A decision and some sadness

I decided to try the carnival yarn, being self patterning so lending itself to my basic sock pattern, I'm still debating combining Jaywalkers with the tiger yarn. The colours have changed a bit in the picture, the blue is more turqouoise and the orange is really yellow! I'm working from the middle of the ball, makes it more interesting, but I think I'll have to try and make the second sock match with this yarn as the stripes are so wide and obvious. I'm not sure if I like the sock yet, it's not like some colours where I've fallen instantly in love or loathing.


I've been busy today, doing domesticated stuff, cooked a proper dinner (something I rarely do) done several lots of washing and made my usual batch of chicken and vegetable soup with pearl barley, if I get it right that lasts me 3 days at least of the week so I don't have to cook when I get in, I just don't have the time and end up eating prepackaged stuff or junk food if I'm not careful.

I did spend some time watching TV while I was sock knitting, I found myself getting thoroughly depressed, I was watching old episodes of the programmes made by Fred Dibnah, all about our industrial heritage, you may remember the days when the UK used to have a steel making and a mining industry? Not that long ago I was given the job of talking to a work experience student in our office about our trade union, it was like talking to someone from another planet, she had no idea why trade unions came into existence, had never heard of Arthur Scargill, nor of the Liverpool dock strike. It's very hard to explain to someone born after Margaret Thatcher and her cohorts came to power that 'once upon a time' workers stood by each other and fought for the rights of all rather than for their own personal benefit.

Then I watched Antiques Roadshow, a man brought in 2 cracked and scruffy pieces of crockery with bubbled glaze, the expert said that they had no financial worth, but their true value was in their story, they had been picked up from Hiroshima by a medical orderly sent to help survivors of the atomic bomb. Temperatures 6 miles from the centre of Hiroshima had been so high that ghe glaze had melted - over 1000 degress Centigrade, I can't imagine not being moved by the site of those 2 pathetic items.