It's been ages since I wrote a blog post so I thought I would write one now. It is Boxing day 2020 and I have been having a nice relaxing day, although I have two big mouth ulcers which are extremely uncomfortable. They hurt so much that I don't want to talk. One year, just after Christmas, I came down with the most horrendous lurgy, I may have written about it at the time, I don't remember. It is probably the most ill I have ever been (can't get out of bed ill) and after a quick google it turned out to be Herpangina, which is caused by one of the Coxsackie viruses. Why am I relaying this story? Well, herpangina causes mouth ulcers to form on the soft palate, around the tonsil area and the pain was incredible. I remember lying there with my eyes shut just thinking about all the people who'd had Smallpox in the olden days and thinking to myself how much worse that would have been, that at least I was in a centrally heated house (with decent painkillers that my nana had sent), with Corsodyl and the other green throat-numbing mixture you can get at the pharmacy.  I did similar each time I gave birth, just feeling so thankful that I was doing it in our time and not in the past and thinking of all the women who died in labour after their babies became stuck or their labour failed to progress for whatever reason. It must have been utterly terrifying. There was a programme on BBC2 called History Cold Case which looked at unusual archaeological findings (skeletal), attempting to understand what had happened to the individuals whose remains had been excavated. It's well worth a watch, I think someone has uploaded most of the episodes to YouTube. Most of the cases they examined were sad, but one stuck with me and it told the story of an Iron Age woman who had died during childbirth, that one was really very very sad. Also, Sue Black is awesome, I loved the programme even more because Sue Black is fascinating and brilliant - interestingly, if you read her book All That Remains, she mentions that she did NOT like filming the series at all. 

A late-summer washing-line picture because I love seeing the washing hanging out to dry. Also pictured, the hap blanket I knit for my mum's birthday this year. She liked it a lot!

I am now back at university as a mature student studying Diagnostic Radiography. I am enjoying my course and I'm not getting much knitting time but hey ho, that's just how it is at the moment! I am the oldest of my cohort but there are plenty of other oldies like me on Twitter where there is a great community of student radiographers and qualified radiographers, all are so welcoming and helpful. I had a wobble one day and posted about it on my Twitter page, subsequently finding a huge outpouring of support and "you can do this"-type messages. I will not forget that and will make sure I pay it forward if I do manage to qualify and in turn work with other future radiographers. 

I have bought far too much yarn this year and am thinking of trying to only knit from my stash during the coming year. We'll see how it goes as I'm a sucker for yarn, it's utterly ridiculous! I am also terrible at sticking to knitting plans.