Cuppa

Betsy and I were the first up this morning and went to the park on our bikes. We were there by 8.30, and as you can see, took a flask of tea with us!

It was just starting to drizzle when we got there, and an hour later when we were on our way home the rain had really started, and didn't stop for the rest of the day.

We went to Hobbycraft (how I love that shop!) to buy things to make Christmas cards. We make cards every year and I'm dreading the year that the children are too old for it as I love making things no matter how inept I may be, and I will want to make them for many years yet I expect. My friend says I can make them with her daughter who is now just one year old so hopefully I've got a few years yet of messing about with glue and glitter and stickers and stamps and pretending it's a project for the children.

Anyway, the children - not to mention Chris - are sadly not interested in Hobbycraft so I was only in there for about 30 minutes which is about 1/3 of the time I would have actually like to spend browsing. I consider myself to be a craft geek but even I am taken aback by the supplies you can get there and the realisation that there are so many people out there making so many weird and wonderful things! There are magazines for everything, no matter how obscure, and I can't believe what you can buy and what you can make. I don't 'get' lots of it but I am well aware that lots and lots of people (even some of my closest friends) consider my love for things like knitting and crochet to be eccentric at best, and downright peculiar at worst, so I wouldn't like to criticise any of it. Those who don't know the joy of creating something from scratch are the poorer for it I think, and I have long since given up worrying about people thinking that it's weird that I do knitting. One friend of mine was embarrassed that she was taking up her own curtains once when I arrived unexpectely - she thought that owning her own sewing machine and being able to use it was a bit mad old lady. Needless to say, she is one of the people who tells me that knitting and crochet is really mental and embarrassing and I should stop! I don't mind, I can't imagine doing nothing creative, but I wonder why singing or drawing or playing a musical instrument is considered to be a good thing to do - even if you are bad at it - but knitting, sewing, embroidery is considered to be mad? Actually - I don't wonder really. Anything that has been traditonally a female art will always be undervalued for that reason alone. I saw some wonderful art once, a (female) artist had made beautiful embroidered copies of drawings from medical dictonaries sewn onto the pages of medical text books. She was commenting on the link between embroidery or sewing by women at home and of (mostly male) surgeons sewing wounds closed. I can't remember her name but it was really beautiful and clever. I particularly like mixtures of textiles and sewing with print and type, I love Louise Borgious who was a master at it - and incidentally, commenting on the domestic and the female perspective.

Anyway! Ramble over!