Freshers’ Croup

(I refuse to call it the flu.  It’s far worse.)

So I’ve spent most of the last week either ill in bed or trying to pretend I’m not ill and that alcohol/caffeine makes it all better.  It’s my own fault, of course – I started feeling sick on Tuesday afternoon but insisting on spending Tuesday evening learning a new waltz routine, then standing in a lighting box in total darkness for an hour and a half, and then helping with a get-out til two in the morning.  I say helping.  By that point I could barely stand up without feeling like my insides were shortly to become my outsides.

The result of which is that I spent at least half of the next two days asleep, watched the first episode of Criminal Justice (and isn’t it just nail biting?), read the entirety of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book – which I fully recommend and am slightly sad to have finished so quickly, and generally did no work in the least.

On the plus side, Marcus came up for the last few days and I’ve discovered somewhere on the way between the pub and home to get falafel at two in the morning.  Life is, if not good, then half-decent.

You may notice that we have internets now (hurrah) which is earlier than expected and therefore All Good.  You’d think that not having it would have meant that I’d have got more done – not so.  The fact is that not having internet meant I wasted a good three quarters of an hour every time I got into the library checking e-mails, of which there were a good page or so every time I looked, then Facebook, blog, Ravelry… which meant that actually, the time I usually set aside for doing two hours at a time of work only accomplished an hour and a quarter’s worth.  Not clever.

It also meant that the only way I had to calm myself down and do mindless enjoyable things was to knit.  So I’ve done quite a lot of that.  The Super Secret Surprise Sock is coming on in leaps and bounds.  It looks wonderful and feels so strokeable – it’s the first time I’ve ever knitted with cashmere and it’s gloriously soft and warm.  I’ve also done about the first three inches of another sock, Rick by Cookie A from her book Sock Innovation – partly because I got a bit trigger-happy with the starting of new projects and wanted to knit something simple-ish that looked a bit impressive, partly because I had some lovely green Cherry Tree Hill Supersock that I got from the I Knit Weekender that was simply begging for a pattern that was simple-ish but looked a bit impressive, and partly because, well, I ❤ Cookie A.  She’s just wonderful.  And a disgustingly competent designer of far-too-addictive patterns.  Photographic evidence of the latter to follow.

I just can’t leave the knitting alone, sorry.

And now I’m going to do what I decided to do about half an hour ago: lie in bed, sock in progress, and eat chocolate and watch iPlayer.  Because I’m Ill, and therefore it’s excuseable.