Thinking about friends

Thanks so much for all the well wishes after my last post.  I haven’t replied to everyone – but all your kind words have really made a difference to me.

Of course, when you are moving countries, you think a lot about friendships, and I’ve been saying good-bye to a lot of wonderful people.  Tomorrow, I’ll be having lunch with Siow Chin and some other Hong Kong knitters, and I’ve already said good-bye to my beloved Friday afternoon knitting group.  They gave me a gorgeous necklace (and cute sheep tape measure) which are sadly un-photographed, because the packers have been surprisingly quick.

My move to Sydney will be easier than most, I already have family and friends there.  Apart from real life friends, I’ll still have the blog world, and it is a very comforting constant.  I’ve found that the energy that I put into blogging has been repaid many times with friendships that span the globe, and some very entertaining and thoughtful email exchanges. There’s nothing like receiving an email that makes you spray wine out of your nose (not mentioning anyone in particular).

Not so long ago, I became more of a regular commenter on Soozs’ blog, and in particular, I admired this bag. Within a very short time, Suzie had suggested a swap, and I was keen to participate, but anxious about what to make.

A couple of weeks ago, I received this gorgeous bag.

With, a matching sunglasses case and a CD. It is a fantastic gift. The bag is exactly the kind of thing that I would make if I had better taste.  Thanks a lot, Suzie.

It took me some time to get my parcel in the mail, but it is gone now.  Through my extremely inexpert and slapdash dyeing, some Kiama nearly met a sticky end (I need to restrain myself when rinsing and overdyeing).

My anxiety levels have been pretty high in the last 10 days, and I had not been knitting or playing with yarn.  On Sunday, I took a break from endless organising and wrangling, and skeined some Colourmart  cashmere.   I actually googled washing instructions for it, and came back to my own blog.  I double stranded the 2/13 weight yarn to approximate a heavy fingering weight, and intend to make older daughter this hat for her December birthday.  There’s nothing like winding some supersoft cashmere to calm me down. You can see a couple of cakes of it under the sunglasses case.

Back to the packing – I will probably be out of blogging action for a couple of weeks while the fireman and I share a laptop.

This week

I was going to write a post about medical miracles – my father had deep brain stimulation surgery to treat Parkinson’s last week, and it has had a miraculous effect, and after years of declining function, he has has renewed energy and abilities, and he is back, enjoying his retirement, and will be deep sea fishing soon. This article pretty much describes what Dad went through, and the effect it also had on him. He looks amazing, apart from some rather scary scars and shaved head.  I’m pretty sure he’s happy for the world to know about the surgery, he did tell the local paper!

Unfortunately, major brain surgery on my father is only one of the significant medical events happening in my family.  The family emergency which required the temporary closure of Yarn Workshop in September has become significantly worse, with the patient (who has entirely reasonably requested privacy), being diagnosed with a another life threatening condition that is going to require months of significant medical treatment. I’ll be doing more knitting in hospital corridors.

We only have a few certainties,  Yarn Workshop will go into temporary hiatus from 13 November 2009 until it is unpacked in Sydney Australia; and we are in the fortunate position where the Fireman has a job in Sydney. Apart from that, we do not know when we move, where we will move to, whether we will put the kids into school for the dregs of the Australian school year.  A few things to figure out.

I’ve recently come across A Commonplace Life via a-black-pepper, and decided to participate in her concept Moments. I edit what goes on in this blog fairly ruthlessly (so you can probably guess how discombobulated my life actually is), but in the photo below you see my dining room on Thursday.

For me, this actually isn’t that messy.  There is only one package on the dining table awaiting shipping, one old Koolhaas being stretched into a new shape (effectively as it turns out), the sewing machine which has been in same position for the last three weeks, and stacks of books and papers. The skein of alpaca over the far dining chair has been there for at least 4 weeks.  It is awaiting overdyeing. The books and papers situation does not improve around the house, and the guiltiest part of it all is that we actually have a live-in housekeeper who is maniacally tidy.

When we moved to Hong Kong, it became apparent that we had no reasonably priced child care  options apart from a live in helper (and I mean none – there are no child care centres for working parents, and we have no family here). N started with us, and stayed when I returned to full time work, and is still with us now. I manage to turn her tidiness into mess.

When we return to Australia, she will not be able to come with us (because of Australia’s immigration laws), and it will be a big readjustment for our family.  I’ve taken care of our kids without a helper, and am not so concerned about that aspect, but the girls have known her nearly all their lives, and for them it will be a real loss. Older daughter seems to have inherited a recessive tidy gene, so for her, the change will be really dramatic. What does it say when you actually have a housekeeper, and your house ends up looking like this?

In other news, I’ve updated my “About” page, and formalised my husband’s blog identity as “the Fireman”.  He really was a professional firefighter when I met him (over 10 years in the NSW Fire Brigade), and he is still wonderfully calm in the face of a crisis.