Knitting punctuation

My photostream is punctuated with knitting at the moment.
  

There are so many good, big, things going on at the moment: birthdays, visits from small cousins, exams and essays (not just for me), high school open evenings and open mornings, meet-ups with grandparents and plans for my next placement.  And in between all these important things, I knit a row here and there, cast on, rummage through patterns and consider yarn choices.  I can lose myself in knitting more and more as I get better at it; and the ability to switch off, take some time for myself and be creative is so important for my mental health and general outlook on life.



Before I started my nursing degree, I rarely considered my emotional wellbeing - but now I am mindful of the very great stresses of the profession I am going into, as well as the more obvious stresses right now of a full-time degree, two children, four chickens and a husband trying to valiantly pick up all the pieces.  I also come across so many issues to do with people's every day mental health and wellbeing during my training.
  

I now consciously try to incorporate activities into my life which make me stop, think, slow down and enjoy things.  Running is great, walking as much as I can is very good too.  Photography (just snaps on my phone) is a great tool for observing the smaller, prettier, more interesting things about my day.

And knitting.  The soft squidge of the wool is so therapeutic.  The sense of accomplishment is enormous.  The colours and textures of what comes off the needles is both interesting and pleasing.

I'm not talking here about resolving serious mental health conditions by knitting and taking photos - mental health issues need trained nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals to treat them properly.  But rather, it is about everyday mental wellbeing.  So much is spoken about a healthy lifestyle in terms of stopping smoking, eating well, keeping your heart healthy, or your joints in good condition - but keeping your mind healthy is not discussed or promoted as much.

The NHS Choices website has a good basic article about 5 steps to mental wellbeing, and The Mental Health Foundation has some popular, free wellbeing podcasts as well as a good article on 10 ways everybody can look after their mental health.  They don't mention the healing power of squidging lots of balls of wool, but they still have some pretty good advice and tips.

What about you?  Is knitting the key to your mental wellbeing?  Do you consider your mental health alongside your physical health?  How do you switch off and look after yourself?

10 things

• I am in denial about the fact that Cam goes back to school tomorrow and Olivia on Thursday.  I don't want this summer holiday with them to end.  I'm used to hanging out with them; I miss them when they're at school.

Cam, volunteering at parkrun in Hackney last week

• However, at the same time I am VERY excited to find myself in September.  I love September, and I love the autumn - it is definitely my favourite time of year.
• My early morning runs in Epping Forest are heart-breakingly beautiful at the moment: mist, herons flying overhead, cobwebs covered with dew, the trees just on the turn from green to gold.  I find myself energised by both the run and the spectacular scenery.

Dawn in the forest

Epping Forest during a dawn run this morning

• I have a smartphone for the first time ever, and my eyes have been opened to the wonders of Instagram (where I am thelistwriter) and this Relaxing Sounds of Nature app. I play the nature sounds in the middle of the night when I am awake and reading my Kindle, while I am cooking breakfast if Radio 4 gets too argumentative, and while I am folding washing or paying bills.  It makes everything just much nicer.
• While I was setting up my phone I also reviewed all the podcasts I subscribe to.  I took off a few that I'd stopped listening to, and added on some new ones: Seven Ages of Science, 1913: The Year Before, UK Confidential and Inside the Ethics Committee.  If The Reunion was a podcast I'd have subscribed to that too, but it isn't so you have to remember to catch up on iPlayer.
• I've had such a long holiday from University, that I've started to forget that I'm actually a student nurse.  When the children go back to school, my studying resumes too.  I'm easing myself back in by spending the day with a friend at the newly refubished Royal College of Nursing library and heritage centre, just off Oxford Street.  There will be some studying and much catching up about our summer holidays.
• I need to squeeze in another blackberrying trip or two over the next few weeks.  The brambles in Epping Forest are still groaning with sweet fruit.
•  The lawnmower has broken, my beloved Kindle is misbehaving and may be broken and I have just handed over what feels like my entire income for September to Clarks, M&S school uniform department and the local optician.  This the other downside of the end of the school summer holidays - the children are each a shoe size and a half bigger than they were in the summer term, and at least two clothing sizes bigger.  I'm not even exaggerating - they are gowing like weeds at the moment.
• Graham went camping with his triathlon club at the weekend, and I realised that this has been the only camping trip by our family this summer.  How did I let that happen?
• I have another baby niece on the way, and am stalking Ravelry looking for inspiration.  She will be my seventh niece/nephew, and the excitement does not diminish in the slightest with each new arrival - who will she be? what will she look like?  So exciting to have another little person in the family.

Geraniums - instagrammed by Cam on my phone

 

The List of Pleasing Things

• Reading The Fine Colour of Rust by P.A. O'Reilly which introduced me to the concept of The List of Pleasing Things.  An excellent book by an Australian writer.  I want to read more from her.
• A day with my sister and her new baby.  My little niece is smiling and cooing.  She tells me she likes handknits best of all, which is a good thing really.
• Dithering over whether to have a chocolate croissant (made by C for Mothering Sunday) or a piece of chocolate crunch (made by O for Mothering Sunday) with my mid-morning coffee.  My veins mostly runneth with butter and chocolate this week.  Not wholly a bad thing.



C with one of his handmade chocolate croissants - as delicious as you might think

• Sunshine and daffodils. I'm still not tired of them.  Plus my most elderly and stately hen just started laying again to celebrate the new season.
• Catching sight of a new trophy on the mantelpiece.  Auntie Alison and Uncle Richard came over for a Just Dance dance-off at the weekend, and brought a trophy with them, which was eventually won by C and O.  There will be a re-match later in the spring, and the children are going to have to do some serious practise to retain the title.



Uncle Richard and O set a very high standard



Victorious children with their trophy

• Making contact with long-lost family members in America.  Hearing their amazing stories and marvelling at their openness and friendship.
• Listening to the properly excellent Sport and the British presented by Clare Balding on Radio 4 (available on podacast and on iPlayer).  Clare Balding is one of my favourite broadcasters; she has such a beautifully clear voice, and the series is fascinating.

10 things

• I have now been married for six days and I find I like being married very much.
• We stopped off on our journey home from France at a small village called Camiers, in the Baie de Somme.  We visited St Cécile Plage for some fresh air and exercise after spending all day in the car, and the family was divided along boy-girl lines about whether the sideways wind, whipping in from the Atlantic, was bracing and energising, or just plain miserable and cold.

• It is knitting season again for me - I have picked up all those half-finished projects from earlier in the year and am looking forward to some quality autumn television to keep me company in the evenings while I knit.
• C has been learning all about Spam from his favourite podcast, Stuff You Should Know.  He has been listening to this podcast for a couple of years and has the most incredible and eclectic general knowledge as a result.  The Spam episode really intruigued him and he has been begging me for weeks to buy him a tin and let him experiment.  He made us Spam burgers for lunch on Tuesday and has declared he wants to work his way through the whole recipe section of the website.  Despite this alarming development, I'd still really recommend the podcast for any curious young people you know.

• To compensate for the arrival of Spam in the house, I have been roasting vegetables.  Last night we had this roasted butternut squash on top of a cottage pie instead of the usual mashed potato.  Very good.

• I brought some lovely French notebooks and coloured pencils home with me.  I really love this post from Joanne about how to pluck up the courage to use a pristine new notebook.
• This is my new handcream of choice.  My hands need annointing with a great deal of handcream in order not to become scaly, itchy paws.  This one has a beatiful tube, smells lovely and does the job very well.
• C starts secondary school next week.  He is very excited and has learnt how to tie his tie.  I am charging my camera ready to take loads of First Day Photos.  I still love the ones I took of his first day at primary school so many years ago.
• I have a great many baking plans for the next couple of weeks, to ease the transition back to school for C and O.  My parents gave me these silicone madeleine moulds for my birthday so madeleines will be first on my list; I love their little shell shapes.  Nigella Lawson has a recipe for rosewater scented madeleines in Domestic Goddess which sound wonderful.

• Moss Stitch and I are itching to get back to our weekday walks.  We are meeting up this week to Make Plans.

Out and about

Statue of a ballerina, outside the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden

Central London on a damp September morning:

• Functional sports raincoats on the tube - Altura, Berghaus and Peter Storm.  Just one, rather dashing, belted trench coat.
• An exchange of travel stories in the Primrose Bakery - "darling, there was a spider THIS big and she didn't even blink!"
• A large, tofu-coloured van, delivering tofu to the Royal Opera House.
• Europe's largest bookshop getting ready for an important book signing on Friday. The staff were fretting about whether there were enough sofas on the first floor.
• A policeman on a Piccadilly Line train, standing feet apart, arms folded, staring down the length of the carriage.  I thought to myself, what a great way to people watch.
• Enticing smells coming from the bistros and cafes in Covent Garden.
• Small children from schools all over London visiting the British Museum to look at the Egyptian mummies - "It's GROSS!  They have jars full of BRAINS!".

I'd got cabin fever from sitting in the house sewing for the best part of two weeks, so I treated myself to a morning out today. 

I went to the British Museum (via a mysteriously circuitous route that also incorporated Waterstones in Piccadilly and the Primrose Bakery in Covent Garden) with my iPod, so that I could listen to some of the podcasts of A History of the World in 100 Objects, whilst looking at the objects themselves.

I have been meaning to do this since the podcasts began back in January.  But every time I go to the museum, I seem to have C or O with me, and gazing at a miniature Incan gold llama for fifteen minutes while I listen to a podcast on my headphones is not very interesting for them.  This had to be a solitary pleasure.

I went, I listened, I saw and I had a lovely time.  Sometimes the solitary pleasures really are the best ones.

Ten things

• One of my most favourite Radio 4 programmes is finally a podcast.  Just I'm sorry I haven't a clue to go, and my podcasting life will be complete.
• I'm feeling rather guilty because I inadvertantly locked the hens out of the eglu last night.  They had to sleep out in the run and this morning Beatrice had to lay her egg in the dust bath. I made them a bowl of hot porridge to say sorry (and warm them up).
• I made crumpets last weekend.  They were so good and we used nearly a whole pot of jam when we ate them.  You can buy crumpet rings from here. They come with their own recipe but I used the recipe in the new Hairy Bikers Mums Know Best cookbook.
• I'm loving their new BBC2 series on Tuesday nights.
• G ran in the Benfleet 15 cross country race last Sunday.  He said the mud was of biblical proportions.  Here are his trainers afterwards.
• I really love Dottycookie's and Silver Pebble's idea of a skills swap.
• But at the moment I am concentrating on my existing skills.  And my existing to-sew list and to-knit list.
• Seeing so many people finish beautiful quilts recently has given me a much needed nudge.
• I've finally finished quilting my own bright quilt.  The top was made in a morning last year and then has sat in my sewing basket since then, half quilted. But I got my needle and thread out last weekend and finished it this morning.

• And if I bind it this weekend, I can then move on to O's strawberry quilt, which has also been languishing since last year.  I think she has been patient long enough.

Podcast love

With so much Christmas sewing lately, I have been listening to a great many podcasts. I can hear them now that I have a fancy new, quiet machine!

What are my favourites on the iPod at the moment?

• Americana on Radio 4. Well, for someone who got her degree in American Studies, this is a must-have. A wonderful, insightful, view of what is going on in America each week - from the beautiful buildings full of politicians in Washington DC to the small town world of middle America. Excellent.
• Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. I LOVE this programme and have been wanting it to come out as a podcast for so long. Finally. All they need to do now is bring out I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on podcast and my Radio 4 life will be complete. This week's castaway was Lord Coe, who is bringing the Olympics to my part of London in two and a half years time. He seems to know what he is talking about.
• The Archers. This is not a new podcast - and I am not a new fan, but it is now podcast as a weekly omnibus edition as well as the daily 12 minute episodes, which may suit some poeple better. The story lines at the moment are excellent - Jazzer and Fallon...will they or won't they? (yes! go on Fallon!) Annette - how could she be so stoopid? and will the Grundy boys come to blows over the Christmas turkeys? Good stuff.
• The Moth. A brilliantly simple podcast from America: true stories told live and without notes in front of an audience. Each episode is short (usually under 15 minutes) and quirky.
• Another fantastic podcast from Radio 4 is Great Lives, hosted by Matthew Parris. Matthew Parris is a thoughtful, insightful presenter who discusses with his guest the life of a famous person who has been a great influence on the guest. It is a fabulously eclectic podcast; so far this month I've heard Paul Daniels talking about Harry Houdini, John Major on Rudyard Kipling and Kate Humble on the apartheid activist Miriam Makeba.
• And there are of course many other old favourites: Woman's Hour, This American Life, Excess Baggage, Saturday Live and Guardian Books.

There's an enormous amount of Radio 4 in there. Maybe I should branch out a little. Do you have any suggestions?

Here are some of the Christmas presents I have been sewing. They are for someone who doesn't have a computer so I think it may be safe to show them off.

They are three simple lavender sachets, made with some leftover fabric scraps. Lavender sachets are something you could whip up very easily without a tutorial (sew pouch, stuff with lavender, close gap), but this tutorial from Checkout Girl really caught my imagination. I didn't do the applique because I was running out of time, but I did follow her suggestions on the size of the sachets and the fancy top stitching.

They are lovely. I am very pleased with them.

And what makes them even more special is that the lavender I stuffed them with came from a big bunch that Mum picked for me from her garden in France last summer. I have been drying the bunch carefully in my big jam pan (hanging from the ceiling in my kitchen) since August, and it now smells astonishingly powerful. If I had more lavender I'd be sewing these sachets for everyone I know (or maybe keeping them greedily for myself - they smell so good). I am going to see if I can pursuade Mum to plant a whole bed of lavender in France, that I can then harvest for sachets each year!

Letters

I'm usually very late in getting round to listening to podcasts, because I have so many of them on my iPod. I think I am collecting them. My current subscriptions are:

• The Archers
• Books, from The Guardian
• The British Library
• Craft Sanity
• Craftypod
• Crossing Continents
• Excess Baggage
• File on 4
• Front Row
• Midweek
• Nigel Slater's podcast
• Nigella Express
• The Penguin Podcast
• Radio 4 Choice
• Ramblings with Clare Balding
• This American Life
• The Splendid Table
• Woman's Hour
  

You see? Its no wonder there's usually a backlog of about 40 or more waiting to be listened to.

So this week I finally got round to listening to Craft Sanity episode #69 from February of this year. Jennifer interviews Samara O'Shea, author of For The Love of Letters, and they talk all about their mutual love of letter writing and letter receiving, and how in this era of emails and instant messaging, the letter has not gone away.

This really struck a chord with me. I love letters, parcels, postcards and notes - both sending and receiving. I think for me it originated with a childhood obsession with stationery, that has not gone away as I've grown older. Really, I could just buy notebooks, paper, pens, envelopes, postcards and stickers until I was down to my last penny. I find it impossible to go into a museum or art gallery and not come out with a few postcards, slipped into a small paper bag (and I love those small, perfectly sized, paper postcard bags too!).

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Here is a photo of my stationery box, that sits on my desk at home.

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And here is a photo of the whole desk, which also shows Samara O'Shea's book ( I ordered a copy after listening to the podcast, and I'm very pleased I did - great book), a parcel waiting to go in the post, an email that I need to reply to, plus a beautiful correspondence folder that my parents bought me for my birthday many years ago. It is made from red leather and I love it quite a ridiculous amount.

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In it I keep a few letters that are too precious ever to throw away. They include this one sent from Iraq by my brother-in-law while he was on duty there last year.

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Has there been anything in your postbox this week that has made you smile or think fondly of someone far away? I hope so! If not, here is some stationery love to inspire you.