snow and socks

There was snow in the village this morning, and we were all the better for it. After a hectic week, the snowy conditions were the perfect excuse to curl up in the warm...with my knitting of course.

Sat beside the fire, I got stuck into one of my favourite sorts of projects: knitting socks.

waking up the bear

In the Pyrenees, legend has it that the brown bear falls asleep just before Christmas and awakens forty days later at Candlemas, le chandeleur. 

When the brown bear puts his nose out of his den, the firstly looks to the heavens. If there is a clear, full moon and the bear sees his shadow, he returns to his lair and goes back to sleep for another forty days. In that case, spring will be late. If however, the sky is darkened by the New Moon, the bear foregoes sleep and leaves his den - signalling the start of spring.

I cast on this little fellow just before the festive season and finished him last weekend, just in time for candlemas. He's a true snow bear, started with the first winter snows...and finished this snowy week-end.
 
Unlike his brown bear cousins, he didn't got looking for the moon, but rather a place beside the fire.

It has been such a joy to knit up, that I've already started another one.
The first, no doubt, in a long series of little knitted bears...

finding my own rhythm

Walking on the other side, Aragon April 2013

Finding a manageable pace doesn’t come naturally to me. When we're out walking in the mountains, if I don't consciously keep a check on myself, I’m the one bursting off at the start of the trail, only to be later gasping for breath whilst everyone else overtakes.

In daily life, the same situation often occurs, much to the detriment of my health. I easily get swept up in the excitement of new projects or carried along by the enthusiasm of others, until my body just can't take it any more.
 

After a busy, and therefore exhilarating Autumn, I intended for January get off to a steady and slow start. Instead, I found myself once again overloading myself to breaking point. So many unimaginable possibilities have been opening up for me work-wise since October, that it's almost impossible to say non. Hours teaching English and French or translating are thrilling and exciting. Hardly a day has gone by these past few weeks when I don't come back from an afternoon of classes buzzing with the excitement that comes finally doing a job I've worked so hard for and waited so long to do.

But with that buzz and with those hours comes exhaustion, real over-whelming, anxiety educing exhaustion.

The past week has been a real struggle, as I can feel the busy working days finally stacking up and taking their toll. Doing my accounts at the end of the month, I realise that I have unintentionally been teaching between 15 to 20 hour weeks. That, in addition to the translation projects I was working on at the start of the month mean that my bank balance is looking healthy for the first time since I received my last payment of student loan. My energy reserves are however well and truly overdrawn.

Out in the hills, I've found the key to being able to sustain greater distances is to take my time, to pace. But that inevitably means an acceptance to not only take things a little slower, but also be willing to do a little less each day. I'd love to be able to translate that same principle into my daily life, to feel it were possible to "walk" even greater distances, rather than find my steps petering out and grinding to a holt.

 

As February begins, I'll be searching for that seemingly elusive rhythm between race and standstill, where my legs get into a manageable rhythm and my feet feel they could keep going for ever. I'll keep my eyes on the summit, stand straight and breath deeply as I take each step...no matter how small that step may be. 

little hare

I finished another little knitted creature made from recycled wool earlier in the week, this time a little hare. I'm very pleased with her sweet little face...and I think my smallest pupils will also be delighted to meet "Harriet the hare" during our next English class.

tiny ted # 1

January seems to have flown by in a blur, I've been so very busy. I've still managed to make time though to sneak in little moments of knitting here and there. With leftover wool, I knitted tiny squares which I then sewed together...to make a very tiny bear.

unravelled

Last week, there were too many lessons, resulting in too much tiredness. As well as quite a few tears.

There was hesitation followed by decision making:

Acceptance to work a little less.

Acceptance to rest a little more.

Acceptance to listen more attentively to my body.

Acceptance.

I spent the start of this week by the fire, unravelling an old jumper knitted by someone other than me.

I spent hour after hour meticulously unpicking, unravelling and re-winding the yarn.

Unravelling the jumper somehow calmed my unravelled spirit, as if with each unpicked stitch I was somehow letting free some little worry that had been imprisoned within the rows until then.

When my labours were done, I was also rewarded with a stash of new wool, just ready for some new project...

 

Bristol, a memory

Inspired by the lovely Jai, a memory from my time in Bristol, as a student. 

Street Art in the "People's Republic of Stokes Croft"

Do you remember my last autumn as a student in Bristol? When the motivation was slowly running out but the essays just kept on pouring in? When three months seemed far too short for a deadline, but like an eternity to be apart? 

Graffitti in St Paul's

I remember that November. With it's dismally grey days and howling wind and lashing rain. And  I remember in the middle of it all, deadlines, wind and rain, you said you would come to Bristol and visit me.

The Canteen, Stokes Croft

It took you two and a half days to get there from the Pyrenees: hitch-hiking up the west of France, across the channel by ferry and then a coach to Brizzle. 

But you came. 

I met you at the bus station. We hadn't seen each other for nearly two months. You took me in your arms and I melted.Then I took you by the hand, and I showed you the city. 

ConsumAction in Stoke's Croft

For five days, we walked the city streets. That November, they were occupying Council Green and there was still yet no Tesco's in Stokes Croft. We rummaged in the charity shops along Gloucester Road and you ransacked Oxfam Books whilst I was in class. I showed you the guerilla knitting in St Andrew's Park and the best place in town to buy a falafel sandwich. 

View of Bristol, from Clifton

We devoured Turkish pastries and salty yoghurt drinks from Bristanbul. We wandered through the allotments and eco quartier in St Werburghs, and I took you to church...to see a hidden climbing wall. We searched in vain for reggae in St Paul's, but managed to find some Banksy graffiti in Easton. 

Terraced houses in St Werburgh's

In between lectures, we walked through Clifton to the suspension bridge. We watched a foreign film at the Watershed. We bought croissants then went into the Canteen to drink coffee and read the Guardian. We ate a scorching curry at the Thali café.

The legendary Thali café, Montpellier

And do you remember the afternoon when I bunked off of class, for the first time in my life? When we hired a tandem from the Bristol Bike Project? We had the hair-brained idea to cycle to Bath along the old railway. 

I had never been on a tandem before. You went in front, steering the way. I sat behind and closed my eyes, terrified. We cycled around the streets of Easton, you shouting out instructions, me, protesting with every turn of the pedal: "MOINS VITE, MOINS VITE!!!" 

Men with dreadlocks and women in djellabas laughed to see the young French couple wobbling past on the tandem. 

Through the streets of Bath, by tandem

And then we found the cycle path, and I found my feet. 

We sailed down to Bath, cycling in unison. It was exhilarating to cycle with you. I had never gone so fast, never gone so far on a bicycle before. I felt on top of the world. We sang songs at the top of our lungs, watched the countryside roll past. Stopped to examine plants or observe birds. 

In Bath, we peddled down to the river, past the Cathedral and then dived into a Tea Rooms. I was badly in need of cake, and you needed a coffee. And then it was back on the tandem, cycling back to Bristol with the wind behind us, beating the dusk before the sun set across the fields.

Recycled Tandem and Putney bridge, Bath

sleepless nights

What a fortnight, what a week...

I've been overwhelmed with work, overwhelmed with that mind-numbing fatigue.

Lessons to prepare, verbs to conjugate, translations to hand in on time.

But worst of all: insomnia, aching muscles and fatigue have been holding me in a headlock. I've tried to break free, but it's impossible. 

Sleepless nights ... 
Sleepless hours ...

Sleepless hours tossing and turning, trying to not get overwhelmed by this rythme that seems just a little too tight for comfort at the moment. 

Fortunately, there are good friends to come for tea. To distract me with their sewing projects, their swelling bellies, their imminent weddings...

Fortunately, there is knitting to be done, a pair of slipper socks for my cheri to be finished. Whether a row or just a single stitch, it helps me feel like I've achieved something with my day, no matter how insignificant...

last and first

It was my last knitting project of the old year...and the first I've finished in this new one. I cast on the first of these slippers for my chéri in the first week of December, and I managed to knit up the missing second one this week-end. The only question is, are these slippers a very late...or very early Christmas present? 

sunshine and socks

Sunday was just perfect, like a gift. After a week of southern wind to warm up the valley, it felt just like a spring day. Who wants to stay inside on a day like this? So we left the homework translation for another day and went outside to enjoy the sunny weather. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as we walked up to the castle. 

How wondrous it felt to leave the house, to eat a picnic in the sunshine with my beloved, to pull off my boots and tights and tickle the warm grass with my toes...

I also managed to (finally) finish a pair of socks that have been waiting patiently in my knitting basket for a few months..