on for ever, followed by some very good T20 against India who proved they certainly could hit that ball for a six and succeeded in beating Australia in all three games.

And of course there was the entertaining Big Bash league – all good fun, which isn’t how I viewed it when it first to began – ‘loud noisy bash and crash, no proper thought to how they played the game’ – until I came to understand it isn’t the same sort of ‘pure’ game like in Test matches or even the shortened day nighter T20 (20/20) games but is a form of its own.  And like it or not it appears to be here to stay.

‘The Big Bash not only attracts the best players in Australia, although many will be on Test match duty, but the best players from around the world. That includes some of the West Indies best players who have decided to forgo the Test series against Australia to play in the Big Bash’
http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/12/15/who-are-the-big-names-in-your-team-for-the-2015-2016-big-bash-league/

With all that cricket and tennis, oh, and the cycling road racing that was on in South Australia (which I forgot to mention) looking back over the past two weeks it seems like I watched a lot of sport on tv lol but I wasn’t just sitting there oggled eyed, I did do (what else??) a lot of knitting at the same time.

I know I have them (and I’m sure most knitters do as well) those favourite simple, ‘could almost do it blindfold’ knitting patterns.  The one above I found quite a few years ago and the v neck style is my ‘go to’ for a lot of the under 12 months charity cardigans I make.  Knitters know once the basic size is there the world is your oyster and with the aid of pen and paper for ‘workings out’ my oysters come in all colours and designs.  These coloured ones below are some from last year – and yes, I know I made a mistake in the yellow one (Only I didn’t discover it until after I’d delivered the big box and decided to look at the photos I had taken 😦 )

KOGO has a ‘Give a baby a warm start’ programme where struggling new mums are given baby packs containing knitted items, so as well as coloured cardigans, I knit lots of new born baby sizes in white which can be used for either boys or girls.  A couple of weeks ago armed with a huge 200gm ball of 8ply I made a start.  It’s surprising how quickly it knits up and as these are only the 3-6 month size they are finished in no time.

 

So at the moment it’s 2 down and another half finished.  I’ve read a bit of the book I mentioned previously but even tho’ I’m good at doing some things at the same time, I don’t seem to have mastered the art of knitting watching tv and reading at the same time 🙂

The sun is shining today and it’s not raining, we had oodles this past week but scratch below the surface of the ground and you wouldn’t know.  Still it’s soft enough to do a bit of weeding so that’s where I’m off to now – maybe I’ll have a cup of coffee and read for a while later.  It would seem my tv binge watching is over for a while and it’s Hello to the Year Proper 🙂