Tuesday, January 09, 2007

trouble with the space time continuum

I think that there must be some kind of intergalactic 'hot spot' centered on my abode.
Strange things have been happening.
Take, for instance, the Christmas decorations. Every year I begin the Great Takedown, as per family tradition, on January 6th [ Twelfth Night ]. This year was no exception. Sunday dawned and I started . I fetched boxes, took down ornaments, I swept, I dusted, I washed, I packed.
With me so far?
Righto. Well, it always takes a week to take everything down, do the inventory, find appropriate storage for anything I've acquired in the interim , and then pack it all away and return the house to its pre-Christmas state.
I expected it to take longer this time because
  • it's been hot and humid all week
  • my tailbone isn't happy with me because I sat down rather hard on the gravel
  • I've acquired rather a lot of new stuff that needed to be accommodated

Now note today's date. It's only the 9th. Day 4. Barely halfway through the assigned period AND YET ... I'm finished. Done.
Everything is all boxed up and out on the verandah. Not, I grant you, up in the shed yet but I currently can't get to the shelves because a certain person has parked 5 or 6 treadles in front of them.
Have I somehow managed to miss a room or two?
Nope. There is just no explanation.

Now this is weird enough but the other half of the space/time situation relates to the never-ending baby shawl. I sat down last night and worked on it for what to the casual observer appeared to be several hours. Till 2am, I trebled and chained ... my fingers cramped up... my rear started protesting ... it FELT like I'd been at it for days. Net gain: 2 rows. Two bloody rows. In other words the shawl grew by about half an inch. There is some sort of bottomless black hole in the rumpus room where all those hours that I saved on the Christmas stuff have been swallowed up, along with all the hours spent on the shawl. They've been sucked into its insatiable maw.
Hang on I'm just going to count how many stitches are around the edge at the moment ... oh ... okay ... I take it all back ... 928 stitches... forget I said anything. As you were. Nothing to see here.

6 comments:

lisette said...

wow! no wonder the time disappeared - how wide is it? it's beautifully even btw :) and well done on the dismantling - our halls are still decked i'm afraid....

catsmum said...

it's only about 36" so far. By the time I get to the border, there'll be something like 1120 stitches around... botheration ... WHY did I have to go work that out?

crazyhaberdasher said...

I have spoken to the culprit who placed the treadles in your way and he will ring you tomorrow (Wed) - we might possibly be up for the day on Friday.

Anonymous said...

It is true -- the black hole of knitting. Argh.

I'm smiling in agreement with your 6 weird things meme -- I too cannot put teddies or other stuffed animals in bags. They will suffocate. My husband does understand this! :)

Linda Mullen said...

My Christmas decorations came down on Jan 2nd, within a couple of hours everything was put away but I did have a couple of helpers, so I made the most of it, and this year I didn't take out all my stuffed Christmas teddy bears.

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