Craaaazy Zauberball! April 21, 2010
Posted by Fiona in Bwargh, Durham, Knitting, Look what I did, Sheer bloody-mindedness.trackback
When they say it…
They mean it!
Train knitting for the journey back up to uni: basic 72-stitch toe-up sock, 2.25mm needles, Crazy Zauberball yarn. Seriously. The colours on this thing are MENTAL. The yarn is a 2-ply (meaning it’s two strands wound together), you can see from the pictures that the two plys are different colours and the colour changes along them have very long repeats. Which means some of the combinations are spectacular. It’s all about the colour for me: people tell me on a regular basis that the yarns I knit with are eye-wateringly bright, or clashing, or just a bit weird. And yes, yes they are. But interestingly, not one person says that when I’ve knitted something up out of them. I know I’m a bit outlandish but I do find it interesting that people can be so afraid of colour. Look at it! That right there is 420 yards of exuberance.
Back to the sock. I thought I hadn’t knit a plain vanilla sock in a while, and all these patterns and calculations and what have you, they’re wearing me out a bit. This is comfort knitting: a smashing yarn, some lovely needles (Knit Pro Symfonie DPNs, which I love with all my heart and work really well here because they’re really bright colours too, just like the socks!) and just… keep knitting. Don’t think about it, just keep going. It’s been eight months or so since I last had the urge to just knit something simple, and every so often, it’s just a bit of fresh air.
Unrelatedly, and because it’s at the forefront of my mind right now (apologies to the vaguely squeamish and/or awkward): I thought I’d been a bit over-hormonal recently. Haven’t had cramps this bad since I was fifteen. Yesterday, someone told me aerobic exercise was good for this sort of thing. After I’d finished laughing heartily and taken another ibuprofen, I wondered if you lot might have something better to suggest, because I’ve left my hot water bottle the other end of the country and this is agony.
de minimis 
I like colours 😀
catmint tea, if you can get catmint. If not, peppermint tea works almost as well.
Take shallow, panting breaths when it gets really bad; you have to treat it like contractions when you’re giving birth because (hurrah, hurrah)it’s essentially a mild version of that.
Gentle massage helps, and if you haven’t a hot water bottle, either use a warm flannel/towel, or GET SOMEONE TO GO AND GET ONE!
And stay in bed, eat chocolate (if it’s not so bad that you throw up) and watch distracting things on iPlayer, and try not to think about it.
(Says the girl who used to miss two days of school a month for it, and once fell down some stairs, but after this morning suddenly feels lucky – because it could’ve been so much worse!)
Cxxx
It makes me smile/weirds me out when people post comments simultaneously…
Solution: buy another hot water bottle. As someone who’s going through the same repeated agony as last month, trust me that there really is no better prescription.
(Or ask your GP for mefenamic acid, of course)
mefenamic acid is the god(dess?) of painkillers. I worship those pills.
Thank you for your suggestions, I shall see what I can do about taking them. Since the Advent Of The Lady-Drugs, I’ve not had so much of a problem with this sort of thing. I’m still a crabby bitch but at least I’m usually upright. Maybe every three or four months, though, I get a really horrible one. I’m so much luckier than the poor sods who get this every month.
Is this essentially childbirth-lite? Good lord. How interesting. Looking forward to *that*, then…
Yeah, although childbirth has the added complication of forcing something apparently roughly the size of a few small melons out of there…
but there we go.
Lady-Drugs are marvellous 🙂
Cxxx
If it is really really bad and you can afford it, get a TENS machine from Boots (other outlets are available). As used for childbirth, but seriously wonderful drug-free pain relief for any womanly issues!
P.S Love the zauberball!
Punching Elford is the only thing that makes me feel better when I’m on.
And what I meant to add, was you’re very welcome to borrow him. I can send him up recorded delivery if you like.
I think it’s all been said. I’ve been known to black out before, too. JOYS. Boys-as-punching-bags also a good tip though try not to leave bruising, people start to suspect abuse…! Get someone to buy you a hot water bottle, it’s not worth worrying about owning two/spending the money, you know it’s worth it. Or a wheatie bag – I prefer those because they weigh less and are more malleable and therefore reach a larger surface area of your body (P’s ma gave me an ingenious crescent-shaped one which was pretty much ideal) although they do also lose heat faster.
On an entirely unrelated note, have attached a couple of Steve Knightley songs over email (got your address from my blog comments page). Happy to send mroe although currently have to dash – let me know if it’s worked and I can try to send you the rest of the album albeit in bits. Or I can try and zip them if you have/download WinRAR (it’s free, ignore their nonsense about ‘Free Trial’ when they come up with an expiry message forty days later and you should be fine). Or I can make you a CD but getting my act together to organise that might take a while…!